Japan

AUKUS—the new trilateral security arrangement between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom has increased the chances of a split in the transatlantic alliance by making a clear distinction between the roles of the maritime and continental spheres. The military pact has reduced the military role of Quad in the Indo–Pacific. A ruptured West and a weak Quad are likely to make China and Russia happy.

Primarily based on archival research, especially an unpublished diary of Nicobarese stalwart leader John Richardson, this article gives a glimpse of the sufferings that the Nicobarese endured under the Japanese colonial regime during World War II. The regime exposed the indigenes to war, slavery, torture, and executions. At the same time it engendered leadership in the Nicobar Islands which consolidated these historically isolated people into a community and ended their prolonged economic and sexual exploitation.

India's War: The Making of Modern South Asia 1939-1945 by Srinath Raghavan, New Delhi: Allen Lane, 2016; pp xvii+554, ₹699.

The official relationship between India and Japan has now been elevated to a "global" and "strategic partnership." Understanding this qualitative leap in India-Japan ties is less easy than it looks. An origin story of the India-Japan relations explains how its state today is a reflection of the way Japan has changed in the last half a century.