Sagar Prasai

In the three years before the pandemic, South Asia registered the world’s highest rate of economic growth. Now, as a ruinous second wave of Covid-19 sweeps through the region, all of that appears to be undone.

The year of the pandemic was a long, discontented winter that the glorious sun forgot. But it was a year we dug deep into the voices and ideas of our colleagues across Asia in our new InAsia Podcast.

When Nepal abruptly shut down in late March, it triggered an exodus of Nepali workers from the cities. A rapid assessment survey shows that Nepal can still put its once-promising economy back together, but only if things are handled right.

Grand experiments in geopolitics often begin by cautiously testing new ways of doing things. Sovereign states calibrate and then recalibrate their visions by expanding and aligning interests with their neighbors, with the hope that the sum of what is achieved is greater than its parts. Recent actions indicate that this is underway in South Asia’s n… Read more

South Asia, generally described as “the least integrated region in the world,” has made remarkable progress in power trading and cooperation on resources over the last two decades. Regional power cooperation has come a long way from exchanges of power between small border towns and early ideas for an energy ring. By 2025, trade could be powered by… Read more

This report scopes out key programming challenges and opportunities in expanding the benefits of trade to women in the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal) region. The analyses and recommendations of this report focus on trade facilitation measures and do not extend to general provisions of the regional trade agreements and country-level tra… Read more

5:00 pm – 7:00 pm University of California Berkeley Faculty Club, Seaborg Room Home to 1.7 billion people, South Asia was the world’s fastest growing economic region in 2016, and is expected to hold this spot in 2017. However, South Asian countries continue to face daunting challenges of persistent poverty, widening inequality, and growing instabil… Read more

Nearly three months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on its highest-denomination currency to curb corruption and tax evasion, the country is still reeling from the move, with millions struggling from a cash shortage in an overwhelmingly cash-dependent economy. In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with The Asia Foundation’s cou… Read more

According to a new World Bank report, South Asia has solidified its rank as the world’s fastest growing economic region in 2016, and is expected to hold this spot at least through to 2017. With growth in the offing, a young population of 1.6 billion people, and a burgeoning consuming class, every global producer is eager to trade with South Asia no… Read more

South Asia has witnessed rapid social and economic transformation over the last two decades. Undeterred by a global slowdown, the region’s economic growth rate is expected to remain at a respectable 6 and 6.4 percent for 2015 and 2016….

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin his highly anticipated U.S. visit later this week. While the first-half of the visit revolves around UN events, it is the second-half that involves meetings with President Obama, the India Caucus in U.S. Congress, and a select group of celebrity CEOs…

In 2008, Nepal and India experienced one of the worst river disasters in their modern history, when the Kosi River breached an embankment flooding vast areas of terai Nepal and northeastern parts of Bihar, India. The floods caused tremendous loss of human life and property, affecting an estimated 50,000 Nepalis and 3.5 million Indians. A tributary of the Ganges and a transboundary river that flows through Tibet, Nepal, and India, the Kosi River is prone to seasonal variations in river flow and sediment discharge, resulting in frequent downstream floods.

Regional integration in South Asia has remained weak on all fronts. Even in the face of pressing needs, regional cooperation on water and energy, for instance, barely gets the kind of attention that it deserves. On trade, the story is even worse. Intra-regional trade in Asia (as a geographic block) constitutes around 56 percent of the total trade…

The November 2013 Constituent Assembly (CA) elections in Nepal revealed very strong anti-incumbency sentiments among the voting public. So too did the 2008 CA elections, when Nepali voters turned to the newly above-ground Maoists (CPN-M), rejecting the more “seasoned” parties…

Using evidence for planning and evaluation of policies and development interventions considerably enhances the capacity of organizations working for socioeconomic change of state and society, and their change interventions…

More than 75 percent of Asia-Pacific countries lack water security, according to a new report released last week by the Asian Development Bank. Compared to other regions, South Asia is a hot spot where inequity of access to water is the highest. The region supports more than 21 percent of the world’s population, but has access to just over 8 percent of global water resources. As rapid population growth and urbanization increase demand, water is increasingly a scarce and precious resource in South Asia. Even as the complex environmental consequences of climate change, deteriorating river ecology, and growing urbanization continue to unfold new challenges for the region, South Asia’s water woes could be significantly mitigated through improved water governance…

The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly (CA) in May 2012 has left Nepali politics in a deep impasse over the formation of an “election government.” The opposition has been refusing to go into an election until a broad-based government is formed under the leadership of Nepali Congress (NC), but the current prime minister…

Around midnight on May 27, when most Nepalis were waiting for the new constitution to be unveiled, Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai announced a fresh election for Nov. 22, 2012, from a hurriedly put-together press conference at his residence.

Climate change combined with rapid population growth and urbanization is placing intense pressure on South Asia’s most precious resource: water. Per capita water availability in the region has decreased by 70 percent since 1950, according to the Asian Development Bank.

On May 28, 2011, Nepal’s Constituent Assembly (CA) will end its tenure, for the second time, without having completed even a first draft of the constitution. In the lead-up to the deadline, a strike by ethnic and indigenous groups nearly shut down the nation’s capital Kathmandu late last month…

A general nervousness around the exit last week of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), which monitored Nepal’s struggling peace process since 2007, was evident in political commentaries as early as last November. Perhaps because political pundits expect more from politicians than most of us do, most commentators were hoping that Nepal’s political parties would defy their history of brinkmanship…

On May 28, 2010, three major political parties of Nepal, including the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), signed a three-point agreement pushing the deadline for promulgating a new constitution to May 28, 2011. Without that amendment, the Assembly’s constitutional tenure would have ended without having produced even a first draft of the new constit… Read more

Just nine months after taking office, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (known as Prachanda) resigned on May 4, 2009, citing the president’s lack of cooperation on his efforts to establish “civilian supremacy” over the Nepali Army. The events that led to his resignation unfolded quickly and predictably. On April 20, the Maoist government as… Read more

Think about the difficulties of writing a constitution for a country like Nepal. There are 103 ethnic groups, 17 officially recognized languages, and 19,000 former combatants still in cantonments. In the Constituent Assembly (CA), there are 25 political parties with no one in a clear majority, 601 members who disagree on most everything, 11 constit… Read more