South Asia Archive

The Afghan government and its international supporters have long viewed the estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion worth of natural resources thought to lie beneath Afghanistan’s rugged landscape as being among the country’s best prospects for economic independence. But hopes of developing Afghanistan’s extravagant array of natural resources—including world class deposits of iron, gold, copper, lithium and lucrative rare earth metals—are in serious jeopardy. Wavering international investors, Afghanistan’s unresolved and contested new draft law concerning resource extraction and the political uncertainty associated with next year’s presidential elections and substantial NATO drawdown risk dashing efforts to transform Afghanistan into an economically […]

India’s sheer size and poverty have meant that addressing the needs of its hundreds of millions of poor and vulnerable citizens has preoccupied Indian policymakers since independence. Unsurprisingly, the mix of strategies, the resulting policy instruments to undergird them and their relative effectiveness have been a matter of contentious debate. As with other poor developing countries, India’s efforts to improve the welfare of its vulnerable populations have, at least in principle, involved three major components. The first, given the abysmally low income of the average Indian household, has been to try to raise incomes through growth with the assumption that […]

Despite India’s graduation from outlier to tepidly accepted member of the global nuclear order, one area of New Delhi’s nuclear activities continues to raise alarm: its undersea nuclear deterrent. India unveiled its first nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant, in July 2009. Though the ship was largely indigenous, Russia helped in designing the miniaturized nuclear reactor. Just last month, the nuclear reactor in INS Arihant went critical, clearing the way for its final operational trials in the Bay of Bengal. India has designs to produce four to five nuclear submarines by the end of this decade. When integrated with nuclear-tipped sea-launched […]

Last week the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif completed its first 100 days in office. The elections in May, though marred by rigging and irregularities, made history as Pakistan’s first democratic transition. But if Pakistanis were jubilant about this milestone at the time, their joy had faded by the time of my visit last month. Sharif campaigned on five major promises: that he would set the economy on track, end energy shortages in three years, end U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani territory, tackle terrorism and pursue positive relations with neighbors. In pre-election polls, 81 percent […]

During a recent visit to Afghanistan to assess the implications of the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) withdrawal with regard to humanitarian needs and responses, I was struck by the dissonance between the debates over Afghanistan’s future inside and outside the country. The troop withdrawal has dominated the international agenda since it was announced in 2009. It still remains unclear how many troops will stay in Afghanistan after 2014, when ISAF’s mandate is set to expire, and what their role will be. Meanwhile, the recent row over the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement has raised the specter of a “zero option” […]

In India, violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims over the weekend reportedly killed at least 30 people. Officials say the riots in the northern Indian province of Uttar Pradesh were a reaction to a video clip allegedly showing the lynching of two young people. “India is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world, so it’s always had difficulty in keeping the peace between its various religious groups,” Ajay Verghese, assistant professor of politics at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, wrote Trend Lines in an email interview. “But what happened in Uttar Pradesh really fits the […]

Last month, Tanzania imported 591 military transport vehicles from India in an effort to improve the transport capabilities of the Tanzania People’s Defense Force. In an email interview, Laxman Kumar Behera, a research fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi specializing in the Indian defense industry, explained the dynamics of India’s defense exports. The views expressed are the author’s own. WPR: What are the main countries to which India exports defense products, and what does it sell them? Laxman Kumar Behera: The Indian defense industry mainly exports to Asian and African countries, though it also […]

Since early 2013, the rate of border skirmishes between the Pakistani and Indian militaries has accelerated. Though the incidents have been scattered and casualties few, they represent an uptick from 2012: Thus far in 2013 there have been 42 cease-fire violations along the Line of Control (LoC), while in all of 2012 there were only 28. The increased military activity on the border has elicited accusations from both sides, even during a time of increased dialogue and political moves toward greater cooperation. The border incidents have also prompted international concern about the future of Kashmir and stability in the region […]