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By Kalinga Seneviratne
This article is the 33rd in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous series.
SINGAPORE IDN) – Thousands of Indonesian Buddhists went on a 4 km procession from Mendut monastery to the historic Borobodur temple in Central Java to pay homage to the Buddha on Vesak day. The procession on May 18 passed a number of mosques with streets lined up with hundreds of local Muslims.
Viewpoint by Gaitri Issar Kumar
The following are extended excerpts from India's Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, Gaitri Issar Kumar's keynote address on the 44th anniversary of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States. It was celebrated at the ACP House on June 7 in Brussels, which ACP Secretary-General Dr Patrick I Gomes described "the end of an era", with the ACP finding itself in the midst of reviewing many institutions that have shaped and marked it in the previous years.
Viewpoint by Kishore Mahbubani
The writer is a Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the author of ‘Has the West Lost It?’ This analysis first appeared in EastAsiaForum on June 5, 2019 with the heading ‘A ‘yellow peril’ revival fuelling Western fears of China’s rise’.
SINGAPORE (IDN-INPS) – Do we arrive at geopolitical judgements from only cool, hard-headed, rational analysis? If emotions influence our judgements, are these conscious emotions or do they operate at the level of our subterranean subconscious? Any honest answer to these questions would admit that non-rational factors always play a role.
Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey
James M. Dorsey – a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture – offered this viewpoint to IDN.
By Devinder Kumar
NEW DELHI | BANGKOK (IDN) – The leaders and senior government officials, attending the 75th Session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) from May 27 to 31 in Bangkok, have called for efforts to advance equality and empowerment for over four billion people across the region and resolved to strengthen regional cooperation and partnerships towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The importance of this resolve is underlined by a new report published on May 28, which warns that if the region continues its current trajectory, it will not achieve any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The report reveals that for more than half the SDGs, progress has stagnated or is heading in the “wrong direction”.
Viewpoint by Ram Puniyani
This article is the seventh in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.
MUMBAI (IDN) – The result of 2019 Lok Sabha polls are out and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has come back to power, with BJP increasing its percentage of votes and the number of seats. This came as per the prediction of BJP leaders, particularly Amit Shah who stated before the results that BJP will cross the three hundred mark.
Viewpoint by Chandra Muzaffar
The writer, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
KUALA LUMPUR (IDN) – The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) also known as the One Belt One Road ( OBOR) project could well emerge as the obor ( the flame in Indonesian or Malay) that will blaze the trail in the evolution of a new epoch in history.
Chinese President Xi Jinping must have sensed its historical significance when he announced OBOR in 2013. Essentially an infrastructure development endeavor, it seeks to initiate and support the construction of roads, railways, ports and bridges in at least 65 other countries spanning four continents. With a commitment of over 900 billion U.S. dollars, OBOR is the biggest infrastructure development project ever undertaken in the history of our planet.
Viewpoint by Shastri Ramachandaran
The Congress party has to reshape and sharpen itself for re-emerging as an instrument of public usefulness, writes in the Outlook Shastri Ramachandaran, a political and foreign affairs commentator, also for IDN-INPS. Views expressed are his own.
NEW DELHI (IDN-INPS) – Congress president Rahul Gandhi and, perhaps, his sister and party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, have good reasons to step down from their official position in the party. It is irrelevant whether the Congress party failed Rahul, or the helmsman sunk the boat. In its present, vastly emaciated state what is relevant is creating conditions for the party’s revival.
By Ayaz Gul
This article first appeared on Voice of America on May 23, 2019.
ISLAMABAD (IDN-INPS) – Pakistan says it has successfully conducted a “training launch” of a ballistic missile capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads up to 1,500 kilometers.
The move came amid Pakistan’s heightened military tensions with neighboring rival India, and it is seen by observers as part of the efforts Islamabad is making to keep pace with New Delhi’s massive investments in military hardware and advancements.
By Alicia Sanders-Zakre and Kelsey Davenport
While Alicia Sanders-Zakre is research assistant, Kelsey Davenport, is director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, which carried this report on May 21, 2019.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – The next steps for U.S. diplomacy with North Korea remain unclear after Pyongyang tested several short-range ballistic missiles in early May. Despite the missile tests, South Korea and the United States urged a resumption of dialogue. North Korea, however, has said little about returning to talks since Chairman Kim Jong Un declared in April that he would give the Trump administration until the end of the year to change its approach to negotiations or face a "bleak and very dangerous" situation.
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