July 8, 2021
ISLAMABAD: A two-day International Conference on ‘Institutionalization of Hindutva in India: A Regional Security Perspective’ was organised in Islamabad on July 6-7, 2021. President Dr Arif Alvi inaugurated the conference with his keynote speech.
Speaking to the audience, the president emphasised the impact of human biases on state policies and elaborated upon Islamophobia, racial segregation, underpinning genocide, and demographic changes in the Indian-occupied Kashmir.
He said the solution to the excesses of Hindutva lies in building intellectual capacity of all sections of the Pakistani society. Prof Dr Lubna A Ali spoke about the death of democracy in India due to institutionalization of Hindutva based on exclusionary politics that led to the transformation of Indian state and society in fundamental ways.
By Nimmi Jayathilake
Regional Centre for Strategic Studies
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia has adversely affected all domains of social, economic and political life in the region. This global pandemic which engulfed every nook and corner of the world in the wink of an eye, entered South Asia in March 2020. By the beginning of the second quarter it had spread to all South Asian countries to a varying degree. The shock injected to South Asia by COVID-19 resulted in closed education institutes, stalled factories, idle ports, empty roads, and life standstill, at least initially. It filled hospitals and deserted public spaces, reversing the process of globalization to “slowbalization”.