South Asia Archive

Gunfire broke out on Friday near the disputed Kashmir border between India and Pakistan, leaving nine dead and 62 wounded. Both sides claim that the other started the unprovoked firing and shelling. The attack comes days after four Kashmiri rebels and one Indian army trooper were killed near the border in India-administered Kashmir. Pakistan also accused India of injuring a civilian Sunday after firing on aPakistan Rangers’ station. These are just the most recent incidents along the so-called Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan, in Kashmir, which has seen a significant uptick in violence in […]

In a long anticipated move, late last month Cambodia’s Senate passed a controversial law that critics claim severely endangers the autonomy of foreign and local nongovernmental organizations in the country. The pushback from civil society and foreign governments has been strong, but hopes that it might be recalled were extinguished when Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni signed the draft legislation officially into law earlier this month. But the law is merely the latest in an alarming spate of efforts by authoritarian and nationalist governments to reduce the reach of NGOs working across Asia. In China, two proposed draft laws that would […]

Last month, India and Thailand signed a series of agreements, including a tax avoidance deal and extradition treaty. In an email interview, Pongphisoot Busbarat, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asia Institute, discussed India-Thailand relations. WPR: How extensive are Thailand’s economic ties with India, and what are the main areas of cooperation? Pongphisoot Busbarat: Thailand’s economic ties with India are multilayered, based on bilateral, subregional and regional schemes. These arrangements were made possible by the complementarity of both countries’ foreign policy strategies since the early 1990s: India’s “Look East” policy and Thailand’s “Look West” policy. The Joint Commission […]

Last month, after years of hedging on the issue, India agreed to include Japan as a permanent participant in its annual Malabar naval exercises with the United States, set this year for October. Japan has participated in the Malabar exercises before, but only as an invited observer. The decision to expand the Malabar exercises is a significant turning point not just for India’s role in the region, but also for the development of the trilateral relationship among the U.S., Japan and India. This long-underperforming trilateral partnership brings together the U.S. and the two largest and most influential democracies in the […]

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—After gently glancing his fingers over a miniature statue of the Hindu goddess Parvati attached to the dashboard of his taxi, Ganesan sped past the tollbooth onto the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway connecting Bandaranaike International Airport to Colombo. “This is the work of Rajapaksa,” he muttered, referring to the multimillion-dollar, multilane highway. Partly funded by the Chinese, the road was built by former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who, after dominating the island country’s politics for a decade, was surprisingly defeated in January’s presidential election by Maithripala Sirisena. Now, with Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections scheduled for Aug. 17, Rajapaksa is […]

There has been no shortage of buzz about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s activist foreign policy since he took office in May 2014. He has visited a number of countries in India’s immediate neighborhood, expanding India’s “Look East” policy by looking north to Central Asia. He has boosted ties in Europe, traveling to France, Germany and Russia; and the Middle East, hosting Gulf leaders in New Delhi; in addition to visits for bilateral meetings and multilateral summits from Australia and Japan to Brazil and the United States. All in all, he has brought renewed vigor to India’s foreign policy concerns […]

The “Wizard of Kandahar” is no more: The Afghan Taliban and family of Mullah Muhammad Omar acknowledged the death of the elusive Taliban founder and leader in a statement late last week. Mullah Omar’s death will have serious ramifications not just for the future of Afghanistan, but also for regional stability and the global jihad. Immediately, the confirmation of Mullah Omar’s death has resulted in the indefinite postponement of the latest round of Pakistan-hosted peace talks between the Afghan Taliban and President Ashraf Ghani’s government in Kabul, which had been scheduled for last Friday. The one-eyed leader’s passing may not […]