Rather than a new dawn for democracy, political and social reform in the region has led to less representation and more contestation. This has potentially far-reaching consequences. What does the May coup…
The awarding of a shared Nobel Peace Prize award to a 17-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, and a 60-year-old Indian man, Kailash Satyarthi, is historic and aimed at conveying multiple messages…
Often emphasised in discussions about children’s best interests is the idea that certain ways of having and raising children are “natural”. For example, this word appears frequently in reference to how…
The recent flurry of official visits by the leaders of India, China, Japan and Australia suggest a collective regional juggernaut designed to transform India and draw lines between friend and foe. But…
With a joint population of 1.6 billion, the South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are home to nearly one quarter of the world’s population. It is the most…
On September 19 the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, concluded a three-day trip to India. As he set off to meet Narendra Modi, Xi wrote in The Hindu that China and India “need to become co-operation partners…
Ashok Sharma, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Narendra Modi is making his first visit to the US as prime minister of India. He will give his maiden speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 27 and then proceed to Washington for a…
Aleksi Aaltonen, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Google launched its Android One initiative this summer, with the aim of bringing smartphones, apps and the whole mobile internet to the five billion people around the world who do not yet have access to…
Mars has become the destination of choice for ambitious space agencies and nations. Now India is among that group. After a successful manoeuvre the Mars Orbiter Mission (informally called Mangalyaan, which…
The red planet is about to welcome a new visitor: India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) started orbiting Mars on September 24. But MOM is not the only new kid in town. The American MAVEN explorer arrived…
With Islamic State’s advance in Iraq and Syria gripping the world’s attention, al-Qaeda has been left on the sidelines. That all changed on September 4, as al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri released a 55-minute…
While Western nations beef up economic sanctions and Nato discusses what stance to take toward Russia, the BRICS are maintaining tacit support for Moscow despite the Ukraine crisis. This is not entirely…
Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott is set to sign a deal with India that will allow the export of uranium to the country. There are concerns that some of the uranium will be used to produce nuclear…
Despite recent slumps in economic growth (now at just over 5.4% compared to 10.3% in 2010), former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this year handed the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi a much more…
Ashok Sharma, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott will visit India this week, his first trip to the country since Narendra Modi took office. On the agenda will be a range of issues important to India and Australia…
The human sex ratio, which is usually defined in terms of the number of males per 100 females, varies greatly between countries and regions. The biological norm is for the sex ratio at birth to be about…
I joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) a few years ago for two main reasons. It offered academic freedom and the best research opportunities in India. But also, unlike most research institutions…
The Carmichael coal project, approved this week by environment minister Greg Hunt, is unprecedented in its scale, and also represents a significant shift in Australia’s coal industry. If the mine goes…
With each monsoon season India waits with bated breath for forecasts from the India Meteorological Department and other international forecasting agencies. This year’s forecast suggested a weakened monsoon…
Given its unambiguous mandate at the last election there were high expectations from the maiden budget of the government of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. However, the fiscal parameters within which…