https://sagire.online/topic/south-asia/ Rolling analysis and coverage of geopolitics, energy, security and supply chains. en Thu, 05 Nov 2026 02:48:00 -0300 https://sagire.online/wire/20d91a5a/https://sagire.online/wire/20d91a5a/Wed, 04 Nov 2026 09:22:00 -0300Bangladesh’s garment wage board, set up by the government on Sunday, agreed to raise workers’ pay, without specifying the size of the increase. Workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka (about $240), a 140 percent increase on the current 12,500 taka, citing rising food, housing, transport and healthcare costs in a country with eight percent inflation. Babul Akter, the workers’ representative on the board, said the board will conclude its work by December so that revised salaries can be paid in January, and that the factory owners’ representative agreed on this point. Protests continued on Wednesday morning in industrial hubs including Gazipur, Mirpur, Narayanganj and Savar, with reports of factories being vandalized. According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the unrest has forced 529 garment factories to shut down and left 987,190 workers out of work.BangladeshLaborProtestsSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/25bba3e9/https://sagire.online/wire/25bba3e9/Tue, 03 Nov 2026 14:23:00 -0300Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) Director General Shatrujeet Kapur said Indian and Chinese troops confronted each other at several locations along the de facto border in Arunachal Pradesh and that the standoff continues, in remarks to reporters last month. “In the past few days, a situation arose where a face-off happened” with Chinese troops at various locations in Arunachal, he said. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu acknowledged the transgressions but downplayed the episode, saying such incidents were not new and the situation along the border was normal. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal attributed the incidents to Chinese actions.IndiaChinaSouth AsiaConflictDiplomacy https://sagire.online/wire/f3c695c7/https://sagire.online/wire/f3c695c7/Mon, 02 Nov 2026 06:22:00 -0300Police said on Sunday that five people were killed in two separate incidents in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, as fresh ethnic violence erupted in the conflict-hit region. Officials said on Monday that the deaths occurred in the Kangpokpi and Noney districts.IndiaSouth AsiaConflictPublic security https://sagire.online/wire/0e27e892/https://sagire.online/wire/0e27e892/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 12:23:00 -0300Protesters in New Delhi carried a one-kilometer banner bearing the names of people removed from India’s voter rolls, in a fresh opposition rally against the deletion of nearly 130 million names, according to Al Jazeera. In Karnataka, the final list released on October 27, 2026, recorded 4.54 crore electors (about 45.4 million), against 5.54 crore before the revision (55.4 million), a reduction of nearly 99.76 lakh voters (9.98 million), according to the Times of India.IndiaElectionsHuman rightsSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/614683ce/https://sagire.online/wire/614683ce/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:22:00 -0300Garment factory workers in Dhaka and Gazipur protested on Sunday for better wages and blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway to demand a monthly minimum wage of 30,000 takas, according to the Hindustan Times. In Dhaka’s Mirpur area, protesters torched a police vehicle after a clash with police, and at least 80 factories were shut in the two cities during the unrest, according to Prothom Alo, cited by the Hindustan Times. Nineteen people were detained in Dhaka in connection with the violence, according to the Daily Star, also cited by the Indian newspaper.BangladeshLaborProtestsSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/9c0d763f/https://sagire.online/wire/9c0d763f/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 08:23:00 -0300Five people were killed in two separate incidents in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, police said on Sunday, as fresh ethnic violence erupted in the conflict-hit region. Three men from the Kuki tribal group were killed in an exchange of gunfire between “unidentified armed miscreants” in Noney district on Saturday, according to a police statement.IndiaSouth AsiaConflictHuman rights https://sagire.online/wire/5e3427c3/https://sagire.online/wire/5e3427c3/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 07:21:00 -0300Thousands of people took to the streets of New Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of the country’s election chief, Gyanesh Kumar, over changes to voter lists that opposition parties say favor Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party. The demonstration was led by Rahul Gandhi and is the latest in more than a month of protests against the revision of the electoral rolls. Opposition parties allege the exercise removed more than 130 million names and disproportionately affected Muslims and other minorities, according to Al Jazeera.IndiaSouth AsiaElectionsProtests https://sagire.online/wire/89a4105e/https://sagire.online/wire/89a4105e/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 03:22:00 -0300Pakistan warned Afghanistan that it reserves the right to take all necessary measures to eliminate cross-border terror threats and said terrorism is a “red line”. Pakistan’s information ministry accused the Afghan Taliban of a “persistent refusal to address terrorism” and warned Kabul that it reserves the right to take “all necessary measures” to eliminate threats to its security “wherever they originate”, according to The Hindu and Independent Pakistan.PakistanAfghanistanSouth AsiaConflictDiplomacy https://sagire.online/wire/11ce8abf/https://sagire.online/wire/11ce8abf/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 02:22:00 -0300Opposition parties in India led by Rahul Gandhi announced a march of nearly 1.5 km through central New Delhi to Ramlila Maidan for Sunday, a ground designated for their rally, to demand the resignation of election chief Gyanesh Kumar. Delhi police surrounded the site with officers carrying batons and shields, accompanied by riot-control vehicles, and announced traffic diversions, according to Reuters. The opposition parties have held near-daily demonstrations since last month against Kumar over the voter list revision that critics say favors the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to The Guardian.IndiaElectionsProtestsSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/f0731724/https://sagire.online/wire/f0731724/Sun, 01 Nov 2026 01:23:00 -0300Bangladesh will set up a wage board on Sunday to review garment workers’ pay after protests shut dozens of factories and triggered clashes with police, Reuters reported. Workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka ($245), more than double the current 12,500 taka.BangladeshLaborSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/4c247469/https://sagire.online/wire/4c247469/Sat, 31 Oct 2026 14:23:00 -0300National Citizen Party (NCP) convener Nahid Islam accused Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government at a rally in Dhaka of seeking to facilitate an Indian transit corridor through the country and threatened fresh protests if the Ganges water-sharing agreement is not renewed on terms that protect Bangladesh’s share, according to The Hindu, citing the newspapers Prothom Alo and bdnews24. Signed on December 12, 1996, the 30-year treaty expires on December 12 and governs the sharing of the Ganges waters at the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal during the lean season, from January to May.BangladeshIndiaDiplomacySouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/2943aabe/https://sagire.online/wire/2943aabe/Thu, 29 Oct 2026 12:23:00 -0300A special tribunal in Bangladesh sentenced Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif to death for the killing of six people in Kushtia during the July Uprising, according to The Hindu. Hanif is the 23rd leader of the now-disbanded Awami League to receive the death penalty since Sheikh Hasina's ouster.BangladeshJusticeSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/389e7063/https://sagire.online/wire/389e7063/Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:24:00 -0300A Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced the human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha, a married couple, to 10 years in prison on Thursday in a security breach case, her family said, according to the Hindustan Times. The couple was accused of endangering an international cricket team's security plans by staging a protest and blocking a road in a 2024 case.PakistanHuman rightsJusticeSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/521c412d/https://sagire.online/wire/521c412d/Thu, 29 Oct 2026 05:22:00 -0300Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan more than quadrupled this year compared with 2025 to an estimated 43,300 hectares, according to Reuters, based on satellite imagery analyzed by the UN, and rose to more than 43,000 hectares in 2026, with traders’ income from opium estimated at around 525 million dollars, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).AfghanistanDrug traffickingSouth Asia https://sagire.online/wire/e4eedcf5/https://sagire.online/wire/e4eedcf5/Thu, 29 Oct 2026 00:23:00 -0300The 1996 treaty governing dry-season water sharing of the Ganges at India's Farakka Barrage, 20 km upstream of Bangladesh, expires on December 12, according to AFP. Bangladesh needs a new deal based on “mutual benefit and respect”, Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, a prime ministerial adviser who heads a technical committee on water-sharing, told AFP.BangladeshIndiaSouth AsiaDiplomacyClimate