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

Afghanistan
Reclusive Taliban leader warns Afghans against earning money or gaining ‘worldly honor’ (AP)
AP [6/17/2024 10:02 AM, Staff, 31180K, Neutral]
The Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader on Monday warned Afghans against earning money or gaining worldly honor at a time when the country is in the grip of humanitarian crises and isolated on the global stage.

Hibatullah Akhundzada gave his warning in a sermon to mark the festival of Eid al-Adha at a mosque in southern Kandahar province, weeks before a Taliban delegation goes to Doha, Qatar for U.N.-hosted talks on Afghanistan.

This is the first round of talks the Taliban will attend since they seized power in August 2021. They weren’t invited to the conference of foreign special envoys to Afghanistan in the first round, and they snubbed the second round because they wanted to be treated as the country’s official representatives.

No government recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, whose aid-dependent economy was plunged into turmoil following their takeover.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the invitation to the Doha meeting at the end of June does not imply recognition of the Taliban.

Akhundzada reminded Afghans of their duties as Muslims and made repeated calls for unity in his 23-minute sermon.

Messages by him and another influential Taliban figure, Sirajuddin Haqqani, to mark a religious festival in April showed tensions between hardliners and more moderate elements who want to scrap harsher policies and attract more outside support.

In Monday’s message, Akhundzada said he wanted brotherhood among Muslims and that he was unhappy about differences between citizens and Taliban officials. Public dissent over Taliban edicts is rare, and protests are swiftly and sometimes violently quashed.

He said he would willingly accept any decision to remove him as supreme leader, as long as there was unity and agreement on his ouster. But he was unhappy about differences and disagreement between people.

“We were created to worship Allah and not to earn money or gain worldly honor,” Akhundzada said. “Our Islamic system is God’s system and we should stand by it. We have promised God that we will bring justice and Islamic law (to Afghanistan) but we cannot do this if we are not united. The benefit of your disunity reaches the enemy; the enemy takes advantage of it.”

The Taliban have used their interpretation of Islamic law to bar girls from education beyond the age of 11, ban women from public spaces, exclude them from many jobs, and enforce dress codes and male guardianship requirements.

Akhundzada told Taliban officials to listen to the advice of religious scholars and entrust them with authority. He said officials shouldn’t be arrogant, boast, or deny the truth about Islamic law.

Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, who has written several books about Afghanistan and the Taliban, said Akhundzada’s appeals for unity were a sign of desperation because he refused to spell out the real issues facing Afghans such as unemployment, economic development, and building a consensus for social reform.

“I would not be convinced that this was a meaningful speech if I were the Taliban,” said Rashid.

Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, said Akhundzada’s focus on unity may also be preemptive and meant to nip in the bud any possibility that rifts could flare up again.

He also questioned if the audience being targeted went beyond Afghans to focus on the global Muslim community.

“Operationally speaking, the Taliban don’t have transnational goals. But the supreme leader looks to command respect beyond Afghanistan’s borders,” said Kugelman.
Afghans spend Eid in poverty after fleeing Pakistan (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [6/17/2024 11:07 AM, Staff, 85570K, Negative]
Seven months since fleeing Pakistan out of fear of deportation, Jan Mohammad marked the Eid al-Adha holiday on Monday struggling to feed his family, still living in a tent in Afghanistan in the border province of Nangarhar.

"We are spending Eid as if we were in prison," the 30-year-old father of six told AFP.

"We have absolutely no money. We are still grateful to Allah that we are alive but sometimes we regret that as well. We can’t do anything. This year, and this Eid, we became fully bankrupt."

He and his family crossed from Pakistan at the end of last year, not long after a deadline set by Islamabad for Afghans without legal right to stay in the country to leave.

Hundreds of thousands Afghans have hurriedly packed up their belongings to start fresh in their homeland, a place many of them had never seen before, in the months since the November 1, 2023 deadline.

But months later, many have still not found their feet.

Mohammad and his family were living in a tent encampment in the Moye Mubarak area of Nangarhar with other recently returned Afghan families.

He worked as a trainer at a sports club in Pakistan but is now jobless, unable to provide sufficient food for his family, let alone take part in Eid al-Adha traditions of buying new clothes or a sheep for the ritual sacrifice or gathering with extended family and friends.

"My children don’t have proper food to eat or clothes to wear (for Eid), or shoes, while the children in the nearby villages have good clothes and shoes. My children want the same things. It is very difficult but we are helpless," Mohammad said.

"It breaks my heart, I sit in a corner at home and cry."

In a nearby tent, Sang Bibi is also holding on by a thread. Where other families were buying new clothes for Eid, she and her six children can rarely wash and beg for hand-me-downs to wear.

"We even beg for the clothes of dead," the 60-year-old widow, the sole breadwinner for her family, told AFP.

"We have been in a terrible situation these past two Eids," she said, referring to Eid al-Fitr, which fell at the end of the holy month of Ramadan in April this year.

The influx of returnees into Afghanistan from both Pakistan and Iran came as the war-ravaged country grapples with economic, climate and humanitarian crises.

UN refugee agency UNHCR said last year that Afghans make up the third-largest group of displaced people globally, with around eight million Afghans living across 103 countries as of 2023.

The Taliban government, which took power almost three years ago, provided some support for the returnees, but struggled to cope with the surge.

"We want the government to help us by providing shelter," said Sana Gul, who has lived in a tent with her husband and their two daughters since coming from Pakistan.

In the days ahead of Eid, markets were bustling with shoppers buying sweets and food for the holiday, with many families sharing meat with poorer relations during the holiday.

But having spent years, if not their whole lives, abroad, fleeing Afghanistan’s successive conflicts, many returnees have few networks to support them.

"We don’t even have bread to eat," said Gul’s husband Safar.
Afghanistan: What happens to single moms under Taliban rule? (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [6/17/2024 9:45 AM, Shabnam von Hein, 15592K, Negative]
Being a single mother in Afghanistan often means fighting for survival. Under the Taliban, options to earn money are few and far between — and many of the women are simply left at the mercy of their relatives.

Fouzieh is a single mother of a five-year-old son. Her husband left the family after the Taliban took power again in Afghanistan in August, 2021. He was afraid of retaliation.

"I was a police officer and worked for the national security forces," Fouzieh told DW. "We lived in Kabul when the Taliban came. My husband abandoned us. I had to go into hiding with my son. We have been on the run for over a year, moving every couple of months and staying with our relatives."

Since the Taliban takeover, many former police officers and soldiers have gone missing or faced execution, as they are seen as traitors.

Fouzieh is now working as a cleaner in order to survive. It’s the best job she can find. Her relatives are her only support system, but they cannot do much to help either. Afghanistan’s economy is in ruins.

Taliban keep women away from jobs, schools

At least 90% of Afghanistan’s population lives in poverty, according to the International Rescue Committee.

More than half — 28.8 million inhabitants out of 40 million — rely on humanitarian aid for survival. Some 95% of Afghans are not getting enough to eat, with that number rising to almost 100% in female-headed households, according to UN figures.

In the wake of their takeover, the Taliban had promised to respect women’s rights within the limits of Sharia — the strict Islamic code adhered to by the group.

In practice, however, they introduced a slew of new laws and political measures to deny the rights of women and girls across the country — women were prohibited from working, gaining an education, and even leaving their homes without wearing a head-to-toe burka known as a chadori or being chaperoned by a male relative

UN data indicates some 1.5 million girls and young women have been systematically denied their right to education.

The fate of single mothers tends to be especially tough, said Kabul reporter Azadeh Shirza, one of the few female journalists still working in the Afghan capital, albeit very carefully and in limited capacity. She and her remaining colleagues are trying to give a voice to women in Afghanistan.

"I have spoken to at least 50 single mothers in the last two years," she told DW. In Kabul "single mothers can still work in secret — in kitchens, at the tailors’, hair salons or cleaners." But in smaller cities and villages, things are different, she said.

"When everyone knows everyone else, and the Taliban have full control, not even [working in secret] is possible. The women are at the mercy of their relatives and need to submit and obey. Many are mistreated and often forced into arranged marriages to become someone’s second or third wife."

Women feel like ‘prisoners,’ men forced to be jailors

For Afghan girls, "all the plans they had for their futures have been taken away from them completely by this ban on education," Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director for Human Rights Watch, told DW.

Single mothers without adult sons or brothers living with them are virtually confined to their homes because they have no male relatives to chaperone them in public.

"Women and girls that we speak to often say that they feel like prisoners," Barr said. "They feel like the walls have closed in on them. It really is an experience like being a prisoner and the men and their families have been forced to be jail keepers."

Boys give up education to work

Due to abject poverty, single mothers are often forced to send their children to work. Young boys are put under pressure to take responsibility and start earning money. "They work as street sellers, shoe cleaners, or farmhands in the fields outside the city," Shirzad told DW from Kabul.

"These children are often exploited and even sexually abused. Their mothers have no other choice but to send them to work."

In addition to young girls being excluded from schools, the boys in single-mother households are also forced to abandon their dreams of education to provide for their family.

Former police officer Fouzieh, like many other single mothers in Afghanistan, is desperate. And she is ready to take drastic steps to improve her position.

"I’m thinking about selling my kidney," Fouzieh says. "I want to escape, with my child."
Republicans fume over report part of $2.8B Afghan humanitarian funding went to Taliban (FOX News)
FOX News [6/17/2024 9:40 AM, Charles Creitz, 48215K, Neutral]
House Republicans are fuming at the Biden administration over reports that tens of millions of dollars of U.S. humanitarian aid to Afghanistan may have ended up in Taliban hands.

During a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing last week, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., opened his chairman’s remarks by listing off several State Department expenditures he found either egregious, lacking proper oversight or both.

Mast pointed to a reported $2.8 billion in humanitarian funding being directed to Afghanistan following the disastrous 2021 withdrawal that claimed the lives of more than a dozen American service members and led to the Taliban retaking control of the Kabul government.

After admonishing the State Department over a $500,000 grant he characterized as going to "promote atheism in Nepal," Mast took aim at what reportedly happened to the billions the U.S. sent to help Afghan civilians after their country was upturned.

"Another example is that the Biden administration has sent more than $2.8 billion to Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in August of 2021. The report shows tens of millions of dollars of that money going directly into the hands of the Taliban," Mast said, calling the examples the "tip of the iceberg" in incompetent federal appropriations.

In May, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a statement on a federal inspector general’s findings that at least $10.9 million in U.S. taxpayer funds were at least indirectly provided to the Taliban.

"It is unacceptable for any U.S. funding to benefit the Taliban," McCaul said.

"The Biden administration must take immediate action to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from going to the Taliban," McCaul said in a statement praising the latest work of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

SIGAR was originally established in 2008. Its latest report found the nearly $11 million paid by State Department entities and other partners was "likely only a fraction" of what the Taliban ultimately received in forms like taxes, fees, duties and utilities.

In his remarks, Mast called the Afghanistan funding issue along with his other cited examples "the epitome of ‘America Last.’"

"Our country is competing for influence all across the globe with China, Russia and Iran and other enemies," Mast said.

Previously, the State Department pushed back on claims it intended to promote atheism in the Himalayas, as Mast’s second barb highlighted.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma testified before Congress in March that after looking at the grant and its materials, that promoting atheism was not what the grant was meant for and "that is not what the work would be for."

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and State Department for further comment.
Psaki agrees to sit for interview with House panel probing Afghanistan withdrawal (The Hill)
The Hill [6/17/2024 2:43 PM, Dominick Mastrangelo, 18752K, Positive]
Former White House press secretary and current MSNBC host Jen Psaki has agreed to be interviewed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said this week.

McCaul’s committee has for months been seeking testimony from Psaki about President Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

In a letter to Psaki dated Monday, McCaul wrote that his office was accepting Psaki’s commitment to appear for a transcribed interview on July 26.

“However, I understand you have conditioned your appearance on approval by the White House,” McCaul wrote. “As my staff informed your counsel, it is incumbent on a witness appearing before the Committee to make any third-party arrangements.”

The chairman said he expects Psaki to “resolved the conditionality of your appearance by June 26, 2024.”

“If not, I must treat your June 12 response as a refusal to appear and you will be compelled to sit for a deposition on July 26, 2024,” McCaul said.

In a letter to McCaul dated June 12 and obtained by The Hill, an attorney for Psaki noted she “must defer to the White House Counsel’s Office and allow them to engage in the constitutionally mandated accommodations process,” because “the Committee [is] seeking information about Ms. Psaki’s service as White House Press Secretary and Assistant to the President.”

Psaki is “a private citizen who has no authority to make decisions on behalf of the Executive Branch or to weigh the confidentiality interests at issue,” her attorney wrote in the June 12 letter obtained by The Hill on Monday.

The Hill has reached out to a representative for Psaki for comment on McCaul’s Monday letter.

McCaul earlier this month threatened to issue a subpoena to compel Psaki to testify if she did not agree to speak with the committee about Biden’s withdrawal of troops voluntarily.

At the time, Psaki’s attorney told The Hill the former top White House aide “respects the important oversight function of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and wishes to be as helpful as possible in responding to the Committee’s legitimate oversight requests.”

Psaki left Biden’s White House in 2022 and has since joined MSNBC as a leading host and political analyst.
Pakistan
Can Pakistan’s allies help revive its economy through investment dollars? (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [6/18/2024 4:20 AM, Abid Hussain, 20.9M, Neutral]
In a series of trips over the past three months, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has tried to convince the debt-strapped country’s three closest allies — China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — to invest in the nation, as its precariously positioned economy looks for green shoots.

In June last year, under Sharif’s first tenure as prime minister, the government formed a Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a high-powered body comprising Pakistani civilian and military leaders, to promote investment in Pakistan.

Following the tours to Beijing, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the Sharif government is pointing towards a raft of memorandums of understanding signed on those trips as indicators of potential investment coming to Pakistan.

However, analysts caution that the attempts to get foreign direct investment (FDI) will work only if Pakistan can promise a stable political landscape and bring structural reforms to its economy.

So what did Pakistan get out of Sharif’s trips, and what does it need to do to attract investments as it prepares to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to enter its 24th loan programme since 1958?

$5bn from Saudi Arabia?
After taking office in March for the second time, Sharif paid two visits to Saudi Arabia in April. These tours were followed by a series of visits by senior Saudi officials, including the defence and foreign ministers, to Pakistan. In early May, a 50-member Saudi business delegation also flew down to participate in an investment conference.

In his two meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in April, Sharif discussed opportunities to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries and explored the possibility of a $5bn investment package.

“We have identified areas of cooperation, both at the government-to-government and business-to-business levels, and that has been clearly identified. We now have a clear-cut way forward,” Sharif told Al Arabiya TV news in May.

Last year, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar also claimed that Saudi Arabia had agreed to invest $25bn in various sectors of Pakistan, without offering any details.

Ali Farid Khwaja, an investor and chairman of KTrade Securities, said Pakistan had laid out possibilities for Saudi investment in six different fields, including an oil refinery project, agriculture, mining, power sector, technology and aviation.

“There is no question that Pakistan needs investment. Just 18 or so months ago, we were on the verge of default, but because of these dialogues and engagement with friendly countries, we are letting them know what we can offer,” he told Al Jazeera.

A senior Pakistani government official who has been part of negotiations with the Saudi delegations said Pakistan was hopeful Riyadh would invest from its Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund with estimated assets of more than $900bn. “They are obviously seeking investment opportunities and trying to follow their vision,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Negotiations on the proposed $5bn investment are under way, the official added.

“Right now, we are in the discussion stage, which has started. As and when these negotiations mature, things will clarify and we will see what the final deals are like,” he added.

And $10bn from the UAE?

Sharif followed up his Saudi visits by making a one-day visit in late May to the UAE, another long-term partner for the country, during which he met President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Following the meeting between the leaders, the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Office announced that the UAE had committed to $10bn in investment in Pakistan in various fields.

The UAE Ministry of Investment confirmed the pledge. But a month later, few details are available on which sectors the UAE might invest in, and if the two sides have agreed to a timeframe for the investments.

The Chinese MoU list

But it was Sharif’s five-day-long visit to China in June, the first of this term, that analysts said was the most critical of his foreign sojourns.

He was accompanied by military chief General Syed Asim Munir, and the Pakistani leadership held dialogues with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, and other leaders in Beijing.

The visit came two months after armed men attacked a bus carrying Chinese engineers who were working on a major hydropower plant in Pakistan’s north, killing at least five Chinese nationals and one Pakistani.

The attack was one in a series of setbacks to projects built under the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $62bn project launched a decade ago, when Sharif’s elder brother Nawaz, himself a three-time prime minister, was the premier of the country.

The last 10 years have seen Pakistan’s reliance on China growing significantly, as the relationship, which was once centred on military ties, has expanded into the economic arena in a big way: Pakistan owes China nearly $30bn out of its total foreign debt obligations of nearly $130bn.

The country’s economic managers have emphasised that unless there is significant foreign investment, Pakistan will not be able to meet its ambitious 3.6 percent growth rate, which the country has targeted for the next fiscal year.

Following Sharif’s return from Beijing, both Chinese and Pakistani governments issued statements about increased focus on security, as well as forging an “upgraded version of CPEC” to better help Pakistan’s economic and social development.

But despite signing 23 MoUs in various sectors during Sharif’s visit, there was no concrete agreement beyond shows of intent, on any project that the two nations might prioritise.

What does Pakistan need to do?

Ever since the creation of the SIFC last June, the government has credited the organisation with helping facilitate investment opportunities from outside the country.

The latest available central bank data reveals that from July to April this year, Pakistan received $1.45bn in investments, an increase of a paltry 8.1 percent from last year.

However, analysts say that while the three recent visits showed Pakistan’s desperation to attain financial support, whether in the form of bank deposits or investment projects, the failure to realise the projects substantially was due to Pakistan’s volatile landscape.

“The reason for non-materialisation of any investments or such projects lies in the chronic political instability in the country and the structural issues plaguing Pakistan’s economy,” Umer Karim, an associate fellow of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, told Al Jazeera.

Economic analyst Uzair Younus also concurs, saying the fundamental issue for Pakistan remains the question of the broader environment within the country.

“At a time when domestic businesses are hesitant to invest in the economy, foreign capital will be even more conservative. For Pakistan to attract capital flows, it must embark on holistic reforms and provide a credible roadmap that excites domestic and foreign investors. So far, this does not seem to be the case under the Sharif government,” the Washington, DC-based analyst told Al Jazeera.

The challenge for the Sharif government stems from the political instability in the country following the elections, marred by allegations of manipulation and rigging.

The increasing attacks on law enforcement officials in the last 18 months have added another layer of challenge to the country’s overstretched military, which has to man both its eastern border with archrival India and its western border with Afghanistan.

But Khwaja of KTrade Securities, on the other hand, painted a more cautiously optimistic picture.

The London-based investor said the three major lenders to Pakistan are evidently working in concert for a wider investment plan in the country.

“Pakistan is talked about as a country with Saudi software coming on Chinese hardware, and now the connections are becoming clearer,” he said.

Karachi-based economist Khurram Husain, however, points out that the three countries Sharif visited also happen to be the largest bilateral creditors to Pakistan.

“Pakistan is perceived by all foreign investors as a high-risk country, so the state is focused on finding a way to make large government-to-government deals happen. The problem is, they need cash support at this time, and these deals, even if they come, will not bring much cash,” Husain told Al Jazeera.

The analyst added that the best way out of the current economic difficulty for Pakistan is domestic reforms, not foreign support.

“Realistically, Pakistan should try to manage its external debt profile rather than seek more cash-based support from its bilateral creditors,” he added.

However, Riyadh-based Karim said the foreign visits have developed a political aspect where the optics are used by the Pakistani governments as “signs of international trust and support” but some focus on domestic investors must be paid to revive the economy.

“FDI certainly remains an important component of economic expansion and growth; however, the government could have started with facilitating local investors and businesses to develop a roadmap that could then be offered to foreign investors,” he said.
India
US, India Resume Talks on Sensitive Technologies During Visit (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [6/17/2024 2:37 AM, Dan Strumpf, 5.5M, Neutral]
Cooperation between the US and India remains on course in strategic areas including chips, artificial intelligence and space, according to a joint statement from the two countries after a meeting of their national security advisers in New Delhi.

The Monday meeting between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval marks the first high-level visit to India from a top US official following the re-election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month. The two chaired a meeting of the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, according to Monday’s joint statement.

The two discussed cooperation in civilian and defense technologies in space, advanced telecommunications, biotechnology and India’s planned acquisition of MQ-9B military drone platforms as well as possible co-production of land warfare systems, according to the joint statement published by the White House.

The technology initiative, launched in 2023, charts a course for the two countries to work together on civilian and defense applications for sensitive technologies, part of a broader cooperation as the US cultivates India as a counterweight to China.

During his two-day visit, Sullivan separately met with Modi and briefed him on various areas of cooperation, including in areas of sensitive technologies, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs. In a post on X after the meeting, Modi said India was committed to to strengthening cooperation with the US “for global good.” Sullivan also met External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

The US has sought to cultivate India as a strategic partner in the region against China, with whom India has a frosty relationship. The burgeoning ties between Washington and New Delhi have been complicated by allegations of official Indian involvement in a plot to murder a Sikh activist and US citizen on American soil last year.

Bloomberg News reported last week that a US investigation into India’s alleged involvement in the thwarted assassination attempt was among the topics to be discussed in Sullivan’s visit.

On Monday, police in the Czech Republic said in a post on X they had extradited an Indian suspect wanted by the US for involvement in the alleged plot. The post showed a video of a blurred image of the suspect boarding an airplane. The suspect, Nikhil Gupta, on Monday pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges of conspiring to kill activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, according to media reports.

An Indian investigation found that rogue operatives not authorized by the government were behind the plot, senior officials familiar with the probe told Bloomberg News.
India and US vow to boost defense, trade ties in first high-level US visit since Modi’s election win (AP)
AP [6/18/2024 2:24 AM, Staff, 456K, Neutral]
India and the United States on Monday pledged to boost defense and technology cooperation and remove long-standing barriers to bilateral strategic trade, following a meeting between the national security advisers of both countries.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is on a two-day visit to the Indian capital, New Delhi, the first from a high-ranking U.S. official since Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a third straight term in India’s general election earlier this month. Sullivan met with his counterpart, Ajit Doval, to discuss progress on the Initiative on Critical Emerging Technologies, which the two countries launched in 2022.

The initiative sets a path for collaboration on semiconductor production and developing artificial intelligence and was critical in sealing a deal that will allow U.S.-based General Electric to partner with India’s Hindustan Aeronautics to produce jet engines in India.

On Monday, the two officials emphasized the need for more collaboration, with a focus on funding innovative research in areas like semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy and machine learning. They also discussed the possible co-production of land warfare systems, according to a joint statement.

Sullivan also held talks with Modi, in which the two reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering ties between New Delhi and Washington, and he met with Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. On Tuesday, Sullivan is expected to meet with industry and business leaders.

India and the U.S. have grown closer recently, as both countries eye China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region with caution. Modi was honored with a pomp-filled state visit last year, where he and U.S. President Joe Biden called the India-U.S. relationship among the most consequential in the world.

But ties have also been tested after U.S. prosecutors last year accused an Indian government official of orchestrating a plot to murder a Sikh separatist leader in New York.

Sullivan’s visit to New Delhi comes as an Indian national was extradited to the U.S. from the Czech Republic to face charges of murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire, in relation to the assassination plot, which was foiled by U.S. officials.

The charges were the second recent accusation of complicity by Indian government officials in attempts to kill Sikh separatist figures living in North America.

In September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were credible allegations that the Indian government had links to the assassination in that country of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. While India rejected Trudeau’s accusations, it has set up an investigation committee to look into the U.S. allegations.
India and US to address barriers to trade and cooperation (Reuters)
Reuters [6/17/2024 11:26 AM, Krishn Kaushik, 36419K, Neutral]
India and the United States on Monday committed to action to address barriers to bilateral strategic trade, technology and industrial cooperation.

The commitment was made at a meeting between the national security advisers of the two countries, Ajit Doval and Jake Sullivan, during Sullivan’s two-day visit to New Delhi.

The U.S. and India are forging deeper strategic ties, with mutual concerns about an ascendant China in the Indo-Pacific region, even though India has maintained its close relationship with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Sullivan and his Indian counterpart chaired the second meeting of the India-U.S. initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, which they launched in January 2023.

Without naming any country, a joint fact sheet of the meeting shared by the Indian government said Sullivan and Doval "resolved to prevent the leakage of sensitive and dual-use technologies to countries of concern".

They also launched a new strategic semiconductor partnership between U.S. and Indian companies for precision-guided ammunition and other national security-focused electronics platforms, it said.

They also agreed to co-invest in a lithium resource project in South America and a rare earths deposit in Africa "to diversify critical mineral supply chain" and committed to soon conclude a bilateral critical minerals pact for graphite, gallium and germanium.

Last year, during Modi’s state visit to Washington, India had announced buying 31 MQ-9B drones from General Atomic, and the two countries had started discussions to jointly produce General Electric’s (GE.N) fighter jet engines by Hindustan Aeronautics(HIAE.NS), opens new tab in India, which is yet to be finalised.

Sullivan and Doval also discussed possible co-production of land warfare systems.

The visit is the first by a high-ranking U.S. official since Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to office with the help of allies as his party failed to win a majority.

Modi met U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Italy last week. Sullivan met Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar earlier in the day.

The relationship between Washington and New Delhi has been tested after the U.S. accused Indian government agents of plotting to murder a Sikh separatist leader on U.S. soil last year, after Canada made similar allegations. India dismissed the Canadian accusations, but initiated an investigation into the U.S. allegations.

The U.S. has extradited an Indian national from the Czech Republic, whom it has indicted for the foiled assassination plot.

There have also been some concerns raised about the treatment of minorities in India.
Man Accused in Plot to Assassinate Sikh Separatist Pleads Not Guilty (New York Times)
New York Times [6/17/2024 4:14 PM, Maia Coleman, 831K, Neutral]
An Indian man pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of orchestrating a failed assassination plot against a Sikh separatist in New York, a plan that prosecutors say he devised on behalf of an unnamed official in India’s government.

The defendant, Nikhil Gupta, 52, was arrested in the Czech Republic a year ago, and was extradited last week to make his first appearance in Manhattan federal court. He is accused of trying to arrange the murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen and lawyer for a New York-based Sikh secessionist group.

The murder attempt, which played out against a backdrop of doubt about India’s commitment to democracy, spanned several countries and mirrored the successful killing of another separatist in Canada, prosecutors say.

On Monday morning, Mr. Gupta entered the Lower Manhattan courtroom in a blue cardigan and yellow patterned shirt and appeared relaxed as he spoke to his lawyer, Jeffrey Chabrowe, at the defense table. He has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since landing in the United States on Friday afternoon.

In a statement to reporters after the arraignment, Mr. Chabrowe called the case a “complex matter" for India and the United States. “Background and details will develop that may cast government allegations into an entirely new light,” he said.

Mr. Gupta is charged with murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. If convicted, he would face a maximum of 10 years in prison for each charge. He was sent back to the detention center after Monday’s arraignment and is set to appear in court again on June 28.

In a statement Monday, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said Mr. Gupta will “now face justice” in an American courtroom. “This extradition makes clear that the Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to silence or harm American citizens,” he said.

In an indictment unsealed in November, Manhattan federal prosecutors described an audacious plot that began around May 2023 when an Indian government employee enlisted Mr. Gupta to organize the killing of Mr. Pannun, who was living in New York at the time.

Mr. Pannun is the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice, an organization that supports the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India. He is a vocal critic of the Indian government and has been banned from the country, prosecutors say.

Mr. Gupta, who lived in India, had told the government official about “his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking,” according to the indictment.

At the direction of the Indian government employee, Mr. Gupta contacted a man who he believed would help him hire a hit man in New York, but who was, in fact, an agent for the American government. That agent introduced Mr. Gupta to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration officer who pretended to be the hit man.

In deals brokered by Mr. Gupta, the Indian government official agreed to pay the D.E.A. officer $100,000 to kill Mr. Pannun, including a $15,000 cash advance for the job, prosecutors said.

Mr. Gupta then shared personal information about Mr. Pannun with the undercover officer, including Mr. Pannun’s address in New York and his phone number. When the Indian official asked for updates, Mr. Gupta relayed surveillance photos of Mr. Pannun that the agent had sent him.

Mr. Gupta instructed the undercover officer to carry out the assassination as soon as possible, but asked him not to do it around the time of high-level meetings between U.S. and Indian officials, according to the indictment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Washington and met with President Biden in June 2023.

Then, prosecutors said, on June 18 of that year, gunmen killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Sikh separatist leader, in British Columbia, Canada. Mr. Nijjar knew Mr. Pannun and was also an outspoken critic of the Indian government.

Soon after, prosecutors said, Mr. Gupta told the undercover officer that Mr. Nijjar “was also the target” and that “we have so many targets.” Mr. Gupta then told the officer — the pretend hit man — that there was “now no need to wait” to kill Mr. Pannun, prosecutors said.

On Monday, Mr. Pannun, who was seated just a few rows behind Mr. Gupta in the courtroom gallery, said in a statement that he had “full faith” that the United States would hold Mr. Gupta and his co-conspirators accountable.

“The attempt on my life on American soil is the blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism challenging America’s sovereignty and unequivocally proves that Modi’s India believes in using violence to suppress the dissenting political opinion,” he said.

A spokesman for the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C., could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.

Mr. Gupta’s case has threatened to complicate the delicate relations among Washington, Ottawa and New Delhi. During his presidency, Mr. Biden has courted India’s leaders to counter the influence of Russia and China, despite growing concerns about India’s commitment to democracy.

Mr. Modi, who has been in office since 2014, was re-elected as India’s prime minister in June, even as his Bharatiya Janata Party lost its majority in Parliament.
Indian Suspect Extradited to U.S. Over Plot to Kill American Sikh (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal [6/17/2024 4:01 PM, Tripti Lahiri, 810K, Neutral]
An Indian man who allegedly planned to kill an American citizen under orders from an Indian security official has been extradited to the U.S., bringing attention back to a point of friction in a strengthening diplomatic relationship.

The extradition, which was carried out Friday, came ahead of the first high-level U.S.-India discussions since Prime Minister Narendra Modi began a historic third term this month, despite losing his majority in a surprise election result. U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan is in India on Monday and Tuesday to discuss boosting defense and technology cooperation.

The alleged plotter, Nikhil Gupta, pleaded not guilty to two murder-for-hire offenses Monday during a brief appearance in federal court in Manhattan. He is due back in court on June 28.

Political experts in the U.S. and India have played down the impact on the U.S.-India relationship of allegations made in a U.S. indictment unsealed in November.

The U.S. administration has indicated that it doesn’t intend to disrupt the larger strategic relationship over this issue, said Harsh Pant, head of the strategic-studies program at New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation.

Still, the extradition allows legal proceedings to move forward, potentially revealing details that could prove a distraction for the relationship in the short term.

“It could dominate the conversation in a way that is negative,” Pant said.

That indictment charged Gupta, an Indian citizen and alleged drug trafficker, with attempted murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in a plot aimed at Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an advocate for a separate Sikh homeland called Khalistan to be carved out of India. An India-based serving official was directing Gupta to kill Pannun, a U.S. citizen of Indian origin, the indictment said. Pannun is also a Canadian citizen.

“This extradition makes clear that the Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to silence or harm American citizens,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

Lawyers for Gupta couldn’t be reached for comment. A petition filed on Gupta’s behalf in India last year said that he was a handicrafts businessman who had been held in the Czech Republic on June 30 last year in a case of mistaken identity. The Czech justice minister approved the extradition this month, the Czech Justice Ministry said.

U.S. officials have raised concerns over the alleged plot with the highest levels of the Indian government. India last year set up an inquiry committee, and said such actions would be against government policy.

The U.S. indictment didn’t name the Indian official or the branch of government the officer worked for, and said an undercover U.S. agent thwarted the plot.

Gupta’s extradition comes almost exactly a year after the killing of another prominent advocate for the creation of a Sikh homeland, Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

The U.S. legal proceedings have lent weight to allegations made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Indian government links to the killing of Nijjar. The U.S. indictment said the alleged Indian security official directing the plot shared a photograph of Nijjar’s bullet-riddled body with Gupta just hours after the Canadian’s killing, and then sent him Pannun’s address.

India’s response to the U.S., an important security and economic partner, has contrasted with its response to Canada, whose allegations it labeled “absurd.” It also forced Canada to withdraw some 40 diplomats.

Last month, Canadian police charged four men in the killing of Nijjar, but didn’t elaborate on alleged links to the Indian government.

The demand for a Sikh homeland erupted into a violent movement in India in the 1980s and 1990s, before being put down by Indian security forces.

Political experts say the Khalistan movement is largely extinguished in India. But many in the northern agricultural state retain bitter memories over the repression that brought the secessionist movement to an end, and retain close ties with family members abroad.

India in recent years has closely tracked the activities of Sikh diaspora activists overseas, and in 2020 designated Pannun and Nijjar as terrorists.

Both men played roles in a referendum campaign asking diaspora Sikhs whether an independent Khalistan should be created out of Punjab.

Pannun said via email on Monday that he was reassured by the extradition and was confident that the U.S. government would pursue justice at the highest levels, including of officials allegedly behind the “transnational repression of pro-Khalistan Sikhs.”

He added that the alleged plot indicates India’s approach to dealing with dissent runs counter to robust protections in the U.S. for free speech.

Indian authorities say that U.S. and Canadian officials don’t do enough to address Indian concerns that pro-Khalistan diaspora activists fund illegal activities in India, while the U.S. and Canada say India has failed to provide any evidence of wrongdoing by Sikh activists.

Political experts expect the alleged plot and India’s concerns to be part of discussions as Sullivan meets with his counterpart, Indian national-security adviser Ajit Doval, during this visit.

“This is an important issue for the United States,” said Amitabh Mattoo, dean of the school of international studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, adding that the two governments will “firewall it in a way that they would deal with it through a legal process but not let it spill over to other sectors.”
Democrats say State Department should press India over Sikh activist assassination plot (The Hill)
The Hill [6/17/2024 12:29 PM, Sarah Fortinsky, 18752K, Neutral]
A group of Democratic senators is urging the State Department to increase pressure on the Indian government, following “credible allegations” it was involved in a failed plot to assassinate a Sikh activist, who was also a U.S. citizen, on American soil.

In a letter sent Monday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the senators urged a “strong diplomatic response to ensure that all of those who were involved are held accountable.”

The group, led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), also requested a briefing to understand the extent of the U.S. government’s “engagement with the Indian government on this matter.”

“While we fully support the DOJ’s efforts to bring Gupta to justice and the Department of State’s prior statements, the Administration must match words with actions to hold Indian officials involved in the plot accountable, and to send a clear message that there will be consequences for such behavior,” Merkley wrote in the letter, which was signed by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

“It is imperative that we take an unequivocal stand against such a threat to the rights of a U.S. citizen and violation of U.S. sovereignty, which are examples of India’s increasingly irresponsible efforts to silence critics of its government among its diaspora around the world,” the letter continued.

The Justice Department in November accused Indian national Nikhil Gupta in an unsealed indictment of participating in a failed assassination plot of Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who lives in New York and is a U.S. citizen.

The indictment said Pannun was recruited by an unidentified Indian government official. Pannun, who supports the secession of Punjab from India and the creation of a sovereign Sikh state, is considered a terrorist by the Indian government.

Gupta was arrested in Prague last June, after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) foiled the assassination plot against Pannun. Gupta denies involvement in the plot.

On Friday, Gupta was extradited from the Czech Republic to the United States to face charges of murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire, Czech Justice Minister Pavel Blažek said on Monday.

The Associated Press reported that Gupta’s Czech attorney, Petr Slepička, previously said he was planning to file a constitutional complaint to the country’s highest legal authority and asked the minister not to allow the extradition, calling it a “political case.”

As the United States continues to seek deeper ties with India, the senators urged the administration to “be firm and resolute in opposing transnational repression, no matter the perpetrator.”

“The United States and India have a crucial relationship across multiple domains – from security cooperation, to trade and investment, to strong cultural and people-to-people ties. As the two largest democracies in the world, this partnership must not only be based on mutual strategic interests, but also grounded in shared commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law, including respect for sovereignty and the individual rights and freedoms that are fundamental to any democracy,” they wrote in the letter.

They later added: “India must maintain its commitment to respecting human rights at home and abroad as it aspires to global leadership. Now that India’s 2024 general election has concluded, with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Modi returning to power, the United States has an opportunity to include this issue as a core agenda item with the Indian government.”

The Hill has reached out to the State Department for a response.
Train Crash in India Leaves at Least 8 Dead and Dozens Injured (New York Times)
New York Times [6/17/2024 4:14 PM, Pragati K.B., 831K, Negative]
A freight train collided with a passenger train in eastern India on Monday, killing at least eight people and injuring 50 others, officials said.

The episode occurred at around 9 a.m. when the Kanchanjunga Express, which was carrying passengers to the state of West Bengal from the state of Tripura, was leaving the Rangapani station. Four coaches of the popular and often-crowded passenger train derailed when it was rammed from behind by the commercial train. Images from the accident site showed one of the passenger coaches lifted off the railway track and balancing on a coach of the freight train.

The death toll was likely to rise. Local news outlets, citing police officials, reported at least 15 people dead. The driver and the assistant driver of the freight train and a guard on the passenger train were among those killed.

Jaya Varma Sinha, the chairperson of India’s railway board, said rescue operations were completed. Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s railway minister, was en route to the site.

The relatively low number of casualties could be attributed to the fact that the rear portion of the Kanchanjunga Express, which took the biggest impact from the collision, comprised cargo coaches and the guard’s coach. Passengers were in compartments far forward from the impact.

While an investigation has been ordered to look into the cause of the collision, Ms. Sinha said human error such as disregarding a railway signal could have caused the crash.

The accident again brings to the fore the issue of rail safety in a country whose millions of poor residents rely on railways for transport. India’s rail network is one of the world’s largest and is crucial to the country’s economy and its people’s lives and livelihood.

The country has, in recent years, invested heavily on rail safety after a long history of deadly accidents. Although the overall number of rail accidents has lessened over the past decade, incidents with mass casualties have persisted. Last June, 290 people were killed when two passenger trains collided after one of them struck a stationary freight train at full speed and derailed in the state of Odisha.

After that incident, opposition leaders demanded the resignation of Mr. Vaishnaw, the railway minister. He has said he was trying to expand a safety system, called Kavach, that is meant to prevent accidents when two trains are moving on the same track. Ms. Sinha said the technology had not yet been deployed on the route of the Kanchanjunga Express.
At least 9 dead, dozens injured as trains collide in India’s Darjeeling district, a tourist hotspot (AP)
AP [6/17/2024 8:09 AM, Staff, 31180K, Negative]
A cargo train rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal on Monday, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens of others, officials said.

Television channels showed video of one train rammed into the end of the other, with one compartment rising vertically in the air. Doctors and ambulances rushed to the accident site in the Darjeeling district, a tourist spot nestled in the Himalayan foothills, soon after the collision. Scores of people gathered as rescuers searched through the debris.

Three of the nine dead were railway personnel, said Sabyasachi De, spokesperson of the Northeast Frontier Railway. Nearly 50 people were hospitalized.

The driver of the cargo train, who was among the dead, disregarded a signal and caused the collision, De said. Four compartments at the rear of the passenger train derailed due to the impact, he said, adding that most of the cars were carrying cargo while one was a passenger coach.

De said rescuers have finished searching for any more passengers, with workers now focused on restoring the damaged tracks and removing the derailed coaches. The rest of the coaches, carrying around 1,300 passengers, continued to their original destination of Kolkata, the state’s capital, he said.

The Kanchanjunga Express is a daily train that connects West Bengal state with other cities in the northeast. It is often used by tourists who travel to the hill station of Darjeeling, popular at this time of year when other Indian cities are sweltering in the heat.

More than 12 million people ride 14,000 trains across India daily, traveling on 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of track. Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents happen annually, most blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment.

Last year, a train crash in eastern India killed over 280 people in one of the country’s deadliest accidents in decades.
India to probe railway collision that killed nine, injured dozens (Reuters)
Reuters [6/18/2024 2:45 AM, Subrata Nag Choudhary, 5.2M, Neutral]
India will launch an investigation on Tuesday into a train collision that killed nine people in the state of West Bengal and injured more than 50, a day after a top railway official blamed the incident on driver error.

The death toll was revised down to nine from 15 after Monday’s accident, in which a freight train rammed into a passenger train heading for the state capital of Kolkata from the northeastern state of Tripura.

The investigation by India’s top railway safety official will start on Tuesday, Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, general manager of the Northeast Frontier railway, where the accident happened, told Reuters.

"The inquiry will involve eye-witness accounts, scrutiny of official documents and statements from railway officials, regarding signalling and other mandatory safety issues," he added.

On Monday, India’s top railway official said the driver of the freight train, who was among the dead, disregarded a signal, leading to the crash with the Kanchanjunga Express, which had halted near a railway station in the district of Darjeeling.

There were 1,400 people aboard, a railway spokesperson said.

But media said an automatic signalling system had not been working from Monday morning, prompting authorities to advise train drivers to proceed slower than usual, in a process known as "paper signals".

India’s opposition leaders criticised the railway safety record of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, attributing it to negligence.

The incident came a little over a year after about 288 people were killed in one of India’s worst rail crashes in the neighbouring state of Odisha, caused by a signalling error.

State-run Indian Railways, notorious for overcrowding, is the world’s fourth largest train network, carrying 13 million people a day, along with nearly 1.5 billion tonnes of freight in 2022.

In remarks to media on Monday, top railway official Jaya Varma Sinha, who chairs India’s railway board, called for human error to be redued, adding that an anti-collision system was being set up nationwide.

Partial services resumed on the affected tracks on Tuesday, with some trains diverted and others running slower than usual, railway officials said.
Rahul Gandhi to retain family bastion as Congress seeks to build after polls (Reuters)
Reuters [6/17/2024 12:08 PM, Sakshi Dayal, 85570K, Neutral]
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has chosen to represent his family bastion of Raebareli in parliament as his Congress Party seeks to build on the stronger than expected showing of opposition groups in the national election.

India allows people to stand in multiple constituencies but they can only represent one in parliament and which seat Gandhi would choose to retain has been the subject of keen interest as commentators examine the election fallout.

The political scion of a dynasty that has given India three prime ministers, Gandhi contested Raebareli and his previous constituency of Wayanad, in Kerela, in the recently concluded polls and won both.

His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the election that will be held in Wayanad to fill the vacant seat, the party said.

Vadra has not contested elections herself before but has been a formidable campaigner for her brother, mother, and other party members over the years. She said she would try to be a "good representative".

Located in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which sends the largest number of lawmakers to the lower house of parliament, Raebareli has been won by Congress candidates in 17 of the 20 elections held there.

Gandhi’s mother Sonia won the constituency during the previous elections in 2019 but is now a member of the upper house of parliament.

"Rahul Gandhi will retain his Raebareli seat because Raebareli has been close to him from before, that (area) has great attachment to the family, they have been fighting (in elections) from there for generations," Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters on Monday evening.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed a government last week but, unlike his earlier two terms, had to depend on his allies - some of who are known to be fickle - to get past the halfway mark of 272 in the 543 member house.

Gandhi was among the key leaders in an opposition alliance of over two-dozen parties which won more than 230 seats, trimming Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s share by over 60 seats.
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi claims ‘tectonic shift’ after Modi election upset (Financial Times)
Financial Times [6/18/2024 12:28 AM, John Reed, 14.7M, Neutral]
The Indian political landscape has undergone a “tectonic shift” after this month’s unexpected election result and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will “struggle” to survive, Rahul Gandhi, the country’s most prominent opposition politician, has claimed.

“The space in the Indian political system has been blown open,” Gandhi told the Financial Times in his first interview since the election in which the ruling Bharatiya Janata party lost its majority for the first time since Modi took power in 2014. “A tectonic shift has taken place in Indian politics.”

Modi was sworn in last week, making him India’s first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to win a third successive term. But Indian political analysts have raised questions about the stability of his coalition, which will be the weakest in a decade, forcing the BJP to rely on smaller allied parties to maintain power.

The election result saw the opposition INDIA alliance, led by Gandhi’s Indian National Congress party, perform far better than forecast, winning 234 of 543 seats in India’s lower house to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s 293. It has also thrust Gandhi, who is widely expected to be named opposition leader in the new parliament, back to the centre of Indian politics.

“The numbers are such that they are very fragile, and the smallest disturbance can drop the government,” Gandhi said. “Basically one ally has to turn the other way.”

Gandhi claimed there was “great discontent” within Modi’s camp and that there were “people who are in touch with us” from within it, while declining to give details.

During the campaign, Modi sought to capitalise on religious tensions, referring to India’s large Muslim minority as “infiltrators” and alleging that a Congress-led government would give away employment and other “reservations” set aside for lower-caste Hindus.

Gandhi’s bloc, however, won votes among Dalits by playing on fears the BJP would use a bigger majority to amend the constitution and deprive them of affirmative action benefits.

“The idea that you can spread hatred, you can spread anger and you can reap benefits of that — the Indian people have rejected it in this election,” said Gandhi, whose New Delhi home office is decorated with portraits of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi as well as former prime ministers Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, his great-grandfather, grandmother and father, respectively.

“That’s also why the coalition will struggle,” he added, “because what worked for Mr Narendra Modi in 2014 and 2019 is not working.”

Gandhi also claimed that under fairer conditions, the opposition INDIA alliance would have won a majority “without any doubt”. Ahead of the vote, Gandhi and his allies accused Modi’s government of a crackdown, with two state leaders jailed and some Congress bank accounts frozen.

“We fought with our hands tied behind our back . . . and Indian people, poor people, knew exactly what they had to do,” he said.

Indian politics was dominated by Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi clan for much of its post-independence history. But the party and India’s broader centre-left has been widely seen as a waning force in recent years, with some critics asserting that the family’s dominance of Congress was an obstacle to its progress.

Gandhi stepped down as the party’s president after the BJP’s decisive victory in elections in 2019 but has stayed active in its affairs and remains its most prominent face.

Congress was an easy target for the populist BJP because of its dynastic heritage and endemic corruption in its past governments. Modi attacked Gandhi as a privileged “shehzada”, or prince, and Indian media outlets, many of which are owned by Modi backers or rely on them for advertising, often portrayed him as a feckless and blundering figure.

However, analysts said the opposition MP took steps to rebuild his political brand with two yatras, or treks, across the country, first south to north by foot and then east to west by vehicle.

The images of Gandhi mingling with ordinary Indian citizens cut a contrast with Modi, who has cultivated a cult of personality unseen in Indian politics since Gandhi’s grandmother Indira and during the campaign claimed he was sent by God.

“The judicial system, the media, the institutional framework — all were shut [for the opposition], and so we decided we have to literally, physically go do it,” Gandhi said. “A lot of the ideas that succeeded in this election came from that walk — and they came not from us but from the people of India.”

While the BJP lost only about a percentage point of its vote share, Gandhi and his allies won critical seats in the Hindu nationalist party’s northern heartland, including in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.

These include the Faizabad constituency, where Modi presided at the consecration of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya on the site of a destroyed mosque to kick off his campaign.

While Modi said in his victory speech that India’s 1.4bn people had “reposed their faith” in the BJP and National Democratic Alliance, Gandhi claimed the ruling party had been “fatally wounded” by voters’ verdict.

“The idea of Mr Modi and the image of Mr Modi has been destroyed,” Gandhi said. “The party that spent the last 10 years talking about Ayodhya has been wiped out in Ayodhya.

“Essentially what has happened is that the basic architecture of BJP — the idea of creating religious hatred — that has collapsed.”
India’s Priyanka Gandhi to finally make electoral debut (BBC)
BBC [6/18/2024 4:15 AM, Meryl Sebastian and Jugal Purohit, 65.5M, Neutral]
Priyanka Gandhi, sister of India’s main opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, is set to contest her first election, ending decades of anticipation by her supporters.

Ms Gandhi is a descendant of the Nehru-Gandhi family, India’s most famous political dynasty, and her electoral debut will be closely watched.

The 52-year-old will contest the Wayanad seat in the southern Indian state of Kerala after her brother relinquishes it.

A win for Ms Gandhi would mean the presence of all three Gandhi family members in the Indian parliament.

Her mother Sonia Gandhi, former president of the Congress party, is an MP in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament.

Her brother Mr Gandhi won the recent parliamentary elections from both Wayanad and Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli seats.

Mr Gandhi, who has represented Wayanad as an MP since 2019, is giving it up as he can only retain one parliamentary seat under Indian law. On Monday, he thanked the people of Wayanad for their "love, affection and support".

A date for the by-election is yet to be announced but Ms Gandhi says she is "not nervous at all".

"I am very happy to be able to represent Wayanad and I will not let them feel his [Rahul Gandhi’s] absence," she said on Monday. "I will work hard and I will try my best to make everyone happy and be a good representative."

The by-election will mark the end of a decades-long wait by Congress supporters for Ms Gandhi’s involvement in electoral politics.

Journalist Javed Ansari, who has reported on the Congress party for decades, told BBC Hindi that he was not surprised by the announcement.

"I think it was a question of when [she would contest] and not if," he said.

For years, Ms Gandhi was considered the more popular of the Gandhi siblings with many blaming the "lacklustre leadership" of her brother for a string of Congress defeats between 2014 and 2019.

From an early age, people have pointed to Ms Gandhi’s resemblance to her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Ms Gandhi was actively involved in the election campaigns of her mother from the late 1990s. She also campaigned for her brother when he actively joined politics in 2004.

Senior leaders have praised her political acumen and her flair for engaging with people.

Ms Gandhi’s official entry into politics came when she was put in charge of the Congress campaign in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh state, ahead of the 2019 general election.

The Congress went on to perform poorly in that election and the state assembly polls in 2022, but Ms Gandhi was not blamed. Senior party leaders said the performance was not a reflection of her work and in line with their expectations.

Appointed Congress’ general secretary in 2019, Ms Gandhi has since overseen the party’s campaigns in several state elections.

Party leaders say she’s been crucial in stabilising the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh state this year amid rebellion by some of its own lawmakers.

She was also at the forefront of the Congress’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh state - where opposition parties performed surprisingly well - and especially in the Gandhi family bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli.

"She held the fort for Rahul and that is how he could campaign across the country," Mr Ansari said.

Political commentator Neerja Chowdhury said it would be interesting to see the siblings in parliament together if Ms Gandhi wins.

“Personally, I think Priyanka is savvier of the two. She thinks on her feet and her language is clearer than his," she said, adding that she will be "watched very closely".

Congress leaders and workers in Kerala have expressed happiness at the possibility of having Ms Gandhi as an MP from Wayanad.

ND Ayyappan, president of the party committee in the district, said: "It indicates that the family will continue its ties with the people of Wayanad."

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has criticised dynastic politics in response to news of Ms Gandhi’s electoral debut.

"Congress is not a party but a family business," BJP leader Shehzad Poonawalla said.

But the announcement of her candidacy received praise from Annie Raja, a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) who had contested against Mr Gandhi in Wayanad in the recent election.

Ms Raja, who lost the election by a margin of over 360,000 votes, did not confirm whether she would run against Ms Gandhi in the by-election.

But she said, "We need more and more women in parliament."
India’s monsoon rains a fifth below normal so far (Reuters)
Reuters [6/17/2024 6:35 AM, Rajendra Jadhav, 42991K, Neutral]
India’s monsoon has delivered a fifth less rain than normal so far this season, the weather department said on Monday, in a worrying sign for the vital agricultural sector.

Summer rains, critical to economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, usually begin in the south around June 1 before spreading nationwide by July 8, allowing farmers to plant crops such as rice, cotton, soybeans, and sugarcane.

India has received 20% less rainfall than normal since June 1, according to data compiled by the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD), with almost all regions except for a few southern states seeing shortfalls and some northwestern states experiencing heat waves.

The rain shortfall in soybean, cotton, sugarcane, and pulses-growing central India has risen to 29%, while the paddy-growing southern region received 17% more rainfall than normal due to the early onset of the monsoon, according to the data.

The northeast has received 20% less rainfall than normal so far, and the northwest some 68% less.

The lifeblood of the nearly $3.5-trillion economy, the monsoon brings nearly 70% of the rain India needs to water farms and refill reservoirs and aquifers.

In the absence of irrigation, nearly half the farmland in the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, wheat and sugar depends on the annual rains that usually run until September.

"The monsoon’s progress is stalled. It has weakened. But when it revives and becomes active, it can erase the rain deficit in a short burst," an IMD official told Reuters.

The official sought anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Heat wave conditions are likely to prevail in northern states for a few more days, but temperatures could start coming down from the weekend, the official added.

The maximum temperature in India’s northern states is ranging between 42 and 47.6 degrees Celsius (107.6 to 117.7 degrees Fahrenheit), about 4-9 C above normal, the IMD data showed.
India’s ‘heat trap’ cities make summers worse, says government official (Reuters)
Reuters [6/17/2024 9:01 AM, Krishna N. Das and Shivangi Acharya, 10447K, Negative]
Indian cities have become "heat traps" due to their unbalanced growth devouring water bodies and increasing greenhouse emissions, a senior government official said on Monday, as a scorching summer killed dozens in some parts of the country.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast above-normal temperatures for June in the northwest and central parts of the country including Delhi, making it one of the longest heatwave spells.

The highest daily temperatures in the capital have stayed above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) since May 12 and are forecast to fall below that mark only on June 26. The IMD’s heatwave criteria start with 40 degrees in the plains and 30 degrees for hills where it is generally cooler because of elevation.

Delhi, which is also facing a water shortage, recorded about 44 degrees late Monday afternoon but the IMD said it felt like 49.2 degrees.

"Climate change plays an important role," Krishna S. Vatsa, a member of the National Disaster Management Authority, told Reuters.

Unbalanced urban growth, which has reduced wetlands and water bodies, was another factor, Vatsa said. "The emission of greenhouse gases has gone up. The permeable spaces have gone down considerably. The cities actually have become heat traps."

As a result, he said, nights are nearly as uncomfortable as days.

According to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) published last month, land surface temperatures in the summers of 2001 to 2010 in cities such as Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai used to drop by up to 13.2 degrees during the night from their day-time peak. Between 2014 and 2023 they were only cooling off by up to 11.5 degrees.

"Hot nights are as dangerous as mid-day peak temperatures," the Centre’s report said. "People get little chance to recover from day-time heat if temperatures remain high overnight."

Vatsa said most Indian states were implementing heat action plans that include provisioning drinking water and better medical facilities, as well as rescheduling outdoor work and school vacations.

But Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE’s executive director, said there was no clear mandate to implement long-term strategies. Delhi’s long-term plan includes increasing heat insulation of buildings, developing shelters for urban poor and slum dwellers, and investing in cooling water bodies.

Such plans need to be backed financially, said Vishwas Chitale of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water think tank in New Delhi.

"Cities are struggling with their own finance and they don’t have additional budget to implement actions for heat," he said.
Modi 3.0 and the Uncertain Path to India-Pakistan Dialogue (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [6/17/2024 6:54 AM, Umair Jamal, 1156K, Neutral]
As Narendra Modi takes office for a third straight term as India’s prime minister, neighboring Pakistan is watching closely to figure out what the next five years will mean for the two countries’ long-standing tensions, particularly over the issue of Kashmir.

The India-Pakistan relationship has been strained for decades, with the Himalayan territory of Kashmir at the heart of the conflict. During Modi’s last term, the Indian government implemented a constitutional process to reclassify the India-ruled state of Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory, giving the central government in New Delhi greater authority over the contested Muslim-majority territory. This move came after India revoked Article 370, which had granted special status and powers to the state.

In response, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic relations and suspended bilateral trade with India. Over the past few years, ties between the two countries have remained stagnant, with Pakistan maintaining that the onus is on India to create an environment for talks, linking any such initiative to restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. India, on the other hand, continues to insist that the Kashmir issue is an internal matter and that talks with Pakistan can only be held on the issue of cross-border terrorism, which it claims emanates from the Pakistani side.

Due to these hardened positions, a meaningful reconciliation appears to be currently out of reach for both countries. The Pakistani government has a lot on its plate already. The economic crisis persists and political challenges continue. At this stage, Islamabad cannot afford to publicly communicate a reconciliation message to India while simultaneously ignoring the revoked special status for Jammu and Kashmir.

India, on the other hand, does not seem inclined to compromise on the Kashmir issue or bring it up for discussion with Pakistan. As the Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently stated, India is only concerned about finding a “solution to the issue of years-old cross-border terrorism” with Pakistan.

The issue of terrorism is a complex domain, with both India and Pakistan accusing each other of cross-border terror attacks. While India has long alleged Pakistan’s involvement in such incidents, Pakistan has recently tried to make the argument that it is the victim of India-supported terrorism. Recently, Islamabad presented a dossier alleging India’s involvement in an assassination campaign within Pakistan.

There is a likelihood that both countries will at least strive to avoid a renewed phase of tension, despite the rhetoric regarding Kashmir and terrorism.

Indian and Pakistani leaders exchanged congratulatory messages on social media following Modi’s swearing-in as prime minister, an encouraging sign that all is not lost between the two nations.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his elder brother, former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, congratulated Modi on his party’s electoral success. Nawaz Sharif’s message expressed a desire to “replace hate with hope” and work toward the well-being of the people of South Asia. Modi responded by emphasizing India’s commitment to peace, security, and progressive ideas.

However, Prime Minister Sharif’s message to Modi was brief and cautious, indicating a wait-and-see approach from the Pakistani side. The possibility of any major and conclusive talks between the two countries in the near future seems remote, as the Modi government may not want to be seen as making concessions to Pakistan early in office, which could alienate its electoral base.

In Pakistan, there are several issues at play. The government will need to coordinate with the powerful military establishment to determine the country’s approach to reconciliation with India and what can be realistically put on the agenda.

It is worth noting that the ceasefire along the Line of Control that divides the Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of Kashmir has remained in place for over three years, offering a glimmer of hope that further confidence-building measures between the two nations are possible.
Modi at the G7 Outreach Summit: A Shift in India’s Foreign Policy? (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [6/17/2024 11:08 AM, Rishi Gupta, 1156K, Neutral]
Shortly after being sworn in for his third consecutive term, India’s Prime Minister Narnendra Modi made a significant statement by attending the G-7 Outreach Summit in Italy on June 14. While India’s quest to become a developed country by 2047 and third-largest economy by 2027 pushes it to engage with countries beyond the region, Modi’s participation hints at a major overhaul of India’s traditional foreign policy.

While the presence of leaders from Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Mauritius, and Seychelles at the swearing-in ceremony for Modi and his cabinet on June 9 hinted at continuity in India’s “Neighborhood First policy,” Modi’s attendance at the G-7 gathering less than a week later has a lot of messaging that needs decoding.

India is not a member of the G-7, a grouping of the world’s leading democratic economies, Modi has previously attended G-7 summit meetings as a guest in 2019, 2022, and 2023. This trip underlined India’s continued interest in partnering with the grouping, while also highlighting some important shifts occurring in Modi’s third term.

The G-7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States – are among India’s leading trading partners. With the economy as the foundation of New Delhi’s desire to shift from a regional leadership role to a global one, India needs to engage with the West, which is embodied in the form of the G-7.

At the same time, the West sees a stronger India as vital to countering Chinese and Russian influence in developing countries. India’s growing tech, trade, and defense partnerships with the United States and France, including jet engines and fighter jets, highlight the West’s commitment to strengthening ties with New Delhi – despite India’s possible ambivalence on the Ukraine war.

At the same time as building up its ties with the West, India is positioning itself as a voice of the Global South. New Delhi wants to reclaim its role as an important middle power – something that it was able to achieve through its leadership of the non-alignment movement (NAM) during the Cold War era.

However, the shapers and believers of the NAM, including India, have shown a new faith in strategic minilateral, conditional alliance systems in dealing with a looming China threat and alliances between authoritarian regimes, including China, Russia, and North Korea.

Unlike any other major power, the challenges China poses to India are more immediate. China’s territorial expansion into Indian territories along their disputed border brings a sense of urgency to New Delhi’s strategic considerations. The intensity of China’s threats compels India to seek robust alliances and reinforce its stance against authoritarian regimes, necessitating a pragmatic and proactive foreign policy approach.

As a result, despite its delicate relationship with Russia, India wants the West to support its stance against Chinese aggression on the border. Brussels, on the other hand, expects India to join the democratic alliance in condemning Russian military aggression in Ukraine and China’s bullying of Taiwan.

Many traditional strategic thinkers in India are appalled by the shift in New Delhi’s relationship with Moscow. While honoring and maintaining historical ties is important, achieving new goals requires forging new partnerships, and India is moving along those lines.

The “no limits” partnership between Russia and China holds significant implications for India. New Delhi now realizes the consequences of its strategic silence, which weakened its ability to counter China’s increasingly assertive regional positioning and influence. This situation underscores the need for India to reassess its strategic alliances and adopt a more proactive stance in regional and global dynamics.

Therefore, Modi is pushing India to emerge from its historical hesitations in making tough calls. His third term has already highlighted this shift.

Modi directly responded to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s congratulatory message on Xi (formerly Twitter), saying, “Thank you @ChingteLai for your warm message. I look forward to closer ties as we work towards mutually beneficial economic and technological partnership.”

A public exchange of greetings of this sort between India and Taiwan at the top leadership level was impossible to envision a few years ago. Even a discussion in Taiwan would raise alarms in the South Block, which saw it wise not to needle China.

After the exchange of tweets, a rattled China issued a formal protest over Modi’s post and made it clear Beijing “opposed any form of official interaction between the Taiwan regional authorities and countries that have diplomatic relations with China.” However, with India having serious stakes in Taiwan and the region regarding economic and technological ties, maintaining peace in the region is Delhi’s utmost goal.

Modi’s “thank you” to Lai not only acknowledged cooperation with Taiwan but hinted at “closer ties” in the economic and technological sphere in the future. The booming cooperation in the semiconductor sector, along with the recent agreement facilitating the employment of Indian workers in Taiwan, places New Delhi and Taipei on a promising track for future-centric cooperation.

Alongside his direct comment on India-Taiwan relations, Modi’s attendance at the G-7 summit made a similar breakthrough on Ukraine. Modi’s handshake with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was followed by a tweet stating, “India is eager to further cement bilateral relations with Ukraine. Regarding the ongoing hostilities, [Modi] reiterated that India believes in a human-centric approach and believes that the way to peace is through dialogue and diplomacy.”

India also sent a high-level delegation to participate in the Summit on Peace in Ukraine held in Switzerland on June 15-16.

Unlike Taiwan, India’s engagement with Ukraine has been more public, with Delhi hosting high-level delegations from Ukraine since the war began. But India remained undecided about sending a delegation to the summit, which was strongly opposed by Moscow, until the very last moment. Its participation was only confirmed through Zelensky’s tweet thanking Modi for sending one.

With Russia and China absent from the summit, any tangible outcomes are unlikely, but India certainly saw the value in playing a role at the talks.

Change in India’s strategic thinking on Ukraine takes into consideration global trade and supply chain disruption. Beyond that, the illegal recruitment of Indian citizens in the Russian Army has left New Delhi worried.

On June 12, India’s foreign secretary confirmed that India had requested the Russian authorities to return the remaining Indian citizens fighting on the frontline against Ukraine. Two Indian citizens have already lost their lives fighting for the Russian Army.

This situation underscores India’s direct stakes in the Ukraine conflict, where the safety of its citizens becomes intertwined with broader geopolitical dynamics. It highlights the evolving challenges India faces in balancing its international obligations with the protection of its citizens abroad amid global crises.

Therefore, as New Delhi balances its historical ties with the West amid a drastically changing global order, its proactive stance on global issues signals a confident stride toward reclaiming its role as a significant middle power on the world stage.
NSB
Maldives Bans Israeli Tourists, Then Rethinks Decision (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [6/17/2024 5:42 AM, Ahmed Naish, 1156K, Neutral]
A ban on Israeli tourists announced by the Maldives is unlikely to be a “blanket ban” on all Israeli citizens, Attorney General Ahmed Usham indicated on June 13.

Earlier on June 10, the Maldives Parliament moved ahead with a bill to amend the immigration law to bar entry to both Israeli passport holders and Israelis with dual citizenship. It was accepted unanimously and sent to a committee for review.

However, the government has decided to amend the bill to address concerns over Arab Muslim or Palestinian citizens of Israel, Usham told the press. “There are a lot of Palestinian citizens who hold the Israeli passport, counting in the millions. So what would happen if we do a blanket ban like that, these are matters we should think about a little,” the Attorney General said.

The bill was proposed by the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Member of Parliament Meekail Naseem before the June 2 announcement that President Mohamed Muizzu has “resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports.”

In lieu of waiting for government-sponsored legislation, the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) decided to move forward with MP Meekail’s bill as the first order of business for the newly sworn-in 93-member house.

Pressed by journalists on Thursday, Usham denied that the government has reversed its stand. But the Maldives could face legal “complications” if the bill is passed in its current form to prohibit entry to Israelis with dual citizenship or diplomatic passports, he said.

The proposed ban appears to reflect the popular will of the Maldivian people, an ostensibly 100 percent Sunni Muslim population that has long sympathized with the plight of Palestinian refugees. The government’s decision came after months of fundraising efforts and demonstrations calling for a ban on Israeli tourists.

As public anger intensified over the rising civilian death toll in Gaza, protesters gathered outside Parliament in mid-November to demand the ban. A day later, Parliament’s foreign relations committee advised the president to ban Israeli tourists and imports. A non-binding resolution to the effect was passed unanimously in early January.

But after assuming office on November 17, the Muizzu administration insisted that the president could not unilaterally ban Israeli tourists, contending that it was up to the opposition-controlled Parliament to approve the necessary legal changes.

Pressure mounted after Muizzu’s PNC won a supermajority in April’s parliamentary election. The eventual announcement came amid a growing outcry over the president’s spokeswoman and the new Majority Leader of Parliament evading questions about the government’s stand.

Despite the strong consensus in favor of the ban, concerns have been raised over the impact of the unprecedented action on the tourism-dependent economy. Resort operators have expressed fears that the ban will undermine the Maldives’ reputation as a welcoming destination that offers on-arrival visas to tourists from all countries.

“The Maldives is famous as a very hospitable country where everyone can spend their holiday very peacefully and safely. But such actions [as banning nationals of certain countries] are diametrically opposed to that. So travel agents will be hesitant and we are getting questions about what’s happening,” a tourism industry veteran told local outlet Dhauru on the condition of anonymity.

An unnamed industry source told Sun that the Maldives’ brand as a safe haven for people of all faiths and nationalities could be damaged. The ban could foster a perception that antisemitism or religious extremism poses a threat to foreign tourists, the businessperson warned.

A few voices on social media, including a state minister and a local tour operator, also criticized imposing a blanket ban, suggesting instead that Israeli leaders should be directly targeted. But supporters countered that the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship could still visit the Maldives with other travel documents.

Israeli tourists – predominantly surfers – started visiting the Maldives after a previous ban was lifted in the early 1990s. But Israel is not a significant market for the Maldives. Israeli tourists represented just 0.58 percent of arrivals last year. According to official figures, some 10,966 Israelis visited the Maldives in 2023, down from a peak of 15,748 tourists in 2022. During the first four months of 2024, just over 500 tourists from Israel visited the Maldives

After the Maldives government’s announcement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry advised Israeli tourists to leave the Maldives and urged its citizens to avoid traveling to the country “because if they find themselves in distress for any reason, it will be difficult for us to assist.”

International media widely covered the imminent ban, earning praise for the country from some quarters. But it also drew critical coverage and accusations of bigotry.

The announcement prompted a U.S. member of Congress to push legislation to cut off American aid to the Maldives. A day later, a local artist spray-painted “terrorists” and “child killers” on the wall of the American Center in Malé. Protests have also continued outside the local outlets of Pizza Hut and KFC as part of a boycott campaign.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Muizzu launched a fundraising telethon dedicated to aid for Palestinians and appealed for Maldivians to “display an abundance of generosity.” The 15-hour telethon organized by state media raised nearly $650,000. The government is also planning a nationwide rally under the slogan “Maldivians in Solidarity with Palestine.”

During Monday’s debate in Parliament on the immigration bill, Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim from the ruling PNC advised the committee reviewing the bill to carefully assess the potential consequences for the economy and national security.

Parliamentarian Qasim Ibrahim, owner of the Villa resorts, opposed the ban on the grounds that a Muslim nation should not bar entry to Jews, referring to their status in Islam as followers of a previous revelation of Allah.

“There are lots of Islamic countries in the world aside from the Maldives. But this might be the first Parliament where taking such a step has been proposed,” the leader of the Jumhooree Party said, urging MPs to “think deeply” before approving the ban.
Adani’s Wind Power Project in Sri Lanka Hits Rough Weather (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [6/17/2024 8:14 AM, Rathindra Kuruwita, 1156K, Neutral]
Last week, the Bishop of the Diocese of Mannar along with three prominent environmentalists, filed a public interest litigation in the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, challenging the proposed 250 MW Mannar Wind Power Project.

In February 2023, Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment approved the development of the $442-million wind power project by Adani Green Energy. Wind power plants were to be built in Mannar and Pooneryn in Northern Sri Lanka.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s Adani Group is also developing a $700-million container terminal at the strategically located Colombo Port. While Adani’s projects have faced setbacks and criticism previously, the litigation against Adani Green Energy is the first legal challenge facing the formidable Adani Group in Sri Lanka.

The legal petition in the Supreme Court has challenged the procurement process and construction of the project by Adani Green Energy.

It names 67 respondents, including the Cabinet of Ministers, the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA), the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), the Board of Investment, the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Public Utilities Commission Sri Lanka, and the Attorney General. In addition to raising concerns about the credibility of the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) and the role of the SLSEA, the petition highlights procedural issues in the awarding of the contract and questions the characterization of the project as a government-to-government deal.

The petition challenges the basis for the negotiated tariff. It argues that the tariff of $0.0826, or 8.26 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for 20 years would lead to financial losses for the country and burden consumers.

It was reported that a Technical Evaluation Committee appointed by Sri Lanka to negotiate the Adani project had recommended to the government that a unit of electricity should be bought for $0.05 per kWh. Independent Sri Lankan energy experts have pointed out that Adani is selling power to the Indian state at less than $0.04 per kWh.

The petitioners also say that despite the project’s national importance, the two sides have not made data available for public scrutiny. The petition requested the Court to order the release of all files and records, including bids for the Mannar and proposed 234 MW Pooneryn plants; deliberations and negotiations; Cabinet decisions; unit price discussions; and criteria for project assessments.

The petition argues that like most EIA reports on major projects in the past decade, the EIA on the Mannar wind power project is mere eyewash. The EIA was manipulated to award the project to Adani, it says.

The petitioners also wondered why the Power and Energy Minister acted as the project’s approving authority when there is a designated body — the CEA — for such tasks.

There is no transparency regarding the lease of 202 hectares on Mannar Island for the project, nor information on compensation for affected landowners. The EIA also did not adequately evaluate alternative sites — Ambewela, the South East coast, Kalpitiya, and Jaffna — or provide a rationale for choosing Mannar Island.

The petition emphasizes the importance of Mannar Island as a focal point of the Central Asian Flyway, making it crucial for conservation and tourism. In March this year, Prof. Sampath S. Seneviratne of the University of Colombo’s Department of Zoology and Environment Sciences told The Island that around 15 million birds migrate to Sri Lanka from 30 countries each year. “We are going to establish 52 windmills that have 96-metre rotor blades that rotate at about 100 km per hour in the path of these birds,” he said.

The petitioners seek a declaration from the Supreme Court that their fundamental rights and those of the citizenry have been violated and that the decisions to award the project to Adani are wrongful and should be declared illegal. The petition aims to further the national interest by preserving and protecting public property, the environment, flora and fauna, public finances, and the rights and freedoms of the general public and future generations of Sri Lanka.

The Adani Group has emerged as a major player in Sri Lanka’s renewable energy sector in recent years, entering the country amidst increased Indian geostrategic presence in the Indian Ocean island, especially after India provided $4 billion worth of credit during the country’s financial crisis in 2022.

However, the Group’s presence in Sri Lanka has been fraught with controversy. Most Sri Lankans believe that giving Adani a number of large and strategic projects is the Ranil Wickremesinghe government’s way of repaying the debt. The Adani Group’s transformation from a medium-scale enterprise to an economic powerhouse over the past two decades is closely linked to the owner’s relationship with Prime Minister Modi.

In June 2022, M.M.C. Ferdinando, chairman of the state-run Ceylon Electricity Board, informed Parliament’s Committee on Public Enterprises that the Sri Lankan government had faced pressure from Prime Minister Modi to award renewable energy project tenders to the Adani Group.

Sri Lanka’s opposition parties view the government’s agreements with Adani as “back door” deals. Environmentalists and civil society organizations too have protested the social-environmental impact of these agreements. What these groups often lack is the financial resources and institutional backing necessary for a prolonged battle with a powerful multinational company.

Anti-Adani sentiments in Sri Lanka can be expected to grow in the coming years, and the concerns of those who oppose agreements with the Adani Group will be validated by the petition filed recently by Sri Lanka’s powerful Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has shown that it can be persistent in pursuit of its objectives and this, coupled with the high possibility of the election of a less pro-India government in Sri Lanka later this year would make Adani’s operations in the island more difficult.
Central Asia
Kazakhstan’s Shrinking Lake Balkhash Faces Fights On Several Fronts (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/17/2024 12:59 PM, Maqpal Mukankyzy and Chris Rickleton, 1530K, Negative]
In the tiny fishing village of Tasaral on the western shore of Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash, the spawning season is a time for getting other things done.

Fishing is banned during this 45-day period that extends until mid-June, so the community of some 500 people that depends on the lake for its existence does odd jobs, such as mending fishing boats, building barns, and refurbishing homes.

It is also a time to ponder the future of the huge 17,000 square-kilometer body of water -- the third-largest in Asia -- that gives the village its reason to exist, but which has unfortunately been receding notably the last four years.

Residents who grew up with their elders’ accounts of the lake’s cyclical rise and fall hope this situation is only temporary.

But the lake faces growing ecological pressure in the form of climate change and China’s rising demand for water upstream.

Then there is the matter of government plans for a nuclear power plant that, if greenlighted in a nationwide referendum, would likely be built on the lake’s southern shore, about three hours from Tasaral.

“If you can’t catch fish, there is no living for you here,” fisherman Bauyrzhan Altaev told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, proudly showing off a Japanese motorbike that he uses to ice fish when Balkhash freezes over in the winter.

But these days, you have to travel farther and farther from the shoreline to get to the fish, he complained.

“Those rocks over there used to be fully under water, but now they are on the surface. I’m 60. [The lake] got like this in 1980. Then, in the 1990s and 2000s, it started to fill up again somewhat. But since 2020 it has been receding very quickly,” said Altaev, gesturing across a scrubby shoreline roamed by two humped camels -- a second form of income for Tasaral residents.

‘No One Seems To Know Or Do Anything’

Lake Balkhash has been fished since time immemorial.

But settlements like Tasaral only became a feature of the lake’s shoreline in the 1930s, when Soviet authorities began creating fishing villages for industrial-scale fishing.

Fish that were indigenous to what is one of the world’s 20 largest inland bodies of water soon disappeared. Pike were among the first highly predatory fish introduced and then blamed for taking out species further down the food chain.

Eldos Kasenuly, another fisherman from Tasaral, said there are fewer of all types of fish now, with the reeds that they feed on also becoming scarcer.

A more recent problem is visiting fishermen who use Chinese-made, nylon nets that catch everything.

The nets scoop up even tiny fish that form an important part of the lake’s fragile ecosystem, he explained.

Yet the biggest worry for Kazakhstan is the disappearing water in the lake.

Balkhash currently stands at around 341 meters above sea level -- viewed as a critical indicator by experts -- and has a relatively shallow average depth of around 6 meters.

The tragic history of the Aral Sea -- a decimated lake split between southwestern Kazakhstan and neighboring Uzbekistan -- is a sufficient warning in terms of the consequences of allowing giant bodies of water in largely arid Central Asia to dry up.

To this day, great swathes of the territory surrounding what remains of the Aral Sea continue to be afflicted by toxic dust storms and overly salinated soil that negatively impact agriculture -- not to mention causing pressing shortages of water.

What can Kazakhstan do to prevent that scenario from repeating?

That was the question being asked at the end of May in Balkhash, a city some 100 kilometers from Tasaral, which hosted an international water forum featuring state officials, civil society figures, entrepreneurs, and academics.

But the mood at the forum was pessimistic.

Lake Balkhash receives around 80 percent of its water from the Ili River that originates in neighboring China.

For about the last two decades there has been a giant expansion of industry and agriculture in China’s western Xinjiang region, requiring ever greater water diversion upstream.

‘Now Their Fishermen Come Here’

And while some experts at the conference expressed the point of view that China was still providing the necessary 12-14 billion cubic meters of water that Balkhahsh needs, it is unclear how sustainable this is in the long run, while there is still no bilateral agreement on water-sharing for the Ili River.

“In China, the Water Resources Ministry is a government within a government. It includes 30 research institutes, each one studying and monitoring its own area,” said Anar Tleulesova, an expert whose organization works with the government researching and monitoring the basin areas of lakes Balkhash and Alakol. “We have only one institute, where no one seems to know or do anything.”

Kazakh officials refute claims by Tleulesova and other experts that the government has failed to represent national interests in talks with their powerful partner.

Bolat Bekniyaz, deputy water resources minister, argued that Beijing had not reached water-sharing agreements with any country, while Kazakhstan was the only country that China was in talks with over such a deal, he said, claiming that "the level [of Balkhahsh] has not dropped below dangerous levels in the last 20 years.”

There was little talk at the water forum about the government’s plans to build a nuclear power plant on the shore of the town of Ulken. But it is a much-discussed topic in the communities around Balkhash, and not everybody is opposed to the idea.

Lively public hearings held in Ulken last year revealed that many residents saw the plant as part of a path to economic revival for a region that remains distinctly postindustrial and poor in many areas.

But fishermen from the town were firmly in the naysayers’ camp, as is Kasenuly, the Tasaral fisherman.

He cited another fishing village called Mynaral, situated between Tasaral and Ulken, as an argument.

“They built a cement plant there and it polluted everything. Now their fishermen sometimes come here because there are no fish over there,” Kasenuly said.

“If a [nuclear] catastrophe occurs, everything will perish," the fisherman added. "How will we live if [Lake] Balkhash disappears?”

Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has pledged to hold a national referendum to decide whether Kazakhstan should build a nuclear power plant but has yet to set a date for the vote.
Kyrgyz Activist Held For Protesting Change In Flag Transferred To House Arrest (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/17/2024 5:45 AM, Staff, 1530K, Negative]
Kyrgyz activist Aftandil Jorobekov, who was arrested in December for openly protesting a change to Kyrgyzstan’s national flag, was transferred to house arrest over the weekend, his lawyer told RFE/RL. The 40-year-old activist was charged with calls for mass disorder and disobedience to authorities’ requests. The flag’s amendment was proposed by President Sadyr Japarov, who signed the bill on December 22, 2023. The law allowed for “straightening” the wavy yellow rays of a sun on a red field of the old flag to avoid resemblance to a sunflower. The Kyrgyz word for sunflower is kunkarama, but it also means "dependent."
Five Residents Of Volatile Tajik Region Extradited By Russia (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/17/2024 12:38 PM, Staff, 1530K, Negative]
Russian officials detained five residents of the village of Yazgulom in the volatile Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region and extradited them to Tajikistan last week, where they were charged with "membership in an extremist organization," a source close to Tajik law enforcement told RFE/RL on June 17.

RFE/RL has chosen not to disclose the names of the five, who were arrested in Russia in late May. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.

On May 16, Tajik security forces arrested more than 30 residents of Yazgulom, accusing them of plotting unspecified sabotage.

Sources told RFE/RL at the time that those arrested were suspected of having links with "extremist groups" in neighboring Afghanistan.

There were no details regarding the arrests in Yazgulom and the deportation of the five Tajiks from Russia as neither officials nor relatives of the detained individuals agreed to talk to RFE/RL.

Residents of Gorno-Badakhshan have been under pressure for years. A crackdown on the restive region intensified in 2022 after mass protests in May that year were violently dispersed by police and security forces.

Tajik authorities said at the time that 10 people were killed and 27 injured during the clashes between protesters and police.

Residents of the remote region’s Rushon district, however, have told RFE/RL that 21 bodies were found at the sites of the clashes.

Dozens of the region’s residents have been handed lengthy prison terms on terrorism and extremism charges since then.

Deep tensions between the government and residents of the volatile region have simmered ever since a five-year civil war broke out shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Still, protests are rare in the tightly controlled nation of 9.5 million where President Emomali Rahmon has ruled with an iron fist for nearly three decades.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[6/17/2024 7:14 AM, 81.1K followers, 60 retweets, 103 likes]
Afghanistan: Ahmad Fahim Azimi was arbitrary arrested on 17 October 2023. He is falsely accused of working against the Taliban de-facto authorities, convicted through an unfair trial by the Taliban primary court, and sentenced to one year in prison on 1 April 2024. His arrest, arbitrary detention, and unfair trial are against international human rights law. He must be immediately and unconditionally released.@GDI1415, @MoFA_Afg, @Zabehulah_M33 https://amnesty.org/en/documents/asa11/8045/2024/en/

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[6/17/2024 2:42 PM, 62.6K followers, 83 retweets, 150 likes]
On June 18, @SR_Afghanistan will present to @UN_HRC a hard-hitting report on shocking and escalating Taliban abuses against Afghan women and girls. The problem? The @UN itself—desperate to placate the Taliban—doesn’t seem to listening to anything its own Special Rapporteur says.
Pakistan
Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[6/17/2024 10:35 AM, 3.1M followers, 10 retweets, 16 likes]
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held a telephone conversation with President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, H.E Mr. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev today on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha. During their conversation, both leaders discussed bilateral as well as regional issues of mutual interest. The two leaders expressed satisfaction at the positive trajectory of their bilateral relationship and reaffirmed shared desire to expand cooperation between both countries to its full potential, particularly in trade and investment. While underscoring the significance of regional cooperation, the Prime Minister said that he looked forward to his participation in the upcoming SCO Heads of State meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan on 3-4 July, 2024. The Kazakh President expressed his happiness on learning of the Prime Minister’s participation in next month’s Summit, where the invited leaders would discuss a comprehensive agenda to advance regional cooperation.

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[6/17/2024 8:48 AM, 3.1M followers, 6 retweets, 18 likes]
Message from the Prime Minister of Pakistan on Desertification and Drought Day Today, on Desertification and Drought Day 2024, we come together to emphasize the critical importance of land stewardship under the theme "United for Land. Our Legacy. Our Future." The day reminds us of our collective responsibility to protect and restore our land for the well-being of current and future generations. In Pakistan, desertification, land degradation, and drought are significant challenges that affect millions of lives. Our government is dedicated to addressing these issues through sustainable land management practices, reforestation programs, and innovative agricultural techniques. We are committed to achieving land degradation neutrality and enhancing the resilience of our communities. However, government action alone is not enough. We must foster a collaborative approach involving all stakeholders — communities, civil society, private sector, and international partners. By working together, we can combat land degradation and build a sustainable and resilient Pakistan. On this Desertification and Drought Day, let us unite for our land, ensuring it remains a vital resource for our legacy and our future.

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/17/2024 10:13 AM, 6.7M followers, 163 retweets, 616 likes]
Had a wonderful conversation with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan on Eid ul Adha. Exchanged warm greetings and discussed ways to further strengthen our bilateral relations, especially trade & investment as well as regional cooperation. Look forward to my visit to Astana for the SCO Heads of State meeting next month.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[6/17/2024 10:48 PM, 42.7K followers, 3 retweets, 42 likes]
Not a fan of the term polycrisis to describe Pakistan’s situation. "Multiple crises" suffices.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/17/2024 9:45 AM, 98.9M followers, 7.6K retweets, 79K likes]
Met US National Security Advisor @JakeSullivan46. India is committed to further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership for global good.

Vice-President of India
@VPIndia
[6/17/2024 2:04 AM, 1.5M followers, 27 retweets, 260 likes]
The loss of lives in a train accident in Darjeeling, West Bengal is truly distressing. I extend my sincere condolences to the bereaved families, and pray for the speedy recovery of the injured.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/17/2024 8:48 AM, 3.2M followers, 281 retweets, 3.8K likes]
Saddened by the news of the train accident in West Bengal. Deepest condolences to the bereaved families. Wish a speedy recovery to those who have been injured.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/17/2024 2:54 AM, 3.2M followers, 902 retweets, 10K likes]
Delighted to welcome US NSA @JakeSullivan46 in New Delhi today morning. A comprehensive discussion on a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues. Confident that India-US strategic partnership will continue to advance strongly in our new term.

Rahul Gandhi
@RahulGandhi
[6/17/2024 6:36 AM, 26M followers, 8.6K retweets, 27K likes]
When democratic institutions are captured, the only safeguard lies in electoral processes that are transparent to the public. EVM is currently a black box. EC must either ensure complete transparency of the machines and processes, or abolish them.

Derek J. Grossman
@DerekJGrossman
[6/18/2024 2:49 AM, 89.4K followers, 3 retweets, 21 likes]
Rahul Gandhi weighs in on Modi 3.0: “The space in the Indian political system has been blown open." The new govt will “struggle” to survive.

Dhruva Jaishankar
@d_jaishankar
[6/17/2024 8:16 PM, 105.5K followers, 60 retweets, 144 likes]
U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) fact sheet: https://whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/06/17/joint-fact-sheet-the-united-states-and-india-continue-to-chart-an-ambitious-course-for-the-initiative-on-critical-and-emerging-technology/ While previous editions made considerable progress on defence and semiconductors, more here on space, biological sciences (including US India Japan Korea EU coalition), quantum, 6G.

Richard Rossow
@RichardRossow
[6/17/2024 9:53 AM, 29.6K followers, 1 retweet, 12 likes]
India’s Air Force was again a participant in EXERCISE RED FLAG held in Alaska. Along with Singapore, the U.K., Netherlands, Germany. First time IAF used Rafale fighters in RED FLAG. Focus: Beyond visual range combat, air defense. https://bit.ly/3RuITXK

Kamran Khan
@AajKamranKhan
[6/18/2024 2:05 AM, 5.6M followers, 12 retweets, 102 likes]
India’s stock market value has now exceeded $5 trillion. The country’s equity market has joined the ranks of the US, China, Japan and Hong Kong. It took India about six months to add the latest $1 trillion to the capitalization of companies listed on its exchanges.
NSB
PMO Nepal
@PM_nepal_
[6/17/2024 9:16 AM, 714.2K followers, 5 retweets, 37 likes]
Today, H.E. @AxelVT_WB, Senior Managing Director of the World Bank Group paid a courtesy call on the Rt. Hon. PM @cmprachanda. On the occasion, various aspects of Nepal’s partnership with the World Bank, including the importance of IDA21 replenishment meeting, were discussed.

Comrade Prachanda
@cmprachanda
[6/18/2024 2:05 AM, 416K followers, 7 retweets, 26 likes]
Glad to host and inaugurate the IDA21 Replenishment Meeting in Kathmandu. Over six decades, IDA has been a key source of development finance, leading to significant outcomes in infrastructure and social development in Nepal.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[6/17/2024 12:12 PM, 320.4K followers, 7 retweets, 75 likes]
I extend my heartfelt wishes to the entire Muslim community in Sri Lanka and around the world for a meaningful Hajj celebration, where everyone comes together to fulfil the aspirations of humanity.

Harsha de Silva
@HarshadeSilvaMP
[6/17/2024 1:04 PM, 356.7K followers, 10 retweets, 38 likes]
1/2: Seems @IMFNews #SriLanka tax on imputed rent is income tax, not property tax. Say LKR 150k/mo salary; LKR 3.5k/mo tax. Now say LKR 100k/mo imputed rental; tax LKR 21k/mo tax at same salary unless tax thresholds and rates changed. Need wide net to collect LKR 150b by 2026!

Harsha de Silva
@HarshadeSilvaMP
[6/17/2024 1:04 PM, 356.7K followers, 13 likes]
2/2: The FinMin explanation that only the very rich will be affected cannot be accurate. How can Treasury raise LKR 150b [0.8% of GDP] by 2026 by imputing a rent and taxing that imaginary income.
Central Asia
Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[6/18/2024 12:08 AM, 29.3K followers, 2 retweets, 10 likes]
As parts of #Kazakhstan suffer from it getting light at 3am because of time zone switch, someone behind it suggests people should just start work an hour earlier. That’s teleology. Another idea - switch the clocks back. Better still, don’t change them.

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[6/18/2024 12:05 AM, 29.3K followers]
Acquittal of defendants in Kempir-Abad trial "does not signify that #Kyrgyzstan is spurning the cudgel", says @Peter__Leonard in this eloquently-argued piece on his Substack. "It is just using it more cunningly." https://havli.substack.com/p/kyrgyzstans-catch-and-release-model?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2446111&post_id=145718167&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=awgla&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[6/18/2024 2:42 AM, 4.8K followers, 1 like]
Presentation of the Dushanbe Water Process in Austria https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/15237/presentation-of-the-dushanbe-water-process-in-austria

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[6/18/2024 12:48 AM, 4.8K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
Telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Shehbaz Shareef https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/15236/telephone-conversation-with-the-prime-minister-of-the-islamic-republic-of-pakistan-shehbaz-shareef

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[6/17/2024 10:41 AM, 6K followers, 8 likes]
In my remarks at the Central Asian Expert Forum in Astana, I highlighted the region’s significant strides towards enhanced cooperation and mutual trust. A central theme was the "Gravity of Trust," aligning with @president_uz Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Neighbors First Policy. I emphasized the Forum’s role as a key platform for generating solutions to Central Asia’s remaining challenges. Notably, this year’s Forum precedes the 6th Consultative Meeting of the Heads of States in Astana, marking a new phase in regional rapprochement initiated in 2017.
I proposed several measures to advance the regional cooperation:
- Strengthening Mutual Trust: Build trust at all levels of interaction to promote regional interests.
- Developing Cooperation Mechanisms: Enhance collaboration among government bodies, expert communities, and civil society.
- Ensuring Regional Security: Improve cooperation on security issues, including combating terrorism.
- Enhancing Cooperation Frameworks: Develop key regional cooperation mechanisms.
- Coordinating International Actions: Create mechanisms for coordinated actions on international platforms. Further details will be shared in due course.

{End of Report}
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