Madhavi Bhasin is a California based independent scholar. She is currently working on a project exploring the role of new social media in influencing interactions between Indians and Pakistanis. She is a regular contributor at Huffington Post and blogs at thetrajectory.
The Pakistani Supreme Court ruling last week that banned former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from contesting elections could signal yet another sabotage of democracy in Pakistan. Sharif's electoral ban quells any possibility that his PML (N) might mount a political challenge to President Asif Ali Zardari in the 2013 elections. Political uncertainty now looms as all parties have adopted a confrontational posture. more
In April 2008, parliamentary elections in Nepal paved the way for the country's decade-long Maoist insurgency to join the political mainstream as the single largest party in parliament, and also culminated in the abolition of the century-old monarchy. But new challenges have appeared to
threaten the country's political stability, leaving its democratic
transition walking on a razor's edge.
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