If one location matters most to India in Sri Lanka, it is Trincomalee. With one of the finest natural harbours in the world, Trincomalee has immense commercial, naval, and energy value. For decades, strategists in New Delhi have viewed it as critical to the security architecture of the Bay of Bengal.
South Asia cannot remain an archipelago of isolated economies connected only by shared history and mutual suspicion. Changing acronyms does not change reality. Summit declarations will not achieve true economic integration. True integration requires the political courage to dismantle physical and bureaucratic walls. Only then will the region stop holding its immense potential captive.
The resultant reduced trust signals a declining democratic discourse that should be the biggest worry for the nation at this stage. The bill that failed thus tells the deeper story of all that is going wrong in the Indian democracy, bit by bit, in areas that are clearly visible and sometimes in many invisible ways.
Manipur today is not merely a regional crisis. It is a test of India’s democratic resilience. It highlights the limits of governance models that prioritize control over consensus. Without a shift toward genuine political engagement that addresses the fears, rights, and representation of all communities, the conflict will persist and resurface with greater intensity.
It is likely that under the Biden administration US-India relations will grow stronger and will have more routes to work on a range of issues -- free and open Indo-Pacific, restoring peace in Afghanistan, arms control, countering aggressive behavior of China and climate crisis with stress on multilateralism, writes Indu Saxena for South Asia Monitor
There have also been reports that other areas of Western Bhutan have been gradually encroached by China to secure access to the border with India, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The region, overall, has gone through a major strategic realignment with the increasing influence of China, and its ties with Pakistan. Also, unlike the 90s, there exists multi-dimensional international cooperation on the issue of Afghanistan today, writes Shraddha Nand Bhatnagar for South Asia Monitor
The Chinese footprint in the South Asian region has been steadily increasing, while that of India is being diluted and all the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations are differently dependent on Beijing for a mix of political, economic, trade and military support, writes Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (retd) for South Asia Monitor
If it’s any solace, this dreadful time has given rise to an unnamed bond among strangers—call it humanity, altruism, empathy—but it’s helping many of us stay afloat, writes Azera Parveen Rahman for South Asia Monitor
While India must resume supplies to its neighbors, there is much that it can also learn from some of their best practices, including Bhutan, writes N Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
Pakistan’s 'all-weather friend' China has intensified communication with the Taliban. Afghanistan is very significant for China for Its Belt and Road Initiative, writes Md. Ishtiak Hossain for South Asia Monitor
South Asia - which had the longest period of school closure - could face a learning crisis which will set us back by a decade, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
India's foreign policy mandarins know more than anyone else that altruism does not exist in international relations and diplomacy must be conducted on the basis of realpolitik acting only in pursuit of their self-interest, writes Lt Gen Yash Malhotra (retd) for the South Asia Monitor
But most experts agree that the country can reach ‘herd immunity’ if 70 to 80 percent of the population is fully immunised. That comes to a population of 1.05 billion, for whom 2.10 billion doses are needed, writes Vinod Aggarwal for South Asia Monitor
It would be interesting to know how American security experts view the threat perceptions from the numerous affiliates of the bodies in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, some of whom target India, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
But for the waning of his appeal, it is difficult to explain why the BJP came a cropper in West Bengal even after the enormous effort which both Modi and his powerful Home Minister Amit Shah put into their campaigns in the state with scores of public rallies and roadshows, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal have joined the Beijing-led Platform along with Bangladesh. India, the largest country in South Asia, has stayed away, writes Swadesh Roy for South Asia Monitor
The future of regional politics in India depends on not just exploiting local tradition and pride for elections, but in beefing up governance, economy, public delivery of benefits and taking on Delhi when the interest of the state is at stake, writes Subir Bhaumik for South Asia Monitor
As the two countries move towards a thaw on the LoC, it is in their interest to put the contentious issues on the back burner and resume the people-to-people contacts as they did in 2003-04; resolve the Kulbhushan Jadhav issue; activate the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation; and engage in trade and commerce, writes Mayank Kumar for South Aisa Monitor
