ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Quad and Quasi-alignment with the United States

The long-term costs of quasi-alignment with the United States need to be assessed by the Government of India.

 

Unpacking Abu Ghraib: A Reading List on the Torture of Iraqi Civilians by the US Military

In 2004, images of the torture of Iraqi prisoners in the notorious prison of Abu Ghraib by American soldiers sent shockwaves through the world that such an exercise was carried out by the United States. A decade later, a detailed report on the exact techniques used to extract “intelligence” from Iraqi detainees was made public. Who is responsible for the torture? How did America get off the hook? And 17 years later, who remembers Abu Ghraib?

Debating Supreme Court Reform

US President Joseph R Biden’s newly set up commission to recommend reform of the United States Supreme Court has brought to the forefront the “political” role of constitutional courts. While the US Supreme Court inhabits a vastly different legal, constitutional and political sphere from its Indian counterpart, nonetheless there are interesting parallels given common shared values towards the independence of the judiciary and constitutional governance.

 

The World Order

Analysis of the current and emergent correlation of forces between US–China–Russia points towards a new era of one super-imperialist power coexisting with a triadic form of major inter-imperialist tensions.

Political Sanders, Minus the Edge

Outsider in the White House by Bernie Sanders with Huck Gutman, Three Essays Collective, 2016; pp xx+348, Rs 500.

Plutocracy, Populism and the 2016 American Election

Even as the plutocracies of the Republican and Democratic Party represent the same kinds of power interests, there are huge policy differences between even the most corporatist Democrats and the most “moderate” Republicans, especially on social issues. The new President, from whichever party, will have to address the power that corporate and financial institutions wield over politics in the United States. 

Nixon Goes, Presidential Absolutism Remains

Nixon's decision to resign may prove disappointing to those who thought that the entire Watergate affair was not really about Nixon but about a more fundamental issue in the American political system, i.e., the centralisation of executive power in the White House. The willingness of a number of Democrats and Republicans to consider offering immunity from prosecution to Nixon if he decided to resign dramatised their unwillingness to question seriously the absolutist powers of the American presidency. Impeachment would have certainly involved a critical examination of presideniial power

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