Two major recent developments in Bangladesh are likely to have an impact on the upcoming elections. One is the decision of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party to enter into an understanding with...
Letter from South Asia
With the war in Sri Lanka intensifying in recent weeks, political space has opened up for assassins to hit those described in military parlance as "soft targets". The assassination of intellectual...
The classical and western understanding of civil society suggests that by being "against the state" in some way, and especially by being against an autocratic and undemocratic state, civil society is...
The Charter of Democracy agreed upon between Pakistan People's Party and the Nawaz Shariff-led Muslim League is a landmark document that creates the basis for a transition to durable civilian...
How much power will a caretaker government in Bangladesh have in the run-up to the elections? With the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League locked in a stalemate in the preparations for...
Pervez Musharraf's call for "enlightened moderation" is a tacit (and welcome) admission that a theocratic Pakistan cannot work. There have been some changes for the good, but the minuses outweigh the...
The most effective way to manage the secessionist impulses in the Tamil polity is to reconstitute the state in such a way that the Tamils as well as other ethnic minorities share state power along...
Most of Pakistan's economic indicators have never looked so good. But a close scrutiny reveals a different picture. Income inequality has increased and inflation remains at 8 per cent per annum...
There is no global process called "terrorism": each armed group with its own strategies and recourses to violence must be understood in a given context rather than as a feature of an elusive "...
At a time when insurgencies have been making headlines across south Asia, it is useful to identify some historical and geographical patterns of such conflicts in Pakistan. State security forces have...
Given the complex political forces at work presently in Nepal, it will need skilful political and civil leadership, besides international cooperation on the part of the UN and Nepal's neighbours, to...
An elaborate ritual for arriving at the modalities for the 2007 elections in Bangladesh is being performed by the two main political formations, but neither seems interested in reaching an agreement...
Despite a period touted as one of "high growth", growing inequality in terms of both income and regional, rising prices and growth that is not broad based, threatens to have the same serious...
It appears that both Nepal and Sri Lanka are on the brink of reconstituting the existing state. The difficult task in both countries is to ensure that reconstitution of the state will facilitate an...
The US-India nuclear accord will exacerbate the arms race between India and Pakistan and threatens to accelerate nuclear weaponisation by both countries. The sane course is for the two countries to...
