The geopolitics of South Asia attracts both China and India. South Asia has been a region in which, for many years, India and China have tried to achieve political and economic influence. India’s forefront policy to deal with its neighbours since independence has been its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. Even if there have been inconsistency and different approaches adopted by the Indian leadership to implement this policy in the region, India has always aimed to avoid major geopolitical changes in South Asia. However, the post-Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) engagement of China has challenged India’s position in the region. This article investigates India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and evaluates its relevance with that of the BRI. 

The article traces the European Union (EU)’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and implication in the Europe. In the era of global digitalisation, the right to respect private life, communication and the home has become a matter of protection. Protecting the right to privacy is a responsibility of a state which includes privacy of personal information, e.g. birth, messages, phone call and number and emails. Likewise, this study explains EU concern’s about its citizens’ privacy and the recent inclusion of the GDPR for the protection of natural persons. The article aims to explore individual fundamental rights and implications in the digital age, as well as cooperation data rules between companies and public bodies. At the same time, questions arise about the rightful implication of GDPR and the right to privacy of the public through protection, especially from tech companies. For validating the argument, various qualitative research methods were applied. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a serious question over privacy rights protection by the government, which supports our findings that EU GDPR has a long road to go and have challenges. Its credibility of lawful data activities is also a matter of concern and a reliable promise by the member states and the EU. 

The India-Nepal relationship has always been regarded as a distinctive one because of strong cultural, political, and civil ties. The unannounced economic blockade imposed by India in 2015, however, takes the India-Nepal relationship to a cult. The misplayed neighbourhood policy of India after 2015 moved Nepal towards its northern neighbour. Likewise, for India, Nepal is equally very strategic to China as one of the signatories and the core component of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. Thus, the Indian-Nepal partnership bitterness and multilevel Chinese participation in Nepal is the same scenario for India’s overall neighbourhood policy misconduct and China’s growth in South Asia. This study examines the major events that occurred in Nepal after 2015, encouraging distancing relationships with India and closeness to China. 

The primary aim of this paper is to investigate the objective of India’s joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The significance of this research lies in finding the correlation between the norms adopted by the organisation and the real reason for a country’s joining that organisation. Similarly, special attention has been paid to the concept of international organisations as norm disseminators. The paper first discusses the normative theory of international relations and tries to bridge it with international organisations (IOs). Additionally, the paper assesses the role played by norms in driving international organisations or vice versa. The main argument is that India has adopted a cooperation and competition approach to the SCO, considering its bitter relations with China and Pakistan. This is a qualitative study that considers primary and secondary sources to connect the theoretical understanding with the empirical study. 

With the rising fear of Islamisation in Europe and increasing Islamist sentiment in Turkey, the issue of religion in the context of integration of Turkey into the European Union remains relevant. After a long-lasted wait and continuous negotiations, Turkey seems to be moving further away from getting accepted in the EU. The research focuses on the religious factor in this unrelenting friction between the two regions / entities and answers the question as to why the EU and Turkey should consider religion as one of the variables in the European integration. The analysis is done with the use of primary and secondary sources with special focus on Samuel Huntington’s realism-inspired work ‘Clash of the Civilization.’ Turkish sources were used for better understanding the dynamics of Turkey. In terms of methodological approach the research is done with using the content analysis and contemporary observation of socio-political scenario and behavioral changes that the EU and Turkey going through. The authors conclude that there is no proper mechanism to consider religion as a variable, but psychologically it is still playing a major role in both the EU and Turkey. The authors believe that the EU and Turkey should discuss the religious dimension of integration while talking other dynamics. 

Various factors trigger civil war, depending on the society and stages of political development. But analyzing it through the quality of an institution or some provisions of institutions may lead to a possible cause of a civil war. Thus, the primary objective of this article is to investigate institutional quality and its role in triggering a civil war. This paper argues that there is interconnectedness between institutional quality, civil war, and institutional reforms, which occurs as a series of events. Although the article provides many examples, in the second section, the case study of Nepalese decade-long civil war and post-civil war institutional reform has been presented to back the argument made in the paper. By discussing various dynamics of historical institutionalism, the paper mainly analyzes the primary and secondary sources. 

Journal: Asian Politics and Policy

Volume 14, Issue 4

A newly revised political map was published by the Nepalese government on May 20, 2020, which includes, as part of Nepali territory, the disputed areas of Lipulekh, Kalapani, and Limpiyadhura. The long-existing border dispute between India and Nepal gets heated up again. Nepal considered the updated political map as a retaliation toward India and India considered it as a breach of the friendship line between the two countries. During this period, the media from both sides were engaged and the narrative that we find contradicts each other in many ways. This review article conducts a media analysis and present the different narratives that we found during these period. 

The interests of China in Central Asia encompass a range of factors, including border security, insurgency, economics, energy, and geopolitics. Additionally, Central Asia plays an important role in China’s projects connecting Eurasia and Europe. Likewise, the proximity of Central Asia means that instability and security threats in the region have spread over impacts in Chinese territory that make Central Asia a very important component of China’s foreign policy. China has promoted a more assertive foreign policy with the rise of President Xi Jinping to power, devising a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that aims to strengthen China’s relationship with the region’s countries. The main argument of this research is that the growing importance of Central Asia in China’s foreign policy since 2013 has led Beijing to adopt a strategy to deepen trade imbalances, targeted spending in infrastructure and debt under the BRI that supports China’s ambition to achieve political goals in Central Asia. 

Regionalism is a kind of multinational grouping where the components indicate and verify a common interest and goal and work together to achieve those goals. The reason for working together could be economic prosperity or security. After Second World War nations have realized that they need to work as one region to fight against their common problems. Learning from other models of Regional Organizations, SAARC was established in 1985 but still SAARC, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation , is more or less not functioning well. It could be the size and the dominating development of India, both economic and social, which is stopping other member nations of SAARC to come together and contribute equally or the model it developed upon is flawed. Here, in this article, an attempt has been made to find out the Internal and External factors which are stopping SAARC to function well as well as to suggest measures to improve its performance. 

After the emergence of “new media,” propaganda and so-called “alternative facts” are some of the main tools that have been used by governments, individuals, or interest groups to recalibrate the narration of certain information. By using the basic storytelling methods, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) allows policymakers to use the media to spread the newer dynamics of narration. Since 2014, after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, the government has constantly been using narration through the state-funded media that have changed the overall media landscape in the country. Thus, using the NPF, this research aims to perform a media content analysis of India and discuss the changing media landscape of the nation. To prove the argument, the article provides various empirical examples and facts (from India) which are changing the narrative among the public and the ruling party’s pursuit of its political aims by radical change in public policy. 

With the retrieval of the United Kingdom from the European Union, several dynamics came into play. The UK's resignation from the Erasmus+ programme created havoc amongst students who aspire international exposure during their studies. However, this resignation led towards the introduction to the Turing scheme which is projected out to be the replacement for the Erasmus+ programme. The research paper analyses the post-Brexit mobility situation in Europe and questions the efficiency of the new Turing scheme compared to that of the ever so thriving Erasmus+ programme. The analysis is done by using primary and secondary sources. In terms of methodological approach, the research is done with using statistical data analysis and contemporary observation of socio-political scenario and behavioural changes that the EU and UK are going through. The authors believe that Turing scheme is not a replacement but is rather just a set of bilateral agreements that the UK has which will never compare to the multilateral cooperation that Erasmus+ has. The authors conclude that the success of Turing scheme is highly dependent on its performance in the upcoming years.