The International Affairs Association

of the University of Pennsylvania

Entries Tagged as 'Akshay's Cogitations'

The future looks bleak for the Euro

May 20th, 2010 · No Comments

After a long hiatus from the blog, I hope to be far more regular over the course of this summer and fall. Today I wish to blog on the recent events concerning the European economy and the Euro. The decline of the Euro has dominated the news for much of the past couple of weeks. [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Uncategorized

Akshay’s Cogitations- Profiling for security

January 29th, 2010 · No Comments

I have taken a writing seminar on terrorism and civil liberties this semester and today we discussed the issue of racial profiling. Many of us thought that it did make sense to focus special screening on a section of the global population that come from regions involved in exporting terrorism. Since most terrorist suspects trace [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion · Uncategorized

Afghanistan’s Presidential run-off

October 25th, 2009 · No Comments

The Afghan elections have been fraught with problems from the very beginning. It was expected that any election in Afghanistan would involve a degree of fraud and those suspicions have now been confirmed by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). Hamid Karzai who had initially secured a comfortable victory (54.6% of the votes) now has [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion · Uncategorized

Berlusconi loses immunity

October 18th, 2009 · No Comments

The words that come to mind when one thinks of Silvio Berlusconi are flamboyant, extravagant and opulent. These are words that you may associate with a movie star or a sports person but certainly not a prime minister. For years, Berlusconi has defied all common perceptions of a figure of authority. His widespread popularity is [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion · Uncategorized

Can the west still rely on Pakistan to defeat the Taliban?

October 11th, 2009 · No Comments

In the past year, it has become rather difficult not to use violence and Pakistan in the same sentence. Just yesterday, a group of militants stormed the Pakistan military headquarters in Rawalpindi and held army officials as hostages. This audacious siege lasted nearly 20 hours and was conducted in broad daylight. Moreover, the fact that [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion · Uncategorized

Mexico’s Drug War

October 8th, 2009 · No Comments

Since the beginning of this decade, Mexico has become an important member of the fast expanding consortium of potential economic powerhouses. Mexico’s economic progress has been highly impressive but like nearly all developing economies Mexico’s path to the status of an economic superpower is riddled with obstacles. The one obstacle that I would like to [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion · Uncategorized

Clash of the Titans- Should we be concerned of the growing hostility between India and China?

October 4th, 2009 · No Comments

While talking of emerging economic powers, it is rather hard to frame a sentence without including the words ‘China’ and ‘India’. However, the topic I am going to cover in this blog is not about the two countries being the engines of economic growth but the growing political tension between Beijing and New Delhi.
China and [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion · Uncategorized

Akshay’s Cogitations: Should the west change its attitude towards Iran?

September 30th, 2009 · No Comments

Not one to deviate from the status quo, I would like to stick with the topic of the UN General Assembly. Of the numerous issues that were brought up, I would like to write about the issue of nuclear disarmament.
The Security Council adopted a resolution that pushed for nuclear disarmament. It is no doubt [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Akshay's Cogitations · Opinion

Jay Raghavan (President) | Eric Lemor (Vice President) | Adam Behrens (Secretary) | Manfred Collado (Intercol) | Payal Sobti (Special Events)