Alma Freeman

Nearly three months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on its highest-denomination currency to curb corruption and tax evasion, the country is still reeling from the move, with millions struggling from a cash shortage in an overwhelmingly cash-dependent economy. In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with The Asia Foundation’s cou… Read more

Indonesia’s former Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Mari Pangestu, recently visited The Asia Foundation’s headquarters in San Francisco as a 2016 Chang-Lin Tien Distinguished Visiting Fellow. In Asia editor Alma Freeman sat down with her to discuss trade, Indonesia’s infrastructure challenges, the “Beyond Bali” strategy, lessons from… Read more

Following national elections in 2014 and the formation of the National Unity Government, Afghanistan has entered a new era of reform in what some call a ”transformation decade.” Last week, The Asia Foundation and World Affairs Council hosted a discussion with Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States, Hamdullah Mohib, and Karl Eikenberry, forme… Read more

On June 10, Myanmar’s speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, Thura U Shwe Mann, during the first official visit to the U.S. by Myanmar’s Parliament since the reform process began two years ago, confirmed he would run for president in 2015. Shwe Mann, a former general and widely considered a “key architect” of recent reforms…

Over the last few weeks, in our blog, our studies, in well-respected surveys, at think tanks and other organizations, and the media, the topic of corruption and transparency seems to be everywhere you look. However, there seems no clear consensus on the extent of the problem…

The industrial zone of Ashulia, just outside of Bangladesh’s sprawling capital, Dhaka, grabbed headlines in mid-June when hundreds of garment workers demanding higher minimum wages shut down over 300 factories. It was the most violent protests the region had experienced since 2010…

At the foot of the Khyber Pass, Peshawar is on the front lines of Pakistan’s war against militants. In one recent month, 221 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded in bombings. Many more lives have been lost on the trek from Peshawar through the Pass to reach Afghanistan’s Jalalabad. It is this route that containers of 15,000 books – sent from a… Read more

Late last month, suicide attacks hit Pakistan’s International Islamic University in relatively peaceful Islamabad, killing at least six people – another violent event that continues to pull the capital further into the fray. In even less secure areas, such as Pakistan’s Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, Pakistan’s lar… Read more