While forging these dialogues, India should not forget Bangladesh as the interests of the two neighbors are increasingly converging in recent times, writes Shubham for South Asia Monitor
Even with a strong central government in India, West Bengal is likely to retain strategic importance for Bangladesh due to its geographic proximity, shared cultural identity, and direct influence over key bilateral issues such as river water sharing and border management. While Dhaka must formally prioritise engagement with New Delhi for any binding agreements, the practical success of many policies often depends on West Bengal’s political stance and cooperation.
Institutionalising mandatory constituency-level debates, organised by neutral academic or media institutions, can address this gap. These forums would require candidates to engage directly on employment, infrastructure, welfare delivery, governance performance, and manifesto vision.
By repeatedly threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which a significant portion of the world's energy supply flows — it has shown it is willing to inflict suffering on billions of people across India, China, and Africa simply to extract political leverage. A government willing to hold the world's energy supply hostage today will hold the world's existence hostage tomorrow if given the means to do so.
India stands at a historic crossroads. The older frameworks of left-wing politics and the secular-liberal consensus are gradually receding into history. The nation is moving forward on the pillars of development, identity, and global leadership. This is not a temporary wave but a structural transformation.
While forging these dialogues, India should not forget Bangladesh as the interests of the two neighbors are increasingly converging in recent times, writes Shubham for South Asia Monitor
The Pakistan government has set a target of generating at least 20 percent renewable energy by 2025 and at least 30 percent in the next five years, writes Haris Mushtaq for South Asia Monitor
It is in India’s strategic interest to continue its engagement with the Taliban, but withhold any official recognition, and continue to wait and watch to see if the regime’s assurances are matched by its deeds, writes Nisha Sahai Achuthan for South Asia Monitor
Engagement with the Taliban and the latter’s return to the driver’s seat in Afghanistan allows Pakistan to bring the Afghanistan issue to the forefront of the ‘South Asia regional security architecture’, writes Anuttama Banerji for South Asia Monitor
China’s growing investment and expanding economic activities in Bangladesh do not necessarily enable it to influence Dhaka’s foreign policy decisions, or seize infrastructure if loans are not repaid, or even potentially secure its support in a regional conflict, writes Rupak Bhattacharjee for South Asia Monitor
The bond between US intelligence agency CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is well known and recently declassified British documents reveal MI-6 connived with Pakistan and Taliban in Afghanistan, writes Lt Gen P. C. Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The most important challenge for South Asia is to revive livelihoods, which the crisis has devastated across the region, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, over the last six decades, the collective commitment to truth as a principle to be adhered to with Gandhian conviction has been diluted progressively, writes Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (retd) for South Asia Monitor
Gandhi believed in all-inclusive growth and felt that India can only become a great nation when its teeming and impoverished rural masses become better off, writes Anil K. Rajvanshi for South Asia Monitor
Terrorists and extremists need discourses in the inculcation of eternal moral values and practicing of yoga and meditation that can contribute immensely to attaining a perfect and balanced personality as described in ancient Indian classical texts, writes Prof. Sudhanshu Tripathi for South Asia Monitor
If Lata’s ‘Allah, Karam Karna’ and ‘Allah Reham” are popular among the Muslims, two of the Indian cinema’s best bhakti (devotional) songs, “Allah Tero Naam Ishwar Tero Naam” and “Prabhu Tero Naam” are sung six decades after she rendered them in Hum Dono, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
A section of the diaspora has taken a line that it needs to bury the past and open a line with India, which many blame for the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils, writes M.R. Narayan Swamy for South Asia Monitor
But will this productivity-driving initiative really take off when the most prosperous farmers belonging to the vanguard agrarian regions of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh firmly remain on the path of agitation against government efforts to fix agriculture through reform? writes N. Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
Examining new paradigms and alternate formulations often leads to game-changing events, writes Lt Gen PR Kumar (retd) for South Asia Monitor
Strangely, Kerry, while extracting ambitious emission cuts during his rounds of developing countries, does not talk about meeting the financial commitments given by President Barack Obama in Copenhagen in 2009. He talks only about initiating a ‘finance dialogue’ with developing countries, writes Rajendra Shende for South Asia Monitor