India is seriously thinking about the estalishment of military base in Tajikistan. Philip Sen is arguing that “the significance of this region for India’s security is immense. It is close to areas where scores of camps for jihadist and anti-India terrorist groups are based, and it is in the proximity of territory where Pakistan and China are engaged in massive military cooperation. Besides, Tajikistan is in Central Asia, a gas-rich region in which India has growing interests.”

BBC company had some troubles in dealing with Tajik government. Gerald Brown reports on the decision of Tajikistan government to turn down the application of BBC to re-establish the FM Radio relay stations in Tajikistan capital. He talks about the reasons of the turn down. The government announces that the decision to turn down the application was made because there were no special agreements between the government of Tajikistan and UK. The author thinks that there is a political reason. He says that ‘President Emomali Rakhmonov shut down many privately-owned newspapers and radio and TV stations in the country after rioting in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan in March 2005 and the uprising in Andijan, in Uzbekistan, in May that year.’

The terrorists became active in the last several weeks. On 7th of August one of the Islamists blew himself up in the northern part of the country. New metro woman is wondering if the growing activity of the terrorists in this region is in connected to what is going on in Lebanon and the recent visit of Mahmud Ahmadinejad. She argues that the ‘violence in the Middle East could be angering the IMU and giving them an excuse to cause trouble’.

The author on the Ismailism blog is talking about the Chinese Ismailis who live in the Tajik Autonomous District in China’s north western Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region. There is a good post, where the author talks about the difficulties of practicing Ismailism in China and compares the Ismailis of China with their fellows in Tajikistan. The author reports that ‘under Chinese law children are forbidden from attending the mosque up to the age of 18 and Chinese authorities do not allow the Fourth Aga Khan (the Ismaili spiritual leader) to offer any aid to the Tajik Autonomous District.

Ballet Afsaneh, the professional performing arts ensemble of the Afsaneh Art & Culture Society, launched the Tajik Dance Initiative (TDI). Over the next two years, with the help of the artists, volunteers and foundation partners, the project will support the research and development of dance and related arts in Tajikistan. Recently a group of people from this project posted a video clip of some traditional Badakhshani dancing and gave some information about their visit to Gorno-Badakhshand.

There was put some statistics about Tajikistan. Tajikistan by the ranking of FIFA is on the 116 place among the world teams and in country population ranking is on 99th place. The percentage of divorces is 16% (Divorces (as % of marriages), which is one of the lowest in the world.