India's MSME sector, the backbone of its export economy, remains largely unequipped to navigate European standards and certification requirements. As ABC Live noted, the next stage will be tougher than negotiation: India must now prove that its exporters, MSMEs, regulators, ports, testing labs, and state governments can actually use the agreement. A framework signed in Gothenburg means nothing to a textile exporter in Tiruppur who cannot get a product certified to EU standards.
The central lesson is simple: unresolved India-Pakistan hostility weakens South Asia from within. It prevents trade, blocks institutions, raises nuclear risk, politicizes water, militarizes borders, and diverts attention from human development. Both countries will continue to disagree on major issues. But disagreement does not require permanent hostility. Strategic maturity means building rules to manage conflict before conflict manages the region.
The Quad's Critical Minerals Initiative provides an important platform for achieving these objectives. Through coordinated investments, technology sharing and supply-chain diversification, the initiative seeks to create resilient and transparent mineral supply networks. Australia contributes abundant mineral reserves, Japan offers advanced processing technologies, the United States brings investment and innovation capabilities, while India provides a rapidly expanding market and growing manufacturing base.
Renewing the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty could also serve as an important confidence-building measure between Bangladesh and India. A renewed agreement would help restore mutual trust and strengthen regional cooperation over shared water resources. It would further reinforce the role of the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC), which remains a key institutional mechanism for addressing transboundary river issues.
Presently, there are almost two million seafarers worldwide with a significant number from the South Asian sub-continent. Indians in fact constitute the third-largest number of seafaring officers in the world, writes Cmdre Anil Jai Singh (retd) for South Asia Monitor
While the US and Israel is focused on Iran going nuclear, Pakistan is quietly transferring nuclear technology to Turkey. Beijing will be too happy to conduct Turkey’s first nuclear test on Chinese soil as it did for Pakistan, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
A look at the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka - shows the importance of effective and modern trade facilitation measures, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
India and EU today need innovative new ideas to enhance their trade and economic cooperation, this being the key component for stronger partnership promoting economic growth in these troubled times, writes Sunil Prasad for South Asia Monitor
Coronavirus emergency brought together these South Asian nations as they reposed trust in SAARC. Thus, the pandemic delivered a promising indication of revitalization, writes Harsh Mahaseth & Saumya Pandey for South Asia Monitor
This is the BJP’s first success in the valley where it has always been regarded as untouchable. However, since local elections generally reflect the popularity of candidates belonging to the area, an outcome that ignores the wider political divisions is not unusual, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
The return of active engagement with agrarian issues in university spaces is central to forging student-farmer solidarity, contends Arsh Ajmera for South Asia Monitor
Afghanistan wants Beijing to formally apologize for China’s spy-cum-terror module caught operating in Kabul violating international norms before the Chinese detainees are released. However, China will consider this demand an affront, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The region’s dependence on imports for production, as well as the contributions of its exports through value chains place some of its economies in an influential position within the global production and trading network, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
The legacy of the Pakistani state’s sponsorship of some terror groups - mainly those used to help pursue its objectives in Afghanistan and India - means that the infrastructure of terror will prove difficult to dismantle (though Islamabad has made progress in curbing terror financing networks, amid strong international pressure), writes Michael Kugelman for South Asia Monitor
Dissent within Nepal’s Communist Party was brewing for a long time but dissolving parliament without a provision in the Constitution is unprecedented. China has invested too much in Nepal to let go of control of Nepalese politics, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
If contract farming is an idea whose time has come, it is necessary to ask why did it take off from 2002-03 and then sharply decline by 2011-12 in this vanguard agrarian state, writes N Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
More importantly, the South Asia region needs to realise that workers and farmers have a key role to play in promoting sustainable consumption as they are both the end consumers as well as the producers at the start of the supply chain, writes George Cheriyan & Simi T.B. for South Asia Monitor
But it is interesting to note that 49 years hence, there seems to be no change in how the nation views the civil war and a bloody separation of its eastern province, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
The ‘uncultured’ state of Pakistan has not apologized yet for the 1971 genocide. It should be compelled, writes Farabi Bin Zahir for South Asia Monitor
