Politics

The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges teamed to buy a 25% stake in Bangladesh's main bourse. They also will provide $37 million in technical support. (Photo by A.Z.M. Anas)
International relations

China's Belt and Road builds trail of stakes in Asian bourses

Shanghai-Shenzhen group beats Indian bid for share of Bangladesh's main exchange

15 May 2018
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, and Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Oli during a ceremonial reception for the latter in New Delhi on April 7.
International relations

China's specter looms over Modi's Nepal visit

Indian PM faces diplomatic hurdles but could win votes back home

10 May 2018
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visits the Colombo Port City construction site on Jan. 2.
10 May 2018
Women in Bangladesh wear T-shirts and caps with messages about safe migration on International Migration Day. (Courtesy of UN Women)
Life

Concerns rise over Bangladeshi female migrant workers

Regulating informal village 'middlemen' could help to end abuses

8 May 2018
Pakistan's government wants to make paying income tax a new test of patriotism. (Getty Images)
Economy

Pakistan promotes tax amnesty as it prepares to borrow abroad

Curbing evasion critical to combating money laundering and boosting revenue collection

7 May 2018
Rohingya refugee children playing at the Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Politics

Bangladesh drugs gangs exploit Rohingya refugees

Prices for meth-based 'Yaba' pills have plunged, fueling greater use

5 May 2018
Young men practice cricket strokes at the Royal College Indoor Nets in Colombo. (Photo by Rajpal Abeynayake)
3 May 2018
Young men practice cricket strokes at the Royal College Indoor Nets in Colombo. (Photo by Rajpal Abeynayake)
Tea Leaves

Sri Lanka weighs colonial ballast

Is it better to preserve and build on historical legacy or destroy it?

3 May 2018
With his country's currency having lost nearly 20% of its value against the dollar since 2015, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visits a Chinese-funded reclamation project in Colombo in January.
Most read in 2018

Sri Lanka's currency suffers as debt trap deepens

China-financed infrastructure projects put country in vicious cycle

29 April 2018
A worker harvests sugarcane in a field in Thailand.
Politics

Thailand, Brazil, Australia join up to halt sugar exports from India and Pakistan

Export subsidies leading to price pressure will be raised at GSA meeting next month

28 April 2018
A new railway connecting Iran's Astara with Azerbaijan, which opened in late March, is a key link along the International North-South Transport Corridor. (© Nikkei montage)
26 April 2018
Dominant influence of Facebook and other internet platforms make it necessary to treat them like public utilities.
Opinion

Facebook controversy raises wrong questions

Key problem isn't data abuse, but social media's dominance, including in Asia

25 April 2018
A new railway connecting Iran's Astara with Azerbaijan, which opened in late March, is a key link along the International North-South Transport Corridor. (© Nikkei montage)
Asia Insight

India and China jostle for influence in Iran and Central Asia

New Delhi's 7,000km transport corridor cuts across Beijing's Belt and Road

24 April 2018
With a big trade deficit between China and India, New Delhi is uncomfortable about Beijing using Nepal as a corridor to funnel more cheap goods in its direction. (Getty Images)
International relations

New Delhi wary of Beijing's India-Nepal-China corridor plan

India likely to object to China's one-way trans-Himalayan export traffic

20 April 2018
Children draw Myanmar flags at a school in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, southeastern Bangladesh.
Economy

Economies begin to flourish at Rohingya refugee camps

Steady salaries and supplies create 'comfort' that could impede repatriation

15 April 2018
A parent and child gaze at their camp from a nearby hill. At present, about 620,000 people live in the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.
International relations

In pictures: The plight of Myanmar's Rohingya refugees

A grim life and uncertain future confront 670,000 people stranded in Bangladesh

14 April 2018
Large numbers of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, have fled to Bangladesh amid violence at home.
International relations

UN Security Council to visit Myanmar and Bangladesh

Members hope to see the city to which masses of Rohingya have fled

13 April 2018
Nepal's new Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli treads a tightrope between India and China, which are both jostling for influence over the small, landlocked country.
International relations

Nepal's prime minister walks tightrope on India visit

Courted by Delhi and Beijing, Oli wants to extract investments from both

5 April 2018
K.P. Sharma Oli lights a candle at an event in Kathmandu in 2016 marking the first anniversary of an earthquake in the capital that killed nearly 9,000 people. (Photo by Yuji Kuronuma)
Politics

Who is Sharma Oli?

Veteran communist leader rose from prison to prime ministership in Nepal

5 April 2018
Exiled Tibetans rally in New Delhi last August to show their support for India in the Doklam standoff.
Politics

Brahma Chellaney: China carries out a stealthy war in the Himalayas

India flounders as Beijing works to steadily change the status quo

29 March 2018
A Chinese construction worker at the site of a Chinese-backed hotel complex in Colombo in October 2015
The Big Story

Is China's Belt and Road working? A progress report from eight countries

Beijing's infrastructure push clouded by project delays and mounting debt

28 March 2018
Massive traffic jams like this are a daily occurrence in Jakarta. (Photo by Ken Kobayashi)
Economy

Only bigger public investment can ease Asia's infrastructure shortages

Private funding is too small to close the gap in transport, energy and telecoms

27 March 2018
Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena, left, meets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Abe's official residence in Tokyo.
International relations

Japan and Sri Lanka to step up maritime cooperation

Abe seeks to counter China with health and infrastructure assistance

15 March 2018
Sri Lanka's southern port of Hambantota was leased to China in 2017 to ease the country's debt servicing burden. (Photo by Yuji Kuronuma) 
International relations

Sri Lanka's silent port reveals China's ever tighter grip

Attempts at fiscal discipline strengthen Beijing's hand

14 March 2018
Myanmar authorities are building military bases and roads over the ruins of Rohingya villages, according to an Amnesty International report.
International relations

Myanmar military bases built atop Rohingya ruins: Amnesty report

'Land grab' intended to erase evidence of crimes, rights group says

13 March 2018