South Asia remains one of the least integrated regions in the world despite geographical proximity and complementary economic structures. Greater regional trade, improved transport connectivity, cross-border electricity markets, digital payment systems and investment partnerships could substantially reduce external vulnerabilities.
Between 2004 and 2023, India produced roughly five million graduates every year, but graduate employment increased by only around 2.8 million annually. Even fewer obtained salaried employment. Millions are either unemployed or working below their qualifications or in the waiting room for the elusive government job.
Policy instability during the 2015-2024 likely pushed back Sri Lanka’s path towards becoming South Asia’s first High-Income Country. The 2022 financial crisis would never have happened as stable growth during the first half of 2015–2024 would have built enough buffer to weather impact of the Covid pandemic
China’s Belt and Road Initiative - which funded Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port through loans resulting in a 99-year lease to Chinese State-owned enterprise in 2017 due to Colombo’s struggle to service said loans - follows the same expansionary script.
Sri Lanka has decided to pay $6.7 million in compensation to the Chinese fertilizer firm after the latter initiated an arbitration proceeding against Colombo which had earlier rejected its fertilizer consignment of 20,000 metric tonnes, citing quality issues
A batch of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Chinese government arrived in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan
China has denied reports that Sino Soar Hybrid Technology Co, the Chinese firm which was awarded three power projects by the Sri Lanka government, had withdrawn from the project
Indian Navy Chief, Admiral Radhakrishnan Hari Kumar said India was maintaining a close vigil on Chinese asset deployments in the Indian Ocean Region, and that during the peak of tensions at the India-China border earlier last year Indian naval assets were kept battle-ready
In a significant development, the Maldives has roped in Sino Soar Hybrid Technology, the Chinese firm whose projects Sri Lanka had canceled after objection from India over security concerns, to design, supply, and install power generation plants in 12 of its 200 inhabited islands. Significantly, the archipelago officially follows the ‘India First’ policy
The RIC Grouping (Russia, India, China) demonstrates genuine multilateralism in relations to the world, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday and "China will work with Russia and India acting in the spirit of openness, solidarity, trust and cooperation, in the spirit of the RIC mechanism.
Sri Lanka has awarded the contract for developing the second phase of the East Coast Terminal (ECT) of Colombo Port to China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC)
In the wake of China’s “aggressive posture” and its attempts at “multiple transgressions along the border” last year, India is very carefully examining its options with regard to its trade and investment ties with Beijing to ensure that New Delhi’s “integrity and security remain intact”, Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Wednesday
Gwadar, a southwestern port city in Pakistan, has been witnessing prolonged protest as locals staged sit-in on a key highway demanding the removal of security checkpoints, end to electricity shortage, and illegal fishing
India and China are going through “a particularly bad patch” in their relationship because Beijing has taken actions “for which they still don’t have a credible explanation”, and the Chinese leadership has to take a call on where they want to take the bilateral ties, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday
Tensions between Sri Lanka and China over a shipment of rejected fertiliser continued to simmer as the Commercial High Court on Friday extended an interim order preventing the payment to China’s Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Co. Ltd
India and China on Thursday agreed on the need to find an early resolution to the remaining issues along their Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh and to hold the next round of the senior commanders meeting at an early date
Tensions ratcheted up between Sri Lanka and China over a shipment of rejected fertiliser, with Sri Lankan Director General of Agriculture Dr. Ajantha Silva stressing on Monday that Colombo has not agreed to re-test the rejected Chinese organic fertiliser by a third party, a day after Beijing’s envoy announced that a re-test was being done
Tensions between Sri Lanka and China over a rejected shipment of contaminated Chinese fertilizer continued, with Colombo on Saturday hardening its stand and refusing to conduct a re-test of the fertilizer, even as the Sri Lankan cabinet has okayed the purchase of more nano nitrogen fertilizer from India
China has only upgraded infrastructure along the border in India's northeast, and new villages have not come up, India's Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said on Thursday, saying pointedly that the country's main adversary was China, and not Pakistan
