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Achin Vanaik

Achin Vanaik

Email: achin.vanaik AT gmail dot com

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Peace & Security
Achin Vanaik

Professor of International Relations and Global Politics, Delhi University

Vanaik is one of the leading analysts on globalisation, democracy and security issues in South Asia, a renowned specialist on nuclear arms, and and a co-founder of the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND), and South Asians Against Nukes. As well as a recognised academic, Vanaik also writes regularly for various national newspapers and was formerly the assistant editor of the Times in India. He is a co-recipient, with Praful Bidwai, of the International Peace Bureau's Sean McBride International Peace Prize for 2000.

Nuclear disarmament, nuclear weapon free zones, Indian security & foreign policy, Indian communalism

He is a co-recipient, with Praful Bidwai, of the International Peace Bureau's Sean McBride International Peace Prize for 2000.

English

Achin Vanaik is frequently interviewed and contributes to The Telegraph (Calcutta), and The Hindu.

Selected publications: 
New Nukes
Selling US Wars

Recent content by Achin Vanaik

Accepting Fait Accompli (25 May 2011)

India should not use the Mazen-Beilin understandings of October 1995 as a base for foreign policy regarding the Israel - Palestine conflict. Any outline of parameters based on this document endorses brutality, illegality and voraciousness of colonial rule.

Book review - Maoist and Other Armed Conflicts. (25 May 2011)

The authors provide a remarkably comprehensive and lucidly written survey of the armed conflicts currently taking place within India.

The Nuclear Crisis in Japan: a Wake-Up Call for India (31 Mar 2011)

The Japanese crisis is a wake up call for India, which is currently building of one of the world's largest nuclear power plants at Jaitapur, despite massive popular protest. When such a disaster can occur in an industrially advanced country like Japan, India, whose atomic agency is notorious for its poor safety standards, needs to rethink its nuclear ambitions.

On No Fly Zones as a form of external military intervention (31 Mar 2011)

Should foreign powers ever claim the right to intervene or should the people of a country overthrow their own dictators? Do interventionists not always have ulterior motives that could undermine the people's sovereignty over their struggle and it's outcomes?

Indian anti-nuclear group demands moratorium on new reactor construction (16 Mar 2011)

Around a hundred thousand people perished in Chernobyl. The toll from the nuclear disaster in Fukushima is likely to be high. The CNDP demands a moratorium on all further civilian nuclear activities in India and thorough review and transparent audit of the safety performance of all nuclear reactors.

Video: Re-orienting the Left: India (23 Jan 2011)

No single political movement in India should assume that it represents the nucleus of a radical left alternative, but be ready to build principled alliances.

The Issue of Nuclear Terrorism (29 Apr 2010)

The hyped up discourse at this month's nuclear summit centred on preventing the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-state actors or “irresponsible” state actors, thus skirting away from the primary problem – that of state terrorism in both its nuclear and non-nuclear forms.

The three legacies of Darwin (14 Jan 2010)

The legacy of Darwin is not only the knowledge that there is a biological continuum between the animal and the human worlds, but also that there is a link between culture and nature. If only mainstream economics could learn from the life sciences which Darwin did so much to nourish, it might recognise that you cannot have unlimited growth in a finite world.

What's behind Obama's rhetoric of nuclear restraint? (5 Oct 2009)

The discourse of concern about nuclear non-proliferation by the biggest and most obscene of all nuclear culprits – the US – serves admirably as one line of attack on countries like Iran and as a disguise for the US’s deeper and wider motives in West and East Asia.

The left must keep left (19 Jun 2009)

Perhaps the single most significant consequence of the recent elections is the dramatic decline of the reformist left of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - CPM. This decline was sharpest in West Bengal and was undoubtedly related to the tragedies of Singur and Nandigram for which Buddhadev Bhattacharya bears principal responsibility.

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