Explain It Clearly

  Before it became a symbol of CPEC and China's Indian Ocean ambitions, Gwadar belonged to a very different political world. Today, Gwadar is almost inseparable from three words: Pakistan, China and CPEC . The name evokes a deep-sea port on the Arabian Sea, Chinese investment, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the strategic contest unfolding across the Indian Ocean. On today's map, there is nothing mysterious about its identity. Gwadar is a Pakistani port city in Balochistan, sitting on the country's southwestern coast. Yet that familiar map conceals one of the strangest territorial stories in modern South Asia: when Pakistan was created in 1947, Gwadar was not part of Pakistan. It was still under Omani sovereignty. Pakistan acquired it from Oman more than a decade after independence. Pakistan's own Foreign Ministry describes the Omani connection as lasting roughly 175 years, from the late eighteenth century until 1958. That fact changes the way Gwadar...

  India sees E20 as a step towards energy security, lower oil imports and cleaner mobility. So why are most South Asian countries moving far more cautiously? Every few months, South Asia rediscovers one of its favourite policy clichés. India adopts a new strategy, a neighbouring country hesitates, and the debate quickly becomes a referendum on who is right. The latest example is E20 petrol. If India believes ethanol blending is the future, why haven't its neighbours rushed to follow? It is an irresistible headline. It is also the wrong debate. The assumption behind it is deceptively simple: countries facing similar challenges should arrive at similar solutions. India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka all import petroleum. They all worry about volatile oil prices. They all understand that cleaner transport and greater energy security will shape the decades ahead. If the destination is broadly the same, shouldn't the route be too? That is where the argument begins to unrav...

  Why the countries that recover fastest after a crisis may not be the ones that avoid collapse—but the ones that learn faster. When a Nation Became the World's Warning There are moments in history when a country ceases to be viewed simply as a nation and becomes a symbol. Its name escapes its geography and enters the global vocabulary as a warning, a lesson or a cautionary tale. In 2022, Sri Lanka became one such symbol. Images of endless fuel queues, desperate families waiting for cooking gas, hospitals struggling with shortages, power cuts lasting for hours and thousands of protesters occupying the presidential residence travelled across television screens and social media feeds around the world. Economists debated sovereign defaults, politicians cited Sri Lanka in parliamentary speeches, financial markets reassessed emerging economies and ordinary citizens in distant countries suddenly found themselves asking the same unsettling question: Could this happen to us? Overnight...