Posts

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India: Fitting HIV/AIDS into a Public Health Strategy

A report by Teresita C. Schaffer, Pramit Mitra and Vibhuti Hate on the Task Force on HIV/AIDS, as directed by the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

India’s citizens may share one time zone, but they live in vast regions separated by immense distances and customs. They speak 22 officially recognized languages, in addition to English and Hindi, practice different religions and customs, and face diverse HIV/AIDS crises.

Originally published by CSIS on November 20, 2007. View the entire report.

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India on the Move

A review by Teresita C. Schaffer of Strategic Consequences of India’s Economic Performance, by Sanjaya Baru.

His basic argument is that economic strength is a critical element of national power and strategy, one that has made possible India’s emergence to its present position, and one that India must continue to mobilise if it is to emerge as a serious global player. Although the book is a collection of reprinted columns, a format not normally attractive, this one deserves a large readership for the importance of its guiding theme and the argument he presents.

Originally published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the Spring 2007 issue of Survival.

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Photo Credits

All homepage photos courtesy of Flickr users.

Paharganj street scene: camer_obscura [busy]

Mehndi hands in India: The.Rohit

Farmers in Pakistan: Oxfam International

Truck in Pakistan: powerplantop

Barbed wire in Pakistan: auweia

Rickshaw, river boat in Dhaka: P. Donovan

Swayambhu Temple: Subhakar Manandhar

Children on boat in Gagribal: M. Laazik

Kathmandu street scene, temple: Simon Johnson
Other photographs licensed under Creative Commons license unless specifically noted. 

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The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir

Written by Howard B. Schaffer and published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2009.

Before the 1947 partition of India, few Americans knew or cared about the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Tucked away in the high western Himalayas, Kashmir, as it was commonly called, was an amalgam of territories widely varied in language, culture, religion, ethnicity, and economic development. Its disparate regions had been cobbled together by the dynastic ambitions of the state’s rulers abetted by British imperial design. In the first half of the nineteenth century, these maharajas,Hindus of the Dogra ethnic group based in the Jammu area of the state, had with British backing created one of the largest states in Britain’s Indian empire. Situated along India’s border with China, touching Afghanistan, and close to the Central Asian regions of Czarist Russia and, later, the Soviet Union, it was also one of the most strategically placed.

To order the book, contact Brookings Institution Press.
Indian edition available from Penguin Viking.

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Kashmir’s Fuse Alight

An op-ed by Howard B. Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer on the necessity of the United States to get involved in Kashmir, in light of Kashmiris’ protests against the Indian government.

The United States has not paid much attention to Kashmir for the past few years, confident that an active India-Pakistan peace process would prevent any crises on that front. It no longer enjoys that luxury. If the current unrest leads to another India-Pakistan confrontation, the whole area from Afghanistan through India will be affected, with critical U.S. interests in play.

Originally published by the Washington Times on September 3, 2008.