Articles by Achin Vanaik

Armed Militias of South Asia: Fundamentalists, Maoists and Separatists edited by Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot (London: Hurst & Company), 2009; distributed in south Asia by Foundation Books, paperback, pp 276.

The accession of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States is an opportune time to revisit the issue of global and regional nuclear disarmament. What are the options open to civil society? The two routes to global and regional disarmament are obviously connected but not in a manner whereby movement along the latter is made conditional on forward movement along the former where the us has always been the biggest obstacle, the pace-setter in creating and deepening the global nuclear mess. This article is about where we stand today and what future directions in the cause of nuclear disarmament may be worth pursuing.

We strongly condemn the massacre of 13 policemen and two civilians in Nayagarh town of Orissa by armed Maoists on February 17.

National interest, as this article contends, does not determine foreign policy. The belief that a state can, does and should pursue the national interest presupposes that the state in some way or the other represents all sections of the national society; after all, modern states are nation states legitimised in the name of peoples constituted, however, as separate nations. It is, in fact, the political and therefore moral character (which changes over time as well) of the leadership strata that makes and shapes foreign policy decisions. It is against this background that this article makes an analysis of Indian foreign policy and the shifts seen in policy since 1991.

The framework agreement on defence and the nuclear accord that India has entered into with the US have to be seen together. The real meaning and importance of the defence agreement becomes clear once it is situated in the wider historical, political and strategic context of a US out to establish an informal global imperium and looking for junior 'partners' to fulfil this project. And, India, in order to be accepted de facto as a 'responsible nuclear power' is committing itself to various forms of political-strategic cooperation that signal a definitive end to any idea that it will either stand up to the US' global ambitions or that it will attempt any serious role in promoting global nuclear disarmament.