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The crises in Sri Lanka and Pakistan are raising questions about the relevance and the costs of their reliance on the alternative financial system provided by China’s Belt and Road Initiative
After decades of being on the backburner, the 9-11 terrorist attacks forced America to take a fresh look at the South Asian region. The last time the US had focused on this region was immediately following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which required US policymakers to structure their policies to fit the Cold War paradigm.
The recent incidents shed light on the desperation of the migrant labours in the South Asian countries that worsen during disasters like the present p
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
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.
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
This is an edited version of the talk given by Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne, a well known historian and archaeologist from Sri Lanka, at ORF on April 9, 2012. Prof Seneviratne, currently Professor of Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya, Colombo, has carried out pioneering research in the field of archaeology and is a widely respected speaker on the subject.
In the 1971 war against Pakistan, had Indian forces managed to push beyond Turtok and capture Thang, the subsequent Pakistani adventure in Kargil in 1999 or the threat to Siachen would have been infructuous.
Executed properly, Aadhaar could become a central pillar of India’s ‘neighbourhood first’ policy.
The shortage of manpower in Russia, along with the allure of higher wages and citizenship, continue to serve as pull factors for migrants from South A
Much more is at stake than domestic security when it comes to how the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan will affect the small South Asian states
Even short of nuclear war, it is open to debate if India, the preponderant South Asian military power, has the capacity to beat Pakistan at this juncture.
With tensions between an aggressive China and an emerging India intensifying, there will be significant changes and challenges in the Indian Ocean and South Asian regions
The visit of Mr. S Jaishankar, India's Foreign Secretary, to Kabul this week came at the fag end of his trip to all the other South Asian neighbouring countries. During this brief visit, he met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and reaffirmed India's commitment to stay the course in Afghanistan.
China would have a seat in the high table when the South Asian neighbours discuss and decide upon the ‘K-issue’.
The two South Asian neighbours — Bangladesh and India — share a common history, and linguistic and cultural heritage. Their strategic locations co
Despite taking different stances, the South Asian states’ response to the Ukrainian crisis is primarily moulded by their national interests.
As he packs his bags for the first foreign policy venture in the new year ¿ the annual summit of the South Asian nations in Dhaka ¿ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has two options. The default one would be to let the foreign office bureaucracy work out an anodyne declaration of good intentions on future cooperation.
A two-day seminar 'Understanding China' was aimed at making an in-depth study of China's overall South Asian policy
The public in South Asian countries have reacted variedly to the developments taking place in Pakistan
Bhutan, the tiny South Asian country, is a power-house literally. Power constitutes the country's single largest export item. The Himalayan kingdom is located in one of the fastest growing regions of the world.
Bhutan must create reliable relationships with other countries that can offer the framework of an international community. One such community can be t
The changing dynamics of the world order could provide BIMSTEC the opportunity to expand beyond the South Asian region
The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) has gained more importance recently because of the many hurdles that have come in the way of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) since 2016, mainly due to issues between India and Pakistan. This brief explores the possibilities of stronger trade and investment ties between the BIMSTEC nations by expediting the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (F
The Afghan-Pakistani region is in transition and the changing geo-political realities will have new implications, says Kamran Bokhari, Vice President of Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor. He says old paradigms cannot be used to gauge new realities.
The new extra-regional player in China seems to want to provoke internal anti-India debates in individual South Asian nations.
Confidence-building measures (CBMs) were first developed in the context of Western international relations as a means of ensuring norm diffusion between adversarial states. While South Asian states have also turned to CBMs to minimise hostilities, the literature on their impact has been limited. This brief fills the gap by examining the influence of CBMs between India and Pakistan, and India and China, on norm diffusion in the region. The brief c
The relationship has its roots in history, but both States have ensured continuous engagement, crucial for contemporary South Asian relations
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.
SAARC remains the only viable vehicle for South Asian integration, a project vital for India because a viable South Asian economy is a necessary pre-condition for our ability to engage effectively with ASEAN and China. And when we look at SAARC, the key hurdle it must overcome is the India-Pakistan problem.
Indian Foreign Secretary Ms Nirupama Rao has suggested joint management of fisheries resources, alternative methods of fishing and examining alternative livelihood to resolve the fisheries disputes between countries in the South Asian region.
Saying that South Asian countries need to work closely to share, and not divide, water, the author says the consequence of bringing water to a pedestal on India-Pakistan relations can have devastating effects on regional security and prosperity.
The normalisation of trade between India and Pakistan could lead to preferential trade arrangement under SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Agreement of 1996). This would increase regional trade and stability.
Modi has a rare opportunity to tap into the positive trends within the South Asian diaspora. An intensive engagement with them would be a valuable complement to Modi's declared strategy of befriending neighbours. Modi could signal the new approach by meeting their representatives during his Australia visit this month.
Now that the “War on Terror” has concluded, India needs to define its role in the South Asian Region and attempt to engage with all possible partn
This Issue Brief focuses on the reasons for the need to have sub-regional integration and cooperation between the four South Asian countries of BBIN--Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. It also looks at previous attempts made at sub-regional cooperation by countries in the region and the areas of potential cooperation.
