The pomp and pageantry that characterized some of Modi's previous visits will be absent this time because of Covid and the more reserved style of the Biden administration, writes Frank F Islam for South Asia Monitor 

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