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November 22, 2024
 

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Ramesh Thakur

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Ramesh Thakur
Ramesh Thakur is Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; adjunct professor, Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, Griffith University, and editor-in-chief of Global Governance from Jan. 1, 2013. He began writing for The Japan Times in 1998 as Vice Rector of the United Nations University.
COMMENTARY
Dec 20, 2011
India flaunts poverty of its moral leadership, brandishing an ad hoc, reactive nuclear policy
The Australian Labor Party has just endorsed, albeit narrowly, Prime Minister Julia Gillard's call to lift the contentious policy of the ban on uranium sales to India, although the latter is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
COMMENTARY
Oct 28, 2011
Global crises of democracy
In 2000, at the first U.N. millennium meeting in Tokyo, Gallup presented interesting results of a global public opinion survey. Most people, even in the mature Western democracies, believed their government was failing to represent them — refusing to heed their voices, looking after their own and corporate...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2011
Love and loathing of racial preferments Down Under
In 2009, in two articles published in the Herald Sun and the Herald and Weekly Times, columnist Andrew Bolt wrote that many light-skinned — that is, those who did not look Aboriginal — Australians had chosen to identify themselves as indigenous in order to gain material or professional advantage....
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2011
Libyan effect on protection
The invocation of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in Libya has drawn surprisingly intense criticism.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2011
Threats to the realization of India's potential
For all of India's many and weighty advantages and its present trajectory, a fatal stall cannot be ruled out.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011
Forecasts of robust middle-class growth are reason enough for Chinese, Indian optimism
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh noted recently that if present trends continue, India will become the world's third largest economy by 2025.
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2011
India scores a wrong-sided goal — again
Presented with a golden opportunity to rise and shine, India has an unmatched capacity to look prosperity firmly in the face, turn around, and walk off resolutely in the opposite direction.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2011
Mumbai attack a new cause to take offense
Three serial blasts in 12 minutes tore through India's commercial capital Mumbai last Wednesday evening, leaving 21 dead and over 140 injured.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2011
Dial Mladic for mass murder
The old saying about the importance of justice appearing to be done as well as being done is perhaps even more relevant to international than national politics.
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2011
India's stirring middle class
India is on the move, with millions climbing into middle class status and a growing pool of super-rich billionaires. Yet it also has more poor, hungry and illiterate people than any other country in the world; access to safe water and sanitation remains a pipedream for most people and disease is endemic;...
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2011
Realignment of Canada's political landscape
In the first election debate between the leaders of Canada's four political parties, opposition leader Michael Ignatieff of the Liberal Party attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the ruling Conservative Party for wanting to shut down anything he could not control.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2011
Way to institutionalize a system of integrity
When a career bureaucrat with a corruption charge pending against him was chosen to be the chief vigilance commissioner, the Supreme Court nullified the appointment to protect the "institutional integrity" of the CVC.
COMMENTARY
Apr 10, 2011
Realigned values help global order evolve
CANBERRA — On March 17, Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized the use of "all necessary measures," short of an invasion and occupation, "to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas": the first United Nations-sanctioned combat operations since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
COMMENTARY
Mar 20, 2011
Acting responsibly to save Libyan civilians
WATERLOO, Ontario — The responsibility to protect is the mobilizer of last resort of the world's will to act to prevent and halt mass atrocities and mitigate the effects of sovereignty as organized hypocrisy, as Stephen Krasner famously put it.
COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2011
America's rhetorical gap riles the Arab street
WATERLOO, Ontario — Writing in The New York Times on Aug. 20, 2002, Jeffrey C. Goldfarb quoted an Asian activist's conviction that "American democracy requires the repression of democracy in the rest of the world."
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2011
Exposing globalization's dark side
WATERLOO, Ontario — The pronouncement of "the end of history" may have been a tad premature, yet, in a flat world, globalization — the intensified exchange of goods, services, capital, technology, ideas, information, legal systems and people — has brought "the end of geography" closer.
COMMENTARY
Nov 30, 2010
Recalcitrant Indian state turns a corner
WATERLOO, Ontario — Writing here on March 13, 2005 ("The deep end of Indian state democracy"), I noted descriptions of Bihar's first city Patna as the capital of hell on earth, its Hobbesian quality of life with large-scale kidnappings for ransom as the only growth industry, the destruction of infrastructure...
COMMENTARY
Nov 5, 2010
South Korea uniquely suited to host G20
WATERLOO, Ontario — In Pittsburgh, Pa., a year ago, the leaders of the world's 20 leading countries declared that the Group of 20 summit would henceforth be the world's premier forum for international economic governance. The group meets again in Seoul on Nov. 11-12.
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2010
Japan's loss, America's gain?
WATERLOO, Ontario — At the inaugural Singapore Global Dialogue on Sept. 23-24, there was a sharp exchange between retired Chinese and Japanese officials. In response to a question after his opening keynote address, former Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan admonished Japan for its inexplicable stance...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2010
Pakistan's effect on Iran
WATERLOO, Ontario — The United States, no more but no less than other countries, tends to make self-centered assessments of other countries' policies. This is one reason Washington missed the Iran factor as the most likely explanation for Saddam Hussein's deliberate ambiguity about a weapons-of-mass-destruction...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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