South Asian Digests
Adani Ports to stop handling containers from...
October 12, 2021
UN, Bangladesh sign deal to aid Rohingya relo...
October 12, 2021
Afghan newspapers stop printing, go online
September 25, 2021
Sri Lanka arrests Tamil MP for commemorating...
September 25, 2021
Top UN official urges Myanmar action ‘before...
September 25, 2021
Ambassadors appointed by Oli government to be...
September 22, 2021
Putin phones Khan as Afghanistan brings Pak,...
September 16, 2021
Bhutan delivers 230,000 doses of Covid-19 vac...
August 7, 2021
Top News
The Quad, AUKUS, and India’s Dilemmas
October 16, 2021
| By: Manjari Chatterjee Miller
When the defense arrangement between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom (UK), known as AUKUS, was announced last month, Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the deal was “neither relevant to the Quad, nor will it have any impact on its functioning.” The statement, made just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to visit the United States for the first in-person Quad summit, was an attempt to downplay the significance of...
SOUTH ASIAN BRIEF
The U.S.-India-Pakistan Triangle
Welcome to South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visits New Delhi and Islamabad with vastly different agendas, the Pandora Papers implicate figures across South Asia, and India’s farmers’ protests turn deadly.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is visiting India and Pakistan this week. Her trip underscores the...
Reports
China and Bhutan reach deal on border talks ‘in...
October 16, 2021
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By: Amber Wang
China has signed an agreement with Bhutan to speed up talks on their disputed border, in an apparent effort to put pressure on India over their unresolved Himalayan frontiers.
In an online ceremony on Thursday, China and Bhutan signed a memorandum of understanding on a “three-step...
‘Unholy’ China-Pakistan-Turkey-Taliban pact mean...
October 16, 2021
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By: Nayanima Basu
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat Friday said the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan was “not entirely surprising”, adding that China, Pakistan and Turkey all worked in collusion to prop up the insurgent group. As a result, he said, the situation along India’s north-western borders...
UN chief delayed ASEAN meeting to avoid Myanmar...
October 16, 2021
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By: SAM Staff
UN chief Antonio Guterres asked to postpone a virtual meeting with Southeast Asian ministers at the last minute to avoid signalling any recognition of Myanmar’s military government by being in the same online room as the military’s envoy, United Nations diplomats have said.
The meeting...
India drug agency faces heat over arrest of Boll...
October 16, 2021
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By: Bilal Kuchay
The arrest of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in a drug case following a raid on a luxury cruise ship earlier this month has been making headlines in India for nearly two weeks now.
Aryan, 23, and seven others were detained on...
SAM Special
Afghanistan sinks into poverty as nations haggle over recognition
October 15, 2021
| By: P.K. Balachandran
Afghanistan is one country in the world which seems destined not to savor independence, peace and prosperity. Currently, it is sinking further into poverty as rich nations, which can lift it out of poverty and destitution, are haggling with the Taliban regime over conditions for recognition, even de-facto recognition to reach urgently needed humanitarian assistance.
Kanni Wignaraja, Director of the UN Development Program’s regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific, told the Washington Post at...
Issues
Bangladesh: climate change pioneer
October 17, 2021
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By: Tahseen Ali
Climate change is a theoretical problem to many, but not in Bangladesh. A single degree rise in temperature will increase sea levels by about a meter, enough to flood a fifth of Bangladesh and force nearly 30 million of its citizens to abandon their homes....
A rush to farm organically has plunged Sri Lanka...
October 16, 2021
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By: SAM Staff
Staring glumly at his paddy field in the depths of rural Sri Lanka, B. R. Weeraratne sighs. The regular incursions of greedy elephants have been bad enough. But the government’s outright ban on agrochemicals will, he fears, slash his yields of nadu and samba, two of the most popular...
How RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat dusted off a 6-year-...
October 16, 2021
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By: D.K. Singh
Why did Mohan Bhagwat, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sarsanghchalak or patron, have to dig up a six-year-old document for his Vijayadashami speech Friday? It was the resolution that the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal or the RSS’ All-India Executive Committee had passed in Ranchi way...
Afghanistan: Russia draws red lines for US
October 15, 2021
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By: M. K. Bhadrakumar
Moscow has categorically stated that it will not accept a US military presence in the Central Asian region. This reiteration has come at the level of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who told Tass that Afghanistan had been discussed at a meeting with Victoria...
Interview
Whose committee will this search committee act...
October 16, 2021
| By: Riadul Karim
Defence
HIMADS induction – encircling India?
October 16, 2021
| By: SAM Staff
China's latest fighter jets, drones display wa...
October 11, 2021
| By: Yuri Momoi
Editor`s Choice
India’s Covid-19 tsunami
By: Shashi Tharoor
It is humbling when a columnist must retract his words soon after penning them. Just two months ago, after India rushed millions of doses of...
Quad lacks moral authority in South China Sea
By: Bhim Bhurtel
At the virtual summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue held on March 12, the Quad leaders reiterated their firm commitment that the rules-based international order...
Indonesia seeks to broker Taliban peace deal...
By: Randy Mulyanto
Former Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said he has traveled to Afghanistan and Qatar several times in recent months to help broker a peace deal...
Focus
India
Lament for India's descent into authoritarianism
October 15, 2021
| By: Victor Mallet
The weakening and possible collapse of Indian democracy, lamented and explained by Shashi Tharoor in "The Struggle for India's Soul" and analyzed in forensic detail by Christophe Jaffrelot in "Modi's India," is no small matter.
India, with its 1.4 billion people, is the latest and largest democratic country to fall under the spell of a populist, nationalist leader such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As documented in both these books, after winning his first countrywide...
You have got literally thousands of young people who have grown up with music, and they’re not going to be just kind of switched off like that.
John Baily, an ethnomusicologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, referring to fears that Afghanistan’s Taliban government will restrict nonreligious music
Audio
JAISHANKAR AND BLINKEN DISCUSS MYANMAR SITUATION AND ISSUES... February 10, 2021
Goel’s visit indicates RAW’s bid to revive past links with O... October 26, 2020
Why Abdullah Abdullah visited Pakistan and India? November 4, 2020
China halts new coal-fired power plants abroa...
September 24, 2021
By erasing traces of the Massacre, the Jallia...
September 9, 2021
Trauma lingers in novel about Sri Lanka's civ...
September 6, 2021
Hunting for Nepal's stolen idols
September 4, 2021
Syed Ali Shah Geelani was symbol of Kashmir r...
September 3, 2021
The Maldives Knows Y.O.L.O.
August 13, 2021
Fighting Myanmar's regime with compassion and...
August 4, 2021
In Bangladesh, musicians sing songs of loss a...
August 4, 2021