Stepping back from the brink: time for reason and rapprochement between India and Pakistan https://www.bmj.com/content/389/bmj.r1102   In the  biennial International Congress of Pediatrics,  speakers highlighted the challenges that India and Pakistan face in public health, social determinants of health, climate change, environmental issues, and enormous gaps in health and development equity that need to be closed. Despite this harsh reality, both countries, irrespective of the relative size of their economies, spend a disproportionate amount on their military and nuclear arsenals. Notwithstanding the human costs of the conflict, the costs of the missiles and drones lobbed at each other and the damage in the five days after 7 May 2025 easily ran into billions of dollars. We wonder what could have been achieved had this money been used for public health in either country...We must activate formal and facilitatory platforms for scientific and cultural exchanges and focus on common tangible solutions related to climate, environment, water security, and child rights. 

 The State, the Maoists, and the war for tribal land | What’s Your Ism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW6pkR-sY2Y   ft. Professor Haragopal
newslaundry structural violence, broken promises, and why civil society must still try—even when peace seems impossible.

The most dangerous weapon in South Asia is not nuclear 
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/5/26/the-most-dangerous-weapon-in-south-asia-is-not-nuclear   Syeda Sana Batool  26 May 2025 The recent India-Pakistan confrontation made it quite clear the most dangerous weapon they have is narrative.

India portrayed Pakistan as a terror factory: duplicitous, rogue, a nuclear-armed spoiler addicted to jihad. Pakistani identity was reduced to its worst stereotype, deceptive and dangerous. Peace, in this worldview, is impossible because the Other is irrational.

Pakistan, in turn, cast India as a fascist state: led by a majoritarian regime, obsessed with humiliation, eager to erase Muslims from history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the aggressor. India was the occupier. Their strikes were framed not as counterterrorism but as religious war.

This is the danger of media-driven identity construction. Once the Other becomes a caricature, dialogue dies. Diplomacy becomes weakness. Compromise becomes betrayal. And war becomes not just possible, but desirable.