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With the foreign forces drawing down in Afghanistan, there is an inevitable loss offocus on the threat of terrorism in the highly vulnerable region of South Asia. But almost everycountry in the region, barring Bhutan, continues to confront the challenges of terrorism andinsurgency. Yet there appears little sense of the danger posed by terrorism, and its 'new' formsthat ride the wave of technology and the collapse of traditional state structures.

The expansion of PLA Navy submarine activity in South Asia is quite in keeping with a powerful navy’s need to familiarise itself with alien operating conditions.

The Observer Research Foundation, in partnership with the Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC), Naval Post-graduate School, California, USA, and the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), Pakistan undertook a project, Crisis and Escalation in South Asia: The 2002 India-Pakistan Military Standoff....

The rapidly changing battlefield—framed by emerging transnational threats and the rising influence of public opinion—has transformed military diplomacy; today the focus is shifting from traditional combat to joint multinational operations and non-combat activities. Since the early 21st century, China has modernised its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and expanded military diplomacy to protect the country’s interests. Using civil-military f

The South Asian region is witnessing some kind of democratic upsurge. For the first time, all the countries in the region have embraced democracy. Yet, democratic transitions in the region are filled with uncertainties and fragility. South Asian countries need to learn from each other's democratic experiences and support each other.

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) of Stanford University and the Observer Research Foundation, had co-sponsored a conference entitled "Does South Asia exist? - Prospects for Regionalism in South Asia." As the title suggests there was considerable and intense debate on this subject during the two-day conference.

The benefits of strengthening physical connectivity in a geographically contiguous region are increasingly being recognised. These links are expected to increase economic activity and people-to-people interaction, leading in turn to regional and sub-regional integration. In this backdrop, the Motor Vehicle Agreement (MVA) signed among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal is expected to facilitate cross-border movement of vehicles, thereby reducing

South Asia is one of the most populous region in the world, representing about 24 per cent of the world's population. Most countries in the region are in various stages of economic development, and aspire for regional economic integration.

Outlining the need for a concerted effort to deal with water challenges in South Asia, experts at a roundtable suggested that there was a strong reason to create collaborative rather than competitive frameworks.

US President Obama's top priority now is the crisis in West Asia, ISIS and Ebola, and India-US relations though, not inconsequential, is not on Washington's top priority now, according to Michael Kugelman of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC.

India's smaller neighbours are not as concerned about the reach, if any, of outside powers in the region. In this sense, the neighbourhood?s concerns about India are distinct from India's own concerns.

Current data suggests that the global community is far from achieving the 2030 agenda of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. By the end of 2019, 650 million people suffered from chronic hunger and 135 million experienced acute food-insecurity. Not all regions are equal: the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2020 found that some are experiencing less severe incidence of hunger on the GHI scale, compared to others. The most serious levels of

The late-first millennium BCE Arthaśāstra is popularly known for its vile recommendations—a perception that tends to overshadow its far more comprehensive and holistic message on state-building. While the treatise itself gives no geographical or chronological pointers, this paper takes a historicist approach to contextualise it in time and space to show that it was not a one-off product but the result of an entrenched tradition of enlightened

India can lead South Asia's war on terror by strengthening counterterrorism efforts but also lead the regional counterterrorism superstructure

Beyond personalities and politics, there is one basic question we need to ask ourselves: Why even 66 years after independence, is New Delhi's influence in its region shrinking instead of expanding?

India’s regional relations are almost all in states of distress. That’s a big problem for New Delhi.

India's exports would go down if economic sanctions are imposed on Sri Lanka as sought by some people in Tamil Nadu, affecting farmers, manufacturers and suppliers in the State, says former President of the India-ASEAN-Sri Lanka Chamber of Commerce.

Considering the great improvement in India's relations with Bangladesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his visit to Dhaka, should unilaterally offer to convert half of the $1 billion soft loan given to Bangladesh earlier into a grant and make the rest interest-free as a gesture of goodwill and friendship.

Many developing countries have transformed themselves from recipients into aid donors. Foreign aid donor tag is no longer exclusive to developed economies.

At a roundtable on "Understanding Contemporary Bangladesh", attended by vice-chancellors from nine universities of Bangladesh, the consensus view was that regional integration is not only beneficial for Bangladesh but for all of South Asia.

The SCO has so far not been a major factor in discussions about Afghanistan's stabilization. But there is a good possibility that Afghanistan will obtain observer status in the SCO. Given the differing agendas of the SCO and the US/NATO, Afghanistan's embrace of the SCO could greatly complicate reconstruction efforts.

The Taliban today undoubtedly has a stronger hold over how the US militarily plans to withdraw from the conflict in Afghanistan. This raises questions about the continuing challenges to security in South Asia—in particular, the influence of IS Khorasan (IS-K), the group’s Afghanistan avatar, and its rise both as an ISIS-aligned entity and a big-tent brand for various jihadist groups in the country. As the ‘Khorasan’ project of ISIS gets m

The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka have brought the island nation to the forefront of the global terrorism discourse. The attacks further demonstrate the change in the Islamic State from a territorial group to a sponsor of terrorism worldwide.

The South Asian region lacks a common plan of action to deal with the impact of climate change despite possessing common ecological habitat. Africa and Latin America fare a tad better on this front. India should take the lead to create elaborate policies for joint management of common resources and ecological preservation.

The Nepal-India-Sri Lanka initiative could be used to pursue better people-to-people relations.

There is a need for a new regional arrangement in South Asia to tap water as it is a regional common issue that should be handled collectively rather than dividing it.

There is a definite need for India to reconsider its doctrine or a strategy to counter and/or deter use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons weapons by Pakistan for non-strategic (say battlefield) purposes.

India has expressed its willingness to extend technical assistance for improving infrastructure in Pakistan. Pakistan is bound to realise that holding on to terrorism as an instrument of State policy would not be in its interests as Pakistan would be the real sufferers in the long run.

Although in Heart of Asia Pakistan was isolated but to wean Pakistan away from China, with their interests converging in containing India in the region

India is wise to emphasise the costs to Islamabad of its obstructionism. Pakistan cannot hold the future of South Asia hostage to its India paranoia.

The governments of the South Asian countries can cooperate to solve many of their problems, especially poverty alleviation and fighting corruption. It will bring about stability and good governance. Otherwise, when are people dissatisfied with their lives, they will demand change.