Overall, the changes proposed in the country's education system are in tune with the concept of nationalism and culture that sectarian nationalists want to impose on the country, writes Dr Ram Puniyani for South Asia Monitor
Over the past two months, a series of alleged push-in incidents along the Bangladesh-India border has reportedly left scores of people stranded in zero-line and no-man's-land areas under difficult conditions.
The central message at the Shangri-La Dialogue is that America is staying, but on new terms. It will remain the core military balancer in the Indo-Pacific, but it expects allies and partners to become serious contributors. The era of strategic free-riding is ending. The new Indo-Pacific order will increasingly be defined by those willing and able to share the burden of preserving it.
The CEPS conference shows Pakistan is shifting the Indus issue from technical water management to geopolitical norm contest. That’s the key transition. Once a river dispute enters Brussels policy networks, international arbitration, climate diplomacy, and security discourse it becomes much harder to keep it bilateral. And that is likely Pakistan’s main strategic objective.
The Islamabad Memorandum has bought time. But time is not neutral. It can be used to construct a more durable settlement, or by spoilers in Washington, Tehran and Tel Aviv to rebuild the case for war. The ceasefire will endure only if the difficult questions postponed in Islamabad are answered before those who opposed the truce succeed in answering them on the battlefield.
Overall, the changes proposed in the country's education system are in tune with the concept of nationalism and culture that sectarian nationalists want to impose on the country, writes Dr Ram Puniyani for South Asia Monitor
Though Russia has agreed to accept spent fuel, it is unclear how safe the procedures for removing it from reactors and transporting it from Bangladesh will be, writes Aashish Kiphayet for South Asia Monitor
To expect that in a possible future armed conflict with a neighbor, India can rely on the Russian army is lunacy. The Russian army itself demonstrated in Ukraine what actually it represents, write Prof (Dr) Vesselin Popovski, Prof Abhinav Mehrotra and Surabhi Bhandari for South Asia Monitor
By using religion and nationalism in tandem, the BJP has taken giant strides forward in the electoral field so much so that its opponents – the so-called secular parties – are at their wit’s end, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
While the number of those who have benefitted from the Art of Living’s trauma relief is some 150,000, a total of 2,000 fighters are claimed to have laid down their weapons in various parts of the world including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kosovo, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Iraq and the Philippines after being inspired by the spiritual group, writes M.R. Narayan Swamy for South Asia Monitor
Bangladesh's leaders struggled to protect people's right to vote when they were out of power; in power, they continue their attempts to deprive them of the right to vote, writes Aashish Kiphayet for South Asia Monitor
If only the leaders in both India and Pakistan would listen for once to the voices of young people and the dreamers, and not be swayed by the fanatics, no time can be short enough to make a new beginning, not just for India and Pakistan, but for the two billion people of South Asia, writes Tarun Basu for South Asia Monitor
The reality is that Delhi had forfeited the tactical advantage that the Indian Army had acquired at considerable cost, to ostensibly facilitate the negotiations with China. However, despite multiple rounds of talks, the PLA has not moved back from all the areas that it had intruded into along the LAC, writes Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (retd) for South Asia Monitor
Bangladesh is a miracle story, while Sri Lanka and Pakistan are disaster tales, writes John Rozario for South Asia Monitor
Yameen’s ‘India Out’ campaign is centred on his firm belief that independent of change of governments and leaderships in New Delhi, India was against his becoming president, writes N. Sathiya Moorthy for South Asia Monitor
Even in these dark times, one can see bright rays of communal harmony. One only hopes these trends are encouraged and divisive loudmouths are punished, writes Dr Ram Puniyani for South Asia Monitor
Museums and art galleries are the preserves of the common heritage of South Asia, and it is a pity these are often destructively targeted during political conflicts, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
In another CSDS study of post-poll analysis after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it was found that between 2014 and 2019 support for the BJP among Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Class has more than doubled, writes Dr Ram Puniyani for South Asia Monitor
Unlike many other South Asian countries, Bangladesh's prudent and selective engagement with China's BRI has helped Dhaka avoid debt problems, writes Sheikh Abdur Rahman for South Asia Monitor
Bangladesh may not face the same situation as Sri Lanka in the near future but it has considerable weaknesses in its economy and good-governance processes, writes Aashish Kiphayet for South Asia Monitor