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:
Friday, August 2, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Ex-Marine leads plea for Congress to hear exiled Afghan resistance leader’s warnings (FOX News)
FOX News [8/1/2024 5:40 PM, Charles Creitz, 143113K, Neutral]
A retired Recon Marine who conducted civilian rescues within Afghanistan, a former Navy SEAL and an ex-Pentagon chief are among the figures clamoring for Congress to hear from a top Afghan resistance leader and to stop directly or indirectly financially backing the Taliban government there.

Around the time of the U.S.’ withdrawal, National Resistance Front (NRF) leader Ahmad Massoud returned to the Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan.

There, elements opposed to Taliban rule stuck it out until they were forced to flee — including Massoud, who escaped to neighboring Tajikistan. He reportedly was joined by at least one official from the deposed U.S.-backed democratic government: former Vice President Amrullah Saleh.

Saleh sought refuge in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, as of 2021, according to France24 News.

According to Chad Robichaux, who took part in perilous civilian rescue operations in Afghanistan — including the evacuation of his former interpreter Aziz, who faced execution by the Taliban — Massoud has since been recognized as the de facto opposition figure-in-exile.

"Massoud is leading all of our allies of the last 20 years, all the people we left behind; our commandos, our interpreters, all the ones that chose to resist and then continue to fight…" Robichaux said. "We’ve completely abandoned him and our allies and the Afghan people."

Robichaux said the U.S. government essentially "switched teams" in the middle of the fight by allowing the Taliban to return to power.

He pointed to reports that billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funds have gone to the Taliban, including through United Nations humanitarian appropriations that are majority funded by the U.S.

"[O]ur allies are trying to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States. But, you know, meanwhile, we’re funding it. It’s insane," Robichaux said, adding that Massoud may have information helpful to preventing another terror attack like 9/11 on U.S. soil.

Robichaux added that Massoud’s father — of the same name — was the top anti-Soviet leader who helped the West battle the Taliban in Afghanistan decades ago.

Robichaux said Usama bin Laden had Massoud assassinated in the near-term prior to 9/11 because the terrorist knew the U.S. would need an allied figure in Afghanistan if they wanted to take on the Taliban.

"Twenty years later, his son is saying the same thing. There’s a pending attack on the United States. You guys are sending money to the Taliban, and they’re training a terrorist group to attack the United States," Robichaux said.

He went on to claim Massoud has been subject to an ambiguous "blacklist" from visiting the U.S. Therefore, Robichaux said, it is imperative that congressional leaders visit the Middle East to meet with him.

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department to confirm or deny the blacklist claim.

Massoud himself said the international community has conducted a policy of appeasement toward the Taliban government, which has failed to help the situation.

"We haven’t seen the Taliban relent on even one issue," Massoud said. "This policy will have global consequences as it allows the Taliban to buy time and achieve its goals with the 21 other regional and global terror networks."

"For a peaceful world, a more realistic policy that benefits both the people of Afghanistan and prevents a global security crisis must be adopted. We must emphasize the support of the international community and the USA for a legitimate and democratic government solely based on the will and vote of Afghanistan’s citizens," he said.

When asked about the safety of lawmakers, should they agree to host Massoud abroad, Robichaux said another proponent of the petition, retired SEAL and podcast host Shawn Ryan, was able to do so in Austria as a civilian.

Fox News Digital also reached out to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., ahead of the petition’s formal delivery to inquire about the prospect of Congress meeting with Massoud, but did not hear back by press time.

According to the petition, which lists Ryan as primary author, Massoud’s testimony would shed light on the true situation in Afghanistan and better inform congressional decisionmaking and allocation of funding in the region.

"Moreover, Congress should redirect its financial support towards the NRF, restoring their critical logistical and aid support," the petition demands.

Ryan previously interviewed Massoud on his podcast, and said the conversation "shows he is one of the brave few continuing to fight for the future and stability of Afghanistan... His voice needs to be heard by Congress."

Later in his interview, Robichaux said there is one potential development that would render his concerns with the State Department moot: the election of former President Trump.

Robichaux said Trump has long indicated his aversion to assuaging malign regimes, and was confident he would find a way to stop U.S. funds ending up in Taliban hands.

"If there’s a threat to the United States, [Trump] would let our Central Intelligence Agency do their job," he said.

Christopher Miller, Trump’s former defense secretary, claimed about $87 million in U.S taxpayer dollars per week are ending up in Taliban hands.

"[These are] the very same people that killed over 2,400 of our warriors and wounded another 21,000-plus and sheltered the leader of Al Qaeda — is beyond comprehension and the definition of criminal negligence," Miller said in calling for Congress to hear directly from Massoud.

At least one House lawmaker also agreed on the need for Massoud to brief Congress.

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., a former military sniper, said Massoud could shed light on a part of the world "deeply embroiled in chaos; only made worse by the current administration."
5,000 Afghans moved into MoD bases in secretive evacuation mission (The Independent)
The Independent [8/1/2024 6:28 AM, Holly Bancroft, 56358K, Neutral]
More than 5,000 Afghans have been quietly moved into military bases around the UK since October as part of an ongoing mission to bring Britain’s allies to safety.

The Afghans have been relocated as part of a Ministry of Defence mission, Operation Lazurite, which was first revealed by The Independent last November.

The refugees have the right to live and work in the UK under the MoD’s Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap). The policy is designed to help those Afghans who worked for or closely with British troops during the war - many of whom face persecution and death under the Taliban regime.

It has now emerged that more than 5,000 Afghans have been relocated under the operation since October and they are being housed in seven military bases around the country. The MoD is flying Afghan allies to the UK from Pakistan.

Military bases being used include sites in Leicestershire, Wiltshire, South Wales, Inverness and Dorset. The Afghan families are sent to some of these bases on a transitional basis before they are moved to temporary homes on other barracks or more permanent homes ringfenced for those in the forces.

Around 700 homes have been made available to the families and the MoD is also working with local councils to find housing for the Afghans in local communities.

Operation Lazurite was set up last October after Afghan allies based in Pakistan and Iran took the government to court about delays to their relocation.

A Whitehall source told The National, an English-language newspaper based in Abu Dhabi, that the Conservative government had not made the 5,000 figure public because of the politics around immigration.

They told the paper, who first reported the number: “The main problem was over the whole issue of migration, so it was difficult, particularly with the previous administration’s sensitivities on the issue. But what we have got to make clear is that these Afghans aren’t illegal immigrants or asylum seekers, they are what we call ‘eligible persons’ here with indefinite leave to remain.”

The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.
Biden’s failure to avenge the Abbey Gate bombing is a national disgrace (Washington Post – opinion)
Washington Post [8/1/2024 5:39 PM, Marc A. Thiessen, 54755K, Negative]
It took just over 72 hours after a dozen children were killed on an Israeli soccer field for Israel to exact justice — taking out Fuad Shukr, the senior Hezbollah leader Israel says was behind the attack, with a missile strike in Beirut. A day later, an explosive attack widely attributed to Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh — less than eight months after the brutal Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas terrorists killed almost 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians.

That second attack not only killed Haniyeh, it did so in the heart of downtown Tehran, soon after Haniyeh met his patron, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while leaders of virtually every Iranian-backed terrorist group had gathered for the inauguration of the regime’s new supreme leader.

The message was clear: If any of you kill Israelis, there is nowhere you can hide.

Contrast Jerusalem’s resolute response to the slaughter of its citizens with the United States’ failure to do the same. In just a few weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the Islamic State-Khorasan suicide bombing at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 U.S. service members and injured 45 more. Yet, three years later, not a single person responsible for orchestrating those deaths has received justice.

Immediately after the attack, President Biden struck the pose of a resolute commander in chief, warning that he had “ordered my commanders to develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership, and facilities” and that the United States “will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place we choose, and the moment of our choosing.” And he spoke directly to the terrorists: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

When the president of the United States makes a promise like that, he’d better deliver.

But Biden didn’t deliver. A few days later, the United States launched a drone strike in Kabul and Biden declared victory: “We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our servicemembers and dozens of innocent Afghans. And to ISIS-K: We are not done with you yet.” Not only had he delivered justice, Biden bragged, he had also delivered proof that the U.S. withdrawal would not hamper our capability to hunt down terrorists who threaten Americans. “We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities,” he said, “which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground.”

But, it turned out, Biden’s vaunted “over-the-horizon” capabilities had killed an innocent aid worker for a U.S.-based humanitarian group who was hauling water cans for his family. U.S. targeters, looking at satellite images from thousands of miles away, had mistaken the water jugs for explosives. The strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children. Worse, we soon learned that the Abbey Gate bomber, Abdul Rahman al-Logari, had been securely locked away in the prison at Bagram air base before the bombing, but then was freed by the Taliban after U.S. forces abandoned the base on Biden’s orders. With his disastrous withdrawal, Biden had released the terrorist who went on to kill 13 Americans.

Since his botched strike three years ago, Biden has launched no “over-the-horizon” strikes against ISIS-K terrorists responsible for the attack. He has hunted no one down. He has made no one pay. And apparently, he did forget. In his ill-fated debate with former president Donald Trump, Biden declared “I’m the only president … this decade that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like he did.” Really? Tell that to the families of the fallen at Abbey Gate, whose hearts were pierced by his failure to remember their loved ones who had perished on his watch. “It took all self restraint not to put my fist right through my TV,” said Mark Schmitz, whose son Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz was killed in the attack.

This is the American president who is now pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate a settlement with terrorists that would leave Hamas in Gaza. The same tactical genius who knowingly put the safety of U.S. service members securing the Kabul airport in the hands of the Taliban and the Haqqani network — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization — by refusing a Taliban offer to let the U.S. military secure the Afghan capital while we evacuated. The same strategist who handed Bagram air base to our enemies, releasing the suicide bomber who killed 13 Americans. The same commander in chief who made a solemn promise on behalf of a grieving nation to avenge their deaths — and then failed to fulfill it.

Israel took out the Hezbollah commander who they say killed 12 kids in a matter of days, and then eliminated the architect of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust in less than a year. But three years later, Biden has done nothing to punish those responsible for the deaths of the brave Americans who gave their lives executing his catastrophic policy of retreat in Afghanistan.

That is a national disgrace.
Pakistan
As Misery Multiplies, Pakistanis Rise Up Against the Ruling Elite (New York Times)
New York Times [8/1/2024 4:14 PM, Christian Goldbaum and Salman Masood, 831K, Neutral]
In almost every corner of Pakistan, anger at the ruling elite is nearing a boiling point.

Thousands have protested soaring electricity bills just outside the capital, Islamabad. In a major port city in the southwest, dozens have clashed with security officers over what they described as forced disappearances of activists. In the northwest, protesters have admonished the country’s generals for a recent surge in terrorist attacks.

The demonstrations over the past few weeks reflect frustration with Pakistan’s shaky, five-month-old government and with its military, the country’s ultimate authority. The unrest threatens to plunge Pakistan back into the depths of political turmoil that has flared in recent years and that many had hoped would subside after the February general election.

Pakistan’s leaders are confronted with a monsoon of problems. The economy is suffering its worst crisis in decades. Anger at an election widely viewed as manipulated by the military remains palpable. Militant violence has roared back after the Taliban’s return to power in neighboring Afghanistan. And Pakistani politics are more polarized than ever, with the country’s most popular political figure sitting in jail after a bitter rift with the military.

The administration of the current prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has struggled to establish its legitimacy and has been criticized as little more than a front for the military.

Since Mr. Sharif first came into office in 2022, Pakistan’s generals have wielded an increasingly heavy hand to quash dissent. A national firewall has been installed to censor internet content, the social media platform X has been blocked, security forces have arrested political opponents in droves, and generals have been installed in key positions in the civilian government.

“It’s more than hybrid rule,” said Zahid Hussain, a political analyst in Islamabad, referring to the old informal power-sharing dynamic between civilian and military leaders. “This arrangement is military rule with civilian facade.”

Government officials have pushed back against that characterization of their relationship with the military and sought to remind the public that dealing with the storm of challenges will take time. They have stressed that the economy in particular is on the path to recovery. Inflation is easing, the state bank recently lowered interest rates, and government officials are expected to hammer out the details of a new bailout from the International Monetary Fund in the coming months.

“The economy is showing a positive outlook” and is “getting stable,” said Aqeel Malik, an adviser to the prime minister on law and justice. “We have only been in power for a few months,” he added. “We don’t have a magic wand.”

Still, the growing public unrest is a worrying sign for a weak coalition government that few expect to survive a full five-year term — a feat that no prime minister in Pakistan has ever pulled off.

On Monday in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a northwestern province bordering Afghanistan, hundreds of people gathered in the latest protest against the surge in terrorist attacks by groups including the Pakistani Taliban and the local Islamic State affiliate. “Go, go, go to the border,” protesters chanted, urging the military to focus on security rather than domestic politics.

The same day in Gwadar, a city in Baluchistan Province that is home to a port built and operated by the Chinese, at least three people were killed as security forces engaged in a standoff with thousands of protesters. The demonstration demanded an end to a paramilitary crackdown on activists from the Baluch ethnic minority, who oppose what they call outside exploitation of the region’s resources, and came weeks after the government announced that it would bolster security for Chinese workers at the port.

And in Rawalpindi, a city just outside Islamabad where the military’s headquarters is situated, thousands of protesters affiliated with an Islamist political party gathered for days to express anger over the rising cost of living. The government recently raised electricity prices by 20 percent, a step that officials called necessary to comply with a $7 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

“The military establishment, ruling families, judiciary and bureaucracy have ruined our lives and our future,” said Muhammad Arif Bashir, a protester from Taunsa Sharif, a remote area of Punjab Province, who had traveled to Rawalpindi. “But now enough is enough.”

The recent focus on the economy and security concerns is a striking shift for a country that has been consumed by a single political issue over the past two years: the ouster and imprisonment of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Pakistani politics have been paralyzed by Mr. Khan’s fall from grace in 2022 after butting heads with the generals and his subsequent resurrection as a political force even from behind bars. After his ouster, Mr. Khan rallied hundreds of thousands to the streets and stirred a once unimaginable show of resistance to the military. Mr. Khan has accused the generals of orchestrating his ouster and his arrest last year, which military officials deny. He remains in prison on what he claims are politically motivated charges.

The drama that followed his removal from office — including violent protests targeting military installations, an apparent assassination attempt, his conviction and imprisonment on a long list of charges, and a military crackdown on his supporters — has dominated the country’s political conversation.

The swell of protests now over issues unrelated to Mr. Khan, and organized by civil and political leaders outside his party, shows how public outrage has spread far beyond his support base or political agenda.

Analysts say the unrest has deepened as the government and the military have neglected the issues driving the protests and focused instead on stamping out Mr. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I.

Last month, the governing coalition said it would ban P.T.I. In recent days, the authorities have arrested several top party officials, including members of P.T.I.’s prolific social media team, which the Interior Ministry has accused of peddling “anti-state propaganda.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Khan said during a court hearing in Adiala Jail, where he is being held, that he was open to negotiating with the military, according to local media reports. Mr. Khan may see an opening, given the government’s deep unpopularity, to negotiate a deal that paves a way out of jail and back into politics, analysts said.

Even if he does so, it is far from certain whether that will satisfy the millions of Pakistanis who are not among his followers but are deeply dissatisfied with the status quo.

“We have been striving hard to make ends meet, and the ruling elite in Pakistan treats us like second-class citizens,” said Syed Khaliqur Rehman, a businessman from Karachi, the country’s largest city, who joined the protests in Rawalpindi. “We are done with all of this.”
Pakistan Adds 2 More Militant Groups To Its ‘Terror’ List (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [8/1/2024 2:02 PM, Staff, 1530K, Negative]
Pakistan’s National Counterterrorism Authority (NACTA) on July 31 added Hafiz Gul Bahadur and the Majid Brigade to its list of terrorist organizations, raising the number of Pakistani groups on the list to 81. The Hafiz Gul Bahadur militant group is active in the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The group stopped its attacks against the Pakistani government after an agreement in 2006 but resumed attacking from Afghanistan, where the Pakistani Foreign Ministry says the group has “thousands of associates.” The Majid Brigade is the “special force” of the Baluch Liberation Army, a Baluch militant group which has recently intensified attacks on Pakistani military bases and Chinese nationals in Balochistan.
Pakistan Bans Entry Of Afghan Truckers Without Visas, Documents Through Torkham (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [8/1/2024 10:08 AM, Staff, 1530K, Neutral]
Pakistani authorities have banned the entry of Afghan drivers through the Torkham border crossing as of August 1 unless they have passports and visas. Torkham, a critical trade route between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, had been reopened by Pakistan in January after a 10-day closure prompted by Islamabad’s imposing passport and visa requirements on Afghan drivers. Pakistan initially set an April 1 deadline for compliance, but then extended it until August 1. lslamabad’s move to require visas and passports -- documents many Afghans do not have -- came as Pakistan accused the Taliban of allowing militants to stage attacks across the border from Afghanistan’s territory.
Heavy rain, floods in Pakistan kill at least 30 (Reuters)
Reuters [8/2/2024 4:43 AM, Mubasher Bukhari and Mushtaq Ali, 5.2M, Neutral]
Floods brought by torrential rains in Pakistan caused damage that killed at least 30 people this week, authorities said on Friday, as the second-largest city of Lahore was drenched in the most rainfall it has received in more than four decades.

The arrival of the monsoon season has sparked floods and landslides across South Asia in the past week, with at least 195 killed and almost 200 missing in one disaster in neighbouring India.

Rain pummelled Pakistan’s north, causing floods, building collapses and heightening the risk of electrocution.

"The 44-year-old rainfall record was broken in Lahore once again," said utilities officials in the northeastern province of Punjab, where authorities tallied six deaths and warned that flash floods were expected in the south this week.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 children were among the two dozen people who died in the last three days of rains and floods in the northwestern province, Anwar Shehzad, a spokesman for its disaster management agency, told Reuters.

Global organisations, such as the United Nations, see Pakistan as one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change, with floods wreaking havoc in 2022, killing more than 1,700 people and displacing millions.
Pakistan’s second-largest city Lahore hit by record rain (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [8/1/2024 11:48 AM, Staff, 85570K, Negative]
Pakistan’s second-largest city of Lahore was deluged with record-breaking rainfall on Thursday, the national weather agency said, with hospitals flooded, power interrupted and streets in the metropolis submerged.

The eastern city was lashed by almost 360 millimetres (14 inches) of rain in three hours, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said.

"This was record-breaking rainfall," the agency’s deputy director Farooq Dar told AFP.

The previous record dates to July 1980, when 332 millimetres fell over three hours.

"Look at all these buckets and how much water has accumulated. We’re exhausted from trying to remove the water," Sadam, a 32-year-old shopkeeper, told AFP as he took stock of his considerable losses.

The PMD had forecast a wetter-than-usual monsoon season this year for Pakistan, one of the countries experts say is most vulnerable to extreme weather being spurred by climate change.

Over the past three days, 24 people have been killed by rainfall in the country’s mountainous northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said.

In Lahore, a city of 13 million in the eastern Punjab province, one person was killed by electrocution as a result of Thursday’s cloudburst, according to local police.

The city’s commissioner declared an emergency and said offices and schools would be shut for the day.

Yasir Ali, a 26-year-old resident, said it was a "sad day for the nation".

"For a poor person it is heartbreaking that he’s been unable to go to work today," he told AFP.
‘Pay some attention here’

Two government hospitals in Lahore reported flooding in their wards, and there were intermittent power outages continuing into the afternoon.

Roads were also submerged, bringing traffic and businesses to a standstill.

Ahmed Khan, 48, who earns a daily wage, appealed to the government "to pay some attention here and resolve this water issue".

Maryam Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab province, posted on X that "the entire government machinery is in the field" to drain the water.

The summer monsoon brings to South Asia about 70 to 80 percent of the region’s annual rainfall between June and September.

It is vital for agriculture, but changing weather patterns that scientists attribute to climate change are putting both lives and livelihoods at risk.

Earlier this year Pakistan -- home to 240 million people -- was hit by a succession of heatwaves and this April was the wettest since 1961.

At least 143 people died from lightning strikes and other storm-related incidents in April.

In neighbouring India, at least 160 people, most believed to be labourers and their families, have been killed by torrential rains causing landslides in the southern coastal state of Kerala.

In 2022, a third of Pakistan was submerged by unprecedented monsoon rains that displaced millions of people and cost $30 billion, according to a World Bank estimate.
India
India offers $300 million loan to build up Vietnam’s maritime security, saying it is a key partner (AP)
AP [8/1/2024 6:03 AM, Ashok Sharma, 31180K, Positive]
India on Thursday offered a $300 million loan to build up Vietnam’s maritime security, as the two sides said they want to double their trade and investment within five years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh that India considers Vietnam a key pillar of its policy toward Southeast Asian nations and an important partner in its Indo-Pacific vision.

After their talks, Chinh told reporters the world faces fierce security challenges but there are opportunities for cooperation.

“The Asia Indo-Pacific region is a locomotive for growth, but it is also where major politics is taking place fiercely,” he said. “We need an approach and methodology that is global and upholding multilateralism.”

The prime ministers said both sides wanted to further their cooperation in defense and other areas such as semiconductor and green technology, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and climate action.

Modi and Chinh virtually inaugurated the “Army Software Park” in Vietnam, an educational facility set up with India’s help to train Vietnamese soldiers in digital skills.

Bilateral trade between the two countries in 2022 grew 27% and reached $14.14 billion. Indian exports to Vietnam touched $6.7 billion, while Indian imports from Vietnam amounted to $7.44 billion in the same period, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

Indian exports to Vietnam include iron and steel, cotton, cereals, meat and fishery products, electrical machinery and equipment, automobile parts, cement, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

India’s import basket from Vietnam mainly includes electrical and electronic equipment, inorganic chemicals, machinery and mechanical appliances, copper and rubber, coffee and tea, spices, iron and steel.

India’s investments in Vietnam are estimated at around $1.9 billion in energy, mineral exploration, agriculture, information technology and other areas, according to the country’s External Affairs Ministry.

Vietnam has invested over $28.55 million in India, mainly in pharmaceuticals, information technology, chemicals, and building materials.
India and Vietnam to enhance defense cooperation (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [8/1/2024 9:18 AM, Kiran Sharma and Lien Hoang, 2042K, Positive]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh held wide-ranging talks on Thursday that focused on enhancing cooperation in defense and security, trade and business and other matters.

"Vietnam is our important partner in our Act East Policy and the Indo-Pacific vision," Modi said, making a joint appearance with Chinh after the two met in New Delhi. "We will continue to cooperate for a free, open, rules-based and prosperous Indo-Pacific."

The Modi government’s Act East policy focuses on the extended Indo-Pacific neighborhood, with the 10-member ASEAN bloc at its core. The aim is to promote economic cooperation and cultural ties as well as develop strategic relationships with Indo-Pacific countries through continuous engagement at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels.

"To further strengthen our comprehensive strategic partnership, we adopted a new plan of action today," the Indian prime minister said, pointing to steps toward defense and security cooperation, including jointly and virtually inaugurating an army software park in Vietnam on Thursday and agreeing on a $300 million credit line to strengthen Vietnam’s maritime security. The army software park at Telecommunications University in Nha Trang, Vietnam, is a facility built with Indian assistance to impart information technology and foreign language training to Vietnamese defense forces

Chinh described Vietnam and India as "close, trusted and faithful" friends who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder throughout history and will do so forever after. He also called for further elevating this bond of friendship.

"The two sides redoubled the importance of ensuring peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation [and] overflight ... in the South China Sea," he said. "A peaceful settlement of disputes based on respecting international law, especially UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] 1982. We agreed to share information and work together to make the South China Sea the waters of peace, stability, friendship [and] cooperation."

The countries have age-old historical and civilizational ties, which were elevated to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Modi’s visit to Vietnam in September 2016.

According to Harsh V. Pant, vice president of studies and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation think tank and a professor of international relations at King’s College London, there are "striking similarities" in the way the countries view foreign relations.

"The template is very similar, which is preserving their strategic autonomy and building multi-alignments with major powers," he told Nikkei Asia. Pant points out that Vietnam in recent years has fostered a strong partnership with the U.S. despite its turbulent history with that country, and has tried to keep its ties with Russia on an even keel, even as the China factor has become more prominent in its foreign policy over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

China is also a foreign policy concern for India. The neighbors have been in a border standoff in Eastern Ladakh since 2020. In addition, India has been strengthening its ties with the U.S. as a key member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, which has made a point of stressing ASEAN’s central role in ensuring a "free and open" Indo-Pacific, a euphemism for containing Beijing’s military and economic influence.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Vietnam adopted a neutral stance. While India has not explicitly condemned Moscow, time and again it has called for resolving the war through dialogue and diplomacy.

Hanh Nguyen, a research fellow at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies, somewhat echoed Pant’s words regarding the India-Vietnam relationship.

With Chinh’s trip to India, "Vietnam seeks to demonstrate it continues its hedging strategy and (does) not side with any powers," Nguyen told Nikkei.

Hanoi, in fact, has been careful not to anger Beijing as it diversifies its relations. According to Khang Vu, a Notre Dame International Security Center fellow, Chinh’s visit to India should not upset this strategy.

"Prime Minister Chinh’s visit to India will help Vietnam increase defense relations with an important partner without triggering much skepticism from China, since India is not China’s principal enemy," Vu said. "Furthermore, Vietnam buying more Indian arms will help it diversify away from Russian arms, whose record on the Ukrainian battlefields has not been convincing."

At the outset of his statement, Modi expressed deep condolences on behalf of all Indians on the death of Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s paramount leader who died last month at the age of 80.

Modi said he and Chinh also resolved to pay attention to the so-called green economy as well as new and emerging technologies.

The sides signed several cooperation pacts -- in customs capacity building, agriculture research and education, the legal field, radio and television, and medicinal plants.

On the trade front, Prime Minister Chinh on Wednesday said at an event organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Vietnamese embassy in New Delhi that the countries should work together to raise bilateral trade to $20 billion "going forward," up from $14.8 billion currently.

"I would like to ask that we expand our market access to each other’s products such as through ... a suitable FTA between Vietnam and India," he said. "Of course, we need to discuss this, we need to sit together ... we need to make sure that our benefits are shared with each other."

He added, "For Indian businesses, I hope that you would continue to invest and invest more in Vietnam [and] cooperate with us in training high-quality human resources" especially in the areas of semiconductors, technology innovation, green hydrogen, pharmaceuticals, renewables and biotechnologies.

India possesses expertise in pharmaceuticals and communications, which remain key focuses of the discussions. In electric vehicles, meanwhile, Vietnam’s homegrown VinFast automaker is building a factory in India while looking to replicate India’s information technology prowess.

Chinh arrived in New Delhi late Tuesday at Modi’s invitation; it is his maiden trip as the head of the Vietnamese government and wraps up on Thursday evening.

It is the first time in a decade for a Vietnamese prime minister to visit India.
India police rescue American woman chained to tree in jungle who claims husband left her there to die (CBS News)
CBS News [8/1/2024 7:47 AM, Arshad R. Zargar, 47.2M, Neutral]
Police in India found a 50-year-old American woman chained to a tree in a forest in the country’s western Maharashtra state, where she claims her Indian husband left her to die. Maharashtra Police told CBS News the woman, identified as Lalita Kayi Kumar, was found in a forest in the Sindhudurg district of the state, about 280 miles south of India’s financial capital Mumbai, on Saturday after local shepherds heard her cries for help and alerted authorities.

Photos and videos broadcast by Indian news outlets showed an emaciated-looking woman clad in ragged, loose clothing being assisted by rescuers in the middle of a forest, with one of her legs affixed to a tree with a metal chain.

After rescuing her, police brought Kumar to a hospital in Sindhudurg and she was later transferred to the Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of the Goa Medical College and Hospital. The police said doctors treating her had informed them that she suffers from psychiatric problems but was medically "out of danger."

A video broadcast by India’s India Today TV channel showed medics surrounding Kumar on a hospital bed as she wrote a note to communicate her story. In it, she says she is unable to speak and alleges that her husband left her shackled in the jungle to die.

"Injection for extreme psychosis which caused a severely locked jaw and inability to drink any water. Need intravenous food. 40 days without food and water. Husband tied me to a tree in the forest and said I would die there," the note read.

Police recovered a photocopy of Kumar’s U.S. passport, an Indian ID and other documents from her possession. They have filed an attempted murder case against her husband, named as Satish, the police inspector in charge of the investigation, Vikas Badave, told CBS News.

"We registered an attempt to murder case on 30th July," Badave said, adding that officers "have very little information about her husband right now."

Badave said the Maharashtra Police had sent a team to Tamil Nadu state, several hundred miles away in southern India, in search of her husband, as the woman’s Indian ID references an address there. Police were also trying to find her relatives.

Badave told CBS News on Thursday that officers had been unable to record a formal statement from Kumar as doctors had advised against it thus far.

Dr. Anil Rane, the medical superintendent of a psychiatry institute in Goa, told CBS News that Kumar was transferred back to the hospital in Sindhudurg on Wednesday evening as "her condition had improved," but he declined to share any further information on her treatment or condition due to privacy laws.

The police said they were in contact with the U.S. embassy in India regarding the case, but the embassy declined to comment when asked by CBS News.

Indian news outlet NDTV reported that an expired Indian visa was found on the woman’s American passport suggesting she had lived in India for 10 years.

"There is some progress in the investigation," Badave told CBS News, "and we are looking at all possible angles and trying to verify her every claim."
American nurse claims she was repeatedly raped after being lured to India to marry a lawyer she met on Facebook (Daily Mail)
Daily Mail [8/1/2024 12:10 PM, Miriam Kuepper, 85570K, Negative]
An American woman has claimed that she was repeatedly raped after being lured to India to marry a lawyer she met on Facebook.

The 45-year-old nurse, from Florida, quit her job, sold her house and travelled to India on July 3 to marry the man after he befriended her on social media and invited her to his home country, the Times of India and Bhaskar report.

She told local police that after she landed at Delhi airport, he took her to a hotel in Jaipur, the capital city of the Rajasthan state, where she claims he raped her. The woman alleges that he raped her several more times between July 3 and July 21.

During this time they reportedly stayed in hotels in Jaipur and the city of Ajmer, before the man promised the her that they would get married and organised a wedding ceremony on July 15 at a temple in Nasirabad - only to realise shortly after that it was all a ruse.

She reportedly found out that the woman he had introduced to her as his cousin at their fake wedding was actually his pregnant wife, with whom he already had a ten-year-old child, after the alleged fraudster took her to his home.

The American launched a complaint with the local police force via an NGO on July 25, saying that she discovered that the fraudster deceived and raped her.

The man was arrested by Indian police for rape and deceit under the pretense of marriage on July 31 when he was discharged from hospital, where he was treated for gunshot wounds to his leg and chest he said he sustained while cleaning his friend’s rifle.

The police superintendent in Bundhi, Hanuman Prasad Meena, told the Indian Express about the case: ‘The accused took her to the hotel where they stayed for some time.

‘Later, he took the woman to Ajmer and she stayed there for a while.

‘According to the woman, the accused never told her that he was married.

‘On July 15, he took the woman to a temple and married her. She asked the man to take her to his home.

‘The man initially refused but then he introduced her to his family in Ajmer.

‘There it came to light that [he] was already married with a 10-year-old child.

‘His wife is currently pregnant with another child. Then both of them had a fight and the woman went back to Jaipur.’

The investigating officer added that the man had used his friend’s card to check into the hotels he stayed at with the woman.
Kerala’s Wayanad landslides: Four found alive in remote area (Reuters)
Reuters [8/2/2024 2:52 AM, Munsif Vengattil, Chris Thomas and Jose Devasia, 5.2M, Neutral]
Four people were rescued from a house in India’s Kerala state on Friday, three days after devastating landslides, as search operations accelerated after the building of a key bridge that helped transport heavy equipment to the affected area.

Heavy rain in the southern coastal state of Kerala, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations, caused landslides in the hills of Wayanad district early on Tuesday, sending torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders downhill and burying or sweeping people to their deaths as they slept.

The disaster, the worst in Kerala since deadly floods in 2018, has led to the death of 195 people with nearly 200 still missing, authorities said. Local Asianet TV said 292 had been killed.

Two men and two women were found alive by the army in a marooned, remote area on Friday, V T Mathew, a top army commander, said.

"They were not buried, they were just in a remote area," he told Reuters, adding that one of them was injured.

Rescue efforts were hampered initially after Mundakkai, the worst affected area, was cut off from the nearest town of Chooralmala as the main bridge connecting them was washed away.

Heavy vehicles had begun to ply on the 190-foot (58-metre) bridge constructed by army engineers, and drones with earth-sensing technology to find bodies buried in mud are being brought in, the army said in a statement.

Rescue teams have deployed additional forces, including swimming experts, to focus on the Chaliyar river and its river banks where bodies are likely to be found.

Experts said the area had received heavy rain in the last two weeks that softened the soil before extremely heavy rainfall on Monday triggered the landslides.

Nearly 1,600 people have been rescued from hillside villages and tea and cardamom estates during the last two days, according to authorities, with nearly 350 buildings damaged.
13 Killed In India Floods, Stranded Pilgrims Airlifted (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [8/1/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 1.4M, Neutral]
Monsoon downpours caused flash floods that killed 13 people in India’s Himalayan foothills, officials said Friday, with helicopters rescuing hundreds stranded near a renowned Hindu shrine.

Flooding and landslides are common and cause widespread devastation during India’s treacherous monsoon season, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.

Thirteen deaths have been reported across the northern state of Uttarakhand so far, disaster official Vinod Kumar Suman told AFP.

District officials said around 700 people were rescued by airlift while travelling to Kedarnath temple, a popular pilgrimage destination dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva.

"We are flying multiple choppers to bring down the pilgrims who were on their way," Suman said.

The temple sits nearly 3,600 metres (11,800 feet) above sea level and access is only possible in the summer via a gruelling 22-kilometre (14-mile) uphill trek.

It is thronged by thousands of pilgrims each year at a time when the annual monsoon downpours are at their peak.

Monsoon rains across the region from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies.

They are also vital for agriculture, and therefore the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security for South Asia’s nearly two billion people.

More than 200 people were killed in the southern state of Kerala this week when landslides hit villages and tea plantations, with search and rescue operations ongoing.

Two others were killed this week in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh state, where rescuers are still searching for more than two dozen reported missing.
Militancy expands in Indian-controlled side of Jammu and Kashmir (VOA)
VOA [8/1/2024 5:56 AM, Muheet Ul Islam, 4032K, Negative]
Residents of Kastigarh, a sub-district in central Jammu and Kashmir, say they are staying close to their homes following a recent attack by anti-India militants that injured two soldiers who were sheltering in a dilapidated school after a patrol.

A large group of Indian forces “had decided to rest in the school after a long search in the area. At around 2 a.m. we woke up to gunfire and realized that militants had attacked them,” said a local resident who requested anonymity to discuss the pre-dawn July 18 incident.

“Since then we have been living in fear. People prefer not to venture alone, especially after dark, for safety,” he told VOA.

The patrol at Kastigarh was part of a larger effort of the Indian army to search for anti-India militants believed to be hiding in the dense forests and remote areas of the larger Doda district, which includes Kastigarh.

In recent months, the Jammu region of the disputed Himalayan territory has witnessed 14 skirmishes between anti-India militants and security forces, resulting in the deaths of 10 soldiers, nine civilians and five militants.

“This is the first attack in our village in 20 years. I remember the previous incident that took place in 2004 during the elections,” Kumar said. “Soldiers nowadays regularly patrol in our area and during that time we feel secure,” he added, saying that the villagers did not observe any suspicious activity before or after the shootout.

In June 2023, VOA reported a resurgence of militancy by separatist insurgents in Jammu after a 14-year gap. This year, the armed conflict has expanded from two to four districts, including the Hindu-dominated Reasi district.

“The deployment of troops to address border tensions with China in Ladakh has resulted in a relatively lower presence of security forces in certain areas of Jammu,” said Deependra Singh Hooda, a former commanding-in-chief of the Indian army’s Northern Command.

“This reduced security presence has provided an opportunity for terrorists to establish a foothold and increase their activities in the region,” he told VOA.

The first major attack of the year took place in Reasi district on June 9, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi took his oath for a third consecutive term. Militants reportedly chased a passenger vehicle carrying Hindu pilgrims and later opened fire on it. The driver lost control and the vehicle fell into a gorge, resulting in the deaths of nine pilgrims, including an infant.

India blames Pakistan for the rise in militancy in the part of the disputed territory under New Delhi’s control. Islamabad rejects the charge.
As India ages, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children (AP)
AP [8/1/2024 9:02 PM, Matt Sedensky, 31180K, Neutral]
They were found in gutters, on streets, in bushes. They were boarded on trains, deserted in hospitals, dumped at temples. They were sent away for being sick or outliving paychecks or simply growing too old.

By the time they reached this home for the aged and unwanted, many were too numb to speak. Some took months to mouth the truth of how they came to spend their final days in exile.

“They said, ‘Taking care of him is not our cup of tea,’” says Amirchand Sharma, 65, a retired policeman whose sons left him to die near the river after he was badly hurt in an accident. “They said, ‘Throw him away.’”

In its traditions, in its religious tenets and in its laws, India has long cemented the belief that it is a child’s duty to care for his aging parents. But in a land known for revering its elderly, a secret shame has emerged: A burgeoning population of older people abandoned by their own families.

This is a country where grandparents routinely share a roof with children and grandchildren, and where the expectation that the young care for the old is so ingrained in the national ethos that nursing homes are a relative rarity and hiring caregivers is often seen as taboo. But expanding lifespans have brought ballooning caregiving pressure, a wave of urbanization has driven many young far from their home villages and a creeping Western influence has begun eroding the tradition of multigenerational living.

Courtrooms swell with thousands of cases of parents seeking help from their children. Footpaths and alleys are crowded with older people who now call them home. And a cottage industry of nonprofits for the abandoned has sprouted, operating a constantly growing number of shelters that continually fill.

This is one of them.

The Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, known as SHEOWS, houses about 320 people on 16 acres of land in this small north Indian city. Nearly all of them were abandoned by their families.

One woman spent more than eight years living at a faraway temple where she was deserted by her children. Another tells of a son she loved who forced her out, saying if she didn’t leave, his wife would. A man sitting atop a bed with sheets adorned with teddy bears and smiling anthropomorphic mushrooms was left to die on the street, arriving here so starved that he ate 22 rotis, one after another after another.

Birbati, the lead caregiver in the women’s building, who does not use a surname, says after years of tending to the abandoned, she finds some of them visiting in her dreams.

“Each of them has a story,” she says. “All are sad stories.”

Where growing old is new

Wealthy countries have grappled with aging societies for decades, but the issue is only now beginning to ripple in the developing world, where the idea of growing old is still new for swaths of the population.

By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population of people 60 and older will reside outside the world’s wealthiest nations. India is projected to see growth among its old that far outstrips that of the young.

Already, the curses of that demographic shift have begun to emerge alongside its blessings. An Indian born just 70 years ago was forecast to live nearly half as long as one today. But longer lives have often brought with them greater medical need and thrust the next generation into economic binds that force them to balance the needs of their parents with the needs of their own children.

By tradition, Indian parents live with a son, who is responsible for their care, though in practice, the work typically falls to women. That remains the norm, but a growing number of older Indians now have absentee children and inadequate help to keep up with expenses or care. Others feel forced to leave homes where toxic feuds fester. And, in the very worst cases, parents are ousted from their home by a child in a dispute over money or in a wits-end solution to incontinence they can’t stomach or dementia they can’t handle.

This is the first in a series of stories from the AP about aging in the developing world.

Driven from their homes, these elders end up begging on the streets or, if they’re lucky, in a shelter like this, where separate buildings for men and women overlook a sun-soaked lawn with towering palms and a fountain ringed by rose bushes. Monkeys crisscross the roof of an on-site hospital while inside, in its small physical therapy room, a doctor tries to coax a patient’s arthritic knees to work.

The patient, Rajhu Phooljale, has his black pants rolled up, and around his right ankle, he has tied black thread to ward off evil. He says he is 65, but like many older Indians, isn’t entirely certain of his age.

How he ended up here, though, he can’t forget.

Phooljale was working as a cook and living with his wife and two adult sons when he was hit by a motorist and left initially unable to walk and permanently blinded. He could not work. His wife left him.

His sons told him they arranged for surgery in New Delhi, far from their home in the country’s center, and when they arrived at the hospital, they told him to sit while they went off to consult a doctor.

“Wait here,” they said. But they never returned.

For two or three days, Phooljale stayed on the grounds of a hospital in a strange city in a world that, for a man newly blind, had just gone black. He went hungry and thirsty and broke down in tears. A hospital staffer eventually called the police, who in turn alerted SHEOWS, which picked him up.

It has been about two years since then and Phooljale has not heard anything from his sons. He doesn’t even have a photograph of them. He wonders if they think he is dead.

“I nurtured them from the time they were small,” he says. “Isn’t it their duty to take care of me?”

He clutches the side of his head and sobs as he speaks.

Through the window of the therapy room is a hospital ward full of patients with similar stories and, outside, there are two more buildings with hundreds more.

The scene repeats at three other sites run by SHEOWS and the constellation of other organizations’ shelters dotting this vast subcontinent.

Scouring the streets

In New Delhi, about 60 miles and a world away from the dirt roads of Garhmukteshwar, a two-man SHEOWS crew inches an ambulance through the capital’s choked thoroughfares, where cows amble beside clusters of tuk-tuks and vendors pile their carts high with perfectly stacked fruit.

On streets overflowing with humanity, there is no shortage of heartache and, with traffic snarled, the men study the streets’ edges looking for signs of someone old and in need.

They pull over to check on a shoeless man with a torn shirt lying on the side of the road, and another man who is sitting at the riverbank with all his belongings stuffed in two rice bags.

“Do you have a son?” asks the ambulance’s driver, Rinku Semar. “Do you have a daughter?”

Some approached by Semar and his partner, Avanish Kumar, refuse to go with them. Others appear drunk or drugged and are disqualified from being taken to one of SHEOWS’ shelters. As an orange sun descends in a hazy sky, they pick up a man named Atmaram whose jeans and shirt are worn and dirty and who drags a sack with a blanket and his other belongings. Inside the ambulance, flashes of red and blue strobes ricochet and the siren buffets a nearby mosque’s blaring call to prayer.

Atmaram doesn’t use a surname and doesn’t know his age. A few white hairs sprout from his nearly bald head, his left eye is clouded by cataracts and most of his teeth are gone.

The ambulance arrives at SHEOWS’ newest shelter, where seesaws and swings hint at the property’s former life as a school. Atmaram is shown to a shower, where the pool of water beneath him turns brown as a caregiver scrubs his legs with a pink bar of soap. Both men are silent.

The stories of the abandoned are often incomplete, riddled with holes punched by time, their reticence and, sometimes, the fog of dementia. Atmaram is no different and, this night, has no explanation for why he was living on the street. Basic questions, such as whether he has any children, are unanswered.

Some clues drip out in the days to come: He used to make clay pots. He and his brother shared a home with their respective wives. His wife died, then his brother. Then, his sister-in-law forced him out.

“This house is not yours,” he says she told him.

His shower is done and Atmaram is given fresh clothes and served a hot meal on a metal tray before being shown to a bed in a communal room. The shelter’s staff has repeated this routine many times but none utters what they know to be true: Few who arrive here will ever see their families again.

“They say, ‘He’ll come back one day,’” says Saurabh Bhagat, the 35-year-old leader of SHEOWS, the organization his father founded. “But almost none of them ever come back.”

‘How can children do this?’

Though most who are taken in by SHEOWS come from New Delhi’s streets and spend time in one of the organization’s city shelters, in time most end up here, at its largest site in Garhmukteshwar.

The center’s staffers are a stand-in for absent families and are quick with a caring touch or extra helping of food. And as caregivers’ years here pass, each amasses memories of cases that haunt them.

The old man whose leg was so infested with maggots he spent a month hospitalized. The woman who looked like a skeleton when she was found shivering in the bushes on a winter day that would be her last. A man with dementia often seen crying but unable to say why.

“How can children do this?” the home’s manager, 30-year-old Naved Khan, asks in disbelief.

Each who comes here has a different answer, but similarities emerge. Again and again, they tell of being turned away when their needs grew too great, when finances got too tight or when the strife of a packed house was too much to bear. Men outnumber women. Many are in declining health. Dementia and mental illness are common. Most have outlived their spouse, a crucial line of protection.

Shushila Jain, who is about 80, pushes a plastic chair as a makeshift walker and, looking around the room at so many others like her, believes they are living in what Hindus call Kali Yuga, the worst of times, a period marked by conflict and cataclysm. She raised two sons and two daughters and cared for her husband and in-laws and three grandsons, too. But no one reciprocated as her own needs grew.

“I never thought it would come to this,” she says.

Bhagat’s father, Girdhar Prasad Bhagat, started SHEOWS two decades ago when he began seeing India’s cherished traditions flouted and elderly people left in New Delhi’s streets.

He’d heard of people abandoning their parents before, most notably in the northern city of Vrindavan. For hundreds of years, its serpentine maze of temple-lined streets and alleys have drawn widows whose families abandoned them after the death of their husbands left them branded as purveyors of bad luck.

As the elder Bhagat moved through New Delhi’s streets, though, he saw something new. A problem that was once concentrated in a single place, driven by religious and cultural issues on society’s edges, was now finding a foothold among a broader cross-section of people in a much wider swath of the country.

SHEOWS has taken in 10,000 people since its founding, but there is no reliable tally of India’s total population of abandoned elders. In cities across the country, organizations that care for the abandoned say a simmering decades-old problem has grown far worse in recent years.

SHEOWS opened a second shelter, then a third, then a fourth. Similar organizations have done the same, some with the backing of billionaire philanthropists like Azim Premji and MacKenzie Scott.

The problem has only continued to grow.

It comes even as India, now the world’s most populous country, has experienced decades of phenomenal growth in which billionaires were made but inequities also deepened.

The backgrounds of many here might be surprising, including academics, businesspeople and professionals. SHEOWS residents are more likely to hail from middle-class families than poor ones.

Still, economics are a major driver of abandonment. Most older people in India do not receive a pension, government assistance or health insurance and families are often looked to for support.

Annapurna Devi Pandey, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose research has taken her to homes for the abandoned in her native India, says respect for elders remains ingrained in society, but some must make a difficult choice between caring for their children or their parents.

“The sense of duty,” she says, “becomes kind of an existential issue.”

Left to die alone

Neatly planted rows of vegetables cut across the Garhmukteshwar property’s midsection, a limp Indian flag comes to life with a breeze and a wall along the perimeter is painted with messages of hope.

“Keep Smiling.” “Love and Respect Old Age People.” “Be Happy & You’ll Fly.”

Places like this weren’t supposed to be needed.

Parliament passed the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act in 2007 to ensure grown children and grandchildren provide for their aged relatives.

India’s Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, which oversees the law, has not released data on the number of claims it has received. One mid-sized state, Kerala, said in 2022 that its dozens of tribunals had processed some 20,000 cases since the law’s passage, a microcosm of the national total.

Surveys show the vast majority of seniors are completely unaware of their rights under the maintenance act. Even if they do know, many are unlikely to take their kin to court.

Bhagat, the leader of SHEOWS, says he’s not aware of a single resident of his shelters who has pursued a case. Many concede their fates and remain protective of the children that have deserted them.

A feeling of acceptance is pervasive here. Those who call this home may have been cast away by their families, but they have been saved from the streets. Comfort comes with the rhythm of reliable meals and afternoon teas and their own quiet prayers. Castes disappear and friendships bloom.

More striking than the gravity of the stories or the weight of the sorrows is the warmth residents exude. Wide smiles spread across weathered faces as hands are pressed together in a sign of welcome or placed on a visitor’s head, gently mussing their hair to extend a blessing.

“It’s not that they don’t miss their families,” Bhagat says, “but I’ve seen a lot of broken people heal over time.”

Most who arrive here end up staying several years. Some have been here since it opened.

Tucked in one corner of the center’s hospital are piles of folders, one for each resident, stashed in cubbies. Each amounts to an individual’s history here, beginning with where they were found.

A woman dumped at a Sikh gurdwara. A man lying in the street. A woman left at a police station.

One pile of folders is of those whose son or daughter came back for them, filled out paperwork for their release and pressed a purple thumbprint on it to make it official. But far more files grow fat and tattered until one final insertion is made, a thin strip of grid paper with the flat lines of an EKG.

It is left unsaid when someone arrives here: More than likely, this is the place they will die.

When it happens, caregivers bathe and dress the dead, then take the body to the river, where they rub it in ghee and set it aflame. No family will come to mourn them and no words of remembrance are spoken.

A bed is freed and, soon, a new resident arrives.
Modi Can’t Build India’s Military This Way (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [8/1/2024 4:00 PM, Mihir Sharma, 27296K, Positive]
When India’s finance minister presents the annual budget to Parliament, her speech is watched not just for what it includes but what it leaves out. Given the general opacity of Indian policy processes, that’s often the best way to discern what the government’s real priorities are.

Unusually, this year’s speech never mentioned military spending. That’s only one indication of how little Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who casts himself as a muscular nationalist, appears to value national defense.

During Modi’s first term in office, he marginally increased the proportion of federal spending devoted to the military. Yet, safely re-elected in 2019 after a confrontation with Pakistan, he has since presided over a decline.

From over 17% at the beginning of Modi’s first term, the share is now under 13%. In fact, defense spending has fallen below 2% of GDP for the first time in decades. Some analysts argue the budget hasn’t plumbed such depths since before India’s traumatic loss to China in a 1962 border war.

And the numbers are even bleaker than they seem. Over half of India’s defense budget goes to personnel costs. The amount left for equipment purchases and overall modernization is usually too small to improve readiness significantly.

That helps explain why Modi’s promise — issued more than six years ago — to spend $20 billion on 114 new fighter jets has yet to be fulfilled. India’s air force has only three-quarters the number of planes it needs and will likely have even fewer by the end of the decade.

Worse, the government is mismanaging the dwindling cash it does spend on defense equipment. It tries to juggle multiple priorities — speed, quality, local production — and often winds up paralyzed.

Modi’s big push in recent years has been to increase indigenous defense production. That makes some sense: Recent conflicts have shown how important it is to have domestic supply chains that you can scale up swiftly.

An India that cares deeply about what it calls “strategic autonomy” — or, more prosaically, the ability to irritate anyone you want at any time — is especially wise not to rely too heavily on arms imports. Local defense production grew nearly 17% in the past financial year and is up 60% since 2019-20.

Yet within those rosy numbers a murkier picture emerges. Much of the new production is focused on things like ammunition, rather than high-tech weaponry. More importantly, state-owned giants continue to dominate the local defense industry. After five years of attempted indigenization, the private sector’s share of total production value still barely tops 20%.

That does not bode well. The military thinks the public sector’s systems are obsolete. Official auditors have pointed out its history of failures, delays and cost overruns. Even a hand-picked government committee suggested that state-owned defense companies shift from production to basic research.

Given limited budgets, India can ill afford to waste money on defense. The government had hoped that foreign companies might pick up some of the slack. A few years ago, it decreed that they could henceforth own 74% of an Indian subsidiary, which could be increased to 100% with special permission.

Very few foreign investors have taken up the invitation, mainly because the technology transfer requirements are far too onerous. The only company brave enough to own an Indian subsidiary completely is Sweden’s Saab AB, which began work earlier this year on a factory to produce its Carl-Gustaf portable rocket launcher.

The Indian army already depends on the Carl-Gustaf, so Saab was reasonably certain of its market. Others can read the budget numbers and see that the government will struggle to commit to big acquisitions.

Meanwhile, private Indian companies must incorporate the cost of creating new factories and product lines into their bids. That puts them at a disadvantage against public enterprises that rely on the state for support and basic infrastructure.

Far from levelling the playing field, the government seems to be outright suspicious of the private sector. The CFO of Larsen & Toubro Ltd., a professionally managed company and one of India’s best-known engineering firms, told the Financial Times this week that New Delhi’s “mindset” was that greater private sector involvement “would mean profiteering at government expense.”

It’s hard to imagine exactly which enterprising profiteer would be attracted by the peanuts that passes these days for a defense budget. Modi will have to spend more, and trust more, if he is to make “strategic autonomy” more than a catchphrase.
NSB
Bangladesh Bans Islamist Party from Politics After Deadly Unrest (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [8/1/2024 6:34 AM, Arun Devnath, 27296K, Negative]
Bangladesh formally banned the biggest Islamist party in the country from all political activity for its alleged role in student protests that turned violent.

The government has banned the Jamaat-e-Islami party and all associated groups on allegations of terrorism, according to a notice from the home ministry on Thursday.

“The government has enough evidence to prove that Jamaat-e-Islami and its associated organization Islami Chhatra Shibir have directly engaged in the recent killings, sabotage and violence,” the ministry said.

This is the latest development in a crackdown by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government against those she has described last month as being responsible for the anarchy. The student-led protests were initially against a controversial government jobs quota but had turned violent with mobs destroying public property and clashing with security forces. Some 200 people were killed.

The coalition led by Hasina’s Awami League had agreed to push for a ban at a meeting on July 29, the ruling party’s Secretary General Obaidul Quader said at a media briefing.

The Jamaat party had its registration as a political party revoked by the High Court in 2013, effectively blocking it from contesting in elections. But this has not stopped the Islamist group from taking part in political activities and holding rallies.

The group earlier condemned decision to ban it from political activities, saying neither Bangladesh’s laws nor its constitution allows for this. The ban is “arbitrary, illogical, illegal and unconstitutional,” Jamaat party chief Shafiqur Rahman said in a statement on July 30.

Rahman accused the government of deflecting attention from the student movement and blamed it for “indiscriminate mass killings” to suppress the protests.

Five Jamaat leaders were executed by Hasina’s government between 2013 and 2016 for their alleged role in the 1971 war that led to Bangladesh’s separation from Pakistan. Two other leaders died in prison. The party leaders who opposed Bangladesh’s independence were accused of murder, rape and torture, which they had denied.
Bangladesh bans Jamaat-e-Islami party following violent protests that left more than 200 dead (AP)
AP [8/1/2024 8:18 AM, Julhas Alam, 47701K, Negative]
Bangladesh on Thursday banned the Jamaat-e-Islami party, its student wing and other associate bodies as “militant and terrorist” organizations as part of a nationwide crackdown following weeks of violent protests that left more than 200 people dead and thousands injured.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her political partners blamed Jamaat-e-Islami, its Islami Chhatra Shibir student wing and other associate bodies for inciting violence during recent student protests over a quota system for government jobs.

In an official circular seen by The Associated Press, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Home Affairs said Thursday the ban was imposed under an anti-terrorism law.

Since July 15, at least 211 people have died and more than 10,000 people were arrested across the country.

The chief of Jamaat-e-Islami on Thursday rejected the decision in a statement, calling it anti-constitutional, and denied it was behind the recent violence.

“The government carried out massacres by party cadres and state law and order forces in the country to suppress the non-political movement of students. The country’s teachers, cultural personalities, journalists and people of different professions are protesting against this genocide of the government,” said Shafiqur Rahman, the party chief.

He accused the government of seeking to cover up its own misdeeds by banning Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir.

Before the announcement on Thursday, Hasina separately told a party event that Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir could “go underground” and carry out destructive activities after the ban. She warned that in that case they would be dealt with as militant groups.

She said that the government was set to ban the party for its involvement in the recent violence involving the quota reform movement.

Under Hasina, seen by her critics as an authoritarian, thousands of opposition leaders and activists have been arrested before last election in January when she retruned to power for fourth consecutive time. Global human rights groups have blamed her for using security forces and courts to suppress the opposition. The government has denied such allegations, saying they were arrested on specific charges. Following recent violence, more than 10,000 people including opposiiton figures have been arrested across the country.

Bangladesh Jamaat-e Islami has been banned from taking part in national elections since 2013, after the Election Commission cancelled its registration, a decision later upheld by the High Court.

The court ruled that the party’s constitution violated the national constitution by opposing secularism. However, Jamaat-e Islami was not barred from conducting political activities such as holding meetings, rallies and making statements.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court in 2023 upheld the High Court decision, sealing off the long legal battle and barring the party from participating in elections or using party symbols. But again, the Supreme Court did not ban it outright.

Also in 2013, a mass uprising in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, led by youth groups, civil society organizations and secular political parties called for the execution of the Jamaat party leadership for their role in 1971 war crimes.

Jamaat-e Islami was founded during British colonial rule in 1941 by a controversial Islamist scholar and campaigned against the creation of Bangladesh as an independent state during the war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Most of the senior leaders of the party have been hanged or jailed since 2013 after courts convicted them of crimes against humanity including killings, abductions and rapes in 1971. The party had formed militia groups to help the Pakistani military during the nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh won independence on Dec. 16 in 1971 with the help of neighboring India.

Bangladesh says 3 million people died, 200,000 women were raped and nearly 1 million people fled to neighboring India during the war.

The party was banned after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 for its role in the mass killings and atrocities under the administration of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding leader and Hasina’s father. The ban was lifted in 1976, a year after Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup. Only Hasina and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana survived as they were touring Germany in 1975.

Jamaat had also been banned earlier twice, in 1959 and 1964 in Pakistan, for its communal role.

The party held two Cabinet portfolios under a power-sharing agreement with former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, an arch-rival of Hasina and head of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in 2001-2006.

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary-general of Zia’s party, on Tuesday said that the decision to ban Jamaat-e-Islami is a tactic of Hasina’s administration to divert attention from the current political situation following recent violence.
Bangladesh arrests more than 10,000 in crackdown on protests (The Guardian)
The Guardian [8/1/2024 11:50 AM, Redwan Ahmed and Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 86157K, Negative]
Bangladesh has arrested more than 10,000 people and banned a major opposition party as part of a crackdown on dissent after weeks of protests.

The country has been in turmoil since a mass student movement began against quotas for government jobs. It escalated into deadly clashes when protesters were attacked by pro-government groups and hit by police with teargas, rubber bullets and pellets.

According to human rights groups, at least 266 people were killed in the violence and more than 7,000 injured.

Activists have accused the government, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, of an authoritarian witch-hunt against student leaders and political opposition groups, who it has sought to blame for the violence.

At least 10,372 people, including many political opposition leaders, have been arrested since the protests began, and the authorities are accused of arbitrarily detaining many others without charge.

Families of those detained said students who had attended peaceful protests or expressed support for the movement on social media were being rounded up en masse by police in the middle of the night, with relatives denied any information on their whereabouts. More than 200,000 people have been named in cases filed by police this week.

Asif Nazrul, a Dhaka University professor, said: “Mass arrests through block raids, detaining individuals at night, enforced disappearances and not presenting them in court within 24 hours; these actions are unconstitutional and violate many international conventions. It seems this government has declared war against dissent.”

Hasina, who took office in 2009, has been accused of imposing an increasingly authoritarian and tyrannical rule on Bangladesh, where critics, political opponents and activists are routinely arrested or kidnapped by police units. Successive elections have been widely documented as being rigged in her favour and she has systematically crushed and imprisoned the political opposition.

In a further retaliatory move, on Thursday Hasina’s government announced it was banning the largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, accusing them of stirring up violence.

Jamaat-e-Islami was already barred from contesting elections but the new order extended the prohibition, preventing the party from all activities and gatherings. The party chief, Shafiqur Rahman, called the decision “unconstitutional, undemocratic, and unjust”.

The protests began peacefully on university campuses in June against the re-introduction of quotas for all government jobs, which meant that 30% were to be reserved for the descendants of those who fought in the Bangladesh independence war in 1971, a system that students decried as discriminatory and unjust.

But as the protests became more widespread and took on a broader anti-government message, with calls for Hasina to resign, the state responded with increasingly heavy-handed violence.

Groups that supported Hasina’s ruling Awami League party were accused of attacking peaceful protesters with weapons. Police were authorised to use heavy force against demonstrators, and thousands were injured after teargas, rubber bullets, stun grenades and in some cases live ammunition was fired at them.

The protests briefly quietened last week after the supreme court reduced the controversial quotas. Student protest groups then presented Hasina with a list of demands, including justice for those killed in the clashes, stating they would resume their actions if she did not respond.

After Hasina ignored their demands and the state instead began arresting and surveilling student leaders, protests resumed and activists were hit with teargas and stun grenades by police. In the city of Barisal, at least 10 people were injured as police baton-charged protesters. In the capital, Dhaka, police detained at least seven students near the high court, where lawyers and university teachers had joined the demonstrators.

One protest leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they would continue their movement despite the government’s attempts to suppress them. “We have witnessed incredible support from the masses in this movement against repression, injustices, and a ruler who has failed to provide good governance. There is a wind of change and history tells us that authoritarian leaders resist change. The regime is scared and they’re trying to quell the uprising using unprecedented means and power,” he said.

“This is a people’s movement; they can’t stop us by keeping our leaders confined in custody. If I am picked up, my fellow brothers will take over. We are everywhere. How many of us can they lock up?”
Bangladesh protest movement launches foreign remittance freeze (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [8/2/2024 4:51 AM, Faisal Mahmud, 2M, Neutral]
Weeks of deadly protests in Bangladesh have prompted critics to lean on foreign remittances as their newest weapon against what they blast as state-sanctioned violence.

Organizers are calling on nearly 10 million Bangladeshis living abroad to freeze the flow of about $2 billion sent home monthly, as the Sheikh Hasina government grapples with an economic crisis that forced it to seek out an IMF bailout last year.

Remittances are the South Asian nation’s second-biggest source of foreign currency, a point not lost on boycott organizers like Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a Bangladeshi engineer working for a telecom company in Europe.

"By reducing remittances, we can cut off the financial lifeline to Hasina’s autocratic government," said Taiyeb.

The new tactic has won the backing of some popular Bangladeshi expats, including U.S.-based Elias Hussain, a former TV journalist turned government critic with over 2 million followers on YouTube.

More than 200 people have been killed since mass protests broke out last month as students and other demonstrators called on Hasina’s government to ditch public-sector job quotas amid skyrocketing youth unemployment.

The unrest sparked a heavy-handed government response that drew condemnation at home and abroad. Thousands have been arrested, and this week Hasina’s government -- re-elected this year to a fourth term in controversial polls boycotted by the opposition -- said it would ban the main Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and its student wing, which it blames for the violence.

The job quota system was abolished in 2018 after widespread protests, but the country’s High Court ordered its reinstatement in late June.

While Hasina’s administration has since agreed to reduce the quotas, a curfew has been implemented and public anger remains high.

On Wednesday, the European Union said it had postponed negotiations with Bangladesh on a new cooperation deal covering trade and economic relations after criticism of Dhaka’s response to the unrest.

Bangladesh is already struggling with a foreign exchange crisis, which has seen its reserves shrink to about $18 billion from nearly $49 billion two years ago.

The country’s overseas remittances, which are subject to government taxes, hit nearly $24 billion in the last fiscal year.

"Remittances for Bangladesh are what oil sales receipts [are] for a Middle Eastern country," said Shafquat Rabbee, an adjunct instructor of business analytics at the University of Dallas. "[Any] reduction could run shockwaves through the country’s macro economy."

Tokyo-based apparel merchandiser Saddam Hossain, another leader of the boycott movement, is calling on Bangladeshis in Japan and South Korea to temporarily suspend payments to friends and family back home -- despite the financial strain.

"I am doing this for my homeland," he said. "By killing students, this autocratic government of Hasina has forfeited all legitimacy."

Salim Mahmud, secretary of information and research for the ruling Awami League, slammed the remittance freeze as "unpatriotic" and unrealistic over the long term.

"People back home rely on this money," he told Nikkei Asia. "By urging a halt through legal channels, these individuals are encouraging illegality," he added, referring to unofficial channels that evade remittance duties.

The social media-driven campaign has led ministers from the Hasina administration to urge expatriates to continue sending funds home, while some banks have been directed to raise the U.S. dollar rate for incoming remittances, local media reported.

Business leaders, meanwhile, have warned that the recent protests, curfews and government-ordered internet shutdowns have already caused an estimated $10 billion in economic losses and threaten Bangladesh’s status as an investment destination.

It is currently not clear how many overseas Bangladeshis are taking part in the boycott or how much remittances may fall.

Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, reported that remittances between July 19 and July 24 were just $78 million, an amount sometimes received in a single day. But central bank spokesperson Mezbah Ul Haque told Nikkei that the sharply reduced flow could be attributed to a five-day internet blackout during the protests.

Australia-based economist Jyoti Rahman said it was "too early to attribute these figures to boycott."

But "if even a fraction of those who would otherwise have remitted money back to Bangladesh refrain from doing so, it would mean fewer supply of foreign exchange which would mean downward pressure on the taka currency," Rahman added.

Cutting remittances by half could push Bangladesh into insolvency and crash the local currency, warned U.S.-based academic Rabbee.

Zaved Akhtar, president of the Foreign Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry, cautioned that the "economic repercussions are still unfolding and the total damage could be even greater if the protests continue."

The remittance boycott, however, could backfire if the government turns it against the protest movement.

"The current situation is complex and there are lots of pressure points," said Dhaka-based economist Rubaiyath Sarwar, adding that the government may "attempt to use it as a tool to raise friction between the low-income population and the students."
Bangladesh Carnage: The Facts that Belie the Government Narrative (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [8/1/2024 12:43 AM, Ali Riaz, 1156K, Negative]
Even as the violent crackdown on participants in the anti-quota reform movement in Bangladesh continues, with the reported death toll having risen to 213 and injuries crossing the thousands, indiscriminate arrests around the country are mounting. One must ask who is bearing the brunt of it and what twisted rationale can be advanced to support the gross violation of human rights. But importantly, the question is whether more pretexts are being made to continue this crackdown for an indefinite period under an undeclared state of emergency.

The War Zone Mindset and People as the Enemy

The reported number of deaths, almost all sources acknowledge, is highly conservative as they are reported only from known hospitals around the country. Information from smaller hospitals and health clinics is yet to be available, and perhaps will never be reported. Many victims have not been listed as dead in the hospital registers as families aim to avoid the subsequent police hassles. They lost their loved ones and knew that they would never see justice. In many instances, those who died on the streets during the mayhem were not taken to hospitals, particularly when the area came under police control. As videos emerging after partial relaxation of internet restrictions attest, from July 18-21, the country became a killing field at the hands of police and the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB). Members of law enforcement agencies were given a license to kill, well before the official “shoot-on-sight” order was issued on the evening of July 19. The issuance of the official “shoot-on-sight” order was a mockery because the police and the BGB were already in action.

Deaths were not limited to the streets or places where the clashes were taking place. Dozens of incidents are now known where children inside their homes became victims. Such a scale of killing can take place in war zones or by a force that is trying to capture an enemy territory. Considering that these cannot have taken place without the explicit orders of the government, both in terms of command responsibility and execution, one cannot escape the question—what kind of mindset drives the regime?

It surely cannot be only for a day or two when citizens are seen as “the enemy” and killing as many as possible is considered a solution. There are explanations for these kinds of behaviors on the part of rulers, in academic and policy discourses, but if we for the moment keep them aside, what comes to mind?

Who are the Dead?

Analysis of the identities — age and professions — of those who died reveals who bore the brunt of the carnage. Prothom Alo, a Bengali newspaper, gathered information about 150 of those killed and found that 113 of them were aged between 18 and 39 years. More than 75 percent of those who lost their lives were young. Ninety-four of them – that is 64 percent – were between 18 and 29, at the height of their youth.

Samakal, another Bengali newspaper, examined the profiles of 200 people. According to its count, 104 of them were aged between 19 and 30, that is more than 50 percent. This is a testimony to the fact that the streets were flooded by the younger generations. For the past decade, policymakers and politicians, as well as demographers in Bangladesh reiterated that Bangladesh’s potential to become a powerhouse economy lies with the younger population. Bangladesh could make good on its “demographic dividend.” Yet, in the past decade, the much-touted “development miracle” left the youth behind — 41 percent of 15 to 24-year-olds are neither in jobs nor education. Those who are in public universities across the country have been subjected to thuggery by the ruling party student wing. Nationally, like other citizens, the youth were made spectators of the mockery of elections which anoints one person, again and again.

The demographic profiles of the victims have also revealed the ruthless nature of the massacre perpetrated by state actors. According to the data provided by Prothom Alo, of 113 victims, 19 were below the age of 18. According to Samakal, the number is 35, more than 17 percent of the total that it gathered. Some were as young as four years old. Whatever way the regime and its loyalists try to spin the statistics, the fact points to the diabolic nature of those who ordered and executed the killing spree.

The Revolt of the Downtrodden?

The professional profiles documented by the two newspapers, Prothom Alo and Samakal, is telling. Students were the largest numbers, 50 out of 200 according to Samakal, while Prothom Alo’s count is 45 out of 150, that is 25 percent and 30 percent respectively. But the remainder has come from all walks of life — day laborers, rickshaw pullers, small businessmen, employees of small restaurants, garment workers. Four members of law enforcement agencies and four journalists have been killed too. The defining feature of this profile is people from the lower middle class and poorer segments.

These were the people on the streets, either as protestors or as bystanders. The first explanation only shows how the movement became a grassroots movement of the downtrodden, the most aggrieved are those who have been bypassed by the “decade of development.” If the regime wants to spin it by saying these people were just bystanders and became unintended victims, and thus blame the protestors, it will only prove the point that police and BGB had not adhered to the “rules of engagement” and acted beyond the purview of lawful behavior.

The Regime Narrative Falls Apart

As of the evening of July 30, the number of arrests has been reported to be more than 10,000. But this number reflects only a part of what is going on. In Dhaka alone the number of cases filed stood at 229. Of these cases, an examination of 178 case documents by the Daily Star shows that 210,848 people have been accused. Most of these accused are unnamed, leaving it open to add anyone the police want to. Having thousands of unnamed individuals in cases is a familiar tactic of police who then pick up anyone and persecute them.

The arrests are made during the nighttime curfew without any recourse for the people who are being hauled away from their homes, at times after their homes are ransacked. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan claimed, “We are not arresting any innocent person. We are arresting those whom we have been able to identify with intelligence information, video footage, and witnesses.” Independent reports in the media not only belie the claim but point to a deeply disconcerting picture.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the regime apologists have been saying that the upsurge was designed and orchestrated by “militants” and Jamaat-Shibir and supported by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Such a claim falls flat even when looking at those the government has arbitrarily rounded up. As of Monday, the number of arrests in Dhaka was 2,630 and of these arrestees, 2,264 — almost 87 percent — had no political affiliation. Undoubtedly, another license of impunity has been issued to the police.

A New Twist in an Old Narrative and Things to Come

The narrative, since the carnage, especially by Prime Minister Hasina, is familiar albeit with a new twist. The familiar part is that she blamed the opposition. But unlike previous occasions, it is no longer the BNP-JI, but militants, JI-Shibir and then BNP, in this order. Portraying the mass upsurge as militant attacks, she is trying to frame the entire episode as her fight against terrorism. This is to garner the support or at least silence of the Western nations, a ploy she used for years.

The government has banned the Jamaat-i-Islam (JI) and its student wing Shibir through an executive order. This move is intended to achieve three objectives.

Firstly, to distract from the massacre and the demands for Hasina’s resignation.

Secondly, to consolidate her support base and create a schism within the movement. The regime seems to be banking on the idea that reintroduction of this longstanding issue will engender a debate among her opponents and create a fault line. The intended audience of this move is the urban-educated middle class, who had in large measure acquiesced to the autocratization process and contributed to the rise of a personalistic autocracy. They have remained silent until the last few days.

Thirdly, to allow for a further crackdown under the legal ruse that the government is arresting members of proscribed organizations. Although it is not a new tactic that anyone to be assaulted, arrested or vilified is labeled as an activist or a sympathizer of the “Jamaat-Shibir,” but from hereon this will be legally permissible. The move is nothing short of a reflection of desperation but is also a pretext for a more extensive crackdown in the coming days.
Nepal: How monsoons bring rain, landslides, and tragedy (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [8/1/2024 10:48 AM, Swechhya Raut, 15592K, Negative]
In Nepal, the monsoon season brings a constant fear of landslides as settlements in many areas face the risk of being swept away. Shifting terrain claims hundreds of lives every year, while also threatening the country’s arable land, highways, and other infrastructure. Financial losses for the Himalayan state amount to millions of dollars each year.

On July 11, a landslide swept two buses into the Trishuli River on the Narayanghat-Mugling road, one of the busiest highways connecting the capital, Kathmandu, with eastern and western parts of Nepal. Weeks later, rescuers have recovered 24 bodies, while 27 passengers are still considered missing.

Jagadish Prasad Yadav lost his 25-year-old daughter in the deadly incident. He blames her death on officials, accusing them of "allowing public transport amid landslide-prone areas" and not issuing a warning about the threat.

"If the government had issued a risk alert, I would have urged my daughter to postpone her travel," he told DW.

Landslides threaten India, Japan, China

Just a day after the death of Yadav’s daughter, eleven people lost their lives in similar incidents in Kaski district, a major tourist destination in Nepal.

The data presented by Nepal’s Home Ministry shows 3,082 people losing their lives to monsoon-related natural disasters in the last decade. Nearly 1,400 deaths were caused by landslides. Over 350 went missing in this time period, and close to 12,500 families were affected by landslides.

In recent years, landslides have also claimed hundreds of lives and caused economic losses worth millions of dollars in other Asian countries like India, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, and Japan.
Topography and monsoon rains worsen landslide crisis

Bhishmakumar Bhusal, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, told DW that Nepal cannot completely prevent monsoon-related calamities, including landslides, due to its geography.

"The government is focusing on minimizing their impact," he said.

Experts agree that Nepal’s geography is exacerbating the risks — the mountainous landscape is affected by constant tectonic activities, making the country vulnerable to earthquakes.

"These seismic events alter the geomorphology of young mountains prone to landslides. Additionally, the disrupted rainfall patterns have contributed to increasing the frequency and impact of landslides," engineering geologist Basanta Raj Adhikari told DW.

The monsoon season, from June to September, tends to make things worse. It brings heavy rains that saturate the soil with water and makes it susceptible to being washed away on slopping terrain.

The World Health Organization warns that climate change and rising temperatures will trigger more landslides, especially in more elevated areas with snow and ice.

"Being a mountainous country, we are experiencing extreme weather situations. Even our dry regions are witnessing unexpected rainfall, which drives natural calamities," climate scientist Binod Pokharel said.

However, he notes that no one can establish a firm link between any specific disaster and climate change without in-depth research to support this claim.

Building without landslide maps

Geologists also warn that, despite Nepal suffering from landslides for many decades, there is still no comprehensive mapping of landslide-prone areas.

"Studies have been conducted on small patches, but no detailed assessments have been made to identify risky and risk-free areas,’" geologist Adhikari said.

As a result, the general public is settling wherever they find vacant land, and the government is also expanding roads and designing culverts or bridges without analyzing potential risks.

With no proper planning, construction projects may harm the environment and boost natural hazards. In some cases, roads are washed away by landslides due to the lack of proper drainage systems or shoddy maintenance.

What can be done?

Experts say that geohazard assessments of existing highways, roads, and settlements are crucial to controlling the damage caused by landslides.

"We need an agency dedicated to addressing every aspect of landslides. Citizens should know whom to contact when they suddenly see cracks in their courtyard," geologist Bhattarai says.

But some, like former secretary general of the Nepal Red Cross Society Pitambar Aryal, warn that "the agencies responsible for disaster management in Nepal are not well-equipped to identify the risk, disseminate information about it, and handle the post-hazard situation properly."

Jagadish Prasad Yadav, who lost his daughter in the highway landslide last month, responded by encouraging his son to avoid travel. Just like his late daughter, his son is also studying in Kathmandu. Yadav used to invite him home as often as possible for the holidays. He now is afraid to do so, and prefers to talk to him on the phone .

"Because my son will also have to travel the same highway where his sister lost her life. Now I cannot take the risk," he told DW.
Sri Lanka needs to raise fiscal revenue to maintain stability, IMF says (Reuters)
Reuters [8/1/2024 4:12 PM, Uditha Jayasinghe, 5.2M, Neutral]
Sri Lanka must make further efforts to raise fiscal revenue if it is to maintain economic stability and restore debt sustainability, the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, after wrapping up a staff visit to the country.

After September’s presidential election in the Indian Ocean nation, the global lender will discuss the timing for a review of progress in meeting key commitments as part of a $2.9- billion bailout, the IMF said in a statement.

The IMF has also provided Colombo and financial advisors of the country’s bondholders an assessment on a provisional deal Sri Lanka reached last month to restructure $12.5 billion in debt.

"We encourage a swift resolution of the remaining steps to achieve debt sustainability and regain investor confidence. We will continue to support Sri Lanka´s ongoing debt restructuring efforts," the global lender added.

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka plunged into its worst financial crisis in more than seven decades in 2022 with a severe dollar shortage sending inflation soaring to a high of 70%, its currency to record lows and its economy contracting 7.3%.

The IMF bailout secured in March last year helped to stabilise economic conditions. The rupee has risen 7% in recent months and inflation slowed to 2.4% in July. The economy is expected to grow 3% this year for the first time since the crisis.

The country also signed agreements with Japan, India, China and other creditor nations in June to restructure about $10 billion in bilateral debt.

But Sri Lanka is heading to a presidential election on September 21 the outcome of which could potentially impact policy changes including crucial measures to put its public finances on track, combat corruption and attract fresh investment.

"With Sri Lanka´s knife-edged recovery at a critical juncture, sustaining the reform momentum and ensuring timely implementation of all program commitments are critical to cement the hard-won economic progress to date and put the economy on a firm footing," the IMF said.
Central Asia
Central Asians in the Crosshairs of Russia’s Ever-Evolving Migration Regime (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [8/1/2024 11:24 AM, Catherine Putz, 1156K, Neutral]
On July 31, the Russian State Duma adopted a bill that will require military registration upon obtaining a Russian passport and introduce possible termination of citizenship upon failure to register for military service. That bill follows quick on the heels of another, approved on July 23, that will introduce new mechanisms for deportation of migrants, allowing police – rather than a court – to decide while also introducing a register for those deemed to be residing illegally in Russia.

If both bills are signed similarly approved by the Russian parliament’s upper chamber and signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin, they will serve to ratchet up pressure on Central Asian migrants, among others, in Russia.

In late June, the Moscow Times ran an opinion piece penned by Russian human rights defender and lawyer Valentina Chupik with the title: “How Russia Plans to Make Life Hell For Migrants.” In the piece, Chupik was stark in her judgment of the legislation then-bubbling up in the Duma: “On Jun. 18, the State Duma passed the first reading of the draft law that will spark a migration crisis that will only pour fuel on the fires of corruption.”

As reported by Russian state-owned media, “According to the bill, any foreign citizen having no legal right to remain in Russia will be considered to be in the deportation mode starting the day his data is entered in the registry of individuals under supervision.”

Individuals placed under “supervision” will be required to notify the Interior Ministry of their location, and subject to an array of restrictions, including a ban on buying real estate, driving, opening a bank account, or getting married.

Not mentioned in Russian state-owned media is the extensive list of violations the Internal Affairs Ministry would be able to cite as grounds for deportation, from “participation in or organization of a mass gathering of citizens” to disobeying the “legitimate orders of police officers.”

Speaking to Current Time on July 25, Chupik said “in 19 years of human right activities in Russia, I have never seen a single legitimate request by police officers to labor migrants.”

She noted that a “mass gathering” could refer to anything from a crowd outside a packed mosque to a queue at a cafe or a funeral procession.

This spate of laws – including one adopted on July 30 that limits the number of SIM cards a person can buy – will directly affect Central Asian migrants and Central Asian communities in Russia. While Central Asian labor migrants are not a monolith, they face an increasingly complex and punitive web of regulations in Russia that has accelerated in the aftermath of Crocus City Hall attack in March.

The exact number of Central Asian migrants working in Russia fluctuates throughout the year and sources are not always consistent. In March, the Russian Interior Ministry, as reported by the BBC, said that there were “about 10.5 million migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan working in Russia.” That figure is much larger than typical numbers (it’s possible that estimate includes ethnic Central Asians with Russian citizenship).

For reference, in 2021 a record-breaking 3 million Tajiks were reported to have entered Russia (thought that figure included repeat entries). As Niginakhon Saida reported for The Diplomat earlier this year “In the first quarter of 2022, for example, 2.3 million [Uzbek] citizens were working abroad,” with the bulk of them traveling to Russia. Kyrgyzstan also sends significant numbers of migrants; the most recent estimate was 1.2 million people.

Many more have acquired Russian citizenship. Dual citizenship is not officially recognized by the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan – but it is recognized by Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. As I noted in an article in 2022:

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Central Asians have obtained Russian citizenship, though exact figures are elusive. For example, in 2018 Kyrgyz authorities claimed that since independence more than half a million Kyrgyz had obtained Russian citizenship. At the time, officials noted that the pace of Kyrgyz seeking Russian citizenship had slowed because of the country’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union, which simplified the process of migrating to Russia for work. Meanwhile, it appears that the numbers of Tajiks seeking Russian citizenship in recent years has grown. In 2021 alone, Russian authorities said more than 100,000 Tajiks had obtained Russian citizenship, in contrast to around 30,000 back in 2016.

In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Central Asian governments warned their citizens against participating. Nevertheless, Russia has continued to recruit soldiers among migrants, and that effort is reflected in the recent legislation.

The importance of these migrants to their home countries is reflected in the volume of remittances they send back home. According to the World Bank, personal remittances received by Tajikistan climbed down from a 2022 record high of 49.9 percent of GDP to 38.4 percent in 2023. (Editor’s note: Remittances are typically discussed as a percentage of GDP, but remittances themselves are not actually a part of gross domestic product, which measures the value of all final goods and services produced in a country. We just use GDP as a point of reference to illustrate the scale of remittances.) Remittances to Kyrgyzstan have declined for two years now, from a 2021 high of 32.6 percent of GDP to 18.6 percent in 2023. Like Tajikistan, for Uzbekistan remittances hit a high point in 2022, at 20.6 percent of GDP, dropping in 2023 to 17.7 percent.

With these additional regulations targeting migrant workers in Russia, we can expect the numbers of Central Asian migrants to fall, and therefor see a further contraction in remittances – but only so much. Central Asians have limited options when it comes to working abroad (though there are certainly efforts to diversify) and the well-worn pathways to and known networks in Russia remain attractive.

But Russian lawmakers aren’t finished. According to Kloop, another new bill has been introduced in the State Duma that would “prohibit labor migrants from working in the areas of school and preschool education, medicine and pharmaceuticals, passenger transportation, and also from engaging in ‘certain types of activities that bring in above-average income or may be in demand by citizens of the Russian Federation.’”

Meanwhile, the ever-worsening mistreatment of Central Asians poses a security risk for Russia, as terrorist groups like the Islamic State have taken to highlighting such incidents in their propaganda, seeking to radicalize the migrant population. So far, Moscow has been willfully blind to the fact that its crackdown on migrants may actually increase the odds of another Crocus City Hall tragedy.
Uzbekistan going all out to promote itself as a tourist destination (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [8/1/2024 4:14 PM, Ekaterine Venkina, 57.6K, Neutral]
Go down a mine, tour a smelting plant or see World War II-era military uniforms at the Shon-Sharaf (“Museum of Glory”) in Tashkent: Uzbekistan is touting a wide variety of new attractions as the country strives to turn itself into a major tourist destination.

Starting in January 2025, the government will launch experimental initiatives to promote geological, industrial, and even military tourism, in addition to traditional Silk Road sites. A presidential plan has been published outlining the steps to be taken by the Agency for Strategic Reforms, together with the State Tourism Committee, to develop the sector.

The bar is set high: The goal is to increase the number of foreign tourists to 15 million by 2030, more than double the 6.6 million who visited Uzbekistan in 2023. “Muynak airport [in northwestern Uzbekistan] could become a venue for extreme tourism, with parachuting and skydiving,” according to Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s vision.

In 2023, tourism generated about $2.1 billion in economic activity, and some 70,000 new jobs were created in the sector. According to the World Economic Forum, between 2019 and 2024, Uzbekistan moved up 16 places (+7.8%) in the Travel & Tourism Development Index, now ranking 78th out of 119 countries. It also came first in the 2023 Lloyd’s Register Foundation Safety Perceptions Index.

Officials are making lofty promises. “We intend to create a Global Green Tourism Startup Lab,” said Mirziyoyev, adding that the facility will develop innovative solutions with the Central AsianGreen University outside Tashkent and the Silk Road University in Samarkand. The recent government move to place the State Tourism Committee under the authority of the Ministry of Ecology underscores Mirziyoyev’s evident desire to marry the green economy and tourism.

Marketing is a major part of the growth strategy. Deals have been struck with the BBC, CNN, and Euronews to promote the country as a promising tourist destination, according to local media reports. Promotion arrangements are also being negotiated with streaming services, such as Nextflix, along with major holiday concerns, including Chinese travel agency Trip.com, and Dubai’s Holiday Factory. To attract the notice of younger travelers, Uzbekistan is courting bloggers, vloggers, and social media influencers with over 10 million followers: 50 of them will be invited to travel around the country at government expense.

To loosen things up financially, officials are willing to open credit lines through commercial banks for local tour operators. A one-stop shopping website for air, train, bus, and other tickets is expected to be launched in December, aiming to ease logistical bottlenecks.

Extended stopovers in Tashkent seem to be the latest trend for passengers traveling to Bangkok, Seoul, Delhi, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur from Europe. This is largely due to the visa-free policy adopted by Mirziyoyev’s cabinet as part of his stated intention to “fundamentally change the geo-economy of the region.” As of May 2024, citizens of more than 90 countries can visit Uzbekistan without a visa. Cross-border traffic with neighboring countries, including Kyrgyzstan, has also become less cumbersome.

To date, the lack of English-language services and tourist-friendly infrastructure in smaller cities has presented perhaps the biggest challenge to expanding the tourism sector. Double-digit inflation has added an element of economic volatility for local entrepreneurs.

But from a broader perspective, the weather and the country’s Silk Road heritage are big assets that Mirziyoyev’s administration hopes to capitalize on. To make the country more tourist friendly, the government sees a need to embrace digitalization.

“In order to increase the attractiveness of Uzbekistan in the tourism sector and improve the awareness of tourists, it is necessary to equip tourist destinations with modern navigation and orientation systems,” the presidential decree states. “This includes digital and interactive systems such as signs, banners, electronic maps and mobile applications that will help tourists navigate easily and get all the information they need.”
Indo-Pacific
How Will Rising Middle East Tensions Impact Afghanistan and Pakistan? (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [8/1/2024 1:05 PM, Abubakar Siddique, 235K, Neutral]
The killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the EU- and U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, has thrown the Middle East into crisis.

But his assassination in a suspected Israeli strike in Iran on July 31 and the heightened risk of a broader war also have implications in the wider region, including for Iran’s eastern neighbors, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Experts say Kabul and Islamabad will likely struggle with the security, economic, and political fallout from a major escalation in the Middle East.

But a potential regional war involving Iran is unlikely to directly drag in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which have cordial relations with Tehran, experts say.

"The attacks will not draw either country into direct participation in the conflicts such as by offering to send fighters," said Marvin Weinbaum, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan studies at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington.

Pakistan and the Taliban both directly blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s assassination, which Tehran has also blamed on its archenemy.

Islamabad denounced the killing as an act of "terrorism," and hundreds of supporters of a Pakistan Islamist party held a symbolic funeral for Haniyeh near Islamabad on July 31.

‘Making Life Harder For Afghans’

Iran is on friendly terms with the Taliban. Tehran is also the biggest trading partner of the cash-strapped and internationally unrecognized Taliban-led government. Kabul is dependent on Iranian ports for most of its imports and exports amid tensions with neighboring Pakistan.

The Islamic republic is also home to around 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees. The remittances they send back home keep many impoverished families afloat in Afghanistan, which has grappled with an economic crisis since the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said rising tensions in the Middle East "could have destabilizing consequences for the fragile situation in Afghanistan."

Smith said the risk is that a conflict involving Iran will harden the country’s borders with Afghanistan, "making life harder for Afghans."

He said Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, the largest in the world, could worsen if its borders with Iran are closed.

"The exit route from that crisis depends on renewed trade across the region," he said. "[But it] requires borders opening to the flow of goods and labor."

Pakistan Not To Become ‘Directly Involved’

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans and millions of Pakistanis work as laborers and traders in the oil-rich Arab Gulf countries.

A potential regional war could disrupt the flow of Afghan and Pakistani migrant workers heading to the Gulf. That would deal a major blow to Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which are both heavily dependent on remittances sent from abroad.

In Pakistan, some political parties and the media have called for Islamabad to take a more hard-line approach to Israel, which is not formally recognized by the South Asian country.

But Weinbaum said the "general feeling among [Pakistani] policymakers is that the country has enough security concerns of its own not to become directly involved."

Faced with rising militant attacks in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern province of Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, Islamabad’s choices are limited.

"There are also worries about an American reaction if Pakistan makes any military commitments [to Iran]," Weinbaum said.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are home to millions of Shi’ite Muslims. And Iran, a Shi’a-majority country, could look to Shi’ite communities living in its eastern neighbors for recruits in the event of a war.

During the Syrian civil war, Iran recruited, trained, and armed thousands of Shi’ite fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight. Many of those fighters who survived have returned home as the war has died down.
Twitter
Afghanistan
SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[8/1/2024 4:00 PM, 170.4K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
In April 2022, Taliban’s so-called emir issued a decree banning production, sale, processing, & consumption of all drugs. After two & a half years of enforcement & steep reduction in opium cultivation, #AFG remains economically dependent on opium https://sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2024-07-30qr.pdf#page=21

SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[8/1/2024 1:00 PM, 170.4K followers, 6 retweets, 20 likes]
U.S. has disbursed more than $3.2 billion for humanitarian & development assistance since Taliban takeover in August 2021. In first three quarters of FY 2024, U.S. govt has committed & obligated over $257 million to support humanitarian assistance in #AFG https://sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2024-07-30qr.pdf#page=77

Zhao Xing
@ChinaEmbKabul
[8/1/2024 9:51 AM, 28.7K followers, 2 retweets, 7 likes]
I met with UNHCR Representative to Afghanistan Mr. Arafat Jamal, and exchanged views on strengthening cooperation on providing humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. We both agreed to strengthen cooperation, increase assistance to Afghan refugees.

Amrullah Saleh
@AmrullahSaleh2
[8/1/2024 6:23 AM, 1.1M followers, 38 retweets, 145 likes]
Ghost contractors: Talibs signed a muti-billion dollars contract with a mining company which doesn’t exist. Now they try to delete social media posts and minimize the damage. Impossible. Most mining contracts are signed with uknown, secret, bankrupt or non existing firms. A case monitored by @AGTAfghanistan involves the so called Yama Afghan mining company which bribed the Talibs for an iron ore mine contract in Herat. It is now proven that the firm was a total scam and doesn’t exist. Most contracts which the Talibs boast of having finalized or scams. Due to complete media & civil soceity black out not much gets out. However the intelligence unit of @AGTAfghanistan is trying to chase them to the core.
Pakistan
Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/2/2024 12:59 AM, 228.9K followers, 10 retweets, 54 likes]
Pashtuns blasting the Pashtunistan anthem, instead of Pakistan’s in Islamabad. The drive for freedom is at an all-time high among both Baloch and Pashtun nations, with both eyeing a break from Pakistan.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/1/2024 10:45 PM, 228.9K followers, 24 retweets, 145 likes]
Baluchistan Liberation Army’ elite squad storms a heavily fortified Pakistani military position, successfully taking over a FOB and main base camp in Sangaan.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/1/2024 11:01 AM, 228.9K followers, 28 retweets, 101 likes]
The unrest in Balochistan has persisted for over a week, with protesters chanting "Ye wardi wale, dehshatgar," meaning "Those in military uniforms are terrorists." Protests in Gwadar and Quetta have been ruthlessly suppressed by the Pakistani military.

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[8/1/2024 11:37 PM, 8.5M followers, 104 retweets, 239 likes]
A secret network have gone after Pakistani journalists and news organizations. The targets include journalist Hamid Mir, described in one post as "loyal to every enemy of the country," and DAWN attacked for giving "senior positions to LGBTQ supporters." https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/pakistan-military-social-media-program

Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[8/1/2024 3:26 AM, 73.3K followers, 2 retweets, 9 likes]
Pakistan’s Federal Government decides to;
1) Continue Aid to Gaza
2) Make arrangements for safe evacuation and treatment of Palestinians
3) Make arrangements for safe evacuation and continuation of education of medical students of Gaza, in Pakistan Announces PM @CMShehbaz

Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[8/1/2024 2:36 PM, 73.3K followers, 29 retweets, 155 likes]
Pakistan will observe a National Day of Mourning tomorrow & hold funeral prayer in absentia for the Chief of Political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, across the country, after Friday prayers. #Pakistan
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[8/1/2024 11:03 AM, 100.6M followers, 5.4K retweets, 37K likes]
Earlier today, held very productive talks with PM Phạm Minh Chinh of Vietnam. India cherishes the strong friendship with Vietnam. Over the years, we have deepened cooperation in trade, energy, technology, security, connectivity and more. Cultural and people-to-people linkages have also become stronger. In our talks today, we took stock of the ground covered in the last few years and also discussed sectors like defence, maritime trade, green economy, MSME where we see immense scope of closer relations.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[8/1/2024 4:04 AM, 100.6M followers, 4.1K retweets, 18K likes]
Addressing the press meet with PM Pham Minh Chinh of Vietnam. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1RDGlyXnVZDJL

Rahul Gandhi
@RahulGandhi
[8/1/2024 9:24 AM, 26.5M followers, 8.7K retweets, 30K likes]
After spending time with the grief-stricken people of Wayanad today, I feel the same profound sorrow I felt the day my father died. Many here have lost their entire families, making their pain even greater. The tragedy is immense, and the work required to heal Wayanad is substantial. Now is not the time for politics. The entire country stands with Wayanad in this difficult time. We must unite and work together to provide all the assistance needed to support the people.

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[8/1/2024 4:55 AM, 24.2M followers, 121 retweets, 536 likes]
Attended the 83rd AFHQ Civilian Services Day celebrations in New Delhi today. Exhorted upon all personnel to enhance their skills for efficient policy making & better implementation of reforms. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2040107

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[8/1/2024 10:50 AM, 211.2K followers, 2 retweets, 14 likes]
The Quad held a foreign ministers meeting in Japan on Monday. This week for @ForeignPolicy, I explain how the Quad-thanks to the China factor-has been able to resolve a geopolitical disconnect between India and the group’s three other members. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/31/quad-foreign-ministers-summit-indo-pacific/

Derek J. Grossman
@DerekJGrossman
[8/1/2024 2:13 PM, 90.7K followers, 44 retweets, 245 likes]
Modi’s "Act East" policy in Southeast Asia continues. "India on Thursday offered a $300 million loan to build up Vietnam’s maritime security..."

Derek J. Grossman
@DerekJGrossman
[8/1/2024 2:13 PM, 90.7K followers, 6 retweets, 15 likes]
My longer-form thoughts, here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/07/india-is-becoming-a-power-in-southeast-asia.html
NSB
Awami League
@albd1971
[8/1/2024 11:07 AM, 640.7K followers, 33 retweets, 63 likes]
#AbdulKader, a #Dhaka University student, who has been declaring programmes recently on behalf of #Students Against Discrimination (SAD), has been a long-term activist and campaigner of #BNP’s student wing. His #FB posts from last 2 years speaks volumes about his party loyalty!

Awami League
@albd1971
[8/1/2024 10:24 AM, 640.7K followers, 39 retweets, 70 likes]
Bangladesh Forms Three-Member Judicial Inquiry Commission to Investigate Deaths and Property Damages During Quota Movement Read More - https://dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/353368/govt-forms-judicial-inquiry-commission-over-recent #Bangaldesh #QuotaMovement #Violence #JudicialInquiryCommission

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[8/1/2024 9:51 AM, 6.3K followers, 20 retweets, 31 likes]
A Bangladeshi-Australian human rights lawyer has instructed his lawyer to file preliminary paperwork to the International Criminal Court. The basis is to investigate charges of crimes against humanity of (a) murder, (b) imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty and (c) other inhuman acts. These identified people include Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed (who is also the President of the #Bangladesh Awami League), various government Ministers, various police and military personal and various members of the Bangladesh Chatra League.

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[8/1/2024 4:10 AM, 6.3K followers, 24 retweets, 32 likes]
SHEIKH HASINA MUST RESIGN WITHOUT FURTHER BARBARIC BLOODSHED AND BRUTAL REPRESSION The storm of demonstrations by the students and others again gripped the whole country on 31 July 2024. Many parents and guardians, university teachers, artists, lawyers, journalists, civil society members, and others joined the demonstrations. They all defied the fear of death, bullets, strafing by helicopters, menacing armored vehicles, and the battle field conditions created by the police, RAB, BGB, and the army. All the protesters are undaunted by firings, baton charges, tear gas shells, sound grenades, arrests, torture, false court cases, and all kinds of brutal repressive measures. Sheikh Hasina is fighting against the people of #Bangladesh, but it is a losing battle for her. She must resign without further barbaric blood shed and brutal repression. The longer she in power, the more she will shed the blood of children, students, parents and other innocent people. https://bfdf.chrdbangladesh.org/2024/08/01/hasina-must-resign-without-further-barbaric-blood-shed-and-brutal-repression/

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[8/1/2024 3:56 AM, 99.5K followers, 2 retweets, 13 likes]
I am deeply saddened by the devastation caused by #WayanadLandslides in Kerala, India. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the entire community of Wayanad.

Ambassador Chen Song
@PRCAmbNepal
[8/1/2024 7:05 AM, 73.5K followers, 30 retweets, 299 likes]
Today we celebrate the 69th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Nepal. For the past 69 years, China and Nepal have firmly supported each other, safeguarded the shared interests of the two countries, upheld international fairness and justice, and promoted common development. Long live the friendship between China and Nepal!

Namal Rajapaksa
@RajapaksaNamal
[8/1/2024 12:55 AM, 440.9K followers, 1 retweet, 32 likes]
Meeting with SLPP Provincial and Local Council leaders today. We discussed the way forward for the upcoming election.#SLPP #Election2024

Namal Rajapaksa
@RajapaksaNamal
[8/2/2024 2:36 AM, 441K followers, 4 retweets, 9 likes]
Mr. Ashu Marasinghe, Presidential Advisor, claims about an alleged meeting between me and Mr. Premadasa are completely false. NO such meeting took place, and I have no reason to meet him. I encourage media colleagues to verify with me or my office before reporting.

Namal Rajapaksa
@RajapaksaNamal
[8/1/2024 11:35 PM, 441K followers, 1 retweet, 7 likes]
It was great to meet Indian High Commissioner @santjha on recent political developments in Sri Lanka. India has consistently been a dedicated partner, and the insights provided on mutual interests are always appreciated.

Kanchana Wijesekera
@kanchana_wij
[8/1/2024 8:05 AM, 53.3K followers, 16 retweets, 109 likes]
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna Matara District Organization met this afternoon and unanimously decided to pledge its support to President @RW_UNP at the Presidential Election. At the meeting held with the participation of Electorate organizers, former Provincial Council Ministers & Members, former Local Council Chairpersons, Members & Candidates, Members of affiliated organizations in Matara, It was also proposed and unanimously decided to request the SLPP leadership to reconsider the decision taken on Monday & request the SLPP to support President Ranil Wickramasinghe and to remove SLPP General Secratary Sagara Kariyawasam and appoint Dr Ramesh Pathirana as the General Secratary of SLPP.
Central Asia
Yerzhan Ashikbayev
@KZAmbUS
[8/1/2024 9:40 AM, 2.6K followers, 20 likes]
Great day on the Hill as I met with the Chair of Congress’s oldest & esteemed Ways & Means Committee, @RepJasonSmith. We delved into finding new paths for enhancing trade and economic relations between Kazakhstan & the U.S., with a main focus on fostering mutual prosperity

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[8/1/2024 6:35 AM, 23.5K followers, 1 retweet]
Shrinking dramatically for the last seven decades and this is what we found of the Aral Sea #karakalpakstan #uzbekistan #centralasia

{End of Report}
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