But it may be the smaller South Asian states that feel the most pressure. Countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives are faced with a more polarised geopolitical environment. They want Chinese investment to boost development and keep close diplomatic and security ties with India and western partners.
A big development happened in 2025. Nepal started exporting electricity to Bangladesh through India's transmission network. This was the first time Nepalese hydropower was commercially transmitted to Bangladesh via Indian territory. The initial export volume was 40 megawatts. The significance of the agreement is much bigger. It showed that regional energy cooperation can overcome political barriers.
In the effort to combat this multi-dimensional challenge, democratic states are faced with deep policy constraints, many of which can be paralyzing. The fundamental paradox is how to maintain the open, democratic character of the digital commons while at the same time countering more advanced opponents who are not held back by democratic principles. Disseminating disinformation is a tactic governments use to influence public opinion that has the potential to conflict with the strong constitutional freedoms of expression that exist in liberal democracies.
The rising significance of the Bay links closely to the growing Indo-Pacific concept. As the economic and strategic focus shifts toward Asia, major powers like the United States, China, India, Japan, Australia, and the European Union are paying more attention to maritime corridors connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
With the very limited government money on offer and the need for protection being almost universal, the states would do well to use that money instead to offer an insurance plan that covers their entire population (the poor and the non-poor) for only a limited number of very expensive and very rare conditions.
Prime Minister Hasina has repeatedly said that infrastructure development has been happening at a massive rate in Bangladesh that will attract foreign investors.
Traditional Indian wisdom teaches us that we are not separate from nature, that all forms of life are connected and inseparable from the rhythm of the planet – the air, the mountains, the forests, the seas and the sun. If this thinking is allowed to take root again, sustainability is already achieved.
CUTS report launch - "Multimodal Connectivity for Shared Prosperity - Towards Facilitating Trade in th BBIN Subregion"
An economic crisis should not become a matter of party polemics unless the problem lies in management. Bangladesh’s economic recession is largely attributed to the pandemic and the Ukraine war and has the least to do with economic management. As a result, it is a state matter, and requires a consensus among the political parties to deal with it effectively.
If the postponement of local body polls means less democracy for some time, let it be so, and it is in the interest of Sri Lanka.
While campaigns for honesty in public and private life by various sources have been taking place for a long time in the country, this has not seen any reduction in the level of corruption in India. The repeated catching of corrupt persons by the vigilance department has also not yielded many benefits as they are only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Thus reading, listening to great stories, discussing interesting issues in schools, will help children learn to focus and will help them to reduce their fears and make them better citizens.
Authoritarian party leaders and military or religious dictators do not wish to confront alternative ideas or opinions; so there is always an attempt to suppress the ‘other’ voices, both offline and online. These often lead them to put citizens into an eco-chamber where only praising of the power structure gets heard and echoed. Tolerance is the first victim of this, and the next is free speech, and then freedom in general.
‘Can Interfaith Collaboration Contribute to Climate Justice?’ -- the discussion was the fifteenth in the Sapan series ‘Imagine! Neighbours in Peace’.
Love for book reading cannot take place overnight. All of us need to work together to make our children get into the habit of reading books. So on every occasion, we should gift books to children.
The Tatmadaw's violence, repression, and civil war in Myanmar have left people living in perpetual fear and uncertainty. The international community must restore democracy to Myanmar's youth and give displaced people like the Rohingyas new hope.
BBC has since decades been projecting the Indian Army and security forces who have been bearing the brunt of terrorism in J&K and the Northeast for decades as violators of human rights, very often at the behest of terrorist organisations through their overground representatives and separatists.
If autonomy, creativity, freedom to design curriculum, the appointment of faculties, and incentivization of research are used as a sales pitch to lure world-acclaimed institutions, why not set your own house (Indian universities) in order first? Why not harness the potential of Indian universities like the JNU instead of stigmatising them?
But unfortunately, the entire history, struggle, and ideas of nationalism of Netaji are restricted to a few paras in history textbooks.
