Month: April 2011

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Book Launch: How Pakistan Negotiates with the U.S.

Tezi and I, then a married couple of three years standing, first came to Pakistan on diplomatic assignment 37 years ago. Our second son was born at our house in Islamabad. We’ve been following developments in the country with great interest, often mingled with anxiety, ever since….  What we’ve tried to do is to analyze the themes, techniques, and styles that have characterized Pakistani negotiations with American civil and military officials in recent years and to reach some conclusions about how these are likely to shape up in the future.

Our book, How Pakistan Negotiates with the United States: Riding the Roller Coaster, was launched at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington on April 12. We were joined by Stephen Cohen, Brookings Institution, and by Akbar S. Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University.

Read what we had to say. Or, watch the video of the book launch.

Read Michael O’Hanlon’s review, published in foreignpolicy.com; read review in Foreign Affairs.

Read review by former Pakistan ambassador to the United States Tariq Fatemi, in the Express Tribune (Islamabad), August 24, 2011.

See a short video of our comments on How Pakistan Negotiates with the United States: Riding the Roller Coaster.

Read short description of the book

Order the book

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India: Killing the Messenger, Ignoring the Message

India: Killing the Messenger, Ignoring the Message

April 9, 2011: Three recent episodes, seemingly unrelated:

November 29, 2009: Reuters reported that Indian officials were investigating the leak of a radioactive substance into drinking water from an atomic power plant in Kaira, south of Bangalore.

April 10, 2010: the Times of India reported that exposure to radioactive Cobalt-60 in scrap at a disposal site outside of Delhi had left four workers fighting for their lives. The scrap had not originated in a nuclear facility but from industrial waste. Over the next month, government statements reiterated that those who handled potentially toxic waste were supposed to follow “stringent procedures.

August 13, 2010: NDTV (New Delhi Television) reported that British researchers had found a super-antibiotic-resistant bacterium in India. The scientific community, which often follows the practice of naming bacteria after the place where they are first isolated and identified, has given this one the name New Delhi Metallo-1. On April 7, 2011, BBC reported that a group of scientists in Cardiff had found antibiotic-resistant bacteria in Delhi drinking water. It is not clear whether these were the same type of bacteria. In both cases, the Indian health authorities immediately dismissed the studies involved.

  Continue reading “India: Killing the Messenger, Ignoring the Message”

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India-Pakistan: Is there Life After Cricket?

Photo by flickr.com/photos/baxiabhishek/3681357360/

IS THERE LIFE AFTER CRICKET?

April 1, 2011: “Cricket Diplomacy” was the buzzword of the week in India and Pakistan as the national teams of the two countries squared off in the World Cup semifinals at Mohali, a town in the Indian Punjab conveniently close to the Pakistani border. The Indian and Pakistani media have been crammed with commentary debating how this shared sporting enthusiasm they inherited from the British Raj could forward their recently revived bilateral dialogue. Much was made of the fact that Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had accepted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s invitation to be his guest at the event.

Americans, most of whom find cricket as unfathomable as it is tedious, are likely to wonder what all the fuss was about. Even those of us who have spent long innings in cricket-addicted South Asian countries Continue reading “India-Pakistan: Is there Life After Cricket?”