In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

On January 31, Asia Foundation regional cooperation director and prominent Southeast Asia expert, John Brandon, will join experts for a discussion at the American University in Washington, D.C., on ASEAN’s progress, setbacks, prospects, and policy recommendations for 2013 and beyond. Read Brandon’s past blogs on this and more.

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It has been a month since the fatal rape of a 23-year-old woman by a gang of six men on a moving bus in South Delhi captured headlines in India and around the world. In Delhi, where I live and work, the incident continues to pervade both the media and private conversations as people of all walks of life struggle to come to terms…

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Four months from now, the Philippines will once again be in the spotlight as citizens exercise their right to suffrage in congressional and local elections. It is because of this right that people and the institutions of the government must ensure that an enabling environment is provided for an effective electoral process.

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Mongolia enters 2013 as one of the world’s fastest growing economies, with forecasters predicting GDP growth of 18-20 percent. Driven by a boom in mining revenues, the impact of this growth is clearly visible in Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar…

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As a Canadian of Sri Lankan heritage, I am part of the growing diaspora living in the West who grew up speaking English as my first language. Since arriving in Sri Lanka as a LankaCorps Fellow I have been able to explore my “mother tongue,” taking lessons in both Tamil and Sinhala.

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For the past 30 years, Asia has been urbanizing at a faster rate than any other region in the world. In 2011, Asia was home to roughly 61 percent of the world’s population, or 4.2 billion people. More than 40 percent of them now live in urban areas. By 2025, Asia will have 21 of the world’s 37 megacities…

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Over the last several decades, Asia has become increasingly integrated with the rest of the world, its rapid development driven largely by exports to the United States and European Union. Yet, as the world’s main economic arteries shift eastward, intra-regional integration within Asia still lags behind.

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Last November, when a new leadership team stepped forward in Beijing, they confronted a very different set of challenges than their predecessors had faced. Among the most urgent of these is the challenge of providing adequate basic social services for all of China’s 1.3 billion people…

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On January 24, Asia Foundation trustee Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, will join Asia Foundation President David Arnold in conversation at the Pacific Council in Los Angeles to discuss the state of Afghanistan, the 2014 transition, and political, economic, and security challenges ahead as the country works toward becoming a peaceful and stable [...]

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