CHICAGO – US President Joe Biden’s speech defending the withdrawal from Afghanistan announced a decisive break with a tradition of foreign-policy idealism that began with Woodrow Wilson and reached its apex in the 1990s. While that tradition has often been called “liberal internationalism,” it also was the dominant view on the right …

After the second dose there is pressure building up from the public for various relaxations, and it is likely that the government will bring in some reasonable relaxations. One major change already visible is that Phuentsholing will no longer go into long lockdowns if a case comes up. The Finance …

TOKYO – With the spread of the Delta variant, new COVID-19 infections are rising around the world, and much more so in regions and countries with low vaccination rates. Japan is no exception. Only around 40% of its population is fully vaccinated – compared to vaccination rates of 50-65% in the other G7 …

By far, the most popular mode of investment in Bhutan is buying that piece of dream land or plot and either building on it or waiting for it to go up in value. One of the predictions when COVID-19 hit in 2020 was that it would negatively impact land prices …

ISTANBUL – The United States invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago with the hope of rebuilding a country that had become a scourge to the world and its own people. As General Stanley McChrystal explained in the run-up to the 2009 surge of US troops, the objective was that the “government of Afghanistan …

Once upon a time, the government thought a tough Tobacco Law banning import of tobacco will discourage smoking, but what we got was a lot of people getting locked up, legislative backtracking, an elaborate smuggling network that helped bring in COVID-19 and the smokers still continued to smoke. We appear …

With the second dose being given to around 65 percent of the population there is now increasing pressure on the government from various quarters for relaxations. There are nudges and pushes and pulls from many sectors. This in the backdrop of the government on the verge of completing its third …

NEW DELHI – It is rare for a public-opinion survey to shake established perceptions of a country in the way a recent Pew Research Center study of religion in India has done. The revelations in Pew’s comprehensive survey, based on interviews with 30,000 adults in 17 languages between late 2019 and early …

Bhutan has once again achieved an impressive task of vaccinating more than 90 percent of its eligible adult population within one week, drawing global acclaim once again. If that was not enough, the country has now started vaccinating those between 12 and 17 which has the potential to push us …

DHAKA – From 1990 to 2019, the number of people living in extreme poverty (according to the World Bank threshold of $1.90 per day) plummeted, from 1.9 billion to 648 million. COVID-19 has reversed much of this progress. By the end of 2021, the pandemic will have pushed approximately 150 million people back …