It Was Just an Accident, a film by Jafar Panâhi

Jafar Panâhi is an Iranian film-maker and actor whose films have frequently been banned or censored in the country and who has been imprisoned twice for ‘propaganda against the Islamic Republic’. Even under legal restriction, Panâhi continued to make films without permission, sometimes produced

The politicisation of cricket in South Asia

Cricket, a sporting contest followed avidly across South Asia, is now increasingly shaped by political rivalries and state power, as Ashis Ray reports.

The legacy of ‘regime change’ in Iran

There has been much speculation as to whether the bombing of Iran by Israel and the US and the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will mark the end of the Islamic Republic and restoration of democratic government. Richard Oppenheimer witnessed at first hand the start of the revolution that brought the Ayatollahs to power 47 years ago.

How Iran governs itself

The Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) based in New York explains how Iran is governed. Democracy Asia publishes this extract with the permission of the CFR.

While Trump gambles on Iran Xi doubles down in China

With President Trump preoccupied with the war in the Middle East this may not be the best moment to meet Xi Jinping of China, who has just endorsed the country’s latest Five-Year Plan. Howard Zhang has been looking at the plan and at issues between the two superpowers.

A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey by Deve...

India is often narrated as two separate stories that only occasionally touch: those of the world’s largest democracy and of a developing economy still trying to provide prosperity on a continental scale. A Sixth of Humanity rejects that separation and argues instead that India’s politics and economics have never been parallel tracks; they are one braided history, each strand tightening or loosening the other, and the knot they form is what the authors want us to see. Rahul Jaywant Bhise has been reading this weighty book.

Has democracy returned to Bangladesh?

With February’s election giving the Bangladesh Nationalist Party a two-thirds majority in parliament and bringing to an end 18 months of a non-elected interim government, Professor Dr Mohammad Tarikul Islam questions whether democracy has been restored.

Bisinomics

The United States’ military operation in Venezuela, culminating in the abduction and rendition to New York of its president, Nicolas Maduro, is potentially an economic blow to China. Chinese credit to the South American country amounts to around US$10 billion. The South China Morning Post, quoting analysts, reported that Caracas could challenge the very legitimacy of the debts.

The Elements of Power — or Magnet Wars

Rare-earths appear to be a mining story. In reality, seventeen obscure elements in the periodic table, known as rare-earths, sit at the centre of global industrial rivalry. Technologies ranging from electric vehicles and wind turbines to fighter jets and semiconductor lithography machines are critically dependent on them, as Sham Banerji reports.

From beer baron to real baron – an interview with Lord Bilimoria

India-born Karan Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer, has spent his career promoting links between Britain and India. A former chancellor of the University of Birmingham and now a member of Britain's House of Lords, he spoke to Nicholas Nugent about business, politics and the UK–India relationship.

Hope returns, but the test lies ahead

Election leaves Thai army in charge, helped by the ‘Cambodia factor’

Thailand’s snap election of 8 February produced two clear winners, the conservative Bhumjaithai Party and Thailand’s armed forces. The party’s aggressive support for the military during last year’s clash with Cambodia proved a decisive factor. Pravit Rojanaphruk explains how the election has reinforced the army’s role in a country where it is often described as a ‘state within a state’.