South Asia remains one of the least integrated regions in the world despite geographical proximity and complementary economic structures. Greater regional trade, improved transport connectivity, cross-border electricity markets, digital payment systems and investment partnerships could substantially reduce external vulnerabilities.
Between 2004 and 2023, India produced roughly five million graduates every year, but graduate employment increased by only around 2.8 million annually. Even fewer obtained salaried employment. Millions are either unemployed or working below their qualifications or in the waiting room for the elusive government job.
Policy instability during the 2015-2024 likely pushed back Sri Lanka’s path towards becoming South Asia’s first High-Income Country. The 2022 financial crisis would never have happened as stable growth during the first half of 2015–2024 would have built enough buffer to weather impact of the Covid pandemic
China’s Belt and Road Initiative - which funded Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port through loans resulting in a 99-year lease to Chinese State-owned enterprise in 2017 due to Colombo’s struggle to service said loans - follows the same expansionary script.
For the first time since the India-China skirmishes began at Ladakh earlier this year, the Indian Army is dominating strategic locations on the south bank of Pangong Lake, even as China enhanced deployment of troops close to the Thakung base in Indian territory and tried to change the status quo
The US administration newly banned 24 Chinese companies from buying American products with an accusation of them constructing on Chinese islands and helping “militarizing” the South China Sea
Indian and Chinese militaries began the third round of talks at Chushul on Tuesday to resolve the fresh skirmishes at Pangong Lake in Eastern Ladakh
Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) President Lobsang Sangay, who heads the Tibetan government in exile, on Tuesday paid tributes to former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee by remembering his meeting with the exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in 2016 despite an opposition by China
India's top security and defence authorities are meeting to discuss the fresh Chinese incursions in Indian territory at Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh
India's eastern neighbour Myanmar has begun to re-look at a number of projects under the China Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which at $100 billion is much bigger than the Chinese investment in Pakistan at $64 billion
Military talks between India and China at Chushul to resolve the fresh skirmish at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh ended late on Monday evening, government sources said
An Indian Special Frontier Force officer was killed and another personnel of the force seriously injured in a landmine blast, while they were on a reconnaissance mission at the Line of Actual Control with China in the Ladakh Himalayas, sources said
India has thwarted China's provocative military movements to change the status quo at the Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh
Pakistan has purchased from China real-time satellite data, comprising high definition video, optical and hyperspectral imagery, that also can provide it the precise position of Indian Army camps across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir
The United States has placed several subsidiaries of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), the ultimate parent of China Harbhour Engineering which building an artificial city extending Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, on an export blacklist
Amid a hostile situation on its borders with China and Pakistan, India HAS decided not to take part in a multilateral strategic command post exercise in Russia next month in which its two hostile neighbors were also participating
The US has imposed sanctions on 24 Chinese companies–including the builders of Colombo Port City–making it illegal for American companies to export products to these entities without a Government licence
Sri Lanka is eying more exports to China in the Covid-19 era by participating in an import fair in the country and also reactivating talks on a proposed free trade deal, the Indian Ocean Island’s state export promotion agency said
As India and China continue to be in a border-dispute deadlock, Beijing has started laying fibre optics cables and installing other equipment for fifth-generation wireless technology -- commonly known as 5G -- along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)
