The American Folly

by Ankit Malhotra*

The United States of America (hereinafter, United States or America(n)) has left Afghanistan and given the Taliban a gift – its war-chest. This includes state-of-the-art helicopters, attack planes, rifles, and machine guns – the most advanced American weapons. This is not the first time that the United States has done this as its track record shows that it is a repeat offender when it comes to arming terror groups and rogue regimes. Sometimes by design and sometimes by default, America continues to feed the global war machine. American weapons are being used to undermine what American governments say they are fighting for – international peace and security. While weapons sale has always been integral to America’s foreign policy for decades, sometimes Washington has sold arms and ammunition without even notifying US Congress or the American public.

Image credit: New Internationalist

Analysing the Legality of India’s ‘Surgical Strike’ under International Law

by Sujoy Sur

What happened?

India took military action at eight terrorist launch-pads across the LOC in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). India chose to tag the attack as a ‘surgical strike’, thus, implying the remedial nature of its action. It is to be noted that India in its official announcement did not deem it to be an act in retaliation to the Uri attacks but a military measure against the increasing incursions by non-state actors in the territory of India.

Image Courtesy: Indian Express

To look at the act from a layman’s point of view in light of prevalent international notions of territorial sovereignty, war, and military action, it seems to be a deliberate attempt of entering the territory of another state and carrying out targeted killings. Now that Pakistan has not owned up to it, that is, it has blatantly denied that any such measure was taken by the Indian army, it has reduced the measure to a general ceasefire violation, which is not uncommon in the region. Also, it means that the repercussions bilaterally will not be unforeseeable or grave. But, since top Indian officials have endorsed the act it comes under the purview of state practice under international law from India’s end. This calls for a pertinent question, whether India’s surgical strike was legal under international law?

Dealing with Islamism: Fixing the Terror-Sponsoring Elements in the Pakistani State Is Something Britain and America Owe To the World

By Karmanye Thadani

Coming from the Indian nation, a civilization dating to ancient times and today the world’s largest democracy, I write this appeal to the governments and people of Britainand the United States out of concern for the victims and potential victims of jihadist terrorism globally (the victims and potential victims do include even innocent Muslims, and jihadism need not be equated with the Quranic idea of jihad with multiple interpretations, and several liberal Muslim commentators have assertively stated that the doctrine of armed jihad in any context should be discarded as anachronistic by all Muslims, as you can see here, here, here and here, something I wholeheartedly agree with). Just like the Jews and Christians, my Hindu religious grouping too is mentioned as an enemy of Islam by jihadist terrorists and has bled much in attacks by them, while we have also occasionally been misunderstood to be Muslims owing to the brown skin of most of us and we’ve also, therefore, borne the brunt of Islamophobic scorn, which even innocent Muslims mustn’t be subjected to.

Did India just save the World?

By Shashwat DC*

Frankly, it was inevitable. Once the celebrations were done, the knives would be out. So, when the celebration and congratulations over the acceptance of Climate Change Draft at Paris ended, one could hear some voices of despair and distraught terming the deal a failure. Dubbed as the Paris Agreement, the new deal had the countries agree to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and also make efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. It is touted as the last big heave-ho by the mankind to save the planet from absolute disaster.