Author: Pranjal Khandelwal

The participation of other nations has highlighted the transition of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from a primarily bilateral territorial issue to a global conflict.  In the recent announcements by the leaders of Germany and the United States, reversing their previous reluctance to provide Kyiv with offensive armored vehicles and deploying potent new instruments in Ukraine’s quest to recover land lost to Russia, both countries will respectively send tank contingents to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s declaration that he will send Leopard 2 tanks was accompanied by US President Joe Biden’s official statement that he would provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks…

In recent times, China has displayed a clear shift in diplomatic approaches, if not in its policies yet. This shift was orchestrated by the replacement of its Foreign Minister from Zhao Lijian to Qin Gang in December last year. After this, Zhao Lijian was declared the deputy director of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs. The shift took place around the same time as the first in-person summit held by President Xi Jinping and Vice President Joe Biden in Indonesia, announcing the path for re-engagement of their bilateral ties. While the shift in personnel is not fairly recent, what…

Post facing one of the worst natural disasters of the last decade in South Asia, Pakistan is still struggling to bring its citizens to their feet. One-third of the nation was inundated, around 15,000 people were killed or wounded, and 8 million were uprooted. More than 2 million dwellings, 13,000 kilometers of roads, 439 bridges, and over 4 million acres of farmland were wiped out or damaged. As a direct result of these disasters, an estimated 9 million additional individuals may be thrown into poverty. While millions in Pakistan stand affected owing natural disasters, the international community has come together…

India’s new age of tourism commences with the announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘World’s longest river cruise’. The 18-suite, three-deck MV Ganga Vilas is the newest endeavor in a government-promoted trend of cruise tourism in India. Modi welcomed the Ganges cruise industry as a “landmark occasion”. The MV Ganga Vilas sailboat has a length of 62 meters, a width of 12 meters, and a draught of 1.4 meters. All 18 apartments include floor-to-ceiling windows that provide river views around the clock. The cruise exudes luxury and costs ₹50 to 55 Lakhs ($65,200 approx.) per passenger. The exquisite journey would…

Art is a medium through which one expresses their agency, their experiences, emotions or imagined narratives. In its most simple form, art can give us an insight into the image of oneself and of society. While art does project a subjective understanding of a situation, that personal narrative in the larger scheme contributes to the identity of this artist by bridging the gap between imaginative expression and action. Expressing one’s experience through visual language can illuminate ideas differently than one can with words. (Muhr, 2020) Costumbrismo is a historical Latin American and Spanish form of art that represents the local…