Showing 1 - 10 of 21
Cape Town may soon run out of water
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 25/01/2018
» April 22, Earth Day, might have a bit of extra significance this year. It might be the day that, for the first time, a great world city runs out of water.
What Modi has figured out that Trump never has
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 21/03/2024
» Excitement and uncertainty used to accompany general elections in India. Polls swung back and forth, coalitions formed and reformed, analysts dissected policy platforms and assessed the prospects of hundreds of individual candidates. As India embarked on its 18th general election campaign on Tuesday, there is no electricity in the air. It is hard to find anyone who believes Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lose his bid for a third term in office.
Has Pakistan's military finally lost its mystique?
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/02/2024
» Its leader was clapped in jail, its ballot symbol erased, and its candidates forced to run as independents -- and yet the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of former prime minister Imran Khan shockingly pulled ahead of its two biggest rivals in last week's elections. Although Pakistan's powerful army did not conceal its desire to end Khan's political career, many voters clearly had other ideas. In the process, they have delivered an unprecedented and shocking rebuke to the military brass who have exerted inordinate influence over the country's fate since its birth in 1947.
Denials of Sikh separatist plots sound hollow
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 29/11/2023
» Two months ago, relations between India and Canada deteriorated swiftly when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that prosecutors possessed "credible evidence" that the Indian state was behind the assassination of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia. It now looks like -- if Indian intelligence did in fact arrange that killing -- it may not have been a one-time event. The White House has confirmed that it is "deeply concerned" that there was a similar plot to kill another Sikh separatist, this time on US soil.
Democrats' 'Green New Deal' isn't global enough
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 18/03/2019
» At the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly in Kenya this past week, experts and officials from around the world debated how to come up with the investment and innovation needed for countries to grow without dooming the planet. National leaders, NGOs and others discussed how to create more "sustainable patterns of consumption and production". What really struck me in Nairobi, though, was what wasn't discussed: the "Green New Deal" being pushed by Democratic Party politicians in the US.
Nobody's got a clue on India's poll
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 14/03/2019
» India's parliamentary elections are like no others in the world. Nine hundred million people are eligible to vote in 2019, for 573 constituencies -- the largest of which contains almost three million voters. The country will take 39 days to vote; some states, like giant Uttar Pradesh with a population of 200 million, will vote in seven stages. And, on May 23, we will get to know who won.
Tarnishing a developing-world star
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 04/01/2019
» Bangladesh under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina looks like a developing-world success story. Last year, its economy grew at close to 8% a year, faster than its neighbour India's. Its human development indicators, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen is fond of pointing out, are even better than its income level would indicate.
Worrying days for dissent in India
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 31/08/2018
» Indian liberals are reeling from a shocking set of arrests this week: Synchronised police raids targeted some of the country's best-known civil-liberties activists.
Pakistan's army takes on wrong fight
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 16/07/2018
» Nawaz Sharif -- dodgy businessman, convicted criminal and thrice prime minister of Pakistan -- showed on Friday, in his triumphant return to Pakistan, that he remains by far the country's most popular politician. Infuriatingly, he also represents Pakistan's best chance at becoming a "normal" country anytime soon. As he fights what looks very much like an attempt by the military to decide the next election, the rest of us should hope he succeeds.
North-south divide grows ever more dangerous
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 25/04/2018
» When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the southern city of Chennai recently, he must've been startled by the welcome he received. Half the city, it seemed, had turned out to wave black flags at his motorcade, as well as banners that read "Go Back, Modi". When the prime minister hopped into a helicopter, the crowds cleverly sent up black balloons in its wake.