South Asia Archive

Earlier this month, Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar went on a whirlwind tour of all seven nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The objective was to discuss the implementation of reforms, ranging from developing infrastructure to combating terrorism and improving governance, which member states agreed to during last year’s SAARC summit in Nepal. Strengthening the SAARC to boost South Asia’s economic integration and development has been a key foreign policy objective of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, but beyond that regional agenda, Jaishankar’s trip to Pakistan was also a chance to restart dialogue on bilateral […]

Reports over the past three months suggest that Pakistani military leaders and Afghan officials are renewing efforts to open direct talks between the Taliban and Kabul. Though these steps show signs of promise and should be supported by U.S. policymakers, expectations about the talks’ prospects for a swift resolution to the Afghanistan War should be measured, given the history of breakdowns of past efforts and the potential for spoilers on all sides to derail them. The last bid for peace talks, supported by the U.S. State Department and facilitated by Qatar, was abandoned in 2013 after Afghanistan’s then-President Hamid Karzai […]

Last week, former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed was convicted on terrorism charges. In an email interview, Maryiam Shiuna, the executive director of Transparency Maldives, discussed the impact of Nasheed’s conviction on the Maldives’ domestic and foreign policy. WPR: What is the background to the current case involving former President Mohamed Nasheed? Mariyam Shiuna: President Nasheed was elected following the historic presidential election in 2008—the country’s first free and fair election. Despite the gains following the democratic transition, authoritarian enclaves continued to exist within institutional frameworks, and Nasheed’s administration was faced with numerous economic, social and political challenges. Protests in January […]

Last week was an auspicious time for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to culminate his three-country tour around the Indian Ocean with the first visit by an Indian leader to Sri Lanka in three decades. Given the island nation’s shifting political landscape following the surprising defeat of its two-term president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in early January, the milestone represented by Modi’s visit Friday and Saturday was further amplified by the trip’s geopolitical importance. Under Rajapaksa’s leadership, Sri Lanka ended a civil war that lasted nearly three decades. But his rule was plagued by corruption, nepotism, the centralization of power and increasingly […]

Last month, India signed a nuclear energy deal with Sri Lanka. In an email interview, Saurav Jha, an independent energy consultant in India, discussed India’s civilian nuclear export industry. WPR: What is the extent (expertise, dollar value, market access) of India’s civil nuclear export industry, and how has that evolved since the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal? Saurav Jha: There are no Indian exports of nuclear power-generating equipment to any country at the moment, aside from a few components. The highest-value nuclear-related export by India currently is heavy water—India is the world’s top producer—to countries such as South Korea and the […]