The return of active engagement with agrarian issues in university spaces is central to forging student-farmer solidarity, contends Arsh Ajmera for South Asia Monitor
If one location matters most to India in Sri Lanka, it is Trincomalee. With one of the finest natural harbours in the world, Trincomalee has immense commercial, naval, and energy value. For decades, strategists in New Delhi have viewed it as critical to the security architecture of the Bay of Bengal.
South Asia cannot remain an archipelago of isolated economies connected only by shared history and mutual suspicion. Changing acronyms does not change reality. Summit declarations will not achieve true economic integration. True integration requires the political courage to dismantle physical and bureaucratic walls. Only then will the region stop holding its immense potential captive.
The resultant reduced trust signals a declining democratic discourse that should be the biggest worry for the nation at this stage. The bill that failed thus tells the deeper story of all that is going wrong in the Indian democracy, bit by bit, in areas that are clearly visible and sometimes in many invisible ways.
Manipur today is not merely a regional crisis. It is a test of India’s democratic resilience. It highlights the limits of governance models that prioritize control over consensus. Without a shift toward genuine political engagement that addresses the fears, rights, and representation of all communities, the conflict will persist and resurface with greater intensity.
The return of active engagement with agrarian issues in university spaces is central to forging student-farmer solidarity, contends Arsh Ajmera for South Asia Monitor
Afghanistan wants Beijing to formally apologize for China’s spy-cum-terror module caught operating in Kabul violating international norms before the Chinese detainees are released. However, China will consider this demand an affront, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
The region’s dependence on imports for production, as well as the contributions of its exports through value chains place some of its economies in an influential position within the global production and trading network, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
The legacy of the Pakistani state’s sponsorship of some terror groups - mainly those used to help pursue its objectives in Afghanistan and India - means that the infrastructure of terror will prove difficult to dismantle (though Islamabad has made progress in curbing terror financing networks, amid strong international pressure), writes Michael Kugelman for South Asia Monitor
Dissent within Nepal’s Communist Party was brewing for a long time but dissolving parliament without a provision in the Constitution is unprecedented. China has invested too much in Nepal to let go of control of Nepalese politics, writes Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (retd) for South Asia Monitor
If contract farming is an idea whose time has come, it is necessary to ask why did it take off from 2002-03 and then sharply decline by 2011-12 in this vanguard agrarian state, writes N Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
More importantly, the South Asia region needs to realise that workers and farmers have a key role to play in promoting sustainable consumption as they are both the end consumers as well as the producers at the start of the supply chain, writes George Cheriyan & Simi T.B. for South Asia Monitor
But it is interesting to note that 49 years hence, there seems to be no change in how the nation views the civil war and a bloody separation of its eastern province, writes Mahendra Ved for South Asia Monitor
The ‘uncultured’ state of Pakistan has not apologized yet for the 1971 genocide. It should be compelled, writes Farabi Bin Zahir for South Asia Monitor
New Delhi also needs to recognize that the rules of diplomacy are changing and that country, especially the US under Biden, would not hesitate to make remarks about human rights violations or on communal tensions and certainly, the changes in the status of Jammu and Kashmir. None of these would qualify, for Biden’s Administration, as being ‘internal matters,’ writes Amb Amit Dasgupta (retd) for South Asia Monitor
On this International Migrants Day, it is worth noting that not every migrant succeeds in an adopted land. For evidence, one need not go beyond the Indian American community. While the community’s many successes and accomplishments have been well-documented, a less-publicized fact is the plight of hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals in the United States, writes Frank Islam for South Asia Monitor
What the BJP may have realized, therefore, from these sporadic eruptions of protests is that electoral success is not the be-all and end-all of politics, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
Many people want to know why the ruling Awami League is perpetuating this "sculpture politics". Why is this issue being given so much importance so as to forget the numerous other challenges Bangladesh is facing? writes Akmal Hossain for South Asia Monitor
India for the time being has chosen to call for an adjournment on the multidimensional chessboard of multilateral trade/strategic agreements which can be seen as a wise move, writes Kumardeep Banerjee for South Asia Monitor
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