Taken together - the staged abduction drama, Zakir Naik’s planned visit, and Zaheer’s clandestine movements - paint a deeply disturbing picture of Bangladesh’s current trajectory. Since the 2024 coup, Islamist influence has expanded alarmingly under the interim regime of Muhammad Yunus, creating fertile ground for extremist ideologies to spread under official tolerance.
India and Pakistan are both interested in establishing influence over Afghanistan. In pursuing control, both adopt a zero-sum approach. India fears that Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan could create safe havens for anti-India elements such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. Pakistan fears that India’s presence in Afghanistan could lead to its encirclement and threaten security along its northwestern borders.
Internationally, leading medical institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in the United States have recognized Integrative Medicine as a legitimate, evidence-informed discipline. They are conducting research, developing protocols, and training healthcare professionals in the art and science of integration.
Bangladesh is not immune to the regional trend of rising religious and political extremism after a dramatic regime change. Credible security analyses warn that, with recent upheavals, hardline groups are reconfiguring networks and testing gaps in the state’s capacity to respond. To weaken the armed forces and other disciplined services is to invite those groups to exploit the vacuum.
There is growing realization within the government and diplomatic community that India stands to lose a great deal in allowing Islamophobia to spread within India and among Indians abroad and some nimble diplomacy is required to change perceptions, writes Nilova Roy Chaudhury for South Asia Monitor
Indian pharma’s soft power has, no doubt, opened up possibilities for foreign policy in the neighbourhood, writes N Chandra Mohan for South Asia Monitor
The terrific trio of Modi, Macron and XI should meet over videoconference and announce WAVE. They have the capability and potential to make history, writes Rajendra Shende for South Asia Monitor
What really jumps up from the plethora of information floating around is the lack of preparedness and lack of governmental attention to health care, especially in the overcrowded South Asian region, writes Sreeradha Datta for South Asia Monitor
Irrespective of whether they succeed in convincing the foreigners, the reactions in India to the minister’s assertion will range from amusement to derision, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
This abundant food-in-the-granary exigency will unfold even as a large number of Indians are grappling with hunger pangs and are stuck in varying degrees of deprivation, writes C Uday Bhaskar for South Asia Monitor
The wider consequences of the agreement between the US and Taliban remain ambiguous, writes Iqbal Dawari for South Asia Monitor
The Indian government’s decision to pass and enact, in December 2019, the Citizenship Amendment Act, naming Bangladesh as a country where minorities are persecuted, had an extremely negative fallout in that country, writes Nilova Roy Chaudhury for South Asia Monitor
India is poised for an all-out war and, like in any war, this is not the time for partisanship. It’s in this scenario that Modi will find himself at a fork in the road, writes E.D. Mathew for South Asia Monitor
Indeed, if anyone is serious about the plight of the Rohingyas and is looking for sustainable solutions to the crisis, then the person ought to put her gaze not on Bangladesh but on Myanmar, writes Imtiaz Ahmed for South Asia Monitor
When the first COVID-19 case came to public notice in India in January this year, questions in concerned quarters have been raised as to why did it take almost two months to prepare for lockdown and that too with a notice of a few hours to leave many citizens unprepared and more so the migrant and the poor, writes Partha Pratim Mitra for South Asia Monitor
RSS remains quite optimistic about the way the new world order is going to pan out post-COVID-19. It feels that it is the beginning of a new golden era for India, writes Arun Anand for South Asia Monitor
The consequence of continuing the lockdown, even under present conditions, could be grave, as the self-employed people like vendors, plumbers, auto drivers, small automobile workshops etc. as well as poor senior citizens, visually impaired/differently-abled people, who are millions in number all over the country, would be badly hit, writes N S Venkataraman for South Asia Monitor
The legitimacy of a regional organization like SAARC and others alike will be uncertain if strategic measures and procedures to control COVID-19 do not work in South Asia, writes Maj. Gen Binoj Basnyat (retd) for South Asia Monitor
No one can predict what the trajectory of communal relations will be when it is clear that so much will change in the post-corona period not only with regard to Hindu-Muslim ties, but in every other field that the scene in India will be quite different from what it is today writes Amulya Ganguli for the South Asia Monitor
