epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Thursday, April 18, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Taliban crackdown on Afghan TV channels for alleged rule breaches (VOA)
VOA [4/17/2024 9:25 AM, Ayaz Gul, 761K, Neutral]
The Taliban government in Afghanistan has suspended the broadcast of two privately run local TV channels over alleged violations of official regulations and “Islamic values.”

Free media advocates Wednesday criticized the overnight suspension, calling it a violation of Afghanistan’s media-governing laws.

The Taliban-run information ministry’s Media Violations Commission said in a statement late Tuesday that a court will examine the activities of the two channels, Noor TV and Barya TV, and decide on their fate.

Hafizullah Barakzai, the commission spokesman, said that the broadcasters are barred from conducting operations until then.

Barakzai criticized the channels for not following “journalistic principles” and “not considering “national and Islamic values” during their coverage despite repeated government warnings and recommendations.

He reported that Noor TV was broadcasting music and that its female hosts and guests were not following the official dress code, which requires women to cover their faces, leaving only their eyes visible. Barakzai cited a controversial speech for suspending Barya TV but did not elaborate.

The Afghanistan Journalists Center or AFJC, an independent media watchdog, said in a statement that the suspensions were “against the country’s public media law” and marked another step toward stifling free media in the Taliban-ruled country.

The watchdog demanded that Afghan authorities immediately withdraw the order and reopen the two media outlets unconditionally.

The two channels did not immediately comment on the allegations and suspension of their operations.

Noor TV has been operating in Afghanistan since 2007 and is backed by the country’s Jamiat-e-Islami party of former Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, who fled the country after the hardline Taliban returned to power nearly three years ago.

Barya TV, which launched its operations in 2019, is owned by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and the leader of his Hizb-e-Islami party.

Critics noted that Afghan media professionals have dealt with work conditions requiring them to strictly follow a set of media guidelines the Taliban introduced after reclaiming power in 2021.

Some directives prevent women from working in national radio and television stations, enforce “gender-based segregation” in workplaces, and prohibit broadcasting female voices and phone calls in certain provinces.

The Taliban have banned television dramas that include female performers, and female news presenters must wear an officially prescribed “Islamic hijab” on air.

Last month, Taliban officials warned media representatives to bar females from media platforms unless the women comply with the official dress code.

“The Afghan repression continues to intensify and specifically targets women’s access to the media, whether as journalists or as listeners and spectators,” said France-based Reporters Without Borders in a statement last month.

The Taliban have prohibited teenage Afghan girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade and banned women aid workers from working for nongovernmental humanitarian groups, including the United Nations, except in the health sector. They have placed travel restrictions on women without a male guardian, and access to public parks and gyms is also restricted for women.
Journalist jailed as Taliban continue media crackdown (VOA)
VOA [4/17/2024 4:23 PM, Akmal Dawi, 761K, Negative]
Free-press advocates are calling on de facto Taliban authorities in Afghanistan to release a local reporter jailed on unspecified charges.

Habib Rahman Taseer, a former Pashto-language reporter for Azadi Radio — a Prague-based affiliate of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA’s parent organization — was detained by the Taliban intelligence agency in Ghazni province this month.

According to the Afghanistan Journalists Center, or AFJC, he was subsequently transferred to a provincial prison on Wednesday.

“We demand his immediate and unconditional release,” AFJC said in a statement.

The Taliban have banned VOA and Azadi Radio broadcasts in Afghanistan, accusing the U.S.-funded organizations of airing anti-Taliban content.

Both media entities firmly deny the accusation, instead saying that the Islamist regime stifles free press.

Officials at the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, which houses a commission that regulates media, did not respond to requests for comment regarding Taseer’s detention.

“In the Taliban’s directive for journalists, working for the banned outlets is considered a criminal act,” Ahmad Queraishi, AFJC director, told VOA.

The Taliban continue to persecute reporters and contributors associated with Afghan media outlets operating from outside the country.

Two journalists inside Afghanistan told VOA that Taliban authorities routinely track individuals providing content to these banned organizations.

“I know of several individuals who were detained and only released after vouching they would not work for the banned channels,” said one of the journalists, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

Several Azadi Radio journalists were killed in bombings in Afghanistan during the U.S. military engagement in the country that ended in 2021.

No female face, voice

On Tuesday, Afghanistan’s state broadcaster announced the suspension of two private television channels, Noor TV and Barya TV, citing alleged violations of media regulations.

The cases have been referred to Taliban courts.

The information ministry and its media regulation commission have provided only vague explanations for the suspensions of the stations, whose owners reportedly reside outside Afghanistan.

Queraishi cited Noor TV’s alleged violation of the Taliban’s restrictions on the portrayal of women on television as a reason for its suspension.

The Taliban have mandated that female news presenters and guests cover their faces except for the eyes on television.

Additionally, local Taliban officials in some areas have banned radio stations from airing women’s voices. These restrictions have faced widespread international condemnation as misogynistic and oppressive.

Taliban officials, however, defend the policy as being in accordance with Islamic and traditional values.

Journalists persecuted

Since the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan’s once-thriving free press has suffered a near-total collapse. Dozens of outlets have been silenced, forcing thousands of media professionals and civil society activists to flee the country.

While some Afghan journalists have launched media-in-exile startups abroad, those remaining in Afghanistan and neighboring countries have faced constant threats and escalating safety concerns.

Ahmad Hanayesh, a prominent Afghan journalist who previously worked for Azadi Radio, was critically injured in a shooting in Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 3.

The motive and the identity of those responsible for the attack on Hanayesh remain unknown.

At least 150 Afghan journalists are currently stranded in Pakistan, awaiting resettlement to a third country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Press freedom groups consider Pakistan to be quite dangerous for journalists, especially those who report critically on the government and military. Since 1992, CPJ has documented the deaths of 64 journalists who were killed in the country over their work. In many cases, no one has been held accountable.
Afghan women turn to entrepreneurship but struggle to access capital (Reuters)
Reuters [4/17/2024 10:01 AM, Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield, 5239K, Neutral]
Female-led businesses now represent an economic lifeline for Afghan women living under Taliban restrictions, but face a series of problems accessing capital and markets, a United Nations Development Programme study released on Wednesday showed.

The UNDP found that 41% of 3,100 Afghan female entrepreneurs surveyed had to take on debt but just 5% of them had been able to gain credit through a bank or micro-finance institution, instead mostly relying on lending from friends or family members.

Respondents also reported restrictions hampered their operations, with over 70% saying they were unable to travel to a local market without a male guardian.

The Taliban have not formally banned women from work but have barred many Afghan female aidworkers, shuttered beauty salons, which employed tens of thousands of women, and limited women’s movement and work in many institutions without a male guardian.

That has caused female formal employment - already low even before the Taliban took over in 2021 - to plummet, according to international development and labour organisations.

However female entrepreneurship has continued and some Taliban officials, including the commerce minister, have said their administration wants to support female businesses, many of which employ women in carpet weaving, handicrafts, dried fruit and saffron production.

"Women have long been the driving force behind the welfare of households in Afghanistan and play a crucial role in sustaining local economies," said Stephen Rodriques, UNDP’s Afghanistan Resident Representative in a statement accompanying the study. "They need international support ... the future of Afghanistan depends on them.”

Sadeqa Sadiqyar, a member of the Afghan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry in western Herat province said her fruit snack business employed eight women and had managed to open a second branch since 2021.

However, she said her business was not reaching its potential in part due to competition from cheap imports and a lack of credit access.

"A challenge we face is the lack of financial support or resources; if organizations could assist us with financial issues, we could create more job opportunities for women and even export our products abroad," she said.
70 killed As Afghanistan Hit By Heavy Rains (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [4/17/2024 9:57 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Around 70 people have been killed by heavy rains lashing Afghanistan over the past five days, the government’s disaster management department said Wednesday.

Afghanistan was parched by an unusually dry winter which desiccated the earth, exacerbating flash-flooding caused by spring downpours in most provinces.

Disaster management spokesman Janan Sayeq said "approximately 70 people lost their lives" as a result of rains between Saturday and Wednesday.

Fifty-six others have been injured, he said, while more than 2,600 houses have been damaged or destroyed and 95,000 acres of farmland wiped away.

Giving a smaller death toll last week, Sayeq said most fatalities at that point had been caused by roof collapses resulting from the deluges.

Neighbouring Pakistan has also been hammered by spring downpours, with 65 people killed in storm-related incidents as rain falls at nearly twice the historical average rate.

The United Nations last year warned that "Afghanistan is experiencing major swings in extreme weather conditions".

After four decades of war the country ranks among the nations least prepared to face extreme weather events, which scientists say are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change.

At least 25 people were killed in a landslide after massive snowfall in eastern Afghanistan in February, while around 60 were killed in a three-week spate of precipitation ending in March.
I went to Afghanistan to see my dying mom and found too many are dying in silence (Stars and Stripes – opinion)
Stars and Stripes [4/17/2024 3:11 PM, Wahab Raofi, 71K, Neutral]
My sister Malala called me from Afghanistan: “Mom is in the final days of her life and wishes to see you and the rest of the family.” The call abruptly ended. I couldn’t shake the feeling that both the U.S. and the Taliban were monitoring incoming and outgoing calls.

“Are you going to throw yourself to the wolves?” my daughter Shabnam said, referring to the Taliban. We have lived safely in the United States for many years now. Sandwiched between my children and my dying mom, I made the decision.

My flight into Kabul International Airport arrived shortly before 8 in the morning. It was early fall, and off in the distance, the first rays of sunlight had kissed the snowcapped Hindu Kush, the sky in that direction bathed in gentle hues of lavender and pastel pink.

I had reasons to be fearful, the first being that I had returned to Afghanistan without growing a beard. I felt naked. Worse still, I had once been an interpreter for the American forces.

The Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, was said to have offered amnesty to all former Afghan army and civilian officials living abroad, especially those of higher authority, but Afghans learned from bitter experience that those were hollow words. Upon arriving, they would be arrested, tortured and killed. The Taliban were determined to eliminate all perceived enemies, past and present. As former Uganda President Idi Amin famously once said, “Eat your enemy before they eat you.”

My taxi driver, Sultan, constantly honked his horn at bicyclists and defiant beggars and pedestrians. Women were nowhere to be seen, and gun-toting Taliban were standing guard.

“Ah, you smell it,” Sultan said, having noticed me wincing from the foul odor outside. “The sewage system in the city no longer functions. Worse, the local farmers now use the waste to fertilize their fields. The scent is everywhere.”

As we drove, I witnessed raw sewage all along the roadside. The Americans had once spoke of bombing Afghanistan back into the Dark Ages. The Taliban have done that job for them.

“If the Taliban stops us, I will say I’m from Nuristan. I can pass as Nuristani,” Sultan said. “They have blue eyes, just like me. I would never bring up that I am from Panjshir. We are Muqawamat (the resistance) to them for resisting Taliban rule. Thousands of our young men are still being held in Taliban prisons. As for you, if you speak Pashto, you will be in good shape.”

His remarks reflected an aspect of the Afghan War: The Taliban, predominantly Pashtuns from the southern and eastern regions of the country, have systematically excluded other ethnic groups from their share of power.

I stayed in confinement for a week or so to grow a beard to be in conformity with the Taliban’s imposed dress code.

Sultan became not only my driver for the next two months, but also my eyes and ears for all the current events and gossip in Afghanistan.

During my self-imposed time, neighbors welcomed me as part of their community. They were predominantly Tajiks, including some former members of the former Afghan government or retirees who failed to flee after the arrival of the Taliban in August of 2022.

Every evening, each carrying a thermos of green tea, they gathered on the corner, sitting on a plastic carpet, discussing the realities of daily life: the pervasive joblessness, the looming specter of insecurity and the palpable fear instilled by the Khadamat-e Aetla’at-e Dawlati, the Taliban’s secret service. This organization, reminiscent of a Gestapo-style force, casts a chilling shadow over the populace, evoking profound dread and apprehension.

My new neighbors — whom I name “The Blue Cell,” asked me a long list of questions: Why did the U.S. leave? Why has the free world turned a blind eye to a Taliban regime that has imposed draconian rule on Afghans, especially women … a regime that stifles any voice of peaceful dissent by intimidation, imprisonment or even assassination?

It has become a total eclipse of civility, they tell me. The Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan has plunged the nation into a state reminiscent of the Dark Ages. They vehemently oppose Western education, viewing it as incompatible with Islamic teachings; they have declared jihad against women’s rights, and they have failed to implement any coherent economic plan, leaving the country in dire straits. Their teachings of Islam have declared jihad against women’s rights and voided any chance of an economic plan.

Lately, their leader Mullah Haibatullah has vowed to start stoning women to death in public as he declared, “We will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public.”

The Vice and Virtue police will apprehend young women on the streets, allegedly for violating their imposed dress code, only to release them upon payment of 20 thousand Afghanis (the Afghan currency equivalent of $250).

My Blue Cell tells me that it was now the Taliban’s standard operating procedure to kill off their supposed enemies and brand them as members of Daesh (literally, one who crushes something underfoot). Hora Sadat, a female YouTuber, recently met the same fate. Her only sin was to have built a large social media following for her light-hearted videos about life in Afghanistan.

In 2005, I had embarked on a private visit to Afghanistan. Surprisingly, the atmosphere was relatively calm, and the postwar economy showed signs of booming. Americans were perceived as liberators rather than invaders, in stark contrast to the view held toward the Russians in the 1980s. The Taliban were decimated, and there was no public support for their return.

What went wrong? First, it was the absence of good governance in Afghanistan, as Sarah Chayes observed in her book “Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security,” rampant corruption in government was eroding the foundation of the Afghan government. Second, the Pakistani government’s support for the Taliban provided haven, enabling them to conduct hit-and-run operations and destabilize the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

I served as an interpreter in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2020, and I can say with certainty that without the support from Pakistan, the defeat of the Taliban would have been achieved much earlier, thanks to U.S. technological superiority and intel capabilities. But Pakistan strategically utilized the Taliban to exert pressure on the Afghan government, aiming to hinder or sever its close ties with India, while also seeking to establish a pro-Pakistani regime in Kabul, which they eventually achieved.

With regard to the U.S., there is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. had its own shortcomings. Military operations such as night raids and civilian casualties resulting from incorrect intelligence played into the hands of the Taliban. The Taliban were able to garner support from those who had suffered directly at the hands of U.S. forces or were dissatisfied with the Afghan government.

As an interpreter and cultural adviser, whenever I was asked by my team for my opinion regarding Afghan culture, I consistently advocated for prioritizing winning the hearts and minds of civilians while avoiding the creation of new adversaries. But the prevailing mentality often leaned toward aggressive action.

However, the U.S. should not be blamed for the calamities of Afghanistan. The country has been embroiled in internal conflict for much of its 300-year history. I agree with Carter Malkasian who, in his book “The American War in Afghanistan: A History,” writes that that tribal rivalries and Islam have been deeply ingrained in Afghan society, which makes it hard to bring change and achieve peace in this country.

The World Food Program (WFP) in Afghanistan has sounded the alarm on a surge in malnutrition cases, particularly among women and children. According to WFP reports, an alarming 1.2 million women are now grappling with malnutrition across the country. Through a poignant social media video, the organization also underscores the escalating malnutrition crisis among Afghan children.

The day before my departure, my new friends told me that their hope was to leave the country, and I was lucky to be able to do so. One told me, “You must have been very smart to have left so long ago.”

The United States and the rest of the free world should exert pressure on the Taliban. They should not engage with a regime that disregards established norms, including respecting the universal rights of its citizens, women’s rights and upholding free elections.

Since I returned from Afghanistan, my takeaway is clear: The Taliban lack genuine grassroots support. They maintain control through coercion, employing tactics such as violence, torture and the imprisonment of human rights activists. High levels of unemployment and the oppressive treatment of women, who are often confined to their homes, render the country uninhabitable. The nation of my birth is silently witnessing its death.

As I departed from Kabul Airport, I glanced out of my window, reflecting on my mother’s dignified passing. Yet, amid my thoughts, I cannot help but ponder the silent suffering of countless women under the Taliban regime. Every day, their voices go unheard as they perish unnoticed. I write this piece with the hope of shedding light on their plight.

However, mere foreign graciousness alone cannot resolve the Afghan conflict as long as one group seeks to impose its will on others. This is primarily exemplified by the Taliban, predominantly composed of Pashtun tribes from the southern and eastern regions, operating under the guise of Islam.
Pakistan
Pakistan Expects to Avoid Rupee Devaluation in IMF Negotiations (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [4/17/2024 10:20 PM, Eric Martin, Faseeh Mangi, and Ranjeetha Pakiam, 5543K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s new government does not anticipate any significant currency devaluation as part of its negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to unlock billions of dollars in lending and bolster the nation’s economic reform agenda.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said there’d be no reason for the rupee to depreciate more than the range of about 6% to 8% seen in a typical year. Pakistan last devalued its currency in January 2023.

While massive devaluations have accompanied some of Pakistan’s previous IMF loans and are often a condition of the crisis lender’s programs around the world, nothing comparable should be necessary this time around, he added in an interview on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

“I don’t see the need for any step change,” Aurangzeb said Wednesday, citing solid foreign-exchange reserves, a stable currency, rising remittances and steady exports. “The only thing which can be a wild card, although in our projections we should be OK, is the oil price.”

Aurangzeb, 59, said the new government in Islamabad was looking to bolster industries including agriculture and information technology with support that it hopes will help push the nation’s growth above 4% in the coming years.

In its talks with the IMF, Pakistan plans to seek a traditional IMF loan through the institution’s so-called extended fund facility. It also wants to get money via the IMF’s new Resilience and Sustainability Trust, which intends to strengthen low-income and vulnerable countries against external shocks like the floods that devastated Pakistan in 2022.

One of the new government’s tasks will be to steer the country out of a high-inflation and low-growth pattern. It faces $24 billion in external financing needs in the fiscal year starting July, about three times its reserves.

Pakistan expects an IMF mission to visit in May and would like to reach a staff-level agreement on its next loan by the end of June or early July, Aurangzeb said, without specifying how much the nation was seeking. Bloomberg News earlier reported that the nation plans to ask for at least $6 billion.

Securing a new deal may also boost Pakistan’s dollar bonds and stock market, which have handed investors one of the best gains globally since the nation began the current IMF loan last July. The IMF executive board is expected to approve the final disbursement from the nation’s existing $3 billion loan this month.

Pakistan recently repaid a $1 billion overseas bond after it closely averted a default on its debt last year.

Key objectives in the loan negotiations will include broadening the tax base, improving debt sustainability and restoring viability to the energy sector, the IMF said last month. These are steps that Pakistan has avoided for decades because of their unpopularity among a nation of more than 250 million people, where the military remains a formidable presence.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s pick of Aurangzeb, a former executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wharton School graduate, marked a shift to using technocrats to steer the cash-strapped economy and negotiate new loans from the IMF. He took on the job last month as Pakistan faced record-high economic pessimism, according to polling by Gallup.

Pakistan in recent years increased tax revenue and energy prices to meet IMF demands, though it hasn’t been able to make progress on long-term structural issues such as privatizing state-owned companies.
Pakistani security forces kill 7 militants trying to sneak into the country from Afghanistan (AP)
AP [4/17/2024 12:43 PM, Staff, 22K, Negative]
Pakistani security forces killed seven militants in a remote northwestern border area on Wednesday when they tried to sneak into the country from Afghanistan, the military said.

The military’s statement said the insurgents had been detected near Ghulam Khan, a border town in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The statement said Pakistan has long urged Afghanistan to ensure effective border management. Pakistan often accuses Kabul of turning a blind eye to militants operating near the frontier, which the Afghan authorities deny.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence, mostly blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. It is a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan since then.
Pakistan claims to have killed 7 ‘terrorists’ near Afghan border (VOA)
VOA [4/17/2024 1:29 PM, Ayaz Gul, 761K, Negative]
Pakistan said Wednesday that its border security forces killed a group of seven "terrorists," who were attempting to cross over from Afghanistan.

A military statement said the overnight infiltration occurred in North Waziristan, a volatile Pakistani district on the Afghan border. It stated that “the infiltrators were surrounded, effectively engaged, and, after an intense fire exchange,” all of them were killed.

The statement said that Pakistani security forces also “recovered a large quantity of weapons, ammunition, and explosives” from the slain militants.

The veracity of the official claims could not immediately be ascertained from independent sources.

The military said in its statement that Islamabad had consistently asked the Taliban government to “ensure effective border management” on the Afghan side, and it “is expected to fulfill its obligations” to prevent “acts of terrorism against Pakistan.”

No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s alleged border incident.

Pakistan blames fugitive commanders and fighters of an anti-state militant group known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, for orchestrating cross-border attacks from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Authorities say the violence has intensified and killed hundreds of Pakistanis, including security forces, since the Taliban reclaimed power in the neighboring country in 2021.

Last month, Pakistani fighter planes carried out strikes against TTP hideouts inside Afghanistan, raising bilateral military tensions.

The United States and the United Nations have designated TTP as a global terrorist organization.

The Taliban deny they are allowing anyone to threaten neighboring countries from their territory, claiming no foreign militants, including TTP, are based in Afghanistan.
Social media platform X blocked in Pakistan over national security, ministry says (Reuters)
Reuters [4/17/2024 3:40 PM, Asif Shahzad, 11975K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s interior ministry said on Wednesday it had blocked access to social media platform X around the time of February’s election on national security concerns, confirming a long-suspected shutdown.

Users in Pakistan have reported problems using X, formerly known as Twitter, since mid-February, but the government had made no official announcement on the matter until now.

The interior ministry mentioned the shutdown in a written submission to Islamabad High Court on Wednesday. Another court has told the government to reconsider the ban within a week, said Abdul Moiz Jafri, a petitioner and advocate.

"It is very pertinent to mention here that the failure of Twitter/X to adhere to the lawful directives of the government of Pakistan and address concerns regarding the misuse of its platform necessitated the imposition of a ban," the ministry said in its court submission, which was seen by Reuters.

"The decision to impose a ban on Twitter/X in Pakistan was made in the interest of upholding national security, maintaining public order, and preserving the integrity of our nation," the ministry report said.

It said X had been reluctant to resolve the issue. X said in a post that it continues to work with Pakistan’s government to understand its concerns.

Access to X has remained limited since the Feb. 8 national election, which the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan says was rigged.

KHAN’S PARTY IS BIG USER OF X

Among Pakistan’s political parties, Khan’s party is the most prolific user of social media platforms, particularly after the country’s traditional media began censoring news about the ex-cricket star and his party ahead of the polls. Khan has over 20 million followers on X, making him the most followed Pakistani.

Khan says Pakistan’s military was behind his ouster as prime minister in 2022 and that it helped his opponents form the current government, despite candidates backed by his party winning most seats in February’s election. The military denies this charge.

He remains in jail on a number of convictions, most of which came days before the election.

Many government officials in Pakistan, notably Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, continue to use X - most likely through VPN software that bypasses the blocks.

The decision to temporarily block X was taken after considering confidential reports from Pakistan’s intelligence and security agencies, the ministry report said.

It said "hostile elements operating on Twitter/X have nefarious intentions to create an environment of chaos and instability, with the ultimate goal of destabilising the country and plunging it into some form of anarchy".

Rights groups and marketing advertisers have raised concerns.

Digital rights activist Usama Khilji said the block on X seemed designed to hinder the democratic accountability which he said a platform with instant updates of real-time information enables, especially amid the allegations and evidence of rigging which surfaced following the election.

Marketing consultant Saif Ali said: "It has become nearly impossible to convince Pakistani advertisers to invest in Twitter for brand communications, due to the platform being throttled by governmental authorities."
Court orders Pakistan to restore social media site X: lawyer (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [4/17/2024 1:13 PM, Staff, 11975K, Neutral]
A Pakistan High Court ordered the government on Wednesday to restore access to social media platform X within a week, a lawyer said, after more than two months of disruptions.

The platform, formerly known as Twitter, has been rarely accessible since February 17, when jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party called for protests against a government official’s admission of vote manipulation in the February election.

Pakistan’s communications authority later acknowledged in court papers that it had been ordered by the Interior Ministry to shut the site down.

"The Sindh High Court has given the government one week to withdraw the letter, failing which, on the next date, they will pass appropriate orders," Moiz Jaaferi, a lawyer challenging the ban, told AFP.

The court’s decision is expected to be published in the coming hours.

The Interior Ministry said X was blocked on security grounds, according to a report submitted to Islamabad High Court in a separate challenge to the shutdown and shared with media.

"It is the sole prerogative and domain of the federal government to decide what falls within the preview of terms of ‘defence’ or ‘security’ of Pakistan and what steps are necessary to be taken to safeguard National Security," said the report, submitted by Interior Secretary Khurram Agha.

Both the government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had for weeks refused to comment on the outages.

The interior ministry suggested intelligence agencies were behind the order.

The closure of a social media service "when there is request from any security or intelligence agency" is "well within the scope of provisions of the PTA act", the report said.

Digital rights activists said it was designed to quash dissent after February 8 polls that were fraught with claims of rigging.

"The X block seems to be intended to discourage the democratic accountability that a platform with instant updates of real time information enables, especially at a time when a controversial election with strong allegations and evidence of rigging surfaced," expert Usama Khilji told AFP.

Access to X has been sporadic, occasionally available for short cycles based on the internet service provider, forcing users to use virtual private networks.

Mobile internet services were cut across Pakistan on election day, with the interior ministry citing security reasons.

It was followed by a long delay in issuing voting results, giving rise to allegations of rigging.

Khan’s opposition party had already faced heavy censorship in the weeks before the election, banned from television channels and from holding rallies, forcing its campaign online.

Despite the crackdown, his party won the most seats but were kept from power by a coalition of rival parties that had the backing of the military.
Pakistan in a Difficult Spot Amid Escalating Iran-Israel Tensions (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [4/17/2024 6:33 AM, Umair Jamal, 201K, Neutral]
On April 13, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles against Israel. The air raid was unprecedented; it was Iran’s first direct attack on Israel.

The Iranian strikes followed Israel’s attack on Iran’s diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, earlier this month, which killed several high-ranking Iranian military officials.

The tit-for-tat strikes have raised concerns over the possibility of the Israel-Hamas war expanding in the region. According to reports, the Israeli government is deliberating on ways to retaliate against Iran. Its retaliation could open the door for further escalation, as Tehran has threatened to respond violently to any more attacks on its territory or interests.

Pakistani policymakers are worried that a direct military confrontation between Iran and Israel would lead to a wider regional conflict that is likely to have consequences for the country. They have adopted a cautious approach.

The Pakistan Foreign Office had described the Israeli strikes on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria as a “major escalation” in an already unstable region. Following the Iranian retaliation, instead of going on a tirade about seeking action against Israel as it would have in the past, Pakistan has called for restraint and stressed the need for diplomacy to stabilize the situation.

“It is now critically urgent to stabilize the situation and restore peace,” the Foreign Office said in a statement following Iran’s attack. “We urge complete restraint from all parties and a shift toward de-escalation.”

Pakistan’s push for de-escalation indicates that it is worried about the consequences of the conflict in its neighborhood. The timing of the confrontation could not have been worse for Islamabad.

Pakistan has been in the grip of political and economic instability for years. And it is only of late that it is seeing a return to political stability, after a new government took charge in March.

Pakistan is hoping to secure another longer-term loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is eyeing major investments from its Gulf partners, particularly Saudi Arabia. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is expected to visit Pakistan later this month in order to strengthen bilateral economic cooperation. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan is already in Pakistan to reiterate his nation’s economic pledges.

It is important to note that the Foreign Office statement does not reflect public sentiment on the ground. Pakistanis are generally against Israel, and they took to the streets to celebrate Iran’s attack on Israel. This occurred even though only a few weeks previously, Iran and Pakistan were at loggerheads over the presence of militants in border regions, which resulted in air strikes on each other’s territory.

Talk shows and mainstream television networks were crowded with hosts and guests applauding Iran’s bravery in defying Israel and inviting government representatives to share their thoughts on the situation. They cited exaggerated accounts of Israel’s military losses as a result of the Iranian attack.

Not only is Pakistan’s public opinion supportive of Iran’s military action against Israel, but also a section even advocates for Pakistani military participation in the conflict directly. This sentiment stems from Israel’s resistance to the creation of a separate state for Palestinians and decades of anti-Israel indoctrination of Pakistanis.

Pakistan refuses to acknowledge Israel as a country and has long called for the creation of a Palestinian state. In the past, Pakistan’s position on Iran’s conflict with Israel has been more in line with Tehran’s position.

The Pakistani government has likely toned down its response to the Israel-Iran conflict to deflect unwarranted pressure from Western countries had Pakistan taken a more assertive posture supportive of Iranian aggression. This would have in turn undermined Pakistan’s efforts to improve ties with the United States and its chances of striking another deal with the IMF and other foreign lenders.

Additionally, as a nuclear-armed Pakistan is concerned over the likelihood of Israeli strikes near its borders.

A possible military confrontation between Iran and Israel puts Pakistan in a difficult position. In the coming days, Pakistan will be closely monitoring what transpires between Iran and Israel.
India
How A.I. Tools Could Change India’s Elections (New York Times)
New York Times [4/18/2024 12:01 AM, Suhasini Raj, 831K, Neutral]
For a glimpse of where artificial intelligence is headed in election campaigns, look to India, the world’s largest democracy, as it starts heading to the polls on Friday.

An A.I.-generated version of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that has been shared on WhatsApp shows the possibilities for hyperpersonalized outreach in a country with nearly a billion voters. In the video — a demo clip whose source is unclear — Mr. Modi’s avatar addresses a series of voters directly, by name.

However, it is not perfect. Mr. Modi appears to wear two different pairs of glasses, and some parts of the video are pixelated.

Down the ladder, workers in Mr. Modi’s party are sending videos by WhatsApp in which their own A.I. avatars deliver personal messages to specific voters about the government benefits they have received and ask for their vote.

Those video messages can be automatically generated in whichever of India’s dozens of languages the voter speaks. So can phone messages by A.I.-powered chatbots that call constituents in the voices of political leaders and seek their support.

Such outreach requires a fraction of the time and money spent on traditional campaigning, and it has the potential to become an essential instrument in elections. But as the technology races onto the political scene, there are few guardrails to prevent misuse.

Chatbots and personalized videos may seem more or less harmless. Experts worry, however, that voters will have an increasingly difficult time distinguishing between real and synthetic messages as the technology advances and spreads.

“It’ll be the Wild West and an unregulated A.I. space this year,” said Prateek Waghre, the executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights group based in New Delhi. The technology, he added, is entering a media landscape already polluted with misinformation.

Around the world, elections have become a testing ground for the A.I. boom. The tools have been used to turn an Argentine presidential candidate into Indiana Jones and a Ghostbuster. During the New Hampshire primary, voters received robocall messages urging them not to vote, in a voice that was most likely artificially generated to sound like President Biden’s.

And in India, Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., and the opposition Indian National Congress party have accused each other of spreading election-related deepfake content online.

One outpost on this new Indian frontier is in the western desert state of Rajasthan. On the ground floor of a residential building on a dusty back lane, a 31-year-old college dropout, Divyendra Singh Jadoun, operates an A.I. start-up, The Indian Deepfaker.

His team of nine people has been making commercials with A.I.-generated avatars of Bollywood actors and actresses. But earlier this year, political parties and politicians began asking him to do for them what he had done for celebrities. Of the 200 requests, Mr. Jadoun said, he took on 14.

Among those getting the A.I. treatment is Shakti Singh Rathore, a 33-year-old B.J.P. member. His job this election season is to tell as many people as possible about Mr. Modi’s programs and policies. So he decided to create a replica of himself.

“A.I. is wonderful and the way forward,” Mr. Rathore said as he settled in front of a video camera at the office of The Indian Deepfaker, preparing to become digitally incarnated. “How else could I reach the beneficiaries of Mr. Modi’s programs in such large numbers and in so short a period of time?”

As Mr. Rathore adjusted a saffron scarf with the party’s logo that hung around his neck, Mr. Jadoun instructed him, “Just look into the camera and talk as if the person is sitting right in front of you.”

With about five minutes’ worth of material, including an audio recording and profile shots, Mr. Jadoun went to work. He said he uses open-source A.I. systems and builds upon them with his own code.

First, Mr. Rathore’s face was isolated from each frame of the recording.

Then data was collected from his facial features, including the size of his face and lips, as well as his gaze.

Mr. Jadoun said the data set was then fed into A.I. models that learn to predict facial patterns.

“You need to keep running it through the program and fine-tuning the face until you get the best face possible,” he said.

A “cloning algorithm” also analyzed the audio recording, learning the voice’s cadence and intonations. Mr. Jadoun said it often takes six to eight hours of tweaking to perfect the face and for the lips to sync with the words. The rest is largely automated.

In one demo, it took about four minutes to create around 20 personalized greeting videos.

Mr. Jadoun said his team could produce up to 10,000 videos a day. For larger jobs on deadline, it will rent graphics processing units.

Generative A.I. can also remove language barriers, which is especially helpful in a linguistically diverse country. Mr. Rathore’s avatar can be programmed to speak regional languages to reach the remotest corners of India.

Political parties are not only texting constituents video messages but also using cloned voices to call people directly, all powered by chatbots like ChatGPT.

In the past, when a party representative would call voters, they would hang up, Mr. Rathore said. “But now, when a local leader utters a voter’s name, it immediately catches their attention.”

During the conversation, the chatbot asks about local government programs that offer free electricity or funding for start-ups. Mr. Jadoun said the calls were recorded and transcribed for quality control and A.I. training.

Mr. Rathore said he had spent around $24,000 of his own money to reach about 1.2 million people through his video messages and phone calls and to receive information about who didn’t answer. He called it an investment in his future with the B.J.P.

Nikhil Pahwa, the editor of MediaNama, which covers digital media in India, said the personalized messages could be particularly powerful among Indians.

“India is a country where people love to take photos with celebrity impersonators,” he said. “So if they receive a call from, say, the prime minister, and he speaks as if he knows them, where they live and what their issues are, they would actually be thrilled about it.”

Mr. Waghre of the Internet Freedom Foundation questions whether A.I. content is persuasive enough to affect this year’s election. But he said the long-term effects could be problematic. “Once you normalize this in people’s information diet, what happens six months later when there are deceptive videos?” he said.

Mr. Modi himself has discussed adding disclaimers to A.I.-generated content so people are not being “misguided.” Mr. Jadoun and representatives of two other A.I. start-ups in India created what they call an “A.I. coalition manifesto,” pledging to protect data privacy and uphold election integrity. For instance, Indian Deepfaker videos are labeled “A.I. generated,” and its chatbots announce that they are A.I.-generated voices, Mr. Jadoun said.

Narendra Singh Bhati, 28, the owner of resorts in Rajasthan, received an A.I.-generated call from Mr. Rathore this week. Mr. Bhati said he was impressed with its personalization.

He said he had not realized that the call was A.I.-generated, although the script made that clear. “I even said goodbye to Mr. Rathore” at the end, Mr. Bhati said.
As India votes, women and youth could put Modi and his BJP over the top (Washington Post)
Washington Post [4/18/2024 2:00 AM, Karishma Mehrotra and Gerry Shih, 6.9M, Neutral]
From the United States to South Korea, it is a political axiom in many parts of the world: Women and young people tend to be less conservative than their husbands and fathers.

Not in India.

As more than half a billion Indian voters cast ballots in the world’s largest election starting Friday, two unlikely blocs of voters — women and young voters — could give Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government a significant boost in their bid to return to power for a third consecutive five-year term.

The emergence of these two constituencies marks a curious divergence between India and other democracies. It’s born from Modi’s unique appeal, which blends Hindu nationalism, personal charisma, big-ticket infrastructure spending and generous welfare programs into a powerful pitch that overshadows his failure to deliver enough jobs to precisely these voters.

But it also speaks to the broader social changes underway in India, where women in particular have increasingly voted independently from their husbands and become a highly sought-after electorate of their own.

If Modi secures reelection on June 4, as is widely expected, he’ll have women like Prachi Kanherkar to thank.

Around their dinner table in Gwalior in central Madhya Pradesh state, Kanherkar’s husband regularly laments about how Modi has injected religion into politics. But Kanherkar, a 37-year-old engineering professor, counters that Modi’s record fills her with pride.

Modi, she says, unveiled a grand Hindu Ram temple at the site of a razed mosque in January. He landed a rover on the moon last year. He encourages Indians to speak Hindi rather than English, the language of India’s foreign colonizers.

“It can turn into a big fight, especially as we sit with guests and our opinions are so clearly different,” said Kanherkar, who is part of a local women’s prayer group formed two years ago by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organization affiliated with the BJP. “But my vote is my right, and it is for my country,” she said. “I will use it.”

Courting women voters has long been a tactic pursued by Indian parties, but political experts say Modi’s party has taken it further than any previous government. In the last decade, the prime minister has announced programs to distribute free cooking gas cylinders, handed out bags of grain featuring his bearded visage, extended loans specifically for female entrepreneurs and even trained women to become drone pilots. The BJP has also taken Modi’s strongman image and given it a twist to appeal to women by framing him as tough on rape and domestic violence, observant of traditional Indian values and committed to seva, or selfless service.

Moreover, political scientists say, Indian women — like women in many other countries — display higher levels of religiosity compared to men, which has benefited the Hindu nationalist ruling party. BJP-hosted blood donation drives, temple cleanings and prayer events like the ones that attracted Kanherkar have all been a key “bridge” to draw women into political life in recent years, said Anirvan Chowdhury, a political science postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

“When BJP talks about culture, when BJP talks about the temple, it is natural for the women to come toward the BJP,” said Vanathi Srinivasan, the head of the BJP’s women’s wing. She said the BJP has found women are more likely to attend prayer song meetings than typical male-dominated political rallies, and the party has leaned into that as a strategy.

Today, the BJP is reaping the rewards of its recruitment drive.

In 2019, the gap between men and women in voter turnout significantly narrowed for the first time in decades, and in several recent state elections, the number of women voters has exceeded that of men, according to Sanjay Kumar, co-director at the Lokniti program for comparative democracy at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, a premier polling organization in New Delhi.

And in six state assembly elections over the past two years in India’s Hindi-speaking heartland, where the BJP is strongest, four saw women vote at a higher rate for that party than did men, according to Lokniti polls. For instance in India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh, home just by itself to more than 230 million people, women favored the BJP by two percentage points more than men.

This emerging gap in preferences, cited by five consultants across the political spectrum, has fascinated political observers. They say such differences did not exist a generation ago in a patriarchal society where men had greater control over where women went, how they lived — and how they voted. Today, that’s considered “outdated medieval thinking” by Arjun Dutta, a strategist at the Indian Political Action Committee political consultancy, who has been telling his clients, mostly regional political parties, to target women voters.

In Kanherkar’s household, she and her husband, Anmol, not only differ in their politics, but where they get their news, a divergence made possible by the explosion of social media in India over the past decade that has given rise to a proliferation of political content — and disinformation.

She says she receives information from Hindi-language newspapers, WhatsApp, Facebook and DailyHunt, a news aggregator app. Her husband, a supporter of the Congress opposition party, says he mostly watches liberal commentators on YouTube because TV channels only serve up pro-Modi fare.

“Fifteen years ago, information sources for a household used to be the same, whether the same TV channel or newspaper or interacting with the same set of people,” said Rahul Verma, a political fellow at the Center for Policy Research. Now, he added, “individual mobile devices in our hands” have led to “differed decision-making.”

The strong support for Modi among women has confounded his critics, who point out that women are in some ways faring worse, not better, since he entered office in 2014.

While some health indicators for Indian women have improved, their labor participation rate fell steadily from 39 percent as recently as 2000 to a low of 24.5 percent in 2019, before spiking in 2022 to 33 percent, according to the International Labor Organization. Ten years into Modi’s rule, India still sits in the bottom 25 countries in terms of female labor participation.

“Every woman is asking us, they want money in their hands, they want jobs. They really want work to fight their poverty, unemployment, and inflation,” said Alka Lamba of the opposition Congress party, which has been running a “Justice to Women” campaign to draw attention to what it says are persistently high levels of domestic violence, poverty and price rise in India under BJP rule.

Modi’s ability to avoid blame for high unemployment has similarly preserved his position among another key constituency: the 18.5 million young Indians who are registered to vote for the first time. For many of these young Indians, pollsters say, the sense that India under Modi is rising as a geopolitical and economic power makes him attractive.

Although India’s economic trajectory remained largely unchanged for decades under successive governments, averaging 7 percent a year since 2004, Indian headlines frequently compare India’s growth to China’s slowdown and highlight new highways, railways and airports inaugurated by Modi. All fuel a popular perception that under Modi, India’s moment has finally arrived, political analysts say. Indians between the ages of 18 and 24 prefer Modi by about five to six percentage points more than other age groups, according to Lokniti data.

In a recent survey in New Delhi, Vibha Attri, a Lokniti researcher, found that young Indians felt their most pressing worry was a lack of jobs — 42 percent of college graduates under 25 are jobless, according to a 2023 study by Azim Premji University. Yet 70 percent of respondents said the BJP is best suited to run India, with two opposition parties trailing in single digits, Attri found.

“Even among those who say unemployment is a huge issue, a huge proportion of them are voting for Modi because that linkage is not there,” Attri said. “It’s because there is no alternative. Modi is the only leader they have known.”

In the capital of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal, one of the first-time voters will be Saloni Parashar, a 21-year-old law student who said India’s jobs crisis cannot be pinned on Modi alone. She was still confident in Modi’s campaign promise that India will become a developed country by 2047, and said the BJP simply needed more time to show results.

“Ten years is not enough time for any government,” she said. “They’re doing the best they can.”

For now, Parashar said she was thrilled about the thousands of kilometers of roads Modi has paved at home and the respect he’s won abroad. He has been courted by the United States, and stood strong enough to resist U.S. pressure to side with Ukraine against Russia, she noted.

“The U.S. tried to sanction all the countries that import Russian oil, but you see they didn’t sanction India,” she said. “India is an important player now.”
Modi Wants To Dominate India’s Election. One Region Stands In the Way (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [4/17/2024 9:00 PM, Sanjai P R and Dan Strumpf, 5543K, Neutral]
Under the scorching afternoon sun, a helicopter ferrying Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched down last week in territory that’s long resisted his reign. Outside the southern city of Coimbatore, India’s premier ascended a stage for an election rally that drew thousands of spectators.

India’s national vote kicks off on Friday and Modi is widely expected to win a historic third term after a potential billion ballots are cast. Yet in southern India, victory is far from assured. For years, the governing Bharatiya Janata Party has struggled to make inroads in one of India’s richest and most developed regions.

This time around, the BJP is making its move. Modi has pledged not only to win the election, which lasts until June, but also to secure a supermajority of 370 seats in the lower house of Parliament that will expand his dominance of Indian politics. To get there, the BJP must improve its performance in the south, where language and culture are dramatically different from the party’s northern strongholds and appeals to Hindu nationalism have less traction.

For weeks, Modi has helicoptered around Tamil Nadu to meet more than 60 million voters on their own turf. Key to his southern strategy is the star power of local party brass like K. Annamalai, a former police officer who’s running for Coimbatore’s seat on a bet that his Tamil roots and popularity with young voters will flip the district, which it hasn’t held for 20 years.

“There are miles to go and jobs to finish for India. And the one and only Narendra Modi can do that for the country,” Annamalai told the crowd in Coimbatore to thunderous applause.

Addressing the rally in Hindi and broken Tamil, Modi railed against the state’s two main local parties, which have taken turns ruling Tamil Nadu for decades. “The BJP is contesting the election to make corruption, nepotism, drugs and anti-nationalism leave India,” he said.

By some metrics, India’s south is the country’s economic engine. With more than 250 million people, the region includes boomtowns like the tech hub of Bengaluru and the coastal manufacturing center of Chennai, where Apple Inc. is expanding its supply chain so rapidly that India now produces one of every seven iPhones globally. Unlike the north, which largely backs parties like the BJP, its main rival, the Indian National Congress, and their allies in national elections, the southern states are more likely to vote for regional leaders.

Southern states are also relatively more developed, educated and wealthy. In Tamil Nadu, for example, the annual per capita income of $3,400 is more than triple that of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Tamil Nadu’s rate of college enrollment is about twice as high. India’s south scores higher on a range of human development metrics compared with the poorer north.

In the 2019 national election, the BJP won 303 of 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, propelled by votes in the north, home to roughly two-thirds of India’s population. That blowout victory belied problems in the south, where the BJP secured less than a quarter of seats. Almost all of them were in the state of Karnataka, which has historically been more supportive of the BJP.

“The overwhelming sentiment is against the BJP in most of the southern states,” said Ramu Manivannan, a politics professor at the University of Madras.

The distrust runs deep. Leaders in the south have alleged that they’re not getting a fair share of government revenue given their economic size, arguing that they’re subsidizing poorer northern states.

Language is another sticking point. Southern states have accused the BJP of trying to make Hindi — commonly spoken in northern India — the country’s dominant language. More than half of India’s population don’t speak Hindi as a first language, according to the last census in 2011, including most people in the south.

Modi’s high bar for this election has left him with little choice but to dedicate renewed energy to the south. To hit this mark in the lower house of Parliament, the BJP must win 57% of all seats in four southern Indian states, plus the same share in seven others where the party underperformed in 2019, according to the research firm Axis My India.

Modi and his surrogates have tailored their message by largely avoiding fiery pro-Hindu rhetoric. They’ve instead focused on development of infrastructure like bullet trains and promotion of local languages. The BJP’s sheer might is also a talking point. On Monday, Modi attacked local leaders in Kerala, a state along India’s southwestern coast, arguing that his party has more negotiation power to get things done in Parliament.

In the last 10 weeks, Modi has traveled to Tamil Nadu seven times. The BJP has candidates for 23 of 39 seats in the state. In 2019, the BJP contested only five — and won zero.

Some voters are warming to Modi, pointing to the BJP’s focus on cracking down on terrorism and putting aside caste-based politics. Vasudevan R., 40, a voter who lives in a town near Coimbatore, said he’s switching his allegiance this year from a powerful regional party, the AIADMK.

“What I liked most is that the BJP is turning into a party for all, irrespective of caste differences,” he said.

Pre-election polls are encouraging for Modi. One recent survey from researcher CSDS-Lokniti found that a quarter of voters in southern states supported the BJP, up from 18% five years ago. Another 23% stood with the Congress party — up slightly from the last election. The rest supported other parties.

In northern and western states, 47% of Indian voters backed the BJP, the poll found, a figure that tracks with 2019.

Gilles Verniers, a senior fellow at the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, said Modi’s popularity has “no doubt” expanded in the south, but that doesn’t necessarily mean votes will follow. “Voters have at their disposal parties in government in a way that already caters to their needs,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television this week.

Political loyalty in the south rests largely with a handful of regional parties with deep local roots. They include the so-called Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK and DMK, which have ruled the state since India’s independence. The latter currently governs Tamil Nadu under the leadership of M.K. Stalin, named for the Soviet dictator.

In neighboring Kerala, one of India’s two communist parties holds the largest number of seats in the state legislature. In Telangana state, the biggest vote-getter in 2019’s parliamentary elections was a local party that barely has a presence elsewhere in India.

Local leaders have dismissed the BJP’s foray into the south. T.R.B. Rajaa, Tamil Nadu’s industries minister, said the party doesn’t respect India’s diverse cultures. He said the BJP’s efforts in the state would fall flat.

“They don’t understand diversity,” Rajaa said in an interview. “They understand just one language, one everything. They don’t see India as it is.”

In the village of Narasipuram, voters fretted about high inflation and a dearth of development — echoing many of the problem areas Modi highlighted during his tour of Tamil Nadu.

Vijaya Murugesan, 40, a shop owner and longtime AIADMK supporter, said she’s frustrated with local politicians. But she remains unconvinced by the BJP, adding that the party seems to care about her support only during an election. This year, she’s considering a protest vote of “NOTA,” or none-of-the-above.

“They shouldn’t be coming only in election time,” Murugesan said of the BJP. “They should be consistent.”
Modi’s 100-Day Agenda Includes $1.2 Billion New Cities Plan (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [4/18/2024 3:15 AM, Shruti Srivastava and Siddhartha Singh, 5.5M, Neutral]
Indian government officials are discussing proposals to subsidize interest on home loans, create new urban centers and reduce bankruptcy delays as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 100-day agenda if he returns to office, people familiar with the matter said.

The plans include setting up about 10 new cities to expand manufacturing and services sectors while also easing population congestion, the officials said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private. The project will need initial funding of about 100 billion rupees ($1.2 billion), the people said.

The proposals expand on the goals outlined in the ruling party’s election manifesto released this week, which pledged to boost manufacturing and improve living conditions in India’s cities. Modi said at the launch of the manifesto he’d instructed officials to begin work on programs to be implemented in his first 100 days in office, showing his confidence in returning to office for a third consecutive term in elections that kick off on Friday.

Officials are also discussing plans for a new interest subsidy scheme on loans for affordable homes, which was first announced by Modi last year, the people said. The subsidy is aimed at driving growth in the real estate sector.

Officials said some of the proposals are likely to be a part of the budget to be released by the new government once it takes office.

Some of the other recommendations include the following, the people said:

Amending the insolvency and bankruptcy law to reduce delays and maximize returns from liquidated assets. Increasing the strength of the bankruptcy tribunal for faster disposal of cases

Implementing rules for facilitating Indian companies to list shares directly on international exchanges in Gujarat’s financial hub. While the rules were notified earlier this year the process for listing is still awaited

Concluding free trade agreements with the UK and Oman

Developing an industry for Indian-made commercial aircraft by 2035

Preparing a blueprint for developing India’s own credit ratings company

Pushing states for more reforms on vehicular pollution and make municipal corporations financially self-sufficient

Modi’s economic vision is to make India a developed country by 2047, an ambitious goal that economists say would be difficult to achieve without consistent high growth rates of about 8%.

A panel of officials made a presentation to Modi last month, in which they provided forecasts to 2047, the people said. The projections include an increase in the size of the economy to more than $30 trillion from $3.5 trillion currently, and a seven-fold jump in per capita income to $18,000 a year, one of the people said.
Development, democracy dominate debate in India’s mammoth election (VOA)
VOA [4/17/2024 9:25 AM, Anjana Pasricha, 761K, Neutral]
Nearly a billion Indians will be eligible to start voting Friday in the world’s biggest election, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term in office.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP is pitted against an opposition alliance led by the Congress Party that was formed to put up a united challenge to the powerful leader, who is widely seen as the frontrunner.

Modi has highlighted economic growth and welfare measures for the poor as his biggest achievements. At election rallies he exhorts huge crowds to vote for him to ensure that he can continue the momentum and make India a developed country by 2047.

“In the last 10 years, by lifting 250 million people out of poverty, we proved that we work to get results,” Modi said while releasing his party’s election manifesto last week.

The INDIA or Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, which consists of over two dozen opposition parties, has flagged joblessness and what it says is a threat to the country’s democratic and secular credentials as key issues in the race.

It accuses the pro-Hindu leader of polarizing the country along religious lines and weakening opposition ranks with corruption probes by federal investigative agencies.

One key leader, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested weeks before the election in connection with graft allegations. The government denies the charges of politically motivated investigations.

“This election is fundamentally a different election. I don’t think that democracy has been as much at risk, the constitution has been as much at risk as it is today,” said Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main opposition Congress Party, as he released his party’s manifesto this month. Although Gandhi has not been projected as a prime ministerial candidate, he is widely seen as the main challenger to Modi.

Voters will choose between the competing narratives offered by Modi and the opposition over the next six weeks -- the election to fill 543 of 545 seats in the lower house of parliament will be conducted in seven phases until June 1. Votes will be counted on June 4. The staggered vote enables security forces to move around the country.

Recent surveys project that Modi will easily secure a rare, consecutive third stint in office, a feat managed only by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Ten years since he took power after decimating the Congress Party that dominated India since independence, the Indian prime minister remains hugely popular.

He is seen as a strong, nationalist, pro-Hindu leader, who has fast-tracked development, boosted India’s global stature and delivered on promises like building a temple on the site of a razed mosque to Hindu Lord Rama – a decades-long demand by devotees in the Hindu majority country.

“The BJP is very clearly going into this election on the shoulders of the prime minister’s image. They are very clearly keeping the Modi factor right up in front,” political analyst Sandeep Shastri told VOA. “That will help them to a certain extent offset anti-incumbency that has come in after 10 years.”

The anti-incumbency sentiment largely centers on concerns about unemployment and inflation, which have been cited as key issues for the public, according to recent surveys. While India’s economy is growing rapidly, young, educated people are facing challenges in finding jobs.

In a busy market in the Indian capital, New Delhi, opinion is divided on how the economy is faring. Some, like Rushil Mattta, a software engineer, are upbeat.

“I am very optimistic. I have hope for this country and I am staying here,” said Matta, referring to the trend in earlier decades of software professionals migrating to Western countries for better opportunities.

That sentiment is not shared by others, like Surinder Ojha, a hawker who sells bags to make a living. “Livelihood is a problem. But no government solves this problem for the poor,” he says despondently.

To woo voters, the main opposition Congress Party has promised to boost social spending and welfare payments for women, and provide 3 million government jobs and apprenticeships to college students. It also promises to reverse what it views as India’s democratic backsliding under Modi.

Rahul Gandhi has undertaken two cross-country marches over the past 18 months to boost support for the Congress Party, but it is unclear whether that will translate into votes. The party only holds 52 seats in parliament after being routed in the last two elections and Gandhi is perceived by many as an ineffective opponent to Modi.

“As far as Mr. Modi is concerned, there is no one on the opposite side to match him,” says political analyst Neerja Chowdhury. “Lot of people who are dissatisfied today with the BJP rule and face economic hardship, rising prices. They talk about it but turn around and say who is there on the other side?”

The INDIA group’s hopes largely rest on putting up common candidates against the BJP to prevent splitting of opposition votes. So far, it has only been able to do that in some states. The alliance includes many powerful regional parties but has failed to come up with a common program to counter the Indian leader.

“They have the issues before them, but can they bring these before voters as a credible alternative is the question. What we see is each member of the alliance is speaking in their own voice. Each for example has its own manifesto,” says analyst Shastri.

“If you need to launch a concerted attack on the government, you need to have a clear-cut strategy, but that seems to be missing and that to a certain extent is pulling them down.”

Surveys project Modi’s BJP could surpass its 2019 performance when it won 303 seats in parliament. But the Congress Party says that when votes are counted on June 4, the results will be much closer than expected.
India treads carefully amid rising Middle East tensions (VOA)
VOA [4/17/2024 12:08 PM, Suhail Anjum, 761K, Neutral]
Mounting hostility between Israel and Iran is creating a diplomatic problem for India, which has long-standing and important relations with both countries.

Kallol Bhattacherjee, a senior foreign affairs analyst, says in the event of an Iran-Israel war, New Delhi cannot afford to support or oppose either of them.

Speaking to VOA, Bhattacherjee said 7 million Indians work in the Gulf countries and send more than $90 billion in foreign exchange to India annually. In the event of a war in the Middle East, Indian workers will be the most affected and remittances will stop.

Senior foreign affairs analyst Umashankar Singh says India has a strategic relationship with Israel and has a historical relationship with Iran.

He said India and Israel have been cooperating in various fields, including defense and technology, for decades, and Israel is the largest supplier of arms to India.

According to him, Iran was the second-largest supplier of oil to India before sanctions were imposed on it due to its nuclear program. Although India has not been able to buy oil from Iran for the past four years, the two countries still have close relations.

India and Iran signed a defense pact in 2002, while New Delhi has invested in the construction of Iran’s Chabahar Port.

According to Bhattacherjee, Iran has helped India on issues including relations with Central Asian countries, communications with the Taliban and other security and defense matters.

Iran, Russia and India established the multilateral corridor model in September 2000 to promote cooperation in the transport sector. Later, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Oman, Syria and Bulgaria were included in this corridor.

The number of Indian workers in Iran is not high. According to India’s ministry of external affairs, there are 4,000 Indian immigrants in Iran, while 18,000 Indians are working in Israel, many of them as caregivers, according to The Hindu newspaper. Another 6,000 are expected to arrive shortly to fill construction jobs left vacant by Palestinians because of the Israel-Hamas war, the newspaper said.

India and Israel had signed an agreement to send another 1,500 Indian workers to Israel, of whom the first group of 65 people arrived on April 2. The dispatch of a second group was postponed because of the threat of further Iran-Israel conflict.

Naor Gilon, Israeli ambassador in India, has said protection will be provided to the Indian workers.
Modi’s Temple of Lies (New York Times – opinion)
New York Times [4/18/2024 1:00 AM, Siddhartha Deb, 831K, Neutral]
The sleepy pilgrimage city of Ayodhya in northern India was once home to a grand 16th-century mosque, until it was illegally demolished by a howling mob of Hindu militants in 1992. The site has since been reinvented as the centerpiece of the Hindu-chauvinist “new India” promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In 2020, as Covid-19 raged unchecked across the country, Mr. Modi, the leader of the Hindu right, went to Ayodhya to inaugurate construction of a three-story sandstone temple to the Hindu god Ram on the site of the former mosque. Dressed in shiny, flowing clothes and wearing a white N95 mask, he offered prayers to the Ram idol and the 88-pound silver brick being inserted as the foundation stone.

I traveled to Ayodhya a year later and watched as the temple was hurriedly being built. But it seemed to me to offer not the promise of a new India so much as the seeds of its downfall.

Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalism has fed distrust and hostility toward anything foreign, and the receptionists at my hotel were sullenly suspicious of outsiders. There was no hotel bar — a sign of Hindu virtue — and the food served was pure vegetarian, a phrase implying both Hindu caste purity and anti-Muslim prejudice.

Outside, devotional music blared on loudspeakers while bony, manure-smeared cows, protected by Hindu law, wandered waterlogged streets in the rain. The souvenir shops at the temple displayed a toxic Hindu masculinity, highlighted by garish shirts featuring images of a steroid-fed Ram, all bulging muscles and chiseled six-packs. Even Hanuman, Ram’s wise but slightly mischievous monkey companion, appeared largely in the snarling Modi-era version known as Angry Hanuman, which went viral in 2018 after Mr. Modi praised the design.

After a decade of rule by Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, Hindu-majority India maintains the facade of a democracy and has so far avoided the overt features of a theocracy. Yet, as Ayodhya revealed, it has, for all practical purposes, become a Hindu state. Adherence to this idea is demanded from everyone, whether Hindu or not.

This is not sustainable, even if it seems likely that Mr. Modi will ride to a third victory in national parliamentary elections that begin Friday and conclude June 1. Mr. Modi’s India is marked by rampant inequality, lack of job prospects, abysmal public health and the increasing ravages of climate change. These crises cannot be addressed by turning one of the world’s most diverse countries into a claustrophobic Hindu nation.

Perhaps even the prime minister and his party can sense this. Their crackdowns on opposition political leaders, manipulation of electoral rolls and voting machines and freezing of campaign funds for opposition parties are not the actions of a confident group.

In January of this year, a wave of Hindu euphoria swept the nation as the temple I had watched being put together with cement and lies (there is no conclusive evidence supporting Hindu claims that Ram was a historical figure or that a temple to him previously stood there) was about to be inaugurated.

Newspapers devoted rapturous front pages to the coming occasion, and when I flew to my former home Kolkata on the eve of the big day, my neighbors there declared their anticipation by setting off firecrackers late into the night. The next morning, on Jan. 22, loudspeakers and television screens tracked me through the city with Sanskrit chants and images of the ceremony taking place at the temple. Mr. Modi, as usual, was at the center of every visual. Friends in Delhi and Bangalore complained about insistent neighbors and strangers knocking on their doors to share celebratory sweets. Courts, banks, schools, stock markets and other establishments in much of the country took a holiday.

The inauguration date seems to have been chosen carefully to overshadow Republic Day, on Jan. 26, which commemorates India’s adoption in 1950 of a “socialist, secular, democratic” Constitution. Those values are fiercely in opposition to what Hindu nationalism has ushered in. The temple inauguration date, which will be celebrated annually, reduces the republic to secondary status next to Mr. Modi’s Hindu utopia.

A similar effort has been underway to diminish the importance of Aug. 15, marking Indian independence in 1947. In 2021, Mr. Modi announced that Aug. 14 would henceforth be Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, referring to the bloody division of the country into Hindu-majority India and an independent Muslim Pakistan in 1947, a murderous affair for Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs alike.

This was sold to the Indian public as underlining the need for unity, but it was also a reminder from Hindu nationalists that a section of Muslims broke off to form their own nation and that the loyalties of India’s remaining 200 million Muslims were suspect. Given that Hindu rightists participated in massacres, rapes and forced displacement during the partition, Mr. Modi’s weaponization of the suffering seems particularly reprehensible. I was born to a Hindu family, and my father, a refugee from the partition, never blamed Muslims his entire life.

There have been countless other such stratagems with the Hindu right in power. The old Parliament building, whose design features refer to India’s syncretic history — Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian — was replaced last year by a new structure that explicitly reduces India’s past to a monochromatic Hindu one.

In the new Parliament, the lotus flower, common in Hindu iconography and the symbol of the Bharatiya Janata Party, runs amok as a motif. A statue atop the building of four back-to-back lions — India’s national symbol and a look back at its Buddhist past — has been altered so that the lions are no longer serene and meditative, as in the original, but snarling, hypermuscular Hindu beasts. Everywhere in India, roads and cities have been renamed to sever connections to centuries of Muslim history in favor of a manufactured Hindu one. On new highways through the state of Uttar Pradesh, where I traveled last summer, gleaming signboards pointed toward concocted Hindu sites but almost never toward the state’s rich repository of Muslim mosques, forts and shrines.

Knowledge and culture are being attacked along similar lines. Bollywood, Indian television and the publishing industry have become willing accomplices of Hindu chauvinists, churning out content based on Hindu mythology and revisionist history. In the news media, the few journalists and institutions unwilling to shill for the Hindu cause face legal threats and police raids.

In education, government institutions are run by ignorant functionaries of the ruling party, and from school textbooks to scientific research papers, the Hindu nationalist version of India is pushed forward, myth morphing into history. In the private universities that have begun to crop up in India, Mr. Modi’s government keeps a close eye on classes, panels or research that might be construed as criticizing his government or its idea of a Hindu India.

This cultural shift and the accompanying reduction of Muslims to alien intruders has been made possible by Mr. Modi delivering on his party’s three main promises to Hindu nationalists.

In 2019 he repealed the notional autonomy enjoyed for decades by the disputed Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, which the Hindu right had assailed as favoritism toward Muslims and victimization of Hindus. Later that year, Mr. Modi delivered on a second promise by introducing a law that ostensibly opened a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted minorities from neighboring countries but whose true motive lay in that it pointedly excluded Muslims. In the northeastern state of Assam, a registration process had already been underway to disenfranchise Muslims if they could not provide elaborate documentation of their Indian citizenship. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s declared intention to establish a similar registration system nationwide hangs the threat of disenfranchisement over all of India’s Muslims.

The inauguration of the Ram temple delivered on the third and most important electoral promise. It announced, triumphantly, the climax of the battle to turn India into a Hindu nation. And yet after 10 years under Mr. Modi’s government, India is more unequal than it was under colonial British rule. In 2020 and 2021, it surpassed China as the largest source of international migrants to O.E.C.D. countries. Many of the undocumented migrants to be found pleading for entry on the U.S.-Mexico border are from India, and they include Hindus for whom India should be a utopia.

The Hindu right’s near-complete control of India may indeed deliver a third term for Mr. Modi, maybe even the absolute parliamentary majority his party wants in order to expand on the transformation it has begun.

But the truth is harder to hide than ever. Mr. Modi and his party are giving India the Hindu utopia they promised, and in the clear light of day, it amounts to little more than a shiny, garish temple that is a monument to majoritarian violence, surrounded by waterlogged streets, emaciated cattle and a people impoverished in every way.
The Guardian view on India’s election: fixing a win by outlawing dissent damages democracy (The Guardian – opinion)
The Guardian [4/17/2024 1:32 PM, Staff, 12499K, Neutral]
The world’s largest elections begin this weekend in India, amid claims that the race to lead the country has already been won. If Narendra Modi were to secure a third term with a big parliamentary majority, his achievement would match that of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Whatever the outcome, the loser has been Indian democracy. Unlike Mr Nehru, who anonymously criticised his own leadership, Mr Modi has little time for his opponents.

Democracies run best when there is a contest of ideas and equal treatment of citizens in everyday administration. These are in short supply in Modi’s India. The main opposition Congress party found its bank accounts frozen. It can’t be a coincidence that all the leading Indian politicians arrested by enforcement and tax authorities belong to the opposition and none to the ruling party. Weaponising India’s prosecutorial apparatus seems unnecessary, as Mr Modi can massively outspend his rivals. Since 2018, Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party has received about £1.25bn from wealthy donors, more than all other political parties combined.

One is tempted to ask whether Mr Modi needs elections that inevitably invite repudiation. After 10 years in power, voters may be in a mood to surprise him. Polls suggest that Indians are most worried about unemployment, inflation and income insecurity. On these issues, Mr Modi has a poor record, which is a bruise that the opposition keeps punching. Most voters say corruption has got worse under Mr Modi’s rule. Unsurprising perhaps, as recent economic growth so disproportionately benefits the rich that India is more unequal today than under colonial rule.

Holding elections burnishes India’s reputation as “the world’s largest democracy”, in contrast to China. More importantly, Mr Modi needs a popular mandate to legitimise his rule. Populist leaders run the risk of losing power to prevail over unelected institutions that uphold the rule of law. Resistance to Mr Modi is a dangerous business. He has used his election victories to characterise opposition to his bulldozing of constitutional rights as acts of an enemy within.

Modern India has never defined its identity in terms of religion or ethnicity. Most Indians are classed as Hindu, but the country is home to 200 million Muslims. Hindu nationalists – such as Mr Modi – seek primacy for fellow adherents. That is why vigilante groups associated with the ruling party violently police society at the grassroots level with impunity. If Mr Modi were to lose power, these organisations would make any return to the status quo ante very difficult.

Only a mass movement, writes Christophe Jaffrelot of King’s College London in his book Gujarat Under Modi, could counter a vigilantism that forms a “state deeper than the official one”. That is not as unlikely as it sounds. Mr Modi is not popular in southern India, where there has been a political mobilisation around regional cultural identity that challenges Hinduism’s hierarchies. The upshot, particularly in Tamil Nadu, has been more effective institutions and better outcomes on health, education and poverty reduction, as well as more economic dynamism.

To obscure the lack of progress in its populous northern strongholds, Mr Modi’s party militantly asserts Hinduism. One of its opponents in north India, Arvind Kejriwal, attempted to emulate the southern model in the nation’s capital, Delhi. He was arrested last month. Indian voters might see that as a sign of Mr Modi’s insecurity rather than his confidence. He has much to be insecure about.
NSB
‘Hunger games’ with a purpose? Thousands are playing for food in Bangladesh (CNN)
CNN [4/17/2024 9:08 PM, Akanksha Sharma, 6098K, Neutral]
Well before the sun rises in Chapra, a small village in the northwest of Bangladesh, Mohammad Abdur Rouf is on his feet.

He travels six miles to a neighboring village, where he joins hundreds of other people in line to play a carnival-style game. But instead of throwing darts at a wall of balloons or tossing rings at beer bottles, Abdur, 35, hits a small yellow ball repeatedly with a plastic putter.

Try as he might, he can’t manage to whack the ball with enough precision for it to travel upside down along a track and emerge perfectly between two goal posts. But instead of leaving a sullen loser, the rice farmer beams as he hoists a consolation prize: a modest 8-ounce bottle of vegetable oil.

"Any day, I’d play again! Any day!” he says cheerfully when the game wraps up for the day.

Abdur — the sole breadwinner for a family of nine including his three children, parents and two brothers — is one of thousands of Bangladeshis who have played the SS Food Challenge, a game developed by content creator Omar Sunny Somrat.

The challenges are reminiscent of those on iconic 1980s show Takeshi’s Castle, in which players have to overcome a series of physical obstacles to win.

The players in Bangladesh, many of them living in poverty, aren’t in it for fame, glory or cash. They’re playing to win every day staples like rice, oil, sugar, lentils and other items that soaring inflation has put beyond their reach.

“It’s first come first serve, free registration and everyone walks away a winner,” Somrat told CNN.

After years as a struggling creator, he came up with the concept for the challenge two years ago when commodities prices jumped in Bangladesh following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sending the cost of wheat, corn and energy into the stratosphere. The World Bank has forecast that prices will stay at “historically high levels” globally through the end of 2024.

The combination of colorful games and the feel-good factor of nobody going home empty-handed has given Somrat a genuine hit. The challenge now boasts more than 1.5 billion combined online views and has about four million subscribers each on YouTube and Facebook and nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok.

Soaring prices

With so many social media followers, Somrat says he makes $35,000 to $45,000 in revenue each month purely from online clicks and other forms of digital monetization.

He has a staff of 25 people and, including the cost of buying all the prizes, takes home between $5,000 to $15,000 a month. He has so far declined to take on sponsors.

The online venture wasn’t an overnight success. Somrat, 32, started making “random videos” in 2017 before setting up an online eating contest that “wasn’t safe” for the contestants.

By 2021, he began organizing contests for village kids competing in games and winning prizes like home appliances. “Though people loved the idea, the prizes weren’t a match,” he said.

A year later, though, he stumbled onto the winning formula when food prices soared and the Bangladeshi currency, the taka, depreciated in value against the US dollar. Over the course of 2022, the taka lost 20% of its value against the greenback, making imports into Bangladesh much more expensive.

“(The) price of edible oil and even onions was through the roof, and that’s when we decided to give these food items as a reward,” Somrat recalled.

The decision resonated with villagers, drawing more of them to participate as they tried to make ends meet. Each one walked away with something while having some fun on the side.

Between 2022 and 2023, food prices in Bangladesh jumped by 9%, the highest average rate in 12 years, according to the country’s Bureau of Statistics.

Ruchir Desai of Asia Frontier Investments said inflation picked up across the board for developed and developing world that year due to pandemic-related supply chain issues, as well as the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“That was a key factor, basically the turning point, especially for emerging markets like Bangladesh,” he said. “Bangladesh is a net importer of oil and wheat.”

In addition, that year Dhaka had to cut subsidies for oil and other essential commodities in order to secure a multi-billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, Desai said.

But the road ahead looks better for Bangladesh, with analysts finally predicting cooling prices in 2024, offering relief for people like Asma Khatun, a housewife and a mother of four.

On a recent game day, she returned to her village with her winnings of several pounds each of potatoes, onions, sugar and lentils. Her conquest will sustain her family for days to come.

As for Somrat, the games are now so popular that his biggest concern is often crowd control.
Sri Lanka Poised for Bondholder Deal by Mid-May, StanChart Says (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [4/17/2024 2:58 PM, Kerim Karakaya, 5.5M, Neutral]
Sri Lanka may reach a deal with investors to restructure its $12 billion in defaulted global bonds by mid-May, according to strategists at Standard Chartered.

The South Asian nation has been hoping to reach a deal in the next few weeks, though the first round of direct talks with dollar bondholders failed to yield a breakthrough. The remaining disagreements relate to the structure of “macro-linked” bonds, an instrument proposed by bondholders, whose payout would vary depending on the nation’s economic performance.

“We think timelines are critical and expect an agreement by mid-May,” strategists including Shankar Narayanaswamy wrote in a note.

Further delays would take the talks too close to the planned presidential elections, Standard Chartered said.

The nation’s dollar bonds were among top performers on Wednesday, with the March 2029 note advancing 2 cents to 56.4 cents per dollar. Bonds maturing in March 2030 and April 2028 also climbed.

IMF Talks

“With bonds currently trading close to our current probability-adjusted recovery value under the government’s proposal at 11% exit yields, we see possible upside to the bonds,” the strategists wrote.

At an exit yield of 11%, investors would stand to recover 56.1 cents on the dollar under the government’s proposal, and 68.3 cents under the bondholder committee’s plan, Standard Chartered said. The overall recovery value will probably end up somewhere between those two figures, it said.

The government will hold further consultations with International Monetary Fund staff on the latest proposals, said junior finance minister Shehan Semasinghe, who’s leading Sri Lanka’s delegation at the Spring Meetings in Washington.

Subsequently, local authorities hope to “continue discussions with the bondholders with a view to reaching common ground ahead of the IMF board consideration of the second review of Sri Lanka’s EFF program” Semasinghe said in a statement.

A deal with private investors is among the last steps in Sri Lanka’s plan to overhaul $27 billion of foreign debt, including bonds and loans. The restructuring is critical to ensure financing from the nation’s $3 billion IMF bailout keeps flowing. The government has already struck deals with official creditors, including China, India and the Paris Club as well as with holders of its local debt.

Ukraine has been another nation with distressed debt to use GDP-linked warrants.
IMF ready to support Sri Lanka’s discussions with bondholders (Reuters)
Reuters [4/18/2024 1:19 AM, Uditha Jayasinghe, 5.2M, Neutral]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) stands ready to support Sri Lanka’s discussions with international bondholders and will provide a formal assessment after the parties reach a tentative agreement-in-principle, an IMF spokesperson said on Thursday.

"We hope an agreement consistent with the parameters of the IMF-supported program and official creditors’ Comparability of Treatment requirements can be reached soon, ahead of completing the second review under the program," the spokesperson said.

Sri Lanka said it failed to reach an agreement with bondholders to restructure about $12 billion debt earlier this week, raising concerns there could be a delay in the island nation receiving a third tranche of its $2.9 billion IMF program in June.

The government said one of the main stumbling blocks had been that the "baseline parameters" of the bondholders’ plan had not matched those embedded in its IMF program.

“We encourage both parties to continue their discussions swiftly," the IMF statement added.
Sri Lanka will consult with the IMF to assess if the latest proposals discussed with bondholders were within the parameters of its bailout program.

The island nation defaulted on its foreign debt in May 2022 and kicked off negotiations with bilateral creditors several months later, eventually securing an agreement in principle with China, India and the Paris Club last November.

Sri Lanka plunged into its worst financial crisis since independence from the British in 1948 after its foreign exchange reserves fell to record lows in early 2022, leaving it unable to pay for essentials including fuel, cooking gas, and medicine.
Central Asia
Thailand, Kazakhstan Agree on Visa Waiver Pact to Boost Tourism (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [4/18/2024 5:26 AM, Patpicha Tanakasempipat, 5.5M, Neutral]
Thailand will sign a permanent bilateral visa waiver agreement with Kazakhstan next week, as the Southeast Asian country looks to lift foreign tourist arrivals back to pre-Covid levels.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s cabinet approved the visa exemption on Thursday, which will be signed during Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu’s visit to Bangkok on April 23, Thai government spokesman Chai Wacharonke told reporters on Thursday.

Under the policy, travelers from Kazakhstan will be able to stay in Thailand without a visa for a maximum of 30 days at a time and a maximum of 90 days within any 180-day period, Chai said. Thai travelers to Kazakhstan will need to adhere to the same rules, he said.

The program will take effect 30 days after confirmation that internal procedures in the respective countries have been finalized to enforce the agreement, according to Chai.

Thailand has benefited from an increase in Kazakhstani tourist arrivals since the country rolled out a temporary visa waiver program that started in September and was extended through to August, according to Chai.

Thailand has seen a more than 40% jump in foreign tourist arrivals this year to about 11 million, as its visa waiver programs and easier travel rules draw travelers from across the world. Chinese tourists topped the list with about 2 million visitors, followed by travelers from Malaysia, Russia, South Korea and India, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.

Thailand’s vital tourism industry accounts for 12% of the country’s gross domestic product. This year, the country aims to welcome 35 to 40 million foreign tourists, close to the pre-pandemic record of 40 million visitors in 2019.

The government aims to net 1.8 trillion baht ($49 billion) in revenue from foreign tourists this year. The earnings totaled 518 billion baht between Jan. 1 and April 14, official preliminary data showed this week.
Water Level Rising ‘Dangerously’ In Tobol River Crossing Russia, Kazakhstan (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/17/2024 11:48 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Water levels in the Tobol River in the Russian region of Kurgan have risen "dangerously," amid flooding in the border region with Kazakhstan caused by heavy rains and a massive snowmelt sparked by unseasonably warm weather.

Regional authorities said on April 17 that the level of the river that crosses West Siberia and into Kazakhstan’s northern region of Qostanai, where it is known as Tobyl, had reached almost 11 meters in one place and around 10 meters in other places.

They called on residents of several towns and villages located on the river’s banks to evacuate as soon as possible fearing water levels could rise even higher.

More than 13,000 people have been evacuated in the Kurgan region due to flood danger. Most of those have gone to stay with relatives in other regions, while some 900, including more than 200 children, have been placed in temporary shelters.

In neighboring Kazakhstan, the Emergencies Ministry said that 116,000 people have been evacuated from the areas affected by the floods, adding that more than 5,800 houses and 1,350 households remain under water in the regions of Aqmola, Aqtobe, Atyrau, Qostanai, and North Kazakhstan.

At least five people have died and four remain missing since the floods hit the country’s northern regions in late March.

Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev visited the North Kazakhstan region on April 16, where he said that each of the Central Asian nation’s richest individuals had been ordered to take responsibility for rescue operations in every district and region affected by the high waters.

The presidential office added that Toqaev had ordered the government to suspend as many projects and programs as possible to "save money" for urgent rescue efforts related to the ongoing floods.
Kazakhstan toughens domestic violence laws (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [4/17/2024 4:14 PM, Almaz Kumenov, 57.6K, Positive]
A vicious beating captured on video has helped spur Kazakhstan’s government to address the issue of domestic violence. A new law makes instances of domestic violence a criminal, not civil offense, toughening penalties for convicted abusers. Human rights advocates have their doubts, however, about the law’s ability to curb violence.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed legal amendments on April 15 to expand definitions and lengthen punishments in cases involving violence against women and children. Prior to the amendments’ approval, most domestic violence cases were treated as administrative matters, not criminal.

The amendments specify that those convicted of domestic violence-related crimes will now face prison time, instead of receiving potentially lesser punishments. The changes also establish mandatory sentencing guidelines for particularly heinous crimes. For example, those convicted of the murder or rape of a minor now will receive a life sentence without a chance of parole.

A presidential statement distributed via Telegram said the amendments, approved by parliament in January, were the outcome of an extensive consultation process involving various governmental agencies, commissions and rights groups. “The adopted amendments were widely discussed with the public,” according to the statement.

Erlan Karin, the secretary of state for public affairs, noted on his Telegram channel that Kazakhstan, as a “result of constructive cooperation between authorities and society,” now has one of the world’s most advanced legal frameworks to combat domestic violence. The next step, Karin indicated, is to promote a change in public attitudes on the issue.

“To effectively combat domestic violence, it is necessary to create in society an atmosphere of intolerance towards aggression in any form,” Karin wrote. He added that the new domestic violence legislation was part of a broader presidential initiative to combat “five vices” in Kazakhstan. The five social ills identified by Karin are drug addiction, gambling addiction, violence and bullying in any form, vandalism and wasteful spending.

A UN representative in Kazakhstan welcomed the legislative changes. “This critical step not only promotes gender equality, but also ensures that survivors of domestic violence have access to justice and support services to rebuild their lives,” said UN Resident Coordinator in Kazakhstan Michaela Friberg-Story in a statement.

But the task of curtailing domestic violence is not done, Friberg-Story said: authorities must now “effectively implement” the new laws and raise public awareness about domestic violence. “This comprehensive approach is necessary to create a society in which all people can live without fear and violence in their own homes,” Friberg-Story said.

The changes are coming too late to help 31-year-old Saltanat Nukenova, the common law wife of former Minister of National Economy Kuandyk Bishimbayev. Nukenova was found dead last November in a restaurant owned by her husband. A coroner’s report determined she died from blunt-force trauma to her head, also noting extensive bruising to her face, torso and arms.

The incident sparked public outrage, fueling broad debate about domestic violence. Bishimbayev is currently standing trial for her beating death. Vivid video footage, taken from a surveillance camera at the restaurant on the night of the incident, showed Bishimbayev repeatedly kicking and punching Nukenova. Bishimbayev has claimed that Nukenova’s injuries were self-inflicted and connected with excessive drinking.

The Nukenova tragedy is widely credited with catalyzing government efforts to cover legislative gaps concerning domestic violence. Karin, the state secretary, sought to shield the administration from accusations of inattention to the issue. “From the very beginning of his presidency, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has consistently pursued a line aimed at protecting the rights of women and children,” Karin wrote. “All these years, a system of comprehensive measures to combat domestic violence has been gradually built.”

Human rights activists are applauding the new amendments, but some wonder about the effectiveness of follow-up measures. Raising public awareness about the laws, as well as access to resources, in many areas outside major cities poses a particular challenge for officials. Elena Shvetsova, director of the non-profit organization Erkindik Kanaty, told Eurasianet that the new legislation will likely succeed in reducing domestic violence in urban centers. But in remote villages, where instances of domestic violence are common, conditions for women and children are unlikely to change much anytime soon, Shvetsova said.

“In the south, women experience pressure from relatives who, as a rule, do not want to wash their dirty laundry in public,” she said. “Many victims don’t even know their rights.”
Kyrgyzstan: The sun sets on the Soros Foundation in Bishkek (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [4/17/2024 4:14 PM, Ayzirek Imanaliyeva, 57.6K, Neutral]
The Soros-Kyrgyzstan Foundation is ending grantmaking activity in the Central Asian nation after distributing more than $115 million in funding to non-profit groups and other organizations over the past 31 years. A statement issued by the Open Society Foundations, the parent entity of the Kyrgyz foundation, cited the introduction of restrictive “foreign agents” legislation as the reason for the closure.

“We deeply regret that the organization’s activities can no longer continue and that the new repressive law will lead civil society to operate in an environment of uncertainty and fear,” said OSF President Binaifer Nowrojee, referring to Soros-Kyrgyzstan, which began operating in 1993 in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

OSF officials opted to cease operations rather than face the risk of a prolonged bout of persecution from a government that has introduced authoritarian-minded legislative changes in recent years, including the new rules governing the country’s non-profit sector. OSF representatives described provisions of the foreign agents legislation as “extremely vague,” potentially exposing non-governmental organizations and their employees to punishment for what the law classifies as “political activity.”

OSF’s previous, grueling experience in battling Hungary’s strongman, Viktor Orban, who manipulated his country’s legal system to drive Central European University from Budapest to Vienna, may well have factored into OSF’s thinking about what to do about its Kyrgyz affiliate. The downside of fighting on appeared to outweigh any upside of its grantmaking having a desired outcome.

Soros-Kyrgyzstan funding supported initiatives in a variety of areas, such as education, public health, access to new digital technologies, independent media, criminal justice and legal aid reform, according to the OSF statement. The Bishkek-based foundation worked not only with non-profit groups, but also created joint initiatives with governmental agencies. For example, the government, with Soros-Kyrgyzstan assistance, launched the first palliative care center in 2021 for seriously ill people in the country. In 2019, at the National Museum of Art, Soros-Kyrgyzstan funded the production of audio guides for blind people. The foundation also allocated $1 million in funding in 2020 to help contain the Covid pandemic.

“Now such well-intentioned activities in the interests of the country will be unfairly labeled as ‘foreign representatives,’” the OSF statement said.

OSF and its affiliated foundation network was founded and is funded by billionaire George Soros, who has long been pilloried by right-wing and authoritarian-minded politicians and public figures around the world as a radical leftist “puppet master” intent on sowing global disorder. In the early 2000s, Soros foundations across Eurasia faced accusations of fomenting “color” revolutions, including the 2005 upheaval in Kyrgyzstan that led to the downfall of Askar Akayev’s administration.

Foreign agents legislation implemented in Russia appeared to be crafted with the Soros foundations in mind. The Soros foundation in Russia was banned in 2015, among the early targets of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s campaign to capture the country’s non-governmental sector.

Kyrgyzstan’s foreign agents legislation mimics Russia’s version in many aspects, critics say. The Kyrgyz law enshrines a novel concept that non-governmental organizations and media outlets that receive funding from foreign sources are capable of “performing the functions of a foreign representative engaged in political activities.” Thus, all organizations that receive funding from abroad now must follow onerous disclosure regulations. Failure to comply exposes the entity in question to stiff penalties.

President Sadyr Japarov brushed aside US appeals to review and rework the legislation. When signing the law, he pledged that it would not enable persecution, but instead would improve NGO activity in the country. He contends that the legislation will help fight “grant eaters” who have turned their non-profits into “family enterprises.”

Alexandra Titova, an artist and journalist from Bishkek, told Eurasianet that Soros-Kyrgyzstan played an important role in developing independent journalism and rule-of-law projects. Such activity prompted a prolonged misinformation campaign against the foundation conducted by authoritarian-minded actors.

“The foundation has always supported independent journalism, especially projects published in the Kyrgyz language,” Titova said. “Perhaps this is why there was this long-term propaganda from [purveryors of disinformation] that the Soros-Kyrgyzstan Foundation was bad and, perhaps, that is why they wanted to close them down so much. It’s very sad that this is happening.”
Another Tajik Arrested In Connection With Moscow Terrorist Attack (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/17/2024 8:17 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Russian authorities have arrested a dual Tajik–Russian national in connection with the March 22 terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow that left 144 people dead.

The suspect, identified only by his surname, Ashurov, has been placed under arrest for illegally registering two foreign nationals at his residence, a court in the city of Tver said on April 16.

The two foreigners -- Aminjon and Dilovar Islomov, brothers from Tajikistan -- are currently in Russian custody along with their father, Isroil Islomov, for allegedly aiding the suspects who are accused of carrying out the deadly attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue.

Prior to Ashurov’s arrest, Russian authorities had arrested 10 Tajik citizens and a Kyrgyz national in connection with the attack, Russia’s worst terrorist attack in two decades. Responsibility was claimed by an offshoot of the Islamic State extremist group.

Russian investigators have said the assault was carried out by four men, all Tajik nationals. Other detainees are being held for aiding and abetting the attackers.

On April 17, a Moscow court upheld the arrest of the Kyrgyz suspect, Alisher Kasimov, who had appealed against his arrest.

"The ruling of Moscow’s Basmanny district court of March 26, 2024, has been upheld, and the appeal has been dismissed," a Moscow court official was quoted as saying by Russian state media.

A similar ruling was passed by the same court for Aminjon Islomov, who had also appealed his detention. The Islomovs have been charged with providing an apartment and vehicle to the attackers, and transporting cash for them. They have denied the accusations.

The Basmanny court also said that another suspect, Lutfulloi Nazrimad, a 24-year-old Tajik national, filed an appeal on April 15 against his arrest.

Nazrimad was taken into custody on March 23 with investigators claiming he knew about the planned terrorist attack and helped the attackers. In a closed-door hearing on March 29, the court extended Nazrimad’s detention until May 22.

Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin on April 12 condemned the treatment of the Tajik suspects amid allegations that they were tortured in custody.

Several Tajik suspects showed signs of abuse when they appeared in court in Moscow following the attack.

The four accused gunmen had bruised and swollen faces and showed other signs of having been severely beaten. There were unconfirmed reports that one of them had his ear cut off during his arrest.

"The use of torture in the form of bodily mutilation is unacceptable," Muhriddin said. "The price of confessions extracted in this way is well known to everyone."

Muhriddin said that Russian security authorities should respect the rights of the Tajik suspects and adhere to the principles and norms of international law in their investigations into the massacre, especially regarding the presumption of innocence and the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

Speaking in Minsk at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Muhriddin also criticized what he said was a media campaign to slander Tajiks.
Turkmenistan Opens Section Of Ashgabat-Turkmenabat Highway (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/17/2024 3:58 PM, Staff, 223K, Positive]
Turkmenistan has opened a section of the Ashgabat-Turkmenabat highway linking the cities of Tejen and Mary in southeastern Turkmenistan. President Serdar Berdymukhammedov attended the ceremony on April 17 to open the highway, which officials hope will cut journey times and boost trade between Asia and Europe. "The construction of this highway is further evidence of the revival of the Great Silk Road," Berdymukhamedov said, referring to the trade route that crossed Central Asia for centuries. Construction of the 600-kilometer-long Ashgabat-Turkmenabat highway began in 2019. The Tejen-Mary section, which is 109 kilometers long, was the second section to be opened.
Twitter
Afghanistan
UN Afghanistan
@unafghanistan
[4/18/2024 1:32 AM, 91K followers, 9 retweets, 24 likes]
#1/3 Reflecting on 2023: UN Results Report #Afghanistan: This report testifies to the resilience of Afghan people in face of multiple challenges & to the concerted assistance provided by the UN, partners & donors across all 34 provinces. Read report: http://bit.ly/4d19lkK

UN Afghanistan
@unafghanistan
[4/18/2024 1:32 AM, 91K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
#2/3 In 2024 an estimated 15.8 million people will experience crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity. Through the implementation of the UNSFA, we strive to address the most pressing needs and contribute to peace, prosperity and human rights for all people in #Afghanistan

UN Afghanistan
@unafghanistan
[4/18/2024 1:32 AM, 91K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
#3/3 UN assistance to Afghanistan supports the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The 3 top SDGs supported are: in good health and well-being (SDG3), gender equality (SDG5) and no poverty (SDG1).

Obaidullah Baheer
@ObaidullaBaheer
[4/17/2024 10:47 PM, 38.4K followers, 1 retweet, 9 likes]
The most worrying part of the #Taliban’s recent ban on two media networks inside #Afghanistan is that they used civil society to justify their decision. The association of journalists whose name was used to justify the ban have to explain themselves. How are they complicit in referring networks to the courts? How would this not bite them in the future? @sadaat_zabi @MujeeburahmanB @TOLOnews @hujatullah8

Zhao Xing
@ChinaEmbKabul
[4/18/2024 2:16 AM, 28K followers, 7 retweets, 27 likes]
Congratulations on the successful convening of the China-Afghanistan 3rd Liaison Mechanism Meeting for Humanitarian Assistance and Economic Reconstruction. Looking forward to more practical results for the two countries.

Nilofar Ayoubi
@NilofarAyoubi
[4/17/2024 1:47 PM, 64.6K followers, 17 retweets, 47 likes]
The Taliban mandates that creators of educational programs and centers commit in writing to follow their specified guidelines and rules. This includes a ban on educating girls beyond the 7th grade unless they are taught exclusively by female instructors. Additionally, the wording of the commitment letter is strict and admonitory, showcasing a lack of principles. #EndGenderApartheid

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[4/18/2024 2:01 AM, 2.5K followers, 1 retweet]
Habibur Rahman Taseer Afghan journalist has been arrested for several days by the Taliban authorities in Ghazni. The reason for Mr. Taser’s arrest has not yet been determined. in the last 2 years, a large number of journalists have been arrested for unknown reasons. #Afghanistan

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[4/18/2024 2:29 AM, 2.5K followers]
Reports: Taliban education officials are guarantee letter to private schools yesterday in Kabul, and called the schools managements not to enroll girls above 6th graders, and also requested female teachers for lower grades. United Nation should take action about girls education:

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[4/18/2024 2:16 AM, 2.5K followers, 2 retweets, 8 likes]
Sarah Baharaki, the global youth ambassadors of the UN has requested the United Nations to take practical steps to return the Afghan girls to the schools. She added that women and girls in Afghanistan are restricted and the Taliban are trying to silence their voices. #Afghanistan

Lynne O’Donnell
@lynnekodonnell
[4/17/2024 1:46 PM, 27K followers, 16 retweets, 33 likes]
Part 3 of @TheBushCenter excellent report on #Afghanistan further backs up my reporting on #Taliban aid theft, saying they "wasted no time in infiltrating & exploiting humanitarian resources. Multinational institutions have enabling this with a lack of accountability mechanisms".

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[4/17/2024 10:48 AM, 23K followers, 3 retweets, 4 likes]
What now for Afghanistan and the United States? Discussion @afpc with David Sedney/fmr president of American University in Afghanistan, Scott Worden @USIP, Sami Mahdi/Amu TV, and Frederick Starr @CACI_SilkRoad #CentralAsia #bidenadmin https://youtu.be/A3HLKYSCuQk?si=m95U2HhH0fqB_lzZ @AmerikaOvozi
Pakistan
Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[4/17/2024 12:34 PM, 3.1M followers, 14 retweets, 77 likes]
Ambassador of Turkmenistan, H.E. Atadjan Movlamov paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif. “There is a need to enhance bilateral cooperation, particularly in the domains of trade, energy and connectivity. High level exchanges between the two countries need to be enhanced.” ~ Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif The Turkmen Ambassador briefed the Prime Minister on the various ongoing bilateral activities.

Lynne O’Donnell
@lynnekodonnell
[4/17/2024 6:29 PM, 27K followers, 3 retweets, 7 likes]
#Pakistani PTI politician says that #Islamabad has given two bases (in #Balochistan) to the United States to target terrorist groups, monitor #Afghanistan https://en.webangah.ir/2024-04-17/news=101140/

Shahbaz Rana
@81ShahbazRana
[4/17/2024 11:23 PM, 48.4K followers, 10 retweets, 27 likes]
Pakistan to miss budget deficit goal A new IMF report showed that Pakistan is set to miss this fiscal year’s budget deficit target by approximately Rs1 trillion,as the global lender anticipates the country’s increased reliance on loans in the coming years
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/17/2024 10:35 AM, 97.3M followers, 2.6K retweets, 10K likes]
India’s emphasis is on reform, perform and transform. Our approach to development is futuristic and is also aimed at building a better as well as more sustainable planet. @bjerde_anna https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/lessons-from-indias-alternate-development-plan-9274584/lite/

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/17/2024 5:08 AM, 97.3M followers, 3K retweets, 10K likes]
Tripura has witnessed pioneering transformations under the BJP Government. The state is set to bless us again. Watch from Agartala.

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[4/17/2024 12:56 PM, 24.1M followers, 917 retweets, 2.2K likes]
Campaigned in Kerala today and addressed election meetings in Kasaragod, Vadkara and Kannur. In its manifesto, the BJP has pledged to enhance the nation’s rich culture and heritage, aiming to attract tourists and elevate the country’s heritage to world-class status. BJP will work for coastline protection, which will greatly benefit Kerala’s fishermen. Utmost efforts will be made to safeguard their livelihood. Congress and LDF cannot be trusted. These people do ‘Thallu Koodal’ (fighting) among themselves in Kerala. But, in Delhi, the same Congress and Left do ‘Modiram Mataral’ to increase friendship. Here in Kerala both of them are fighting against each other. Neither LDF nor UDF can be relied upon due to their lack of credibility in both work and political character.

Milan Vaishnav
@MilanV
[4/17/2024 3:45 PM, 42.3K followers, 7 retweets, 35 likes]
Voting in India’s 18th general election begins on Friday, April 19. If you’re trying to understand what will happen over the next 44 days, check out our accessible @CarnegieEndow #IndiaElects2024 explainer https://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/india-elects-2024

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[4/17/2024 10:26 AM, 263.3K followers, 310 retweets, 1.1K likes]
"China accounts for nearly all of Iran’s 1.6 million barrels a day in oil exports, providing Tehran with $35 billion to $45 billion a year..."—@WSJ. India meekly complied with US sanctions on Iranian crude, the world’s most heavily discounted oil. China defied the sanctions but has faced no US punitive action.
NSB
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh
@BDMOFA
[4/17/2024 7:41 AM, 35.5K followers, 3 retweets, 39 likes]
Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh visited SAARC Secretariat in Kathmadu, Nepal in the afternoon today. He met the officials at the SAARC Secretariat. Foreign Secretary worked in the Secretariat as the Director from 2001-2004.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh
@BDMOFA
[4/17/2024 5:38 AM, 35.5K followers, 4 retweets, 40 likes]
FS called on DPM & Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal today. They expressed satisfaction on the existing bilateral relations between Bangladesh & Nepal. Two sides emphasized on expanding cooperation in the areas of trade & commerce, connectivity, power & energy, tourism, culture & education.

Awami League
@albd1971
[4/17/2024 1:00 PM, 637.1K followers, 24 retweets, 57 likes]
#Bangladesh is preparing to introduce remote sensing and drones to detect #crop damage caused by extreme weather events or diseases. @ADB_Bangladesh has started training agriculture officers to use the technologies. #SmartBangladesh #SmartAgriculture https://link.albd.org/c6v5h

Namal Rajapaksa
@RajapaksaNamal
[4/17/2024 11:54 AM, 437.2K followers, 12 likes]
Pleased to join district leader, former minister Hon. MP CB Ratnayake & Nuwara Eliya Municipal Commissioner Sujiwa Bodhimanna in the ‘Healthy Child’ selection program organized by the office of Medical Officer of Health of Nuwara Eliya MC. Ensuring the well-being of our children.

Harsha de Silva
@HarshadeSilvaMP
[4/18/2024 12:05 AM, 356.9K followers, 2 retweets, 17 likes]
Mr A T Ariyaratne 1931-2024. #SriLanka has lost a visionary and a true humanitarian. May you attain the supreme bliss of Nirvana! It’s for @AriyaratneVinya and family and the hundreds of thousands of @sarvodayalanka extended family to carry on to realize his dream. @wasanthasiri

Harsha de Silva
@HarshadeSilvaMP
[4/17/2024 3:22 PM, 356.9K followers, 3 retweets, 24 likes]
1/ Congratulations Rosanna Flamer-Caldera @_EQUALGROUND_ for making the list of 100 most influential people for 2024 for her fight for #LGBTQ rights in #SriLanka. I am reminded of her support during my presentation in Geneva on the topic many years ago.

Harsha de Silva
@HarshadeSilvaMP
[4/17/2024 3:22 PM, 356.9K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
2/ To be among global personalities like @aliaa08 @kylieminogue @satyanadella @larryellison @Max33Verstappen @donaldtusk is a reflection of the decades of commitment to a cause. Well done and hope the bill to decriminalise homosexuality will become law in @ParliamentLKsoon.

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[4/17/2024 6:17 AM, 79.7K followers, 7 retweets, 16 likes]
Lakshmi*, whose husband was forcibly disappeared in 2009, speaks of the crackdown faced by peaceful protestors in Sri Lanka for demanding truth and justice. The Sri Lankan government has an obligation under international human rights law to facilitate peaceful protests and provide an enabling environment to exercise the right to peaceful assembly without discrimination. Read more: http://bit.ly/3TStCQP #ProtectTheProtest #SriLanka #HumanRights #Amnesty
Central Asia
Yerzhan Ashikbayev
@KZAmbUS
[4/17/2024 8:56 PM, 2.4K followers, 1 retweet, 5 likes]
Special thanks to @WorldBank for engaging the Kazakhstan delegation, along with @StateDept, @USAID, and South Caucasus representatives, in the presentation of the report and recommendations on fostering the Middle Corridor #SpringSessions

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[4/18/2024 12:25 AM, 28.9K followers, 9 retweets, 13 likes]
#Kazakhstan adopts media law with new restrictions, e.g. granting government the right to refuse foreign media accreditation on national security grounds. There are currently 30+ @RadioAzattyq reporters who have applied but not been given accreditation

UNODC Central Asia
@UNODC_ROCA
[4/18/2024 12:57 AM, 2.4K followers, 2 likes]
.@EUinKyrgyzstan/UNODC “Just4All” & Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyzstan presented an analytical review on the judicial practice of custodial and non-custodial sentences in 2020-2023 informing on court decisions on alternatives to imprisonment and technical assistance on probation.

Asel Doolotkeldieva
@ADoolotkeldieva
[4/17/2024 11:07 AM, 14K followers, 17 retweets, 60 likes]
How come the news about the resettlement of the Kyrgyz population from Barak exclave, located in Uzbekistan, into Kyrgyzstan received such a little coverage and attention? The issue of enclaves, exclaves and borders is still very pertinent for the region

Asel Doolotkeldieva
@ADoolotkeldieva
[4/17/2024 12:26 PM, 14K followers, 1 retweet, 8 likes]
And yet, this event is of big importance. It sets an example for resolution of other disputes. It shows determination of Kyrgyz authorities to get the borders done for good, finding money for resettlement, etc.

{End of Report}
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