South Asia Archive

After Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley met for the first time on the sidelines of the U.N. Rio+20 Conference in Brazil on June 21, Beijing announced that the two leaders had expressed their willingness to establish diplomatic relations between the neighboring countries. But Thimphu promptly disputed the report, saying Thinley and Wen had only discussed bilateral issues and multilateral cooperation, not diplomatic ties. The statement by China’s Foreign Ministry concerning the meeting reveals Beijing’s desperation to establish formal ties with the Kingdom of Bhutan, a tiny nation of about 700,000 people tucked between China […]

India is currently finalizing a $500 million contract with South Korean arms manufacturer Kangnam for eight minesweeper vessels. In an email interview, Rajaram Panda, an expert on East Asia and former senior fellow at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, discussed ties between India and South Korea. WPR: What is the current state of trade and defense ties between India and South Korea, and how have they evolved over the past several years? Rajaram Panda: India-South Korea relations have been developing based on three important pillars. First, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, signed in 2009 and […]

Pakistan’s parliament elected Raja Pervez Ashraf prime minister today, after the Supreme Court disqualified and unseated former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. The high court justices confirmed Gilani’s April conviction for contempt of court over his refusal to request that Switzerland reopen a corruption investigation against Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, as the court had ordered him to do in 2009. Shahab Usto, a lawyer and academic based in Karachi, Pakistan, told Trend Lines that the developments are part of a feud between the country’s executive and judiciary branches that will only worsen in the run-up to general elections, which […]

Less than a month after Nepal’s Constituent Assembly was dissolved following its failure to draft a new constitution despite three extensions, the country’s largest and ruling Maoist party split this week. Discord and delay have characterized the country’s ongoing peace process since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord between the government and Maoist rebels in November 2006. They have now led to a political crisis that has disillusioned citizens and made neighboring India and China edgy. The split in the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist is expected to exacerbate Nepal’s already bumpy transition from a Hindu monarchy to a […]

Following the death of four French soldiers in Afghanistan on Saturday, French President François Hollande reaffirmed his decision to withdraw French combat forces from the country by the end of 2012, with the drawdown to begin in July. Hollande had already defended the move at last month’s NATO summit in Chicago, where it met with little public opposition from alliance members. Militarily, the withdrawal of French troops will have little impact on the war effort. The transition of security operations to Afghan security forces in France’s area of responsibility, Kapisa province, had already begun in March, and the roughly the […]

COMBAT OUTPOST SABARI, Afghanistan — “Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!” droned the cold, mechanical voice of the warning system as the combat outpost’s radar detected another Taliban rocket launch. Soldiers ran for cover in the shelters that dot this little American army camp near the Pakistani border. Then three deep booms shook the ground as the rounds hit the hill behind the outpost. The Taliban almost always miss, but they try and try again almost every day, only to disappear afterward among the dusty Afghan hills. With the United States and its NATO allies looking ahead to 2014 as the date when […]

In late-May, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan initialed a gas sale and purchase agreement (GSPA) for the long-envisioned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project. The step is being seen regionally as a marker of seriousness for a project that until a few years ago was categorized as a dark horse when compared to the much-touted Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, itself currently on hold due to both Iranian inertia as well as Washington’s firm opposition to the project. For the United States, forward movement on TAPI serves to further isolate Iran from regional integration efforts, while showcasing the potential of its New Silk Road […]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met in Pakistan two weeks ago under the auspices of the bilateral High-Level Cooperation Council. In an email interview, Ishtiaq Ahmad, Quaid-i-Azam Fellow at St. Antony’s College and senior research associate at the Center for International Studies at Oxford University, discussed relations between Turkey and Pakistan. WPR: How would you characterize modern Turkish-Pakistani relations, and how have they evolved over the past decade? Ishtiaq Ahmad: The Turkish-Pakistani relationship is rooted in history and defined by the existence of deep ethno-religious affinity between the people of both countries. […]

India recently inducted a leased Russian Akula-class nuclear submarine into its naval fleet, rechristening it Indian Navy Ship (INS) Chakra. This will be the Indian navy’s second such stint with a submersible nuclear vessel: In 1987, India leased a Charlie-class nuclear submarine for three years from the Soviet Union. The INS Chakra, known in the Russian navy as the K-152 Nerpa, was initially conceived in the early 1990s under Russia’s Project 971 M Shchuka-B class nuclear-powered submarine program. Though the keel of the submarine was laid in 1993, the project was delayed due to Russia’s economic hardships after the Cold […]