Communities of landless Hindus and Muslims in the Sundarbans, a mangrove-forested river delta sprawling across the Bangladesh–India border, have common class-based grievances and concerns for the imperiled ecosystem that transcend their religious differences. Their shared beliefs and practices include veneration of the same Muslim saint, Bonbibi (the Lady of the Forest), who is regarded as a protector of the forest and the landless poor who depend on it to eke out a livelihood. Their ecumenical practices reflect religious ideals shaped by the complex, delicate ecosystem that sustains them. This tradition is not a muddled synthesis of Islam and Hinduism; it is rooted in the history of settlement in the region.

After a deadly June 2020 clash between Chinese and Indian troops on the contested border in the Himalayas, both sides eventually agreed to pull back their forces from the immediate vicinity of the border. But neither country made any notable concessions, and tensions remained high as a series of skirmishes continued. With authoritarian nationalists in charge in Beijing and New Delhi, backed by public opinion, compromise has proved hard to reach.

The economic impact of COVID-19 has been much harder on those at the bottom of the caste ladder in India, reflecting the persistence of a system of social stigmatization that many Indians believe is a thing of the past. Untouchability has been outlawed since 1947, and an affirmative action program has lowered some barriers for stigmatized caste groups. But during the pandemic, members of lower castes suffered heavier job losses due to their higher representation in precarious daily wage jobs and their lower levels of education. Lower caste families are less able to help their children with remote learning, which threatens to worsen labor market inequality in India. But Dalits, at the bottom of the caste ladder, have recently.

A new book explores a premodern idea of the Indian subcontinent as a home for members of all religious traditions: the vision of Hindustan developed by the seventeenth-century historian Firishta, a Persian-speaking Muslim. His perspective was neglected and distorted by colonial-era historians who contributed to a Hindu-centric idea of India.

Comparing China, India, and Brazil reveals that current housing policies in all three countries have produced new forms of exclusion for inhabitants of informal settlements.

“For many … significant upward mobility remains a doubtful prospect, while substantial downward mobility is a real possibility.” Eighth in a series on social mobility around the world .

Sri Lanka's ethnoreligious divisions are bound to continue as long as the likes of Rajapaksa dominate the island's political scene.

Political conflicts can flare up when new, increasingly vocal lower-middle-income groups enter the political arena and when this threatens the advantaged positions of established middle classes.

Beijing's miscalculations regarding India have created conflict with a regional power that has the capability and desire to disrupt China's outward push.

India has emerged onto the global stage after decades of adherence to strategic nonalignment and protectionist trade rules limited its influence. But triumphalism is premature.

Whether in India, Pakistan, or Myanmar, governments have failed to protect minorities, and too often politicians have pandered to agitators stirring up sectarian hatred.

What will it take to meet the global food needs of up to 10 billion people by midcentury in the midst of expanding civil conflicts, human displacement, extreme climate events, and other natural disasters?

Ironically, the interests and objectives of union leaders may align with those of the ruling coalition: employment growth in the organized sector is essential to the labor movement's survival in the coming decades, just as it is for the survival of the Modi government.

Caught between two feuding countries, neither of which has truly incorporated Kashmir into its nationalist imagination or institutional structures, Kashmiris have developed their own nationalist narrative to assert their distinctiveness and desire for freedom.

[D]isputes have deepened to the extent that water is seen as inherently a source of conflict rather than productivity or cooperation.

A new book on Britain's reign in the subcontinent, departing from earlier generations of scholarship, does not sanitize the brutality and racism that undergirded the colonial enterprise.

An attempt to curb tax evasion by taking large-denomination bills out of circulation overnight imposed new hardships on an Indian populace long accustomed to capricious government initiatives.

[D]iaspora politics can be viewed as not only enhancing or challenging state power in particular cases, but also contributing to new forms of global identity politics that transcend state institutions.

India's long-held penchant for big development projects has worsened its severe ecological problems. A new book draws attention to the promise of smaller-scale solutions.

The public sphere of debate and discussion predicated on transparency has given way to a public sphere of image and spectacle.