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Jaswant Singh

Jaswant Singh is the only person to have served as India’s finance minister (1996, 2002-2004), foreign minister (1998-2004), and defense minister (2000-2001). While in office, he launched the first free-trade agreement (with Sri Lanka) in South Asia’s history, initiated India’s most daring diplomatic opening to Pakistan, revitalized relations with the US, and reoriented the Indian military, abandoning its Soviet-inspired doctrines and weaponry for close ties with the West. His most recent book is Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence.


Commentaries by Jaswant Singh

  • Newsart for A Chinese Pivot?

    A Chinese Pivot?

    NEW DELHI – Is China, under its new president, Xi Jinping, undertaking its own diplomatic pivot, parallel to the United States’ “pivot to As…

  • Newsart for Crumbling BRICS

    Crumbling BRICS

    NEW DELHI – In 2001, when Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the world had h…

  • Newsart for The Road to Asian Unity

    The Road to Asian Unity

    NEW DELHI – Asia’s lack of institutions to ameliorate regional tensions is often lamented. But greater Asian unity may be arising by the bac…

  • Newsart for India’s Outrage

    India’s Outrage

    NEW DELHI – Last year ended for India on a note of public outrage that has burdened the country with anger, frustration, and pessimism. The …

  • Newsart for Asia Adrift

    Asia Adrift

    NEW DELHI – The year 2012 began with festering Chinese sovereignty claims in the South and East China Seas, but also with hope that a code o…

  • Newsart for Exit Afghanistan?

    Exit Afghanistan?

    NEW DELHI – In his victory speech to a rapturous crowd in Chicago following his reelection, President Barack Obama affirmed that America’s “…

  • Newsart for Burma to Myanmar and Back?

    Burma to Myanmar and Back?

    NEW DELHI – In ways big and small, Asia is still living with the tainted legacy of imperialism. Consider the debate now underway in Myanmar …

  • Newsart for NAM in Tehran

    NAM in Tehran

    NEW DELHI – Nowadays, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is no longer much of a movement. Since the Cold War’s end, it has fractured into a far …

  • Newsart for What Syria Means

    What Syria Means

    NEW DELHI – Syria’s agony has generated a variety of unproductive responses: verbal condemnation of the excesses of President Bashar al-Assa…

  • Newsart for Crippled Pakistan

    Crippled Pakistan

    NEW DELHI – The problems and dilemmas confronting Pakistan’s leadership – including a deepening vortex of mutual suspicions, sectarian killi…

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Recent comment received by Jaswant Singh

  • Crumbling BRICS

    Theetharappan Aswin: The dollar has to removed from world trading currency and Pound has to be made has currency for trading.Because the rate of dollars with many currency of many countries is falling down. So Bric nation…

  • Crumbling BRICS

    NS Prashanth: Africa's romance with China being a "new form of imperialism" is not very different from the role of many Indian companies either. Perhaps, India-China engagement with Africa are both of the same colo…

Books or recommendations by Jaswant Singh