India Pakistan Research Articles

Early oceanic opening off Western India–Pakistan margin: The Gop Basin revisited

The Deccan Traps, one of the best known examples of rapid flood basalt, are considered as marking of the inception of a mantle plume on the Indian continental lithosphere. Their emplacement may be associated with the continental break-up of India and the Seychelles block and later formation of a new spreading centre, the Carlsberg Ridge, while spreading progressively ceased in the Mascarene Basin. Whether rifting, continental break-up, and seafloor spreading predated or were the consequence of the Deccan Traps emplacement is still a matter of debate. This issue is further complicated by the presence of a continental sliver, the Laxmi Ridge, and large basins lying landward of the Laxmi Ridge, such as the Laxmi and Gop basins, where nature of the crust is still ambiguous. The present study attempts to decipher the tectonic setting and the imprints of plume–ridge interaction in the Gop Basin, where the crust has been interpreted as either volcanic-intruded thinned continental crust or oceanic crust formed by a now-extinct spreading centre. Based on interpretation of an updated compilation of marine geophysical data, the present study supports the oceanic nature of the crust underlying the Gop Basin and proposes the Palitana Ridge as the extinct spreading centre in this region. The prominent but short sequence of fairly linear magnetic anomalies in the Gop Basin does not allow a unique identification; it can be reasonably explained either as A31r–A25r (∼ 69.3–56.4 Ma) or as A29r–A25r (∼ 64.8–56.4 Ma) sequence. The variations of the spreading rates assumed by both these models suggest that spreading in the Gop Basin significantly slowed around 65 Ma, contemporaneous with the magmatic outburst of the Reunion plume on the adjacent western Indian mainland. Subsequently, the Gop Basin spreading centre was waning whereas a new spreading centre was developing further south, close to the (relatively) southward migrating plume. In this last stage, the Gop Basin spreading centre was associated with an abundant magmatism, probably supplied from the plume region.

The Regional Situation in South and Central Asia in the Context of the Afghanistan Issue

This article attempts a comprehensive account of the various actors—including both regional and global powers—their motivations and the intricacies of the interactions between them in Afghanistan. Given that the democratic governments have put particular emphasis on human rights and political freedoms, there would be some implications for the dictatorships or tyrant-regimes in Central Asia. The desire of the US to push the Russians out and minimise the Chinese presence in the region could not be entirely ruled out as a factor in the increasing importance of India in the US strategy, their agreement on nuclear cooperation pointed to some changes in the US’ South Asia strategy. The stand taken by the governments in the Central Asian states, particularly Kazakhstan and also Uzbekistan (which had recently withdrawn from the EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) was especially significant. The author pointed out that the US deployment in Afghanistan was very extensive, with the largest number of troops in the south and east; the US was also the largest aid giver. Pakistan is far from stable and India–Pakistan ties are problematic, as also Pakistan–Afghanistan relations. The Pak–Taliban linkages have been corroborated from various sources but there are some disagreements between the US and the UK on the ways and methods of dealing with the situation, the latter favouring negotiations. All these factors will have to be thoroughly analysed in reconciling the different forces and promoting peace in Afghanistan.

Nuclear Weapons and India–Pakistan Relations

India–Pakistan relations are best understood as an example of nuclear rivalry, in which nuclear weapons both exacerbate and limit hostility. In all such relationships, the minimal possession of nuclear weapons suffices to deter. Both India and Pakistan have adopted a minimalist posture, yet their strategic thinking tends to be inconsistent, which makes them vulnerable to needless expansion. This essay points to the conceptual basis for an optimal doctrine. It concludes that, while the military equation between India and Pakistan is stable, India has begun to widen the political gap between them.

A Line in the Sand: The India–Pakistan Border in the Films of J.P. Dutta

This article examines the visualisation and narrative construction of the India–Pakistan border, and human interactions across that liminal space, as depicted in two films directed by J.P. Dutta, the high-profile, multiple award-winning war film Border (1997) and his subsequent feature Refugee (2000), which was more loosely described in its publicity literature as ‘a human story’.1 Through these films, Dutta established his reputation as the leading Indian director of the ‘war film’, a genre marked by its relative absence in the Indian cinema prior to the 1990s. Both Border and Refugee thus constitute part of what has retrospectively been described as Dutta's ‘war trilogy’ (along with the more recent LOC Kargil of 2003, which focuses on the 1999 Himalayan conflict).2 In the first two films of the set, which I will consider here, the border in question is not the Line-of-Control (LOC) that divides Kashmir, but rather the southern portion of the long border with Pakistan that runs from the southern bank of the Sutlej River across the Thar Desert to the Arabian Sea. Refugee, moreover, is not a war film in the accepted sense, and I will make the argument that it is not so much the martial posturing which constructs the thematic inter-relation of the two films considered here but rather their attempts to naturalise the abstract barrier created by the Radcliffe Line in the west. 1 Border, dir. J.P.Dutta, J.P. Films, 1996; and Refugee, dir. J.P.Dutta, J.P. Films, 2000. 2 LOC Kargil, dir. J.P.Dutta, J.P. Films, 2003.

Book Review: Sumit Ganguly and Devin T. Hagerty (2006) Fearful Symmetry: India—Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons. New Delhi: Oxford University Press/Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. pp. 223

Book Review: Sumit Ganguly and Devin T. Hagerty (2006) Fearful Symmetry: India—Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons. New Delhi: Oxford University Press/Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. pp. 223

Himalayan ultrahigh pressure rocks and warped Indian subduction plane

In this paper, we will use the knowledge of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphic evolution as independent data to constraint the geometry and reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the early stage of the India-Asia collision. The two UHP units recognized in NW Himalaya (Kaghan in Pakistan and Tso Morari in India) belong to distal parts of the continental Indian margin subducted between 55 and 45 Ma at a minimum depth of 100 km (e.g. Guillot et al. 2003 for review), evolving simultaneously during the early Himalayan evolution. They are interpreted as the signature of the early subduction of the Indian continental plate at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary. The metamorphic conditions are synthesized in Table 1 for both units. Even if similar protoliths are involved and both UHP units record the same maximum depth of about 100 km, some differences in P-T-t conditions may be emphasized. Firstly, the temperature of the metamorphism peak is significantly lower than a minimum of 100°C in the Tso Morari unit suggesting that the subduction rate is higher (Peacock 1992) in the Eastern part. Secondly, the western Kaghan unit seems to be involved in the subduction zone 4 Ma (~ 53 Ma) after the Eastern Tso Morari unit (~ 57 Ma). The later implication of the Kaghan unit in the subduction zone is related to its greater internal localization on the Indian margin, which, combined with a lower subduction rate, induce a higher temperature peak. As the UHP units are buried and exhumed along the subduction plane (e.g. Chemenda et al. 2000), the dip angle of the subduction plane can be deduced from the geometry of the subduction and the timing of the processes. The sinus of dip angle is equal to the amount of vertical displacement (D) during an interval of time, divided by the amount of Indian plate subduction during the same time interval (H). Those two data are independently measured, D from the exhumed rocks, H from the motion of the Indian plate.

CAN THE SECTIONAL POSITION OF GENTIANA CACHEMIRICA BE CLARIFIED BY A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF ITS MORPHOLOGY?

Gentiana cachemirica is a rare plant from northern Pakistan and northwestern India. The sectional position of this species has been a matter of considerable debate. Various authors have placed Gentiana cachemirica in one of three different sections – Gentiana sect. Isomeria, Gentiana sect. Kudoa or Gentiana sect. Pneumonanthe. The present paper assesses the taxonomic affinities of this species using a detailed study of its morphology accompanied by morphological phylogenetic and cluster analyses. Characters of the seed testa, corolla morphology and growth architecture were studied for selected species from the above-mentioned sections and closely related Gentiana sect. Cruciata. Representatives of Gentiana sect. Ciminalis were used as outgroups. Our results suggest that G. cachemirica belongs to Gentiana sect. Pneumonanthe and that its affinities are closer to the Western Asiatic group of this section.

River rivalry: water disputes, resource insecurity and diplomatic deadlock in South Asia

This article examines the reasons for the stalled river resource diplomacy that exists among the South Asian region's four main co-riparian states (India–Pakistan in the west; India–Bangladesh–Nepal in the east). It maintains that the stalemate emerges from three stubborn realities characterizing these states—first, the existence among them of fundamental differences in natural river resource endowments; second, the pressure on all of their governments to give highest priority to their own country's river resource requirements; and third, their resolute adherence to diplomatic strategies that are in large part irreconcilable. It maintains, further, that the stalemate is unlikely to be overcome, barring a dramatic change in the way the region's river resources are conceptualized and managed. This means, concretely, that these states would have to abandon their current almost exclusively unilateralist inclinations in favor of bilateral or even multilateral approaches that were significantly more trans-boundary, integrated or “river basin” in focus. It warns that the continued festering of un-addressed river resource disputes between these states—between India and Pakistan, India and Nepal, and India and Bangladesh—is bound to retard rational river resource development in the region, stiffen the antagonism already apparent in their bilateral relationships and, inevitably, weigh heavily against hopes for expanded regional cooperation.

Iranian Mother`s Child Feeding Practices During Diarrhea : A Study in Kerman

Diarrhea as the second common pediatric disease accounts for approximately 2000000 deaths per year in children less than 5 years of age in developing countries. Cultural dictates and nutritional habits in different communities increases the nutritional problems of diarrhoeal episodes. This study was aimed to investigate the practice of Kermani mothers in relation to the nutrition of their children during diarrhea. The present cross-sectional study was performed from March through July 2005 on 330 randomly selected mothers having a 6-24 months child with no underlying disease and at least one acute diarrhea episode during the last two months in her child. Data gathered by using a questionnaire filled out by interviewing subjects. Age and the educational level of subjects in contrast to their job and number of children had no effect on their practice. Most of the subjects (84.2%) breastfed their children at the time of healthy state and 80% did not give their children rich soup during diarrhea. Most of the subjects quitted giving fats (74.5%) Iron supplement (91%) and multivitamin (86%) at the time of diarrhea but 88% continued giving fruit juice. Mothers that their source of knowledge was mass media showed better practice in this regard comparing to others (P<0.05). Although according to the present study mothers practice in Iran is better in comparison to that in other developing countries (India Pakistan Nepal...) we have still serious problems resulting from insufficient training programs and consequently poor knowledge that may lead to persistent improper nutritional habits. Therefore public training especially via mass media is highly recommended to decrease improper nutritional habits during diarrhea. (authors)

Energy geopolitics and Iran–Pakistan–India gas pipeline

With the growing energy demands in India and its neighboring countries, Iran–Pakistan–India (IPI) gas pipeline assumes special significance. Energy-deficient countries such as India, China, and Pakistan are vying to acquire gas fields in different parts of the world. This has led to two conspicuous developments: first, they are competing against each other and secondly, a situation is emerging where they might have to confront the US and the western countries in the near future in their attempt to control energy bases. The proposed IPI pipeline is an attempt to acquire such base. However, Pakistan is playing its own game to maximize its leverages. Pakistan, which refuses to establish even normal trading ties with India, craves to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees and other annual royalties from a gas pipeline which runs from Iran's South Pars fields to Barmer in western India. Pakistan promises to subsidize its gas imports from Iran and thus also become a major forex earner. It is willing to give pipeline related ‘international guarantees’ notwithstanding its record of covert actions in breach of international law (such as the export of terrorism) and its reluctance to reciprocally provide India what World Trade Organization (WTO) rules obligate it to do—Most Favored Nation (MFN) status. India is looking at the possibility of using some set of norms for securing gas supply through pipeline as the European Union has already initiated a discussion on the issue. The key point that is relevant to India's plan to build a pipeline to source gas from Iran relates to national treatment for pipeline. Under the principle of national treatment which also figures in relation to foreign direct investment (FDI), the country through which a pipeline transits should provide some level of security to the transiting pipeline as it would have provided to its domestic pipelines. This paper will endeavor to analyze, first, the significance of this pipeline for India and then the geopolitics involved in it.

India–Pakistan Engagement with the Greater Middle East: Implications and Options

AbstractThis article aims to examine Indo–Pakistan relations to assess their implications for the Greater Middle East (GME). Both countries are frantically engaged in deploying their military and nuclear capabilities, resources as well as extra-regional connections, with an intention to alter the balance of power in one's favor, as this is evident from their close contest for enhancing the level of strategic cooperation with the United States, especially after 9/11. Moreover, the deep-seated historic hostility between India and Pakistan has produced a peculiar geopsychology among ruling elites to outmaneuver the other in order to contain each country's political, economic, and strategic influences in GME rather than to contribute to peace, prosperity, and stability there. This article also aims to explore interaction and interconnectedness between the three core concepts—geopolitics, geoeconomics and geopsychology—while evaluating Indo–Pakistan engagement with GME to advance and safeguard their respective manifold national interests.

The India–Pakistan Peace Process

The India–Pakistan Peace Process

Chaungtha, a new Middle Miocene mammal locality from the Irrawaddy Formation, Myanmar

We describe here a mammalian assemblage originating from the locality of Chaungtha (Irrawaddy Formation, Myanmar). It represents one of the rare descriptions of a precisely located, in space, vertical section and time, fossil mammal fauna from the Irrawaddy Formation. Classically the fossil record of Irrawaddy Formation is essentially known from isolated fossils of imprecise or unknown provenance, especially concerning the stratigraphic position of the fossils along several hundred meter thick sections. The Chaungtha faunal association consists of the rhino Brachypotherium fatehjangense, the pig Conohyus thailandicus, the ruminants cf. Siamotragulus sanyathanai, cf. Siamotragulus sp. and a gomphotheriid proboscidean. This assemblage indicates that the locality is Miocene in age, and not Late Eocene as previously claimed, and roughly contemporaneous with the Chinji Formation of India–Pakistan (ca. 14–11 Ma) and with the Mae Moh Group of northern Thailand. The Chaungtha fauna, even if it displays regional characteristics, shows a strong resemblance to those of the Middle Miocene of India–Pakistan and of Thailand and reinforces the idea that South-East Asia and Pakistan were part of the same biogeographical province during the Middle Miocene.

Cooperative airborne monitoring: Opening the skies to promote peace, protect the environment, and cope with natural disasters

Few arms control scholars or practitioners are familiar with the Open Skies Treaty and other cooperative airborne monitoring programmes. Yet the Treaty only began full-scale implementation on 1 January 2006. All NATO members and much of the former Warsaw Pact region are subject to overflights. According to the quotas specified by the treaty, Russia and the United States each are subject to up to 42 annual confidence-building overflights annually by planes equipped with cameras and other sensors, though there will be only four overflights in 2006. Other parties to the treaty have smaller overflight quotas. This is progress, but there are a host of new applications for airborne monitoring regimes that have barely been explored. This article summarizes the history and current status of Open Skies, indicating its strengths but also highlighting its weaknesses. It recommends future uses for cooperative airborne monitoring. Open Skies regimes can be an effective tool in many conflict areas including India–Pakistan and the Horn of Africa. They also have enormous potential for surveying the environment, verifying environmental agreements, evaluating degradation, and natural disaster assessment.

HLA‐C molecular characterization of a Lebanese population and genetic structure of 39 populations from Europe to India–Pakistan

Lebanon is located at a continental crossroad between Europe, Africa, and Asia. This region has been the center of wide-scale movements of populations as well as the theater of genetic and cultural trade off among neighboring populations. In this study, HLA-C alleles were characterized by a PCR-SSOP (sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes) hybridization protocol in a sample of 97 Lebanese. A total of 23 alleles were identified with four predominant, Cw*0401, Cw*0602, Cw*0701/06, and Cw*1203, accounting for almost 60% of HLA-C allele frequencies. We included the Lebanese data into a broad analysis of the HLA-C genetic structure of a large set of populations located in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Our results indicate that Lebanese exhibit an intermediate genetic profile among the populations from the Middle East, which constitute a rather homogeneous genetic group. In Europe, a high correlation coefficient is found between genetic and geographic distances. In this continent, we also identified a significant genetic frontier following a north-east to south-west axis. This frontier cuts through the Alps and the Pyrenees, thus separating the north-western European populations from those located in the eastern and Mediterranean areas. Finally, the populations from India - Pakistan are very heterogeneous, particularly the Dravidians. Their differentiation has probably been caused by rapid genetic drift under complex influences of cultural, linguistic, and/or religious barriers. Overall, the results show that the HLA-C genetic patterns of these three geographic regions, i.e., the Middle East, Europe, and India-Pakistan, have been shaped by very different genetic histories.

Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India (review)

Reviewed by: Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India Dia Mohan Ravina Aggarwal . Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 305, illustrated. $76.45 (Hb); $23.95 (Pb) Beyond Lines of Control is based on fourteen years of Ravina Aggarwal's research among people who live in Ladakh district along the line of control (LOC) between India and Pakistan – one of the most contested borders in the contemporary world. In this book, Aggarwal explores cultural performances, asking how they negotiate borders that demarcate states of being and becoming. At the same time, she argues that borders are sites where people enact their versions of "territory, sovereignty, and international policy" (15). [End Page 245] Aggarwal's book is significant for a number of reasons. First, the author draws on ethnographic material and historical sources to show why the LOC, should be recognized as a place historically formed out of plural identities, multiple conquests, and cooperation rather than from the India–Pakistan or Hindu–Muslim conflict that has become the stereotypical image of the region. In particular, she focuses on the complex emerging relations between Buddhists and Muslims in the Ladakh region to show how community is formed as a simultaneously inclusive and exclusive construction. Second, drawing on ethnographic material, the author shows that borders between places, identities, and states of being (such as between death and rebirth, purity and pollution, observer and observed) are not natural or inviolate in social practice. For the author, borders are sites of performances of power through "daily dramas of chauvinism," on the one hand, and dynamic acts of liminality and contestation, on the other (3). As such, borders produce intimate experiences of nation and what she calls "border subjectivity" (3). Third, readers, regardless of their political proclivities, will recognize here the violence, inhumanity, and ultimate futility of expecting people to live within the fixed boundaries of nations or of gender, religious, and caste identities. To study power relations along the border, Aggarwal chooses not conventional concepts of security and governance but people's production and reception of staged cultural performances such as national holidays, festivals, wedding and funerary rites and feasts, films, songs, and archery competitions. She explores these as "national and ethnic acts of selective exclusion and inclusion" which produce further lines of control bred in "the borderlands that surround" the LOC (17). The first chapter analyses the meaning of interruptions in Independence Day ceremonies, officially aimed at memorializing the birth of a unified nation. In the aftermath of the Kargil War of 1999, the LOC was n ot an abstract symbol of enduring conflict. Staged in the proximate shadow of the LOC, Independence Day celebrations in Ladakh could not neatly affirm the official narrative of unity. The spectre of unsettled claims to unity was overwhelming. Further, in the context of Ladakhi claims for regional autonomy from the governance structure of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the author traces another unsettled boundary of more immediate relevance to Ladakhis. With the foundation of the Ladakhi Autonomous Hill Development Council in 1995, she argues, Ladakhis gained autonomy in form but not substance. As Ministers of Kashmir continue to be chief guests for flag-hoisting ceremonies in Ladakh instead of Hill Council leaders, public performances underscore ongoing negotiations with unsettled lines of control. Starting at the LOC, Aggarwal uncovers multiple constructions of centre– margin relations demarcating "true Muslims" and "true Buddhists," insiders and outsiders (90). For example, she shows how Ladakhi Buddhists articulated claims of being "true patriots" in relation to secessionist Kashmiri Muslims (45). Muslims returning from new religious learning in Iran and Iraq to [End Page 246] Ladakhi contexts of Muslim and Buddhist cohabitation, demarcated difference with a new focus on Buddhist polyandry, alcohol consumption, singing, and dancing. In turn, community borders were redrawn in Buddhist collective drinking rituals (82). With Muslim condemnation of singing, a Mon (lowest Buddhist caste of traditional musicians) wedding ceremony took on a larger meaning because the hosts chose to seat their own caste members higher than members of higher castes, explicitly breaking prescribed rules of hierarchy...

Sino-Pak ‘Entente Cordiale’* and India

The rationale behind ‘Sino-Pak Entente Cordiale: A Look into the Past and Future’ is to stimulate reflection and open debate on this sensitive topic. The article analyses the three Indo-Pak wars and the India–China boundary conflict in historical and geopolitical contexts to explore whether there is a correlation between these and the formation of an entente between China and Pakistan. The resulting perspectives have been further supported by China's military assistance to Pakistan, the nuclear and missile proliferation in the subcontinent as well as the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. In conclusion, the general framework of the article helps us to understand the fact that India–Pakistan military engagement continues to serve Chinese strategic interest regionally as well as globally. Therefore, for India, the policy of engagement with both Pakistan and China on all fronts including trade and commerce is the best option—for the policy of engagement has been successful in mellowing down the tensions between the triangle.

Improving Indo-Pakistan relations: international relations theory, nuclear deterrence and possibilities for economic cooperation

The India–Pakistan relationship, after the overt nuclearisation in May 1998, the Kargil Conflict of 1999, the border mobilisation of 2002 and the continuing insurgency in Kashmir, remains tense. This paper explores the possibility of economic cooperation—including both trade and common infrastructure projects—taking place and spilling over into security cooperation. It analyses why past economic cooperation was so minimal, and why the only major agreement, that on the Indus basin waters, did not lead to deeper economic or security cooperation. Viewing the India–Pakistan relationship through the concepts of cumulative relative gains sensitivity, trade expectations and common projects, drawn from recent international relations theory literature, the paper argues that economic cooperation between the two depends on either prior security cooperation or, as a substitute, de facto deterrence. Nuclear deterrence now being a reality, the paper argues that, contrary to what may appear to be the case on the surface, the cumulative relative gains sensitivity of both sides, especially Pakistan, can now be reduced to enable economic cooperation that has the potential to create positive security spillovers.

The protean polis and strategic surprises: do changes within India affect South Asian strategic stability?

In this article, we view India not as a unitary rational actor—the conventional conceptualisation in strategic studies—but rather as a liberal democratic polis composed of the three arenas of civil society, political society and the state. We seek answers to two related questions. The first pertains to the changes that are currently underway in Indian state and society. What is the probable impact of these internal dynamics upon strategic stability in the region? We restrict our analysis to the four most important factors in each of the three political arenas. The answer we arrive at is that the majority of factors making up the internal dynamics of contemporary India either enhance regional stability or, at best, have a mixed impact upon it. Our second concern is to discern the sources of strategic surprises from an Indian perspective. Are the stimuli for strategic surprises from the Indian perspective more internal or external? We conclude that the two India–Pakistan crises since overt nuclearisation in 1998—the 1999 Kargil Conflict and the 13 December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament—presented a strategic surprise for India, not Pakistan. Far from being surprised, Pakistan could be considered the prime mover behind these two strategic surprises.

International Relations Theory and the India–Pakistan Conflict

International Relations Theory and the India–Pakistan Conflict