Violent clashes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)

PoK Polls Expose A Deeper Faultline: Widening Gap Between Official Narratives and Ground Realities

Any further instability in the region carries security implications for both countries. Escalating unrest along an already sensitive frontier can heighten tensions and reduce the already limited space for dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Asymmetric Warfare via Migration: What India Can Learn from Spain’s Ceuta Crisis

Rightly, India is now treating mass irregular Rohingya migration as an engineered, hybrid national security threat that requires a coordinated border guarding, diplomatic, and legal response.

India's Pakistan Policy Needs Communication, Not Talks

Ultimately, sustainable peace between India and Pakistan cannot be built merely through meetings or declarations. It requires a fundamental transformation in Pakistan's approach towards terrorism, regional stability and bilateral relations. Until that happens, comprehensive dialogue is unlikely to produce meaningful outcomes. 

China’s Criminal Footprint in Sri Lanka has Regional Security Implications

When a Chinese company won the contract to establish hybrid wind and solar energy projects on three islands off the northern Jaffna peninsula—just 45 km from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu—the security implications extended far beyond economics. Against this backdrop, India’s concerns are entirely justifiable. Sri Lanka faces a pressing question: how will the nation confront the infiltration of Chinese global criminal networks? Since Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tenure, Chinese presence in Colombo has steadily increased, with Sri Lanka positioned as a partner state in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

More on Geopolitics, Security and Strategic Affairs

Imran Khan's stunning victory will have wider implications for Pakistan and beyond

Although the results will change the government in Punjab, a politically important province of 110 million people, its implications may not be limited to the province, writes Shraddha Nand Bhatnagar for South Asia Monitor

How renewable energy partnership can boost Bhutanese, BBIN economy

India can also help Bhutan to realize its green goals by promoting hybrid CNG/electric powered passenger and goods transport vehicles. These vehicles may be based at an EV park at Phuntsholing. Goods received there after customs clearance can then be distributed by Bhutan's own transport systems, employing their own nationals as drivers, helpers, mechanics and loaders, writes Amb Sarvajit Chakravarti (retd) for South Asia Monitor

Lessons from Sri Lanka for autocratic regimes

What can we learn from Sri Lanka's disastrous style of ruling, intensification of sectarian divides, marginalization of minorities and power concentrated in autocrats is there for all to see, writes Dr Ram Puniyani for South Asia Monitor

Diversity as soft power: India’s cultural diplomacy should spread message of its inclusive democracy

India also no longer capitalizes adequately upon her best known international icons such as Mahatma Gandhi, writes Amb Sarvajit Chakravarti (retd) for South Asia Monitor

Sri Lanka’s spectacular uprising: Dismantling of its most powerful political family

Instability in Sri Lanka is not in India’s interests but at the same time it offers New Delhi an opportunity to help its strategic neighbour emerge from the epic mess it finds itself in, writes Mayank Chhaya for South Asia Monitor

Food security in South Asia: India must act as ‘annadata’ for region

As South Asia is now better connected, ensuring BBIN food security will become even easier with packaging centres set up in each country with its own distribution, writes Amb Sarvajit Chakravarti (retd) for South Asia Monitor

Sheikh Hasina's mango diplomacy with Pakistan; Islamabad must reset ties with Dhaka

Fifty years after the separation of what was then East and West Pakistan in 1971, the exchange of mangoes is a sign that friendly ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh are possible, writes Samina Akhter for South Asia Monitor

A desperate Sri Lanka knocks at every door: Global geopolitics compounds a nation’s woes

Barring India, no other supposed ally has so far come forward to help assist Colombo in a big way. New Delhi, with its obvious strategic stakes and interests in keeping the country afloat, has so far extended assistance worth around $4 billion -- something China has also acknowledged, writes Shraddha Nand Bhatnagar for South Asia Monitor

Vagaries of life on the river islands of Bangladesh: Char residents have little access to government schemes

The chars formed as the Brahmaputra, Ganga and other rivers brought silt down from the Himalayas. The river islands are so fertile that they have been fought over for centuries

Crimes in the name of religion : Two wrongs don't make a right

Today, while a large section of the Muslim community lives in intimidation and fear, at the same time there are elements like Riyaz Ansari and Ghouse Mohammad whose insanity is not only a blot on Indian Muslims but also is totally contrary to the sayings in Koran that if you kill a single innocent person, it is like killing the whole humanity, writes Dr Ram Puniyani for South Asia Monitor 

India should aim to be a role model in renewable energy to mitigate climate change impact

Solar roofed buses may be handy in providing mobile primary healthcare, primary and adult education, agricultural extension services and training, even telecom and TV connectivity in rural and far-flung areas across South Asia and Africa, writes Amb Sarvajit Chakravarti (retd) for South Asia Monitor

Now climate change hits farmers in mountainous areas of Pakistan

This year, an early and hotter start to the summer has forced a change in the crop cycle in Gilgit-Baltistan, high up in the Hindu Kush Himalayas

Desperate Afghan women committing suicide - as a regressive Taliban cocks a snook at global opinion

Despite public statements by a few senior Taliban leaders supporting girls' education, there has been little indication of any progress. The group's core leadership, dominated by hardline clerics, seems bent on pushing through gender discriminatory policies, writes Shraddha Nand Bhatnagar for South Asia Monitor

Need to take a holistic approach to flood control in South Asia

Over 54 major watercourses draining excess water from South Asia into the Bay of Bengal flows through Bangladesh, to which is added its own share of rainfall, writes Ambassador Sarvajit Chakravarti (retd) for South Asia Monitor

Sri Lanka's tourism industry, once a growth engine, struggles for survival

For Sri Lanka's tourism industry, the worst is yet to come. Experts say the downfall will continue as the energy crisis is unlikely to ease for months, writes Shraddha Nand Bhatnagar for South Asia Monitor