Changing India-Japan Relations in the Post-Cold War Era
The end of the Cold War has not only brought about changes at the global level, but has also influenced regional and bilateral relations in a significant way. In Asia, India and Japan are the two important countries affected by such change. Consequently their relations underwent significant changes during the last decade. Whereas Japan made a major shift in its foreign policy from “commercial liberalism” to “reluctant realism”, India through its “look east” policy and structural reforms has made new orientations in its policy.’
Indo-Japanese Economic Relations in The 90s
APANESE economic relations with India h a d been of J traditional, strategic and essential nature. As a matter of fact, India's trade and investment relations were established in old times. "The teaching of Buddha which contributed much to shape India's economic, social and cultural attitudes reached Japan in the middle of the 6th century"'. Then "Indian textiles were first introduced into Japan with Buddhism around the seventh century"2. But modern commerce] however, started much later when Japan came out of isolation a t the end of Tokugawa era3.Trade then came up with the s tar t of Meiji Restoration period. During the seventh decade of the 19th century trade relations between India and Japan were confined t o exports of cotton, twist and yarn from India and imports were limited to copper of Japan. But thereafter, composition of Indo-Japanese trade underwent a sea-change. With this backdrop, the present study reviews India's economic relations particularly after the initiation of India's economic liberalisation policy to examine how far India's NEP has improved the existing growth and pattern of India's economic relations with Japan. The study is divided into THREE parts. First part analyses trends in Indo-Japanese trade. Second p a r t discusses IndoJ a p a n e s e investment relations and third par t analyses newly emerging trends in regard to Japanese ODA to India.
Arab Uprisings and the Outstanding Return to Democracy: Tunisia as a Model
In the wake of the Middle Eastern crises, the Tunisian case in focus has been doted as a unique phenomenon being that it was the Genesis of the revolution that ultimately spread across the Middle East like wild fire, but has eventually heralded a new dawn as democracy has incidentally returned to the Empire. This literature therefore looks closely at the extent to which the ‘DignityRevolution’ has been instrumental in the Middle East uprisings, which have brought an end to dynastic autocracies. The literature zeros in on the Tunisian uprising which has attracted global concerns, sympathy and has sparked interests in the international arena. The literature finds that the people hold colossal prospect in the uprising and its resultant effect, as it paved the way for the revolutionist to generate, gather and disseminate information on the condition of the entire region to the international community. The people in this context were of utmost importance and played a very crucial role in the creation of awareness, mobilization of protesters and utmost determining the direction of the uprising and also ensuring a speedy return to democratic rule. The paper submits that the role of the people in ensuring that the ruins of the uprising is not left littering around and democracy restored is highly commendable and should be a model for all other Arab countries involved in the revolution.