Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

1 month ago | thesecretariat.in | Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

While both countries started with similar colonial legacies of Parliamentary democracies and agrarian-based economies, today India stands as the world’s largest functional democracy and one of the fastest-growing major economies in the globe, whereas Pakistan remains a land where the military’s writ runs and the nation iitself continues to struggle with recurring crises. Nevertheless, both nations possess a mix of strengths and weaknesses that have defined their political and economic destinies.

2 months ago | freepressjournal.in | Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

In the aftermath of the cold-blooded massacre of tourists in Pahalgam by terrorists owing allegiance to a Lashkar-e-Toiba affiliate, both India and Pakistan targeted long-standing treaties which govern river flows and the effective border between the two countries. This “tearing up of treaties” went down well with nationalists on either side and added to the war rhetoric.

2 months ago | thesecretariat.in | Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

The question that is on everyone’s mind is: What next? Surgical strike on the lines of Balakot? Ending the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and turning the whole border into a firing range? Those are possibilities, but every military action has consequences. Other options could also be on the minds of India’s planners, including the stoppage of civilian flights over Indian airspace, blockade of Karachi harbour, through which 95 per cent of Pakistan’s US$ 100 billion trade passes.

2 months ago | freepressjournal.in | Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

Last Sunday, Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar made a strange claim: the Arakan Army had entered the Chittagong Hill Tracts and organized Arakanese New Year functions with the tribal civilian population of that area, many of whom are tied to the Arakanese and tribals from northeast India by ties of blood, religion, and, of course,  history. Mia Parwar, in a strongly worded statement, condemned what he termed an attack on his country’s sovereignty.

2 months ago | thesecretariat.in | Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

There have been many tariff wars in the past – from the Boston Tea Party which sparked the Amercian war of independence to the British-China Opium war in the 19th century, to the US-World tariff war initiated by the Smoot-Hawley Act which hiked taxes on imports of 900 product lines to the US in 1930, worsening an ongoing global economic slowdown into what is now known as the ‘Great Depression’.