The visit of PM Narendra Modi to Japan for the G20 Summit in Osaka gave him an opportunity to exchange views with PM Abe of Japan for the first time in his second term. Earlier this year, Modi came back to power with a decisive mandate in the general elections which has given him and his government greater flexibility when it comes to foreign affairs. In addition, the appointment of Dr. S. Jaishankar as the Minister of External Affairs is a strong signal about the importance accorded to foreign affairs by this government.

The Indian police, which traces its origin back to 1843 and is still largely run on the British-era Indian Police Act, 1861, has been struggling to come to terms with India’s class, caste, gender, and religious diversities. The reasons for this may be due to a lack of training, sensitization, and/or inherent personnel biases according to the 2018 Status of Policing in India Report.

In the last eighteen years, the situation in Afghanistan has remained as tenuous as it had been in the three decades that preceded them. In fact, things do not look any different since 2017 when the so-called “mother-of-all-bombs” was dropped in Nangarhar to deter the extremists.

On March 20, 2000, armed renegades cold-bloodedly murdered thirty-five Sikh men in Chitti Singhpora village in South Kashmir on the eve of US President Bill Clinton’s visit to India. A “micro-minority” in Kashmir, the violence was a first for the Sikh community, who have lived for generations alongside their Muslim counterparts in harmony in the Valley—one of the three distinct regions of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), which has borne the major brunt of insurgency.