Covering Policy Issues from South Asia
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In Rana Ayyub, the White West has found its next Arundhati Roy0
- Blog
- December 8, 2019
Investigative journalist Rana Ayyub is the story and the storyteller of Modi’s new India. ABHIJIT IYER-MITRA 8 December, 2019 What is it with gullible White people and brown women in distress? Every few years, the Western world seeks out, creates and builds bard of brown world’s pain. First it was Arundhati Roy, now it is Rana
The changing Bangladesh that Indians don’t like to know0
- Blog
- December 7, 2019
On almost every social parameter, Bangladesh is well ahead of India, whether it is infant and maternal mortality, access to safe childbirth and gender representation and parity, writes Nilova Roy Chaudhury for South Asia Monitor By Nilova Roy Chaudhury DEC 3, 2019 An exasperated and anguished Syed Muazzem Ali, the outgoing Bangladesh High Commissioner
Myanmar’s legacy of rape as a terror tactic0
- Blog
- December 7, 2019
The Daily Star December 04, 2019 The Myanmar military has been using rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war to exterminate the Rohingya community—or at least a part of it. PHOTO: THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION Tasneem Tayeb While it is a well-docu-mented fact that more than 700,000 Rohingya had to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state since
Indian economy headed for structural breakdown0
- Blog
- December 7, 2019
By Ravi Kant December 3, 2019 On November 8, India marked the third anniversary of demonetization, the single biggest monetary experiment in human history to curb black money. Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised India and the rest of the world with the announcement that 500- and 1,000-rupee banknotes would no longer be legal tender. Overnight,
India: Why CAB-plus-NRC fantasy is BJP’s next Ram Mandir-plus-Article 370 gambit0
- Blog
- December 7, 2019
Why CAB-plus-NRC fantasy is BJP’s next Ram Mandir-plus-Article 370 gambit CAB-plus-NRC is an idea that’s dead-on-arrival. But it’s the BJP’s next Ram Mandir that will be used to polarise and expose the party’s rivals. SHEKHAR GUPTA 7 December, 2019 Text Size: A- A+ For seven decades now, the Pakistani establishment has had one mantra: “Kashmir is just
Maldives looks for new deal on China debt0
- Blog
- December 6, 2019
New administration aims for a diplomatic resolution to heavy borrowing under previous president Agence France-Presse Published: 5:22pm, 6 Dec, 2019 SCMP 6 Dec, 2019 Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid says China was a generous donor, but the previous Maldivian government borrowed heavily without adequate provisioning for repayments. Photo: AFPThe Maldives is seeking a “diplomatic”
Commentary
Ending the Gulf crisis: Natural gas frames future Gulf relations0
- Commentary
- December 8, 2019
By James M. Dorsey 8 December 2019 A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox. Natural gas could well emerge as the litmus test of how relations among the Gulf’s energy-rich monarchies evolve if and when a Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led
Asia’s drug ‘kingpin’ more Hollywood than reality0
- Commentary
- December 7, 2019
Ok Drugs Golden Triangle December 1, 2019 Sensational portrayals of a new meth ‘kingpin’ misinterpret the dynamics of Asia’s narcotics trade By Bertil Lintner, Chiang Mai The Asia-Pacific drug trade has a new kingpin, at least according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and some Western anti-narcotics officials. His name: Tse
Pakistan PM: Comedy of Errors2
- Commentary
- December 6, 2019
by Mehrooj Rai 6 December 2019 Since the time Imran Khan came into power, his goof-ups and clangers have left many scratching their heads and have continued to create controversies, causing embarrassment for Pakistan all over the world. Last week, Prime Minister Imran Khan was lampooned on social media after he made a scientifically incorrect
The Production of Rare Earth: Why India Failed?0
- Commentary
- December 5, 2019
Summary India recognised the importance of rare earth back in 1950 and started extracting rare minerals through the establishment of the Indian Rare Earth Limited. India could not, however, make progress in this sector due to several reasons. Against this background, this article investigates some of the major steps undertaken by India to develop the
Bangladesh: An Enslaved Nation? (Part II)1
- Commentary
- December 5, 2019
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman (1749-1832). (In Part I, published on November 30, 2019, I tried to explain how Bangladesh was enslaved by an Indo-Bangla clique. In this part, I attempted to study how India cast a greedy
Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election 2019: A New President and the Politics of Balances0
- Commentary
- December 4, 2019
by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera December 3rd, 2019 Summary The recent Sri Lankan election witnessed the Rajapaksa brothers – Gotabaya and Mahinda – coming to power. Gotabaya, former secretary of defence and a technocrat with little political experience, was elected president while Mahinda, former two-time president who ended the protracted civil war during his term 10 years
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Featured
Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India
By Dexter Filkins A Reporter at Large December 9, 2019 Issue The New Yorker The Prime Minister’s Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi presents himself as an ascetic economic visionary. He is also a hero of anti-Muslim bigots. On August 11th, two weeks after Prime
Arundhati Roy: It’s Hard to Communicate the Scale and the Shape of This Shadow Taking India Over
November 28, 2019 www.democracynow.org Guests Arundhati Royaward-winning writer. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things. Her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017. Human rights groups are condemning the Indian government for carrying out widespread torture, extrajudicial