South Asia Archive

Expectations are high for Nepal’s new prime minister, Sushil Koirala, who was elected to head the government by more than two-thirds of lawmakers’ votes last week and whose centrist party has many more potential allies in the recently elected legislature than it did in the previous assembly. However, challenges to bringing stability to the country and writing the nation’s new constitution remain daunting. Members of the second Constituent Assembly, elected in November, chose Koirala of the Nepali Congress (NC) party on Feb. 10 as the fifth prime minister since Nepal held its first democratic elections six years ago. The first […]

In recent weeks, the State Department has begun a new push on Sri Lankan human rights issues in the aftermath of that country’s decades-long war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which came to an end in May 2009. This push will likely include a new resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Council, the third such resolution in recent years, intended to pressure the government of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan government’s final push against LTTE-held territory, in the north of the country, resulted in the defeat of the group. But international observers criticized […]