Glimpses of India in China
India’s latest and probably the most serious effort to showcase its soft power in China began last week in Shanghai and Beijing. “Glimpses of India” began with well-attended dance performances in both...
View ArticleChina open for business with carefully scrutinised Narendra Modi
India watchers in China often like to mention NDA leader and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003 when talking about Sino-Indian relations and how the relations might shape up...
View ArticleSmog of political amnesia
Last week, I asked a Chinese friend, in her early ‘30s, about the Tank Man, the unknown protester who stopped a row of armed tanks at the Tiananmen Square, hours after protesters had been brutally...
View ArticleWatching the football World Cup in China
The live telecast timings of the World Cup football matches in China are awful. All matches begin after midnight and many will be shown between 3am and 6am; for starters, the inaugural Brazil-Croatia...
View ArticleFew days near the China-Russia border in Inner Mongolia
The current cozy relationship between Beijing and Moscow is nowhere more apparent than in Manzhouli, a town at the China-Russia border in Inner Mongolia. Last week, the two-hour flight from Beijing to...
View ArticleJourney to free speech: China has a long way to go
In about a week’s time it will be China’s former leader, Deng Xiaoping’s 110th anniversary. Deng took the reins of China after turmoil of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976 and ushered in...
View ArticleCoffee and discussion over Rang De Basanti in Beijing
Sometime in the middle of last month, about two dozen people gathered at a courtyard café in a Beijing Hutong or traditional alleyway on a weekend to watch a Hindi movie. It was an unusual movie to be...
View ArticleWhat do China and Chairman Xi want from India?
My bosses in HT asked me this question time and again in the last couple of days as Chairman Xi Jinping’s day of landing in India drew near: What does China want from India? (I will explain the...
View ArticleHow much is Hong Kong willing to sacrifice for democracy?
Last week, I spoke to two student leaders at the forefront of the demonstrations that had all but pulled down the shutters over the global financing hub of Hong Kong. For about a week, protesters...
View ArticleWhat is Occupy Central going to do HK in the coming days?
The first round of talks between Hong Kong government officials and representatives of the Occupy Central movement on Tuesday ended where it had begun – without any resolution in sight. The televised...
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