2014

All years and months

Why Islam Haunts India

The poster shares photographed pages from Robert Kaplan’s chapter on India, ‘Why Islam Haunts India’, calling it a must-read on subcontinental geopolitics.

Brown Pundits Archive21 February 20144 comments
Is Pakistan the reason why India is not yet a Great Power?

Inspired by Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography, the author asks why India obsesses over Pakistan and Islam when Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean are the real prize, and…

Brown Pundits Archive21 February 20146 comments
Welcome to the newborn (#29)

A note that the Telangana bill has passed both houses of Parliament, creating India’s 29th state, which the poster sees as honouring Gandhi’s stress on local rule over Delhi elites.

Brown Pundits Archive21 February 20140 comments
Adieu to Asia

A brief note on leaving Cambodia for Uganda, noting how different Phnom Penh and Kampala are in organisation and that Bombay airport is spectacular.

Brown Pundits Archive19 February 20140 comments
Good news

A report that the Supreme Court has allowed Muslims to adopt despite personal law, with the poster welcoming a step towards secular law and asking why Indian Muslim law forbids…

Brown Pundits Archive19 February 20142 comments
Under the Magic Tube-Light: A Fantasia

In a satirical fantasia, the author invokes Sherlock Holmes to explain Pakistan’s leaders’ conduct towards the Taliban through serial conspiracy theories, after the 2013 All-Parties Conference chose talks and then…

Brown Pundits Archive19 February 20142 comments
Taking on the TTP, part X

A postscript to an earlier piece, in which the author argues the TTP has made monkeys of Nawaz Sharif’s government as the army prepares a North Waziristan operation, and sums…

Brown Pundits Archive18 February 20149 comments
Brown in space

A report on India’s $75 million Mars mission, far cheaper than NASA’s Maven, with the poster asking how an institutional science culture said to be lethargic produced it.

Brown Pundits Archive18 February 20144 comments
Why the elite in the Rest yearn for the West

Drawing on his travels, the author argues that elites in the developing world yearn for the West not for wealth but for self-actualisation and individuality, which collectivist societies in the…

Brown Pundits Archive17 February 20143 comments
Baloch terrorism?

After a train bombing in southern Pakistan, the author argues that if Baloch separatists are responsible it is self-defeating, since children are among the dead, and invites informed comment on…

Brown Pundits Archive16 February 20141 comment