Maldives plunged into a new political crisis with the arrest of the former President Mohamed Nasheed on Monday. Police arrested Nasheed after he refused to abide by the court’s order asking him to appear in connection with the charges that he had illegally ordered the arrest of a judge early this year when he was the President. The former President also violated a travel ban the court had placed upon him.

Nasheed was the first democratically elected President of the island nation who resigned from office in February under heavy pressure from the security forces in what many called “a bloodless coup.”

The former human right activist became President in 2008 after defeating the Asia’s longest-serving leader at the time, Islamist President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in a popularly contested election. 

According to media reports, Nasheed will be disqualified from running for office again if he is convicted of the charges and sentenced to more than a year in prison. Nasheed has been campaigning for the upcoming general elections that are scheduled for early 2013, and has been trying to mobilize popular opinion against the group of Islamist parties that he believes is responsible for his unceremonious ousting.

Nasheed has a long history of being on the wrong side of the political establishment and this would not be in his first time in prison. In fact, “the Mandela of Maldives,” as Nasheed’s supporters sometimes call him, was imprisoned more than twenty times for his vocal opposition to former President Gayoom. 
News of Nasheed’s arrest in 2005 sparked widespread social unrest throughout the nation that finally ended when Nasheed ousted Gayoom in the 2008 election.

Nasheed’s arrest on Monday is expected to spark violence in several parts of the archipelago. However, the situation this time around is quite a bit different. A guilty verdict would almost certainly dash any hopes of him returning to power in the upcoming presidential election, and could very well be the end of his political career.

But the larger issue is not Nasheed’s arrest per se, but rather the erosion of democracy and the rule of law in this predominantly Islamic country that has recently seen radicalism on the rise.

Analysts contend that the country’s multi-party democracy is reeling with the premature demise of the democratically elected government and the subsequent political persecution of Nasheed. The diminutive leader was the voice of democracy and liberalism in the country.

Nasheed blames former President Gayoom and his Islamist coalition partners for the country’s troubles. Many fear that if the archipelago continues on its current trajectory, it risks being overtaken by radical Islam. Already there are concerns being raised about the liberal trade and tourism policy that is the mainstay of the Maldivian economy. 

“Political uncertainty has been prevailing in Maldives for some time now. Nasheed's problems began when his party failed to get a majority in the Maldivian parliament after the 2009 general elections. Nasheed wanted to relax strict Islamic laws to promote tourism, which is the largest foreign exchange earner for the country. However, his attempt to step-up facilities for tourism was defeated because of the assertion by the religious right and the judiciary”, says Nand Kumar of the New Delhi-based think tank, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses.

With the arrest of the former President, the future of democracy in the country is uncertain at best. India, which enjoys great leverage in Maldives, stands accused of letting the situation drift this far in a strategically important nation in the Indian Ocean.

India’s combative Congress-led government released its second tranche of economic reforms on Thursday. It had earlier committed to liberalizing foreign direct investment (FDI) norms in five sectors, including multi-brand retail and aviation.

Foreign entities will now be able to purchase up to 49% of Indian pension and insurance firms. They can currently hold up to a 26% share of insurance firms but cannot currently invest in pensions.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that the government would engage with all the political parties to get the necessary legislation passed in the next session of parliament. However, it’s likely that any decisions passed by the cabinet will be stonewalled in the fractious parliament, which has recently reduced the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition to the status of a minority government.

Nonetheless, the new announcement is a bold move by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government, reminiscent of his tenacity over the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. The reforms are sure to be applauded by domestic markets and the international community. Even though it may seem to be an economically-wise but politically-foolish decision, it is a Machiavellian strategy by a government that knows that it is living on a borrowed time. By throwing down the gauntlet, the UPA hopes to demonstrate its fortitude in the face of resistance.

Expectedly, the government announcement provoked a thumbs-down from both the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the UPA’s erstwhile ally, the Trinamool Congress. Trinamool openly called for the ouster of the Singh government, claiming that pension money intended for Indians will instead go to  foreigners. The BJP said the government had “suddenly changed” tack and vowed to oppose it tooth and nail. The Left Front also came out with guns blazing against, saying that the reforms were being implemented at the behest of the World Bank-directed and charging the government with “moving towards right-wing economic policies”.

Some years ago, then-union minister Sriprakash Jaiswal was a guest panelist on a political program I was anchoring. He looked dapper, dressed for the live telecast in a stylish kurta stitched in his hometown of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. He offered to spruce up my wardrobe when I inquired about his outfit at the end of the program.

Jaiswal, now the coal minister in Manmohan Singh's government, came across to me as a very sensible, intelligent and prudent politician with a keen awareness of political correctness. It was not without reason that Congress President Sonia Gandhi gave Jaiswal the prize post of Uttar Pradesh Congress chief a decade ago.

And yet the 68-year-old Jaiswal is now embroiled in a storm of his own making. On October 2, a sacrosanct day in India known as Gandhi Jayanti, Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, Jaiswal made a decidedly incautious remark. He must have felt at ease with his guests when he said, at a women's college poetry event, that cricket victories were like wives: they become old as time passes, and are "not fun as (they) used to be." Jaiswal's comment came soon after India's win over Pakistan in the International Cricket Council World Twenty20.

Jaiswal later apologized but also tried to defend himself. "Media and some political parties are trying to blow the issue out of proportion. I have been quoted out of context. I had tried to say that a new victory is as good as marriage of a person. But I must say sorry if it hurts someone," he told India Today.

This controversy comes in the wake of several other incidents in which celebrities, politicians and government officials have been embroiled in accusations of sexism. Mamta Sharma, the chairperson of the National Commission for Women, claimed in February that women should not mind being called 'sexy', since the word contained nothing offensive. Days after this remark, she put her foot in her mouth once again when she said that girls often invited trouble by dressing inappropriately in public. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi stirred the pot in late August by saying that Gujarati girls were so conscious of their figure that they starved themselves to the extent of malnutrition. And in September, Karnataka high court judge Justice Bhaktavatsala inexplicably remarked that the occasional bit of wife-beating doesn't hurt — too much.

Jaiswal's most recent remarks have create a nationwide furore and ignited women's rights organizations. A social activist, Anita Dua, has now filed a petition against Jaiwal in a court in Kanpur over the comments. Mamta Sharma, ironically enough, has promised to write a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi saying that the remark belittled women on the whole and demanded action against the minister.

A massive reshuffle of the council of ministers is on the cards later this month, where Jaiwal's latest slip may put him at risk of demotion.

For the first time, India hosted the Heads of Asian Coast Guard Agencies Meeting (HACGAM) in Delhi on October 3.

A forum which comprises 17 countries and one region, Wednesday’s HACGAM is the eighth meeting of the organization. It came into being in 2004 to forge a combined response by major Asian powers to the menace of piracy but has since widened its scope to several other security issues. Wednesday’s meeting was the first time that HACGAM was held in South Asia.

In his inaugural address, Indian Defense Minister AK Antony stressed the importance of South East Asia's governments taking swift policy decisions to ensure the security and safety of oceans. “I would like to reiterate that oceans are and can become a domain for goodwill interactions between nations, mutual cooperation to provide humanitarian aid, preserving [the] maritime environment and enforcement of law at sea. Nations must cooperate with each other to ensure everlasting peace and security. The Coast Guards have the potential to elevate the maritime status of a nation among littoral states,” Antony said.

Twenty-one member organizations from 17 countries and one region are part of this initiative. The participating countries are Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

The eighth HACGAM is being co-hosted by the Indian Coast Guard and Japan Coast Guard under the auspices of the Nippon foundation of Japan, the Indian defense ministry announced on Tuesday. Questions of law enforcement, maritime security, disaster prevention and relief, and capacity building – in addition to piracy – came up for intense discussion at this closed-door meet.

Japan spearheaded the HACGAM initiative and convened the first meeting five years after the capture of the pirated vessel M.V. Alondra Rainbow by the Indian Coast Guard in November 1999.

The HACGAM has proven to be a valuable tool for Asia to present a united front against sea piracy, which hasn’t shown any appreciable decline in recent years. Mercifully for Asian powers, many of whose economies are heavily dependent on sea trade, South East Asia’s pirates do not have a Somalia-type base to operate from. The Somali pirates have thrived because of near lawless conditions prevailing in Somalia which has provided them an ideal base.

The last shreds of camaraderie between the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and erstwhile ally Mamata Banerjee dissolved on Monday. Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal and the supreme leader of the Trinamool Congress Party that has 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha, said she would bring a no-trust motion against the UPA government, if the regional Samajwadi Party (SP) declared support for this motion.

This is a big ‘if’. SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav is a bulwark of support for the beleaguered government along with his 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Yadav, who has had an unsteady relationship with Banerjee, has already gone on record supporting the UPA and ruling out a snap poll. There are two reasons for Yadav’s loyalty: first his son Akhilesh Yadav’s six-month-old government in Uttar Pradesh is facing accusations of economic mismanagement and a rising incidence of violence against women in the state; a Lok Sabha election would be unwelcome. Second, Yadav’s arch-rival, Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party with 21 MPs in the Lok Sabha, is waiting in the wings to strike a bargain with the UPA if Yadav throws his weight behind Banerjee.

Banerjee addressed a rally in Delhi on Monday, directed against the government’s recent decision to relax foreign direct investment restrictions in five sectors, including multi-brand retail and aviation, and to sharply increase diesel prices. Sharad Yadav, the convener of the main opposition umbrella group National Democratic Alliance, shared the dais with Banerjee. She launched a scathing attack on the government for its "anti-people policies" and announced that her party will hold protests across the country. To woo the Samajwadi Party, Banerjee said she would invite Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav for her upcoming rally in Lucknow against foreign direct investment.

For its part, the Congress bared its fangs against Banerjee in retaliation. While the Trinamool Congress was holding a rally at Delhi’s historic Jantar Mantar observatory, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit held a parallel rally supporting foreign direct investment. Dikshit announced that the top brass of the Congress party, led by party president Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh, will start a massive outreach program to explain to the people the virtues of its decisions. The first of these rallies will be held at Delhi's Ramlila grounds on October 28, where Gandhi and the prime minister will address the crowd. There are speculations among political insiders that the UPA will bring forward the general elections by a year, from the current date of May 2014.

Most observers of the geopolitical transformation of the Indo-Pacific in the 21^st century so far have dwelled on the ascendance of Chinese power, regionally and globally. At the same time, Asia’s two largest democracies—and second and third largest economies respectively—Japan and India have strategically converged. This behavior is consistent with the expectations of every major theory of international relations. For the proponents of political realism, the behavior is a natural effort by each state to expand relative power and navigate a security dilemma with China. For the neoliberals, India’s vast economic potential in the early-2000s promised gains for Japanese firms and interests. For those who would emphasize identities in the explanation of state behavior, India and Japan share common liberal-democratic values, and India remains one of the few powerful states in the Indo-Pacific arc without historical grievances against the Japanese.

Regardless of why it occurred, this alignment will have important consequences in the region, and certainly in any power transition involving the United States and China.

Indeed, the two countries have undergone a major strategic rapprochement since 2000. In 1998, Japan was quick to condemn India for the Pokhran-II nuclear tests. By 2008, however, the two referred to each other as “Strategic Global Partners” as per their 2006 Strategic Global Partnership, and have concluded a Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. Bilateral trade volumes were negligible in the 20^th century whereas today the two states enjoy a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that liberalizes bilateral economic activity, and eases Japanese activities in a country often perceived by OECD countries as highly regulated and hostile to foreign investment. Since 2006, India and Japan have held annual Prime Ministerial level talks—a privilege afforded by each to no other state (in Japan’s case, even the United States).

This alignment between Asia’s largest democracy and its most prosperous one also forms a formidable geostrategic bulwark that ought to give pause to Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. In particular, China and Japan continue to wrangle with the consequences of their turbulent history, and although the economic linkages between the two are vast, territorial disputes remain an important inhibitor to true diplomatic normalization. Similarly, India’s border disputes with China in Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin, in addition to Delhi’s hosting of the Dalai Lama, create friction in its relationship with China.

Also exacerbating Chinese perceptions of encirclement, Japan shares important security linkages with Australia and, most importantly, the United States. Indeed, former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe once proposed a “Quadrilateral Initiative” consisting of Japan, the United States, Australia, and India as a force for structural stability and peace in Asia. The ensuing opposition from the Chinese ensured that such an initiative was never formalized de jure. Nonetheless, these four democratic states conduct joint military exercises and security consultations leading to a de facto bloc poised against China.

As net-importers of fossil fuels, India and Japan have a vital interest in the protection of sea-lanes along the Hormuz-Malacca-Sea of Japan axis. In fact, PM Abe delivered a landmark speech during his visit to India in 2007 emphasizing the common interests between New Delhi and Tokyo in these critical sea-lanes.

The five-nation Malabar 2007 naval exercises were an important first step to this end. They allowed for direct contact between the Indian Navy and JMSDF in an operational capacity. The exercises included 25 vessels from the United States, India, Japan, Australia, and Singapore, and focused on non-conventional maritime operations including anti-piracy operations, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and counterterrorism. Incidentally, the exercises also included anti-submarine operations, maritime interdiction, and aerial combat exercises as well (not the usual domains for even the wiliest of pirates in the Gulf of Aden or South-East Asia). A month prior to Malabar 2007, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conducted a six-nation war game—its largest to date. The timing of these two exercises may be a happy coincidence, but the geopolitical undertones were apparent.

The security aspects of the India-Japan relationship have not been at the expense of each state’s economic relationship with China. Despite the growing economic ties between India and Japan, China is the most important economic partner for each state, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The consequences of security cooperation between Japan and India may carry economic consequences between these two nations and China. Going forward, overt security collaboration between India and Japan will irritate Chinese observers, and strengthen the power-balancing narrative in Beijing. In June, India and Japan conducted their first bilateral exercise off the coast of Tokyo in a move that will certainly add concerned undertones to future interactions with China. Nonetheless, in an acknowledgement of overreliance on China, Japanese firms have moved manufacturing—notably, that of rare-earth metals—to India in a move indicating a hedging strategy. India has reciprocated by attracting Japanese investment on critical infrastructure projects such as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.

More so than their relationships with Beijing, the manner in which India and Japan maneuver their relationship with Washington will be crucial in stabilizing the Indo-Pacific. Washington’s calculus in this region involves much more than a single-minded focus on sea-lanes. Issues such as Taiwan, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and global financial stability come into play. The most positive effect of trilateral cooperation between the U.S., India, and Japan will be the bolstering of regional multilateralism through institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forumn, the East Asia Summit, and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy. At the same time, it will be important for Washington to avoid the perception of a ”Concert of Democracies” aligned against China. Summits such as the late-2011 trilateral strategic dialogue between the three states in Washington may drive such perceptions. The Indian media and defense establishment particularly emphasized its participation in this dialogue as, at least partially, symptomatic of its place in determining Asia’s broader security architecture.

There are several independent factors that will affect the Indo-Japanese relationship and its impact on peace and stability in the region. Washington’s relationship with Beijing is the most obvious. Continued Chinese militarization and agitation in the South China Sea will aggravate security-dilemma perceptions, and reinforce the United States’ commitment to Taiwan and Japan, potentially leading to destabilizing skirmishes. Should the United States decide to mute its naval presence in the region, Indian and Japanese forces will fill the vacuum. Additionally, the domestic situation in China, particularly concerning democratization, will have profound consequences on the extent of India and Japan’s bilateral ties. Additionally, positive developments in the U.S.-ASEAN and U.S.-RoK relationships will be of further concern to China.

Other factors that are bound to become increasingly important include Japan’s remilitarization debate. No longer are calls for a normalized and assertive Japanese “self-defense force” found solely among the nationalist right. Junichiro Koizumi began a trend towards military normalization with the non-combat deployment of the JSMDF and JGSDF to Iraq. Although Article 9 of the Japanese constitution may be here to stay, Japan’s operational capacity continues to increase every year. Additionally, should Japan’s high turnover rate on Prime Ministers ever abate, another Koizumi-esque leader may successfully maneuver the kantei to expand the JSDF’s role as a mainstay in Japan’s hard-power inventory. The DPJ’s accession to power after more than fifty years of LDP leadership has certainly ushered a new kind of Japanese diplomacy—including calls for an “equal U.S.-Japan alliance.”

India, on the other hand, is unlikely to behave predictably in its relationship with Japan. Its foreign policy will continue to be dominated by a focus on economic growth (which is coming under question after a decade of high annual GDP growth rates), border disputes with Pakistan and China, and national security. The "Manmohan Doctrine” and the Congress Party chose to prioritize economic growth at the cost of crafting a grand strategy that was anything but ad hoc and reactive to global and regional developments. Should India return to a BJP head of state after several years of Congress leadership, it may focus on a doctrinal approach to its international affairs that emphasizes long-term power gains over short-term reactive foreign policy. Under such circumstances, India may drive its partnership with Japan to new heights.

In the context of a world where the continuation of U.S. hegemony has come under widespread doubt, and perceptions of an ambitious and assertive China are on the rise, observers of Asian affairs should turn to India and Japan as potential sources of stability in the region. Ultimately, a strategic partnership between Asia’s largest and richest democracies aimed at peace and stability creates a formidable defense against destabilizing forces, simultaneously preserving and propagating liberal-democratic values across the region. India and Japan stand for common values, share common interests, and are both closer to Washington than they are to Beijing. While they continue to engage Beijing, particularly on economic matters, they certainly fear its hegemony. Nevertheless, this bilateral relationship is one to watch in the coming years, and will certainly be a key determinant of international structural stability in the 21^st century.

Ankit Panda is a researcher at the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University.

In a recent BBC interview, the noted British writer of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie, argued that the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir should, in an ideal world, enjoy independence.

His argument is hardly novel and has been made many times, including among some intellectual circles in India and Pakistan.  Most importantly, some Kashmiri political activists in the Indian as well as Pakistani segments of this divided state have also periodically raised this prospect.

Despite the seeming attractiveness of this option, it is expressly not a solution to this long-standing dispute. To understand why the dispute has proven so intractable, exacted such a high price in blood and treasure and continues to fuel the Indo-Pakistan rivalry, it is necessary to briefly review its origins. 

The roots of the dispute hark back to the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947. At the time of British colonial disengagement, the state was comprised of 565 such entities, all of which had been nominally independent as long they recognized the British as the paramount power in South Asia. Accordingly, they had control over most of their domestic affairs but defense, foreign relations and communications had been the preserve of the British Crown.  As independence approached and the British, unable to forge unity between the two principal, nationalist political entities, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, chose to partition their empire. The princely states were given the option of joining one of the two nascent countries on the basis of geographic propinquity and religious demography. 

The state of Jammu and Kashmir posed a dilemma. It had a Hindu monarch, a predominantly Muslim population and it abutted both India and Pakistan.  The monarch, Maharaja Hari Singh, a Hindu, obviously did not wish to accede to Pakistan, which had been created as a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia. However, he was also loath to throw in his lot with India because he feared that the socialist leanings of India’s dominant nationalist leader (and eventually its first prime minister), Jawaharlal Nehru, would spell the end of his vast monarchical privileges.  As he dithered on the question of accession, a tribal rebellion erupted in the state. Within days thereof Pakistan chose to send in troops, disguised as local tribesmen, to support the revolt. In a panic, Singh appealed to India for military assistance. India agreed to send in troops but only after obtaining the imprimatur of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the leader of the largest, secular and popular organization in the state, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference.  After Singh’s accession Indian troops flew in and stopped the Pakistan-assisted tribal advance, but not before they had managed to seize about a third of the state.

As the fighting continued, on the advice of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, India referred the case to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). In the UNSC, the issue quickly became embroiled in the politics of the Cold War and therefore deadlocked. Even when a plan emerged to hold a referendum to determine the wishes of the Kashmiris, India and Pakistan could not agree to the terms of its implementation. Subsequently, bilateral negotiations and two wars (in 1965 and 1999) were used to try and resolve it status.

To compound matters, in 1989, an insurgency erupted in the Indian-controlled portion of the state.  The origins of the insurgency were rooted in electoral and other malfeasances on the part of the Indian state. Following its outbreak Pakistan quickly became involved in supporting, organizing and training the insurgents, thereby expanding the insurgency’s scope and deepening its lethality. After an initial poorly implemented counterinsurgency strategy, Indian forces devised more sophisticated methods. Combined with electoral reform, India used massive transfers of national government assistance and persistent repression of the insurgents to put down the rebellion. Consequently, Indian-controlled Kashmir now enjoys order if not law.  Nonetheless, many Kashmiris, especially its Muslim-majority population, remain alienated and distrustful of the Indian government.

Given the substantial and persistent disaffection of Kashmiris, combined with the costs of a major military presence in the state, might it not be desirable for India to simply grant the state independence and be rid of both the moral opprobrium as well as the material costs of holding onto the territory?

This ostensibly attractive proposition is fundamentally flawed for four major reasons.  First, even if India and Pakistan both granted independence to their portions of Kashmir, and the two portions merged, what would happen to the religious and sectarian minorities- the Hindus, Buddhists and Shia- within the state? Despite their demands for self-determination, Kashmiri Muslim political activists, let alone their insurgent counterparts, have never agreed to protect the rights of such “nested minorities.”

Second, there’s little reason to believe such an entity would be economically viable. Kashmir is indeed a land of spectacular beauty and a tourist haven. However, tourism alone would not be able to provide for the economic needs of the population. Before long it would prove to be yet another ward of the international community.

Third, it is far from clear that if India chose to walk away from the portion of Kashmir that it controls, Pakistan would readily follow suit. Beset with sectarian, class and regional strife, Islamabad would be loath to dispense with a significant part of its country. Indeed Pakistan-controlled Kashmir’s exit could easily trigger a series of demands for secession elsewhere, thereby threatening to unravel an already fragile social fabric in Pakistan.  Fourth and finally, a behemoth neighbor, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), though hardly sympathetic toward India, would nevertheless fear the demonstration effects an independent Kashmir would have for its own secessionist forces in Tibet and Sinkiang.

In sum, the views of Rushdie and other intellectuals of his ilk, however well meaning, are misguided. In their rush to alleviate human suffering they may be advocating policies that would leave the very people they seek to help worse off. 

India’s Pakistan-watchers are quietly tickled by the spectacle of the unfolding romantic drama involving Pakistan’s first family, with reports surfacing about a scandalous romance between the country’s 35-year-old foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar and 24-year-old Bilawal Bhutto, chairman of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party and son of the late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and current President Asif Ali Zardari.

The allegedly high-octane love affair was broken by Bangladesh newspaper Weekly Blitz on September 23, citing a report by an unnamed Western intelligence agency as its source. If true, the romance has the potential to cause serious diplomatic aftershocks: the Bangladeshi tabloid’s report claimed that Bhutto has threatened to resign from his party post. Yet the subcontinent’s gossip-crazy media has failed to goad India’s authorities into a statement. Officials at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs were inundated on Tuesday with calls from journalists in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh inquiring about the veracity of the report. They got the terse answer: “Not serious stuff, this!”

This story is not just fluffy tabloid-fodder. What has the potential to ruffle India-Pakistan relations is the existence of a “cold war” which has allegedly broken out between Zardari and Bilawal over the latter’s reported intentions to wed Khar. The family feud in the Pakistani presidential palace does not augur well for the Zardari government, which is already saddled with all kinds of problems, including a corruption scandal swirling around the President. And any instability in the upper echelons of Pakistan’s political elite may be disruptive for India, especially given signs of a thaw in relations in April this year, when Zardari made a rare official visit.

Incidentally, while reports of Khar’s imminent resignation are doing the rounds in Pakistan, her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna is reportedly facing a similar prospect. Krishna took charge of India’s External Affairs ministry on May 23, 2009. For several days now, the Indian media has been abuzz with reports of an impending reshuffle of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet; there have been speculations that Krishna is going to be packed off to his home state Karnataka to manage the Congress party affairs. But he is probably safe for now: Krishna’s departure for New York on Wednesday, to represent India at the United Nations General Assembly, suggests that the government still has faith in him, at least for the moment. Sources say that P.M. Singh has postponed the cabinet reshuffle until around October 16, when the Hindu auspicious period of Navratri starts – and after Krishna returns from New York.

Manmohan Singh’s ambitious reform program encountered a potential setback last week, when one of the Prime Minister’s key coalition partners withdrew its support from the ruling Congress Party. The Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, formally severed its ties with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on September 21 in protest over the policy shake-up, reducing the UPA to a minority government. The TMC contended that the UPA therefore had no right to press ahead with the proposed reforms, which included reducing fuel subsidies and facilitating investment by foreign multinationals in the Indian retail and aviation sectors.

The Indian economy has slowed in the last year, from 8% in 2011 to around 5.4% now. In the wake of the split, Indian share prices rallied and the Rupee recovered impressively against the U.S. dollar as the markets gave a thumbs-up to the Singh government sans Trinamool Congress.

Yet only hours after the TMC withdrew its six ministers from the cabinet, Singh went on an offensive rarely seen during the 40-month existence of the UPA government. In one of his rare television appearances, Singh attempted to explain the rationale behind the raft of measures his government had proposed.

A combative and aggressive Singh said that “money does not grow on the trees”: that no government wants to “burden the common man”, but that it was necessary to regain investors’ confidence in order to reboot the Indian economy. He told the people that his government’s reforms were needed to create employment for the country’s youth, and that the foreign direct investment (FDI) would benefit farmers. Singh did not mention the controversy surrounding the withdrawal of the TMC.

The Prime Minister justified his government’s unprecedented hike in diesel prices of five rupees per liter on the basis of rising world oil prices, noting that the subsidies accounted for a greater share of the government’s budget than health and education combined. Singh also contended that far from FDI marginalizing small traders, as some fear, Indian small businesses stood to benefit from the government initiatives.

Earlier in the week, the Congress Party upped the stakes by stating its intention to permit FDI across a number of economic sectors -- most controversially in retail -- on the eve of the Trinamool delegates’ scheduled resignations. Banerjee today announced a protest rally for her party in Delhi on October 1. In his address to the nation, the Prime Minister made it clear that his minority government had re-discovered its old touch and was willing to go down fighting, as Singh himself has said on record.

Yet the leader of the regional Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav, has 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha and has already pledged his support for the UPA. Indeed, the departure of Banerjee may free up the government to push ahead with other reforms unconstrained by the compromises and climb-downs that the TMC demanded. On the other hand, it forces Mr. Singh to finesse his other regional allies like Mr. Yadav to ensure their allegiance. With the departure of the TMC ministers, the Indian press are reporting  that a cabinet reshuffle is imminent. The knives and daggers may be out for the UPA government, but it is too early to write its obituary.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came out unscathed from a day long strike on Thursday. What was touted to be a major offensive against the government’s recent economic reforms by opposition parties from the left and right, turned out to be what NDTV termed “lukewarm.” Indeed, the strike exposed disunity among opposition parties and a lack of cohesiveness in taking on the Singh-led government.

Emboldened by the poor response to the strike, the government went ahead with its decision to allow FDI in the retail sector, one of the major issues provoking the opposition parties.

Much attention today was devoted to the joint demonstration by the leftist and rightist parties at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. For the main opposition party, Bhartiya Janata Partry (BJP) it was supposed to be a wonderful opportunity to present a unified opposition against the Congress led government.

But it was the Samajwadi Party (SP), a regional party, which stole the thunder from BJP and managed to present a united  front of opposition parties, widely called Third Front, with the Left and other regional groupings thereby isolating the rightist BJP.  Both the BJP-led group and the SP-led front held their own separate demonstrations, exposing how divided opposition is against the ruling alliance.  

When I reached the venue at 11 a.m., the time when the protest was supposed to start, there were no leaders present save for a few members from the traders’ union. In fact, people from the media outnumbered the gathering. Not much had changed when the senior leaders of the BJP and the left had arrived two hours later. This was evident from the fact that the different political leaders spent their time addressing the media, not the people.

The impact of the protest was also not visible in the major markets of the national capital. They remained open despite the call from the traders’ association to observe a shutdown.