On January 8, 2023, Mohammad Salim, deputy leader of Block B, Rohingya Camp-8 West, in the Ukhiya Sub-District of Cox's Bazar District, was killed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).
Energy Transitions and Geopolitics in South Asia: The Contest for Hydro-Hegemony on the Brahmaputra
The centrality of oil and gas in shaping the international relations of the 21st century have long created an academic and public policy focus on the relationship between energy and geopolitics.
In a dramatic, though expected, development in Nepal’s politics, on December 26, 2022, Maoist veteran Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda took the oath as Prime Minister of Nepal for the third time. He had earlier served as Prime Minister in 2008-2009 and 2016- 2017.
Balochistan rises in revolt, reminds Pakistan of its Bangladesh loss
Fifty-one years on, Pakistan gets sharp reminders of its Bangladesh loss as yet another province, Balochistan, rises in revolt.
Bannu Division: Terrorist Ferment
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
Chen Xiangrong: A martyr or another of CCP’s propaganda tactics
As the anti-COVID protest swept through China in Nov 2022, frustrations against the draconian Zero COVID policy as well as the Xi government also came to surface.
Indigenous peoples and digital rights: The future of India’s northeast borderlands
Ravi Shankar Prasad argues that “The Digital India Programme (Digital Northeast vision 2022) is designed to transform India into a knowledge-based economy and a digitally empowered society by ensuring digital services, digital access, digital inclusion, digital empowerment and by bridging the digital divide.”
Borders and Borderlands: Integration vs Assimilation
Borders are artificial constructs drawn on paper by the powers that be to serve their interests under the Westphalian State system and have been further legitimised by the excesses of colonialism from the fifteenth to the twentieth century C.E., as well as the subsequent decolonisation process.
The Islamization of Bangladesh by General Ziaur Rahman
The creation of Bangladesh delegitimized the “two nation theory,” and soon after its emergence, new country Bangladesh adopted the four-pronged state ideology of nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism.
Dera Ismail Khan: Reviving Terrorism
On December 6, 2022, three terrorists were killed and another was injured in an exchange of fire during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) by the Security Forces (SFs) in the Girah Mastan area of the Daraban tehsil (revenue unit) in the Dera Ismail Khan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Last week marked the formal taking charge of Pakistan’s 17th Chief of Army Staff (COAS), four-star General Asim Munir, who replaced the now-retired Qamar Javed Bajwa as head of the Pakistani Army. Munir has become COAS at a time when Pakistan faces various political challenges, ranging from the escalating insurgency of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan - TTP) along the border with Afghanistan, continued loan negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), economic downturn, the political standoff between the Sharif government and Imran Khan-led opposition, and the prevailing humanitarian response issues linked to the floods of the summer.
In a statement released on Umar Media, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) official web site on November 28, 2022, Mufti Muzahim, the TTP’s ‘Minister of Defence’ announced an end to the seven months-long ceasefire. Muzahim “ordered” TTP forces throughout Pakistan “to launch attacks anywhere in the country” in response to Pakistani military operations. The outfit claimed that it chose to end the ceasefire after “the army and intelligence agencies continue to raid and attack” its forces. “And now our revenge attacks will continue in the whole country,” the TTP statement concluded.
The Spiralling Crime Graph: A Wake-Up Call to End Violence Against Women
On this International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, let's step back and look at eleven years of statistics, 2011–2021, which indicate a ninefold, or 87.3 percent, increase in violence against women. According to the annual data released by the National Crime Record Bureau in the past eleven years, the highest percentage of crimes against women reported in 2021 rose by 15.3 per cent.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was shot and injured during a protest rally in Punjab province on 3 November in an incident that left one bystander dead and at least six others, including leaders of Khan’s (PTI), wounded.
On November 8, a Rohingya man, identified as Mohammed Selim, was killed in a gunfight between two groups of criminals in Teknaf sub-District of Cox's Bazar District. Mohammed Selim lived in the Noapara Rohingya camp.