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:
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Anti-polio gains threatened by returning migrants, 200,000 unvaccinated children in Afghanistan (VOA)
VOA [4/8/2024 5:48 PM, Ayaz Gul, 761K, Neutral]
The World Health Organization said Monday that the recent return of about 600,000 undocumented migrants from Pakistan to Afghanistan and an estimated 200,000 unvaccinated children in southern Afghan regions are a threat to regional gains against polio.

In its latest assessment of the disease’s international spread, WHO said that both neighboring countries had made significant progress in interrupting the transmission of the two surviving genetic clusters of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in the region.

Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two nations where the crippling virus is still found, have reported two and zero cases of polio infections, respectively, this year.

However, the WHO assessment said that the recent large-scale displacement of undocumented Afghans from Pakistan had “increased the risk of cross-border poliovirus spread, as well as [the] spread within both countries.” It cautioned that “any setback in Afghanistan poses a risk to the [polio] program in Pakistan due to high population movement.”

The report stated that coordinated efforts were being made to “manage and mitigate” the risk through vaccination at border crossing points between the two countries.

WHO said vaccination coverage in southern Afghan provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul and Nimruz has improved “but remains suboptimal, with an estimated 200,000 children who remain unreached.” The large pool of unvaccinated children “constitutes a major risk,” it said.

The report stressed that house-to-house immunizations of children are comparatively effective, but some parts of Afghanistan “still only allow site-to-site or mosque-to-mosque vaccinations.”

It appreciated the Taliban government’s commitment to the global goal of eradicating polio in Afghanistan. WHO noted and praised the increased use of Afghan female health care workers in campaigns and strongly encouraged the implementation of house-to-house campaigns where feasible.

The fundamentalist Taliban have banned women from many public and private sector workplaces, but the health sector is mostly exempted from the restrictions.
Taliban steps up security ahead of supreme leader’s Kandahar mosque visit on Eid (The Independent)
The Independent [4/8/2024 7:39 AM, Arpan Rai, 3055K, Neutral]
The Taliban are stepping up security after it emerged that Isis could attack its reclusive supreme leader during his expected visit to a Kandahar mosque for Eid prayers, local media reports said.

Hibatullah Akhundzada is an Islamic scholar who almost never appears in public. He rarely leaves the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.

He and his circle have been instrumental in imposing restrictions on women and girls that have sparked an international outcry and isolated the Taliban on the global stage.

Photos and videos from Kandahar on Sunday showed Taliban fighters transporting and laying a brick barrier around a mosque ahead of Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Reports had emerged on Friday that Isis, which is opposed to the Taliban, was mulling an attack on the Afghan regime’s leaders.

The local Taliban administration decided to pick the prayer venue for Mr Akhundzada just a night before the occasion, Afghanistan International reported, adding that they feared Isis fighters could mingle with the local worshippers to gain entry into the mosque.

They have since finalised two mosques in Kandahar and are now scaling up security measures around both, the report added.

The Independent has not verified the authenticity of the visuals from Kandahar.

On Saturday, Mr Akhundzada released a written Eid message urging Taliban officials to set aside their differences to serve Afghanistan.

Taliban officials should “live a brotherly life among themselves, avoid disagreements and selfishness”, he added in a message distributed in seven languages including Uzbek and Turkmen.

Mr Akhundzada also mentioned diplomatic relations, Afghanistan’s economy, the Taliban’s justice system, charity, and the virtues of meritocracy in his message.

He said security did not come from “being tough and killing more; rather, security is aligned with Shariah and justice”.

He, however, did not speak about the ban on education for girls and women in Afghanistan.

Human rights groups have accused the Taliban’s hardline regime of gender apartheid in their second rule, which started after the US and Nato forces pulled out of the country in August 2021.

The group has since erased the presence of girls and women from the public by banning them from work, schools, education, public parks, gyms and national parks.

In January this year, Mr Akhundzada claimed in a rare audio message that his ultra hardline regime has ensured the rights of women and girls better than any previous government.

Mr Akhundzada said his regime does not marry off women and widows by force – a claim countered by women activists witnessing the crimes on the ground in Afghanistan.
Pentagon wraps up added review of bombing that marred Afghan withdrawal (Washington Times)
Washington Times [4/8/2024 1:38 PM, Mike Glenn, 261K, Negative]
Military officials are notifying family members of U.S. troops killed in the August 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan about the findings of an additional investigation into the attack that occurred during the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, U.S. officials said over the weekend.

The bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul killed 13 U.S. military personnel and at least 170 Afghan civilians from an explosive suicide vest detonated by a member of ISIS-Khorasan Province, the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State terror group.

Over the past five months, a team of military investigators conducted more than 50 interviews of Marine Corps and Army troops at the scene of the blast, including 12 service personnel who hadn’t been previously interviewed due to medical evacuation or treatment.

“The interviews sought to determine whether these service members possessed any new information surrounding the attack, and if so, whether that information would affect the findings of the initial Abbey Gate investigation, completed in November 2021,” U.S. Central Command officials said Saturday.

The investigators sought to determine whether the ISIS-K bomber conducted a test run near Abbey Gate before detonating the explosive best that had been filled with ball bearings. The additional review also sought to determine If U.S. troops at the scene identified the bomber in the crowd before the attack and whether they had an opportunity to open fire, Central Command officials said.

The additional review comes as some lawmakers in Congress have assailed the Biden administration and the Pentagon over the circumstances in Afghanistan that led to the botched withdrawal. Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the Afghan withdrawal, recently testified on Capitol Hill that the State Department’s delay in ordering an evacuation of noncombatants, added to the chaos.

“The supplemental review team has completed its interviews and informed senior departmental leadership of its assessments, conclusions and recommendations,” U.S. Central Command officials said. “Our focus at this time continues to be fulfilling our solemn obligations to the Abbey Gate Gold Star families.”

There was no information about when the results of the additional inquiry would be released to the public.
Don’t Let Afghanistan Become a Terror Haven Again (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [4/8/2024 8:00 AM, Editorial Board, 5543K, Negative]
Ever since the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, US planners have worried militant groups might again use the country as a base to strike the West. Horrific recent attacks in Russia and Iran have brought that prospect closer. A renewed focus on counterterrorism is needed to head it off.

The mass shooting at a Moscow rock concert last month that killed more than 140 people, as well as suicide bombings in central Iran that claimed 95 lives in January, have both been linked to the Afghan branch of Islamic State, known as ISIS-Khorasan. (The name refers to a historical region encompassing parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.) After its inception in 2015, ISIS-K battled both US forces and Taliban fighters, occasionally at the same time. Its suicide bombers were responsible for the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 Americans and about 170 Afghans during the US evacuation.

The Taliban’s return to power has been ruinous for the Afghan people, particularly women and girls. Yet, while tolerant of other extremists, the Taliban has kept up the fight against ISIS-K, leading to a roughly 90% drop in attacks since the first months of its rule. Partly in response, ISIS-K has ramped up its online messaging and links to Central Asian militants outside Afghanistan. Some appear to have traveled to Afghanistan for training and logistical help.

ISIS-K has targeted Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Iranian and Central Asian interests — partly to undermine the Taliban’s quest for regional acceptance — and continues to threaten attacks against the West. It has been tied to 21 plots or attacks across nine countries in the past year, compared to eight in the previous 12 months. The few plots aimed at Europe to date have involved relatively inexperienced operatives, and the US remains an even tougher target. Even so, the group’s ambitions are growing.

Meanwhile, Washington’s ability to detect and disrupt potential attacks is greatly diminished — just as the US’s top military leaders warned Joe Biden in advance of the Afghan pullout. US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities devoted to Afghanistan have plummeted 80% since the 2021 withdrawal. Occasional drones flying from the Middle East can’t provide the same granular picture as assets on the ground once did.

The US will need to redirect more resources back to the region, despite other demands. The Pentagon could explore whether countries such as Pakistan or Tajikistan might temporarily host US drones, shortening transit time to Afghanistan. Quietly sharing more US intelligence with the Taliban could stiffen the regime’s anti-ISIS efforts.

Congress should swiftly reauthorize the Section 702 program that allows US spies to collect electronic communications abroad; the fact that the US was able to warn both Iran and Russia of impending attacks proves the value of intercepting terrorist “chatter.” The US should maintain its small troop contingent in Syria, which remains critical to preventing a resurgence of the core Islamic State group.

Finally, despite rising geopolitical tensions, the US must strive to rekindle the global consensus around fighting terrorism. Some attackers have exploited loose border controls to travel relatively freely within the region. China might be open to closer cooperation, and even Iran and Russia may think twice before ignoring US warnings again.

At the very least, Afghanistan’s neighbors have a shared interest in improving security training and tightening border crossings to disrupt the flow of weapons and fighters. All countries should back the return of United Nations counterterrorism monitors to Afghanistan, to enable a common assessment of the threat.

ISIS-K has deepened ties to militants abroad as a way to increase its reach. To thwart future attacks, its targets need to work together, too.
Pakistan
Saudi crown prince meets Pakistani premier, stresses India-Pakistan dialogue (Reuters)
Reuters [4/8/2024 8:08 AM, Charlotte Greenfield, 5239K, Negative]
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said dialogue was needed to resolve heightened friction between arch-rivals Pakistan and India during a meeting in Riyadh with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Sharif was making his first overseas visit since winning power in elections in February. He met with bin Salman on Sunday.

"The two sides stressed the importance of dialogue between Pakistan and India to resolve the outstanding issues between the two countries, especially the Jammu and Kashmir dispute to ensure peace and stability in the region," a joint statement released by Pakistan’s foreign office and the Saudi government said.

The disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed in full, though ruled in part by both India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947, with the neighbours having fought two of their three wars over it.

Always-fragile relations between India and Pakistan have worsened since a 2019 suicide bombing of an Indian military convoy in Kashmir was traced to Pakistan-based militants, leading New Delhi to carry out an airstrike on what it said was a militant base in Pakistan.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday that India would enter Pakistan to kill anyone who escapes over the border after trying to carry out militant activities in the country.

The minister was speaking a day after Britain’s Guardian newspaper published a report stating the Indian government had killed about 20 people in Pakistan since 2020 as part of a broader plan to eliminate militants residing on foreign soil.

India has longstanding friendly relations with Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, which have strengthened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is widely expected to win a third term in office in elections starting April 19.

Sharif and bin Salman had also discussed expediting a planned $5 billion investment package, which cash-strapped Pakistan desperately needs to shore up its current account deficit and signal to the International Monetary Fund that it can continue to met requirements for foreign financing that has been a key demand in previous bailout packages.

Pakistan said in January it had credible evidence linking Indian agents to the killing of two of its citizens on its soil. India said it was "false and malicious" propaganda.
1 police officer killed and 6 others wounded in grenade attack at a mosque in southwestern Pakistan (AP)
AP [4/8/2024 12:56 PM, Staff, 22K, Negative]
A police officer died and six other officers were wounded in a grenade attack Monday at a mosque in southwestern Pakistan, authorities said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack near Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. Local police chief Nasir Shah said officers were still investigating.

In a statement, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi denounced the attack, which came a day after a motorcycle bomb killed two people and wounded five others in Khuzdar, a district the Baluchistan province that has witnessed a surge in militant attacks in recent weeks.

For years, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency group demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. Although the government says it has quelled the insurgency, violence in the province has persisted.
Iran gas pipeline: A solution to Pakistan’s energy woes? (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [4/8/2024 8:38 AM, Shabnam von Hein, 2728K, Negative]
Pakistan announced at the end of March that it was planning to ask the United States to relax possible sanctions around a natural gas pipeline project from neighboring Iran.

Islamabad wants to soon start work on the long-planned project, known as the "Peace Pipeline."

Both sides agreed to build the pipeline in 2009 but it has since faced delays and funding challenges.

Iran is now threatening Pakistan with legal action if it fails to build the Pakistani section of the pipeline.

"Pakistan wants to avoid a possible legal dispute with Iran in international courts and a fine of $18 billion (€16.6 billion)," Sabena Siddiqi, a Pakistani journalist specializing in foreign policy issues, told DW.

"Tehran has set September 2024 as a deadline for Islamabad to finish the construction of the pipeline on the Pakistani side," she said, adding: "The Pakistani section of the pipeline is about 780 kilometers long (484 miles)."

Plans thwarted by US sanctions

Iran has been striving to build the pipeline since the 1990s. It was originally intended to transport Iranian gas all the way to India. However, New Delhi withdrew from the project due to US sanctions against Iran over its contentious nuclear program.

Pakistan and Iran inked a 25-year supply deal in 2009, and Tehran completed building the over 900-kilometer-long Iranian section of the pipeline 10 years ago. But construction on the Pakistani side has been held up, drawing Iranian consternation.

Islamabad has now announced its intention to soon begin constructing the first 80 kilometers of the pipeline link from the Iranian border to the Pakistani port city of Gwadar, in a bid to avoid a potential Iranian lawsuit for breach of contract.

But following the Pakistani announcement, the US said it does not support the project from going forward. Washington also warned about the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran.

"We do not support the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project," the US State Department said.

"We always advise everyone that doing business with Iran runs the risk of touching upon and coming in contact with our sanctions, and would advise everyone to consider that very carefully," a State Department spokesperson told reporters on March 26.

Pakistan is currently worried about having to pay possible financial compensation amounting to billions of dollars for delays in the construction of its section of the pipeline, said Umud Shokri, a Washington-based energy expert.

"Islamabad is aware that Iran is struggling with natural gas shortages, and that it is not in a position to export gas to Pakistan due to dilapidated infrastructure," he said.
Can Iran produce enough gas?

Iran has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, behind only Russia. Still, the country confronts gas shortages almost every winter, forcing the government to ration supplies.

Excessive and inefficient consumption of subsidized natural gas, by both households as well as industry, lies at the root of the problem.

According to information from the Energy Institute’s "Statistical Review of World Energy," Iran ranked fourth on the list of countries with the highest gas consumption in the world in 2022, behind the United States, Russia and China.

"Due to the US sanctions, Iran lacks access to key technologies," Shokri said. "The tech capabilities of domestic companies are not sufficient to increase the production capacity in such a way that Iran could actually export natural gas to Pakistan. Unless Iran wants to supply Russian gas to Pakistan."

Legal options remain limited

In response to the US sanctions, Tehran is seeking closer cooperation with Moscow. In July 2022, the Russian energy company Gazprom signed a cooperation agreement worth $40 billion with the Iranian oil company NIOC. According to the deal, Gazprom was to support NIOC in the development of two gas and six oil fields.

Observers say, however, that Iran would not earn much if it were to just supply Russian gas to Pakistan through its territory.

Siddiqi, the Pakistani journalist, meanwhile believes that Iran’s chances of being successful in a legal battle against Pakistan appear slim.

Tehran could take its case to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, based in Vienna, but, said Siddiqi, "given the unstable regional situation, the war in Gaza and Iran’s role in some crises, it is highly unlikely that Washington would allow Iran to successfully pursue its case."

She added: "Instead, the US could try to offer Pakistan alternative options for its energy security."
India
Indian ambassador seeks more investment from Japanese SMEs (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [4/9/2024 3:40 AM, Shigeru Seno, 293K, Neutral]
Indian Ambassador to Japan Sibi George will contact more small and medium-size Japanese companies this year in hopes of raising the number of Japanese companies doing business in India tenfold in the next few years.

There are around 1,500 Japanese companies in India, but the ambassador said in an interview with Nikkei, "This is not enough." He has set a target of 15,000, adding, "I should reach out to at least 100,000 SMEs."

George has established an SME facilitation team led by a dedicated officer at the Indian Embassy in Tokyo. "Every day, companies are reaching out to us and saying, ‘We have seen a new India,’" he said.

The ambassador told Nikkei that he has visited 40 prefectures in Japan to meet governors, mayors, chambers of commerce, and small and medium-size Japanese companies interested in investing in India. He said he received "a warm welcome in every prefecture."

George is also working to increase the number of Indian students studying in Japan. With 1 million Indians studying abroad, he asks, "Why only 1,500 [students] in Japan?" He is eager to see the number of Indian students in Japan rise to "at least 15,000," adding that he will urge Japanese universities to intensify their efforts to attract Indian students.
India’s top court expands right to life to include ‘adverse effects of climate change’ in landmark ruling (The Independent)
The Independent [4/8/2024 7:46 AM, Shweta Sharma, 3055K, Neutral]
India’s Supreme Court has expanded the scope of “right to life” to include “protection against adverse effects of climate change” in a significant ruling.

The ruling recognises that climate change threatens “constitutional guarantees of equality and health”, impacting factors such as air pollution, disease, and food security.

The court has expanded the scope of the “right to life” which is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution of India.

“Without a clean environment which is stable and unimpacted by the vagaries of climate change, the right to life is not fully realised,” the ruling said.

“The right to health (which is a part of the right to life under Article 21) is impacted due to factors such as air pollution, shifts in vector-borne diseases, rising temperatures, droughts, shortages in food supplies due to crop failure, storms, and flooding," the bench said.

The statement from a three-judge bench headed by chief justice DY Chandrachud came during a hearing of a petition to protect the Great Indian Bustard (GIB) and Bustard and Lesser Florican – both critically endangered bird species – from losing their habitat due to power transmission lines.

The judgment was passed on 21 March and the detailed verdict was made public on Saturday.

The court has asked for a committee to be established to determine a balance between conserving the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard and developing renewable energy infrastructure in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

“The inability of underserved communities to adapt to climate change or cope with its effects violates the right to life as well as the right to equality,” the court said.

In recent times, numerous think tanks have highlighted the significant threat of climate change to India, placing it among the countries most vulnerable to its impacts.

This vulnerability stems from various factors such as its vast population, reliance on agriculture, and exposure to extreme weather events like floods and droughts.

In 2022, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified India as one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change. It estimated that the country had already experienced a 16 per cent loss in per capita GDP since 1991 due to factors like rising sea levels and shifting monsoon patterns.
India: Technology Use Shouldn’t Undermine Free, Fair Elections (Human Rights Watch)
Human Rights Watch [4/8/2024 11:30 PM, Staff, 190K, Neutral]
ters in India will cast their ballots in a six-week general election beginning April 19, 2024, amid concerns that Indian authorities exert considerable control over the digital ecosystem that can make for an uneven playing field, Human Rights Watch said in a question-and-answer document released today. The party or coalition of parties that wins a majority of 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament will nominate a candidate for prime minister and form a government.

Human Rights Watch examined potential threats to India’s online environment ahead of the elections. The authorities have increased their control over digital platforms and amassed extensive amounts of personal data, which may affect the campaign environment. Human Rights Watch details the additional steps technology companies should take to meet their human rights responsibilities in this election.

“The risk of misuse of technology in India’s election is significant and could result in further tilting the playing field in favor of the ruling party,” said Deborah Brown, acting associate technology and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The Election Commission of India should ensure that all political parties comply with the model code of conduct and that their use of technology in campaigning respects human rights.”

Human Rights Watch reviewed popular companies’ policies and found that all companies could do more to address any aspects of their products, services, and business practices that may cause, contribute, or be linked with undermining free and fair elections.

Indian political parties campaign extensively through digital platforms. Ahead of the upcoming elections, political advertising on Google surged in the first three months of 2024. The governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been the largest advertiser among political parties on both Google and Meta over the past three months, and has built a massive messaging operation through WhatsApp.

In recent years, Indian authorities have applied significant formal and informal pressure on tech companies, both to suppress critical speech and to keep online speech by government-aligned actors that would otherwise violate platforms’ policies. India shuts down the internet more than any other country, with the authorities frequently using internet shutdowns to stem political protests and criticism of the government, violating domestic and international legal standards.

Misuse of personal data, which can contain sensitive and revealing insights about people’s identity, age, religion, caste, location, behavior, associations, activities, and political beliefs, is a major concern in India’s elections. India has developed an extensive digital public infrastructure through which Indians access social-protection programs. The Indian government has collected massive amounts of personal data in the absence of adequate data protection laws to prevent misuse of this data during campaigning and to properly protect privacy rights.

There have already been reports of misuse of personal data in the campaign period, which started on March 16. On March 21, the Election Commission told the government to stop sending messages promoting government policies to voters, as it was a violation of the campaign guidelines. The message and accompanying letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to which it referred, had sparked concerns over data privacy as well as abuse of government communications for political purposes.

Social media platforms have come under scrutiny in recent years for failing to adequately invest in and address the use of their platforms to undermine participation in democratic elections. In India, Meta has faced criticism for failing to curb the spread of hate speech and incitement to violence, and for contributing to give the BJP an unfair advantage in political campaigning online during past elections.

The widespread availability of low-cost generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that require little technical expertise raises new concerns. Generative AI can be used to create deceptive videos, audio recordings, and images impersonating a candidate, official, or media outlets. These are disseminated quickly across social media platforms, potentially undermining the integrity of the election or inciting violence, hatred, or discrimination against religious minorities. In the lead-up to the 2024 elections, several parties are using AI in their campaigns.

Companies should resist threats from the authorities when responding to government requests for data or content removals, Human Rights Watch said. They should treat all parties and candidates equitably, especially when it comes to addressing speech that incites violence or hatred.

Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies have a responsibility to respect human rights and remedy abuses, including by addressing any aspects of their practices that contribute to undermining the right to participate in democratic elections.

“Ahead of India’s elections, tech companies need to demonstrate that their commitment to human rights is more than words,” Brown said. “This means adequately investing in content moderation, carrying out rigorous human rights impact assessments, and meaningfully engaging with civil society.”
BJP-led Alliance Likely to Sweep Elections in India’s Northeast (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [4/8/2024 9:34 AM, Rajeev Bhattacharyya, 201K, Neutral]
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is likely to win the largest number of seats in the forthcoming general elections in India’s frontier region of the Northeast, similar to the results of the last general election five years ago.

India’s Northeast comprises the eight border states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura. The region accounts for 25 seats in the 543 seat-Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. States in the region will vote on April 19 and 26 and May 7.

In the 2019 general election, the NDA won 18 seats in the Northeast, including 14 that the BJP aloe won from the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of the BJP, who is convener of the North East Democratic Alliance, a BJP-led bloc in the Northeast, claims that the NDA would win 22 seats across the region in the upcoming general elections.

Discussions with political functionaries from different parties revealed that the BJP and its allies have an edge in 20 constituencies. The contest in the remaining five is expected to be tough.

In Assam, which has the highest number of seats (14) among all the northeastern states, the ruling BJP has fielded candidates in 11 constituencies and its allies – the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) – will contest from the remaining three. In 2019, the BJP won 9 seats from Assam. The UPPL and AGP failed to secure victories from their allocated constituencies.

The delimitation of electoral constituencies in Assam, which was pending for the past two decades and completed in December 2022, is expected to benefit the NDA. BJP leaders themselves have admitted that the delimitation exercise has brightened the party’s electoral prospects.

Across the northeastern states, the opposition is weak and divided. In Assam, the United Opposition Forum Assam (UOFA), a 16-party alliance led by the Congress, is riven with differences over the sharing of seats and has triggered disenchantment in the coalition. A senior functionary of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is part of the alliance, pointed out that the “Congress gave only the Dibrugarh seat to the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) and kept the remaining 13 seats to itself. So, there is no united opposition to the NDA in Assam.”

In addition, if some Congress functionaries are to be believed, the party has been jolted by a financial crisis resulting in less funds for the expenditure of contesting candidates. The BJP and its allies, on the other hand, are aggressively campaigning and highlighting the numerous welfare schemes that were rolled out in Assam by its government over the past few years.

Not surprisingly, issues raised by the opposition parties such as the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 that had triggered a ferocious agitation in the region five years ago and the controversy over electoral bonds are unlikely to have a decisive impact on the minds of the voters.

In Assam, the NDA will face a stiff contest from the Congress in Nagaon and Jorhat constituencies and from the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in the Muslim-dominated Karimganj and Dhubri. There is a high possibility of the Congress losing Barpeta to the BJP’s ally, the AGP, after delimitation as a large chunk of areas inhabited by Bengal-origin Muslims have now been attached to the contiguous Dhubri constituency.

A huge disadvantage that the opposition Congress faces in the Northeast has been its inability to win any state assembly elections for the past several years. The BJP and its allies have governments in six out of the eight states in the region. In the hill states of the frontier region, the electorate is inclined to vote for the ruling party.

Issues that are important to voters vary from state to state. In Meghalaya, implementation of the Inner Line Policy (ILP) prevalent in the other hill states, the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, and resolution of the border dispute with Assam are key issues. Termination of the Free Movement Regime (FMR) with Myanmar is a major issue in Nagaland and Mizoram.

In Mizoram and Sikkim, which have non-BJP governments, the party in power is expected to do well. Mizoram’s single seat in Parliament is likely to go to the ruling Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), which has announced that it would not ally either with the Congress or the BJP but would support any government at the center for the interests of the state.

In Sikkim, the BJP has snapped its alliance with the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM), which rules the state. Both parties have fielded candidates for the lone seat in the hill state, besides other parties. There is a high possibility of the SKM winning the seat and it is also likely that the party will adopt the ZPM’s policy of supporting any government at the center.

The electoral situation in Shillong in Meghalaya is unpredictable, especially after the emergence of the Voice of the People’s Party and the Regional Democratic Alliance, which is an alliance of two parties.

As for Manipur, a tough contest among the seven candidates is on the cards in Imphal valley (Inner Manipur), while the Naga People’s Front (NPF) has an edge over the other parties in Outer Manipur comprising the hill districts.

In neighboring Nagaland, which has a single seat, the BJP and NPF are constituents of the coalition government called the People’s Democratic Alliance. The NPF is expected to win the seat.

Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura – both BJP-ruled states – have two seats each. The BJP is expected to make a clean sweep in all these four constituencies. The two states will also vote in elections to the state assembly at the same time.
Eyeing third term, India’s Modi jabs opposition over Sri Lankan islet (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [4/9/2024 3:25 AM, Kiran Sharma, 293K, Neutral]
With national elections just around the corner, a political row has erupted in India over a tiny, uninhabited island ceded to neighboring Sri Lanka half a century ago.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- eyeing a third straight term -- is reaching back into history to land a blow against the embattled opposition and Congress party which had agreed to hand control of the then-disputed Katchatheevu island to Colombo in 1974.

The party of some of India’s best-known politicians, including post-independence prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, Congress now languishes in the opposition after ruling the nation for decades.

"Eye opening and startling! New facts reveal how Congress callously gave away #Katchatheevu," Modi wrote on social media on March 31. "This has angered every Indian and reaffirmed in people’s minds -- we can’t ever trust Congress! Weakening India’s unity, integrity and interests has been Congress’ way of working for 75 years and counting."

The island -- just over 300 meters wide and 1.6 kilometers long -- is in the Palk Strait near India’s southern Tamil Nadu state, which goes to polls on April 19 in the first of several phases across the world’s biggest democracy. Some 970 million people are registered to cast a ballot before voting ends in early June.

Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, popular in the politically crucial Hindi-speaking belt across India’s north and central states, is widely expected to win another five-year term with the opposition unable to launch a major challenge.

But the BJP has struggled to make inroads in Tamil Nadu, where it failed to take any of the state’s 39 seats in the 545-member lower house during 2019 elections.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge waved off Modi’s jab as political posturing, saying the prime minister has "suddenly woken up to the issues of territorial integrity and national security in [his] 10th year of misrule."

"Perhaps, elections are the trigger," he added.

Kharge pointed out that the Modi government’s then-Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi, had in 2014 shelved any plan to take up the issue with Colombo.

"‘Katchatheevu went to Sri Lanka by an agreement in 1974," Rohatgi told the Supreme Court at the time, adding "How can it be taken back today? If you want Katchatheevu back, you will have to go to war to get it back.’"

Analysts say the BJP is trying hard for a breakthrough in Tamil Nadu and stepping up pressure as several key opposition figures face corruption allegations.

"Nothing is working for the BJP in Tamil Nadu," V.S. Chandrasekar, a New Delhi-based political observer and former executive editor at the Press Trust of India news agency, told Nikkei Asia. "So, naturally they are raking up this issue because elections are coming ... but it’s a dead bomb and has failed to explode."

"People in India know that it’s an election rhetoric [and] Sri Lanka also knows that the issue is being raked up because of the upcoming polls," he added.

Facing dwindling stocks, fishermen from parts of Tamil Nadu often cross the neighbors’ international maritime boundary to catch fish around the postage-stamp sized island -- and sometimes get detained by Sri Lanka.

Regional parties frequently raise this issue with the federal government and have also brought it up in parliament, while two cases over the island agreement are pending in the Supreme Court.

Senior BJP leader and India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, told a news conference this month that Sri Lanka had detained more than 6,000 Indian fishermen and seized 1,175 Indian fishing vessels over the past two decades.

"This is not an issue which has suddenly surfaced, this is a live issue. ... I’m bringing it up today because fishermen are still being detained, boats are still being apprehended," India’s top diplomat said. "Today, the issue is how did we arrive at this point, who has the responsibility and who is hiding what people should know."

While the island issue has come up in previous elections, the focus is on winning votes rather than actually reclaiming Katchatheevu.

"The main target of this debate in the current context is the electorate in Tamil Nadu," said Raj Kumar Sharma, visiting fellow at New Delhi-based think tank United Service Institution of India. "The intention is not to indicate that India would pressurize Sri Lanka to hand over Katchatheevu ... an idea which is a non-starter."

For its part, Sri Lanka said it has no plan to revisit an issue settled 50 years ago.

"There is no controversy. They [in India] are having an internal political debate about who is responsible," Foreign Minister Ali Sabry was quoted as saying in the Times of India newspaper. "Other than that, no one is talking about claiming Katchatheevu."
India Needs More Leaders Like Manmohan Singh (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [4/8/2024 6:00 PM, Mihir Sharma, 5543K, Neutral]
Almost 10 years after he gave way to Narendra Modi as prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh retired last week from public life. During his long career, Singh also served as chief economist, central bank governor, finance minister, and foreign minister. Although he disappointed many who hoped he would accomplish more, India today owes much of its success to reforms he implemented.

Indeed, no other individual deserves more credit for the decades of economic liberalization that have lifted so many Indians out of poverty. Even as the economy impresses many as a bright spot for growth and progress, nobody who lived through Singh’s heyday as a policymaker in the 1990s and 2000s would deny that some energy, some momentum, has been lost.

Last week, Singh closed out his final term in the Rajya Sabha or Council of States, India’s upper house. Some would argue that his 33 years in that chamber, elected by state assemblies, are a reminder not just of the longevity of his political career but also of its limits: He was never a member of the directly elected lower house, unlike most of his predecessors as well as Modi. Singh could thus never claim the popular legitimacy that his successor wears so effortlessly.

The standard critique of Singh mingles this lack of legitimacy with his retiring manner and stilted speechmaking to create a picture of a weak man who just happened to make history. That narrative, however, falls apart at the slightest probing. As prime minister, Singh successfully managed an unwieldy coalition that was rarely in sympathy with his aims. On multiple occasions, he defied those erstwhile allies to ram through changes — opening up domestic sectors to foreign investment, signing a landmark nuclear deal with the US — that pushed India closer to the vision he had for the country.

Nor does Singh’s personal story — he walked miles to an Urdu-language school, studied by the light of a kerosene lamp, and eventually won a place at Oxford and an economics doctorate — speak to any sort of weakness. It would be truer to say he was cautious and careful about wielding power.

That may have been partly because of his lack of popular legitimacy. He also had an economist’s realism about the limitations of the Indian state.

Most importantly, Singh was mindful of the brittleness of Indian political consensus in a way only someone born before Independence in 1947 could be. He was the last of that generation in power; our political class no longer carries within it a sense of the fragility of India’s growth story and political unity.

Some of Singh’s caution and realism would come in handy today. India has grown a little too confident about its future. Economic growth is not our birthright; it must be earned through a constant stream of reforms and pro-growth policies.

Singh’s decade as prime minister was spent struggling with the global financial crisis, soaring oil prices, and his rancorous, left-leaning coalition. It is not hard to argue that, had he been granted the positive global climate and comfortable parliamentary majorities that Modi enjoys, he would have moved much quicker than his successor to implement the essential pro-growth reforms India needs. And he almost certainly would have been more careful about preserving the country’s federal structure and defending its liberal institutions.

Singh’s generation had a clear sense of the delicate nature of the Indian project: to bring the turbulence of growth to a disparate, poor nation while also keeping the country united and democratic. Former US President Barack Obama wrote that Singh once warned him: “In uncertain times, the call of religious and ethnic solidarity can be intoxicating.” It’s clear Singh felt his job was to resist that call.

Almost alone in his generation, Singh also had a clear vision for how that project should end — with India as a comfortably off bastion of liberal democracy, celebrating both its economic success and its diversity. Ten years after voters threw out Singh’s coalition, India’s future looks a lot murkier and the visions contending for that future are far less serene. Singh predicted, in his final press conference as prime minister, that history would judge him kindly. Perhaps it already has.
NSB
Rohingya who moved to island in Bangladesh are learning job skills, says Japanese charity chief (AP)
AP [4/9/2024 2:23 AM, Julhas Alam, 456K, Neutral]
Japan’s Nippon Foundation will spend $2 million to help move tens of thousands more Rohingya refugees to a remote island in Bangladesh and provide them with skills training, the charity’s chairman said.

Speaking to The Associated Press on Sunday after a visit to Bhashan Char, Yohei Sasakawa praised the support the government has provided to refugees on the island and said it’s a step toward returning them to Myanmar.

Some 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh after August 2017, when the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar began a harsh crackdown following an attack by insurgents. The crackdown included rapes, killings and the torching of thousands of homes, and was termed ethnic cleansing by global rights groups and the U.N., while the United States called it genocide.

Efforts to repatriate refugees to Myanmar under a 2017 agreement meditated by China have failed at least twice, and seem only more distant as the security situation worsens. Fighting has spread across much of Myanmar as the ruling junta loses ground to rebel and separatist groups in the country’s long-running civil war.

Sasakawa, who also serves as Japan’s Special Envoy for National Reconciliation in Myanmar, said that they’ll need jobs training to return: “After their return to Myanmar, if they have no skill whatsoever, then they would end up living poorly in the country. So having the skill training in Bhasan Char is going to help them greatly.”

The Nippon Foundation will fund moving some 40,000 Rohingya to the island, Sasakawa said.

While Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says the refugees will not be forced to return to Myanmar, she’s urged the international community to put pressure on the Buddhist-majority country to make safe return possible. More than a million Rohingya refugees live in crowded camps near the coastal city of Cox’s Bazaar along the border with Myanmar.

Bangladesh’s effort to relocate refugees to Bhasan Char — a low-lying island that was sometimes wholly submerged during monsoons — was initially opposed by the U.N. and many refugees, but it’s won acceptance as the first groups have settled in. An increasing number of Rohingya have agreed to make the move, and the U.N. and U.S. have committed funds to support the program.

“I was … quite impressed about how much support was given … in Bhasan Char island,” Sasakawa said. “And that support was being provided from the Bangladesh government, although the government itself is experiencing a very difficult fiscal state.”

The government has built a 10-kilometer-long embankment to protect the island from flooding, he says, as well as schools, hospitals and mosques, powered by solar energy.

Sasakawa, who visited Myanmar more than 150 times in recent years, said that the ultimate solution to the Rohingya crisis is their repatriation, but Myanmar’s return to democracy is also important.

In Rakhine state, from where more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 2017 amid chaos, rebel group Arakan Army has been attacking the government forces seeking autonomy.

Sasakawa said that the ethnic conflicts that have divided Myanmar for decades could be resolved under a return to democracy. “They wish down the road in the future to build a united Myanmar, meaning that the ethnic armed groups have no intention of becoming independent from Myanmar.”

Sasakawa said the regional bloc ASEAN — of which Myanmar is a member — should take the central role in engaging Myanmar.
Suspended Maldives minister apologises for social media post ‘disrespecting Indian flag’ (The Independent)
The Independent [4/8/2024 7:56 AM, Maroosha Muzaffar, 3055K, Neutral]
A former Maldives minister apologised on Monday after facing backlash for a social media post using a symbol that resembled the Ashok Chakra, a prominent feature of the Indian flag.

The post targeting the opposition, which has since been deleted, featured a campaign poster of a political party with the Ashok Chakra superimposed on the Maldivian flag.

Mariyam Shiuna, a member of president Mohamed Muizzu’s ruling party, used the post to criticise the opposition and urge support for her party. However, it led to outrage from Indian social media users, prompting her to remove it and apologise, clarifying that it was unintentional.

“I would like to address a recent social media post of mine that has garnered attention and criticism. I extend my sincerest apologies for any confusion or offence caused by the content of my recent post,” she wrote on X.

“It was brought to my attention that the image used in my response to the Maldivian opposition party MDP bore a resemblance to the Indian flag. I want to make it clear that this was entirely unintentional, and I sincerely regret any misunderstanding it may have caused.”

“Maldives deeply values its relationship and the mutual respect we share with India. In future I will be more vigilant in verifying the content I share to prevent such oversights,” the former member of parliament said.

Ms Shiuna’s post and apology come at a time of strained relations between the Maldives and India, exacerbated by remarks made by Maldivian officials, including Ms Shiuna, following Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep.

Earlier this year, Ms Shiuna was one of three deputy ministers who were suspended for posting derogatory comments about Mr Modi after they triggered a diplomatic row and a tourism boycott by its powerful South Asian neighbour.

The three ministers had called Mr Modi a “clown”, “terrorist” and “puppet of Israel” in posts on X after the Indian leader shared videos and pictures of himself visiting the Indian island of Lakshadweep to promote tourism.

Mr Modi’s posts praising “the stunning beauty of its islands” were seen by some social media users in Male as an attempt to lure tourists away from the Maldives to Lakshadweep.

Many Indians reacted to the posts proposing that Lakshadweep could serve as their country’s equivalent of the Maldives, which led to comparisons between the two and quickly escalated into a slugfest.

The Indian Foreign Ministry summoned Ibrahim Shaheeb, the envoy to the Maldives, over the remarks by the three ministers.

The ministry swiftly distanced itself from the comments and said these “opinions are personal and do not represent the views of the government of Maldives”.

Despite ongoing tensions, India remains a significant economic partner for the Maldives, providing essential imports like rice and medicine. However, there is a growing anti-India sentiment in the Maldives, fueled partly by concerns over India’s military presence and China’s increasing influence in the region.

Mr Muizzu last year “formally requested” the Indian government to “withdraw its military personnel” from the country, according to a statement from his office.

In January this year, the president took a jibe at India saying that the Maldives may be small but it “doesn’t give them the licence to bully us”, referring to India without naming it.
Mount Everest: Nepal to remove trash and dead bodies from world’s tallest mountain (CNN)
CNN [4/9/2024 12:52 AM, Lilit Marcus, 6.1M, Neutral]
As the 2024 Himalayan mountaineering season gets underway, another high-altitude project is in the works: removing tons of trash from Mount Everest.

According to the Nepali army, the Mountain Cleanup Campaign collected 110 tons of waste between 2019, when the program started, and 2023.

The army, which conducts the cleanup initiative in partnership with the multinational brand Unilever, will head up the campaign again this year.

Twelve members of the military, supported by 18 Sherpas, will arrive at Everest Base Camp on April 14 to begin the work.

In addition to removing an estimated 10 tons of garbage, the army said in a statement that they plan to bring five dead bodies off of the mountain. These bodies are of climbers who perished while attempting to summit the world’s highest peak.

In 2023, 12 climbers were confirmed to have died on Everest, with an additional five still officially unaccounted for.

Currently, the majority of those who try to climb the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) Himalayan peak do so via Nepal.

Last year, the Nepali government gave out a record-high 478 Everest hiking permits. However, that is not the total number of people who will be on the mountain, as Sherpa guides, support staffers and others are present with climbing groups.

As a result, overcrowding and trash have been two of the biggest problems plaguing Everest in recent years.

One of the biggest environmental issues has been human waste.

The 2024 climbing season will be the first to require all climbers to use government-distributed poop bags and bring their waste back down with them from the higher mountain camps.

“Each person produces 250 grams (8.8 ounces) of excrement a day and they will spend two weeks on the higher camps for the summit push,” Diwas Pokhrel, first vice president of Everest Summiteers Association, told CNN last month.

In addition, 2024 will be the first time that all Everest climbers are issued tracking chips, which can aid in search and rescue missions.
Sri Lanka turns to China for more investment help but move unlikely to strain ‘strong’ ties with India, US (South China Morning Post)
South China Morning Post [4/8/2024 7:30 AM, Maria Siow, 951K, Neutral]
Sri Lanka has limited options but to turn to China for help in financing massive infrastructural projects, but the move is not expected to become a debt trap for the island nor affect its relations with India and the United States.

While Chinese investments in the past are said to have made Sri Lanka “fiscally more vulnerable”, forthcoming Chinese funds pouring into the island would not be debt-funded but likely be in the form of equity investment by Chinese enterprises, according to experts.

On March 27, after talks with Beijing, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said China had pledged to develop the Colombo International Airport and Hambantota port.

In a joint statement issued on March 29, China’s foreign ministry said the two countries agreed to “make every effort to promote the Port City Colombo and Hambantota Development Project, turning them into flagship projects”.

The southern seaport of Hambantota was handed to a Chinese state-owned company in 2017 on a 99-year lease for US$1.12 billion, sparking security concerns from Beijing’s regional rival India.

Gunawardena added that China would assist Sri Lanka’s restructuring of external debt, a key condition to maintaining a US$2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Chinese statement said Beijing was willing to “continue supporting its financial institutions to actively negotiate with Sri Lanka”, as well as “play a positive role in the IMF, and assist Sri Lanka in financial relief”.

China is the largest bilateral creditor of Sri Lanka, which declared bankruptcy in 2022 and suspended repayments on some US$83 billion in local and foreign loans after it ran out of foreign reserves.

International relations analyst Shakthi De Silva said Sri Lanka turned to China as Beijing had been its main development partner in both projects.

“Given Sri Lanka’s prevailing economic situation, its ability to acquire foreign economic support for the development of both projects is limited,” he said.

While the economic situation in Sri Lanka has started to gradually improve following its worst economic crisis two years ago, according to the IMF last month, Sri Lankans are said to have lost buying power due to high taxes and currency devaluation.

Unemployment also remains high, as industries that collapsed at the height of the crisis have not yet resumed operations.

While India and Western countries have expressed concerns about China’s presence in Hambantota for years, De Silva said the latest move was unlikely to strain the island’s ties with New Delhi or Washington.

Chinese research vessels have previously docked at Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka, raising India’s concerns about Beijing’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean.

De Silva noted that the US had in February said it would give the Sri Lanka Navy a fourth coastguard cutter – to be used for maritime operations and law enforcement missions – and in November pledged to invest US$553 million to build a new container terminal in Colombo.

“Ties with India are similarly strong, the island should therefore be able to assuage any concerns both states may have,” De Silva said.

During Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, India provided economic and humanitarian assistance of over US$4.5 billion and supported Colombo’s debt-restructuring efforts. India has also invested in the island’s energy and oil refinery projects.

Neil DeVotta, politics and international affairs professor at Wake Forest University in the US, said the offer to further develop the Hambantota Port was part of nine bilateral agreements and could be viewed as a development package.

But since no details on the signed memorandums of understanding were provided, DeVotta said it was unclear if the move was a “win-win investment” or whether it would be more “aligned with Chinese strategic interests at the expense of Sri Lanka”.

“Unfortunately, the construction of the Hambantota Port is yet to benefit people in that region even as it has made Sri Lanka fiscally more vulnerable,” DeVotta said.

The southern seaport of Hambantota was launched by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, in power for a decade until 2015, who reportedly borrowed heavily from Beijing for projects that many criticised as a debt trap that led to the worst economic crisis in Sri Lanka’s history.

Poverty in the nation doubled between 2021 and 2022, climbing from 13 to 25 per cent, while urban poverty tripled from 5 to 15 per cent, according to the World Bank.

No ‘debt trap’

However, analyst De Silva said allegations of a Chinese debt trap were “put to rest” several years ago.

Noting that the island defaulted in 2022 on its US$46 billion of foreign debt and that a sizeable portion of this was to China, De Silva said accusations that Colombo gave a 99- year lease on the port due to “Chinese coercion or because Sri Lanka was cornered to accept the deal by China has been proven false”.

Citing an IMF report, he noted that as of December 2022, the government owed US$1.633 billion to International Sovereign Bond (ISB) holders, US$338 million to China Development Bank, and US$7 million to other foreign commercial creditors.

Studies done on Sri Lanka’s debt have shown that repayments on dollar-denominated ISBs or Eurobonds borrowed from international capital markets “were more than twice the share of debt to China”, De Silva said.

“Sri Lanka was therefore in a debt trap of its own doing,” De Silva said, adding that Colombo might be reluctant to absorb further loans for developmental projects “if the terms are onerous to the island”, especially in the short to medium term.

“Foreign leaders will also be reluctant to pile onto Sri Lanka’s debt given its fragile economic situation and the potential backlash this may arouse,” De Silva added.

Toshiro Nishizawa, professor at The University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, said Chinese assistance to the airport and port would not be debt-funded but likely be in the form of equity investment by Chinese enterprises with limited government engagement.

An equity investment is money that is invested in a company by purchasing shares of that company in the stock market.

“Therefore, the Chinese proposal is unlikely to result in further debt issues for Colombo,” Nishizawa said.
Central Asia
Millions Of Kazakhs Watch As Ex-Minister Goes On Trial For Wife’s Brutal Death (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/8/2024 1:53 PM, Chris Rickleton, 223K, Neutral]
"How can you say that? Unintended? You were beating her to death for several hours!"

Saltanat Nukenova’s grief-stricken mother could not restrain herself after the man accused of killing her daughter -- a man who once served as Kazakhstan’s economy minister -- attempted to explain his not-guilty plea to the court.

And she had to leave the courtroom when photos of her daughter’s injuries -- sustained immediately prior to her death in November in a restaurant owned by the ex-minister’s family -- were shown in court.

The judge in the case taking place in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, has forbidden the swelling press pack covering the trial from reproducing the images.

Journalists have also been told they cannot film or photograph members of the 10-member jury who, with the judge, will decide the fate of the wealthy businessman.

Those understandable restrictions aside, the trial of 43-year-old former Economy Minister Quandyq Bishimbaev for the murder of his 31-year-old wife, Nukenova, has been digested in real time in a way without precedent in Kazakh history.

For millions of Kazakhs the courtroom proceedings streamed live by the Supreme Court and picked up by some of the country’s largest online media has made for compulsive, if often harrowing, viewing.

‘Portrait Of Our Political Elite’

Around 400 women die from domestic violence every year in Kazakhstan, according to UN Women, the United Nations agency for gender equality and the empowerment of women. Actual numbers may be even higher.

Yet for the moment, the public conversation around the trial is focused less on that broader trend and more on the behavior of the trial’s main defendant.

When he was appointed economy minister in 2016, Bishimbaev was being put forward as the next generation of Kazakh officialdom: forward-thinking, patriotic, and polished by a stint in a U.S. university thanks to funding from Bolashaq, the Kazakh state scholarship program.

A favorite of first President Nursultan Nazarbaev, his firing just six months after his appointment and subsequent arrest on corruption charges registered as a minor earthquake within the political elite.

But he was pardoned under an amnesty initiated by Nazarbaev and, during the time that he might otherwise have spent in jail, divorced his previous wife and married Nukenova.

Bishimbaev’s first proper address to the court on April 1 featured an apology to Nukenova’s family, triggering her mother’s outburst.

His position remains that he "caused her death" but did not intend it. After that explanation, he and his legal team repeatedly painted Nukenova as psychologically unstable and prone to violence, jealousy, and alcohol abuse.

Security camera footage from the November 9 incident shown to the court on April 3 shows Bishimbaev grabbing Nukenova by the hair, then punching and kicking her. He admitted there was even more violence in the bathroom, where there were no cameras.

But Bishimbaev claimed under oath that an out-of-control Nukenova fell on the toilet, causing the most severe of the blows that she sustained. He also disputed medical expertise that indicated that Nukenova had sustained at least a dozen individual blows to the head that night, ultimately causing her death.

None of the footage shown to the court shows Nukenova assaulting Bishimbaev.

On April 3, as Bishimbaev gave his account of the violence on that November morning, Nukenova’s brother, Aitbek Amangeldi, appeared to be on the verge of sickness and the judge called for a pause in the proceedings.

But by then, another sensational headline had written itself after Bishimbaev acknowledged that with Nukenova still in a state of shock after the violence, he chose to phone a soothsayer that he had regularly consulted for advice instead of an ambulance.

"This person -- if you can call him such -- was our economy minister, friends!" vented Murat Daniyar, the host of the Jurttyn Balasy (Son of the People) podcast, one of several Kazakh bloggers who have dedicated multiple episodes of their YouTube shows to the trial.

"This is a portrait of our political elite!" he added.

Minister, Man-Child? Murderer?

Amangeldi has been responsible for some of the most surprising testimony provided to the court.

On March 29, he showed photos he said were sent to him by Nukenova after an earlier alleged incident of violence by Bishimbaev. They showed Nukenova with two black eyes and swollen lips.

Amangeldi said he and Bishimbaev had a fight on the night that he received the photos and recalled how Nukenova had elected to stay with Bishimbaev at their apartment and "save the marriage" rather than leave with her brother.

Bishimbaev said Amangeldi was drunk that night and attacked him with a knife, adding that he had not inflicted the bruises on his wife’s face. That confrontation was in March 2023.

But Amangeldi, whose uncle is a former governor of the northern province of Pavlodar, testified to witnessing worrying behavior on Bishimbaev’s part at a New Year’s Eve dinner hosted by the Bishimbaev family.

During the dinner, Amangeldi said, Bishimbaev had a meltdown over the handing out of New Year’s presents and stormed off after accusing his father of ruining his and his mother’s life.

While Amangeldi said he made an early exit that night, he claimed a distraught Nukenova later phoned him to tell him that Bishimbaev had returned to the party and overturned the table where guests were sitting, still full of rage.

Bishimbaev has accused Amangeldi and other Nukenova relatives of organizing a "PR campaign" against him. But suggestions that Bishimbaev engaged in regular controlling behavior are harder to dismiss -- especially when the evidence comes from the defense.

In the hearing on April 8, Bishimbaev’s lawyer read out a "statement" allegedly handwritten by Nukenova and addressed to Bishimbaev in which she promised to "regularly go to a psychologist, work on myself, work on my trust, be sincere, obedient, and respect Quandyq."

Furthermore, Nukenova purportedly promised to "pray together with Quandyq .. work on my consciousness, grow spiritually, and take care of my home and our love with the help of Allah."

If the alleged evidence was intended to be an indication of past wrongdoing on Nukenova’s part, it fell flat. "That is the first time I have heard of a wife writing a husband something like that," remarked the trial’s hard-nosed judge, Aizhan Kulbaeva, clearly surprised.

Nukenova’s family lawyer Igor Vranchev immediately cast doubt on the veracity of the statement. "I would not be surprised if before the end of the proceedings we have another statement from Saltanat Nukenova, probably addressed to the court and jury [saying] that the toilet is to blame for everything," he said, in comments reported by the privately owned website Tengrinews.

‘Saltanat’s Law’

It is worth noting that many high-profile Kazakh trials lack these elements of courtroom drama precisely because they are taking place in Kazakhstan.

Lawyer Dzhokhar Utebekov argued in an April 5 commentary for Forbes Kazakhstan that in most trials the prosecution and judge work as a "tandem" in a judicial system in which acquittals are rare and independence sorely lacking.

Public and international interest in this trial has made business as usual impossible, Utebekov argued, resulting in a trial that is "correctly organized." But the more open process has also revealed the shortcomings of some of the trial’s participants, the lawyer said, singling out the prosecutor for dropping the ball on more than one occasion.

Cynics have already argued that the courtroom show is a beneficial public distraction for the administration of President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.

Bishimbaev, their argument runs, was an official from the era of Toqaev’s predecessor, 83-year-old Nazarbaev -- a man whom the head of state now wants to distance himself from.

The trial is also taking place during Kazakhstan’s worst floods this century -- a catastrophe that has necessitated more than 75,000 evacuations to date, while laying bare what the government admits was poor preparation.

But as other commentators with large online followings have countered, Kazakhstan’s system has not changed enough for Bishimbaev not to be considered symbolic of it. That means that even a heavy sentence -- life imprisonment is possible only if the judge and the 10 jurors unanimously back the charge of "murder with particular cruelty" -- may not be enough to remove his stain on the body politic.

And the government is already facing another wave of public pressure to prove its commitment to preventing violence against women, via a new law fully criminalizing domestic violence.

Officials have said such a law is in the works after more than 150,000 signatories demanded amendments to the Criminal Code in the weeks after Nukenova’s death. In a January interview with state media, Toqaev said he was "clearly and unequivocally" in favor of tougher penalties and called on society to show "zero tolerance" for domestic violence.

But a group of activists, recalling that the authorities have backtracked on a similar law in the past, have gone a step further, launching a letter-writing campaign to lawmakers, with more than 5,000 messages sent through the state portal.

The campaign was posted under a hashtag -- #ZakonSaltanat: Saltanat’s law.
Russia seeks gasoline from Kazakhstan in case of shortages, sources say (Reuters)
Reuters [4/8/2024 10:52 AM, Staff, 5239K, Negative]
Russia has asked Kazakhstan to stand ready to supply it with 100,000 tons of gasoline in case of shortages exacerbated by Ukrainian drone attacks and outages, three industry sources told Reuters.

One of the sources said a deal on using reserves for Russia has already been agreed.

Shyngys Ilyasov, an advisor to Kazakhstan’s energy minister, said the energy ministry has not received such a request from its Russian counterpart.

Russian energy ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

Neighbouring Belarus has already agreed to help Russia with gasoline supply.

Drone attacks had knocked out some 14% of Russian primary oil refining capacity as of end-March. So far authorities have said the situation on domestic fuel markets is stable and stockpiles large enough.

Russia is usually a net exporter of fuel and a supplier to international markets but the refinery disruptions have forced its oil companies to import.

The sources said Moscow asked Kazakhstan to set up an emergency reserve of 100,000 metric tons of gasoline ready to supply to Russia.

Moscow imposed a gasoline export ban for six months from March 1 to prevent acute fuel shortages, although it does not apply to the Moscow-led Eurasian economic union, including Kazakhstan, as well as some countries, such as Mongolia, with which it has inter-government deals on fuel supplies.

However, traders said the ban could be widened if the situation in Russia worsens.

Last week, the Orsk oil refinery in the Urals halted production due to widespread floods, which also affected Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan, the world’s largest land-locked country, has also restricted fuel exports until the end of the year, apart from for humanitarian purposes.

According to the sources, Kazakhstan’s reserves of Ai-92 gasoline stood at 307,700 tons as of April 5 and Ai-95 gasoline stockpiles at 58,000 tons. Diesel reserves were 435,300 tons and jet fuel inventories totalled 101,000 tons.
Thousands Evacuated In Russia, Kazakhstan Amid Raging Floodwaters (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/8/2024 7:55 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Thousands of residents have been evacuated in southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan as melting snow and a burst dam continue to raise water levels that aren’t expected to crest for another day.

Vasily Kozupitsa, mayor of the city of Orsk in Russia’s southern region of Orenburg, which borders Kazakhstan, said on April 8 that residents of the city’s districts along the Yelshanka River were being evacuated as the river’s waters rose dramatically.

Since April 5, the floods have twice caused the partial collapse of a dam on the Ural River in Orsk, a city of 230,000, after which half of the city’s old town found itself underwater.

The Investigative Committee has since launched a probe into what it called "negligence and the violation of safety regulations" by the dam’s builders.

The Kremlin said water levels in some areas had risen at their fastest rate in a century, while local officials say they don’t expect water levels to stop rising until April 9 at the earliest.

High water levels have also affected the region’s capital, Orenburg, a city of more than 500,000, where the water level on the Ural River, which also crosses into the territory of neighboring Kazakhstan, where it is known as the Oral River, continues to rise.

According to the latest official data, 10,200 residential buildings and 18,500 households in the Orenburg region have been damaged by the floods. Rescue teams evacuated more than 6,100 people, of whom more than 1,000 have been placed in temporary shelters.

Officials in another Russian region bordering Kazakhstan, Kurgan, declared a state of emergency over the abrupt jump in the water level in the Tobol River in recent days. According to officials, some 60 communities face floods in that region.

Residents living near the Tobol River in Kurgan are being evacuated. Local authorities announced on April 8 that schools will be converted into temporary shelters. Children will continue their schoolwork online from home.

In recent weeks, massive snow melting caused by abrupt warm weather led to heavy floods in the Russian regions of Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and the Altai Krai.

In neighboring Kazakhstan, officials in the western region of Atyrau introduced a state of emergency on April 7 due to the floods.

Kazakhstan’s Emergencies Ministry said on April 7 that two people had died while trying to reach a house affected by high waters in the town of Kulsary.

According to the ministry, more than 72,000 people, including 16,000 children, were evacuated across several Kazakh regions.

The floods affected the regions of Abai, Aqmola, Aqtobe, Atyrau, North Kazakhstan, Qaraghandy, Qostanai, and West Kazakhstan, the ministry said.

The ministry said earlier that four people had gone missing in the Central Asian nation’s northeastern region of Abai during the floods.

In a televised statement on April 6, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev called the floods the largest natural disaster to hit the country in the past 80 years.

In Orsk, the city most impacted by the flooding, hundreds of residents gathered outside the mayor’s office to complain about the amount of compensation from the state and lack of early warning.

Local prosecutors warned Orsk residents against taking part in unsanctioned protests.
Kazakhstan downplaying Victory Day commemoration (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [4/8/2024 4:14 PM, Almaz Kumenov, 57.6K, Neutral]
Kazakhstan’s Defense Ministry has cancelled commemorative events, including a military parade, on May 9 to mark the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Political and economic factors appear to have played a role in the decision.

Victory Day, as the May 9 celebration is known across the former Soviet Union, has become Russia’s primary state holiday in the years since 1991. Elsewhere in the former Soviet empire, the occasion has receded in significance. In Kazakhstan, a military parade hasn’t been on May 9 since 2019. Even so, commemorative events honoring veterans have continued to be staged across the country.

Defense Ministry officials call it a cost-savings decision. The funds used to commemorate May 9 will instead go to “solve other problems,” including “maintaining the required level of combat readiness and mobility of units of the Armed Forces of Kazakhstan,” Kazakh media reported. The Defense Ministry added that the cost of previous May 9 ceremonies reached 4 billion tenge, or about $9 million.

The first two cancellations of the Victory Day military parade in 2020 and 2021 were attributed to Covid pandemic precautions. Since then, the Defense Ministry has cited the prohibitive cost.

Political observers in Kazakhstan believe geopolitics is a significant factor in the downplaying of Victory Day. Some say the continuing lack of May 9 festivities is a sign of the Kazakh government’s unease with Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, adding that officials don’t want to send any signals that could be interpreted as endorsing Russian actions. At the same time, many worry about the possibility of the Kremlin making territorial claims against northern Kazakhstan once Russian military operations in Ukraine end.

From a street-level perspective, a military parade no longer makes much sense to Kazakh citizens. “Military parades are an archaism that evokes nothing but irony. Why show the world your military armor and rattle your weapons?” public figure Murat Telibekov said in an interview with the Karavan newspaper. “The war in Ukraine showed what the second army of the world actually turned out to be.”

This year, there is also a powerful economic reason for the cancellation of commemorative events: it would be bad optics for the government to splurge on a military extravagance at a time when the country is pressed to clean up after the worst flooding in 80 years destroyed homes and infrastructure, killing livestock and displacing thousands.
Ombudsman Confirms Jailed Kyrgyz Journalist Attacked By Guards (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/8/2024 10:48 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Representatives of the Kyrgyz Ombudsman’s Institute have confirmed that guards physically attacked journalist Makhabat Tajibek-kyzy and two of her cellmates in a detention center in the capital.

Representatives of the ombudsman told RFE/RL over the weekend that they visited Tajibek-kyzy in the detention center on April 6 and confirmed bruises on her hands, face, and under her left arm outlined in a complaint she filed that day.

Prosecutors subsequently said they had launched a preliminary investigation into Tajibek-kyzy’s complaint.

Tajibek-kyzy is the wife of prominent investigative journalist Bolot Temirov, the founder of the Temirov Live investigative group, who was deported to Moscow in November 2022 after a court ruled that he illegally obtained Kyrgyz citizenship, which he denies.

Tajibek-kyzy and seven current and former reporters of Temirov Live were sent to pretrial detention in January on charges of "calling for mass riots," which the journalists and rights groups have rejected as politically motivated.

In a statement issued on April 7, Temirov linked the guards’ attack on his wife to his recent investigative reports about President Sadyr Japarov’s trip to Italy with his family and a fact-checking analysis of a public statement by the chief of the State Committee for National Security (UKMK), Kamchybek Tashiev, denying his involvement in corrupt activities.

"I consider it a warning sent to me through the beating of my wife in custody," Temirov said.

Kyrgyz-based and international human rights groups have urged the government to immediately release the Temirov Live journalists and drop all charges against them.

Kyrgyzstan’s media and civil society have traditionally been the most vibrant in Central Asia. But that has changed amid a deepening government crackdown.

Last week, Japarov signed into law a controversial bill that allows the authorities to register organizations as "foreign representatives," which critics say mirrors a repressive Russian law on "foreign agents" that Moscow uses to muzzle free press and NGOs.
At Baku’s Request, Kyrgyzstan Extradites 5 With Alleged Links To Matraimov (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/8/2024 8:08 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on April 8 that it extradited to Azerbaijan five alleged members of "an organized criminal group" linked to the former deputy chief of the Central Asian nation’s customs service, Raimbek Matraimov, at Baku’s request.

The five were removed from the country on April 7, the UKMK said.

Last month, the committee said that its officers had detained five Azerbaijani citizens suspected of being members of a transnational criminal group who planned "attacks on Kyrgyzstan’s top officials."

On March 23, the UKMK said that the five had links with Matraimov, who at the time was wanted in Kyrgyzstan on charges of money laundering, abduction, and illegal incarceration. Matraimov was hiding in Azerbaijan at the time.

On March 25, Azerbaijani authorities arrested Matraimov and his three brothers in Baku. A day later, they were extradited to Bishkek.

On March 27, the Birinchi Mai district court in Bishkek ruled that Matraimov and his brothers -- Tilek, Islambek, and Ruslan -- must stay in a UKMK detention center until at least April 26.

Matraimov in 2020-21 was at the center of a high-profile corruption scandal involving the funneling of close to $1 billion out of Kyrgyzstan.

In February 2021, a Bishkek court ordered pretrial custody for Matraimov in connection with the corruption charges. He received a mitigated sentence that involved fines amounting to just a few thousand dollars but no jail time.

The court justified the move by saying that Matraimov had paid back around $24 million that had disappeared through corruption schemes that he oversaw.

In November, the chairman of the state security service, Kamchybek Tashiev, accused Matraimov and the late crime boss Kamchy Kolbaev (aka Kamchybek Asanbek), who in 2011 was added by Washington to a list of major global drug-trafficking suspects, of "forming a mafia in Kyrgyzstan."

Matraimov left Kyrgyzstan in October after Kolbaev was killed in a special security operation in Bishkek. In January, the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry said Matraimov was added to the UKMK’s wanted list.

In 2019, an investigation by RFE/RL, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and Kloop implicated Matraimov in a corruption scheme involving the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars out of Kyrgyzstan.

Last month, a court in neighboring Uzbekistan sentenced Kolbaev’s close associate, influential Uzbek crime boss Salim Abduvaliev, to six years in prison on charges of illegal possession and transportation of arms and explosives.

Abduvaliev is believed to have ties with top Uzbek officials and leaders of the so-called Brothers’ Circle, a Eurasian drug-trafficking network that included Kolbaev.
Italy arrests Tajik man suspected of belonging to Islamic State (Reuters)
Reuters [4/8/2024 11:57 AM, Alvise Armellini, 5239K, Negative]
Italian police on Monday arrested a man from Tajikistan wanted for terrorism-related crimes and suspected of being an active member of the Islamic State militant group, a police statement said.

The man, described as a fugitive targeted by an international arrest warrant, was stopped after landing at Rome’s Fiumicino airport from Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

He was identified only by his initials, "S.I.".

Italian authorities did not make any reference to Russia and to last month’s deadly attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, for which several Tajiks living in Russia have been arrested.

The police statement did not say which country had issued the warrant for him. It said the suspect used several fake identities, including from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.

The statement also said the man was born in 1992 and had enrolled in 2014 as a foreign fighter for the Islamic State in Syria.
Turkey Ends Visa-Free Access for Tajik Citizens (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [4/8/2024 3:54 PM, Catherine Putz, 201K, Negative]
Since 2018, Tajik citizens have been able to travel to Turkey for up to 90 days without a visa. That opening is closing soon, with Turkish authorities announcing that a visa regime will be put in place starting April 20.

The announcement came in the wake of the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow on March 22, in which four attackers slaughtered more than 140 people. The four alleged attackers, detained by Russian authorities and clearly tortured, are reportedly Tajik citizens. Although the Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based affiliate, ISKP, has claimed responsibility for the attack, Moscow has contorted itself to link the incident to Ukraine, hewing to the old adage “never waste a good crisis.” And officials in Dushanbe aren’t arguing either; they also known how to capitalize on a crisis.

In the meantime, ethnic Tajiks living in Russia – either as Russian citizens or migrant workers – and other Central Asians have faced increased stigmatization, discrimination, and possible deportation. As RFE/RL reported in late March, as Russian authorities stepped up immigration enforcement, many Tajiks began to leave the country on their own.

The world is shrinking for Tajik passport holders.

On April 6, a decision dated the previous day by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was published. The announcement stated: “It has been decided to abolish the visa exemption for ordinary passport holders of Tajikistan during their travels to Turkey…”

Tajik Foreign Ministry Press Secretary Shokhin Samadi told Asia-Plus that Dushanbe had not been officially notified of the change. “According to international practice, the Turkish side should have notified the Tajik side in advance about the date of introduction of the visa regime for citizens of Tajikistan,” he said. “We note that the Tajik side has not yet received such information through diplomatic channels.”

Samadi reportedly cited reciprocity, suggesting that Tajikistan is considering the introduction of a visa regime for Turkish citizens in response.

On April 7, Turkey’s embassy in Dushanbe clarified, posting a notice that “Visa-free travel to Turkey for citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan… has been lifted by order of the President’s Office” and adding that the new visa regime, under which Tajik citizens would need to acquire a valid visa before traveling, would go into effect on April 20.

“The visa regime is expected to be temporary,” the notice said.

According to Asia-Plus, at present there are now 18 countries to which Tajik passport holders can travel without a visa, with durations varying widely. These include regional neighbors Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan (but not Turkmenistan), Russia and a number of other former Soviet republics, as well as Barbados, Haiti, the Philippines, Malaysia, and North Korea, among others.

Russia is a major destination for Central Asian labor migrants. It’s estimated that around a million Tajiks are working in Russia at any given time, a significant portion of Tajikistan’s 9.9 million population. Remittances to Tajikistan, as a share of GDP, reached 51 percent in 2022 – $5.3 billion. And hundreds of thousands of Tajiks have taken up Russian citizenship since the mid-1990s, with a considerable uptick in recent years. According to official Russian figures cited by RFE/RL, “more than 103,000 Tajik nationals obtained Russian citizenship in 2021. It marked a significant uptick from five years ago when only around 30,000 Tajiks received Russian passports.”

A recent New York Times headline sums the situation up: “In Moscow Attack, a Handful of Suspects but a Million Tajiks Under Suspicion.” Tajiks are not just under suspicion in Russia, as evidenced by Turkey’s decision to impose a new visa regime. Turkey has long been a migration, and vacation, destination for Central Asians; it has also served as something akin to a safe haven (although not really all that safe) for regional dissidents.
Twitter
Afghanistan
SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[4/8/2024 7:00 AM, 169.7K followers, 7 likes]
(1/4) Last quarter, UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, called for more direct engagement with Taliban, addressing specifically Taliban’s restrictions on girls secular education and recent moves to expand madrassas

SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[4/8/2024 7:00 AM, 169.7K followers]
(2/4) Otunbayeva said the UN is receiving “more and more anecdotal evidence” girls being permitted to attend madrassas. “It is not entirely clear...what constitutes a madrassa,” and whether the madrassa curriculum allows for modern educational subjects

SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[4/8/2024 7:00 AM, 169.7K followers]
(3/4) More than 70 Afghan women, including former judges, activists & diplomats, along with some human rights orgs, wrote open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, calling Otunbayeva’s remarks “utterly irresponsible,” perceiving them as “normalizing the education…

SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[4/8/2024 7:00 AM, 169.7K followers]
(4/4)…ban for girls.” The letter said, “The Taliban are an ideological militant group that uses religion and people’s religious beliefs for their political and military purposes” https://sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2024-01-30qr-section2.pdf#page=25

Bilal Sarwary
@bsarwary
[4/9/2024 12:54 AM, 252.8K followers, 98 retweets, 135 likes]
Taliban in India! A security and Defence source in Kabul confirmed that 3 Taliban GDI officers, (disguised as diplomats) have arrived in New Delhi in the February of this year. They are currently residing in one of the three buildings of the Afghan embassy in the diplomatic enclave of Chanakya Puri area. Afghan embassy has 3 buidling compounds and the Taliban are staying in building C, where six residential apartments are located. They have been strictly requested by their Indian security counterparts to fully avoid going to the Afghan embassy and also to refrain from public engagements. Their presence is likely to serve the purpose of effectively coordination and fast communication with the Indian officials on issues of security, economic, and regional interests. Taliban’s diplomats official presence may be acknowledged by New Delhi after the upcoming general elections in India.
Taliban are largely not favorably viewed by many Indians, particularly by the BJP’s supporters. It is also reported that Indian officials visit these three “Taliban diplomats” on a regular basis, and the current acting CDA of the Afghan embassy in New Delhi reports to them on daily basis. The question for many Afghans is that who is more closer to Taliban at present? Is it India or their once great supporter Pakistan? And should common Afghans trust India as their key regional partner in the future? Many questions would need convincing answers before New Delhi could ever get closer to be a strategic partner of Afghanistan as it was over the past 20 years.

Bilal Sarwary
@bsarwary
[4/8/2024 5:36 PM, 252.8K followers, 11 retweets, 42 likes]
With censorship and crackdown against media, Facebook is now the next target for the stifling of the voices. Taliban’s Acting Minister of Telecommunications on either shutting down FB in Afghanistan or limiting its content. But it begs the question why now as why the Taliban had no problem using Facebook for their propaganda for years. Is it the public questioning Taliban’s cruel and wicked policies? Even Taliban members are exprsssing their disapproval on the platform.

Amrullah Saleh
@AmrullahSaleh2
[4/8/2024 4:26 AM, 1.1M followers, 44 retweets, 285 likes]
The resilient & proud intelligence unit of Afghanistan Green Trend (AGT) @AGTAfghanistan has compiled an eye opening report on the status of the Taliban air fleet. The report has provided details on types of the air assets, tail numbers, locations and technical conditions. The training facilities of the Republic time for the Afghan air force have been completely destroyed or mishandled. The Taliban lie about the number of air frames that are in working conditions. The note to the report, which I fully echo, asks the remaining pilots to stop flying and be ashamed of saluting the members of the Quetta Shura, members of the Miramshah and Peshawar Shura, remember the fallen heroes of the ANDSF that you evacuated, remember your comrades who served or died with honor. The intelligence unit has a constant and regular monitoring of the remnants of the air force and has asked the pilots to take this warning seriously or be responsible for the consequence of your own recklessness. The Taliban use these air assets for repression and against the legitimate resistance of the Afghan people who suffer under the most brutal and cruel clerical dictatorship the history has ever seen. Freedom is on the way and the Taliban can’t cage or jail Afghanistan forever.

WHO Afghanistan
@WHOAfghanistan
[4/9/2024 12:43 AM, 92.6K followers, 8 likes]
.@WHO donated nearly US$ 105,000 worth of medicine & medical items to Kunduz Regional Hospital to support the provision of essential health services to almost 72,000 people. The donation included emergency kits, trauma kits, operation sets, dressing sets & other consumable items.

Beth Bailey
@BWBailey85
[4/8/2024 8:03 AM, 6.2K followers, 8 retweets, 38 likes]
Advocating for the Afghan Adjustment Act introduced veteran advocate @Justavet11 to Americans around the country who deeply care about Afghans. Hear more about James’ experience supporting Afghan allies in Ep. 50 of The Afghanistan Project Podcast: https://youtu.be/GEwV4lMLS38?si=BGcfD5qcsJAZdBnQ

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[4/8/2024 6:13 PM, 2.5K followers, 5 retweets, 6 likes]
Women and girls face heightened vulnerability under the Taliban’s unrecognized regime, which limits their access to health services and imposes restrictions on their ability to travel long distances. Numerous reports indicate that the regime: https://kabulnow.com/2024/04/over-18-million-afghans-need-healthcare-assistance-says-who/
Pakistan
Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[4/8/2024 3:33 AM, 73.1K followers, 22 retweets, 112 likes]
Breaking: #Iran’s President Raeesi to visit Pakistan in a bid to repair ties following skirmishes between Pakistan and Iran earlier this year — He will visit Pakistan for 3 days starting April 22nd, will be the first head of State to visit Pakistan after the new Govts formation.

Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[4/8/2024 3:46 AM, 73.1K followers, 15 retweets, 94 likes]
During the visit of Irani President, the crucial Iran - Pakistan Gas pipeline and its framework too will be discussed -- The 3 day visit that starts from 22nd April will make #Iran’s President to be the First Head of State to visit #Pakistan since the formation of the new govt
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/8/2024 11:59 PM, 97M followers, 1.3K retweets, 6.8K likes]
In Chandrapur yesterday, glad to have met Dr. Parshuram Komaji Khune, who was honored with the Padma Shri last year. His remarkable work, leveraging drama and folk art to uplift tribal communities, has earned him widespread respect. His efforts have helped boost culture and encourage social awareness.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/8/2024 5:31 AM, 97M followers, 4K retweets, 16K likes]
Here is my interview with @assamtribuneoff, in which I talk about diverse subjects, particularly the transformation in the Northeast. https://assamtribune.com/north-east/ne-is-indias-greatest-success-story-modi-1529558

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[4/8/2024 9:49 PM, 24.1M followers, 76 retweets, 537 likes]
Today, 9th April, I shall be in Arunachal Pradesh. Looking forward to address a public meeting at Namsai in Arunachal Pradesh East constituency

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[4/8/2024 10:40 AM, 24.1M followers, 256 retweets, 1.4K likes]
Tremendous energy and excitement was visible when the people turned up in large numbers during the Roadshows in Namakkal and Tenkasi Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu. The BJP led NDA has a leader like PM Shri @narendramodi, a vision for India’s development, and a mission to take the country forward. In contrast, Congress lacks both energy and synergy within the INDI alliance. Urged the people to vote for the BJP-led NDA for peace, stability, and prosperity.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[4/9/2024 12:47 AM, 3.1M followers, 97 retweets, 707 likes]
Greetings to all celebrating the auspicious festivals of Navreh and Sajibu Cheiraoba. May the joyous occasion bring prosperity and harmony.

Richard Rossow
@RichardRossow
[4/9/2024 3:02 AM, 28.7K followers, 3 likes]
U.S. exports to India have dropped 12% year-on-year, and imports from India are down 4.5%. https://bit.ly/3HJzK82

Richard Rossow
@RichardRossow
[4/8/2024 8:01 AM, 28.7K followers, 1 retweet, 5 likes]
U.S.-India goods trade is below $10b for the fourth month in a row after surpassing this level in 22 of the prior 25 months. https://bit.ly/3HJzK82

Samir Saran
@samirsaran
[4/8/2024 4:31 PM, 126.7K followers, 62 retweets, 167 likes]
‘Great Power Partnership’ US-India Partnership enjoys strong tailwinds, but its success is not inevitable…requires a considered understanding of the cultural, demographic, and political drivers at work...discourse in media is prone to mistrust/skepticism https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-us-needs-a-new-paradigm-for-india-great-power-partnership

Ravi Agrawal
@RaviReports
[4/8/2024 11:06 AM, 16.3K followers, 21 retweets, 34 likes]
.@ForeignPolicy’s Spring magazine just dropped. This one’s all about India, which heads to the polls next week. From our perspective at FP, India is exhibit A when it comes to rising middle powers looking to take advantage of an evolving global order.

Ravi Agrawal
@RaviReports
[4/8/2024 11:06 AM, 16.3K followers, 25 retweets, 57 likes]
India is becoming more confident but also less liberal. It is prioritizing religion (Hinduism) in a way that Nehru, its first prime minister, feared. Modi has a different idea of India. The question is, how much of this change is supply versus demand? https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/08/india-modi-bjp-elections/

Ravi Agrawal
@RaviReports
[4/8/2024 11:06 AM, 16.3K followers, 5 retweets, 11 likes]
No discussion of India is complete without a look at its economy. Former CEA @arvindsubraman and @FelmanJosh describe bullish signs for India’s economy with one big caveat: investors at home and abroad seem skittish about India. Why? https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/08/is-india-really-the-next-china/

Ravi Agrawal
@RaviReports
[4/8/2024 11:06 AM, 16.3K followers, 5 retweets, 8 likes]
If you want to understand how New Delhi can be buddies with Washington while buying lots of oil from Moscow, then you need to read @iyengarish’s profile of S. Jaishankar, India’s savvy foreign minister. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/05/india-foreign-policy-jaishankar-modi-hindu-nationalism/

Jeremi Suri
@JeremiSuri
[4/8/2024 8:35 PM, 7.1K followers, 4 retweets, 3 likes]
In a few days, #India will hold the largest democratic elections in history. Our discussion with leading expert, @MilanV. @CarnegieEndow @CarnegieSAsia #GrandTamasha @TheLBJSchool @UTAustin @UT_HistDept @ALTERforATX
NSB
Karu Jayasuriya
@KaruOnline
[4/9/2024 2:09 AM, 53.4K followers, 1 like]
In an impressive move, the Ways and Means Committee has taken the helm in enhancing government revenues while easing consumer costs. Their proactive approach sets a benchmark for legislative excellence. Congratulations to the chair & members for their commendable efforts!

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[4/8/2024 3:10 AM, 5.2K followers, 4 retweets, 24 likes]
Pleased to witness presentations from the 10 Heads of Mission designates at the end of their orientation program. The presentations were focused on strategy going forward & was followed by an interactive dialogue and review to enable an effective transfer between the HoM’s @MFA_SriLanka
Central Asia
Роман Василенко
@romanvassilenko
[4/8/2024 6:19 AM, 7.1K followers, 18 retweets, 24 likes]
After the 17th minute, I try to explain situation with most serious #floods #Kazakhstan has faced in 80 years. The bottom line(s): The situation is serious but under control. We are not out of the woods, eh, water, yet. Thx for reaching out @cocizeqiri

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[4/9/2024 12:42 AM, 4.6K followers]
Meeting with the Secretary-General of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/14778/meeting-with-the-secretary-general-of-united-nations-conference-on-trade-and-development

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[4/9/2024 12:09 AM, 28.8K followers]
The Crocus tragedy in Moscow is also a tragedy for all Tajiks, this piece by @Peter__Leonard on Substack looking at reactions from major partners like #Russia, #Turkey and #China reminds us https://havli.substack.com/p/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-tajikistan?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2446111&post_id=143375753&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=awgla&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[4/8/2024 10:49 PM, 23K followers, 4 retweets, 10 likes]
Uzbekistan: President Mirziyoyev pardons 426 inmates ahead of Eid.
- Among them, 135 are fully freed, while 200 are released with suspended sentences.
- 26 have had their sentences commuted, while 65 will now serve reduced prison terms.
- 11 of the pardoned individuals are foreign citizens, 50 are women, and 13 are over 60 years old.
- 157 are young people, including three minors.
- Five of those granted clemency had been convicted for involvement in banned groups.
Photos: Jizzakh, April 8, 2024 @president_uz

{End of Report}
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