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.
Little help has been extended to Bangladesh to resolve the Rohingya problem. Even in international forums like the UN, no one voted for Bangladesh when it brought a resolution condemning human rights violations in Myanmar, particularly against Rohingya Muslims, writes Swadesh Roy for South Asia Monitor
China’s aim of building these new villages along the LAC with India is multiple. These helped populate Han Chinese closer to the border areas, overwhelming the Tibetan population demographically since the invasion and occupation of Tibet in 1959-51, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
India is forecast to be the biggest contributor to the ‘new normal’ doubling its renewable additions in 2021. Wind and solar additions are expected to jump by 30 percent in both the US and China, writes Rajendra Shende for South Asia Monitor
In the course of his advisory duties, Yeager had made good friends in the higher echelons of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), and within a short period, he fell prey to an affliction, known, amongst diplomats, as ‘localitis,’ i.e, a deep sympathy, verging on identification, with the host country and its people, writes Admiral Arun Prakash (retd) for South Asia Monitor
Would it be appropriate to suggest that the Modi government defer the construction of a new parliament building in Delhi, and use the funds (approximately Rs. 971 crores) to create a corpus for post-COVID South Asian rebuilding? writes Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought in additional challenges to tackle amidst the technological disparities within Asia. There is a digital divide witnessed in the economies of South Asia, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
Pitching for her exiled father, Maryam has become a veteran. But she appeared to yield space to Aseefa, the surprise debutante, in terms of public response and social media fervour that followed this Multan rally, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
The resumption of this interaction last held in New Delhi in 2014 is an important step forward in recognising the magnitude of the external and internal threat to maritime security and to develop a shared approach to the security of this region, writes Cmde Anil Jai Singh (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The protection for journalists remains the biggest challenge in Afghanistan, and while women journalists make up just 17 percent of the news force, 30 percent of them have reported violence, writes Farida Nekzad for South Asia Monitor
It is the height of hypocrisy if the global community led by the West lets Myanmar off the hook and instead pressurises poor Bangladesh to not only shelter more than a million people in the overcrowded country but even dictate locations for settling them, writes Subir Bhaumik for South Asia Monitor
Experts feel that impunity enjoyed by rapists in the country are not due to the fact that Bangladesh does not have a high punishment for rape - currently the highest punishment afforded is life imprisonment - but that rapists are convicted in only three percent of the cases, writes Tasmiah Nuhiya Ahmed for South Asia Monitor
The anger of these agitating farmers is yet another manifestation of the narrative of farmer distress that stalks the India growth story, writes N Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
With the outgoing President Donald Trump having ordered a nearly full US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan after almost two decades in the war-torn country, in Bolton’s assessment there are clear dangers of a serious instability that could threaten not only the South Asian region but the rest of the world, writes Mayank Chhaya for South Asia Monitor
Yet no nuclear scientist has been targeted in Pakistan, not even Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb who indulged in blatant nuclear proliferation with obvious government support, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
Rasool Bux Palijo has earned a place in the pantheon of leaders of South Asia who has earned lasting fame and created an ideological legacy in the struggle against martial law, feudalism, colonialism, and imperialism, writes Muhammad Abbas Khaskheli for South Asia Monitor
