By the estimates given in the Supreme Court order dated 7 May 2021, almost 90 percent of prisoners released last year had returned to prisons between February and March this year, writes Anju Anna John for South Asia Monitor
Neither Bangladesh nor India — including West Bengal — is likely to fully concede its position. The future instead lies in pragmatic compromise, where domestic political constraints are balanced against the imperatives of regional cooperation. Ultimately, the trajectory of India–Bangladesh relations will depend less on identity politics and more on whether both sides can align economic necessity with political will.
The broader reality is that even if a political understanding emerges, restoring confidence in the Strait may take far longer than restoring a ceasefire. Shipping markets operate as much on perception of risk as on military realities. Tanker operators, insurers, charterers, and energy traders require predictability — and that predictability is currently absent.
New Delhi now occupies an awkward middle space: not fully trusted by the West, yet no longer fully aligned with the broader Global South consensus either. That ambiguity becomes riskier if Washington and Beijing move into even a temporary phase of strategic stabilisation.
The major bilateral issue is border security and management. While India claims that millions of Bangladeshis enter India illegally, reside and work here, Bangladesh dismisses that contention outright, saying that as their per capita income was higher than India’s, there was no reason for economic migration from Bangladesh to India.
By the estimates given in the Supreme Court order dated 7 May 2021, almost 90 percent of prisoners released last year had returned to prisons between February and March this year, writes Anju Anna John for South Asia Monitor
Biden has shifted his priorities to the Indo-Pacific where a direct confrontation with China is building up and, in fact, he cited that as a rationale for pulling out of Afghanistan, writes Arul Louis for South Asia Monitor
India and Australia have come strategically closer through forums such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) and Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI), writes Rahul Nath Choudhury for South Asia Monitor
Enhanced bilateral ties between Bangladesh and Myanmar could contribute to the growth of trade and investment relations with ASEAN and BIMSTEC countries, writes MD Pathik Hasan for South Asia Monitor
The country expects the world communities to consider all relevant issues including the socio-economic conditions in Bangladesh before making any recommendations to resolve the protracted Rohingya refugee crisis, writes Kazi Mohammad Jamshed for South Asia Monitor
The ISI’s guardianship of terror groups led to the inevitable Talibanisation of Pakistan at the cost of the secular space in politics, writes M R Narayan Swamy for South Asia Monitor
Notwithstanding India not joining the RCEP, it is likely to become the potential gateway for accelerating China’s backdoor entry into India, writes S. Majumder for South Asia Monitor
But getting global recognition could be far from easy for the Taliban because the Western countries have a negative perception about them, with many people in these nations still considering them terrorists, writes MD Ishtiak Hossain for South Asia Monitor
A key facet of the water-energy-food nexus in Pakistan is the heavy dependence of agriculture on groundwater irrigation, write Haris Mushtaq and Taimoor Akhtar for South Asia Monitor
America’s expectations that Afghanistan would not become a haven for terrorists (which it already was) and that the US will remain sheltered from terrorism emanating from that soil, are both misplaced, writes Lt Gen P. C. Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
Once the PTA comes into force, more people in Bangladesh will get access to good apples and oranges from Bhutan, while the fashion-conscious Bhutanese can choose from more varieties of quality apparel from Bangladesh, writes Md Pathik Hasan for South Asia Monitor
The sense of losing everything - after a quarter-century of modernization and social progress - seems to have broken the Afghan women's fear of confronting the Taliban, writes Shraddha Nand Bhatnagar for South Asia Monitor
The difficulty level the current Indian pacers had to overcome to achieve consistency and success in top-flight international cricket is substantially higher than what their counterparts from Pakistan had to surmount decades back, writes Sirshendu Panth for South Asia Monitor
So, what the future looks like for Afghanistan? In one word: hopeless, writes Anondeeta Chakraborty for South Asia Monitor
If India seeks greater market access, it must also allow the UK to sell more of its goods and services, writes N. Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor