The conflict between India and Pakistan is a major source of crisis which must be resolved if peace and development are to prevail in this region. One approach for identifying the costs of conflict and the strategies for minimizing them is the conflict resolution curve model formulated through regret analysis (based on costs). The application of this model in the present context suggests alternative strategies, one being that India should encourage more formal bilateral trade. However, this solution is not feasible given the repeated terrorist attacks on India from Pakistani soil and the suspension of trade ties between the two nations. Another alternative is for India to strengthen its preparedness diplomatically, and this is happening through the Financial Action Task Force and other channels.

The Naxalite-Maoist uprising in India has for fifty-one years continued almost unabated. Today Maoist rebels have a substantial presence in at least ten of India’s twenty-nine states and the Indian government has repeatedly stated that it remains the most potent threat to stability that the Indian state faces. This research note examines the existing literature and local primary sources to explore the economic, social, and military factors that have influenced the longevity of this conflict. It details how a fifty-one year conflict has continued almost unmitigated in a country that has the military might that India commands.

Post-war reconstruction in Sri Lanka, which is aided by many countries, is aimed at consolidating the unitary state structure as part of a geo-strategic security complex in the Indian Ocean Region. In this process, discourses of democratization and human rights have been reconfigured to contain or totally remove any threat to the unitary state emerging from the Tamils in the North and East whose claim to self-determination is seen as a major challenge to the geo-strategic complex in South Asia. In such a context, the bio-politics of the development-security nexus and neo-liberal governmentality operates by strengthening the hegemony of the Sinhala state against the Tamils and weakening or destroying the essential foundations of Tamil nationhood. Without recognizing these local and global dynamics every peacebuilding attempt will fail.