World Bank Removes Pakistan From South Asia And Places It In The Middle East-North Africa Bloc

Eurasia Review | P. K. Balachandran

The World Bank moved Pakistan from its South Asia grouping into the MENAAP region in mid-2025, formalising a shift driven by $38.3 billion in fiscal year 2025 remittances, Gulf sovereign wealth fund investments, and liquefied natural gas imports from Qatar. This institutional reclassification mirrors broader diplomatic and security realignment across Washington and New Delhi.

The Pentagon renamed the US Indo-Pacific Command to Pacific Command in June 2026, while President Donald Trump appointed Sergio Gor as Ambassador to India and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs. These concurrent institutional shifts expose widening friction in the bilateral relationship between Washington and New Delhi. India faces simultaneous strains from US tariff impositions and growing economic gravity binding Islamabad to Middle Eastern Islamic regimes. Pakistan maintains minimal trade within its historic South Asian neighbours while remaining embedded in Gulf financial networks and the Mecca Pact. Meanwhile, American strategic focus in the Indo-Pacific theatre displays visible contraction.

How Gen Z Protests Are Reshaping Politics In Asia

Eurasia Review | Ruhi Bhasin

Gen Z-led protests organized via social media in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh exposed deep-seated economic distress, corruption, and elite capture while toppling or shaking entrenched administrations. In India, student demonstrations forced Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign in July 2026 after recurring paper leaks disrupted the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

Similar youth uprisings forced Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli out of office in Nepal in September 2025 and ended Sheikh Hasina's 15-year rule in Bangladesh in August 2024 through violent clashes that killed nearly 1,400 people. Political outcomes diverged sharply across the region as Nepal's March 2026 election brought Balendra Shah's Rastriya Swatantra Party to power, whereas Bangladesh saw the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under Tarique Rahman form a government by February 2026. Lasting institutional reform depends on organizational continuity and structured party building rather than street mobilization alone.

The US needs its own grey-zone tactics in the South China Sea

The Strategist | William Price

Beijing maintains maritime dominance in the South China Sea through unchecked coercive tactics while Washington relies on passive deterrence measures. The United States military can counter this by adapting the F3EAD targeting framework into an F2RED cycle focused on non-kinetic responses, intelligence sharing, and regional partner coordination. Operating alongside partner forces, the US Navy and Coast Guard can apply soft-kill measures, electronic jamming against surveillance drones, and targeted cyber operations to impose concrete costs on Chinese maritime militia and coast guard entities.

Furthermore, Treasury financial sanctions mirroring 2022 penalties against distant-water fishing fleets can restrict illicit operations. Expanded intelligence dissemination will empower nations like the Philippines to enforce sovereign exclusive economic zones lawfully. Proactive cost-imposition challenges Beijing more effectively than passivity and reassures fence-sitting regional states.

Bangladesh Teen Gangs: Beyond The Street

Eurasia Review | Shivangi Sharma

Bangladeshi police launched a multi-district crackdown on teenage gangs from late September 2026, detaining more than 2,000 people in Comilla alone across five phases and hundreds more in Chittagong, Noakhali and neighbouring districts, though most minors were quickly released to guardians. The campaign followed the killing of a 13-year-old in Comilla and has highlighted at least a dozen local gangs, social-media recruitment via TikTok, and alleged links to BNP and former Awami League figures who treat juveniles as hired muscle for extortion and land grabs.

Experts and police note that poverty, weak family oversight and adult handlers have turned the problem into a wider law-and-order issue, complicated by the Children Act 2013 and the longer-term risk that vulnerable youths could be drawn into more serious extremism. The nationwide expansion of the 2026 crackdown reflects the authorities recognition that teenage gangs have become a significant security concern in Bangladesh.

The Blackout: How the Army Sold Pakistan a War It Was Losing

Brief

On 17 December 1971, the newspaper Dawn in Karachi published a front-page headline declaring war till victory alongside a small report confirming that fighting had ended in East Pakistan and Indian troops had entered Dacca. The state-controlled media and military censors concealed the surrender of the Eastern Command at the Dhaka Race Course, presenting the military collapse as a local arrangement.

This information blackout began nine months earlier on 25 March, when the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight, expelled foreign journalists, and seized telecommunication networks. Throughout the conflict, government propaganda masked the military crackdown as a restoration of law and order while branding Bengali leaders as traitors and refugees as Indian fiction. Even when select journalists like Anthony Mascarenhas witnessed mass killings and published exposés abroad, West Pakistani citizens remained insulated by a fabricated narrative of impending victory until the war ended.

Sri Lanka’s Economic and Geopolitical Balancing Act

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | Avinash Paliwal

On March 4, 2026, the sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by the U.S. Navy submarine USS Charlotte 19 nautical miles off Galle killed 104 crew members, dragging Sri Lanka directly into great-power conflict. Sri Lanka rescued 32 surviving Iranian sailors. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared strict neutrality, yet domestic opposition figures condemned the response as damaging national sovereignty and relations with Tehran.

While the National People's Power coalition secured 159 of 225 parliamentary seats following the 2022 Aragalaya unrest, its reform agenda remains constrained. Economic recovery hit 5 percent GDP growth in 2024, supported by an International Monetary Fund program and $6.5 billion in foreign reserves by June 2026. However, reliance on Indian backing, Western financial mechanisms, and Chinese investment complicates Colombo's foreign policy. Domestic tension between the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna politburo and coalition partners threatens political moderation ahead of the 2027 loan expiration.

Afghan road to China tests Pakistan’s power and leverage

Asia Times | Imran Khurshid

Afghanistan inaugurated a 121-kilometer road through the Wakhan Corridor connecting Broghil to the Chinese border in Badakhshan Province, built entirely by Afghan engineers for roughly 365 million afghani. This physical link provides Beijing with a strategic alternative to Pakistan-centric transit routes amid growing security friction. China faces mounting costs from militant attacks on CPEC infrastructure in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, alongside concerns over Islamabad aligning more closely with Washington under Field Marshal Asim Munir.

Moscow also supports closer ties with Kabul at the Moscow Format to counter regional security vacuums and Western influence following threats like the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack. By independently financing the route, Kabul retains sovereign control, reducing its economic reliance on Islamabad's border leverage while reshaping regional connectivity among major powers.

The Afghan Taliban’s Growing Drone War Against Pakistan

The Diplomat | Sadia Sulaiman

Pakistan’s air defense forces shot down eight drones entering national airspace from Afghanistan on September 23, intercepting four near the Torkham border crossing and four near Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In retaliatory actions, Pakistani forces struck 10 locations in Afghanistan utilized by the Afghan Taliban to launch and store uncrewed aerial vehicles.

Cross-border aerial threats have escalated rapidly. These operational developments highlight an expanding two-pronged security challenge along the western border, where direct Afghan Taliban drone strikes against Pakistani security positions coincide with the proliferation of drone technology to affiliated militant groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Uncrewed systems once restricted to surveillance, propaganda, and battlefield observation have evolved into precision strike assets capable of extending the reach and lethality of cross-border attacks against military check posts. This tactical shift destabilizes fragile bilateral relations. Continued technology transfers enable non-state actors to conduct precise aerial operations, creating unprecedented air defense vulnerabilities across frontier zones.

Iranian Ships Test Sri Lanka’s Sovereignty Again

The Diplomat | Staff Writer

On Sept. 30, 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that United States officials threatened Sri Lanka with sanctions if Colombo continues to supply approximately 20 Iranian oil tankers currently stranded off its coast. This pressure campaign has left the vessels depleted of food, fuel, and fresh water, sparking a severe humanitarian dispute between Washington and Sri Lanka's national security establishment.

Historically, Colombo has struggled to balance its sovereign maritime decisions with Western economic pressure. While the U.S. embassy in Colombo and visiting American civilian and military officials demand compliance, Sri Lankan security officials strongly oppose leaving the foreign crews stranded. They have urged their government to formally convey its displeasure to Washington. Humanitarian concerns clash directly with international compliance. Ultimately, this diplomatic standoff risks damaging bilateral security cooperation, undermining Colombo's port authority, and disrupting broader Indian Ocean maritime trade dynamics in the region.

'No Response Yet': Silence From Pakistan On Grave Human Rights Violations Surrounding Forced Religious Conversions And Child Marriage Of Minority Girls

Eurasia Review | Kashif Nawab

Three UN Special Rapporteurs at a UN Human Rights Council side-event have urged Pakistan to enforce its international treaty obligations and domestic laws to protect minority children from forced religious conversions, abductions, and child marriage. Although Punjab enacted the Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2026 in May 2026, setting the minimum marriage age at 18, systemic judicial failures and societal biases leave victims unprotected.

The state's slow justice system and pressure from fundamentalist groups routinely compromise legal accountability. This is evident in the unresolved abductions of minors like 13-year-old Maria Shahbaz and the death sentence of Shahzad Masih under anti-blasphemy laws. Justice remains elusive. Drawing on Jubilee Campaign's "Stolen Girls" report, advocates highlight how victims are forced into apostasy arguments to prevent their return. UN Special Procedures previously called on Islamabad in April 2026 to criminalise forced conversions, but the government has yet to respond, perpetuating systemic discrimination against non-Muslim girls.

Securitising online dissent: Digital repression and social media control in Pakistan

Global Change, Peace & Security | Christian Kaunert, Alamgir Khan, Mirza Hussain

Pakistan is systematically criminalising online dissent by framing peaceful social media criticism of state and security institutions as national security threats. This securitisation process enables the state to bypass public persuasion, leveraging top-down institutional authority to enforce digital repression. Over 206 million mobile cellular subscribers face heightened surveillance, intimidation, and arbitrary arrests under this expanding digital authoritarian framework.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority regulates this space where Facebook leads with 101.6 million users, followed closely by YouTube and WhatsApp. State actors justify these highly restrictive measures by labelling online critics as digital terrorists. This is a major shift. Consequently, the regime consolidates its power by weaponising laws originally designed to combat cybercrime, misinformation, and existential cyber threats. This dynamic severely undermines the future of digital governance, civil liberties, and constitutional freedom of expression across the country, setting a dangerous precedent for other hybrid regimes in South Asia.

India’s Sheikh Hasina Dilemma

The Diplomat | Jaideep Saikia

The mass street uprising in Bangladesh in August 2024 overthrew Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, fracturing the security architecture of eastern South Asia and creating a major diplomatic crisis for India. Hasina currently lives in exile on Indian soil while a newly elected government led by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party runs Dhaka.

For 15 years, New Delhi's regional foreign policy relied entirely on maintaining her stability to secure its eastern border. This strategy has now collapsed. A Bangladeshi court recently convicted Hasina in absentia for crimes against humanity, sentencing her to death and prompting Dhaka to officially demand her extradition. This legal and political development leaves Indian policymakers deeply caught between their historical alliance with the deposed leader and the urgent geopolitical necessity of engaging the new administration in Dhaka to prevent long-term regional instability and security vulnerabilities.

New voices, old friends: How Russia targets its messaging in the Global South

Atlantic Council | Casey Michel

The Kremlin launched a targeted advertising campaign in late 2025 to promote RT India, a new state-controlled media outlet designed to broadcast tailored Russian propaganda to non-Western audiences. This expansion aims to secure diplomatic neutrality and prevent these nations from supporting Ukrainian defense efforts. Moscow's information strategy relies on historical Soviet-era ties and anti-colonial rhetoric to exploit lingering resentment against Western powers.

Russia denies its own imperial history. To bypass traditional media blocks, the Kremlin increasingly recruits local social media influencers to disseminate pro-Moscow narratives. By hosting international events like the 'For the Freedom of Nations' forum in February 2024, Russian officials frame their geopolitical ambitions as a defense of national sovereignty. Ultimately, this narrative helps Moscow bypass Western sanctions, sustain its shaky wartime economy, which is currently plagued by stagflation and declining oil rents, and maintain critical trade relationships across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

After the Flood, Can China, Nepal, and India Move From Earth Observation to Regional Preparedness?

The Diplomat | Arvind Kumar, Khim Lal Gautam

The August 26, 2026 Bhotekoshi-Trishuli flood near the China-Nepal border triggered a catastrophic rock-ice avalanche from Mount Langtang Lirung, killing over 1,400 people and destroying critical transboundary infrastructure like Gyirong Port. This extreme "mountain tsunami" highlights the escalating climate vulnerability of the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, where glaciers are currently melting at double the pre-2000 rate, as confirmed by ICIMOD’s 2026 assessment.

Persistent cryospheric decay across these fragile mountain ecosystems destabilises surrounding slopes, transforming localised glacial retreats into complex, cascading transboundary hazards. Data gaps hinder effective disaster forecasting. To mitigate future devastation, regional actors must integrate multi-tiered Earth observations—combining satellite data with localised sensors—and establish real-time cross-border hydrometeorological data-sharing protocols. Such collaborative frameworks are essential to translate raw scientific observations into actionable, localised early warnings that protect vulnerable downstream communities in Nepal, India, and China from devastating river surges, ultimately safeguarding millions of lives and vital economic assets.

Nepal’s flood disaster and the limits of preparedness

IISS

The Rasuwa disaster of 26 August 2026 in Nepal killed 1,403 people and left over 6,000 missing after a massive landslide and glacial collapse sent a 20-metre-high surge down the Bhotekoshi River at speeds up to 170 kilometres per hour. The catastrophe knocked approximately 10% of Nepal’s installed electrical capacity offline, forcing an immediate halt to power exports to Bangladesh and reducing supply to India.

Damaged infrastructure along the Himalayan corridor severed critical trade routes between Nepal and China. Hydrological planning models no longer hold. The destruction hit over a dozen hydroelectric installations, exposing severe vulnerabilities in surface-level plant designs compared to underground facilities. Cross-border monitoring remains severely constrained, as the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development actively tracks only a tiny fraction of Nepal's 3,000 glaciers. International Loss and Damage climate funding promised at COP27 remains largely dormant, leaving exposed regional economies reliant on external debt.

Environmental Threats Loom Large In The Himalayan Region

Eurasia Review | P. K. Balachandran

Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah appealed to the 81st UN General Assembly for grant-based Loss and Damage funding after an August 26 glacial-melt flood killed over 1,400 people and destroyed approximately 10% of Nepal's gross domestic product. The catastrophe prompted Kathmandu to propose a joint Nepal-India-China Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism alongside a broader "Sagarmatha to the Sea" mountain-island coalition.

Climate volatility across the Hindu Kush Himalaya threatens two billion downstream residents fed by ten major river systems. Concurrently, New Delhi faces heightened transboundary risks from Beijing's planned 60-gigawatt, $127 billion Medog dam complex on the Yarlung Zangbo. Tectonic faults undermine this site. Chinese geologists confirm the active Paizhen fault runs beneath the reservoir zone, threatening severe sediment starvation and catastrophic slope failures near the Great Bend. Lacking binding water-sharing treaties, India relies on satellite monitoring and downstream preparedness while facing calls to escalate diplomatic pressure against unilateral upstream engineering.

Pakistan’s Punitive Gamble in Afghanistan: An Open War With No End in Sight

The Diplomat | Shanthie Mariet D’Souza

Pakistan launched a punitive military gamble in Afghanistan, entering an open confrontation as Islamabad’s persistent demands regarding cross-border terrorism and militant sanctuaries go completely unheeded by Kabul. The Afghan Taliban possess little incentive to accede to Pakistani demands, resulting in recurring military clashes and a rapid breakdown of bilateral ties.

Months of diplomacy and external mediation have failed. To establish deterrence, Pakistani forces conducted strikes targeting Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) camps located deep inside Afghanistan. Islamabad increasingly frames these safe havens as severe threats to both domestic and international stability. Disappointed expectations on both sides have turned former allies into direct foes along the contested frontier. The failure of coercive aerial strikes to compel Kabul leaves Islamabad trapped in an unsustainable cycle of tactical retaliation. With the Taliban unwilling to sacrifice fraternal insurgent alliances, the cross-border campaign risks entrenching an intractable, open-ended war.

Military Governance in Post-War Sri Lanka: Revisiting the Logic of Downsizing

E-International Relations | Maxwin Paul Rayen

Sri Lanka maintains an outsized standing army despite facing no significant external military threat or realistic prospect of a renewed Tamil insurgency. The military's persistence stems from its embedded role in internal governance and an ethno-political project of state-building rather than conventional defense requirements. In the Tamil-majority northern and eastern provinces, the armed forces function as an occupying garrison, economic developer, and cultural gatekeeper to suppress dissent and entrench a centralized Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist vision.

Analysts have previously criticized Colombo's defense budget for overspending on ground forces at the expense of maritime and air capabilities, advocating for technocratic downsizing and budget reallocation. However, such proposals overlook the political utility of militarization as a tool of ethnic domination and domestic control in the absence of open conflict. The military directly manages land settlements, coordinates development projects to bypass civilian administration, and oversees the construction of Buddhist shrines on Tamil lands. Consequently, the state continues the aims of the civil war through militarized governance, cementing a victor's peace that precludes genuine reconciliation.

When A Paper Tiger Crumbles: The Inevitable Collapse of Bangladesh

Substack | Ashok Awasthi

Post-Hasina Bangladesh faces severe economic instability following efforts by its new leadership to de-link from India by repudiating long-standing power and cargo facilities. An analysis by Viprabuddhi highlights how the nation’s heavy historical over-reliance on the garment sector leaves its fragile economy highly vulnerable as cross-border diplomatic ties rapidly deteriorate.

Lapsing bilateral agreements like the historic Ganga water treaty and attempts to pivot toward Pakistan and China threaten long-term regional stability. Recent Adani Power supply disruptions and constrained access to Indian transit ports for cheap cotton imports further compound Dhaka's compounding economic quagmire. Domestic volatility remains high. The rising influence of virulent Islamist political factions is actively alienating religious minorities and deterring critical private investment. Furthermore, tentative moves to grant operational airfields near the strategic Siliguri Corridor to Beijing risk triggering severe geopolitical backlash from New Delhi. Without rebuilding crucial economic and diplomatic bridges with India, Bangladesh's prospects for sustainable economic recovery remain entirely remote.

FACT SHEET ON CHINA-MYANMAR-BANGLADESH ECONOMIC CORRIDOR

Institute for Security and Development Policy | Wilhelm Geijer, Joel von Rothkirch, Hoang An Nguyen, Jagannath Panda

China has undertaken several strategic projects to increase its role in the Bay of Bengal region and circumvent the Malacca Strait through the Belt and Road Initiative. These efforts involve substantial investments in port infrastructure and multiple new economic corridors designed to expand Beijing's regional power architecture. One of these vital initiatives is the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar Economic Corridor, which subsequently evolved into the China-Myanmar-Bangladesh Economic Corridor following Indian disengagement from the cooperative framework.

This evolving economic infrastructure forms a core component of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs research project examining Beijing's expanding power projection across South Asia and the broader Indian Ocean region. These developments directly alter regional connectivity patterns and reshape long-term geopolitical alignments along critical maritime corridors.