India-Bangladesh border fencing

India’s Push-Ins Could Push Bangladesh Towards China

Amid strategic challenges from Beijing in Bangladesh, New Delhi cannot separate border management with foreign policy. New Delhi should hold high-level dialogue with Dhaka and develop a cooperative roadmap to facilitate the identification and repatriation of undocumented migrants from India. 

Growing Sri Lanka-India Defence Cooperation Throws Up Air-Defence Questions

The visit therefore should not be viewed simply as another bilateral defence engagement. It represents an attempt by New Delhi to institutionalise India's security relationship with Sri Lanka, while simultaneously reassuring Colombo that India's expanding security interests need not threaten Sri Lankan sovereignty.

Belgium and India: Building a Strategic Partnership Beyond Economics and Trade

Belgium views India as an opportunity to reduce its economic dependence on China and limit vulnerability to developments in the United States. India offers scale, growth, industrial capacity and ambition, while Belgium offers technology, specialised expertise, logistics and access to the European market.

Guardians of Harmony: Acknowledging Role of Mothers as Peacebuilders

India has its own legacy of maternal peacebuilding, from Jijabai to the Meira Paibi. What we lack is the language to celebrate and institutionalize these contributions. Recognizing mothers as peacebuilders is not just a cultural insight; it is a practical necessity for societies striving for harmony.

More on Geopolitics, Security and Strategic Affairs

Hopes and expectations from COP28: The world is at a tipping point on climate change

What happens in COP28 on Dubai’s climate conference battleground in the first half of December 2023 may not result in bloodshed but its consequences could be drenched in blood, mass migration, and starvation.

Sri Lanka's emerging mall cities: Urban spaces where modernity and tradition intersect

The evolution of mall cities in Sri Lanka represents a complex and multidimensional transformation that intertwines economic, technological, environmental, and social dimensions. 

Himalayan tunnel collapse raises many questions: Was this a manmade disaster?

Why then after 18 years we have had to get foreign help and equipment for the Silkyara tunnel rescue? Should this equipment and capability not be with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)? 

US’s flagrant double standards in dealing with anti-India terrorism

Both Ottawa and Washington have historically been rather lackadaisical, if not downright conniving, in their dealing with India’s decades-long attempts to act against the Khalistan movement’s violent underpinnings in the two countries.  

Sri Lanka's hi-tea culture: A new marker of class signalling in the digital era

Overall, whether one opts for the casual charm of hi-tea platters or the indulgent variety of hi-tea buffets, Sri Lanka's hi-tea culture seamlessly blends British colonial influences with local traditions, adding a unique and culturally rich touch to this eating-out experience.

South Asia's unacceptably high road fatalities: Need to bring about changes in emergency-care system

The South Asian region is home to an estimated 1.7 billion people, representing around 25 percent of the world’s population and also accounts for 25 percent of the world’s road crash fatalities.

The politics and hypocrisy of carbon emissions: Behind charges of India being third biggest polluter lurks West’s evasion

India is one country, but its 28 states are as diverse as the 27 nations of the European Union in language, culture, cuisine and economic development. The 27 nations together put out almost as much emissions as India at 3.1 million kilotonnes with only a population of 448 million, a third of India’s, for a per capita output of 5.5 tonnes.

Bangladesh's coming election draws big-power attention: New Delhi against external interference

India's position on the upcoming election is consistent with its friendly and good-neighborly relations with Bangladesh, its national interests, and international legal principles. Elections are an internal affair of Bangladesh, and only the Bangladeshi people have the right to decide their future.

Delhi's annual pollution blight: Is an end to stubble burning in northern India possible?

The power plants, cement and fertiliser units, and chemical industries have to be encouraged to utilize the paddy straw for the production of manure, briquettes and ethanol. These units could be provided the responsibility and authority of cutting the paddy straw from the fields after paying a nominal fee to the farmers. The arrangement could be a win-win situation for the paddy growers as well as user industries

Sikkim’s tragedy has lessons for all: But is anyone listening?

It is imperative that Infrastructural requirements like roads, bridges, tunnels, power plants and other industries should be weighed against their ecological impact by experts and their cost-benefit analysis undertaken before final decisions are taken. The damage done by man to nature can sometimes be irreversible and irredeemable.

Is the West pushing for a regime change in Bangladesh?

This despite full knowledge that the BNP and its permanent ally Jamaat e Islami are aligned with China and Pakistan. During the earlier BNP regimes in Bangladesh, major state-supported anti-India terrorist camps were running in that country, mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which also had instructors from Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s army-ISI.

Pakistan's leviathan has the country and its economy in its vice-like grip

Any facet of the economy one might imagine has the army's hand over it as evidenced in 2016 when the Pakistan Senate reckoned that the army operated more or less 50 commercial entities. Between 2011 and 2015 the Fauji Foundation, which perhaps serves as a facade for the Pakistani military’s commercial wing, grew its assets by 78 per cent.

Teenage pregnancy in India: A human rights issue swept under the carpet

Setting aside all the hullabaloo about the much-debated National Educational Policy 2020, the latter has hardly anything to offer on improving the sexual and reproductive health of women in India. This was unexpected since NEP 2020 aimed at holistic education.

Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean Rim : Challenges and opportunities for region

The global political and economic order is beginning to aggressively impact our region. It may effectively alter the balance of power and cordiality, especially within the South Asian neighborhood. 

Sri Lanka needs to optimise advantage from China's BRI 'grand strategy'

Given its strategic location blended with the old maritime silk route legacy, China places Sri Lanka in the pole position of its maritime strategy.