https://www.scmp.com/rss/283727/feed Shashi Tharoor is a third-term Member of the Indian Parliament and a former Chairman of Parliament’s External Affairs Committee. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The Hindu nationalist BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked the seventh anniversary of its ascent to power a little over a month ago without any of its customary fanfare. The subdued air around the government’s conduct reveals a country in many ways under siege. First of all, the deadly coronavirus has besieged India, with the authorities’ response to a devastating second wave bordering between the inept and the irresponsible. So far, close... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3140393/coronavirus-poverty-pakistan-india-under-siege-not-ready-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3140393/coronavirus-poverty-pakistan-india-under-siege-not-ready-war?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Jul 2021 01:30:17 +0000 As the reverberations of the gruesome clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Himalayas on June 15, which killed 20 Indians and an unknown number of Chinese, refuse to die down in New Delhi, it may be time to ask the larger question: what does this incident portend for the relationship between the two Asian giants? Incidents have occurred many times over the years along the disputed 3,500km (2,200-mile) border between the two countries, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) established at... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3090401/driving-india-us-arms-risk-china-willing-take?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3090401/driving-india-us-arms-risk-china-willing-take?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Jun 2020 09:00:14 +0000 As the novel coronavirus spreads alarmingly through China, with reports suggesting more than 70,000 infected, and the number of fatalities slowly climbing, many neighbouring countries are alarmed. One which is high on the list of potential crisis zones is India, almost as populous as China and considerably less well-organised to cope with a disaster of this nature. The worst may yet not come to pass. Only three cases of infection have been confirmed in India, whereas Singapore has reported 75,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3050988/india-coronavirus-catastrophe-waiting-happen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3050988/india-coronavirus-catastrophe-waiting-happen?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Feb 2020 08:57:58 +0000 Last week, the results of India’s general elections were declared, giving the incumbent ruling National Democratic Alliance, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a landslide victory and a decisive mandate to form the federal government for a second term. The BJP’s individual performance has stunned many observers – the party has on its own managed to retain a majority in India’s 543-member Lok Sabha (Lower House), securing 303 seats and 37.6 per cent of the national vote, even improving... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3012684/congress-can-recover-election-drubbing-modi-if-it-looks-kerala?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3012684/congress-can-recover-election-drubbing-modi-if-it-looks-kerala?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Jun 2019 02:00:10 +0000 Relations between Asia’s two neighbouring giants, China and India – with the latter just a few years away from eclipsing the former in population – are still bedevilled by a variety of problems. A recent report by the Indian Parliament’s Standing Committee on External Affairs, which I chair, has raised serious issues on Sino-Indian relations, which deserve consideration on both sides of the two countries’ disputed frontier. Discussion of the report in New Delhi think tanks in the waning weeks of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2185330/doklam-tibet-china-india-ties-are-bedevilled-we-share-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2185330/doklam-tibet-china-india-ties-are-bedevilled-we-share-more?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Feb 2019 02:15:45 +0000 India this month overturned a British-era law criminalising gay sex in a landmark judgment by the country’s Supreme Court, triggering a debate on a colonial relic the rest of Asia still finds difficult to shake off. But one of the curious sidelights of the judgment legalising homosexuality is that it cited modern constitutional principles to ratify conduct that ancient Indians had accepted more readily than modern ones. The Indian ethos towards sexual difference has historically been liberal and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2164299/gay-sex-india-has-assumed-ancient-position-read-kama-sutra?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2164299/gay-sex-india-has-assumed-ancient-position-read-kama-sutra?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Sep 2018 13:00:30 +0000 WHEN the call came from an excited colleague at 4:58am New York time on October 12, 2001, telling me the United Nations, and my boss, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, had won the Nobel Prize for Peace, I had been lying awake for nearly an hour. It was a call I had been expecting, indeed hoping for – but for three years we had heard the same rumours, and twice they had proved untrue. So it was in a mixture of anticipation and dread that I tossed and turned that night. Macau: the incredible poverty... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2161086/remembering-kofi-annan-man-rare-warmth-wit-and-wisdom?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2161086/remembering-kofi-annan-man-rare-warmth-wit-and-wisdom?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Aug 2018 14:20:10 +0000 India is contemplating the prospect of a major social revolution as a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court this week hears a raft of petitions challenging Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which outlaws homosexuality. The law, a legacy of the British colonial era, criminalises “unnatural acts against the order of nature”, and has long been used to harass gay Indians. Since it makes non penile-vaginal intercourse illegal, even between consenting adults, the lesbian, gay,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2154786/lgbt-indians-time-right-british-era-wrong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2154786/lgbt-indians-time-right-british-era-wrong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jul 2018 05:30:45 +0000 Among the many ailments inflicted upon India by the Hindu-chauvinist ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the most cringe-inducing (in a rather long list) must be its leaders’ boastfully ignorant atavism. Not only do they claim credit, on behalf of their ancient Hindu forebears, for every invention of the modern era, but they assert their point of view with a certitude that is immune to ridicule, or even common sense. The latest offender is the newly elected chief minister of the tiny... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2142676/did-ancient-hindus-surf-web?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2142676/did-ancient-hindus-surf-web?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Apr 2018 05:16:26 +0000 On the face of it, the launch by the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life at Oxford University of a five-year interdisciplinary project on Ethics and Empire, led by the theology Professor Nigel Biggar and the historian Professor John Darwin, is hardly unreasonable. The project seeks to “gather colleagues from Classics, Oriental Studies, History, Political Thought, and Theology in a series of workshops to measure apologias and critiques of empire against historical data from... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2127641/singapore-and-hong-kong-may-be-different-theres-no-debate-what?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2127641/singapore-and-hong-kong-may-be-different-theres-no-debate-what?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Jan 2018 03:00:00 +0000 In Hong Kong to address the Asia Society this weekend, one of the things that strikes me again is that amid the profusion of colonial buildings in this teeming city, there is one startling absence. There is no museum to Hong Kong’s colonial history. The story of Hong Kong for 156 years was the story of colonial rule, but it is not commemorated. Tales may be told of the British magnates who passed through here and made their fortunes in this port city. But a museum that reflects the stories of... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2122508/hong-kong-india-needs-remember-truth-about-british-colonialism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2122508/hong-kong-india-needs-remember-truth-about-british-colonialism?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 Dec 2017 04:00:15 +0000 In an India increasingly polarised along religious lines, with a triumphalist Hindu majoritarianism unleashed by the powers that be, everything seems to take on a communal colour these days. But even those reconciled to this sad reality were a bit taken aback when a Supreme Court ruling banning the sale of firecrackers during next week’s Diwali festival caused a firestorm of protest to erupt on communal lines. Delhi has one of the world’s worst air quality records, with the winter months... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2115294/india-or-china-who-invented-gunpowder-diwalis-hindu-haze-and-weird?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2115294/india-or-china-who-invented-gunpowder-diwalis-hindu-haze-and-weird?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Oct 2017 04:32:29 +0000 The current tensions between India and China, facing each other in a military stand-off on Bhutan’s Doklam plateau, are dominating perceptions of the two countries’ increasingly hostile relationship. Yet this obscures the extent to which opportunities for cooperation between India and China exist. There is, first of all, the regional plane, where China and India have notably strengthened their cooperation. China has acquiesced in India’s participation in the East Asia Summit and India has joined... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2104347/imagine-what-china-and-india-can-do-together?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2104347/imagine-what-china-and-india-can-do-together?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Jul 2017 02:45:00 +0000 It’s not often that one can honestly say a book began as a speech. But my new book An Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India did just that. At the end of May 2015, I was invited by the Oxford Union to speak on the proposition ‘Britain Owes Reparations to Her Former Colonies’. The event, in the Union’s impressive wood-panelled premises, was a success and I left pleased enough, but without giving the proceedings a second thought. In early July, however, the union posted the debate on the web... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2050394/does-britain-owe-reparations-india-and-other-former-colonies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2050394/does-britain-owe-reparations-india-and-other-former-colonies?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Dec 2016 03:04:24 +0000 EDITOR’S NOTE: As the United Nations elects a new secretary general, Shashi Tharoor takes the lid off a controversial election for the UN’s top job a decade ago – when he lost to Ban Ki-moon. Tharoor, who was the UN undersecretary general for communications and public information at the time, finished second to Ban, then South Korea’s foreign minister. A charismatic career diplomat and prolific writer, Tharoor’s defeat put an end to Indians’ dream of their first UN secretary general. In India,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2039063/china-did-not-stand-indians-way-top-un-job?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2039063/china-did-not-stand-indians-way-top-un-job?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Oct 2016 04:00:45 +0000 It happens every time. Each day, Indian sports fans following the news of the Olympics from Rio de Janeiro feel their hearts sink. The first week went by without a single Indian medal, while the United States racked up 25 by Friday and China was running a close second. This week, China’s total tally stands at 69 at press time while things have marginally improved for India, having won one bronze in women’s freestyle wrestling and a silver in women’s badminton. The two medals have come as a huge... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2006254/65-2-what-rio-olympics-medal-tally-says-about-china-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2006254/65-2-what-rio-olympics-medal-tally-says-about-china-india?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Aug 2016 02:00:30 +0000 Half a century before the invention of e-mail, T. S. Eliot asked, "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" If he were alive today, contemplating an inbox on a flickering computer screen, he might well have added, "Where is the information that has been lost in trivia?" It is one of the paradoxes of our times that inventions meant to make our lives easier end up slowing us down. When e-mail first entered my life, I was thrilled; instead... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1153235/dangers-e-mail-tsunami?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1153235/dangers-e-mail-tsunami?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 One of the more difficult questions I was asked when I was a UN undersecretary general was: "What is the single most important thing that can be done to improve the world?" It's the kind of question that tends to bring out the bureaucrat in even the most direct of communicators, as one feels obliged to explain the complexity of the challenges confronting humanity - how no imperative can be singled out over other goals; how the struggle for peace, the fight against poverty and the battle to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1105505/educating-girls-best-way-make-impact-worldwide?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1105505/educating-girls-best-way-make-impact-worldwide?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Delegations from the world's nine most populous developing countries just met in New Delhi to discuss a subject vital for their countries' futures: education. The meeting of ministers and others from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan, known as the E9, is the latest in a series of encounters held every two years to fulfil the pledge of "education for all" by 2015. The E9 account for 54 per cent of the world's population, 42.3 per cent of children not... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1085424/largest-developing-nations-still-face-challenges-getting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1085424/largest-developing-nations-still-face-challenges-getting?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000