In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

The Asia Foundation’s third annual Lotus Leadership Awards luncheon takes place this week on June 6 at New York’s Boathouse in Central Park, and In Asia sat down with Lotus Circle founding member and advisor, Masako Shinn, who joined the Foundation’s board in 2012

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Despite some tentative new signs that point to improved relations and potential for trade between South Asia’s biggest economies – India and Pakistan – the region remains poorly integrated economically, with intraregional trade dreadfully low, hovering at less than 5 percent of total trade.

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These were the elections which many did not expect to see in Pakistan. Despite persistent and widespread rumors right up until the actual day of elections that they would be cancelled or postponed, Pakistan’s General Elections took place as scheduled on May 11. Around 50 million citizens took part in this historical event…

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Against a backdrop of heightened insecurity and increasing violence in the lead-up to Pakistan’s general elections, slated for this Saturday, more than 43,000 trained, non-partisan volunteers are gearing up…

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Season’s Greetings! On behalf of In Asia‘s editorial board and bloggers, we thank you for your engagement and continued readership throughout the year. We’ll be taking a short break, but will return on January 9 for a special “Forecast: Asia in 2013″ edition. In the meantime, catch up on a few must-read pieces and highlights on the most pressing events and issues in Asia throughout 2012.

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My colleague Michelle Chang recently blogged about the promises of mobile money for Asia. It’s true that in many countries, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, where banking infrastructure is limited, mobile money represents a potential solution for the hundreds of millions of individuals who remain unbanked…

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At the opening day of the South Asia Women Parliamentarians’ Conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dr. Miria Matembe, former member of parliament from Uganda, voiced an increasingly common theme: “The issue of women’s participation in politics is no longer in contention. What is central to the debate now is how to make their participation effective enough to influence the governance agenda and make it responsive to women’s interests, needs, and concerns.” But, despite what seems like a growing consensus around this idea, still just 19.5 percent of the world’s parliamentarians are women.

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Throughout Pakistan’s history, the issue of local government – and whether it is elected or bureaucratic – has been used by various regimes to advance their own agendas. The 18th Amendment of the Constitution passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan on April 8, 2010, requires…

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On July 2 in Sendai, Japan, nearly a year and a half after the tragic earthquake and tsunami devastated the region, The Asia Foundation will participate with Google on a conference to examine using open data in disaster relief. As the world is seeing stronger effects of climate change and other factors, floods, rising sea levels, tsunamis, and monsoons threaten the lives of millions, this is a timely moment to call attention to natural disaster management across both developed and developing countries.

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Today is World Refugee Day. This year’s commemoration coincides with ongoing ethnic violence targeting Rohingya Muslims in western Burma (also known as Myanmar). Ethnic clashes in Rakhine State have left at least 50 dead and 30,000 displaced.

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