South Asia Conundrum offers fresh ideas and enlightening narratives about how geopolitical and geostrategic entanglements of extra-regional powers, notably the United States, Russia and China, in South Asia and its extended neighborhood have transformed the Af-Pak region into a theater of unending conflict and political instability. The book addresses and illuminates the impending challenges and evaluates policy options before the Trump administration and US allies in dealing with the Afghan imbroglio. The book argues how the emerging strategic alliance among Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan has not only constrained US options in the region but has also constricted the US role and influence in South Asia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. South Asian Conundrum further illustrates how the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a part of Beijing’s mega Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), constitutes a direct challenge to economic and security interests of India and the United States in the region. The scope of the book is not exclusively limited to South Asia. Its geostrategic and geo-economic ramifications are much larger and deeper in global and regional contexts, involving the Greater Middle East Asia, the triangular Russian-Chinese and Iranian strategic partnership, and the long term fallout of CPEC and China’s BRI on global political and economic architecture.

Claims of the miraculous are foundational to faith and skepticism, making and breaking religious careers and movements in their wake. Drawing on a variety of South Asian religious traditions-Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity-this book revolves around the theme of conundrum, demonstrating how miracles offer divine proof, tenacious embarrassment, and, in many cases, both. The contributors explore not only how modern miracles are conundrums themselves but also how they make conundrums out of assumed divides between scientific and supernatural realms, modernity and tradition, the West and the rest, and ethnographer and native. Book jacket.

Bangladesh is the most vulnerable country to face the Rohingya crisis since the late 1970s and it is a continuous disturbing issue between Bangladesh and Myanmar that affecting their bilateral relations. But, in 2017, the last persecution against the Rohingyas in Myanmar have forced more than half a million people to flee into Bangladesh who are still living here creating various problems for the local community as well as for the whole country. This chapter aims to focus on the socio-political impacts of Rohingya crisis on Bangladesh as now more than one million Rohingya people are staying in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar district and also as unregistered refugees. This study analyzes secondary sources by using qualitative method to present different social and political impacts of this long-standing crisis on Bangladesh such as increasing of trafficking, criminal activities, prostitution and other illegitimate works in the local areas which have a bad impact on the whole country. It also analyzes the recent vulnerable situation of local host communities regarding this crisis.

Historically, the relationship between India and Pakistan has been mired in conflicts, war, and lack of trust. Pakistan has continued to loom large on India’s horizon despite the growing gap between the two countries. This book examines the nature of the Pakistani state, its internal dynamics, and its impact on India. The text looks at key issues of the India-Pakistan relationship, appraises a range of India’s policy options to address the Pakistan conundrum, and proposes a way forward for India’s Pakistan policy. Drawing on the author’s experience of two diplomatic stints in Pakistan, including as the High Commissioner of India, the book offers a unique insider’s perspective on this critical relationship. A crucial intervention in diplomatic history and the analysis of India’s Pakistan policy, the book will be of as much interest to the general reader as to scholars and researchers of foreign policy, strategic studies, international relations, South Asia studies, diplomacy, and political science.

A "conundrum" is a puzzle whose solution requires the resolution of a paradox. In this instance, the paradox lies in two widely held and conflicting assumptions: that the pathway to a modern economy requires exploiting and monetizing a country's natural resources, and that the long-term prosperity of a nation depends on the conservation of those same resources. This book consciously seeks to avoid the mentality of "trade-offs", where pro-development advocates view conservation efforts as impediments and conservationists are convinced that development inevitably leads to a loss for nature. Instead, through an evaluation of opportunities in the still pristine forests of the Cardamom Mountains and surrounding landscapes, the author seeks to demonstrate that wise management of a nation's renewable natural resources will facilitate economic growth. Resolving the Cardamom Conundrum demands an economic model that provides robust growth, and that alleviates poverty over the short term and eradicates it over the medium term. Any other solution is impractical and morally unacceptable. The author points the way by indentifying innovative options linked to climate finance and low carbon development strategies that span the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

This book is a compilation of essays on several themes intended to provoke thought on and promote understanding about everyday political and social life on an island facing constant geopolitical and domestic political challenges. The themes of this book are: 4/21 Terror Attack and National Security; China, Belt and Road Initiative and Sri Lankan Foreign Policy; Geopolitics; Sustaining Democracy and Facing a Pandemic; and Domestic Political Stability, Leadership and Economic Crime.Most essays have captured the domestic viewpoint from which to begin drawing a wider picture of the global geopolitical tapestry. The chapters enframe a variety of domestic political incidents, conflicts of various actors, and the conundrum of an island in the Indian Ocean, stuck in the triangular maritime power dynamics among the United States, China, and India. They also examine the influences from foreign nations towards Sri Lanka's foreign policy and the dynamics of security challenges in the larger geosphere and marine sphere of South Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. The chapters offer the reader an Olympian viewpoint of the challenges Sri Lanka faces, attempting to find connections and patterns towards greater external geopolitical influence and how it impacts domestic politics.

Cracking the China Conundrum provides a holistic and contrarian view of China's major economic, political, and foreign policy issues.

This book covers the period spanning the international invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to the foreign military withdrawal in 2014. It explores and dissects the conflictual encounter between international troops, statebuilders and donors on the one hand, and Afghan elites and the wider population on the other. It brings together a group of leading experts and analysts on Afghanistan who examine the varied reasons behind the mixed and often perverse effects of exogenous state-building and reflects upon their implications for wider theory and practice. The starting point of the various contributions is a serious engagement with empirical realities, drawing upon extended experience and field research. Their exploration of the unfolding dynamics and effects of external intervention raise fundamental questions about the core premises underlying the state-building project. This book was published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.

Theo Michael's first book records his journey as an artist and features over 50 of his most successful paintings, including Balcony With A View, Serenade, A Kiss Is Just A Kiss and many more.Created in his own personal cinematic poster style, the paintings capture the nostalgia of a time gone by in a genre often referred to as Art Noir. His love for Film Noir, 'B' movies and Pulp Art books is apparent.Many of Theo's landscape paintings are strongly influenced by the American illustrator Edward Hopper, beautifully capturing the effects of summer light. The book is full of sketches and preliminary work, revealing the working method of an artist. A perfect coffee table item, ideally suited as a gift.

The Taiwan issue in Sino-American relations remains one of the most complex, controversial, and even dangerous policy dilemmas facing the United States in the post-Cold War period. In an era of growing nationalism on mainland China and Taiwan, tremendous strain is being placed on relations across the Taiwan Strait. As demonstrated by the 1996 Taiwa