S. Kalyanaraman replies: Cold War 2.0 is a misleading term that has come to be employed by excitable commentators for characterising the United States-Russia relations in recent years. Drawing upon the analogy of the Cold War rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union to describe US-Russia relations in the current era is, however, misleading because of three main reasons.

Pushpita Das replies:The so-called Agartala Doctrine is a distillation of the principles derived from the policies and postures adopted by successive governments in Tripura vis-à-vis East Pakistan and later Bangladesh. The same has been recommended for the Union government’s consideration. According to its advocates, the doctrine would not only help state governments in safeguarding the interests of their own people but also work towards strengthening the Union government’s neighbourhood policy.

Arpita Anant replies: A functionalist approach to international relations emphasises the importance of specific issues or problems, mainly technical in nature, in engendering the need for cooperation among nations. According to David Mitrany (1943), cooperation among technical experts in a functional area will result in the creation of an international agency that will push nations to cooperate rather than wage war. Cooperation in one functional area will have ‘ramifications’ in other functional areas.