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Praveen Swami

Praveen Swami

Indian Express

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Israel crushed Ayatollah’s regime, but stopping Iran’s nuke programme will need total overthrow

Israel and the United States are now betting that Iran’s leadership will acknowledge their military and economic weakness and return to the...

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is tearing LA apart—a city built by Mexican settlers in 1781

Chinese massacres, Zoot Suit beatings, Watts violence, and Rodney King riots show how Los Angeles has always been America's testing ground for racial...

11.06.2025 30

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Praveen Swami

Srinagar train reminds us Kashmir was secured by iron and rock, that’s how soldiers moved in

The war India really needs to win is to make Kashmir’s people secure, prosperous partners in the project of India. Each journey on the new train...

08.06.2025 4

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Praveen Swami

Lashkar’s renewed blossoming shows war hasn’t coerced Pakistan Army into giving up on Kashmir

Islamabad knows it cannot take Kashmir by force, and yet it persists in waging a war without an end. To give up the conflict would mean giving up the...

04.06.2025 20

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Praveen Swami

India paid for ignoring warnings in 1965 war. It can’t afford to repeat those mistakes today

Even though the Indian Army had repeatedly war-gamed attacks by Pakistan since at least 1956, Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh said the Pakistani...

01.06.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s corruption is eroding America’s global power. India can’t count on it

The goals India cares about—containing China, targeting jihadists in Pakistan, securing trade routes and energy—don’t seem to matter to Trump.

28.05.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Maoism became irrelevant to India’s working class much before Basavaraju’s death

Adivasis supported Maoists sometimes for tactical gain or to avenge state violence, but had little interest in the project of making a revolution.

25.05.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

India needs to focus on winning in Kashmir, not fighting Pakistan

Like it or not, the Pakistan Army has shown it is willing to fight. And this has given renewed hope to the pro-Pakistan constituency within Kashmir.

19.05.2025 8

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s Kashmir fixation is dangerous for India. New Delhi must begin preparing

Former US President John F Kennedy’s mediation effort on Kashmir in the 1960s had led Pakistan to sharpen its sword, not beat them into ploughshares.

14.05.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

For Pakistan Army, war is the performance of its nationhood. Ceasefire violation warns of new conflicts ahead

The end India should seek is the construction of Pakistan other than the country its generals and clerics have imagined into being. Furious words and...

11.05.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Away from LoC, General Munir is losing a far more fateful war within Pakistan

Faced with genuine political resistance in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the Pakistan military’s strategy is nearing irretrievable collapse....

07.05.2025 20

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Praveen Swami

Ending Indus treaty may hurt Pakistan’s poor, but it’ll also unite it with anti-India hatred

For obvious reasons, international support would be harder to recruit if India were seen as deliberately inflicting drought on millions in Pakistan.

04.05.2025 7

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Praveen Swami

Kashmir’s Leepa Valley is on fire. Is a new war brewing on the Line of Control?

While the Pakistan Army will suffer humiliation if the LoC is pushed westward, a war of attrition could well mean an escalation of terrorism within...

30.04.2025 4

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Praveen Swami

Five choices for Modi to restore India’s red line in Kashmir. Each is perilous

Islamabad has learned that it cannot win Kashmir. The purpose of its military is not to win Kashmir or make strategic gains for Pakistan but to...

25.04.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Shin Bet chief says Netanyahu wants to make Israel a police state. What it means for country

Ronen Bar’s affidavit shows Israel still has a core institutional resilience, and individuals of integrity, who can help prevent that outcome. The...

23.04.2025 4

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Praveen Swami

India’s finally getting key terror suspects extradited. Can prosecutors deliver justice?

The story of Ubaidullah Abdulrashid Radiowalla shows why Indian authorities have struggled to secure extraditions. The evidence is often murky, and...

22.04.2025 4

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Praveen Swami

West Bengal’s Waqf violence will have no winner. Don’t stoke flames that can consume you

The Trinamool government’s efforts to consolidate its ties to Islamic clerics inevitably made religion part of the language of politics.

16.04.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s economic coercion to secure US hegemony feels like it’s 1940s all over again

Through the massive tariffs imposed on China, journalist Will Dunn says, Trump is telling other powers that the price of access to America’s markets...

13.04.2025 9

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Praveen Swami

New round of Iran nuclear negotiations begins. Time to talk about Israel’s atomic bombs too

Trump and Iranian negotiators will have to find guarantees that address the concerns of Iran but also its adversaries like Israel and Saudi Arabia.

09.04.2025 8

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Praveen Swami

India, Pakistan are sleepwalking toward another crisis on the LOC

Tensions have been rising for weeks as jihadists from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir breached the LoC. Last month, two Indian soldiers were killed in...

06.04.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Coup rumours are circulating in Dhaka. Here’s why the army isn’t keen on it

Far from consolidating military authority, the coup of 1975 ushered in a brutal power struggle within its ranks.

02.04.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s cutting aid to prisons housing Islamic State cadres. Thousands have already escaped

Failure by nation-states to implement policies that include and empower vulnerable young people lies at the heart of why organisations like the...

30.03.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Centre might need to do business with J&K’s mainstream parties. Even if it’s painful for Modi

Ever since J&K lost its special status, the Awami Action Committee and the Ittihadul Muslimeen had escaped proscription, with New Delhi hoping its...

26.03.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Running buses won’t bring peace to Manipur. Govt must seek to engage, not erase

The anti-India insurgency in Manipur threw its weight behind reviving pre-Hindu cultural traditions and faith among the Meitei, excluding groups like...

23.03.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Pakistan doesn’t have enough troops for 2 fronts. It has to choose between LOC, Balochistan

The Pakistani state cannot and will not win unless it abandons the principles of colonial counter-insurgency, which have coated its institutional...

19.03.2025 4

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Praveen Swami

Germany has decided to defend itself. And its war-making rhetoric can spell doom

A fifth of the voters in Germany’s just-concluded elections voted for the neo-Nazi party Alternative für Deutschland, which wants to take the...

16.03.2025 6

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Praveen Swami

Balochistan train hijack is good news for Pakistan Army. It can step up military pressure now

In recent years, Balochistan has seen new democratic movements. While Pakistan Army may not welcome another insurgency, this is preferable to mass...

12.03.2025 6

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Praveen Swami

Trump to Biden–many US Presidents were mentally ill. It’s the elite who deal with the problem

A third of US Presidents between 1776 to 1974 demonstrated symptoms of clinically significant depression, bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse while...

09.03.2025 8

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Praveen Swami

Abdullah Öcalan’s appeal won’t end Türkiye’s long war with Kurdish minority

There’s a reason to be sceptical about Abdullah Öcalan's call for peace. Efforts to end the fighting in 1993, 1995-1996, and 2013-2015 all led...

05.03.2025 4

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Praveen Swami

Darul Uloom bombing shows the jihadist war is eating its own

A suicide bombing ripped through Pakistan’s Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary last week. It would soon celebrate 200 years of Sayyid Ahmad’s triumph...

02.03.2025 7

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Praveen Swami

Europe is imploding. Blame liberals for German elections, not Nazi terror

The far-right AfD becoming the second-largest formation in Germany's Reichstag raises serious questions about the growing challenges to the democratic...

26.02.2025 9

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s vision for America is apartheid South Africa—Musk ignites white nationalist dreams

From swathed privilege in apartheid South Africa to today’s US power corridors, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel laid the roots of Donald Trump’s radical...

23.02.2025 6

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Praveen Swami

Al-Qaeda’s last Indian soldier is imprisoned in Pakistan. Is the long jihad finally dead?

It's unclear when Mohammad Usman, a former resident of Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh, was incarcerated. But being an anti-India jihadist no longer...

19.02.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Lalit Maken to Tahawwur Rana—India’s first extradition battle still poses tough questions

The Lalit Maken assassination case set the template for charges of police mishandling of evidence and poor investigation, which have stained many...

16.02.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Resource-rich Congo is the first battle in New Cold War. India can’t miss out on cobalt

For countries like India, the stakes are enormous. To participate in the post-hydrocarbon global economy, the country needs secure and fair access to...

12.02.2025 5

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Praveen Swami

Elon Musk has seized on UK grooming gangs issue for his own cause, not for rape victims

The figure of the Pakistani immigrant sexual groomer is real—but also serves as a pretext for failing to address toxic youth masculinity and deep...

08.01.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Islamism & mental illness are simpler answers to New Orleans attack. They’re also misleading

Like other lone-wolf killers, the narrative around Shamsud-Din Jabbar is that he was seduced by online Islamist propaganda. While this is entirely...

06.01.2025 10

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s call to buy Greenland isn’t crazy. Makes perfect strategic sense

As geopolitical competition intensifies, Trump is determined to exercise more direct, physical control over America’s near neighbourhood.

25.12.2024 10

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Praveen Swami

US Cold War fixation let nuclear genie out of the bottle in Pakistan. Sanctions won’t help

Sanctions had first been imposed on the NDC in 1998 by Bill Clinton. And they were waived after 9/11 to enable counter-terrorism cooperation with...

22.12.2024 10

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Praveen Swami

Yoon’s failed coup shows the rise of democracy in South Korea is reversible

Elected on a program of Right-wing populism, Yoon stoked militarism to consolidate power. His opponent was repeatedly prosecuted. South Korea’s...

18.12.2024 20

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Praveen Swami

Khalil Haqqani assassination shows a power struggle in Afghanistan. It’ll have global fallout

Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani—brother to Jalaluddin, uncle to his heir Sirajuddin, and a key figure in the network responsible for over 1,000 suicide...

15.12.2024 10

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Praveen Swami

The Assad regime fell due to its own failures, not geopolitical plots. Syrians face new fears

Even though Tahrir al-Sham has promised to protect minorities, and to crush transnational jihadist groups in Syria, exactly what comes next is...

10.12.2024 6

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Praveen Swami

Taliban’s Afghanistan has become a giant prison for women. The world couldn’t care less

Following 9/11, former first lady of the US, Laura Bush, said, ‘The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.’...

08.12.2024 6

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Praveen Swami

It’s jihadists vs secularism in Syria again. Aleppo crisis is a dangerous new turning point

Members of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—or Commission for the Liberation of the Levant—brushed aside the Army’s 46 Regiment and captured Aleppo for the...

04.12.2024 6

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Praveen Swami

Arakan insurgents are on the cusp of seizing power in West Myanmar. India faces tough choices

The Arakan Army is now estimated to control eight-tenths of the province of Rakhine, raising speculation the region could be the first to be...

01.12.2024 10

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Praveen Swami

US must counter new Chinese cyber attacks. Remember how it lost nuclear monopoly?

Even if the cost of securing democracies against espionage is high, the price to be paid for not doing so could be catastrophic.

27.11.2024 50

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Praveen Swami

Pakistan’s Shia killings mark the collapse of its nationhood. Islamic State knows only war

There was little Shia-Sunni conflict in the pre-colonial era. In early 20th century, the struggle for political power sharpened the boundaries,...

24.11.2024 20

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Praveen Swami

Trump’s planning a war against illegal immigrants. Problem is, it was lost 70 years ago

Each wave of people arriving in America has been decried as unassimilable—only for them to establish themselves as agents of economic growth.

20.11.2024 20

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Praveen Swami

Kashmiri jihadists more resilient than we think. Rebuilding J&K Police is key to counter them

The new jihadists in J&K have harried Indian forces, staged a series of ambushes, and now begun to target Indian civilian infrastructure projects.

03.11.2024 3

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Praveen Swami

Is Donald Trump a fascist or clown? He’s just following the playbook

Trump’s rise has meant a hollowing out of the unstated social agreement on which all democracy rests. Even if he loses this election, repairing...

30.10.2024 40

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Praveen Swami