South Asia

India Partners with the South Pacific University

Climate Change Research Center Launched

By Joeli Bili*

SUVA, Fiji, 26 May 2023 (IDN | Wansolwara) — A partnership forged between the Government of India and The University of the South Pacific (USP) will see the establishment of a new center for climate change, coastal and ocean management in Fiji.

The Sustainable Coastal and Ocean Research Institute (SCORI) at USP’s Suva campus was launched on 22 May by India’s High Commissioner to Fiji, Palaniswamy Subramanyan Karthigeyan, who described the initiative as a celebration of the future.

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 26 May 2023

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Credit: Weekly Blitz

Behind Biden Administration’s 'Democratism’ in Bangladesh

Viewpoint by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury*

DHAKA, Bangladesh, 23 May 2023 (IDN) — The Biden administration is aggressively pushing forward its ‘democratism’ policy with the ulterior motive of kowtowing targeted foreign nations through its so-called approach for a better democracy.

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 23 May 2023

US President Biden’s son Joe Biden. Source: Frankfurter Rundschau

Has Hunter Biden Been Linked to Bangladesh Islamists?

Viewpoint by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury*

DHAKA, Bangladesh, 20 May 2023 (IDN) — US President Joe Biden’s scandalous son Hunter Biden, who has earlier met with State Department official on behalf of Gabriel Popoviciu, a corrupt Romanian real estate tycoon in exchange for US$1 million when Joe Biden was vice president in 2016, seems to have been working for Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a hardcore Islamist political party in Bangladesh and been vigorously pushing several agendas set by BNP.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 20 May 2023

Supporters waving Congress flags in key Karnataka state assembly elections. Source: Economic Times.

India: PM Modi’s BJP Ousted in Key Karnataka State Elections

By Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI, 17 May 2023 (IDN) — The opposition Indian National Congress (INC), which appeared to have sunk into oblivion, scored a decisive victory in the southern state of Karnataka over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the legislative assembly elections on 10 May.

Karnataka is the second state the BJP has lost in the last six months. In December 2022, the INC overthrew the BJP in northern Himachal Pradesh in December 2022. Although regional losses may not have a direct bearing on the 2024 general elections in 2024, they serve as a cautionary tale for a party that has continuously relied on Modi as its key campaigner.

: Devinder Kumar; THE WORLD; South Asia; 17 May 2023

Punakha Dzong in Punakha near Thimphu is a large Buddhist monastic temple and education institution. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne

Bhutan’s Unique Buddhist Culture Has Tourism Potential

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This Lotus News Feature, produced in association with the Buddhist Channel, is the 53rd in a series of joint productions with IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous reports.

SINGAPORE | THIMPHU, 11 May 2023 (IDN/LCN) — A recent visit by a group of Vietnamese Buddhists to learn and experience the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism has alerted the Bhutan authorities to the potential of Buddhist cultural tourism to one of the world’s most scenic countries landlocked between India and China in the Himalayan mountains.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 11 May 2023

Chaotic scenes at a government hospital outpatients clinic. Credit: Lanka House

Multiple Problems Bring Sri Lanka’s Healthcare System to Brink of Collapse

By Hemali Wijerathna

COLOMBO, 11 May 2023 (IDN) — In the face of the current economic crisis, Sri Lanka’s free healthcare system, which was the envy of South Asia not long ago, is now at the brink of collapse. It is facing multiple problems with a lack of drugs, doctors migrating and the government strictly implementing a 60-year retirement policy for government doctors.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 11 May 2023

Gandhi (left) and his assassin Godse (right). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

India: Gandhi, His Murderer Godse and the RSS

Viewpoint by Ram Puniyani*

NEW DELHI, 7 May 2023 (IDN) — In April 2023, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) decided to make many deletions from school textbooks. Apart from the parts related to Mughal history, the mention of Gujarat violence and the origin of Caste Varna system, what stands deleted is also a part related to Gandhi murder.

: J C Suresh; OPINION; 07 May 2023

resident Ranil Wickremesinghe (lef) and former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (right) forced to flee the country in July 2022. Source: Asian Affairs

Sri Lanka: The Die is Cast

By Neville de Silva*

LONDON, 5 May 2023 (IDN) — Sri Lanka’s stand-in president Ranil Wickremesinghe is no Julius Caesar. But he is ready to cross his own Rubicon as he must. For time is running out fast for him after almost 50 years in politics and slowly nudging his 75th birthday.

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 05 May 2023

The manual scavenger has to enter the drains barefoot and without a mask. He ends up inhaling toxic gas and swallowing dirty water, but now considers these as unavoidable occupational hazards. | Photo Courtesy: Vijay Pandey/TwoCircles.net

Indian State Elections: Ruling BJP Vows to Eradicate Manual Scavenging

Special IDN SDG News Feature*

BENGALURU, India, 3 May 2023 (IDN) — India's southern state of Karnataka is due to go to the polls on May 10, and sustainable development goals (SDG) issues such as sanitation, food security and free nutrition for the poor, free housing sites for the homeless and free cooking gas cylinders for the poor are top billing in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) election manifesto released on May 1.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; South Asia; 03 May 2023

Glimpse of a street in Colombo. Source: 'Daily Mirror' of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka — The Status Quo Resumes?

By Charles Seevali Abeysekera

BROMLEY, UK, 3 May 2023 (IDN) — Fast forward the clock nine months and the country appears to have got through the worst with funds being provided by friendly donor countries and more recently by the IMF. A semblance of normality has returned or so it appears on the surface.