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

Pakistan is also one of the largest recipients of IAEA’s technical and financial help that shows Pakistan has achieved considerable expertise in the application of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, writes Usman Ali Khan for South Asia Monitor