Economic growth in the Asian region and emerging opportunities for interregional trade are creating a demand for viable transport connectivity, land-linking arrangements, and important transit services. However, due to geographical and geopolitical attributes, India and Central Asian countries have been confronted with a range of constraints which have hitherto inhibited a full realization of two-way trade and commerce. The problems of distance have been substantially compounded by the instability factor in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
David Miliband is not Right
British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, arrived in India on his two-day visit on 13 January, barely a month and a half after the carnage in Mumbai. His visit was controversial for what he said during the visit and it was made worse by his article that appeared in The Guardian on the last day of his visit. It even provoked the normally restrained Ministry of External Affairs to comment that it could do without Miliband’s “unsolicited advice” and that his views were only “evolving”.