Can a formal bilateral communiqué be a ‘game changer’, foretell a ‘paradigm shift’, in a Southasian relationship? If India and Bangladesh manage to follow through on promises to open up their economies for transit and trade as set out in a memorandum of January 2010, a new era could dawn across the land borders of Southasia. The challenges are bureaucratic inertia in New Delhi and ultra-nationalist politics in Dhaka.

Cover interview: C Raja Mohan

Cover interview: Rehman Sobhan

Cover interview: Tariq A Karim

Cover interview: Deb Mukharji

Cover interview: Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury

In Nepal today, it’s hard to get away from the sound of dohori.

Forced from their homes, languishing in camps in Thailand, Karen refugees bring in their new year with musical traditions old and new.

Though there was a general decline in classical music in Pakistan after Partition, there are many uplifting stories of how musical traditions have been kept alive and even enriched.

Despite the modern claims to lineage, little is known of the Subcontinent’s classical music forms – beyond the centuries of cross-community collaboration that were required.

Balancing politics and music in India’s best-known progressive band.

Trying to celebrate Bob Dylan’s birthday with the Northeast’s most legendary rock star.

The brief departure of the MQM from Pakistan’s coalition government, although portending crisis, proved to be a boon to all parties.

Some achievements, a few controversies and a blunder mark the UN special political mission’s four-year term in post-conflict Nepal, outlining a few vital lessons for both the UN and Nepali decision-makers.

Due to Islamabad’s unfeeling agenda, local languages and cultures of Gilgit-Baltistan are on the verge of extinction.

India has agreed to allow Nepal to trade with Bangladesh through its territory, but bureaucratic hurdles and lack of infrastructure have not allowed the arrangement to work. Perhaps the India-Bangladesh memorandum of January 2010 indicates New Delhi’s commitment to force compliance by its bureaucracy, and jumpstart a process on infrastructure building.

In the post-LTTE scenario, New Delhi has lost its ability to influence Colombo – and Beijing is taking advantage.

Recent violence and contentious debate over Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are but the latest episodes in a sorry history of retreat before fanatical religio-political forces.

Aung San Suu Kyi, along with the leadership of the NLD and Burma’s ethnic groups, have all proven incapable of forcing through the changes required.

From a showpiece for an internationalist Third World vision to an extended playing field for Bollywood, the International Film Festival of India has come a long way.

Tawaif singers, long the custodians of certain musical styles in Hindustani music, have been pushed to the margins and into abandoning music altogether.

As the Western powers prepare to hightail it out of Afghanistan, there is little accountability to the Afghan people.

The reviews of latest books of the Southasia region is explained in brief.