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.
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.
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.
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.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met a high-level delegation of Taliban leaders in a strategically significant interaction, as the group took control of a large swathe of territory in Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of foreign forces, raising fear of a military takeover of the Afghan government
Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed irked China when he said in a tweet that he was pleased to see a British Carrier Strike group enter the South China Sea
Pakistan and China said they will cooperate more closely on Afghanistan and called on all Afghan stakeholders to agree on a comprehensive ceasefire and find negotiated political settlement
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is in Beijing to participate in the third China-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue as the ties hit a bump following the death of nine Chinese workers working on a CPEC project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that is ruled by Prime Minister Imran Khan's PTI party
With Pakistan including Chinese officials in a joint investigation into the Dasu bus blast that killed 15 people, including nine workers from China, Beijing has expressed satisfaction over the ongoing probe, according to a senior Pakistani minister
India is welcome to join the newly launched grouping of South Asian countries on Covid-19 and poverty alleviation led by China, said Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momin, adding that the initiative isn’t meant to exclude India
For the fourth time in less than a year, Pakistani authorities have blocked access to TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video-sharing platform, for its failure to take down "inappropriate content"
In a decision that shows the extent of Chinese influence over Pakistan, the country's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said on Saturday that 15 Chinese officials have been included in the ongoing investigation on the Dasu bus tragedy in which 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, were killed
China and Bangladesh have agreed to work towards the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees to the Rakhine state in Myanmar and underscored the need for resuming tripartite talks on the issue, a Bangladesh government statement said
Amid the deepening crisis in the ruling party in the Maldives, President Ibrahim Mohammed Solih on Friday spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping--for the first time in recent years-- and discussed the Covid-19 and “other issues of mutual interest” in a phone call that came two days after his call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
With India expressing singular unhappiness over the fragile standoff on their border where tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides are massed on either side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), China said Thursday that it is ready to seek a "mutually acceptable solution" to the issues that require "urgent treatment" through negotiatio
China State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday asked Pakistan to investigate an explosion on a bus in which nine Chinese workers died in its mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
Asserting that a "unilateral change of status quo" was not acceptable to India, India has reiterated to China that their decades-old border dispute needs to be resolved at the earliest as it "visibly impacting the relationship in a negative manner."
At least 13 people, including nine Chinese workers, were killed when a bus carrying Chinese and Pakistani construction workers fell into a ravine in the northwestern region of Pakistan, media reports say
In another outreach to Dhaka, Bangladeshi students will get priority in returning to their respective educational institutions in China when the pandemic situation will come under control
