If Washington persists down this path, the response from the Global South will not be submission. It will be coordination. China, Russia, Brazil, India, and others have every incentive to deepen trade, energy, and financial cooperation—not out of ideological unity, but out of defensive necessity. Ironically, Trump’s economic nationalism may succeed in what decades of rhetoric could not - forging a more cohesive Global South.
So long as Indians do not find a true watchdog for the government, people will have to keep choosing the lesser evil. Youth are well aware of the situation of Arab countries post-revolution. In South Asia, although Sri Lanka and Nepal have been able to consolidate power to some extent, Bangladesh remains in a frenzy with rampant human rights violations, religious persecution and no legitimate government in sight. Hence, Indian youth prefer to seek reform from within rather than a full-blown revolution without any vision for the future
For Bangladesh’s Hindus, each funeral deepens the message that their lives are negotiable and their suffering invisible. If this trajectory continues unchecked, the country risks normalizing a culture of impunity that will ultimately consume more than one community. Violence ignored does not fade; it spreads. And the price of silence, as history repeatedly shows, is always paid in lives.
Keen observers of international and regional politics will not have missed the tacit presence of the invisible hand of the US in determining the democratic transition in Bangladesh. Obviously, TarIque had been tutored by the Americans about the best way forward for the transition towards democratic rule and delivering on the promises of cooperation on regional security. The intelligentsia inside the country could have hoped for Tarique referring to ‘’historical’’ figures from the Indian subcontinent, the Muslim world, and Bangladesh’s past.
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
New Delhi also needs to recognize that the rules of diplomacy are changing and that country, especially the US under Biden, would not hesitate to make remarks about human rights violations or on communal tensions and certainly, the changes in the status of Jammu and Kashmir. None of these would qualify, for Biden’s Administration, as being ‘internal matters,’ writes Amb Amit Dasgupta (retd) for South Asia Monitor
On this International Migrants Day, it is worth noting that not every migrant succeeds in an adopted land. For evidence, one need not go beyond the Indian American community. While the community’s many successes and accomplishments have been well-documented, a less-publicized fact is the plight of hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals in the United States, writes Frank Islam for South Asia Monitor
What the BJP may have realized, therefore, from these sporadic eruptions of protests is that electoral success is not the be-all and end-all of politics, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
Many people want to know why the ruling Awami League is perpetuating this "sculpture politics". Why is this issue being given so much importance so as to forget the numerous other challenges Bangladesh is facing? writes Akmal Hossain for South Asia Monitor
India for the time being has chosen to call for an adjournment on the multidimensional chessboard of multilateral trade/strategic agreements which can be seen as a wise move, writes Kumardeep Banerjee for South Asia Monitor
