This week, India’s private airline Indigo flew one of its A320 planes from Kolkata to Guangzhou. It was the first direct flight from India to China in five years, following its halt during the Covid-19 pandemic and the souring of relations...

By Rosa Hwang The newsroom is dark. The microphones are off. Broadcasts have been silenced. Publishing is paused. On social media. On our websites. Due to uncertain funding, Radio Free Asia is not delivering news to our audiences for the...

By Rikard Jozwiak (RFE/RL) -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa will meet with the Chinese president and prime minister in Beijing on July 24 in what is expected to be a tense...

By Deepak Kumar Nayak On July 12, 2025, 23 Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres, carrying a cumulative cash bounty of INR 11.8 million, surrendered before the State Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Sukma District in...

On May 14, 2025, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs unveiled its fifth batch of “standardized” names for 27 places located in Arunachal Pradesh province of India, which it refers to as “Zangnan” in Mandarin and Tibetan languages.

Amid the sound of drums, music, and applause, the Dalai Lama stepped into Dharamsala’s main temple courtyard on Sunday, his 90th birthday. Welcomed by Tibetan cultural performers, the Tibetan spiritual leader was greeted by schoolchildren dressed in uniforms, monks,...

By Tenzin Pema The Dalai Lama turns 90 years old on Sunday, a milestone birthday for the spiritual leader who transformed from humble origins in the then-remote, inaccessible “Roof of the World” to global statesman and Buddhist leader helming one...

The Dalai Lama on Wednesday affirmed that he should have a successor and said the next Dalai Lama should be chosen by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a non-profit group that he set up — rejecting moves by China to steer his succession.

By Philip Wasielewski and Doug Wise (FPRI) -- Two recent essays published by the Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) rekindle interest in a perennial debate about whether covert action,...

By Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy In March 2025, the Chinese embassy in India, in collaboration with the government of Bhutan, organised Chinese New Year celebrations in Thimphu. Following the event, Bhutan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement referring to Tibet as...

Aung San Suu Kyi—beloved as “Amay Suu” by the people of Myanmar—is celebrated as a brave, nonviolent champion of democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. To the world, she remains a symbol of resilience; to some, a misunderstood...

Given China’s stance favouring Pakistan, and its competition with India in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi will not welcome Beijing’s mediation in their ongoing conflict. There is more to the present India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir than America’s mediation and...

By Tenzin Pema, Dorjee Damdul, Lobsang Gelek, Passang Tsering, Abby Seiff, and Passang Dhonden In the tranquil hills of Nepal’s Gandaki province, where the land rises in its northern district of Mustang toward the border with Tibet, the pace of...

On April 22, an attack occurred in the Baisaran Valley, located in the mountainous region of Kashmir in the western part of the Indian subcontinent, sparking a brief military conflict between New Delhi and Islamabad. India received support from...

Before the October 2023 flood in Sikkim, scientists and different agencies of the Government of India were working on installing an early warning system for glacial floods from the lake. It was known that cloudbursts could pose a severe...

Kashmir is not merely a region; it is “The Cradle of Indian Civilization”, deeply embedded in its rich history, folklore, cultural contributions, particularly its role in shaping Hinduism, its intellectual traditions and spiritual fabric of India. Attempts to redefine...

By Jessica C. Teets, Katherine Michaelson, MacKenzie Van Mete and Marisa Jones (FPRI) -- Flowing from Tibet, the Lancang River goes through twelve Chinese megadams before reaching Laos as the Mekong River, a crucial freshwater source in Southeast Asia....

China’s government has arrested dozens of people in Tibetan areas since 2021 for politically motived phone and internet-related offenses, Human Rights Watch said. Tibetan journalists in exile report that these arrests typically target Tibetans accused of keeping “banned content”...

By Anand Kumar The visit of Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser, Muhammad Yunus, to China from 26 March to 29 March 2025 marks a significant diplomatic shift. Traditionally, the leaders of South Asian nations—except for Pakistan—prefer to prioritise India for their...

By Qian Lang, Yitong Wu and Ha Syut  China’s 10-day National People Congress ended in Beijing on Tuesday amid sweeping promises from the country’s leaders to boost economic growth, support AI and to take control over democratic Taiwan. Delegates also...

While the world watches the race of competition between the USA and China in imposing tariffs on products from other countries, even more, perhaps more substantial differences than those in the management of the economic policy of the two...

Five times a day, approximately one-fourth of the world's population turns toward Mecca to bow their heads in prayer. The Kaaba at the center of this global genuflection has a cornerstone that some speculate is a meteor. Meteoritic artifacts...

The towering peaks of the Himalayas form more than just a geographical barrier between India and China; they represent a formidable military challenge. The Line of Actual Control (LAC), where the two nations’ troops stand eye to eye, presents...

By Ayjaz Wani In a tactical move to reduce the travel time between northern and southern Xinjiang from seven hours to three hours while protecting goods from harsh winter conditions, China completed excavating the world’s longest roadway tunnel in the Tianshan...

By Jui Marathe and Chaitanya Giri India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) started 2025 by deeming it the ‘Year of Reforms’. This year, it has pledged its focus on emerging technologies, especially robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI). The...

By Deepak Kumar Nayak On February 9, 2025, inflicting significant losses on the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), a joint team of Security Forces (SFs) comprising District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Special Task Force (STF) personnel, shot dead at...

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed reporters at the White House last week, during which the president laid out his plan for the US to “take over” Gaza. The president elaborated further that his plan...

The Chinese company, Lixun Diasheng, has faced criticism after illegally photographing employees and publishing the photos of them while using the toilet. The controversial practice of Lixun Diasheng, a company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, has sparked widespread condemnation...

On 20 January 2025, a day when the tech titans of the West were in prominent attendance at Trump’s presidential inauguration, a little known China artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek released an open source version of its R1 model,...

By Eugene Whong and Cici Zhang Radio Free Asia asked DeepSeek, the Chinese-made artificial intelligence platform that earlier this week beat out U.S.-based ChatGPT as the most popular free app on Apple’s App Store, a series of questions about topics...