By Lance Jackson — Identity is often an explicit factor in the politics of many Southeast Asian nations, whether it is the rural-urban divide in Thailand, language in Malaysia or ethnicity in Indonesia. Appeals to identity for political purposes have…
By Sidhanta Mehra — The passage of the Good and Services Tax (GST) Amendment is a landmark success for the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, showing that the Indian government can rally multiparty support to pass important legislation despite…
By Ellen Chambers — Renewed communal violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State underscores the imperative for greater emphasis on peacebuilding in the country’s troubled west. The recently established Rakhine State Advisory Commission, led by former-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is essential…
By Conor Cronin — Phnom Penh’s municipal court on September 9 convicted Cambodia’s deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha for refusing to appear in court for questioning over an affair with his hairdresser. Sokha, the acting head of the Cambodia National…
By Murray Hiebert & Phuong Nguyen — Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to the United States on September 13-14 as state counselor and de facto leader of Myanmar will be one of the highlights in U.S.-Myanmar relations since the two…
By Jonathan Hillman — For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, Kyrgyzstan was trending on Twitter this week, and for all the wrong reasons. On August 30, a suicide bomber drove into the Chinese embassy in Bishkek,…
In this episode we assess the status of U.S.-Taiwan relations. CSIS Senior Associate Dr. Robert Wang discusses how relations between Washington and Taipei have changed since 1979, reviews the Taiwan Relations Act (2:39), and explains how young Taiwanese are playing…
Who is he? Lieutenant General Yar Pyae heads the Myanmar Armed Forces’ Bureau of Special Operations 2, based in Shan State in the country’s northeast. He previously served as the chief of training and judge advocate general of the Myanmar…
Gujarat may follow Kerala’s lead in establishing a ‘fat tax,’ Haryana to allow male government employees to take paternity leave, Mamata Banerjee to visit Germany and Italy in November, Ford Motor Company to set up its first overseas research and…
By Sarah Watson — India’s government is faced with the task of not just creating new jobs but of upgrading existing jobs: converting them from low-productivity single-man businesses to high-productivity establishments that create exportable goods. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Start…
