Sakaal Group launches country’s first international journal

India & Global Affairs will play an important role in shaping public discourse and in evolving an informed consensus, especially when the country’s great strength as a plural and liberal democracy lies in the fact that public policy is shaped by a broad consensus based on a rich and healthy tradition of open debate, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, releasing the inaugural issue of the magazine. India & Global Affairs (IGA) is an international quarterly magazine from the Sakaal Group of Publications.

Published by the Pune based Sakaal Group, headed by Abhijit Pawar and edited by Dileep Padgaonkar, IGA seeks to track emerging trends in a broad range of areas such as diplomacy, strategic affairs, trade, technology, energy, environment and culture. It will assess their impact on states, businesses and societies largely, though not exclusively, from an Indian perspective. IGA also has an exclusive arrangement with Foreign Affairs, the widely acclaimed journal of the New York based Council on Foreign Affairs.

IGA editor Dileep Padgaonkar revealed that Prime Minister Singh had not only encouraged the idea of having a magazine like IGA when he first discussed it with him during a South Africa tour, he had even taken an active interest in structuring it. Abhijit Pawar’s quest for journalistic excellence helped IGA become reality, said Padgaonkar. The magazine will provide a platform for influential people in governments and policy makers across the world, he added.

The 196 page magazine has six sections: In Focus (the cover story), Global Affairs, Doing Business, Muse & More (culture), Milestones and the exclusive section from Foreign Affairs. The quarterly international journal will start with a print run of 40,000 copies and it is priced at Rs 350 per copy.

In an exclusive article for IGA, Prime Minister Singh writes: “We want India to regain its due place in the comity of nations, as an open economy and an open society… As a country of one billion people, India cannot be in any list of exceptional countries as far as global rules, regulations and regimes are concerned… Our relations with our neighbours, including Pakistan, with the US, Russia, Japan, China, the European Union, ASEAN, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and several other countries have vastly improved. As our share of global trade and capital rises, as our economy becomes more globally integrated, we will become even more engaged with the global economy.”

In a 47-page cover story on Pakistan, the inaugural issue of the quarterly journal presents a series of articles on the inner dynamics of the trouble-torn country. Written by eminent Pakistani journalists and international scholars, the common thread running through the IGA cover story clearly indicates the imminent danger of Pakistan imploding.

Writing a post script to the cover story, Sushant Sareen, who also anchored the story, says: “Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is shocking, but not surprising... Even while Benazir was alive, Pakistan was already on the brink of descending into chaos. Perhaps her death will finally push Pakistan over the brink.”

Writing on political Islam, Khaled Ahmed, eminent Pakistani political analyst and consulting editor of The Friday Times, says: “Political Islam as a creed has been adjudged a failure by the scholars who study it, but no one denies its potential for destabilising the states where Muslim majorities live... The trajectory of the Muslim state is now familiar: It remains unstable till it becomes religious; after it becomes religious, it remains unstable till it becomes theocratic; after it becomes theocratic, it threatens its neighbours, Muslim and non-Muslim alike...”

In an article on the problems of Balochistan, Malik Siraj Akbar, Balochistan bureau chief of the Daily Times, focuses on the dangers of the Pakistani state using the Islamic card to stifle ethnic nationalism. Akbar concludes that it is leading to the radicalisation of secular and moderate sub-nationalities like the Baloch.

In a focus on the Pakistan Army and the ISI, German scholar Hein G Kiessling says that the fear of India becoming a superpower and exercising hegemony over South Asia has driven Pakistan’s military establishment and ISI operations since Partition in 1947.

Another highlight of the inaugural issue of IGA is an interview of Singapore statesman Lee Kuan Yew by Padgaonkar. Singapore’s minister mentor looks far into the future and predicts a “watershed change” in China 15-20 years from now, when the last of the Russian speaking, Soviet educated leadership would have given way to their Western educated successors, whose first foreign language would be English, a leadership which could be “very nationalistic’’ and more aggressive.

In the Global Affairs section, former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine explores the West’s perception of Asia: “Does the West perceive Asia as an emerging economic giant to contend with, or as breaking from the shadows of old colonial Europe?’’

Also planned is a 24x7 online edition – www.igamag.com – which offers expert comments on topical developments in a host of areas ranging from politics and business to strategic matters and societal change.