Articles in Courtesy: South Asia Monitor
India’s Aviation Industry: In need of a New Model and Leadership
By: Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 09 Jul , 2018
India’s aviation industry traces its roots to December 1940, when industrialist Seth Walchand Hirachand (1882-1953) established Hindustan Aircraft Limited (HAL) in Bangalore, with American...
Crisis in Maldives: India should use diplomacy to resolve situation
By: Vishwajeet Singh Raghav | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 26 Jun , 2018
The security environment in South Asia has brought new challenges for countries in the region. The political crisis in the Maldives has intensified the existing challenges in the region. The...
Afghan conflict not religious: Kabul fatwa challenges Taliban claims
By: Dawood Mohammadi | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 13 Jun , 2018
On Monday June 4, 2018, Kabul saw a gathering of over 3,500 Afghan religious scholars. Such a large religious assembly (Loya jirga) to mull over national issues was unprecedented in the history of...
Insulate Kashmiri youth from radicalisation; house militants in jails...
By: Anil Bhat | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 23 May , 2018
In early May 2018, separatists in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) directed their stone-pelters to target young school children and tourists. One child and one tourist were killed. While schools and...
Trade and inter-dependency can bring peace to South Asia
By: Majidullah Rasooli | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 19 May , 2018
Pakistan, itself dependent on security and development assistance from the United States and China, has not been able to substantially contribute to Afghanistan. Instead, Pakistan has for long...
Sino-Russian axis moves India to Secure other Friendships
By: Adrij Chakraborty | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 15 May , 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory in the 2018 elections extended his rule over the largest country in the world for another six years. His hostile relationships with the...
India must not abandon its LCA project
By: Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 12 May , 2018
In its pursuit of global maritime dominance, China has decided to create a force of three aircraft-carriers – one for each of its fleets. Like India, China first acquired an old Soviet-era...
Don't expect too much from Modi-Xi meeting
By: Tarun Basu | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 25 Apr , 2018
The forthcoming “informal summit” between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan this weekend has surprised observers and many have even compared it to the...
India, China must find ways to Cooperate Economically
By: Tridivesh Singh Maini | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 22 Apr , 2018
That the 5th Sino-Indian Strategic and Economic Dialogue was held in Beijing despite deep divergences between India and China on strategic and economic issues, and the strains caused after the...
DefExpo 2018: Can it be the catalyst for India's goal of strategic autonomy?
By: Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 07 Apr , 2018
The four-day long DefExpo 2018 that opens outside of Chennai on April 11 has been innovatively and generously showcased as ‘India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub’ and a large...
Heed the Refrain: India's 'Half-Empty Arsenal' Endangering National Security
By: Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 03 Apr , 2018
India’s political leadership, preferring to accord priority to electoral politics, has seemingly distanced itself from national security issues. At the same time, the armed forces have been...
India and Pakistan: Will there be a spring in ties?
By: Tarun Basu | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 01 Apr , 2018
When K Natwar Singh was Minister of State for External Affairs in Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s government in the late 1980s, he made a poignant remark that has become an apt metaphor for the...
Balancing India, China will not be easy for new Nepal PM
By: Pramod Jaiswal and Aruna Ghimire | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 23 Feb , 2018
KP Sharma Oli has been elected Prime Minister of Nepal for the second time, riding on the support of the left alliance, which comprises two major communist parties; Communist Party of...
Maldives in Crisis: Time for India to Act
By: Sumon K Chakravarti | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 07 Feb , 2018
Maldives today is a version of the reality series The Apprentice, where President Abdullah Yameen is already taking a leaf out of Donald Trump’s reality show playbook: “This is a dictatorship...
Netanyahu's India visit: Promoting mutual strategic interests
By: Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 16 Jan , 2018
The visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to India (January 14-19) commemorates the 25th anniversary of the opening of an Indian embassy in Tel Aviv in 1992 and will further...
Pakistan: Test of US influence and power
By: Arul Louis | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 03 Jan , 2018
Angered by the killing of an American soldier by terrorists in Afghanistan, United States President Donald Trump let off the first Twitter salvo of 2018, bringing into sharp focus Washington’s...
Shahbaz Sharif as PML-N’s PM candidate to pay dividends
By: Tridivesh Singh Maini | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 27 Dec , 2017
Nawaz Sharif, former Pakistani prime minister and president of the Pakistani Muslim League (PML-N), has chosen his brother and Chief Minister of Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, as the (PML)-N’s...
India-Singapore naval agreement: Significance beyond the bilateral
By: Cmde C Uday Bhaskar (Retd.) | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 02 Dec , 2017
India and Singapore signed the India-Singapore Bilateral Agreement (Nov 29) for naval cooperation during the second Defence Minister’s Dialogue held in Delhi between the two countries. This...
Can Chabahar, India’s strategic gateway to Central Asia, trump Gwadar and...
By: Anil Bhat | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 01 Dec , 2017
India’s first shipment of wheat to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chabahar is a landmark move marking the operationalisation of the port as an alternative, reliable connection with...
Afghanistan 2017 Witnesses the Power Tussle of Two New Strategic Trilaterals
By: Dr Subhash Kapila | Issue: Courtesy: South Asia Monitor | Date: 07 Nov , 2017
Strange and ironical are geopolitical histories of a region where within two decades geopolitical alignments have spun on their heads. This happens to be the case of Afghanistan’s turbulent last...