South Asia Archives - South Asia Times

Herat tragedy claims 30 lives, exposing Afghanistan’s governance failures, unsafe migration, and escalating humanitarian crisis.

Herat Border Tragedy: The Deadly Consequences of Afghanistan’s Governance Failures

SAT Commentary December 20, 2025

The Herat border tragedy, is a stark illustration of the human cost of Afghanistan’s governance failures. With limited economic opportunities, widespread poverty, and insufficient social support, families are forced to undertake life-threatening journeys across freezing mountains. The incident underscores the urgent need for the Afghan government to provide stable livelihoods, establish safe migration routes, and strengthen healthcare and social services, as humanitarian risks continue to escalate across the country.

A fact-based rebuttal of claims about Pakistani troop deployment in Gaza, exposing disinformation and reaffirming Pakistan’s UN-mandated peacekeeping doctrine.

Debunking the Gaza Deployment Narrative

SAT Commentary December 19, 2025

False claims of a Pakistani troop deployment to Gaza, amplified by disinformation networks, were firmly rejected by the Foreign Office, reaffirming that Pakistan’s military operates only under UN mandates and constitutional limits.

The death of Sharif Osman Hadi marks the collapse of the 1971 Consensus, reshaping Bangladesh’s identity and triggering a strategic crisis for India.

The End of the 1971 Consensus

SAT Editorial Desk December 19, 2025

Sharif Osman Hadi’s death has become the symbolic burial of the 1971 Consensus that long structured India–Bangladesh relations. For a generation with no lived memory of the Liberation War, Hadi embodies a Second Independence, reframing 1971 as the start of Indian dominance rather than true sovereignty. His killing has accelerated Bangladesh’s rupture with India and exposed a deep strategic crisis across South Asia.

Afghanistan’s Taliban uses pharmaceutical policy to assert autonomy, decouple from Pakistan, and expand strategic ties with India.

Afghan Taliban’s Biopolitics

SAT Commentary December 18, 2025

The Taliban’s health diplomacy is reshaping Afghanistan’s geopolitical landscape. By phasing out Pakistani pharmaceuticals and inviting Indian partnerships, Kabul securitizes its healthcare infrastructure as a tool of strategic realignment. The shift highlights the intersection of sovereignty, economic statecraft, and regional influence, with Afghan patients bearing the immediate consequences.

The Taliban’s madrassa expansion indoctrinates Afghan youth, undermining education and fueling regional instability through global jihadist ideology.

The Growing Taliban Madrassa System: An Ideological Weapon Threatening Regional Stability

SAT Commentary December 17, 2025

The Taliban’s rapid madrassa expansion is transforming Afghanistan’s education system into a tool for extremist indoctrination, fostering a new generation aligned with global jihadist ideology and threatening regional stability.

India’s Missing People’s Revolution: Democracy, Electoral Erosion, and the Prospect of Popular Upheaval

Prof. (Dr.) Akhilesh Chandra Prabhakar December 17, 2025

India’s democracy was born without a revolution. As electoral integrity weakens and institutions hollow out, this absence of a popular rupture may now be returning as a structural crisis—one that could yet provoke mass political upheaval.

How APS Redefined Pakistan’s Strategic Culture

SAT Editorial Desk December 16, 2025

APS was the moment Pakistan’s long-standing ambiguity on militancy collapsed. The murder of schoolchildren forced an organic securitization of terrorism, enabling extraordinary measures and a redefinition of the militant as an existential, illegitimate enemy.

Before and After Panjshir: How Anti-Taliban Forces Are Adapting to a Long Insurgency

SAT Editorial Desk December 15, 2025

December 2025 marked a turning point in Afghanistan’s post-2021 resistance. Coordinated, intelligence-driven attacks across Kunduz and Badakhshan signaled that anti-Taliban forces have moved beyond symbolic defiance into a sustained campaign of urban-centric insurgency. Deprived of territory, external patrons, and conventional warfare options, groups like the NRF and AFF are adapting through mobility, information warfare, and selective strikes, pointing toward a long war defined by endurance rather than frontlines.

The Acceleration of Insurgency in Northern Afghanistan

SAT Commentary December 14, 2025

A seventy-two-hour surge of intelligence-driven attacks in Kunduz and Fayzabad has shattered the Taliban’s claim of total control, signaling a shift toward coordinated urban insurgency in the north.

The New Bollywood

SAT Editorial Desk December 12, 2025

Bollywood, once India’s most effective soft-power tool, is undergoing a dramatic ideological overhaul. Films like Dhurandhar and The Taj Story reflect a new cinematic nationalism rooted in historical revisionism, internal othering, and aggressive anti-Pakistan narratives, reshaping both India’s identity and its global cultural reach.