URB Scribbles

Dear Readers Bringing to you the third chapter of the China series. The first two being  Setting Off on a Hitchcockian Voyage: China I  and  Ambiguities of a Journey: New Delhi to Beijing   It requires mention at the outset that I take no authority to extrapolate my views and ideas to be the holistic, bracketed category of ‘Chinese Traffic Culture’. What follows is the most insignificant of opinions that I have culled out of my very superficial engagement with a small part of China for a short period of time. Infrastructure-awe has remained a recurrent phenomenon in the experiences of Indians travelling to China. I too was not an exception during my brief visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu this summer. Multi-layered elevated roads, a magnificent skyline, well calculated lanes and even better calculated riding on them, were all objects of awe, not because they are something beyond the world but simply because sights of similar magnitude are r...

Image Courtesy: Reuters, via VOANews After the border stand-off at Doklam came to an end under terms of agreement not yet clear, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has left for his three-day visit to China to attend the BRICS Summit. Modi is scheduled to stop at Myanmar for his first bilateral tour to the neighbouring nation on his return. The hour seems to be most opportune for a visit to Myanmar given the ongoing crisis in the Rakhine state. The Rakhine state in Myanmar has been occupying headlines since August 25, accruing to outbreak of violence triggered by an attack on police and army posts in the state’s western flinches, allegedly by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). ARSA, a militant group of the minority Rohingyas, claims the attack – apparently their largest so far – to be a pre-emptive, defensive move against the escalating high-handedness of the Burmese security forces over Rohingya civilian population in addition to the militant group. The matter h...