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This issue of the ( ) is the first in a series of biannual reports on economic and development issues in South Asia. The is a cooperative effort by the South Asia Department and the Central and West Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank. The aims to provide information to policy makers, academics, and ADB management and staff and highlights issues that help promote debate and foster appropriate policies and greater cooperation and integration in the region. The key messages of the are the following: • South Asia is on a high growth path. • Growth is primarily driven by domestic demand and the services sector, unlike in East and Southeast Asia. • Continued sound macroeconomic management, policy and institutional reforms, and targeted public investments in infrastructure are needed to sustain the high growth. • In macroeconomic management, the key areas of concern are inflation and increasing current account deficits. • With regard to policy and institutional reforms, there is a need to focus on improving regulatory quality and government effectiveness.

This issue of the ( ) is the first in a series of biannual reports on economic and development issues in South Asia. The is a cooperative effort by the South Asia Department and the Central and West Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank. The aims to provide information to policy makers, academics, and ADB management and staff and highlights issues that help promote debate and foster appropriate policies and greater cooperation and integration in the region. The key messages of the are the following: • South Asia is on a high growth path. • Growth is primarily driven by domestic demand and the services sector, unlike in East and Southeast Asia. • Continued sound macroeconomic management, policy and institutional reforms, and targeted public investments in infrastructure are needed to sustain the high growth. • In macroeconomic management, the key areas of concern are inflation and increasing current account deficits. • With regard to policy and institutional reforms, there is a need to focus on improving regulatory quality and government effectiveness.

The problems and prospects of democratic peace have attracted both scholars of international relations and policy makers in recent years. The main argument is that the promotion of democracy will lower the probability of war because democracies have not yet gone to war against each other. The promotion of democratic governance therefore became one of the cornerstones of the foreign policies in both the U.S. and the member countries of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s. South Asia can surely be regarded as a region where the benefits of democratic peace would be more than desirable. South Asia's image as a region of chronic instability was only to be seconded by U.S. President Clinton's remarks in March 2000 that the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir is the 'most dangerous place in the world'. The events following September 11 and the growing tensions between India and Pakistan after the attacks of Islamic militants on the Indian parliament in December 2001 have again increased the probability of a nuclear war in this part of the world. But the overall picture of the region is more complex. Besides the well-known conventional and nuclear security risks, South Asia is also among the poorest and least developed regions in the world according to international social and economic indicators. Despite these developments there are remarkable traditions of democratic rule at the same time. During most of the 1990s, South Asia was the biggest democratic region after the transition from authoritarian rule in Pakistan (1988), Nepal (1990) and Bangladesh (1990). Moreover, South Asia is the only region where western political institutions go hand in hand with a variety of non-western civilisations and where religion plays an active role in current politics. The only forms of Hindu and Islamic democracies are to be found in Nepal and Bangladesh, and Buddhism received a foremost place in the Sri Lanka constitution. In contrast to other Asian regions there is a strong commitment by South Asian countries to follow the ...

Human rights in South Asia is a daıting topic to cover in the space of half an hour, given the flagrant violations of human rights in the teeming democracies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, not to mention Afghanistan, Bhutan, and the Maldives. In the recent past, India alone has witnessed brutal suppression of people [secessionist movements] in the North and Northeast; illegal detention, and tortue; contempt for women's rights as reflected in escalating dowry deaths, honor killings; skewed sex-rations, and evidence of female infanticide; denial of Dalit-Bahujan rights; increasing state sanctioned violence against Muslims and Christians.i and illegal evition of tribal and rural people from their land in the name of development.

Human rights in South Asia is a dauting topic to cover in the space of half an hour, given the flagrant violations of human rights in the teeming democracies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, not to mention Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives. In the recent past, India alone has witnessed brutal suppression of people [secessionist movements] in the North and Northeast; ,llegal detention, and tortue; concempt for women's rights as reflected in escalating dowry deaths, honor killingsi skewed sex-rations, and evidence of female infanticide; denial of Delit-Bahujan rights; increasing state sanctioned violence against Muslims and Christians; and illegal eviction of tribal and rural people from their land in the name of development.

Agribusiness (including agriculture) accounts for almost one third of South Asia's GDP and has the potential to almost double over the next fifteen years (reaching 1.5 trillion US dollars by 2030). This increase will be driven by rapid growth in population, incomes and urbanization, as well as accelerated transformation of the sector towards higher value products and downstream activities. The highest growth will come from processed food and related services, such as food retail and restaurants which will create millions of productive jobs outside agriculture and positive backward linkages for farmers. Removing restrictions on trade, markets and prices would support this transformation; reforms in these areas are already showing promising effects. In addition, governments should continue to support smaller and poorer farmers, who may not benefit from this transformation. More targeted and pro-active support should be provided to raise productivity, rather than blanket subsidies and price controls that encourage the status quo and threaten the sustainability of the sector in the face of climate change (for example, large untargeted water subsidies).

The problems and prospects of democratic peace have attracted both scholars of international relations and policy makers in recent years. The main argument is that the promotion of democracy will lower the probability of war because democracies have not yet gone to war against each other. The promotion of democratic governance therefore became one of the cornerstones of the foreign policies in both the U.S. and the member countries of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s. South Asia can surely be regarded as a region where the benefits of democratic peace would be more than desirable. South Asia's image as a region of chronic instability was only to be seconded by U.S. President Clinton's remarks in March 2000 that the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir is the 'most dangerous place in the world'. The events following September 11 and the growing tensions between India and Pakistan after the attacks of Islamic militants on the Indian parliament in December 2001 have again increased the probability of a nuclear war in this part of the world. But the overall picture of the region is more complex. Besides the well-known conventional and nuclear security risks, South Asia is also among the poorest and least developed regions in the world according to international social and economic indicators. Despite these developments there are remarkable traditions of democratic rule at the same time. During most of the 1990s, South Asia was the biggest democratic region after the transition from authoritarian rule in Pakistan (1988), Nepal (1990) and Bangladesh (1990). Moreover, South Asia is the only region where western political institutions go hand in hand with a variety of non-western civilisations and where religion plays an active role in current politics. The only forms of Hindu and Islamic democracies are to be found in Nepal and Bangladesh, and Buddhism received a foremost place in the Sri Lanka constitution. In contrast to other Asian regions there is a strong commitment by South Asian countries to follow the development model that is included in the democratic peace debate. There is a great consensus for democracy and economic liberalisation. The constitutions of South Asian countries promote individual rights in contrast to community rights that created the debate on "Asian values" in parts of East and Southeast Asia some years ago. The ambivalent picture of conflict, poverty, and democracy offers an interesting test case for the theoretical assumptions of the democratic peace debate. In how far have periods of democratic governance on the domestic level as well as on the bilateral level brought about greater periods of peace as suggested by the theoretical debate? Will widespread democratisation and economic interdependence improve the prospects for peace and stability in the region? In order to address the problems and prospects of the democratic peace argument in South Asia, I will first give a short overview about the theoretical argument. In the second part, I will look at the domestic situation, the bilateral relations at the regional level and the role of economic interdependence and international institutions. Finally, I will draw conclusions about the applicability of the democratic peace argument for South Asia.

The prevalence rates of diabetes mellitus and its complications in South Asia are much higher than in other developed and developing countries; therefore, diabetes mellitus has become a serious problem in this region. While the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in South Asia is remarkable, its characteristics and causes have not been well-elucidated. More than 85% of the diabetic population in South Asia suffer from type 2 diabetes, and the causes can be divided into two categories: internal/traditional causes and causes induced by rapid development. Factors such as age, gender, diet and lifestyle changes, including a lack of physical activity caused by modernization and urbanization, are major contributory factors. The majority of the healthcare costs associated with diabetes are due to its later complications and are not preventable. Therefore, inexpensive treatment at an early stage of diabetes is important. In this review, the following are recommended as preventive measures of the incidence of the disease: (1) induction of UCP1 through the diet, (2) increasing the intake of antidiabetic bioactive components and/or food and (3) evolution of the consensus through educational programs and government policy. National strategies and interventions should be implemented immediately for both the primary and secondary prevention of diabetes mellitus and its complications in order to advocate healthy living among the South Asian populations.

Following the end of the Cold War, South Asia has been in transition in a number of ways. Based on the Kantian tripod of democracy, economic interdependence and institution, this article assesses whether liberal peace has taken root in South Asia. It concludes that although an incipient liberal order may be discerned in the region, South Asia has yet to change fundamentally to become a zone of liberal peace. Particularly the Indo-Pakistani relationship remains frosty which constrains the building of a liberal order in the region.

The geography of poverty has changed. More than 70 percent of the world s poor live not in low-income countries, but in middle-income countries. In 2008, nearly 570 million people lived on less than US$1.25 a day in South Asia, compared to 385 million in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, nearly 70 percent of the poor people in South Asia live in the lagging regions. Improving the living standards of these regions is crucial to achieving the goal of shared prosperity. Economic growth is not sufficient to enable the lagging regions of South Asia to catch up with the leading regions, in terms of proportional reductions in poverty rates. Policies must be specifically targeted toward achieving greater growth and poverty reduction in these regions. One particular policy channel to achieve shared prosperity is pro-poor fiscal transfers. For the most part, interstate fiscal transfers in South Asian countries do promote equity through transfer of resources to poorer regions, but this outcome usually occurs when pro-poor redistribution has explicit rules and transparency. Further, simply directing financial resources to lagging regions may not be sufficient, and may need to be complemented with increases in capacity, transparency, and participation to facilitate accountability at the local level. Policy makers need to boost shared prosperity and take another look at the millennium development goal paradigm. A new lens is needed- one that shifts the focus of policy from national to subnational level, and from leading to lagging regions, where poverty, gender disparity, and human misery are concentrated.

During the last decade, South Asia's five largest countries - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal - have been implementing trade policy reforms, gradually moving their economies away from protectionism toward greater trade openness and global economic integration. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the four mainland countries began to follow the liberalizing course on which Sri Lanka had embarked in the late 1970s. Each country faces differing opportunities to exploit and resistances to overcome. Because many of their circumstances and choices are similar, however, this paper seeks to assess their situations collectively as well as separately. Many of its findings are broadly applicable. So, with allowances for historic, economic and social differences, are many of its policy recommendations. The bulk of the report describes key aspects of the current trade regimes in the Jive largest South Asian states and the policies and practices that have produced the systems now in place. It principally focuses on traditional trade policies which affect imports and exports i.e. tariffs, non-tariff barriers, anti-dumping, export policies, and to a limited extent aspects of sanitary and technical regulations that affect trade. All of these are still major issues of concern and debate in South Asia. The report does not attempt to describe where the South Asian countries stand on newer trade policy issues which are prominent in World Trade Organization negotiations, such as trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and Customs valuation. The report also does not attempt to place the South Asian countries' trade policies in the context of their trade and other aspects of their economic performance. Its purpose is rather to provide up-to-date information about, and interpretations of, the current trade policies it covers, with the idea that this should provide starting points for further applied economic research on useful and relevant topics, as well as points of reference and factual ...

On January 21-22, 2003, the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and Stanford University's Asia Pacific Research Center cosponsored a conference on "Prospects for Peace in South Asia." This event brought together a number of well-known scholars, diplomats, and senior military officers with wide experience in the region. Panels considered a variety of topics related to the role of religion in conflict, the nature of past South Asian conflicts, Kashmir, the war on terrorism, and outsider policy interests.

It specializes in the publication of comparative thematic issues as well as individual research articles, review essays, and book reviews. Committed to disseminating rigorous scientific research to the widest possible audience, SAMAJ is fully and freely accessible online. SAMAJ receives institutional support from the Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS) and has a partnership with the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS) since 2011.

It specializes in the publication of comparative thematic issues as well as individual research articles, review essays, and book reviews. Committed to disseminating rigorous scientific research to the widest possible audience, SAMAJ is fully and freely accessible online. SAMAJ receives institutional support from the Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS) and has a partnership with the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS) since 2011.

South Asia is home to three of the top five countries in terms of vulnerability to climate change globally.It thus urgently needs climate investment to enhance resilience and unlock opportunities for low carbon growth. The region is one of the fastest growing regions in the world; however, estimates suggest that climate impacts could reduce its annual gross domestic product by an average of 1.8 percent by 2050,rising to 8.8 percent by 2100.The good news is that the region has governments that are actively pursuing ambitious policies to address climate change. Moreover, its private sector is already investing in climate-smart sectors, developing new business models and technologies,building more resilient supply chains, and growing their operations in sustainable way.Countries of focus for this report have been identified based on IFC'soperational regional grouping for South Asia, which includes Bangladesh,Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. All six of these countries have ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement and pledged to tackle climate change in support of it, as part of their ambitious long-term economic growth and sustainable development plans. Almost all the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) across the region make some reference to the private sector's role. Climate business activity in keysectors such as renewable energy, green buildings, and energy-efficiency has increased since the Paris Agreement, boosted by governments' commitments to address climate change.