The India-Africa Forum Summit is an indication of the coming of age of India’s relations with African countries. While India’s relations with African countries are time tested and historical, nevertheless in recent years this affiliation has been revitalised. Booming trade is an indication of this change. Trade has grown from US$967 million in 1990-91 to $25 billion in 2006-07 (inclusive of oil imports). This transformed relationship is driven by a number of factors.

• Ruchita Beri
• April 08, 2008
• IDSA Comments

India is all set to woo Africa at the forthcoming India-Africa Summit on April 8, 2008 in New Delhi, reflecting the continent’s growing importance to Indian foreign policy in the 21st century. The Summit comes more than a year after China organised a similar event at Beijing in November 2006.

• Ruchita Beri
• March 19, 2008
• IDSA Comments

In an interesting development, the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) invited Iran for the first time last month to attend its summit meeting held in Doha. The GCC was established in 1981 to foster multilateral co-operation in the Persian Gulf, but had adopted an exclusionary policy vis-à-vis Iran though the latter was an important actor in regional politics and economy. The invitation to Iran seems to point to a GCC initiative to overcome differences and act together for the larger good of the region.

• M. Mahtab Alam Rizvi
• January 23, 2008
• IDSA Comments

The factional fighting between the Islamist Hamas, represented by the recently dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip, and the 'moderate' Fatah, headed by the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas, took a turn for the worse on June 14 when Hamas cadres ransacked the Preventive Security Service building, the headquarters of the PA in Gaza City. The renewed fighting between the two factions, which accounted for more than 100 deaths during the week gone by, has already claimed over 600 lives since January 2006.

• S. Samuel C. Rajiv
• June 21, 2007
• IDSA Comments

In addition to the earlier run two pilot cascades of 164 centrifuges, Iran has set up two more cascades of 164 centrifuges each despite repeated calls from the UN Security Council to halt enrichment related work. Addressing a mass rally on February 11, 2007 in Tehran to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, an unrelenting Iranian President boasted about continuing advancements in the country's nuclear programme and promised to announce a further surprising achievement by April 9, 2007.

• Rajesh Kumar Mishra
• February 12, 2007
• IDSA Comments

As the dust slowly settles down over the battlefields of South Lebanon and North Israel, the major actors in this tragic drama are now debating ways and means to salvage the long stalled Arab-Israel peace process from the wreckage of war and violence in the region. Israel's 34-day military campaign against Lebanon ended in mid-August with no clear victory to either party.

• V. Krishnappa
• January 25, 2007
• IDSA Comments

The conflict involving the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on two of its borders shows all signs of drawing the entire region into a new round of crisis. Though the current conflict may have been set off by years of hostilities between Israel and its regional adversaries, it is not a simple replay of the previous clashes.

• Rushda Siddiqui
• July 26, 2006
• IDSA Comments

Israel has stepped up its military offensive against Palestine. Codenamed Operation Summer Rain, it began on June 28 in response to the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Palestinian militant groups kidnapped Shalit on June 25 when they raided a military post near Kibbutz Kerem Shalom in Israeli territory just outside the Gaza Strip. The militants had infiltrated into Israel through a 300-metre tunnel dug under the Gaza border fence near the military post. Two Israeli soldiers, Lt. Hanan Barak and Sgt. Pavel Slutsker were killed in the attack.

• Namrata Goswami
• July 10, 2006
• IDSA Comments

After weeks of intense negotiations and international pressure, the Sudanese government and a faction of the main rebel group (SLA) signed a peace deal on May 5, which aims to settle the devastating crisis in Darfur. Although there is a modest hope that it could bring more protection to millions of refugees and result in a significant decline in bloodshed, it is unlikely to end the three-year conflict or bring durable peace to Darfur. Instead, its utility is likely to be limited to paving the way for the UN to replace the African Union peacekeeping force in place now.

• Nivedita Ray
• May 25, 2006
• IDSA Comments

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, wanted for war crimes by the international tribunal in Sierra Leone, was arrested on Wednesday in northern Nigeria on the Cameroon border. He was deported to Monrovia and from there transferred to UN custody in Sierra Leone. Just a day before his arrest he had disappeared from the villa in south-eastern Nigeria, where he had been living in exile since stepping down from power in 2003 as part of an arrangement brokered by AU, ECOWAS and other key international actors including the US to end 14 years of civil war in Liberia.

• Nivedita Ray
• April 04, 2006
• IDSA Comments