SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS

epubdos : Afghanistan

Prepared for the U.S. Department of State

Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs

By TechMIS
www.TechMIS.com

Mobile User Copy

TO:	SCA & Staff
DATE:	Thursday, March 7, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan

Special visa program for US-affiliated Afghans faces demise (Reuters)

Reuters [3/6/2024 4:31 PM, Jonathan Landay, 5239K, Neutral]
A program that resettles in the United States Afghans who worked with the U.S. government could grind to a halt later this year, stranding tens of thousands at risk of Taliban retribution following the 2021 U.S. troop pullout from Afghanistan.

The congressionally-authorized limit of 38,500 Special Immigration Visas (SIVs), which offer a path to U.S. citizenship, is expected to be reached sometime around the August anniversary of the withdrawal, and it looks unlikely that the divided U.S. Congress will approve a Biden administration request for 20,000 more.

"We have somewhere around 8,000 (SIVs) left," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told a briefing. "We have urged Congress to raise the cap and allow us to meet our obligation to those Afghans who put their lives on the line for the United States."

Once the remaining SIVs are issued, more than 10,000 applicants and their families cleared for final vetting and interviews outside Afghanistan would be unable to begin new lives in the United States, said a State Department official who requested anonymity.

Tens of thousands of other Afghan applications that have not reached that stage also are awaiting processing.

A failure to raise the SIV cap would be a “moral tragic travesty and national security failure” on the part of Congress, said Jason Crow, a Democrat and Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and is leading efforts in the House of Representatives to raise the limit.

The program’s potential end comes amid an immigration backlash fueled by former President Donald Trump, the expected Republican presidential nominee, and United Nations reports that the Taliban have killed, arrested and tortured hundreds of former officials and soldiers since the Islamists seized Kabul.

The Taliban, who issued a general amnesty for officials and troops of the former U.S.-backed government, deny the U.N.’s charges.

130,000 APPLICATIONS STILL UNPROCESSED

The administration proposal is caught in the infighting over financing the government through September, with no agreement to include it.

Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, the main coalition of volunteer and veterans groups helping to resettle at-risk Afghans, said House Speaker Mike Johnson was blocking the proposal and "unilaterally preventing tens of thousands of eligible Afghans from accessing their American dream."

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Even 20,000 more visas, however, “would not be enough to finish the job," said VanDiver.

He pointed to a State Department report in September that some 130,000 full or partial applications were awaiting processing. That number did not include applicants’ families, who are not covered by the SIV cap and average more than four members each.

“We have an obligation to the tens of thousands of Afghans who stood with us through 20 years of battle,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a Republican who served in Iraq.

He co-sponsored a bill with Crow last year to add 20,000 visas to the SIV cap and extend the program through 2029.

Since 2014, the program has been extended and the cap raised by Congress almost annually, although application processing slowed significantly under Trump’s administration, leaving a massive backlog.

Congress set the current cap of 38,500 visas in 2022. But while the Democratic-run Senate last year approved raising the ceiling and extending the program, House Republicans balked.

Meanwhile, SIV processing has accelerated significantly following steps taken by the Biden administration or mandated by Congress that streamlined the application process.

Between September 2021 and last month, the State Department issued some 39,100 SIVs, the State Department official said.

“We’re … kind of a victim of our own success,” Crow said of the increased approval rate.

Still, a congressionally mandated nine-month SIV application processing rate is not being met, said Adam Bates of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

“It would be unconscionable for this group of people to ... get caught up in this partisan morass,” he said.

Johnson invites Gold Star parents of Marines killed in Afghanistan to SOTU (ABC News)

ABC News [3/6/2024 4:36 PM, Staff, 22K, Neutral]
House Speaker Mike Johnson tells ABC News that his guests at Thursday’s State of the Union address will include Gold Star parents who lost children in the Kabul airport bombing during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

"President Biden’s hasty, unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan was a failure for America and its allies. It led to the tragic deaths of brave American servicemembers, including Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover and Cpl. Hunter Lopez," Johnson said in a statement to ABC News, echoing election-year arguments made by many Republicans.

Johnson invited Alicia Lopez and Darin Hoover, who both lost children in combat during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Cpl. Hunter Lopez and Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover were both killed in Kabul, Afghanistan, at Abbey Gate. Taylor Hoover was the oldest of the 13 service members killed that day.

"Taylor and Hunter are great men, dedicated Marines and incredible sons who made our families proud every day. They paid the ultimate sacrifice along with the 11 others killed and 45 wounded for our great country, but more than two years since their death, the President has left us without answers," Darin Hoover and Alicia Lopez said in a joint statement.

"As parents, we deserve transparency and we demand justice. We’re grateful to be joining Speaker Johnson at the State of the Union to commemorate our sons and demand accountability from this Administration," they added.

Since the start of the 118th Congress, House Republicans have been investigating the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Just this week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is expected to consider holding Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress for allegedly failing to cooperate with a subpoena seeking documents related to the U.S. withdrawal.

Biden denounced the attack and vowed to hunt down those responsible.

The U.S. military admitted a tragic mistake occurred when a drone strike days later -- against what was believed to be a car bomber -- instead struck three adults, including the Afghan employee of an American aid organization, and seven children.

"We need a President who shows strength -- not weakness -- on the global stage," Johnson said in a statement to ABC News.

Afghanistan: Judge hunted by Taliban wins court case against UK government (BBC)

BBC [3/6/2024 6:47 PM, Sean Seddon, 14192K, Negative]
An Afghan judge who has been forced to go into hiding from the Taliban was wrongly refused relocation to the UK, the High Court has ruled.

The anonymous claimant prosecuted Taliban and Islamic State group members, and has since avoided an assassination attempt, the court heard.

The UK government argued he had not worked closely enough with the UK in Afghanistan to qualify for relocation.

A UK government spokesperson says officials are "considering" the ruling.

The Afghan judge is currently in hiding in an unspecified third country with his wife and children, two of whom are in poor health, it emerged in court.

He lives with the constant "risk that they may be forcibly returned to Afghanistan", according to a ruling in his favour.

Zoe Cooley, the claimant’s solicitor, said the government had a "moral, as well as a legal, responsibility to bring our client and his family to safety".

The ruling does not automatically qualify him for relocation but does mean the government must now reassess his application in light of the court’s findings.

Ms Cooley called on the UK government to act "very swiftly" to bring the judge and his family to the UK before it was "too late".

‘Plainly faulty’

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme was set up to offer people who worked for or with the UK government in Afghanistan a path to move to the UK.

It is aimed at those who could be exposed to retribution by the Taliban, which re-seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, due to their association with international forces involved in the invasion.

The Afghan judge who brought the High Court case first applied to ARAP in August 2021 but was rejected in March 2022 - a decision upheld by an appeals panel in May 2023.

The government officials responsible for reviewing the application effectively ruled that he did not directly work for or with the UK government and was therefore not eligible.

Now High Court judge Mr Justice Julian Knowles has ruled that decision was "irrational" and based on "plainly faulty" reasoning as the Afghan judge’s activities "personally and directly" had helped to further the UK’s goals in Afghanistan.

‘Assassinations and terror’

The High Court heard the judge asked for help to leave Afghanistan during the August 2021 evacuation but "did not receive a reply" and was left in the country.

He served as a senior judge for six years in an area which saw some of the heaviest fighting and counter-insurgency during the Afghanistan war.

The court heard he oversaw cases involving murder, violence against women, terrorism, kidnapping, drug smuggling and corruption.

The perpetrators were often members of the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

When the Taliban had surrounded his home city in 2021 during its rapid campaign to seize control of Afghanistan, the judge had to be "air-lifted out of the region by military aircraft" for his safety, the High Court was told.

Mr Justice Knowles accepted the claimant’s evidence that the Taliban had had informants on the court’s staff during his time as a judge - some of whom now hold high-ranking positions in the government.

Some of the people the judge sentenced in Afghanistan have since "obtained high positions in the present Taliban regime".

The judge was involved in cases where suspects were apprehended after operations based on intelligence provided by "international forces" operating in Afghanistan.

Taliban operatives have "visited family members seeking [the] whereabouts" of the judge, the court heard.

A partial statement from the judge was published by the court on Monday as part of the ruling. It read: "I am struggling a lot and my wife and children now have a very hard life. What we are going through is very difficult.

"The situation here is much worse than the Taliban are admitting to publicly. We are aware of constant killings and assassinations and terror.

"The media and the journalists have no access to this and so it is not being properly reported... As a Chief Judge I know I will be killed and my family too."

‘Semantic hair-splitting’

The judge’s solicitor told the BBC his work had come at "immense personal risk" and he "was the subject of repeated threats, including a documented assassination attempt upon him in March 2020".

In his written judgement, Mr Justice Knowles said the grounds on which the panel had rejected the judge’s application for relocation amounted to "semantic hair-splitting".

He said the MoD had failed to explain why working to uphold the rule of law in Afghanistan was "not sufficient to count as working ‘alongside’ and in ‘support’" of the UK government.

He continued: "[The judge] performed significant activities which were closely aligned with the democracy-building and rule of law building activities of the UK government... He made significant contributions to the building of a properly functioning criminal justice system in the fields of terrorism, anti-narcotics, and anti-corruption, among others."

It is unclear how long it will take for the judge’s application to be reassessed.

Responding to the ruling, a government spokesperson said: "We note the outcome of the court proceedings in relation to an ARAP-related case, which we are considering. It is inappropriate to comment further at this time.

"We continue to honour our commitment to those brave Afghans that supported the UK mission in Afghanistan.

"So far, we have brought around 27,900 people to safety from Afghanistan, including over 15,800 people from the ARAP scheme, including over 3,000 since October 2023."

Afghan museum exhibits artefacts of Taliban victory (Agence France-Presse)

Agence France-Presse [3/6/2024 9:05 PM, Qubad Wali and Pascale Trouillaud, 11975K, Neutral]
Alongside antique Korans and ancient Afghan coins, rocket launchers and homemade bombs are displayed in a Mazar-i-Sharif museum as a testament to the Taliban’s victory over foreign soldiers.

"It doesn’t have any old history, but it all played an important role in the victory," says museum director Abdul Qayum Ansari. "This has exceptional meaning for the people."

Inside the one-room Balkh province museum in northern Mazar-i-Sharif city’s famous Blue Mosque, twin display cases are devoted to mementos from the Taliban’s two-decade insurgency ending in 2021.

Ansari insists it’s "forbidden to photograph or film" the displays, and says the AFP team visiting are the first journalists authorised to come "in more than two years".

Surrounded by fragments of pottery and porcelain, a yellow barrel of explosives stands out alongside a red Honda motorbike encased in a glass box, propping up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The bike "was for transportation of the Mujahideen (fighters) during the war and combat", while the weapon "was used against the war machines like tanks", explains the bearded curator.

A handful of Afghan men browse the relics. Afghan women are barred from visiting, having been banned by authorities from entering the Blue Mosque complex after the Taliban returned to power.

According to Ansari, the small portion of the museum given over to war objects "has the most visitors".

Taliban authorities "wanted this museum to be exceptional", he says. "Many more rooms" could be filled with other wartime curios of interest to the public, he insists.

Antiquities from previous eras are sparse, however. While Mazar-i-Sharif is a historic crossroads with Central Asia, much of its heritage was plundered in Afghanistan’s cascading conflicts.

Since surging back to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has commemorated the withdrawal of US forces and the rout of the foreign-backed government with military parades and poetry readings.

At the same time, they have been hungry for foreign diplomatic ties, and official recognition by other states.

It is unclear why authorities have been reluctant to show off the small exhibition, but Ansari said he thinks it deserves to be seen widely.

"From my personal point of view, pictures should be taken of it," says Ansari. "All the world must see it, our people must see it."

"I have personally requested that we must have a special museum for the conquest and the victory," he says.

Pakistan

Pakistan top court says ex-PM Bhutto, hanged in 1979, was denied fair trial (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera [3/6/2024 6:42 AM, Abid Hussain, 2060K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s Supreme Court says former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was not given a fair trial in a murder case, leading to his hanging 44 years ago.

Responding to a presidential reference filed 12 years ago, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa said, “We didn’t find that the fair trial and due process requirements were met.”

Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was hanged in a prison in Rawalpindi on April 4, 1979, two months after the Supreme Court found him guilty of masterminding the killing of a political rival.

The hanging came two years after Bhutto was removed from power by military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul Haq, who ruled until he died in a plane crash in August 1988.

The top court’s unanimous ruling on Wednesday wraps up a years-long hearing on the reference filed by Asif Ali Zardari, who as the country’s president in 2011 asked the court’s “opinion” on whether “due process and fair trial were complied with” in Bhutto’s murder trial.

Zardari is the husband of Bhutto’s daughter and two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007 during a political rally, and the father of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the former foreign minister and the current PPP chief.

Bhutto’s hanging was condemned by most legal experts in Pakistan as a “judicial murder” carried out at the behest of a military regime.

In his ruling, Isa said there have been cases in the past in the country’s judicial history that created a public perception that “either fear or favour deterred the performance” of the judiciary.

“We must, therefore, be willing to confront our past missteps and infallibility with humility in the spirit of self-accountability and as a testament to our commitment to ensure that justice shall be serving with unwavering, integrity and fidelity to the law,” he said.

Bhutto’s grandson Bhutto Zardari was present in the court when the ruling was delivered. “Our family waited 3 generations to hear these words,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.

He also spoke to reporters outside the court, saying he will issue a formal statement when the detailed court judgement arrives.

“The mark of this decision made it difficult for the people of Pakistan to have faith in the court, or get justice from here, especially if someone like a [former] prime minister did not get justice,” said Bhutto Zardari.

Bhutto Zardari’s younger sister Aseefa also took to X, saying his grandfather’s blood “stains the steps of the Supreme Court”.

Taj Haider, PPP leader and member of the Senate, the Pakistani parliament’s upper house, said the Supreme Court’s decision is “massive in its impact”.

“The top court took a big step in rectifying its mistakes of the past. We are hopeful that with this decision, its influence trickles down to lower courts who focus on providing justice to common public,” he told Al Jazeera.

Saroop Ijaz, a senior counsel for Human Rights Watch, said the top court’s verdict was “critically important” as the legacy of Zia-ul Haq continues to “haunt Pakistan today”.

“The Bhutto case has been the starkest example of miscarriage of justice, denial of fair trial and due process in Pakistan’s history. The formal acknowledgement by the Supreme Court of that injustice can be the first step to meaningful reform and for rebuilding people’s trust,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This judgement can and should also act as an opportunity to shine a spotlight on Zia’s crimes.”

Pakistan’s Supreme Court Finally Rules on Martial Law-Era Trial (Human Rights Watch)

Human Rights Watch [3/6/2024 9:45 AM, Saroop Ijaz, 190K, Neutral]
This week, Pakistan’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that the judicial proceedings leading to the death sentence and execution of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979 violated principles of due process and the right to a fair trial.

Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq had overthrown Bhutto’s elected government in a military coup in July 1977. Bhutto was subsequently tried for the 1974 murder of a political associate in a trial widely believed to be unfair. His trial remains the only case in Pakistan’s judicial history to be conducted in the high court and not a trial court, hence denying him the right to appeal.

After the coup, General Zia removed judges who refused to take a new oath accepting the military takeover as legitimate. In recent years, former judges, including a former Supreme Court chief justice, admitted to imposing the death sentence under pressure from Zia.

The 1977 military coup began an 11-year period of state terror, widespread rights violations and impunity in Pakistan. Zia imposed martial law in 1977 and suspended all fundamental rights guaranteed in the 1973 constitution. Political parties and trade unions were banned, dissidents were publicly flogged and many executed, and laws were enacted providing for harsh Islamic law penalties for certain crimes. Elections held in 1985 under the military dictatorship reversed universal voting rights and introduced systems that required non-Muslims to register as a separate category and vote only for non-Muslim candidates.

In his opinion on the 1979 case, Supreme Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa wrote:

“We must … be willing to confront our past missteps and fallibilities with humility, in the spirit of self-accountability, and as a testament to our commitment to ensure that justice must be served with unwavering integrity and fidelity to the law. We cannot correct ourselves and progress in the right direction until we acknowledge our past mistakes.”

This ruling is an important acknowledgment by Pakistan’s Supreme Court and can serve as an important first step toward reforming the system to provide justice for those to whom it has long been denied, reverse the abusive laws of the Zia era still in effect, and hold those responsible for grave crimes to account.

Why is Pakistan’s PTI fighting for reserved seats in parliament? (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera [3/7/2024 4:33 AM, Abid Hussain, 2.1M, Neutral]
It is the latest setback for former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

On Monday, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) declared that the PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) could not claim allocated reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies.

PTI, unable to contest recent elections due to a ban on their electoral symbol, instructed its candidates to join the right-wing fringe religious party in order to extend their numerical strength in the National Assembly.

In its 22-page judgment issued on Monday, the five-member electoral body decided 4-1 that the SIC failed to submit a party list for reserved candidates before the ECP’s deadline of February 22, two weeks after the February 8 election.

Pakistan’s National Assembly has a total of 70 reserved seats which are distributed among parties based upon their performance in the general elections. Similarly, the four provincial assemblies have a combined total of 149 reserved seats that are similarly distributed.

A majority of these reserved seats have already been allocated — around 77 remain vacant, for now.

PTI has criticised the ECP judgement, calling it an attack on democracy.

“This is the last assault on the heart of democracy,” Senator Ali Zafar of PTI, and a senior party lawyer said during a speech in the Senate, the upper house of the assembly on Monday after the decision was announced.

The ECP’s decision opens the door for a prolonged legal battle, as PTI has announced it will challenge the decision in higher courts.

However, if the party fails to overturn it, it could further dent its position in the lower house of parliament, potentially allowing the ruling coalition to gain a two-thirds majority in the 336-member National Assembly.

What are reserved seats — and why do they matter?

Pakistan’s general elections for the National Assembly take place on 266 seats. But there are an additional 70 reserved seats (60 for women and 10 for minorities) which give the body a total size of 336 seats.

To achieve a simple majority to form a government, a total of 169 seats is required. However, a two-thirds majority — or 224 votes — is necessary to make any constitutional amendments.

Reserved seats are allocated only to political parties that win seats in the National Assembly, and the distribution is done based on their proportional representation after the general elections. Similarly, reserved seats are allocated in provincial assemblies based on the parties’ proportionate performances.

According to regulations, any political party contesting the polls must submit a list of their nominations for reserved seats prior to elections, as per the schedule given by the ECP. However, after the polls, if a party has over-performed and needs to submit additional names for reserved candidates, it has two weeks to do so.

Independents have three days after their win announcement to declare their affiliation with a party in the assembly.

The party they join gets a boost in the number of reserved seats it gets, commensurate with the number of independents that join it.

In the National Assembly, the ECP has already allocated at least 40 out of 60 seats to different political parties for their reserved quota for women. Similarly, seven out of 10 seats reserved for the minorities quota have already been allocated in the lower house of the parliament. The rest are currently vacant.

What happened in the current elections?
Forced to contest the recent general elections on February 8 without its party symbol – the cricket bat – due to violating election rules, PTI fielded candidates as independents.

Despite facing a nationwide crackdown for nearly two years, with its leader, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, imprisoned since August last year, and its candidates unable to campaign freely, PTI still emerged as the single largest bloc, with its candidates winning 93 seats.

While the party claimed widespread rigging across the country and alleged a “stolen mandate”, its rivals, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), managed to cobble together a ruling alliance, with 75 and 54 seats respectively, in coalition with other smaller parties.

Even though they won the most seats, the PTI leadership, under orders from Imran Khan, decided not to form a government with any of the major parties and instead joined hands with a fringe, right-wing religious party, the SIC, to claim reserved seats.

Complicating matters further was the fact that the SIC, despite being a registered political party, did not contest the general elections. Its leader, Sahibzada Hamid Raza, chose to contest independently, winning his seat from Faisalabad city in Punjab province.

What does the ECP verdict say?
In its verdict, the ECP stated that the SIC was not entitled to claim the quota for reserved seats due to a “violation of a mandatory provision of submitting a party list for reserved seats, which is a legal requirement”.

It also said that the currently vacant seats in the national assembly — 23 — “will not” remain vacant and will be distributed among other parties based on the elected seats they won.

The commission criticised the SIC by reminding them that they were given a specific timeframe to submit a list of nominations, which the party did not.

“Every political party, while making any decision regarding crucial steps concerning matters of the political party required under law, should be aware of the potential consequences they may face in the future,” the ECP wrote.

What are the consequences of the ECP decision?

On March 3, Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) was elected the country’s new prime minister by the National Assembly, securing 201 votes. Omar Ayub Khan, the PTI leader backed by the SIC, managed to secure 92 votes.

The biggest beneficiary of the ECP decision will be Sharif’s PMLN, along with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which won the most number of seats in the general elections, with 75, 54 and 17 respectively.

In case PTI’s legal challenge fails to bring them any relief, it is a certainty that the ruling coalition will cross the magic figure of 224, which is required to achieve a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.

However, if PTI manages to get the ECP decision reversed, it can expect to get 23 further seats in the National Assembly, in addition to extra seats in other provincial assemblies where they have done well. That might limit the governing coalition to just below the two-thirds mark.

What does the legal fraternity think, and what’s next?

The ECP decision has been widely criticised by lawyers, with many calling the order a “farce” or even “unconstitutional”.

Constitutional expert Asad Rahim says the ECP verdict aligns with its previous decisions that, he alleged, have disenfranchised the people of Pakistan.

“There are precedents expressly barring the minor technicalities on the basis of which the ECP barred the largest party,” the Lahore-based lawyer told Al Jazeera. “However, an even greater subversion of the democratic mandate is its division of the remaining seats among the smaller parties.”

Another legal expert, Rida Hosain, also questioned the decision to distribute the unallocated seats to other, smaller parties. She argued that no legal or constitutional provision permitted this “absurd” distribution.

“The entire framework of the Constitution and law dictates that a political party should receive reserved seats through a system of proportional representation. It is entirely undemocratic for other political parties to get a share of reserved seats beyond their proportional strength of general seats in the National Assembly,” Hosain told Al Jazeera.

Islamabad-based lawyer Salaar Khan also noted that the ECP decision lacks any “convincing justification” for allocating the unallocated seats to other parties.

“However, the impact may well be granting the coalition government a full two-thirds majority in the National Assembly,” he told Al Jazeera.

On the other hand, lawyer Mian Dawood argued that the SIC was clearly at fault for failing to submit their list within the deadline.

“This is the first instance where a political party like the SIC has not submitted its list for reserved seats as required by law, yet now demands them on grounds of morality and the law of necessity,” Dawood told Al Jazeera.

Abdul Moiz Jaferii, a constitutional expert and lawyer, viewed the ECP verdict as another “technical knockout” suffered by PTI.

“The PTI perhaps themselves opened the door to this by not standing their ground with the ECP regarding their own reserved seat lists and maintaining that they are still a political party, albeit without a symbol,” he told Al Jazeera.

Lawyers also expressed pessimism regarding PTI receiving any favourable verdict from the superior courts.

“The PTI seems to have decided to challenge the decision before the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court’s narrow interpretation of election laws is, of course, what landed the PTI here to begin with,” lawyer Khan said, referring to the Supreme Court verdict in January this year upholding the ECP decision to strip the party of its cricket bat symbol.

India

Modi is visiting Kashmir’s main city for the first time since revoking region’s semi-autonomy in ‘19 (AP)

AP [3/6/2024 11:21 PM, Staff, 6902K, Negative]
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday is making his first official visit to Kashmir’s main city since New Delhi stripped the disputed region’s semi-autonomy and took direct control of it in 2019.

Thousands of armed paramilitary troops and police in flak jackets maintained extra vigilance across the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of the rebellion against Indian rule over the majority-Muslim territory where many residents strongly favor independence or a merger with Pakistan. Modi’s two previous visits to Kashmir after its status was changed were to the Hindu-dominated city of Jammu.

In 2019, Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status, annulled its separate constitution, split the area into two federal territories — Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir — and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.

The region has remained on edge since, as authorities put in place a slew of new laws that critics and many residents fear could change majority-Muslim Kashmir’s demographics. The move resonated in much of India, where the Modi government was cheered by supporters for fulfilling a long-held Hindu nationalist pledge to scrap the Muslim-majority region’s special status.

Ahead of Modi’s visit to Srinagar, government forces laid razor wires and erected checkpoints as they patrolled all the roads leading to the soccer stadium where Modi is scheduled to speak and review development work. They randomly frisked residents and searched vehicles while navy commandos in motorboats patrolled the Jhelum River that snakes through the city.

Authorities ordered thousands of government employees to attend the meeting, and most schools in the city were closed for the day.

Thursday’s event is seen as part of Modi’s campaign ahead of national elections scheduled in April and May.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both rivals claim the Himalayan region in its entirety.

The extra security measures have become common in Kashmir since 1989, when rebels began fighting against Indian rule.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Kashmir: Modi to visit Srinagar for first time since revoking special status (BBC)

BBC [3/6/2024 9:52 PM, Staff, 14192K, Neutral]
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to make his first visit to the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley since revoking the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019.

Mr Modi will address a rally in Srinagar, just weeks before India’s general election dates are announced.

Reports say his Bharatiya Janata Party will mobilise thousands of people to attend the event amid tight security.

An armed revolt against Indian rule in the disputed territory has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.

Revoking Article 370 of the Indian constitution had been a poll promise and Mr Modi’s government announced it soon after he won re-election in 2019. The article had granted significant autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the right to have its own flag, legislature, constitution and laws.

The state was the only one in India where Muslims formed the majority of the population. After the abrogation of Article 370, the state’s 12 million people were divided into two federally-administered territories - Jammu and Kashmir, and remote, mountainous Ladakh.

Tens of thousands of additional Indian troops were deployed ahead of the move, which shocked locals and upended normal life in the region - but was backed by many of Mr Modi’s supporters in India. Schools and colleges were shut in the former state, tourists ordered to leave, telephone and internet services suspended and local political leaders placed under house arrest or moved to jails in other parts of India.

Mr Modi’s visit on Thursday will set the tone for the BJP’s campaign in the region for the coming general election, analysts say. The BJP has not formed any alliance with any party ahead of the polls.

The prime minister could announce development projects for the region, like he did during his visit to Jammu, with its mostly Hindu population, in February, reports quoting BJP leaders suggest. In Jammu he had said that Article 370 had been an impediment to progress.

India’s Supreme Court upheld the abrogation of Article 370 in December - but said the government had promised to restore Jammu-Kashmir’s statehood and should do so as soon as possible.

Before addressing the public meeting, Mr Modi will visit Indian army headquarters in Srinagar. The presence of Indian forces is a contentious issue with security personnel accused of numerous human rights abuses and other excesses over decades.

Prior to Mr Modi’s visit, the streets of Srinagar were cleaned and bill boards put up to welcome him, reports say. Thousands of government officials are reported to have been asked to attend the public address and help run the event.

In order to guard the Bakshi stadium where Mr Modi will deliver his address, thousands of security personnel have been deployed. Vehicles moving in and out of Srinagar are being checked and people frisked.

Thursday’s visit is one among many events Mr Modi will attend before general election voting dates are announced. On Wednesday, he inaugurated an underwater metro rail tunnel in Kolkata in India’s West Bengal state.

India Frees 10,000 More Soldiers to Guard Border With China (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg [3/7/2024 5:19 AM, Sudhi Ranjan Sen, 6902K, Neutral]
India has freed up thousands of soldiers to strengthen its disputed border with China, adding a potential irritant to its already sour relations with Beijing.

A 10,000-strong unit of soldiers previously assigned to the country’s western border has now been set aside to guard a stretch of its frontier with China, said senior Indian officials who didn’t want to be named because discussions are private.

In addition, an existing contingent of 9,000 soldiers, already designated to the disputed Chinese border, will be brought under the newly created fighting command. The combined force will guard a 532 km (330.57 miles) stretch of border that separates China’s Tibet region with India’s northern states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

The Indian Army and Ministry of Defense declined to comment.

The unprecedented assignment of troops — backed by their own dedicated artillery and air support — to this stretch of the border highlights both the region’s strategic importance and its growing sensitivity in the eyes of India’s leaders.

The area, nestled in the Himalayas, is home to some of Hinduism’s holiest shrines. It has seen huge infrastructure investment and development in the last decade as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has encouraged tourism to the area.

In 2021, India repositioned an additional 50,000 soldiers to patrol its border with China, after a deadly border clash the year before left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, seriously straining ties.

China and India have since upgraded military-related infrastructure and moved missiles and aircraft to either side of their border, in addition to positioning more troops.

“The possibility that we may face a similar situation that we faced in 2020 is keeping us active all the time,” said India’s Defense Secretary Giridhar Aramane, at a business event last month, referring to the border clash between the nuclear armed neighbors.

Ties between India and China sunk in the aftermath of that confrontation and haven’t substantially improved since then. As many as 21 rounds of talks military-diplomatic have made incremental progress. India has since passed laws to discourage Chinese investments and enterprise in India.

India’s top diplomat calls for more Japanese investment (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia [3/7/2024 4:45 AM, Akira Kitado, 11975K, Neutral]
India’s top diplomat on Thursday called for Japanese companies to ramp up their investment in the country, saying that U.S. and European corporations were well ahead in tapping the world’s most populous nation.

Speaking at an international conference in Tokyo, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar pointed to India’s fast-paced growth as a key selling point.

"If you have today a three-and-a-half trillion dollar economy which is growing at 7%, you would imagine logically that there would be many more business delegations actually coming and exploring. There are, but I don’t see that many from Japan," Jaishankar told the Raisina Roundtable, which is organized by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation and others.

The Indian government has raised its GDP growth forecast for the year ending this month to 7.6%, from a January projection of 7.3%.

Some Japanese companies have established themselves in India. Suzuki Motor has been operating there for more than 40 years and controls the largest share of the country’s automobile market. Japan’s direct investment in India was 641 billion yen ($4.3 billion) in 2022.

But Jaishankar said the level of interest from Japanese business falls short of that from Europe and the U.S., which are engaging with India more intensely and consistently.

The government-to-government relationship between India and Japan has been growing, but "we are not seeing enough the similar B2B (business to business)," Jaishankar said, noting a dearth of Indian students studying in Japan.

India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation and is pursuing infrastructure spending to keep up.

"I think it is important that Japan today appreciates the pace of change in India," Jaishankar said. "This is a country today which is building 28 kilometers of highway every day, which is creating eight new airports every year, which is establishing one and a half- to two metros every year."

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida noted India’s "central role" in the Global South.

"The growth of countries in what is called the Global South has been quite remarkable, and India, which plays a central role, is attracting attention from many sides," Kishida said in a video message to the conference. "Last year, as chairs of the G7 and G20, Japan and India worked closely together to address global challenges."

Regarding the Quad, a security grouping of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, Kishida said: "We hope to take the next step in our cooperative relationship."

Jaishankar is due to meet his Japanese counterpart Yoko Kamikawa on Thursday.

India opens new naval base near Maldives amid tense ties and with eye on Beijing (Reuters)

Reuters [3/6/2024 3:00 PM, Krishn Kaushik, 5239K, Neutral]
India on Wednesday opened a new naval base on its Indian Ocean island close to the Maldives, as ties with Male remain tense and New Delhi jostles anew with China for influence in the region.

INS Jatayu, the new base on Minicoy Island, on India’s Lakshadweep archipelago, had been under construction for years, and is India’s most distant base on its western coast. The navy has had a small presence on the island for decades.

The opening comes just as the Maldives pushes India to start withdrawing its nearly 80 troops who have been stationed there to provide technical and medical assistance on three aircraft given to its southern neighbour nation by New Delhi earlier.

The Maldives, which have traditionally had close ties to India, is pivoting towards Beijing since new President Mohamed Muizzu was elected in October on a promise to end the country’s pro-India stance.

India’s new base on Minicoy is around 125 km (78 miles) from the Maldives.

The region is important to New Delhi for securing the passage of maritime traffic through the Indian Ocean, and the new base will help in its surveillance efforts in the region.

The Indian Navy said in a statement on Wednesday that the base will strengthen its "foothold in the Lakshadweep island while extending capacity building, operational reach and sustenance in the region."

The navy also commissioned a new squadron of American MH-60R "Seahawk" helicopters in Kochi, also on India’s western coast. The squadron, it said, will "augment our maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare capabilities".

Male has signed a new agreement on receiving military assistance from Beijing, "fostering strong bilateral ties", its defence ministry announced on social media platform X on Monday.

he spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the United States is "tracking" reports of the new agreement between the Maldives and Washington’s main strategic rival. Matthew Miller called the Maldives "a valued partner" that the United States looks forward to continue working with.

"Our countries share almost 60 years of partnership and a commitment to an Indo-Pacific region that is connected, secure, resilient and prosperous," Miller told a regular briefing.

"We remain committed to strengthening our partnership ... across many spheres including economic development, education, security cooperation and climate-change response."

Muizzu has made an issue of the presence of the Indian troops in his country, and New Delhi has agreed to replace them after bilateral consultations.

Colonel Ahmed Mujthaba Mohamed, principal director of plans, policy and resources management for the Maldives National Defence Force, said on Wednesday that 26 Indian civilians had arrived to take over the control of aircraft from Indian military personnel.

"The plan to remove all Indian military personnel by May 10 is on track," he said, adding that the Indian civilian operations on aircraft platforms will be under the MNDF’s command and control.

India Sets Up New Indian Ocean Naval Base (VOA)

VOA [3/6/2024 11:20 AM, Anjana Pasricha, 761K, Neutral]
India has commissioned a new naval base on an island that lies off its southwest coast, as it looks to strengthen its presence in the Indian Ocean amid growing concerns about China’s expanding footprint in the strategic waters and a downturn in ties with the Maldives.

The base, called INS Jatayu, lies on Minicoy, the southernmost island in India’s Lakshadweep archipelago, which straddles key trade routes. It will be India’s second naval base on the archipelago and is closer to the Maldives.

After commissioning the base Wednesday, India’s navy chief, Admiral Hari Kumar, said it was crucial to recognize the pressing need for heightened surveillance amid prevailing geopolitical developments, according to Press Trust of India.

The navy has said that the new base is “part of efforts to augment security infrastructure at the strategically important” islands.

The announcement of the new naval base comes as the Maldives, under its new government, which took power last November, moves closer to New Delhi’s rival, China.

The Maldivian defense ministry said Tuesday it has signed an agreement with China on provision of military assistance to the archipelago, but gave no details. The Maldives has also asked India to withdraw about 80 security personnel deployed on the archipelago to operate helicopters and other aircraft for surveillance and rescue missions.

Analysts say that the new base on Minicoy Island will be a strategic counter to China, which New Delhi suspects will strengthen its military presence in the Maldives as those two countries move rapidly to build strategic ties.

Over the past decade, concern has grown in New Delhi that infrastructure projects China has built in places like Hambantota port in neighboring Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan are bringing the rival Asian nation closer to India’s shores.

“China’s forays into the Indian Ocean are a concern. By building such bases, India is looking to avoid a situation where China will acquire a dominance on the western side of the Indian Ocean,” said Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs.

The new naval base was commissioned a week after Mauritius and India inaugurated an India-financed airstrip and a jetty on the tiny island of Agalega. Mauritius is an Indian Ocean outpost that lies close to Africa and has strategic significance. Mauritius’ prime minister, Pravind Jugnauth, denied reports that Agalega would serve as a military base but said the infrastructure will help modernize and strengthen security.

Analysts say that the airstrip and jetty can be used by India to facilitate air and naval patrols in the southwest Indian Ocean, which is a transit point for key maritime routes. Oman has also given India access to its Duqm Port for logistics and support to facilitate its naval presence in the western Indian Ocean.

“India wants to project power further and further away from Indian shores,” said Chaulia. “The long-term objective is to preempt the Chinese encroachments in the region, but we also must show our leadership in the region by protecting sea lanes of communication and countering threats such as piracy to merchant shipping.”

Analysts point out that boosting the country’s naval capabilities has become a major focus for India due to China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean. Relations between the Asian giants have worsened in recent years following a bitter military standoff along their Himalayan border. The Indian Ocean is a hugely strategic waterway for both countries, carrying their energy and other trade.

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday that India, which had earlier focused on strengthening its land borders, is now “rebalancing its military resources” due to the “increased movement of our adversaries in the Indian Ocean region and the commercial importance of the region.” He was inaugurating a new building at the Naval War College in Goa.

He said India will ensure that no one exercises hegemony in the Indian Ocean region.

“The navy is ensuring that no country, with its overwhelming economic and military power, is able to assert dominance over friendly countries or threaten their sovereignty,” Singh said.

India Expands Its Naval Presence With Planned Base (Foreign Policy)

Foreign Policy [3/6/2024 8:00 PM, Michael Kugelman, 315K, Positive]
On Wednesday, the Indian Navy commissioned a new base on Minicoy Island, which is part of the Lakshadweep archipelago, located off India’s southwestern coast and just 80 miles from the Maldives. The move suggests a desire to send a strong message to China, which has deepened ties with the Maldives since Mohamed Muizzu became president of the country in November 2023. The base, known as INS Jatayu, is also part of a bigger story about India’s increasing capacity to project naval power far beyond its shores.

Muizzu has called for closer relations with China while pushing back against India, ordering all Indian military personnel out of the Maldives by May 10. On Tuesday, Male signed a military aid deal with Beijing. Muizzu likely wants to establish more balance in the Maldives’ relations with both countries rather than formally ally with China. But India has reason to be anxious about deepening Chinese influence in a neighboring island state near crucial sea lanes in the heart of the Indian Ocean.

INS Jatayu will be the second Indian naval base on the archipelago, and it will bolster existing military resources in Lakshadweep, which include air strips and radar stations. India is also building resorts and infrastructure on Minicoy Island to boost tourism, signaling to the Maldives—which has an economy that relies heavily on tourism revenue—that it can push back on Male’s growing ties with Beijing through nonmilitary means as well.

But the new base is about much more than regional geopolitics. It is part of an ongoing effort to strengthen India’s capacity to secure its interests in areas spanning the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. The Indian Navy has long been on the forefront of its military modernization: As far back as 2009, naval leaders pledged to introduce 100 new warships within a decade. As New Delhi’s increasing global clout expands the geographic scope of its interests, it is keen to protect its assets abroad, as well as those of its partners.

India already boasts this capacity in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. It is dispatching naval destroyers to protect its sea trade and to help distressed ships targeted by missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and by acts of piracy in the Red Sea. But Indian naval experts say more must be done to strengthen power projection even further afield. Military development in Lakshadweep has so far lagged behind the resources invested in India’s island territories to the east.

The new base on Minicoy Island, coupled with the development of other military resources in the archipelago, gives India a data point to counter critics—including its own officials—who say it punches below its weight on the global stage. These assets enable it to serve as a net security provider in the Arabian Sea. The commission also comes as India has started sending arms to countries in Southeast Asia, including an expected Brahmos missile package to the Philippines.

India is working outside the alliance system to pursue security interests that also align with those of the United States and its partners, validating New Delhi’s long-standing policy of strategic autonomy. The benefits of INS Jatayu can be both operational and reputational: The base can help India address its geopolitical and security objectives, as well as enable it to project itself as a rising power that deploys its clout on its own terms.

Indian farmers say detentions foil Delhi protest, police say no one held (Reuters)

Reuters [3/6/2024 10:48 AM, Sakshi Dayal and Rajendra Jadhav, 11975K, Negative]
Dozens of protesting Indian farmers were detained en route to New Delhi on Wednesday, delaying their plan again to converge on the capital to demand higher crop prices, protest leaders said.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from the northern state of Punjab, launched a "Delhi Chalo" (Let’s go to Delhi) march last month demanding higher guaranteed prices for their produce but were stopped by police about 200 km (125 miles) north of the capital.

Protest leaders had planned to resume the protest on Wednesday, urging farmers across India to head for the capital by bus and train since their tractors had been blocked and tear gas and water cannon used to disperse them.

Farmers started moving towards Delhi but had been stopped by police in some states, said a statement from the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), or United Farmers’ Front, one of the two groups leading the protests.

Fifty farmers from one district in the northern state of Rajasthan were taken into custody on Tuesday night while others travelling to Delhi by train from the same state were detained at a police station on Wednesday, farmer leaders told reporters.

Rajasthan police denied detaining any farmers.

"We have not detained anybody in relation to the farmers’ agitation. There has been no mass movement from here in relation to the protest," Utkal Ranjan Sahoo, Rajasthan’s police chief, told Reuters.

Farmers from other central and northern states are expected to arrive in Delhi on Thursday, said another protest leader, Ramandeep Singh Mann.

Farmer groups from southern and western India also said they were preparing to join the protests.

"The farmers remain determined to enter the city. Their resolve to fight for their rights has only strengthened in the face of obstacles," Mann said.

The protests come weeks before national elections in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a rare third term.

A similar but larger protest two years ago, which saw farmers from more groups camped at Delhi’s borders for months, forced Modi to repeal some farm reform laws in his biggest political defeat.

Taiwan Apologizes for Labor Minister’s Remarks on Indian Workers (VOA)

VOA [3/6/2024 10:42 PM, Sanjay Jha, 761K, Neutral]
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry has issued "sincere apologies" following a remark by Taiwan’s labor minister that has threatened to disrupt fast-warming ties between the island republic and India.

In an interview with Yahoo TV last week, Hsu Ming-chun, Taiwan’s minister of labor, said that Taiwan may start recruiting migrant workers from India’s northeast region because "their skin color and eating habits are similar to ours." She added that "most of them believe in Christianity, and [have] skills in manufacturing, construction and agriculture."

Critics on social media called the remarks racist.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement late Monday calling Hsu’s comments "not entirely appropriate" and expressed "sincere apologies."

"Taiwan will welcome any Indian worker who meets conditions for recruitment and satisfies industry demand, regardless of their ethnic background," the ministry said in a statement.

Amid a rapidly aging population, Taiwan has been seeking to expand its source of foreign workers beyond Southeast Asian nations. Most now come from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, according to the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

Taiwan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with India on February 16, laying the framework for recruiting workers from India, which has high unemployment and a fast-growing population. India overtook China last year as the world’s most populous country with more than 1.4 billion people.

The details of the implementation of the MOU have yet to be worked out, but Bloomberg reported in November it could involve hiring as many as 100,000 Indian workers for industry, agriculture and health care on the self-ruled island. Taiwan has denied that it expects to hire that many workers.

China has been publicly silent on the agreement but could be irked by any bilateral agreement involving Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province that must one day reunite with mainland China, by force if necessary.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not immediately respond to the labor minister’s comments or the ministry’s apology. But there was some domestic backlash from India’s business sector.

"The Taiwanese minister’s statement is racist in nature, and it disrespects our Indian ethos," said Nafisul Q. Jilani, a Delhi-based businessman who wants to do business with Taiwan. "In the wake of current geopolitical fragility, such statements are unwarranted, and they could hamper the growing bilateral relation(s) between India and Taiwan."

He added that "India is a diverse country and constitutionally, every Indian is an equal citizen. We believe that any opportunity should be given on candidates’ individual merit, and not based on his/her skin color, appearance or religion."

Namrata Hasija, a research fellow at the Delhi-based Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, told VOA these kinds of statements harm the relationship between the two governments.

Leaders in Taiwan "should sensitize their ministers to India, and they should understand that both countries have come a long way," said Hasija, who is also a member of the advisory committee set up by Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor to look at labor issues with India.

"But if ministers, politicians and bureaucrats are not sensitized towards India, they don’t know India, and they don’t understand how diverse India is. Then such hiccups will keep coming in, and there will be a negative image of Taiwan here. Why give fodder to China, who are trying to dismantle the relationship?" she asked.

Priya Purswaney, an Indian entrepreneur and interpreter based in Taipei, told VOA the Indian community there "is slightly shocked by these comments, and such comments do not represent the majority view and do not align with the government’s policy on India, which has been actively working to strengthen ties with India."

"The particular comment that has been criticized was not meant to be offensive to anyone," said Purswaney. "She just had an error of judgment and has apologized for that. I hope the matter is not dragged on any further, because this agreement is definitely beneficial to both sides and marks an important milestone in India-Taiwan collaboration."

Purswaney noted that Hsu was full of praise for India, Indians and migrant workers from India during the TV interview, emphasizing the contribution they have made in many countries around the world.

Like most countries, India has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and adheres to a "One China" policy as do other governments that wish to have formal relations and do business with Beijing. India was one of the first noncommunist nations to recognize the government in Beijing, but New Delhi maintained informal ties with Taipei while trade and other exchanges flourished.

While bilateral trade between India and Taiwan is a modest $8 billion per year, compared to $136 billion between India and China, Taiwan is home to at least 5,000 Indian citizens and diaspora, considered among the best educated in the expatriate community.

Nearly 3,000 Indian students study in Taiwan, making up the fastest-growing group of international students.

India’s AI Regulators Need Scalpels, Not Hammers (Bloomberg – opinion)

Bloomberg [3/6/2024 5:00 PM, Mihir Sharma, 5543K, Neutral]
Indians are among the most innovative people in the world — until their government gets involved. The libertarian commentator Gurcharan Das argued more than a decade ago that “India grows at night, when the government sleeps.” An entirely avoidable fracas about how to regulate artificial intelligence in India is evidence that Das’s maxim still applies today.

India hosts a vibrant ecosystem of infotech companies, ranging from scrappy start-ups to continent-spanning behemoths. All of them were blindsided a few days ago by a government advisory decreeing that companies would need official permission to deploy any AI models on the “Indian” internet.

The government, most concluded, had been spooked by the growth of large language models such as OpenAI Inc.’s ChatGPT — and especially the new Gemini AI model from Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Gemini’s answer to the question “is Prime Minister Narendra Modi a fascist?” went viral last week, enraging Indian officials. Although Google quickly apologized, the damage had been done.

The Indian government is in the middle of a longer-term battle with big tech companies, especially those based in the US. Officials in New Delhi argue Google and others embed American values and regulatory principles in their products while trying to skirt India’s far more restrictive equivalents. The government is happy to use the heaviest possible levers to force foreign tech platforms to follow local rules. If, in the process, domestic alternatives receive a leg up — well, nobody in New Delhi would complain.

There are legitimate reasons for the government’s concern. India’s general election is just a few months away. This is a mammoth exercise, with 900 million possible voters. Protecting elections in smaller countries is difficult; in India, it is a nightmare.

Modi warned ministers just last week about the danger posed by AI-generated deepfakes. Limiting misinformation in India is a Herculean task, and the government suspects that many US-based tech platforms just aren’t making a serious effort. Modi even used a keynote speech to the leaders of the G-20 grouping last year to call for common standards for AI-driven content.

At the same time, this particular response by the Indian government looked so heavy-handed that senior ministers rushed to clarify their intentions. The government’s target was mainly large platforms, they insisted, not start-ups or companies working on broader AI applications — and the advisory was only meant to remind them of existing Indian law.

But here, too, damage has already been done. Innovators were reminded of the Indian state’s long record of using a blunderbuss when a regulatory scalpel would do. While Indians are proud of their IT and start-up sector, it would be far larger and more advanced without past regulatory missteps by the state.

Until 2021, for example, drones were either banned in India or so heavily regulated that peer competitors had gained a likely insurmountable advantage in the technology. And India’s booming fintech sector would be even more impressive if the central bank had not overreacted early on and limited mobile payments in 2008 to registered banks.

The government’s advisory — and even its clarification — are sufficiently unclear and vague that similar overreactions cannot be ruled out for AI in India. If “untested” AI models should be restricted, who in India is going to be testing them, and how swiftly? Is the “Indian” internet going to be cut off from the broader online world, which will have full access to AI tools?

Even if we ignore the pleas of those developing new AI models in India, what about the country’s effective and efficient IT-enabled services sector? Won’t those companies be rendered less competitive than their rivals if they lose access to free online AI tools?

There are real questions to be asked about how LLMs should be regulated, when they should be let out of the sandbox, and how best to safeguard innovation while also minimizing the chaos that AI-generated fakes could release. At the same time, bans are obviously not the way to go. If the Indian government does not want to stifle innovation and render Indians uncompetitive in a fast-changing global marketplace, it needs to be more cautious about what it says and does.

NSB

‘Big bullies’: Maldives turns away from India as calculating China woos it with aid (The Guardian)

The Guardian [3/6/2024 8:00 PM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 12499K, Neutral]
Since Mohamed Muizzu was elected president of the Maldives in September, a wave of anti-India sentiment has swept the country. This week, it was made clear to New Delhi exactly where his government’s allegiances now lie.

“There will be no Indian troops in the country come 10 May. Not in uniform and not in civilian clothing. The Indian military will not be residing in this country in any form of clothing. I state this with confidence,” Muizzu said in a public address on Tuesday.

A few days earlier, the two neighbouring countries had got into a spat after Muizzu made a thinly veiled reference to India as a “bully” of smaller countries in the region. In response, India’s minister of external affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said that “big bullies don’t provide $4.5bn aid”, in apparent reference to the large sums the Maldives still accepts from India.

In notable contrast, Muizzu’s government this week announced an agreement with China to receive free “military assistance” from Beijing, and China also gave the country 12 ambulances. Though the Maldives has had diplomatic and economic agreements with China in the past, this is the first time the two countries have formally established defence ties.

“It’s surprising Muizzu has moved so quickly to establish military ties with China, because it’s clear this would upset New Delhi,” said Azim Zahir, a former adviser to the Maldives government and professor of political science at the University of Western Australia. “This is a very new direction that will definitely escalate tensions in the region.”

The Maldives may be an archipelago of just 500,000 people, known best as a paradise tourist destination, but its strategic importance far outweighs its size, and it has long been at the centre of a tussle between India and China as they vie for influence in the Indian Ocean. The country also lies in a crucial east-west shipping lane that carries all of China’s oil supplies from the Gulf, and there is an important US naval base in the vicinity.

As China’s pursuit of influence in the region, particularly in the Indian Ocean, has become more aggressive, India has in turn invested vast amounts of resources and development funds in the Maldives – which sits right in its back yard – though it has often struggled to compete.

The previous Maldives government, under President Mohamed Solih, was more aligned with New Delhi and in the past five years India overtook China as the country’s biggest economic backer, providing funding for hospitals, schools, airports and other infrastructure, and giving large amounts of budgetary support.

In last year’s election, Muizzu ran a campaign based on the slogan “India out”, focusing on removing the dozens of Indian troops stationed in the country – there to operate emergency helicopters and aircraft presented by India – which he described as a threat to the country’s national security and sovereignty.

Muizzu and his Progressive Alliance government were already known for their pro-China leanings. During their last stint in power, between 2013 and 2018, they signed a free trade deal with China. Muizzu, who was mayor of the capital, Malé, at the time, oversaw the building of the China Maldives Friendship Bridge, a £150m project that connected the city to the airport.

In what many saw as a clear sign of his priorities, after taking power Muizzu’s first presidential visit was to China, where the two countries signed about 15 deals, and he has since held firm on his pledge to remove all Indian troops from the country. This week, Indian civilian teams arrived in the Maldives to take over the duties of the 89 military personnel, though this move has also been met with resistance.

Tensions rose further in January after India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited Lakshadweep, an Indian archipelago 80 miles north of the Maldives in order to promote tourism. The visit was perceived by some in the Maldives as an attempt to draw travellers away from their country, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourist dollars.

It prompted some Maldivian ministers to label Modi as a “terrorist” and a “clown”, though they were later suspended for those comments. In return, many in India called for tourists to boycott the Maldives, and one Indian travel company suspended flights.

Last month, the Maldivian government also allowed a controversial Chinese research vessel to enter its waters, despite objections by India, which labelled it a “spy ship”.

The deal announced on Monday between the Maldives defence ministry and China is likely to annoy India even further. The agreement will ensure “China’s provision of military assistance” free of charge. Though few details were provided, it was said the deal would foster “stronger bilateral ties”.

In an apparent bid to strengthen its military presence in the region amid the tensions, over the weekend India announced plans for a second naval base in Lakshadweep.

Zahir said that while there were concerns that China had exploited the Maldives’ fraying ties with India and the country’s poor economic situation to strike the defence deal, India’s response to the new Muizzu government had been “shortsighted” and counterproductive, pushing the country even further towards Beijing.

Nonetheless, he emphasised that, given the large amount of budgetary aid provided by India, it was unlikely the Maldives could afford to sever ties completely. “Muizzu is trying to move away from this reliance on India, but I don’t know how far he can afford to go,” he said.

Sri Lanka ex-leader claims ousted over China investments (Agence France-Presse)

Agence France-Presse [3/7/2024 3:25 AM, 304K, Neutral]
Former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ended a long silence over his ouster Thursday by releasing a book claiming "geopolitical rivalry" between China and other countries was responsible for his downfall.

Rajapaksa was forced into temporary exile after protesters stormed his official residence in 2022, following months of street protests over the island nation’s worst-ever economic crisis.

In a self-published account of his downfall, "The Conspiracy", Rajapaksa defends his government’s economic policies, which forced an unprecedented foreign debt default and saw months of severe food and fuel shortages.

Instead, he said "Chinese funded infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka after 2006 brought in an element of geopolitical rivalry" that precipitated his overthrow.

"It would be extremely naive for anyone to claim that there was no foreign hand in the moves made to oust me from power," Rajapaksa wrote.

Rajapaksa did not name specific countries, but the United States had in the past repeatedly warned Sri Lanka it risked falling into a Chinese debt trap by signing a raft of infrastructure deals.

At the time of his ouster, the 74-year-old was initially flown out of Sri Lanka aboard a military aircraft and emailed his resignation from Singapore, but he has since returned home.

In the book, Rajapaksa claimed that protesters who took to the streets as the economy ground to a halt in the final months of his tenure had "foreign funding", without offering evidence.

Beijing has funded several development projects in Sri Lanka, including a rarely-used convention centre and airport in Rajapaksa’s hometown Hambantota, which critics have slammed as white elephants.

China is also Sri Lanka’s biggest single bilateral lender, owning around 10 percent of the island’s foreign debt.

Rajapaksa was once esteemed among the Sinhala Buddhist majority for helping end Sri Lanka’s long civil war in 2009 while serving as the top defence official during his brother Mahinda’s presidency.

He was elected in a landslide in 2019 but his popularity crashed in tandem with Sri Lanka’s economy less than three years later, as supermarket shelves stood empty and days-long queues formed at petrol stations.

Economists blamed the sudden downturn on ill-advised tax cuts by Rajapaksa’s government that left it unable to respond to the collapse of foreign exchange reserves following the coronavirus pandemic.

Political commentator Kusal Perera said Rajapaksa’s downfall was due to his own inept handling of the economy.

"He was popular as a Sinhala-Buddhist leader thanks to media hype, but he was simply unable to deliver," Perera told AFP.

Rajapaksa’s successor Ranil Wickremesinghe has brokered an International Monetary Fund rescue package and sharply raised taxes to restore government finances.

Central Asia

Kazakhstan positions itself for lithium windfall (EurasiaNet)

EurasiaNet [3/6/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Kazakhstan is positioning itself as an important potential global supplier of high-quality lithium just as demand surges for the mineral, which is indispensable for the booming power-storage technology industry.

The auspices are good, although few firm investment commitments have materialized.

Speaking at a conference in Seoul on March 5, researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources announced that they had discovered sizable lithium reserves in an area of eastern Kazakhstan.

Experts from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, or KIGAM, quoted by The Korea Times said mineral deposits in the 1.6 square kilometer Bakennoye deposit, where tantalum was previously mined and which has been subject of exploration work since May, contains mineral resources worth up to $15.7 billion.

KIGAM reportedly intends to apply jointly with a South Korean company for permission to conduct further drilling investigations at the site next year.

That discovery stands to consolidate Kazakhstan’s position as a strong emerging source of lithium.

The country’s potential on that front was loudly trumpeted by senior European Commission official Maros Sefcovic at the EU-Kazakhstan Business Forum in November.

“We know that Kazakhstan has significant natural resources including more than 20 critical raw materials such as tungsten, lithium and rare earth elements,” he said.

Sefcovic added for context that Europe is currently only able to cater for 1 percent of the global production of raw materials like lithium, which are essential for the twin agendas of transitioning to green and digital technology.

“Demand for lithium [is] expected to be 12 times higher by 2030 and 21 times by 2050,” he said.

Sefcovic made his remarks on the eve of an announcement that the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development would allocate 400,000 euros ($435,000) for lithium exploration in the salt marshes of the Aral Sea and a separate project related to the sustainable processing of tungsten. The grant agreement was also signed by Kazakhstan’s state-run mining company Tau-Ken Samruk.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in October 2022 that he believed Kazakhstan may be sitting atop as much as 100,000 tons of lithium.

“These are large reserves. Serious investments in exploration and development are needed,” he said.

Kazakhstan’s National Geological Service has provided a more exact estimate of lithium reserves, around 75,600 tons.

This effort at disclosure and transparency marks a departure from what used to be the case until a few years ago. It was only in 2021 that Kazakhstan’s government adopted the decision to declassify state-produced data regarding the estimated reserves of lithium, as well as cesium, gallium, and tantalum. Prior to that, top officials, including former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, would at times encourage foreign investors to contemplate spending their money on lithium mining without apparently being prepared to inform them how much of the mineral there might be in the country.

In May 2023, Tokayev pitched the idea of investing in lithium at a Kazakh-Chinese investment roundtable in Xian, China.

“Considering that China is the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles, cooperation in the field of lithium mining seems promising. In recent years, the popularity of Chinese cars has grown significantly in Kazakhstan,” Tokayev said.

If China were to take up that offer, it would serve to further solidify its iron grip over global supplies of the processed mineral. The U.S. Department of Energy found in 2021 that China was responsible for refining 60 percent of the world’s lithium.

Varying degrees of interest are now being displayed by European parties.

In September, Tokayev met with the chairman of Berlin-based industrial concern HMS Bergbau, Dennis Schwindt, who presented a $500 million project to build a lithium extraction and processing plant in the East Kazakhstan region. The company had the month before acquired majority shareholdings in two Kazakh companies in possession of mining and exploration licenses for lithium, as well as cobalt, nickel, tantalum and rare earths in the Alatau region.

More recently, in February, a representative for a motley crew of German construction and building materials-manufacturing companies, all co-founders a Halle-based research outfit called the ITEL Deutsches Lithiuminstitut (German Lithium Institute), met with Kazakh Industry and Construction Minister Kanat Sharlapayev to discuss setting up a working group to explore opportunities for lithium exploration. It is unclear, however, that any of the companies involved in this consortium have any useful experience in the sector.

Kazakh Activist Faces Additional Charge Over Prison Brawl (Radio Free Europe)

Radio Free Europe [3/6/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
Ainara Aidarkhanova, the lawyer of imprisoned Kazakh activist Aigerim Tileuzhanova, told RFE/RL that her client was additionally charged with "inflicting bodily damage" over a brawl with another inmate. The lawyer added that the fight was most likely provoked to frame her client. Tileuzhanova, a noted civil rights activist, was sentenced to four years in prison, while her four co-defendants, all men, received eight years in prison each, after a court found them guilty in July of "organizing mass unrest at Almaty airport" during unprecedented anti-government protests in January 2022 that turned deadly. All pleaded not guilty.

More Carbon-Monoxide Deaths In Tajikistan Amid Electricity Shortage (Radio Free Europe)

Radio Free Europe [3/6/2024 8:38 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Tajik emergency officials said on March 6 that three members of a family in a village near the western city of Hisor died of carbon-monoxide poisoning a day earlier while heating their home with coal amid an electricity shortage. Last month, a family of six people died from carbon monoxide in Dushanbe while heating their home with wood and coal. Tajik authorities say the outages were imposed due to a decrease in the water levels of rivers feeding into the Nurek hydropower station, causing a reduction in energy output.

Russian Gas Supplies to Uzbekistan Set to Grow (The Diplomat)

The Diplomat [3/6/2024 10:35 AM, Catherine Putz, 201K, Neutral]
In October 2023, Uzbekistan began importing gas from Russia via Kazakhstan. The initial volume, intended to cover winter shortages, was cited as 2.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year (9 million cubic meters per day). That figure looks set to grow considerably, with TASS reporting on March 5 that materials presented to the board of the Kazakh Ministry of Energy stated plans to increase that volume to 11 bcm from 2026.

Daryo.uz expanded on the TASS report, noting that an Uzbek government investment program for the first quarter of 2024 “outlined intentions to boost gas imports from Russia from the existing 9 to 32 [million] cubic meters per day.” And Kun.uz noted that in December 2023 Russia’s Gazprom doubled exports to Uzbekistan at the request of the Uzbek authorities to meet soaring winter demand.

As Russian gas began to flow to Uzbekistan back in October, Gazprom head Alexey Miller said discussions were underway on a 15-year cooperation agreement between Russia and the Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Russian Ambassador to Uzbekistan Oleg Malginov mentioned discussions on a long-term agreement and an increase in volume last month.

A recent World Bank report on achieving net zero emissions in Europe and Central Asia noted that “Central Asia faces a tightening gas supply balance” and would likely be forced to make tough decisions to either form a “Central Asian Gas Union” with Russia or be forced to reduce exports to China.

“A gas union among Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan could help plug Central Asia’s supply gap in the short term and sustain healthy levels of pipeline gas flows from Central Asia to China, but it is not without challenges,” the report stated. The World Bank noted that “additional infrastructure upgrades would likely be required to accommodate the higher flows” envisioned.

Given the limited availability of underground gas storage in the region, this is a prime area for investment. The World Bank report pointed out that Central Asia has particularly low storage (8 percent of consumption) and argued that “countries in Central Asia suffered episodes of gas shortages and blackouts during recent winters as a result.”

Kun.uz reported that plans are afoot to expand the storage capacity at Uzbekistan’s Gazli gas storage facility, located in southwestern Bukhara region, in two phases. The first phase envisions doubling storage capacity at Gazli from 3 bcm to 6 bcm. The second phase will seek to increase total storage capacity to 10 bcm. The project’s price tag is cited as $850 million.

The World Bank report went on to note that “[m]odeling results indicate that an additional 10 bcm of Russian gas in the region by 2025 would help maintain stable export levels from Central Asia to China and support growing domestic consumption within the region in 2023–25… The base case without a gas union would see Central Asia’s production and export levels contract between 2023 and 2025.”

The World Bank report does not mention political or corruption risks associated with increasing the gas trade between Russia and Central Asia. These risks are arguably significant and further amplified by the war in Ukraine. The Gazli gas storage facility mentioned above as a target for investment and capacity expansion is a case in point. A recent RFE/RL investigation found that control of the $850 million Gazli gas storage development, which a previous investigation linked to sanctioned Russian tycoon Gennady Timchenko, “has been transferred to an obscure offshore firm owned by an Uzbek political insider [Bakhtiyor Fozilov] with whom Timchenko has commercial ties.” The opacity of such transfers, and the murkiness of the business environment writ large, is ripe territory for corruption.

Monitoring a Critical First Step in Addressing Prison Conditions in Uzbekistan (The Diplomat – opinion)

The Diplomat [3/6/2024 4:14 PM, Gulnoz Mamarasulov, 201K, Neutral]
Monitoring visits to places of detention in Uzbekistan, in particular penal colonies, are carried out by public groups for the detection and prevention of torture under the Ombudsman’s office. Starting from 2022, our organization, the Representative Office of the Association of Central Asia in Uzbekistan, has participated in these monitoring visits to prisons as part of public groups. During the monitoring visits, individual interviews are conducted with prisoners and attention paid to a wide range of issues, from food quality to medical services and living conditions.

So far, I have monitored conditions in penal institutions and detention centers in the Tashkent region, Namangan, Bukhara, Khorezm, and the Republic of Karakalpakstan.

Last year, in prison No. 6 in Namangan region, we found that the rooms for long-term visiting with close relatives of prisoners, the prisoners’ living and dining rooms, and other conditions did not meet the standard requirements. Our recommendation to renovate these spaces was fully implemented, along with our recommendation to ensure washrooms and toilets are accessible for disabled prisoners, demonstrating the value of these monitoring visits and the ability of the system to adapt to targeted feedback.

Progress and the Backslide

Unfortunately, after an initial move toward liberalization of the penal system, we are witnessing a significant deterioration in the overall situation in Uzbekistan and continued problems in prisons.

By the end of 2017, following the death of Uzbekistan’s first president, Islam Karimov, and the rise to power of current President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, many prominent political prisoners convicted by the Karimov regime were released. The new administration took significant first steps toward the liberalization of the penal system in Uzbekistan.

However, those first positive steps were not followed with additional progressive developments but instead a layering on of protection for police. Law enforcement agencies have become more severe, and laws are increasingly used to protect the police, which has led to a deterioration in civil rights and decreased protection from the arbitrary use of power.

According to a law adopted by the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan at the end of 2023, administrative liability or 15 days of administrative imprisonment can be imposed for posting photos and videos on the internet with the purpose of discrediting or insulting law enforcement officers. This triggered significant discussion among the Uzbek public. The law seriously affects the openness and transparency of state bodies, and the ability of the public to hold the powerful to account for their actions.

Recent Monitoring Observations

In recent monitoring visits, we observed issues relating to visiting conditions, the state of medical services in prisons, problems for prisoners in receiving parcels, and working conditions for prisoners.

In August 2023, while monitoring the penal institution in Pop district, I witnessed a large number of people gathered in the waiting room. Interviews with them revealed that relatives who came for scheduled visits with prisoners, often from distant regions, nevertheless had to wait for several days due to a lack of available visiting rooms. This cost relatives money as they had to stay in hotels until space was available to conduct their visits. And then, when these visits finally occurred, their time with their imprisoned relatives was often reduced by prison authorities. Instead of the three days allowed by law, visits were often reduced to a single day, with prison authorities again citing a lack of available visiting rooms.

To address this issue, the Department of Corrections should increase the facilities for long-term visits with close relatives of prisoners.

Another issue worth noting is that living conditions in some prisons and detention centers remain difficult. The situation related to the provision of medical services is particularly alarming: a lack of medical specialists, a lack of medicines for some diseases, and the poor quality of drinking water are just some of the factors that have a negative impact on the health of prisoners.

The problem of diseases in prisons deserves special attention. The lack of accurate statistical data on infectious diseases and the fact that this data is not made available to the public is a serious concern. Also, important statistics about the number of deaths in prisons, their causes, and the types of diseases that prisoners suffer from are not disclosed to the public.

Cases of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases in prisons are believed to be critically high. However, it is unclear what specific steps the authorities are taking to solve this problem. We hear desperate stories from relatives of prisoners who are forced to pay bribes so that their sick relatives receive some kind of medical attention.

It is important that the authorities ensure transparency and access to information by compiling and provide general statistics on the health of prisoners.

Another issue is related to the handling by the prison staff of various necessary items such as packages, medicines, and parcels sent by the relatives of the persons detained in the penal institutions. Not only is this a huge expense for family members, but it also requires long waits for shipments to be checked at prison check-in points. Relatives reported long waits at the detention center for screening to send items, and in many cases, successful delivery involved illegal actions, including bribery.

X-ray machines can speed up the scanning of goods brought to the prisons by relatives and also reduce the risks of bribery. At the same time, a simplified documentation process for receiving goods would both speed up the process and reduce corruption risks.

Finally, another issue that caught my attention during my recent monitoring of prisons is related to the working conditions of prisoners using heavy equipment, producing textile products, and other types of work. Prisoners were working without special protective clothing and the interviews I conducted demonstrated that prisoners are not sufficiently familiar with safety equipment and rules. Some prisoners noted that they work more than the permitted maximum working hours.

It is important to strengthen regulations and oversight of labor safety for prisoners and conduct further monitoring to learn about what kinds of labor they are engaged in. Once again, transparency and the sharing of information can serve to help bolster the rights of prisoners and ensure humane treatment.

A chairman of our organization, Pulat Ahunov, who himself is a former political prisoner, several times addressed the need to create an independent oversight body for civilian control over the situation in correctional labor colonies, prisons, and pre-trial detention centers. Civil society is an important aspect of preventing regression on prison reforms and ensuring further progress. Enabling independent civil society groups to monitor the situation in prisons can help prevent the violations of the rights of prisoners.

Indo-Pacific

‘He had no idea he was being sent to a war zone’: the Indian and Nepalese men on frontlines in Ukraine (The Guardian)

The Guardian [3/7/2024 12:00 AM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Aakash Hassan and Daurav Pokharel, 12.5M, Neutral]
When Hemil Mangukiya left his small village in the Indian state of Gujarat last December, he told his family he was off to Russia to make a better living than was possible at home in India.

Lured by a recruitment video he had seen on YouTube, the 23-year-old had thought he was going for a secure security job far from the war in Ukraine. But in strained phone calls home from Russia, he told his family he was instead sent to a month-long military training camp and then taken to the frontlines, where he was made to dig trenches, carry ammunition and operate rifles and machine guns. Then, in late February, his calls abruptly stopped.

The call that came days later shattered his father’s heart: Mangukiya had died in a missile strike somewhere in Ukraine.

“I think he hid from us the danger he was in,” said Ashwin Mangukiya, 52. “Our entire family is devastated by this. We are still trying to get back his dead body.”

Mangukiya’s death has shed light on the fate of dozens – by some estimates, hundreds – of Indians who have ended up on the frontlines of the Russia-Ukraine war against their will, after signing up for roles described as military helpers or security guards. In some cases, families say the men thought they were flying out for jobs in Dubai but then were sent on to Russia by agents.

This week, a video circulated on social media of seven Indians from Punjab who claimed they had travelled to Russia as tourists for New Year but had been taken by an agent to Belarus and detained. “The police handed us over to Russian authorities, who made us sign documents,” said one of the men in the video, identified as Gagandeep Singh. “Now they are forcing us to fight in the war against Ukraine.”

On Wednesday, it was reported that another Indian, Mohammad Afsan, had died on the frontlines of the war, after travelling to Moscow in November for what he thought was a job as a security guard. “He had no idea he was being sent to a war zone,” said his brother Mohammad Imran.

The problem has been even more pronounced in Nepal, where the government was recently forced to ban citizens from working in Russia or Ukraine after it was estimated that thousands had ended up in the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Some went voluntarily, but others say they have been trapped.

Many of the Nepalese were from impoverished villages where employment is scarce, and travelled under the false promises of high-earning jobs – with no mention of active warfare – and often accrued thousands of dollars in debts for fees paid to agents. Officially, 12 Nepalese have died in the conflict, but one organisation said they had confirmed 19 fatalities from the country. According to reports, a fighter from Nepal died in the same missile strike that killed Mangukiya.

Accounts from Indians and Nepalese detail how, upon their arrival in Russia, they were coerced into signing contracts written in Russian (which have been viewed by the Guardian) and then had their passports taken away. Only later would they learn they had committed themselves to a year in the Russian armed forces, with no way out except years in jail. After often less than two weeks of weapons training, they were shipped straight to the brutal conflict zones of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Speaking from an army hospital somewhere in Russia, Nandaram Pun, from Rolpa in Nepal, said he had been promised a job in Germany through an agent he met on social media, and was told he needed to fly to Russia only as a transit stop. Yet after being collected in Moscow, taken to a military training camp and taught to operate a gun for the first time in his life, Pun had the sinking realisation that Germany had only been a ploy.

Not long after, he was sent to Bakhmut in east Ukraine, a city where one of the bloodiest and longest-running battles in the war continues to play out. Two Indians and four other Nepalese were in the bunkers with him, alongside Russian troops and commanders.

One night, as Pun was transporting weapons in the depths of Ukraine’s harsh, snowy winter, a Ukrainian drone hit. “We had no idea about the drone attacks. My legs, thighs and right hand were hit by shrapnel,” he said. He said he was first taken to a hospital in the Russian city of Kaspiysk, in Dagestan, but had since been moved around and, not understanding Russian, now has no idea where he is being held. Several fellow Nepalese fighters are also in hospital, while one more is missing and another is in jail after trying to escape.

“I don’t want to be cured, because if they think I am better, then they will send me back to war again,” said Pun, who added that his efforts to get the Nepal authorities to rescue him had been in vain. “I don’t even have my passport. Please, I don’t want to die.”

Azad Yousuf Kumar, 31, left his home in the Indian region of Kashmir in December to take a job as a domestic worker in Dubai, paying an agent he met through YouTube 300,000 rupees (£3,000) as an advance on his pay. But instead, his family says, he was sent on to a military training camp in Russia, where he was shot in the leg during an exercise, and then dispatched to a Russian unit in Ukraine.

“He wanted to go abroad because there are hardly any jobs here and his wife had just had a baby,” said Kumar’s elder brother, Sajad. “But he called us distressed to say he was sent to Russia from Dubai and made to join the military. He has been posted in a dangerous war zone, and he has to see injured every day, many with lost limbs and torn bodies.”

Kumar told his family that most of those posted in the unit alongside him were from India and Nepal, and in a similar situation of exploitation. “He has been urging us to get him out somehow, but we are helpless,” added his brother.

In India, several cited a YouTube channel, Baba Vlogs, which is run by Faisal Khan – an Indian recruiter operating out of Dubai – as the platform that had duped them. Khan posted a series of videos to his 300,000 followers from the streets of St Petersburg promoting jobs in Russia as military helpers, categorically stating that they would be safe and not sent to the frontlines, and that this could also help them get permanent residency in Russia.

Khan told the Guardian that he had sent 26 Indians to Russia before claiming he realised that he had been “misled” by a Russian intermediary about the nature of the job and had “no idea they would be sent to a war zone”. “We are trying to get these people out of there now,” he said.

An Indian man working as a translator for the Russian ministry of defence, who is posted in a Moscow facility that recruits foreign fighters, said many who arrived from India and Nepal had no clue they were there to work in the conflict zone.

“The agents persuade them that no harm will come to them. Given that these people come from poor backgrounds and spend a lot of money to reach Russia, they sign the contracts,” he said, requesting anonymity. “After that, they can’t back out.”

The Indian government, which enjoys a close relationship with Russia, has acknowledged 20 Indians who are working for the Russian army, and said it was “trying our level best for their early discharge”.

Amrit Bahadur Rai, a spokesperson for Nepal’s ministry of foreign affairs, said they too were working “constantly” to bring people back, but admitted they did not know the exact number of their citizens in Russia. Rai said 245 families had filed petitions claiming that their relatives were trapped in the army there, and five more were known to have been taken as prisoners of war by Ukraine.

Among them was Siddhartha Dhakal, 22, from Mandandeupur in Nepal, who was captured by Ukrainian forces in November. A video of him pleading for help was widely circulated on social media.

Dhakal, a committed student, had travelled to Russia to study medicine, but found on his arrival that he had been tricked and that his only option was to join the military. “He is our only one son, our only hope,” sobbed his father, Biru Dhakal. “Please bring him home.”

Twitter

Afghanistan

UNAMA News
@UNAMAnews
[3/6/2024 11:14 AM, 304K followers, 8 retweets, 9 likes]
UN envoy Roza Otunbayeva today briefed the UN Security Council on the situation in #Afghanistan. Read full briefing here: https://unama.unmissions.org/briefing-special-representative-roza-otunbayeva-security-council-9

OCHA Afghanistan
@OCHAAfg
[3/7/2024 1:31 AM, 55.4K ollowers, 4 retweets, 10 likes]
Atun* a wife, mother, and dedicated teacher, strives to empower Afghan women to reach their full potential despite the many challenges they face. Through vocational skills she believes dreams can be realized. Read her story here: #InvestInWomen #IWD2024 https://www.unocha.org/news/afghanistan-english-teacher-hopes-create-opportunities-women

Mariam Solaimankhil
@Mariamistan
[3/6/2024 5:39 PM, 92.4K followers, 20 retweets, 43 likes]
The Taliban are attacking me and others on social media, proving the deadly silence we’d face in Afghanistan for speaking out. It’s a serious reminder of their control and oppression. @X @elonmusk , it’s time to protect Afghan women’s voices on this platform. Our silence isn’t an option. #StandWithAfghanVoices

Lina Rozbih
@LinaRozbih
[3/6/2024 7:57 AM, 405.3K followers, 11 retweets, 41 likes]
I tried to write something optimistic & empowering about the ongoing struggles of women n Afghanistan. But I’m disappointed, I am outraged & sad. How can d world allow d Taliban to reduce women 2 nothing & keep on tolerating this catastrophic violation of human rights. #WomensDay

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[3/6/2024 7:24 AM, 62.3K followers, 88 retweets, 180 likes]
“We demand freedom of speech and democracy. We do not fear death. We are immortal.” This #IWD2024 please watch this video honoring the Afghan women fearlessly protesting the Taliban attacks on their rights. https://twitter.com/i/status/1436286185631010824

Pakistan

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[3/6/2024 12:29 PM, 42.5K followers, 10 retweets, 56 likes]
Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled (correctly) today that former PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto did not get a fair trial in the case that saw him hanged in April 1979. His grandson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari: "Our family waited three generations to hear these words."

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[3/6/2024 12:34 PM, 42.5K followers, 2 retweets, 8 likes]
In its ruling today the court noted: "some cases in our judicial history that created a public perception that either fear or favour deterred the performance of a duty to administer justice." The court should introspect on how fear & favor continue to affect its decisions today.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[3/6/2024 12:01 PM, 42.5K followers, 77 retweets, 232 likes]
Handing out PTI’s reserved seats to other political parties flies in the face of all the voters who cast their ballots on election day for PTI-independents. Another decision that will only fuel resentment.

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[3/6/2024 11:02 PM, 8.4M followers, 29 retweets, 94 likes]
44 years ago one American law student appealed to General Zia ul Haq: Let Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto live but General Zia never listened to anyone. He hanged Bhutto and after 44 years Supreme Court of Pakistan made a confession that it was not a fair trial.

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[3/6/2024 10:10 PM, 8.4M followers, 2.2K retweets, 5.4K likes]
Why 3 Afghans came to Rawalpindi and planned an attack on Adiala jail where @ImranKhanPTI is imprisoned?what was their objective? To release someone or to kill someone? Three people cannot break a jail. Weak story. Police need to share more details https://www.dawn.com/news/1819742

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[3/6/2024 7:20 AM, 8.4M followers, 113 retweets, 1.5K likes]
Good to see two non-Muslims in the new Punjab cabinet of @MaryamNSharif both Ramesh Singh Arora and Khalil Tahir Sandhu never left PML-N in most difficult times and today became provincial ministers. Best wishes for them. @SardarArora @KhalilTahirSan1

India

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[3/7/2024 2:05 AM, 96M followers, 2.8K retweets, 16K likes]
Upon reaching Srinagar a short while ago, had the opportunity to see the majestic Shankaracharya Hill from a distance.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[3/6/2024 10:49 AM, 96M followers, 4.8K retweets, 28K likes]
I will be in Srinagar tomorrow, 7th March to take part in the ‘Viksit Bharat Viksit Jammu Kashmir’ programme. Various development works will also be dedicated to the nation. Notable among them are works worth over Rs. 5000 crore relating to boosting the agro-economy. Various works linked with tourism will also be dedicated to the nation. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2011784

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[3/6/2024 6:43 AM, 96M followers, 8.2K retweets, 44K likes]
These glimpses will tell you what West Bengal is thinking…it’s BJP all the way! https://twitter.com/i/status/1765342442990248084

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[3/6/2024 6:42 AM, 96M followers, 5.2K retweets, 33K likes]
Today, on my way to the Barasat programme, I was humbled and moved by the number of people who came to bless me. What wasn’t planned as a roadshow, blossomed into a beautiful testament of support and affection. The people who came to bless me included several women and youth.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[3/6/2024 8:34 AM, 24.2M followers, 205 retweets, 1.6K likes]
President Droupadi Murmu presented Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships and Awards for the year 2022 and 2023. The President said that art and artists have worked to weave the diversity of India into the thread of unity. https://presidentofindia.gov.in/press_releases/president-india-presents-sangeet-natak-akademi-fellowships-and-awards-year-2022-and

NSB

Awami League
@albd1971
[3/7/2024 12:28 AM, 636.6K followers, 25 retweets, 55 likes]
HPM #SheikhHasina and the leaders of Bangladesh Awami League have paid their respect to the Father of the Nation #Bangababdhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman marking the historic 7th March. #7thMarch #Bangladesh #SheikhMujib #MonthOfIndependence

Awami League
@albd1971
[3/6/2024 6:02 AM, 636.6K followers, 57 retweets, 180 likes]
Prime Minister #SheikhHasina suggested that the #Muslim countries introduce a common currency like the #euro of the #EuropeanUnion to facilitate trade and commerce among them. "It would be very good if we can introduce a common currency" , she said during her meeting with D-8 trade ministers. #Bangladesh https://unb.com.bd/category/Bangladesh/muslim-countries-better-launch-common-currency-like-eus-euro-pm-hasina/132044#google_vignette

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[3/6/2024 5:35 AM, 5.1K followers, 2 retweets, 9 likes]
Brutal border killings of unarmed Bangladeshi villagers by Indian BSF have been going on, by trampling the Geneva Convention, in spite of repeated border conferences. At least 1,236 Bangladeshis were killed and 1,145 injured in the shooting by the Indian border force between 2000 and 2020, according to rights group Odhikar. https://bangladeshchronicle.net/20-bangladeshis-killed-by-bsf-in-7-months/ #BoycottIndia #IndiaOut

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[3/7/2024 12:16 AM, 107.2K followers, 52 retweets, 58 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu arrived in Keyodhoo Island of Felidhe Atoll. Upon arrival, the President was warmly welcomed by the island’s community.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[3/6/2024 11:50 AM, 107.2K followers, 69 retweets, 82 likes]
The Vice President’s Spouse, Aishath Afreen Mohamed, officiated the Hiyala Forum. This year’s forum being held under the theme "Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress" was jointly organised by @BCC_mv and @SDFC_mv

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[3/6/2024 9:55 AM, 107.2K followers, 65 retweets, 68 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu arrived in Felidhoo Island of Felidhe Atoll. Upon the President’s arrival, the residents of the island warmly welcomed him.

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[3/6/2024 6:37 AM, 262.5K followers, 72 retweets, 258 likes]
Nepal’s two rival communist parties spring a surprise by joining forces to form a new coalition government: "Dahal reportedly conveyed to the Nepali Congress chair, former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, that external pressure forced him to join hands with CPN-UML and form a new government. If this assertion is true, China emerges as a plausible factor..." "Nepal’s foreign policy may tilt further toward Beijing, challenging India’s interests." https://thediplomat.com/2024/03/the-return-of-the-left-alliance-in-nepal-changes-regional-power-dynamics/

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[3/7/2024 2:46 AM, 5K followers, 1 retweet]
Pleased to handover over a donation by the Guangzhou Buddhist Community of China, to purchase an ambulance for the Colombo North Center for Liver Diseases (CNCLD). The Ministry will continue to coordinate support for the CNCLD, a national center for treatment of liver diseases @SLinGuangzhou @MFA_SriLanka

Karu Jayasuriya
@KaruOnline
[3/6/2024 5:06 AM, 53.5K followers, 5 likes]
The minority political parties in Parliament are yet to nominate a member to the Constitutional Council. This leaves a big gap the democratic processes in the country, due to the prevailing imbalance in the CC. It is the duty of these parties to reach consensus on their nominee.

Central Asia

Asel Doolotkeldieva
@ADoolotkeldieva
[3/6/2024 5:03 AM, 13.7K followers, 17 retweets, 90 likes]
The city of Almaty decided to ban the Women’s March by associating women with "alien nontraditional influence". Wow, just wow! This is a new level of polarizing society, creating alienation, and dehumanizing half of the population. How do they dare?

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[3/6/2024 4:35 PM, 22.8K followers, 1 retweet]
Today’s @CentralAsiaProg discussion on #MultiVector strategy, energy and other regional issues with @ITICWashington. https://www.facebook.com/centralasiaprog/videos/782317733329012

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[3/6/2024 8:47 AM, 158.3K followers, 3 retweets, 27 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev toured the Tashkent City Mall, an emerging center for shopping and leisure activities. The mall hosts an array of prestigious global brands, a number of which are launching in the #Uzbekistan🇺🇿 market for the first time. With the capacity to serve 60,000 customers a day, the mall is a substantial contributor to the economy of the region by offering employment to over 3,000 people.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[3/6/2024 8:47 AM, 158.3K followers, 7 likes]
In addressing the environmental concerns stemming from vehicle emissions, President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev toured the newly updated Vehicle Registration and Diagnostic Center. Here, a comprehensive project was presented to the President aimed at streamlining traffic movement and alleviating congestion at key intersections and thoroughfares within #Tashkent.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[3/6/2024 8:07 AM, 158.3K followers, 2 retweets, 16 likes]
The head of state also visited the Oksana #Chusovitina specialized @gymnastics sports school, where he familiarized himself with the facilities and the training process. Issues regarding the widespread implementation of gymnastics starting from kindergartens and the organization of identifying talented athletes from this stage were discussed.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[3/6/2024 7:45 AM, 158.3K followers, 15 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev made a dedicated visit to the specialized @BakhodirJalolov boxing school located in #Tashkent. During this visit, he engaged in a constructive meeting with the upcoming generation of boxers, alongside the officials overseeing the sports industry.

Furqat Sidiqov
@FurqatSidiq
[3/6/2024 10:01 PM, 1.2K followers, 2 likes]
Minister @sh_shermatov has wrapped up his stay in #Washington, D.C. The fruitful meetings and talks showcased Uzbekistan’s IT capabilities and closer partnerships. The visit underscored Uzbekistan’s commitment to fostering a robust IT ecosystem and enhancing education.

Furqat Sidiqov
@FurqatSidiq
[3/6/2024 4:55 PM, 1.2K followers, 2 likes]
Great meeting with @RepAdamSmith, Democratic leader of @HASCDemocrats! Had a thorough discussion about Uzbekistan - United States relations across all areas. Looking forward to continued collaboration and strengthening ties between UZ-US.

{End of Report}

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