Representational Photo

What Trade Patterns Reveal About South Asia’s Economic Future

One of the most striking features of South Asian trade is how little the region trades internally. Intra-regional trade within South Asia remains among the lowest in the world relative to geographic proximity. Political tensions — especially between India and Pakistan — have prevented the emergence of a deeply integrated regional production system comparable to ASEAN or the European Union.  This is a major missed opportunity.

The West Asia Conflict: Challenging Times for Indian Economy

Scarcity of cooking fuel is pushing people, particularly across South Asia, toward hunger. Livelihoods have been lost among the large unorganised labour force while thousands of self-employed street vendors, smaller restaurants and eateries are being forced to close shop, facing a scary, insecure future. For middle class households across India, everyday snacks like the samosa or dosa have become scarce because of shortage and high prices of cooking gas cylinders.

New EU Medicines Law Could Impact FTA With India

India is one of the world’s largest suppliers of generic medicines and APIs to Europe. If the EU begins favouring “Made in EU” pharmaceutical production through procurement preferences, subsidies or state aid, Indian drug manufacturers could face reduced access to EU public procurement contracts and tougher supply-chain resilience requirements.

Caught in Geopolitical Quagmire, West Asia Crisis Looms Large Over Indian Supply and Demand Metrics

India’s pharma export market has been affected as India supplies medicines to more than 200 countries. Supply chain interruption not only hurts Indian producers but also creates medicine scarcity in the US, UK, and African markets that highly depend on Indian generics. From the logistics end, re-routing of cargo away from conflict-ridden corridors such as the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz has increased freight insurance premiums, distressing Indian exporters who function on lean cost structures.

More on Geoeconomics, Trade and Development

China and Afghanistan join hands against COVID-19 in strengthened BRI cooperation

While COVID-19 continues spreading around the world, world economies all face huge challenges. A few days ago, China successfully held the High-Level Video Conference on Belt and Road International Cooperation

India's Reliance Jio praised as 'clean' by US for spurning Huawei

While ramping up the international campaign against Chinese telecommunications manufacturer Huawei, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has declared India's Reliance Jio a "clean" network for not using the Chinese company Huawei's equipment, keeping it safe from Beijing's intelligence intrusions

Tibetan refugees in Ladakh come out strongly in India's support

As the situation is unfolding along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, a groundswell of support for India has come from a small group of Tibetan refugees in Leh

What does Nepal PM have to say about ‘encroachment by China’?

While the Prime Minister has been trying to spark nationalism by alleging Indian encroachment in border areas with the southern neighbour in order to divert attention from allegations of poor governance, corruption and questionable handling of the coronavirus crisis, he has not uttered a word on encroachment of Nepali land by the northern neighbour, The Himalayan Times asked

Pakistan Army chief meets Chinese Army delegation, lauds Beijing's support

Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Tuesday lauded Beijing's assistance to Pakistan for tackling the coronavirus, during a meeting with a delegation of the Chinese Army, the military's media wing said

India, China military reach consensus to disengage

After 11 hours-long corps commander-level talks between India and China, Indian government sources on Tuesday said that the dialogue was held in a cordial, positive and constructive atmosphere and there was a "mutual consensus to disengage"

China occupies Nepal village, land; Deafening silence from Oli government

China has occupied a village of Nepal and allegedly removed the boundary pillars to legitimise its annexation, top government sources said on Tuesday

Chinese transgressions must end, say people living at LAC in Ladakh

The dominant sentiment among the people living near the LAC in Ladakh is that China must not get away with its transgressions

Chinese test kits incompatible with most Nepali laboratories

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test kits procured by the Nepal Army from China are incompatible with most testing machines in the country, according to the Health Ministry officials

China to submit reports on COVID-19 recommendations to Bangladesh

China will submit four specific reports to Bangladesh containing recommendations on how Bangladesh can better deal with the coronavirus situation

Stricter scrutiny for Chinese investments in the offing

The Indian government is said to be mulling a plan to frame stricter and thorough scrutiny of investments from China, which use indirect routes to reach India

India, China hold corps commanders level talks amid massive deployment

Over thousands of Indian Army men stand a few metres away from Line of Actual Control against Chinese People's Liberation Army even as corps commanders of two countries' military meet at Moldo on Monday to resolve the border issue and ease tension in Eastern Ladakh

China finally admits it lost 'less than 20' soldiers in clash with India

A day after Indian media reported that India had handed over dead bodies of 16 Chinese soldiers to the People's Liberation Army (PLA), China on Monday for the first time admitted that it lost "less than 20" troops during the violent face-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh last week

Maharashtra puts three Chinese projects on hold

The Maharashtra government has put on hold three major agreements signed with Chinese companies at the recently concluded Magnetic Maharashtra 2.0 investor meet, officials said

Chinese hackers now target website of DPIIT that curtailed Chinese FDI

Amid the rising India-China border tensions and a phishing attack alert by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a key Indian government business department's website was hacked on Monday