Search

Today, Afghanistan finds itself in the cross hairs of a security vacuum and a near-failed state, where the increasing radicalisation of its populace appears to be an inevitable reality. Despite the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 by the allied forces, it was able to resurge as a powerful non-state actor from 2006 onwards, under the leadership of Mullah Omar. However, that failed to prevent the emergence of other terrorist groups, like the Islamic State—Khorasan Province (ISKP), whose formation in 2015 heralded the beginning of the ongoing rivalry between the two organisations. Even though tracing their origin to terrorist outfits such as the Afghan Taliban and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), ISKP terrorists who formed the Khorasan branch of Islamic State (ISIS) consider the Hanafi-based organisations not ‘extremist enough’. Furthermore, the ISKP leaders denigrate the Taliban for their ethno-nationalist ambitions that fail to align with its pan-Islamic and extremist version of Salafist Islam. The ideological conflict, reinforced by resource-based competition and dynamics introduced by other jihadist groups such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and TTP, and the state actors like Pakistan, will continue to worsen the geostrategic and humanitarian crises unfolding in the country, with broad regional implications.

The authors offer andolan/protest imaginaries, meditations that move between the heady inspirations of current protests and the stultifying violence of state practices in South Asia. Each contributor speaks of sight lines of possibility and peril, even as they struggle to inhabit a divided and ravaged landscape. For Paromita Vohra and Anjali Arondekar, andolan gardens grow into supply chains that may or may not create food for thought and struggle. Ayesha Kidwai's dream of a multilingual university accompanies the protest dialogues of activists Diti and Vihaan. Suryakant Waghmore's journey of caste and voice provides the counterpoint to Mir Suhail's images of fury, joy, and death. Together, the authors move toward justice.

Emerging as a destabilising factor for the Arab world and the Western powers in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has over time established itself as a strong regional power. Standing tall in the face of isolationism, threats, sanctions and wars, it has cleverly embedded itself across the region. Taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the Arab Spring, it has solidified its base of loyalists in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Palestine. Despite the economic instability and upheaval, it has continued to expand its power in the region.

Dealing at length with debates that surrounded the birth of JNU and UGC, Ayesh Kidwai says that the debate about JNU was essentially in the context of what kind of university was to be established and what would be its main characteristic—affiliating university or purely residential university? Those who favoured the establishment of a university named after the first Prime Minister of the country wanted to create a university which would promote the ideals of secularism, social justice and democracy. The university is the space where critical thinking is expected to bloom. The debate about the UGC was in the context of whether a central body like the UGC would be meaningful, given the social fact of diversity in the country. She revisits those debates in her essay.

Fuzzy Graphs are used for analyzing and modeling levels of informationin real-time systems (simple or complex networks). A community(network) is formed when human eProfiles (nodes) have links (edges)and interactions with each other. Considering multiple medium ofcommunications like email, chatting and short message service (SMS)in the network, it will make the graph more complex (dense graph orforest). To address this issue in this paper analyzes those humancommunities with the help of fuzzy graphs and highlights the status ofindividuals in a human community. Max-Min Composition (fuzzyrelation) was applied along with statistical analysis on fuzzy graphs ofhuman community. Interaction Index (II) is used to estimate the intensityof communication and Role Index (RI) determine the participation statusof individual in a human community. All this analysis will be used inour research and development of Community Algorithm, which will beused as a tool that will help in identifying, analyzing, manipulating,monitoring, and transforming human communities based on humaneProfiles.