BEIJING — The investigators descend on government agencies and corporate boardrooms. They interrogate powerful officials and frequently rebuke them for lacking zeal. Most of all, they demand unflinching loyalty to President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. They are the inspectors from the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and the humbling displays they have orchestrated recently in many of China’s most influential government agencies and largest corporations are the most prominent sign of their…
Posts published in “Day: October 27, 2016”
Top Communist Party leaders are gathering at a heavily guarded hotel in Beijing for four days, starting on Monday. The meeting is the “sixth plenum”, the sixth time the roughly 370 full and alternate members of the party’s present Central Committee have met since late 2012. Over the past three decades, sixth plenums have focused on ideology and “party building”, and this time those attending are expected to discuss stricter internal supervision of the organisation.…
The hottest government job in China this year has nothing to do with figuring out how to fix the country’s debt-ridden economy or helping President Xi Jinping revitalize the Communist Party for the 21st century. Instead it involves serving tea to visitors at the offices of a toothless political organization that’s barely been relevant since 1949. More than a million people had signed up to take China’s annual civil service examination as of the end…
LAHORE: Pakistan expects a decision from the World Bank within next 15 days on its petition seeking change in designs of two Indian run-of-the-river hydropower projects — Ratle and Kishan Ganga — through constitution of a court of arbitration under the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). Pakistan had objected to the construction and design of the 850MW Ratle and 330MW Kishan Ganga hydropower schemes, saying that both the projects would have adverse impacts on the flow…
The writer is a development consultant and public policy expert The 8th Brics (an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit which ended last Sunday was the first to be held under Narendra Modi’s prime ministership in Goa, India. The summit afforded Narendra Modi an opportunity to strut his leadership credentials on a wider scale. The declaration issued at the end of the conference was wide-ranging, befitting…
The writer is a graduate from a western European university. Isolating Pakistan seems to have become the-ball-all-and-end-all of Indian foreign policy. While playing host at the recent Brics summit in Goa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Pakistan as the ‘mothership’ of global terrorism. A few weeks ago, at the UNGA, New Delhi had dubbed Islamabad the ‘Ivy League of terrorism’. A country which has the ambitions to become a world power must think high instead…