| Title: | 199: State, Ideas and Economic Reform in India |
| Author/s: | Rahul Mukherji, Honorary Senior Fellow and Head (Research), ISAS |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that the state is an important institution for initiating economic reforms in India. Ideas held within the state are especially important. When the state reposed faith in a closed economy model with stringent government control, it could not be forced to shift to a new path during the balance of payments crisis in 1966, despite considerable foreign pressure. On the other hand, when the Indian state became aware of the pathologies of persisting with import substitution through the 1980s, it used the balance of payments crisis in 1991 to re-orient India's economic paradigm. India did not change course because of the balance of payments crisis in 1991. Nor did India embrace globalisation and deregulation because of entrepreneurs in 1991. In fact, the powerful corporates were opposed to substantial economic deregulation in 1991. I have argued that substantial economic change in India often resembles a tipping point. |
| Date: | 1 December 2014 |
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| Title: | 198: India’s Popular Culture in Southeast Asia |
| Author/s: | Rahul Advani, Research Assistant, ISAS |
| Abstract: | This paper will explore India’s influence on Southeast Asia during the 20th century, with a focus on its cultural dimensions. The Indian independence movement in particular played a significant role in shaping ideologies and spurring the creation of various movements and political groups in Southeast Asia during the early part of the 20th century. In the past couple of decades there has been a dramatic rise in the popularity of Indian cinema, dance, art and music among Southeast Asian audiences. Traditional and contemporary forms of Indian dance and theatre have gained recognition in Southeast Asia as many of its cities have begun to strive for world-class status through developing thriving scenes of the arts and tourism hotspots. Bollywood dance classes have accompanied the fitness-craze that has made its way from the United States to Southeast Asia. Hindi films have garnered a mass appeal not only among Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia but also among non-Indians, many of whom are familiar with the three ‘Khans’ of Bollywood – Shahrukh, Salman and Aamir, arguably the industry’s biggest stars. |
| Date: | 8 October 2014 |
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| Title: | 197: New Maritime Silk Road: Converging Interests and Regional Responses |
| Author/s: | Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, Research Associate, ISAS |
| Abstract: | The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) emphasises improving connectivity but more importantly, it is designed to improve China’s geostrategic position in the world. This paper discusses revival of the Maritime Silk Road. It begins with a narration of the historical background of MSR, its origin and development, followed by an analysis of latest announcements by the Chinese leaders to revive it. It also discusses reactions from China’s neighbours, including India. Finally, the paper sums up the discussion. It concludes that the MSR is an effort in initiating a ‘grand strategy’ with global implications. The MSR initiative could be very helpful in reinforcing cooperation and raising it to a new level of maritime partnerships. Nevertheless, China has yet to cultivate the much-needed political and strategic trust. |
| Date: | 8 October 2014 |
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| Title: | 196: The Indian Bond Market |
| Author/s: | Chandrani Sarma, Research Assistant, ISAS |
| Abstract: | The Indian bond market covers main types of bonds, namely, Government bonds, corporate bonds, tax-free bonds, banks' and other financial institutions' bonds, tax-savings bonds and tax-savings infrastructure bonds. |
| Date: | 2 October 2014 |
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| Title: | 195: The ‘Missing Women’ in India |
| Author/s: | Riaz Hassan, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Twenty-five years ago Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen used the concept of ‘missing women’ to highlight the gender bias in mortality that results in a huge deficit of women in substantial parts of Asia and Africa. It was an innovative and novel way to use the sex ratios to assess the cumulative effect of gender bias in mortality by estimating the additional number of females of all ages who would be alive if there had been equal treatment of the sexes. Sen classified those additional numbers of women as ‘missing’ because they had died as a result of discrimination in the allocation of survival-related goods (Sen, 1990, 1992). |
| Date: | 19 September 2014 |
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| Title: | 194: A Possible Paradigm for Afghanistan’s Future |
| Author/s: | Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Principal Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | The most important question confronting us in Afghanistan is this: what is the best method by which individual state-interactions with Afghanistan, or among the state- and non-state actors, may be managed, organised and coordinated in such a fashion as to bring stability and harmony to Afghanistan, to the extent possible, when the ISAF forces are largely gone. The global, in particular, the regional matrix is not any more secure than it was when the ISAF forces had gone in, in the first place. A similar foreign intervention in Iraq seems to have ultimately found fruition in the birth of a virulent resistance in the form of ISIS. In the view of a senior UN official, the Taliban would be watching the developments in Iraq closely, and drawing lessons from it.2 In Afghanistan itself the pre-US and Western withdrawal phase is becoming increasingly problematic. |
| Date: | 1 August 2014 |
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| Title: | 193: Afghanistan Today: Politics of Drawdown |
| Author/s: | Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Principal Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Mullah Omar’s face bore no resemblance to that of the celestial beauty, Helen of Troy. Yet it too was one that caused the launch of a thousand ships, airships to be more precise, as Helen’s had done. Like Troy, the besieged city of the past in Homer’s epic tale of ‘IIIiad’, Afghanistan of the present, was swarmed by invaders, by those whom some see as the modern counterpart of the Greeks – the Americans and their allies. As in the Trojan War, ten years down the line, the war council (NATO Summit, in this case) met, as it must have also in Mycenae of ancient Greece, in Chicago in the United States, home of the modern-day mighty Agamemnon, President Barack Obama. In Chicago, as it also had happened in the epic tale, after ten years of unwinnable and unrewarding warring, the invaders finally decided to call it a day. In “line” with a “firm commitment to a sovereign, secure and democratic Afghanistan”, it was decided at the gathering of NATO leaders that the allies’ “mission will be concluded by 2014”. True to his words, Obama had no intention of staying around to build a “Jeffersonian democracy” (in those parts). |
| Date: | 1 August 2014 |
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| Title: | 192: Initiative for ‘Southern Silk Route’ Linking Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar |
| Author/s: | Zaara Zain Hussain, Research Assistant, ISAS |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the ‘BCIM Regional Cooperation’ and the related proposal to revive the ‘Southern Silk Route’ connecting China and India through Bangladesh and Myanmar. The aim is to understand the relationships among the four countries involved and analyse the opportunities and benefits of successful cooperation. This idea of building a sub-regional economic corridor was proposed by China in 1999, but because of various challenges and concerns it progressed slowly. Recently the initiative has been gaining much policy traction and therefore is an important area of study. Northeast region in India and the adjoining parts in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and South West China remain neglected and largely underdeveloped and could greatly benefit from sub-regional economic cooperation. It is a natural economic zone, boasting a market size of 2.8 billion people. |
| Date: | 17 June 2014 |
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| Title: | 191: Suicide Bombings in Afghanistan |
| Author/s: | Riaz Hassan, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Since 2006, the insurgency in Afghanistan has been escalating, not decreasing in intensity. One of the weapons increasingly being used by insurgents is suicide bombing. Afghanistan now is the main site of this terrorist weapon in the world. So what motivates Taliban suicide bombers? The following insights into the motives of the perpetrators of suicide attacks are drawn from my research on one of the lethal weapons used by insurgents ÔÇô suicide bombing. Between 2001 and 2011, there were 545 such attacks in the country, resulting in 3,604 fatalities and injuring 10 times more. Suicide attacks constitute only four per cent of all insurgent attacks in Afghanistan but account for around 20 per cent of all insurgency-related deaths. Their main targets are the local and foreign forces. |
| Date: | 17 June 2014 |
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| Title: | 190: India’s Military Diplomacy: Legacy of International Peacekeeping |
| Author/s: | Chilamkuri Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS |
| Abstract: | India‘s expansive tradition of sending its troops in large numbers to international peacekeeping operations under the aegis of the United Nations has been rightly described as a paradox. The contradictions between India‘s role as a regional belligerent and an international peacekeeper, its substantive participation in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping from its very inception and its ambivalence about postCold War peace operations have been identified by scholars. |
| Date: | 13 June 2014 |
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| Title: | 189: The Afghanistan Conflict in its Historical Context |
| Author/s: | Riaz Hassan, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS |
| Abstract: | In April 2013 the Defence Select Committee of the British Parliament published a report on Securing the Future of Afghanistan which concluded that civil war in Afghanistan is likely when the international forces there leave in 2014. One wonders what the Committee thought had been going on in Afghanistan over the past 35 years. The war between the Western forces and the Taliban is part and parcel of the Afghan civil war which began in 1979 between the Communists and their enemies and, after the collapse of the Communist regime in 1992, developed into a conflict between different factions of Mujahedin. Since 2001 the war has expanded to include conflict with the Western forces. What happened in 1979, and again 2001, was that foreign superpowers intervened on one side of a civil war, violently tipping the balance in favour of that side ÔÇô for a while. The question, therefore, is: Will this protracted civil war continue after the planned departure of American and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in 2014 or are alternative scenarios possible or likely? |
| Date: | 10 June 2014 |
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| Title: | 188: Pakistan’s New Choices in Economic Diplomacy |
| Author/s: | Shahid Javed Burki, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | For the last several decades Pakistan has based its foreign economic relations on bilateral contacts. Both the fears and rewards were based on the policy making equations involving two variables: Pakistan and another country. Thus Pakistan-India, Pakistan-China, Pakistan-Great Britain, Pakistan-Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent Pakistan-Iran, dominated Islamabad’s foreign affairs. This approach will need to be updated in view of the rapid developments taking place in the global economic and political orders. |
| Date: | 15 May 2014 |
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| Title: | 187: Foundations of Bangladesh’s Economic Development: Politics of Aid |
| Author/s: | Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Principal Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Bangladesh today with a population of nearly 160 million faces myriad development challenges. But it is far from being the ‘basket case’ that Henry Kissinger once described it as. Despite its still being poor and challenged, it has to its credit many successes particularly in the social sectors. It, in many ways, defies the ‘Washington Consensus’ wisdom that growth would lead to poverty eradication. It embodies the inverse of that thesis, for while its growth has much room for improvement, its poverty eradication has been impressive.2 This was largely made possible through its skilful handling of foreign aid in the early years since its independence from Pakistan in 1971 following a bloody and destructive war. |
| Date: | 14 April 2014 |
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| Title: | 186: Extremism: Pakistan in Search of a Solution |
| Author/s: | Shahid Javed Burki, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Pakistan is in agony. In almost 67 years of sovereignty, it has never had political leadership that could foster a national feeling among all citizens. And now a relatively small segment of the population has taken up arms to challenge the authority of the state. When we view Pakistan's experience with extremism through a wide-angle lens, we see that its rise and stubborn presence are the consequences of the coming-together of a number of complex circumstances. It is also clear that the country will not be able to make economic progress unless the various groups that have taken up arms against the state are made to obey the law of the land. |
| Date: | 28 March 2014 |
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| Title: | 184: Indian Military Diplomacy: Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief |
| Author/s: | Chilamkuri Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Humanitarian assistance and Disaster relief have emerged as important missions for major militaries around the world after the Cold War. The missions that were once largely left to such organisations as the International Red Cross have now become an important part of the security agenda of nations with significant military capabilities. The absence of great power rivalry and conflict after the collapse of the Soviet Union compelled a revaluation of the objectives of military force after the Cold War. |
| Date: | 26 March 2014 |
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| Title: | 185: Is India Making Waves in South China Sea? |
| Author/s: | Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, Research Associate, ISAS |
| Abstract: | The South China Sea (SCS) disputes are regarded as one of the most difficult regional conflicts in the Asia-Pacific, in an 'arena of escalating contention'.2 Indeed, some scholars suggest that for the next 20 years, the South China Sea conflict will probably remain the 'worst-case' threat to peace and security in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. Territorial sovereignty, contentions over energy, significance of the geographic location, threat to maritime security and overlapping maritime claims are all sources of the SCS disputes. 4 Being one of the most important seas of the world5 geopolitically, economically and strategically, the SCS attracts considerable attention in contemporary thinking in international relations and strategic studies. Moreover, it continues to be seen as a potential source of tension, and is becoming increasingly turbulent. Security in the SCS is a concern both for the regional countries like China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and extra-regional countries including India, due to their strategic and economic interests in this region. Any conflict in the SCS will pose a threat to regional and international security. |
| Date: | 26 March 2014 |
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| Title: | 183: Rural Tamil Nadu in the Liberalisation Era: What Do We Learn from Village Studies? |
| Author/s: | John Harriss, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS and J Jeyaranjan, Institute for Development Alternatives, Chennai (India) |
| Date: | 24 March 2014 |
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| Title: | 182: State of Injustice: The Indian State and Poverty |
| Author/s: | John Harriss, Visiting Research Professor, ISAS |
| Abstract: | Addressing the Constituent Assembly in the opening debate on ‘The Resolution of Aims and Objects’, on 22 January 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru said: ‘The first task of this Assembly is to free India through a new constitution, to feed the starving people, and to clothe the naked masses, and to give every Indian the fullest opportunity to develop himself according to his capacity’ (cited in Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 20). This is a remarkable statement, expressing as it seems to a conception of what development should mean that comes very close to the one that Amartya Sen laid out much more recently, of development as freedom (Sen 1999). |
| Date: | 20 March 2014 |
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| Title: | 181: South Asia’s Economic Changes and Diaspora Groups |
| Author/s: | Shahid Javed Burki, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | The paper looks at the flow of ideas from the South Asian Diaspora groups to their original homelands. This is occurring in the areas of economic management and political change. As a result of the interaction of the Diaspora groups and the countries from which they came, a profound structural change is occurring in the South Asian societies. The business community will do well to recognise both the pace and direction of change that is taking place. A new set of opportunities, not fully understood, has arisen, waiting to be grasped. |
| Date: | 19 March 2014 |
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| Title: | 180: South Asian Diaspora: A Changing Landscape |
| Author/s: | Shahid Javed Burki, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, ISAS |
| Abstract: | This paper is an attempt to expand the debate on the impact that the South Asian Diaspora groups are having oThis paper is an attempt to expand the debate on the impact that the South Asian Diaspora groups are having on the countries of their origin. It goes beyond the discussion of the quantum and structure of financial resources that flow from the expatriate communities to the countries of their origin. While those financial resources are large – they touched US$100 billion for all South Asia – the story of the impact of the Diaspora groups on what were once their homelands should extend beyond matters of finance. We should look into how the size, structure and pattern of South Asia’s middle class, by now nearing one billion people and expanding at a rate three to four times the increase in population, are being influenced by the Diaspora groups. The upper end of the South Asian middle class is increasing because of the growth in national incomes in the region. As is now recognised, a significant increase in the incomes resulting from economic growth is being captured by the well-to-do segments of South Asian societies. At the lower end of the income distribution scale, the increasing size of the middle class is largely the consequence of the amount of remittances received by the households in the space between the poor and the not-so-poor.n the countries of their origin. It goes beyond the discussion of the quantum and structure of financial resources that flow from the expatriate communities to the countries of their origin. While those financial resources are large - they touched US$100 billion for all South Asia - the story of the impact of the Diaspora groups on what were once their homelands should extend beyond matters of finance. We should look into how the size, structure and pattern of South Asia's middle class, by now nearing one billion people and expanding at a rate three to four times the increase in population, are being influenced by the Diaspora groups. The upper end of the South Asian middle class is increasing because of the growth in national incomes in the region. As is now recognised, a significant increase in the incomes resulting from economic growth is being captured by the well-to-do segments of South Asian societies. At the lower end of the income distribution scale, the increasing size of the middle class is largely the consequence of the amount of remittances received by the households in the space between the poor and the not-so-poor. |
| Date: | 19 March 2014 |
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