South Asia Archive

On March 12, thousands of farmers in the Indian state of Maharashtra marched 112 miles to the state capital, Mumbai, demanding government action to address concerns ranging from land transfers to loans. India’s agricultural sector is the country’s largest source of employment, but it is inefficient and largely reliant on dated equipment and technology, and most farmers struggle to make a living. India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, which is facing mounting pressure from farmers, has been promising to address their concerns for years; Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to double farmers’ income. In an email interview, Surupa […]

On March 11, India and France co-hosted some 40 heads of state in New Delhi at the inaugural meeting of the International Solar Alliance, a treaty-based, intergovernmental organization facilitating solar energy advancement in developing countries in the tropics. The alliance, which was established at the Paris climate summit in November 2015, is aiming to raise $1 trillion in solar investments by 2030. France pledged roughly $860 million at the meeting in New Delhi. As part of the Paris climate pact, India has set its own ambitious green energy target of generating 40 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030. […]

On Feb. 21, Pakistan’s Supreme Court disqualified former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from leading the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN, party. Sharif’s brother Shahbaz, another senior PMLN leader, is expected to replace him as party president. The move marked Sharif’s second disqualification in seven months. Last July, the same court disqualified him from office, obliging him to resign as prime minister. These developments represent just the latest blows for the PMLN, which has led the government after winning a landslide election in 2013—but has seemingly been on the defensive ever since then. In 2014, the political opposition, led by […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. On March 6, Sri Lanka’s government declared a nationwide 10-day state of emergency as mob attacks targeted the country’s Muslim minorities. Tensions have been rising over the past year between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority, who are mainly Buddhist, and Muslims, leading to attacks on businesses, homes and places of worship. In an email interview, Neil DeVotta, a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and an expert on ethnic conflict in South Asia, explains what […]

Security assistance is a longstanding American tool to build up cooperation with key countries, including regional heavyweights like Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan, where security deficits have consequences for the United States. But security cooperation often requires bureaucratic agility and a true convergence of interests between the sender and receiver. Both elements have been in short supply recently, and new efforts to reform the enterprise seem unlikely to transform these difficult partnerships. In the past few weeks, Trump administration officials have engaged in several public dialogues about efforts to improve the suite of government-funded programs called security sector assistance. As with […]