As India gears up for the general elections next month, where over 900 million people are expected to go to the polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term in office, reaffirming the country’s global ambitions. In the past decade, under his tenure, India’s historic pluralism has increasingly been jeopardized by the ruling party’s majoritarian agenda
Analyses
Asia
- Ali Kosha 26 February 2024According to a 2022 Gallup survey, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where the vast majority of the population, a staggering 92 percent of men and 96 percent of women, say they face hardships that make their lives sheer suffering. In this realm of agony, the Hazaras bear a disproportionate burden of suffering. And for Hazara women, the burden intensifies further.
- Zafar Musyani 20 February 2024After months of delay, Pakistan held its 12th general elections on February 8. However, the entire electoral process, from the lead-up to the polling and the announcement of the results, was marred by several controversies, further exacerbating the country’s political crisis.
- Mujibur Rehman 29 January 2024On January 26, 2024, India celebrated its Republic Day – the day India adopted its current Constitution – with great fanfare, with French President Emmanuel Macron as the guest of honor. “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ is the major political ideal for France, though each of these terms has little meaning for Indians in the context of rapidly expanding Hindu majoritarianism.
- Maria Tavernini 22 January 2024January 22 will go down in history as a big day in India. Construction works have been feverish in the months leading up to the inauguration of the Ram temple, an event that many have labeled as important as August 15, 1947, the day India gained independence.
- Alessandra Tommasi 12 January 2024Most people in Taiwan support maintaining the status quo in the island’s political dispute with mainland China for now (28.6 percent) or indefinitely (32.1 percent). Less than 8 percent support either unification with the PRC as soon as possible or maintaining the status quo while moving toward unification. Nearly 63 percent of the population feels “Taiwanese” and an even larger majority (84.3 percent) opposes a “one country, two systems” model, especially after Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong. Given these data, and that the PRC views the island as a “rogue” province and has vowed to eventually bring it back under control – not excluding military intervention – it is no surprise that mainland affairs and the relations with China are absolutely key to Taiwan’s upcoming elections.
- Ali Kosha 11 January 2024Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls are completely banned from education and from working in most sectors, including NGOs. While the restrictions on women and girls have rightly received some international attention, an important aspect of the Taliban’s oppressive regime that has not received enough attention is their systematic indoctrination of boys, and more recently young girls in some provinces, through the education system.
- Mariano Giustino 11 December 2023Turkey’s major human rights organizations, such as İnsan Hakları Derneği (İHD), claim that courts observe the rule of obedience to the President of the Republic. This appears to be the norm in the Turkish judiciary system, in the context of a regime where a single man rules.
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- Ilaria Romano 3 November 2023The self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, Artsak in Armenian, will officially cease to exist as of January 1 next year. The political denouement of this disputed strip of land for more than 30 years began on September 19, when Azerbaijani forces attacked the enclave and took control within 24 hours, after causing 500 to more than 1,000 deaths.