— October 20265 outlets
The Standstill Agreement and the Contested October
Examines the ten weeks before Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession in October 1947, drawing on the August 1947 standstill proposals, supply restrictions along the Sialkot and Kohala roads, and Hari Singh's letter to Mountbatten. Sets the Indian legal position under the Indian Independence Act 1947 against the different treatment of Junagadh and Hyderabad, and argues that the accession was legally valid but left the political question of Kashmir's status unresolved, since Mountbatten called for a reference to the people and the plebiscite was never held.
— October 20261 outlet
Pakistan's Climate Adaptation Is Better Funded Than It Is Governed
Argues that Pakistan's adaptation problem is now less about the amount of climate finance on offer than about whether the state can receive, track and spend it. Examines the GLOF-II glacier programme, the delayed Authority and Fund under the Climate Change Act of 2017, Green Climate Fund accreditation, the 18th Amendment's division of powers, and the FY26 climate-tagged budget, where adaptation received about 12 percent of tagged spending.
— September 20263 outlets
Rivers as Sacrifice Zones: The Case for Strategic Environmental Assessment in Jammu and Kashmir
Examines the cumulative ecological effects of India's hydropower expansion on the Western Rivers of the Indus system in IIOJK. Drawing on the Baglihar and Kishanganga rulings of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the UNECE Kiev Protocol of 2003 and the EU SEA Directive of 2001, argues that individually approved projects are producing collectively irreversible damage, including river fragmentation, blocked sediment transport and higher seismic and glacial lake outburst flood risk. Calls for mandatory Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Chenab and Jhelum basins.
— September 20263 outlets
Mental Health Crisis and Healthcare Collapse in IIOJK
Examines the gap between the documented scale of mental health need in IIOJK and the state's response, drawing on the 2015 MSF survey, the 2017 Housen et al. study in BMJ Global Health, National Crime Records Bureau data and the 2016 ActionAid and IMHANS survey. Notes an 88 percent treatment gap and only 41 psychiatrists for 12.5 million people, acknowledges initiatives such as Tele-MANAS, and argues they fall short of the mhGAP framework used in comparable conflict settings. Assesses India's obligations under ICESCR Article 12, the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 and the 2018 OHCHR report.
— August 20264 outlets
Democratic Deficit in Indian-Occupied Kashmir: Media, Assembly and Civil Liberties
Examines the gap between the visible structures of electoral democracy in IIOJK and the governing authority those structures actually hold. Drawing on the detention of elected legislator Mehraj Malik under the Public Safety Act, India's 157th ranking in the 2026 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Freedom House's score of 38 out of 100 for the territory, and the unresolved conflict between the Watali and Najeeb bail standards under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the piece argues that a democracy requiring this much scaffolding to appear as one is not describing a deficit but describing a design.
— August 20266 outlets
From Apple Orchards to Apple Stores: Corporate Integration as the New Face of Control in Kashmir
Examines the shift from military to market-based mechanisms of control in IIOJK, documenting how post-2019 land law amendments and the Jammu and Kashmir Industrial Policy 2020-21 have enabled major corporate players including Reliance Retail, Adani, and ITC to enter Kashmir's apple and saffron sectors through high-density planting schemes and contract farming models that bypass traditional mandi systems. Details how debt-linked contracts with arbitration clauses in distant venues have left smallholder farmers and rural women structurally bound to outside capital while carrying full production risk. Argues that a governance strategy which channels value addition into corporate hands while converting community-based land relationships into supply chain inputs constitutes dispossession structured to appear voluntary, and evaluates India's obligations under Article 15 of the ICESCR.
— August 20261 outlet
Reserved, Not Represented
Examines Pakistan's reserved seat mechanism for women in the National Assembly and argues that while the quota meets its numerical targets, its closed-list design concentrates representation in a handful of provincial capitals while cutting elected women off from any direct electoral mandate. Drawing on FAFEN attendance data and comparisons with Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, it proposes three practical reforms to make the reserved list function as a genuine bridge to full political participation rather than a permanent substitute for it.
— August 20264 outlets
Statehood Denied: Seven Years of Union Territory Rule in Indian-Occupied Kashmir
Examines the legal and political framework keeping IIOJK under effective central control seven years after the revocation of its special status. Analyzes Section 53 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019, which places authority over police, senior bureaucratic appointments, and the Anti-Corruption Bureau with the Lieutenant Governor rather than the elected assembly, while insulating that arrangement from judicial review. Argues that while India can point to a fairly elected assembly, that assembly lacks the governing authority required to function as one in any meaningful sense.
— July 20266 outlets
Governing Through Trauma: The Mental Health Emergency India Will Not Acknowledge in Kashmir
Examines the psychological emergency facing the population of IIOJK through peer-reviewed research including the 2015 MSF survey and the 2017 Housen et al. study in BMJ Global Health. Documents how decades of house raids, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and institutional neglect have produced widespread and measurable trauma. Evaluates India's obligations under ICESCR Article 12, CEDAW General Recommendation 30, and the 2018 OHCHR report, arguing that consistent inaction reflects a fundamental governance failure toward the affected population.
— July 20261 outlet
Pakistan's Third Water War: The Indus Treaty's Collapse and Asia's Coming Multilateral Vacuum
Examines the breakdown of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty after India placed it in abeyance following the 2025 Pahalgam attack. Argues the deeper crisis is the complete absence of any multilateral governance framework for transboundary water across the Himalayan system, and that without basin-wide architecture binding upstream rights to downstream obligations, the IWT's collapse sets a damaging precedent for resource governance across Asia.
— July 20261 outlet
Islamabad Holds the Key to Its Own Border Crisis
Examines the recurring Pakistan–Afghanistan border crisis and argues that bilateral ceasefires and ad hoc mediation have failed to provide a sustainable solution. Contends that Pakistan should leverage its SCO membership to revive multilateral counter-terrorism cooperation with Afghanistan, strengthening regional security while avoiding renewed escalation along the contested Durand Line.
— July 20263 outlets
Manufactured Hatred: How Islamophobia Has Become State Policy in Modi's India
Examines the institutionalization of Islamophobia in contemporary India through political rhetoric, discriminatory policies, and patterns of communal violence. Drawing on reports by international organizations, media investigations, and recent empirical evidence, it analyzes how anti-Muslim narratives have become embedded within state practices, contributing to democratic backsliding, social exclusion, and the erosion of minority rights, with a particular focus on the disproportionate impact on Kashmiri Muslims.
— July 20265 outlets
The Silencing of Kashmiri Cultural Identity: Language, Music and Memory Under Occupation
Examines the systematic erosion of Kashmiri cultural identity through restrictions on language, literature, music, and artistic expression following the 2019 constitutional changes, arguing these measures constitute a broader strategy of cultural assimilation aimed at weakening collective memory and the intergenerational transmission of Kashmir's heritage.
— June 20264 outlets
Rivers of Hunger: How India's Water Coercion Is Starving Pakistan's Fields and Kashmir's Future
Examines the implications of India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty on Pakistan's water security, agriculture, and regional stability, arguing that disruptions to transboundary water governance threaten the livelihoods of millions dependent on the Indus basin while highlighting the humanitarian consequences of reduced river flows and expanding upstream hydropower infrastructure.
— May 20264 outlets
Extraterritorial Assassination in Azad Kashmir: When a Teacher Becomes a Terrorist After Death
Examines the killing of school principal Arjumand Gulzar Dar in Muzaffarabad and critically evaluates the legality of alleged Indian extraterritorial targeted killings under international law, drawing on the UN Charter, the Caroline doctrine, and the ICJ's Nicaragua v. United States judgment to argue these operations violate principles of sovereignty, necessity, and due process.
— May 20264 outlets
Erasing Kashmir: India's Demographic Engineering and the Slow Death of an Identity
Examines India's post-2019 policies in Jammu and Kashmir as a systematic campaign of demographic engineering, including land law amendments, the deportation of nearly 800 Pakistani nationals, and official data showing 631 outsiders acquiring Kashmiri land, arguing these measures constitute settler colonialism undermining future self-determination.
— May 20267 outlets
Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos and the Reassertion of Deterrence in a Nuclearized Region
Examines the April 2025 Pahalgam attack and the subsequent India-Pakistan escalation, exploring how Operation Sindoor and Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos revealed the complexities of deterrence between two nuclear-armed states and the limits of framing Kashmir as an internal Indian matter.
— May 20265 outlets
Weaponizing Water: How India Turned the Indus Treaty Into a Tool of Strategic Coercion
Examines India's suspension of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty following the Pahalgam attack and its use of Kishanganga and Baglihar dam infrastructure to reduce water access for millions in Pakistan, critiquing India's disregard for international law including the Permanent Court of Arbitration's rulings.
— April 20263 outlets
One Year After Pahalgam: How a Single Attack Became the Architecture of Permanent Control
A one-year retrospective on the April 2025 Pahalgam attack, documenting how emergency security measures including mass detentions, home demolitions, and deportations were normalized into permanent governance tools under the PSA and UAPA, while concerns raised by UN Special Rapporteurs went largely unaddressed.
— April 20264 outlets
Dispossession by Design: How Post-2019 Infrastructure Projects Are Starving Kashmir's Fields and Future
Examines the large-scale conversion of agricultural land in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir under post-2019 infrastructure expansion, arguing that legal changes following the revocation of Articles 370 and 35A have facilitated land transfer to external actors while contributing to long-term dispossession and structural dependency.
— April 20263 outlets
The Pen as a Weapon of Terror: How India Criminalizes Dissent in Kashmir
Examines the systematic use of counter-terrorism laws including the PSA and UAPA to suppress dissent in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, focusing on the prolonged detention of human rights defender Khurram Parvez and journalist Irfan Mehraj, arguing the legal process itself has become a mechanism of punishment.
— March 20263 outlets
Crushing Voices: The Struggle of Kashmiri Youth
Explores the systematic suppression of Kashmiri youth through arbitrary arrests, anti-terror charges, and restrictions on peaceful expression, arguing that criminalizing dissent deepens generational alienation and intensifies instability rather than addressing underlying grievances.
— March 20266 outlets
When the State Becomes the Executioner: Bulldozer Justice in Indian-Occupied Kashmir
Critically examines India's use of home demolitions and mass detentions in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir as instruments of collective punishment, arguing these measures violate international humanitarian law and India's own judicial standards while deepening alienation rather than ensuring stability.
— September 20241 outlet
The Impact of Cyberterrorism on Global Security
Examines cyberterrorism as an emerging threat to global security, exploring the shift from individual hackers to organized state-linked actors and arguing for coordinated global response through stronger cybersecurity frameworks and cross-border cooperation.
