4501 research outputs found
Sort by
On the Asian Century, Pax Sinica & Beyond (X): The Sino Iranian Alliance: A roadmap for regional instability and authoritarianism
No full textIran and China have been exploring the possibility of a strategic alliance since 2016. If implemented fully, it will not only reshape global geo-economics and geo-politics but also have severe impacts on both the Persian Gulf and South Asia. According to a recently leaked draft agreement, the alliance amounts to an unprecedented economic, security-related, military, technological and developmental collaboration between Tehran and Beijing. Considering recent international trajectories, especially China’s newly assertive foreign policy, there are growing concerns regarding the potential repercussions of a pact between two states known for their autocratic style of governance, bullying of neighbours and suppressing of citizens under their administrations. It is crucial to understand the nature of these new, evolving Sino-Iranian relations – and their related threats. […
South Asia State of Minorities Report 2018: Exploring the Roots
No full text"South Asia, home to 23% of the world’s population, is among its poorest parts. Although there are intra-regional variations, much of South Asia is mired in poverty and marginalisation. According to the recently released Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2018, 546 million people are multidimensionally poor in South Asia (global total is 1.3 billion). More than 364 million of these were in India (in 2015/16). Nutrition deprivation alone contributes more than a fourth of the overall MPI. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, 1 in 4 persons lives in severe poverty (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, 2018). A look at some other indicators is also onstructive (Table 1). Infant and Under-5 mortality in Pakistan and Afghanistan are shockingly high, but not much better in India, Nepal or Bangladesh. Child malnutrition figures are particularly alarming for Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Mean years of schooling is poor for all except Sri Lanka, and GNI per capita low overall. Unemployment is also high. Taken together, barring Sri Lanka, the HDI ranks of all the countries are in three figures (Human Development Report 2015). (...)
Lehrbuch der modernen bengalischen Hochsprachen
No full textDieses Lehrbuch stellt eine grundlegende Einführung in das Bengalische dar. Es ist sowohl ein klassisches Lehrbuch als auch eine umfassende, deskriptive Grammatik. Es eignet sich für den Unterricht mit einem Lehrer, kann aber auch für den Selbstunterricht ohne Lehrer genutzt werden
Rural India: The Country's Untapped Growth Engine
No full textUrbanisation is posing ever-growing challenges to most countries around the world. This paper explores the ways in which India can tap into the latent potential of two-thirds of its population still living an agrarian life. It provides a vantage point for the bystander to understand various rural development programmes under way across ten socio-economic elements categorised as ‘essential’, ‘foundational’ and ‘sustenance’. It paints a vision of how strategic efforts over the next decade can enable close to a billion people currently living in villages to propel India’s growth and produce nothing short of an economic miracle–driven by the completion of multiple government initiatives, affordable connectivity and digital technologies
The Maldives in the face of recurrent Jihadism
No full textThe recent Easter 2020 attack in the Maldives, targeting ‘several boats anchored at the harbour of Mahibadhoo island, some of which belonged to the Maldives’ “apostate government” was claimed by ISIS through the Al Naba magazine (Zahir, 2020). It clearly indicates that Jihadism remains an issue of high concern in the country, as it proved fully ready to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic. These fanatics seem to be very well organised and apt in using social media: ‘in social media outlets violent extremists made threats of revenge against the government. They established a Telegram channel by the name “TouristWatchMv” in January, suggesting a possible targeting of tourists in the country. It is now believed that individuals linked to the Maduvvari cell carried out the earlier attacks. (…) Individuals and small cells, networked through social media and other communications technologies, with excess to Salafi-jihadi ideology, have now taken up the cause of spreading violent extremism using various platforms like Facebook and Telegram.’ (Zahir, 2020). This terrorist attack has been associated with the presence of Jihadists in the Levant war scenario. A UN agency analysing the Jihadi flux to this region observed that ‘On a per capita basis, Maldives is one of the largest contributors of FTFs [Foreign Terrorist Fighters] to the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq’. […
EU-India Summit: Vision and Mission
No full textIndia and the European Union are committed to a framework for strategic cooperation until 2025. They have vowed to cooperate in their response to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as within the United Nations Security Council. Towards this end, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with the European Council’s President Charles Michel and the European Commission’s President Ursula Von der Leyen via videoconferencing on Wednesday, July 15, 2020. In an initiative to revive talks on a free trade agreement which were suspended since 2013, the two sides announced a “high-level dialogue” between India’s Commerce Minister and the EU Trade Commissioner, who would try and forward the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA). “India and the EU are natural partners”, Prime Minister Modi said in his opening remarks. “Our partnership is important for global peace and stability, and this reality is clearer given the situation around the world.” He also referred to shared “universal values” of democracy, pluralism, inclusivity, respect for international institutions, and multilateralism between India and the EU. As the EU and India head to deepen their smooth, cordial and beneficial relationship, some regional and global issues pose a challenge. Raising border issues, refugee problems and great power rivalries seem to constitute almost insurmountable obstacles. […
A Descriptive Catalogue of Indian Astronomical Instruments
No full textDie großen gemauerten Instrumente, die Sawai Jai Singh entwarf und in seinen fünf Observatorien im frühen 18. Jahrhundert errichten ließ, sind der Höhepunkt eines langen Entwicklungsprozesses in der astronomischen Instrumentierung. Aber welche astronomischen Instrumente wurden vor Jai Singhs Zeit in Indien benutzt? Sanskrit-Texte über Astronomie beschreiben die Konstruktion und Verwendung verschiedener Arten von Instrumenten. Sind welche in Museen erhalten? Diese Frage führte mich ein Vierteljahrhundert lang zur Erkundung von fast hundert Museen und Privatsammlungen in Indien, Europa und den USA.
Dieser Katalog beschreibt jedes Instrument im Zusammenhang mit den verwandten Exemplaren und legt dabei besonderen Wert auf das Zusammenspiel von Sanskrit- und islamischen Instrumententraditionen. Daher ist jeder Instrumententyp in einem separaten Abschnitt organisiert, der durch die Buchstaben des Alphabets identifiziert wird. Diese Abschnitte beginnen jeweils mit einführenden Aufsätzen zur Geschichte des Instrumententyps und seiner Varietäten, gefolgt von einer vollständigen technischen Beschreibung jedes einzelnen Exemplars mit kunsthistorischen Anmerkungen. Darüber hinaus werden alle eingravierten Daten so weit wie möglich wiedergegeben und interpretiert. Auf etwa 4300 Seiten enthält er 600 Einträge mit einleitenden Aufsätzen und langen Auszügen aus zwei wichtigen Sanskrit-Texten, nämlich Mahendra Sūris Yantrarāja und Padmanābhas Dhruvabhramādhikāra, zusammen mit englischer Übersetzung
Alternative views for Afghanistan
No full textIn Central and South Asia ‘the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan is perceived to be growing, with foreign fighters who have returned from the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq increasing their numbers in Afghanistan’. SADF has dedicated a great deal of research papers to the challenges facing Afghanistan, for instance its Policy Brief nº2 titled ‘Combatting Jihadism in Afghanistan’. The present Working Paper nº14 builds on said SADF Policy Brief nº2 by reiterating the importance of confronting jihadism beyond the prism of security measures and the futility of engaging in peace talks with the Taliban. Reconstruction and state building in Afghanistan are emphasised as a realistic alternative to the present peace talks with the Taliban
Cross-border terrorism: The case of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir
No full textCross-border terrorism has been present in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir since 1947, when both the dominions of India and Pakistan were created. One of the first documentations of the phenomenon was Maharaja Hari Singh’s letter addressed to Lord Mountbatten, dated 26 October 1947, which accompanied the Instrument of Accession and cited the need for protection against ‘soldiers in plain clothes, and desperadoes with modern weapons,’ which resulted in ‘wanton destruction of life and property’ (Singh, 1947). Over seven decades later, we can see that despite the logic of terrorism remaining the same – to destabilise India – the operations have grown more complex and the destruction more radical. Drug trafficking is also an old phenomenon in the region, as the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir is close to the main drug-producing areas of the world. What is relatively recent is the international recognition of the fact that terrorist groups with links to the Pakistani state are also trafficking drugs. This paper seeks to first investigate how cross-border terrorism works on the ground; then examine recent trends in the production and trafficking of drugs; and, lastly, to explore how closely the two criminal areas are linked. In doing so, our starting point shall be hitherto SADF research on both topics, as both drug trafficking and terrorism have been examined extensivel
In the line of fire: The climate threat to global security
No full textClimate change, increasingly being called the climate crisis, is arguably the greatest threat to human life as we know it. Across regions in the world, people are experiencing the most adverse impacts of this crisis in the form of more frequent and more intense climate extremes like heatwaves, droughts, floods, landslides, cyclones, wildfires, crop loss and water scarcity, among others. As per latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data, the crisis is only going to intensify in the coming decades making populations even more vulnerable to climate extremes and causing large scale disruption of natural and human systems. Thus, the ongoing climate crisis will threaten human security, and by extension, global security like never before, exacerbating ongoing conflicts through an explosive interplay between pre-existing fault lines in societies. This article tries to situate climate change in the current global security discourse through an analysis of the relationship between climate and conflict. It also attempts a reappraisal of traditional security discourse, particularly in developing countries like India, which are facing some of the worst modern-day impacts of extreme climate events. The article concludes that the global security discourse, policies, and as well as interventions to tackle armed conflicts need to be restructured to accommodate for the effect of climate change on conflicts