Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI – A month after President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan proposed a four-point formula to resolve the troubled question of Kashmir jointly with India, exploratory contacts between the two governments have gathered momentum. Their efforts at reconciling mutual differences are likely to get a boost during a planned visit to Pakistan next week by … Continue reading “Kashmir Resolution in Sight?”

NEW DELHI – If prospects for nuclear weapons reduction took a turn for the worse in 2006, the New Year holds out little hope for containing proliferation. In October 2006, eight years after India and Pakistan crossed the nuclear threshold, the world witnessed yet another breakout, when North Korea exploded an atomic bomb and demanded … Continue reading “Nuclear Disarmament Gets Critical”

NEW DELHI – While President George W. Bush has signed into law new legislation passed by Congress to enable the controversial U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal, the agreement has come under flak in India’s parliament, and a massive confrontation has broken out between its supporters and opponents. The supporters say the deal offers India the best … Continue reading “India Split Over US Nuke Deal”

NEW DELHI – One and a half years after it was signed, the nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India has received highly qualified approval from U.S. Congress. As passed by Congress Friday, the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006 (PAEC Act) is likely to sharply polarize … Continue reading “Indo-US Nuclear Deal Done; Pleases Few”

NEW DELHI – At the end of an important week-long visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to South Asia, what does the complicated triangular relationship among Beijing, New Delhi, and Islamabad, three of Asia’s four nuclear powers, look like? Going by conventional wisdom, and most media reports, there was a sharp contrast between the relatively … Continue reading “China, India Make Progress – at No Cost to Pakistan”

NEW DELHI – By announcing that it would return to the negotiation table and address the major powers’ concerns about its nuclear program, North Korea may have scored an unlikely but impressive diplomatic victory. Pyongyang’s move has put on the mat top officials of the United States and its East Asian allies, Japan and South … Continue reading “North Korea Wins Nuclear Poker Round”

NEW DELHI – How is North Korea’s atomic explosion, signifying the latest breakout from the global nuclear restraint regime, likely to affect the preceding two breakout cases, India and Pakistan? Eight years after the two South Asian states blasted their way into the world’s "nuclear club," it seems probable that their full integration and "normalization" … Continue reading “N. Korean Blast May Hit Indo-US Nuclear Deal”

North Korea has shocked the world by detonating a nuclear explosion and making good the threat it had held out six days earlier. Pyongyang’s action is one more blow to the existing global nonproliferation order and will trigger greater instability in Northeast Asia and in the Asian continent and world as a whole. Yet, the … Continue reading “Another Blow to Nonproliferation”

NEW DELHI – The controversial United States-India "civilian nuclear cooperation" agreement met with a major setback over the weekend when the Senate formally went into recess without voting for a bill that would have granted President George W. Bush the necessary powers to enable the deal to be implemented. The Indian government has been rattled … Continue reading “Indo-US Nuclear Deal Hits Doldrums”

NEW DELHI – The three bomb explosions, which ripped through a mosque and an adjoining graveyard, killing 30 people in Malegaon in India’s western state of Maharashtra on Sept. 8, have outraged the Indian public. They have also set some tough challenges before the Manmohan Singh government. Unlike most recent cases of terrorist violence in … Continue reading “Blasts Test India’s Counter-Terror Strategy”