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April 28, 2024
 

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Gautaman Bhaskaran
For Gautaman Bhaskaran's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 21, 2001
Assault on India's symbol could fan new winds of war
T he Dec. 13 terrorist raid on India's Parliament in New Delhi has understandably drawn parallels with what happened in New York and the Pentagon on Sept. 11.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2001
Japan, India forging a counterbalance
India's explosion of a nuclear device in 1998 marred a fledgling relationship that New Delhi had had with Tokyo. Japan took the lead in condemning India at just about every world forum. This hit India hard diplomatically, and Tokyo's clamping severe economic sanctions against India had still greater ramifications.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2001
Sri Lanka's chance of ending conflict is bigger than ever
Ranil Wickremesinghe, the newly installed Sri Lankan prime minister, has been in a tense struggle to form a government of national consensus.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2001
Death penalty: an ineffective shortcut
A state-sponsored killing cannot be condoned under any circumstances. It is as barbaric and brutal as the one that an individual or a group of people may have committed. It is in this context that some U.S. doctors' willingness to help execute those prisoners condemned to die by giving them a lethal injection appears so reprehensible. The journal Annals of Internal Medicine recently found that one-fifth of the physicians and surgeons it questioned ready to play "hangmen."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2001
Maoists try to undermine Nepal's ties with neighbors
T he latest Maoist turbulence in Nepal is yet another chapter in the Himalayan kingdom's recent history of bloodshed and carnage, which began with the palace massacre in early June.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2001
The looming specter of nuclear terror
The fall of Kabul merely adds to the woes of a world that is increasingly worrying about deadly nuclear weapons falling into the hands of desperadoes.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 30, 2001
Cheers for Bhutto in Delhi a reminder of region's shifty politics
Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former president, played the rights cards during her seven-year reign, endearing her to India while ensuring that she was not alienated from her own people.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2001
Dismal outlook for Sri Lanka's president
The political crisis is Sri Lanka appears to be worsening, and in the latest government's call for a ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam -- fighting a long and bloody battle for the independence of the island's minority Tamil-speaking population -- one can sense a state of near panic, given the kind of terrorism that is now spreading the world over.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2001
Harassed leaders could play Kashmir card
T here is increasing concern that and the ongoing war in Afghanistan may well give India and Pakistan yet another reason to start a new war over Kashmir, a region they both claim as their own. In recent weeks, they have locked themselves deeper in their border conflict. Both countries, which have fought four battles for control of Kashmir since 1947, have a stockpile of nuclear weapons.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2001
Ideologues assault pluralistic curricula
Bitter controversies over history textbooks are not limited to Japan, where recent government approval of a new volume has provoked an uproar in South Korea and China, and, although with a more muted response, in Southeast Asia. In India, the government's effort to foist Hinduism on educational institutions has engendered severe criticism, too.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2001
India's hardliners wait as pressures wear out premier
When the Agra summit between India and Pakistan failed last month, it was widely feared that its biggest victim would be the Indian prime minister: Atal Bihari Vajpayee might have to go.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2001
Shades of hubris in Kumaratunga's political offensive
NEW DELHI -- The July 24 rebel attack on Sri Lanka's only international airport at Colombo further underscored that peace cannot be easily achieved in the island nation that has witnessed an ethnic crisis for almost two decades now. The minority Tamil-speaking people have been demanding an independent state in the northern and eastern parts of the country, which the Sinhala majority refuses to give.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2001
Jihad-inspired bloodletting in Kashmir stifles all peace moves
NEW DELHI -- Recent massacres in Kashmir share one feature: they are massacres of innocents, of men, women and children who have no political affiliations or aspirations. Their only crime was that they chose to live in Kashmir or happen to be passing through the state.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2001
Musharraf feathers military's power nest
NEW DELHI -- Everybody had expected Pakistan's chief executive, Pervez Musharraf, to appoint himself president. When that happened on June 20, most of the world -- barring the United States, which made a big noise -- accepted Musharraf's new title without batting an eyelid.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2001
Musharraf confronts the Kashmir folly
NEW DELHI -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's invitation to Pakistan's military ruler and now president, Pervez Musharraf, for talks -- after refusing to do so for two years -- is the best one could have hoped for in the volatile, nuclear-charged subcontinent.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2001
A prince who loved women and guns shatters course of a dynasty
NEW DELHI -- The massacre in Nepal's royal palace is intriguing to the core.
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2001
BJP's bond with nationalists quietly eases
NEW DELHI -- India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now begun to play a tune which is embarrassingly jarring to its much-touted Hindutva ("Hinduness") policy.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2001
India can't afford another border enemy
NEW DELHI -- India helped liberate Bangladesh from the tyrannical rule of Pakistan some three decades ago, but ties between the two neighbors have often been marked by suspicion, even hostility. This animosity have its roots in a boundary dispute and a smuggling issue, as well as illegal migration by desperately poor Bangladeshis into the Indian border states of Assam and Meghalaya.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2001
Indian politicians bought for a few good lakhs
NEW DELHI -- Time was when India's politicians never tired of bragging about their country's Internet revolution. But what happened the other week must have stopped them in their tracks and got them wondering whether such development was good for their political games and intrigues.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 16, 2001
Has cycle of peace begun?
NEW DELHI -- Sri Lanka's 18-year-old bloody ethnic crisis between Tamils demanding an independent homeland and the government has always been marked by hope. Even during some of the darkest days of the strife a little over a decade ago, there was always a glimmer of light. Then, New Delhi interfered militarily on the island against the very Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE which India -- or more specifically its southern state of Tamil Nadu -- had helped arm and train.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
In Japan, regional revitalization fails to halt population decline
Sakiyama elementary school in Tamba, Hyogo Prefecture, in March .Over the past decade, the government has directed efforts toward policies designed to give young people incentives to base themselves in rural areas.
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
Ukraine is far from doomed
When comparing Ukraine’s military situation in 2024 to Europe’s in 1941, Russia’s defeat seems entirely possible.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Tokyo's Koto Ward by-election a race unlike any other
Natsumi Sakai, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s candidate and one of four female candidates running in the by-election, touts her experience as a cancer survivor and midwife as having prepared her to tackle issues that women currently face.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Top U.S. and China diplomats talk tough amid warnings of new ‘downward spiral’
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Friday

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass
Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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