The past fewer days person been important for the geopolitical scenery of India and its neighbours. Not lone person determination been signs of a long-awaited thaw successful India-China relations — much than 4 years aft the People’s Liberation Army’s incursions successful eastbound Ladakh — but a bid of high-level meetings person besides appeared to revitalise ties betwixt Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Thawing ties
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Commenting connected the former, an editorial by The Nation argues, “India and China request not presumption each different arsenic adversaries. If their borderline disputes tin beryllium resolved peacefully, some nations basal to payment immensely.” It further warns India that its hostilities with China are “fuelled” by the United States, which seeks to usage Delhi arsenic a “counterweight” to Beijing. The editorial cautions that an confederation with the US is self-serving and temporary, citing Pakistan’s experience: “Once heralded arsenic a large ally, Pakistan was swiftly sidelined erstwhile its strategical inferior diminished. Military assistance and alliances became liabilities overnight.”
On Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, the Daily Times notes that diplomatic ties betwixt the 2 countries person been “constrained by the load of past and lingering animosities.” Its editorial emphasises that the contiguous infinitesimal offers a “decisive accidental to transcend past grievances and clasp a aboriginal rooted successful collaboration and shared prosperity.” This indispensable beryllium driven by economical and taste exchange: “There is nary crushed bilateral commercialized cannot flourish; expanding economical collaboration volition make jobs and foster stableness for communities that request it most. Furthermore, taste speech is different indispensable aspect, wherein some nations, agreed by centuries of shared tradition, tin immensely payment from accrued people-to-people interactions.”
The Pakistani property continues to explicit interest astir Afghanistan’s relation successful Pakistan’s nationalist security. Dawn, noting that 2024 recorded the highest fig of civilian and subject casualties successful a decade, concludes an editorial connected counterterrorism operations by stating, “To forestall the bloodshed witnessed successful 2024, Pakistan volition person to enactment internally, by honing its CT argumentation to conscionable the threat, portion besides maintaining diplomatic unit connected the Afghan Taliban to guarantee their ungraded is not utilized by anti-Pakistan actors.” The Daily Times, successful an editorial, besides issues a warning: “The Taliban’s nationalist showcase of captured American subject hardware during triumph celebrations, alongside irrefutable grounds of these weapons being utilized successful panic attacks successful Balochistan, item a poignant representation of our challenges.”
DeepSeek and the AI challenge
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Apart from geopolitics, different improvement that has invited overmuch remark is the merchandise of DeepSeek. Attorney Rafia Zakaria, penning for Dawn, describes DeepSeek arsenic “a triumph for the Global South successful wide due to the fact that it represents however endowment and resourcefulness tin usage immoderate is disposable to marque things.” She besides comments connected Pakistan’s situation, noting, “Pakistan trains thousands of engineers successful the exertion tract itself. DeepSeek has already been wide downloaded successful Pakistan. If the existent authorities would bash its citizens the favour of allowing them entree to the net without abrupt outages, DeepSeek would supply opportunities to developers successful Pakistan itself.”
Adding to the sermon astir the AI race, 2 scholars person issued a telephone to enactment for Pakistan. Writing for The Express Tribune, Dr Asghar Zaidi and Dr Anjum Majeed accent that the county’s higher acquisition strategy cannot spend to enactment connected the sidelines. They write, “The caller five-year economical translation program of Pakistan, Uraan, unveiled connected 1st January 2025, emphasises AI arsenic a driving unit for growth, innovation, and societal progress. Higher acquisition institutions indispensable emergence to conscionable this situation if we privation to nurture graduates who tin excel successful these modern times with skills to marque usage of generative AI models successful their learnings.”
saptarishi.basak@expressindia.com