epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Thursday, May 2, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Taliban plan regional energy trade hub with Russian oil in mind (Reuters)
Reuters [5/2/2024 5:37 AM, Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield, 6847K, Neutral]
The Taliban has agreed with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to build a logistics hub in western Afghanistan aimed at making the war-torn nation a major logistics point for regional exports, including oil from Russia to South Asia, the country’s commerce minister said.

Following a meeting between representatives of the three countries in the Afghan capital last week, Taliban acting commerce minister Nooruddin Azizi told Reuters that technical teams would draw up a written agreement within two months on the formal plans for the hub, which all three countries would invest in after six months of talks.

As foreign aid to Afghanistan falls and the predominantly agricultural economy is marred by persistent drought, its officially unrecognised Taliban government has faced questions over how to fund development and avoid economic stagnation.

Azizi said the new hub was part of broader efforts to take advantage of Afghanistan’s strategic location, once a thoroughfare for the ancient Silk Road trade route, lying between South and Central Asia and sharing borders with China and Iran.

"Based on our discussions, a logistics centre is going to be established in Herat province, which can connect the north to South Asia," Azizi said, adding that the Taliban were eyeing the millions of tons of oil they expected Russia would be selling in coming years to South Asian countries, particularly Pakistan, to pass through the new hub.

"The three countries have done their best to prove Afghanistan’s claim as a connectivity point," he said.

"Reaching Pakistan through Afghanistan will be the best option," Azizi added, saying they were focused on Russia’s petroleum exports and that Kazakhstan was also planning to export goods through Herat into South Asian markets.

Kazakhstan’s trade ministry said in a statement to Reuters that it wanted to develop roads and a railway through Afghanistan to connect with South Asia and the Gulf, with the hub serving as an important logistics point.

"The creation of the hub will allow for the development of multi-modal services by consolidating truck shipments in the dry port where they will be sorted and sent along railroads on the North-South corridor to sea ports in the Gulf, Pakistan, and Indian Ocean, towards India," the statement said.

Azizi said the logistics hub’s initial capacity would be one million tons of oil but he did not give a date for when it would be operational.

Turkmenistan’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the Russian government did not respond to a request for comment during a national holiday.

Pakistan’s foreign office and energy minister did not respond to a request for comment. Pakistan is a major trading partner with Afghanistan and has signed on to regional energy connectivity agreements.

However, Islamabad has had strained relations with the Taliban in recent years over accusations Afghanistan is harbouring anti-Pakistan militants, which Kabul denies.

Cash-strapped Pakistan last year became Russia’s latest customer, snapping up discounted crude that has been banned from European markets due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Afghanistan also buys oil, gas and wheat from Russia at discounted rates.

Azizi said that the Taliban were also speaking with Chinese authorities on building a road through the remote, narrow Wakhan corridor that connects Afghanistan with China and that they hoped Afghanistan would eventually develop into a route for trade between China and Iran. He said Afghan commerce ministry officials had been recently been sent to China for training.
Islamic State group said to be recruiting greater numbers in Afghanistan (Stars and Stripes)
Stars and Stripes [5/2/2024 12:00 AM, J.P. Lawrence, 70.6K, Neutral]
The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan is regenerating strength through aggressive recruitment and by taking advantage of instability in the country, a Pentagon watchdog agency report said Thursday.

ISIS-Khorasan province has claimed a wave of attacks this year in Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. ISIS-K also claimed an attack this week in western Afghanistan that left six dead.

The group’s resurgence is heightening ongoing U.S., UN and regional concerns that the country is once again becoming a terrorist haven, the Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan report said.

The report follows testimony to Congress in March by Gen. Erik Kurilla, the top U.S. general in the Middle East, that ISIS-K is building an “expanding cadre of fighters.”

The group is in the midst of a recruiting surge that extends its ability to strike outside Afghanistan, the SIGAR report and regional analysts said.

ISIS-K is taking advantage of poor economic conditions and instability in Afghanistan that came after the Taliban seized the country from the U.S.-backed government in 2021, said Kamran Bokhari, senior director of the Eurasian Security and Prosperity program at the Washington-based New Lines Institute.

“ISIS-K is having a resurgence,” Bokhari said during a phone interview Wednesday. “The Taliban is trying to consolidate power; they have huge financial problems and social unrest. These are all the conditions you would expect ISIS to try to exploit, and they are.”

ISIS-K is recruiting people disillusioned by Taliban rule, and recent attacks outside of Afghanistan show the additional manpower is increasing the group’s reach, he said.

Attacks claimed by the group and cited in Thursday’s SIGAR report include a March 22 storming of a Russian concert venue that killed more than 130 people, a Feb. 7 attack in Pakistan that killed at least 30, and a Jan. 3 suicide bombing in Iran that left approximately 100 dead. ISIS-K also claimed a January church shooting in Turkey that killed one person and injured another.

The uptick in ISIS-K attacks beyond Afghanistan’s borders comes as the group has launched fewer operations within the country, said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.

The Taliban are enemies of ISIS-K and fought them before and after the fall of the U.S.-backed government in 2021.

Fewer ISIS-K attacks within Afghanistan indicate that Taliban ground offensives against the group are having an effect internally, Kugelman said.

“The Taliban’s (counterterrorism) efforts have produced tactical triumphs, but the jury’s still out on whether they’ve succeeded strategically,” Kugelman said in an email Thursday.

“The bigger issue is ISIS-K’s growing capacity to project a threat far beyond Afghanistan, and the Taliban’s inability to address that,” he added.

Other militant groups such as al-Qaida remain in Afghanistan in a weakened state, Thursday’s SIGAR report said.

The group that launched the 9/11 attacks that drew in U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2001 can no longer launch sophisticated attacks, the report said, citing a UN sanctions monitoring team.

But the group continues to try to expand its recruitment, with eight new training camps, the monitoring team said.
Biden pursued botched Afghanistan withdrawal against diplomats’ advice: ex-negotiator (New York Post)
New York Post [5/1/2024 5:26 PM, Caitlin Doornbos, 5087K, Neutral]
President Biden ignored the counsel of senior US diplomats – including Secretary of State Antony Blinken – who urged him not to pull US troops out of Afghanistan without certain conditions in place, former Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in a transcribed interview released Wednesday.

While the withdrawal was set in motion by former President Donald Trump as part of the 2020 Doha Agreement involving the US and Afghan governments and the Taliban, Khalilzad — who helped negotiate that deal — testified that Biden could have stopped or altered the plan to remove all US forces from Afghanistan by September 2021.

“The State Department — or the secretary and myself, we wanted a conditional withdrawal approach,” he said. “But the ultimate decision was, as we all know, that it was to withdraw based on a timetable.”

Biden could have demanded that the Taliban and Afghanistan government reach a separate peace agreement before US troops left the country, which Khalilzad said was his recommendation.

“Secretary Blinken and I, I believe, did recommend that conditionality. That’s my judgment, that conditionality would be the prudent thing to do,” Kalilzad told the committee in his Nov. 8 interview. “But then the response was, ‘Can you get the other side – the Talibs – not to go back to fighting?”

Such an agreement could have been based on an early 2021 peace negotiation that Khalilzad said visualized a “peace government,” which would have given the Taliban an equal share of power over Kabul with the Western-backed Afghan government.

“It was essentially kind of a power-sharing formula that our experts had put together in consultation with outside experts in which the government consists of individuals with ties to both – from the Afghan Government and the Taliban – and be led by somebody acceptable to both sides,” he told the committee.

But when reaching such a conditional agreement appeared unlikely, Biden instead decided to move forward with the pullout to avoid Taliban attacks on US forces.

The sudden lack of US support helped enable the Taliban to overrun Afghan forces before taking Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, 15 days before the last American service member left the capital.

Despite the fiasco, Khalilzad told lawmakers that State Department officials had predicted the power-sharing initiative would not have lasted longer than three years without a continued US presence in the country.

However, any agreement may have prevented the Taliban from taking complete control of Afghanistan before US forces departed, allowing for a less panicked and rushed evacuation process.

Khalilzad’s transcript represented the committee’s fifth tranche of documents released this year that related to its investigations into the bugout.
US Greenlit Taliban’s Kabul Takeover and Had No Contingency Plan When Hell Broke Loose, Former Envoy Says (Washington Free Beacon)
Washington Free Beacon [5/1/2024 11:00 AM, Adam Kredo, 147K, Negative]
The Biden administration gave the Taliban terror group a "green light" to seize control of Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, in mid-August 2021, setting the stage for the terror group to retake control of the country amid America’s botched withdrawal, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, said in an interview obtained by the Free Beacon that U.S. military leaders rejected a Taliban offer to have the United States provide security for Kabul during an August 15, 2021, meeting with Taliban leaders in Qatar, which came as American officials were scrambling to pull troops and personnel out of the country. This decision was seen as a "green light" for the Taliban to take control of the city.

Khalilzad’s disclosures, which are previously unreported, were made during closed-door testimony conducted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee as part of its years-long investigation into the Biden administration’s botched Afghanistan evacuation. A transcript of Khalilzad’s interview, which was conducted in November 2023, was released in full exclusively to the Free Beacon.

When asked about that pivotal 2021 meeting in Qatar, which included Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who led U.S. Central Command at the time, Khalilzad said the Biden administration made a military decision to relinquish control over most of Kabul. This decision resulted in the United States controlling only a very narrow piece of the city that included its embassy compound and the airport—the site of a terror attack that later killed a dozen U.S. service members.

"It sounds like a green light for the Taliban to come and take over most of Kabul," an interviewer from the committee’s Republican side said to Khalilzad as the witness recounted the meeting.

"I think that’s clear," Khalilzad responded.

The interview paints the clearest picture to date of hurried U.S. meetings with the Taliban as Afghanistan devolved into chaos amid the Biden administration’s exit from the country. Khalilzad, who served as the central U.S. interlocutor with the Taliban, said under questioning that the State Department had virtually no contingency plan in place to deal with a crumbling security situation on the ground, which likely contributed to the terror attack at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate.

Both the State Department and Khalilzad assumed the Afghan government would not collapse so quickly once the United States exited the country and developed no plan to deal with that eventuality. Khalilzad predicted the Afghan government could hold its own against the Taliban for at least two years and did not change his opinion on the matter until August 2021, when the terror group was already assuming control.

"The dominant assumption that was, I think, in the government, based on assessments that were being made, was that the [Afghan] government won’t collapse that quickly," Khalilzad said. "That was the estimate that guided things and was my own personal judgment on this, putting my official role at that time aside, but that we would have a lot of time to—maybe two years or more."

That assumption was central to the State Department’s planning at the time, catching officials off guard when the Afghan government folded immediately after the Taliban took Kabul.

"We don’t do alternative futures," Khalilzad said.

"Did you just say that you don’t plan for contingencies outside of the dominant train of thought?" Rep. Brian Mast (R., Fla.) asked in response to Khalilzad’s disclosure.

"I think not enough of it is done in the—in our profession, in diplomacy planning in that regard," the diplomat said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was "noticeably absent" during key decision points around the withdrawal and evacuation from Afghanistan, according to one GOP Foreign Affairs Committee aide who spoke to the Free Beacon about the interview.

"One thing that’s clear is the State Department’s lack of preparedness and its understanding of the reality of what’s happening in Afghanistan," added a second GOP aide who reviewed the testimony.

Khalilzad’s contention that al Qaeda and its affiliated offshoots do not operate in Afghanistan also drew surprise from those on the Foreign Affairs Committee, particularly as it has become clear in the years since the Taliban resumed control that al Qaeda is using the country to plan terror attacks.

"I have to say for the record, looking back, that al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has been dismantled," Khalilzad said. "It doesn’t exist anymore, according to our intelligence, since the Taliban took over."

That testimony, one committee source said, "shows that the very person the Biden administration has as their main interlocutor with the Taliban is in denial about the reality of terrorism in Afghanistan."

Khalilzad cast doubt on claims by the Biden administration and its allies that the botched Afghanistan withdrawal was the byproduct of the Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban.

Talks with the terror group, the diplomat said, actually began during the Obama administration, when Taliban leaders reached out to begin negotiations over a potential military withdrawal.
‘They are trying to eradicate us completely’: the passion and pain of telling the stories of Afghan women (The Guardian)
The Guardian [5/2/2024 12:00 AM, Annie Kelly, 12.5M, Neutral]
On the nights that she manages to fall asleep, Zahra Joya always returns to Afghanistan in her dreams. On good nights she travels back to Bamyan, her home province, with its green mountains and bright blue lakes, or to her parents as they looked when she was a little girl.

Increasingly though, her dreams are full of roadside bombs or men with guns. Some nights, memories of her last hours in Afghanistan play over and over on a loop: the panicked crowds outside Kabul airport, people being whipped and beaten, the sound of her sisters crying.

When she wakes in her small flat in London, where she, three of her sisters and her teenage brother have been living as refugees since their escape from the Taliban in August 2021, Afghanistan is also the first thing she thinks of. Within a few hours of getting up she will be back at her laptop, her waking hours spent reporting on what is happening to the women and girls she left behind.

In the three and a half years since she managed to board one of the last evacuation flights to leave Afghanistan after the seizure of power by Taliban militants, Rukhshana Media – the news agency Joya launched in 2020 to tell the stories of Afghan women and girls – has published hundreds of stories documenting the brutal assault on women’s rights under Taliban rule.

Joya’s small team of reporters, all forced to work in secret, have written stories on the collapse of the healthcare system; girls being banned from the classroom; attacks on female artists, judges, police officers and activists; and increasing food shortages.

“The situation is more desperate every week,” she says. Human rights groups have described the situation facing women in Afghanistan as “gender apartheid”.

“The Taliban just passed a law to stone and execute women in public again for adultery,” she adds. “There is no recourse to justice. They are denying millions of girls an education, an opportunity to work or to travel outside the house. They are trying to eradicate us completely.”

Before she was forced into exile, Joya was striding the streets of Kabul with her notebook, one of the new generation of young female journalists taking enormous risks to carve out a role for themselves in Afghanistan’s patriarchal media industry.

“We had a dream that we were helping build a free Afghanistan where everybody could be who they wanted to be,” she says. “We knew that when the UK and US troops left, it would be a time of great change but I had faith in the future, I never imagined what would happen to us all.”

Now, with the decimation of Afghanistan’s once-thriving media industry, it is down to Joya and other Afghan journalists who find themselves scattered around the globe to keep reporting on what is happening in their homeland.

Joya talks passionately about her belief in journalism to shine a light on injustice, but the grief, trauma and guilt at having found safety while millions of women and girls suffer sits heavily on her shoulders.

She is constantly aware of the miraculous gift of freedom that she and her sisters were given. Her sisters have learned English and are about to start university. “We have been given a second chance at life,” she says. “I cannot imagine the lives my sisters would have if they had stayed. All their potential wasted.”

Yet Joya is aware that all of them are struggling to process the trauma of what they have gone through since they left their family home for the last time in August 2021.

They are, she says, all living “with our hearts divided”. “The Taliban have split our family down the middle,” she says. “My parents and my two older siblings [a brother and a sister] could not come with us. We didn’t have time to really say goodbye. My mother lost five of her children in one afternoon.”

She says it is particularly hard for her teenage brother, who was only 15 when he left his parents behind.

“It is especially sad for my little brother, who has been separated from my mother and has suffered a lot,” says Joya. “He is losing weight and is struggling and I am not his mother. I do what I can but I can’t give him what he needs.”

Joya says her decision to keep running Rukhshana from exile has led to her parents and family being threatened and intimidated by the Taliban in their family home. She says in 2022, her father, a former prosecutor, was arrested, detained and questioned by Taliban militants about her whereabouts. Shortly after, her parents left their home and crossed the border into Pakistan, where they have been ever since.

Joya says they are now effectively stranded and are continuing to receive threats by people linked to the Taliban.

The Pakistani authorities have granted them a succession of six-month refugee visas, but the prospect of their documentation not being renewed and her parents being deported back to Afghanistan is very real. Pakistan has already forcibly deported tens of thousands of Afghan refugees back over the border into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and, according to human rights groups, is subjecting many others to arbitrary detention and violence.

Joya says her older brother, who is living with their parents in Pakistan, recently disappeared for three days after being detained by Pakistani police, and narrowly escaped being forced back over the border. “When they left Afghanistan they were told that my family is on a blacklist and they should never come back,” she says.

Shortly after they arrived in Pakistan, Joya’s parents applied to the Home Office for a visa to be able to join their other children in the UK. A few weeks ago, she says, their application was denied.

“It is very painful that I could not find a safe place for my family in this vast world. This feeling is devastating and hopeless,” says Joya. “I fear I’ll never see them again and I feel responsible as I know that my journalism has a part to play in their situation.”

Joya’s life is also dominated by anxiety about the safety of the team of journalists reporting for Rukhshana from inside Afghanistan. “Some days I can’t stop checking my phone over and over again to see if something bad has happened,” she says. “Every independent journalist operating in secret in Afghanistan is putting themselves at great risk, but all of them believe very strongly that without journalism there is really no hope that things can change.”

A few months ago, she says, one of her male reporters was arrested by the Taliban and questioned on suspicion of working for Rukhshana. He was in prison for 11 days and only released when some elders from his province appealed to Taliban officials on his behalf. Since then he has left Afghanistan. “The reality is that there is very little I can do if something goes wrong,” says Joya.

The future for Afghan media outlets such as Rukhshana operating in exile is increasingly uncertain.

In 2021, people across the world – many of them Guardian readers – donated more than £180,000 to support Rukhshana’s work. Yet since then Rukhshana, like many diaspora Afghan media organisations, has struggled to secure long-term funding to keep going. Rukhshana Media has now become a registered charity but Joya says that without long-term funding she has no idea how she is going to be able to keep paying her reporters and small editorial team and keep the website operational.

“I try not to think about the future, to just keep going with the reporting and keep going for as long as we can,” she says. “I cannot leave women and girls left there to suffer alone with their stories going untold. They deserve to be heard.”
The Taliban targeted us, beat us and chased us out. This is how we run our Afghan newspaper from exile (The Guardian – opinion)
The Guardian [5/1/2024 6:00 AM, Sakhidad Hatif, 12499K, Neutral]
In the two decades before the Taliban returned to power, Afghanistan had a vibrant media sector. There were newspapers, television channels, periodicals, magazines and more, invigorating the public discourse by allowing citizens to express their views on national and local issues. That is completely gone now.

I have been the editor-in-chief of one of Afghanistan’s largest newspapers, Etilaat Roz, since 2022. When the Taliban dismantled the republican system of the country in August 2021, establishing their own theocratic Islamic emirate in the process, they imposed the harshest restrictions possible on the media. This “crackdown on free speech” was followed by the prolonged detention, gruesome beating and even death of journalists who defied the Taliban’s policies against the free press. Two of my reporters at Etilaat Roz were grievously assaulted and detained for doing their jobs.

According to Reporters Without Borders, a majority of female and half of male journalists lost their jobs in the first three months of the Taliban’s takeover. Not only did many talented journalists lose the ability to work, many were also forced to flee the country or go into hiding to escape persecution. Our offices, which were once located in the heart of western Kabul, were forced to close. Almost all our staff have now left the country, and those who remain are expected to leave in the coming months.

But operations that have been forced out of Afghanistan, like ours, did not bend to the will of the Taliban. While in exile, many Afghan journalists regrouped and relaunched their media outlets, despite huge uncertainty and financial pressure. As the Taliban quashed all independent media and the vacuum of information within the country became deeper and wider, newspapers, television channels and other online platforms launched by journalists in exile became a lifeline – the only sources of credible information for people inside Afghanistan.

Since 2021, we have been operating from a suburb of Washington DC for the safety of our staff, with seven staff based there. However, this transition was not a smooth one for us. The first challenge was to muster all our courage and strength to revitalise our journalistic work after the traumatising collapse of the country that upended our professional life in such an appalling way. The second was to register Etilaat Roz, find an office for it and turn it into a viable media organisation in exile, while a number of its staff were still scattered in different countries, trying to come to the US.

The third challenge was the safety and security of our reporters in Afghanistan who, despite having lost all of their legal protections, did not quit reporting. As the Taliban’s crackdown on independent journalists intensified, we were at a loss as to how to protect our reporters (this concern is still as present as ever). The fourth challenge was raising enough funds to support Etilaat Roz’s operating costs inside Afghanistan and abroad, which has remained a constant struggle. The fifth challenge was to make sure Etilaat Roz remained a credible source of information in exile, just as it had been inside the country. This was a challenge because we no longer had the same access to sources that we had in the past.

Central to this have been the courageous journalists who stayed in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. Their reports from the ground to Afghan media outlets abroad, including Etilaat Roz and its English version, KabulNow, are the lifeblood of online newspapers, television channels and other social media platforms.

Those journalists, both male and female, risk their own lives and the safety of their families to document and report about what is going on in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Had it not been for their courage and commitment to reveal and report the truth, Afghanistan would have sunk into darkness and the Taliban propaganda and distortion machine would have drowned out all dissenting voices.

At great personal cost, they have succeeded in bringing to light stories of the Taliban harassing, detaining, torturing, and raping female dissidents. They uncovered the Taliban’s extrajudicial killings of former army officers and public servants, despite having announced full amnesty for them. They documented and reported on the Taliban’s campaign of extortion, displacement of people from their homes and requisition of their property and land.

The Taliban have consistently tried to portray themselves as more moderate than the Taliban of the 90s. But there are hardly any signs of their supposed moderation – they have stayed faithful to opposing free speech and non-state independent media. Their intelligence service, called Estekhbarat in the local languages, has been active from day one in finding interrogating, detaining, and torturing independent journalists.

The Taliban spread fear and anxiety among the media community by the harsh punishments they impose on detained journalists. They use detention, torture and prohibitive financial fines both to prevent detained journalists from returning to media activities and to intimidate other journalists by signalling what may await them. The Taliban also harass journalists’ families to maximise the pressure on them. To legitimise their stifling of the free press, the Taliban also deliberately provoke religious and xenophobic sentiments among the public. They consistently promote the notion that independent journalists are mercenaries, hired by foreigners and tasked with corrupting and destroying the Islamic faith, Afghan family values and the traditional way of life in Afghanistan.

As a result of the ceaseless suppression of the free press in Afghanistan, journalists are facing other challenges besides security issues. The chief professional challenges include the lack of access to reliable sources, difficulties in fact-checking and the verification of information, documents and sources. Journalists are also under extraordinary financial strain in the absence of financial support from within the country or from abroad.

Today, the independent Afghan media (called “mercenary media” by the Taliban) is the only source of information for the citizens of Afghanistan and the only remaining force trying to prevent the country from completely falling into total darkness. Supporting it is of the utmost importance. This support could be in the form of providing journalism training and scholarships for those aspiring to join this struggle against tyranny and darkness; it could be in the form of technical and financial support to the independent media outlets to increase their effectiveness and reach, and weaken the Taliban’s overarching control of the country’s information channels.

The Taliban are obviously trying to dispose of all free press and independent media in Afghanistan – because the independent media represents the only remaining channels of civil discourse, democratic deliberation and uncensored truth-telling. The future of Afghanistan, as a democratic and open society, hinges upon the continuation of an informed national dialogue, made possible by the free press, on how to move the country forward towards peace, non-violence, stability and development. The disappearance of independent media would plunge Afghanistan into tyranny and darkness.
Pakistan
Pakistan’s clout grows as US official’s visit underscores its go-between role in Iranian affairs (South China Morning Post)
South China Morning Post [5/2/2024 5:02 AM, Ashraf Khan, 951K, Neutral]
A recent visit by US Acting Under Secretary for Political Affairs John Bass to Pakistan could mark a seismic shift in regional dynamics, with implications that could resonate as far as the Middle East, according to analysts.

The visit by the former US ambassador to Afghanistan underscored a critical juncture in US-Pakistan relations, they said, with Islamabad poised to be wooed by Washington on many fronts – from its strategic position amid Iran-Israel tensions to an energy deal and the issue of Afghan refugees.

“This visit of the US undersecretary is very significant in multiple contexts,” Nausheen Wasi, an international relations academic at the state-run Karachi University, said of Bass’ two-day trip from Tuesday.

Pakistan’s foreign office in a statement on Tuesday said “a productive discussion on all aspects of bilateral relation was held” during Bass’ visit, following a trip to Islamabad by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi a week earlier.

Raisi’s visit came after Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel on April 15 involving ballistic missiles and drones in response to an earlier assault by the Jewish-majority state on the Iranian embassy in Syria. Israel reportedly retaliated several days later targeting military sites in Iran although Tehran had downplayed the counterstrike.

With tensions in the region running high, any further escalation by Israel would leave Pakistan, as a neighbour of Iran, the only “trusted ally to the US” in the vicinity, Wasi said.

“Pakistan’s strategic significance [is] tremendously [enhanced] … There are many such developments in the region that the US may ponder on, and it understands Pakistan’s role.”

The gas pipeline dilemma

During Raisi’s visit, Pakistan and Iran discussed completing a cross-border gas pipeline first mooted by both countries in the early 1990s and formally signed in 2013. While Iran has completed its segment, the construction of an 80km stretch to be built by Pakistan has been suspended amid fears of US sanctions.

Energy-deficit Pakistan hopes to tap cheaper sources to avoid paying heavy oil import bills due to its dwindling foreign exchange reserves. Islamabad and Tehran also agreed to increase bilateral trade to US$10 billion in the coming years from US$1.5 billion last year.

“Pakistan is not in a position to further delay the pipeline project as it would also have consequences,” said Nabila Jaffer, research analyst at the Institute of Regional Studies. She highlighted the severe implications of a penalty of US$18 billion demanded by Iran if Pakistan could not complete its part of the project.

Conversely, the prospect of US sanctions targeting Iranian imports including gas could be a nightmare scenario for Pakistan, which relies heavily on Western financial help, according to observers.

“Iran is pressuring Pakistan, and the fear of US sanctions also looms large,” said Jaffer Ahmed, head of the Pakistan Study Centre at Karachi University, who warned that managing a “balancing act” would be difficult for Islamabad.

The Bass visit could also signal that the US wants to find an alternative energy source for Pakistan instead of Iran, observers say.

Wasi said: “Following the visit of the Iranian president, discussion [with the US] now would also include economic cooperation ... this clearly shows the US does not want Pakistan to engage with Iran on trade and energy matters”.

The Pakistani foreign office said in a statement: “The two sides [the US and Pakistan] reaffirmed the commitment to enhance cooperation in the areas of trade, investment and regional security.”

Refugee concerns

One issue that was likely discussed during Bass’ visit to Islamabad was the longstanding plight of Afghan refugees.

Last November, Pakistan launched the first-round repatriation of the refugees, returning about half a million of the around 1.7 million refugees living in the country.

The move came amid international appeals to halt the expulsions, citing concerns that the volatile situation in Afghanistan poses significant dangers for those who fled following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021.

“The repatriation issue of Afghan refugees in Pakistan may remain one of the issues to be discussed [between Washington and Islamabad],” Wasi said.

Pakistan’s decision to repatriate Afghan refugees followed a series of terrorist attacks on government and foreign facilities, with Chinese interests a prime target. These attacks were attributed to the Pakistani Taliban and other terrorist groups believed to be sheltering in Afghanistan, who could easily blend in with Afghan refugees.

Another round of repatriation is on the cards.

“Pakistan [would have shared with the US] its concerns of anti-Pakistan terrorist sanctuaries in Afghanistan,” Nabila Jaffer said.

Given the Middle East crisis and the Ukraine war, the US is emphasising stability in Afghanistan and other countries in the region.

“We can see very active diplomatic efforts from the US to address the situation in Afghanistan … so this is a moment of opportunity for Pakistan [to tap on],” Wasi said.

The current Taliban regime in Afghanistan maintains a hostile stance towards Pakistan. As such, the US and other countries can play a key fence-mending role by encouraging Pakistan to engage Afghanistan through trade, education and other areas, according to analysts.

Pakistan’s increasing importance on the geopolitical front comes amid a series of high-profile visits by its leaders in the past year. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Saudi Arabia twice in April while military chief General Asim Munir made a four-day official trip to China last year.

“There are many regional developments that reinforce the US’s view of the indispensability of engaging with Pakistan,” Wasi said.
Pakistan Inflation Eases for a Fourth Month on Record Rates (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/2/2024 4:30 AM, Kamran Haider, 5.5M, Neutral]
Pakistan’s inflation slowed in April for the fourth straight month as record borrowing costs reined in economic growth and domestic demand.

Consumer prices rose 17.34% from a year ago, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on Thursday. That compares with a median estimate for a 17.6% gain in a Bloomberg survey and 20.68% in March.

The easing pace of price gains is in part due to the base effect of surging inflation last year. It is in line with the State Bank of Pakistan’s forecast that inflation will continue to moderate unless the government hikes taxes and energy costs or prices soar unexpectedly in the global market.

The monetary authority kept the benchmark interest rate at a record for its seventh meeting in a row on Monday, targeting to bring down Asia’s fastest inflation to 5%-7% by late next year.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration is due to hold talks later this month with the International Monetary Fund on a fresh loan package which is likely to entail strict fiscal and monetary measures to reboot Pakistan’s economy. Sharif promised the lender that he will ensure strict fiscal discipline.

Pakistanis have already seen prices for everyday items such as rice, wheat and sugar doubled in the past three years.

The latest data from the statistics bureau showed food costs rose 3.9% in April from a year ago compared with decrease of 0.91% last month. Transport prices climbed 0.95%, while housing costs increased by 6.64%.
India
Biden blames China, Japan and India’s economic woes on ‘xenophobia’ (Reuters)
Reuters [5/1/2024 8:07 PM, Trevor Hunnicutt, 6847K, Neutral]
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that "xenophobia" from China to Japan and India is hobbling their growth, as he argued that migration has been good for the U.S. economy.

"One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants," Biden said at a Washington fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign and marking the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

"Why is China stalling so badly economically, why is Japan having trouble, why is Russia, why is India, because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong."

The International Monetary Fund forecast last month that each country would see its growth decelerate in 2024 from the year prior, ranging from 0.9% in highly developed Japan to 6.8% in emerging India.

They forecast that the United States would grow at 2.7%, slightly brisker than its 2.5% rate last year. Many economists attribute better-than-expected performance partly to a migrants expanding the country’s labor force.

Concern about irregular migration has become a top issue for many U.S. voters ahead of November’s presidential election.

Biden, who has condemned the rhetoric of his Republican opponent Donald Trump as anti-immigrant, has worked to court broad economic and political relations with countries including Japan and India to counter China and Russia globally.
India rejects Washington Post report on alleged plot to kill US-based Sikh activist (VOA)
VOA [5/1/2024 1:56 PM, Shaikh Azizur Rahman, 761K, Negative]
A day after The Washington Post named an official of India’s spy agency for plotting the killing of a U.S.-based Sikh separatist leader, the Indian government on Tuesday dismissed the media report, calling it an “unwarranted and unsubstantiated” accusation.

The Post report said U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the plan to hire a hit team to assassinate Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun — which was ultimately thwarted by U.S. authorities — was approved by Samant Goel, the chief of the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, at the time.

Vikram Yadav, a RAW officer — who was linked to the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in June [2023] — handled the plan to kill Pannun and gave instructions to a hired assassin, said the report — which the Post said was based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former senior security officials in Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, India and the United States.

“The report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Tuesday in a response to media queries, after the Post report was published.

“There is an ongoing investigation of the high-level committee set up by the government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the U.S. government on networks of organized criminals, terrorists, and others’ speculative and irresponsible comments on it are not helpful,” he said.

‘Credible allegations’

Accusations of RAW involvement in killings on foreign soil first surfaced in September when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was “actively pursuing credible allegations” that Indian agents were potentially linked to the killing of Nijjar, a Canadian citizen.

Nijjar was shot dead in his car by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh gurdwara (place of worship) in British Columbia. India had designated him a terrorist in 2020.

India promptly rejected Trudeau’s allegations as “absurd and motivated” amid mounting tensions between the two countries.

India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, said at that time it was “not the government of India’s policy” to engage in acts such as the killing of Nijjar.

In November, a senior Biden administration official said the United States had thwarted a plot to kill Sikh separatist leader Pannun while announcing charges against an Indian man accused of orchestrating the attempted murder.

U.S. authorities raised the issue with officials at the highest level in New Delhi, expressing concerns that the Indian government was involved in it, a statement from the White House said November 22.

This past Monday, the White House said that it considered the reported role of the Indian spying agency in the assassination plots in Canada and the U.S. as a "serious matter," with spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters, “We’re taking that very, very seriously. We’re going to continue to raise our concerns.”

India has designated Pannun as a terrorist for his alleged involvement in the Sikh separatist movement demanding that an independent state of Khalistan be carved out of India.

‘Rogue operatives’

In March, quoting unidentified Indian security officials, the New York-based news agency Bloomberg reported that a “high-level” Indian investigative committee had found some “rogue operatives not authorized by the government” were involved in the alleged plot to kill Pannun.

The committee was set up after the U.S. Department of Justice in November indicted Nikhil Gupta, an Indian gunrunner, on charges of trying to orchestrate the assassination, allegedly on the instructions of a RAW agent. It has not yet made its findings public.

Monday’s Post report, headlined “An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India,” aid Indian RAW operative Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which had not previously been reported, provide the “most explicit evidence to date” that the assassination plan “was directed from within the Indian spy service.”

According to several current and former U.S. and Indian security officials, RAW agent Yadav forwarded details about Pannun, including his New York address, to the would-be assassins and wrote that the assassination was a “priority now,” the Post report said.

As soon as the would-be assassins could confirm that Pannun, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, was home, “it will be a go-ahead from us,” the Post quoted Yadav as saying.

Senior Indian officials named in the Post report and accused of being aware of the RAW operation in the United States did not respond to it, the newspaper said.

India dismisses allegations

Although India dismisses the allegations that it tried to assassinate Pannun, it recently indicated that it would pursue terrorists on foreign soil.

On April 5, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told an Indian TV channel that India knows how to track down terrorists who target the country.

“If any terrorist from our neighboring country tries to create disturbance and indulge in terrorist activities in India, we will give a strong and fitting reply. If he runs away to Pakistan, we will enter that country and kill him there,” Singh told the interviewer.

Singh spoke to the channel a day after The Guardian reported that RAW had been behind the killing of around 20 people in Pakistan since 2020.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said that India has neither completely denied involvement in the Pannun assassination plot nor outright acknowledged responsibility for the assassinations in Pakistan.

“But certainly, its public messaging has signaled more comfort with being associated with the hits in Pakistan than the alleged plot in the U.S.,” Kugelman told VOA. “The plot targeting Pannun happened in the U.S., on the soil of a close partner. So there is some risk for India if its complicity is established.”

He added that India would be “perfectly comfortable” to be linked to the hits in Pakistan, “given that Pakistan is a bitter rival and India is always looking to project strength against Pakistan.”

“In effect, India’s interests are better served being linked to the killings in Pakistan than to the alleged plot in the U.S.,” he said.
Indian spies linked to killings, tracking dissidents abroad: What we know (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [5/1/2024 8:19 AM, Staff, 2060K, Negative]
The Washington Post on Monday reported that an officer in India’s intelligence service was directly involved in a foiled plan to assassinate a citizen of the United States, who is a vocal critic of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The report added that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer was also involved in the assassination of a Sikh activist last June in Canada. The RAW is India’s external intelligence agency.

However, the Ministry of External Affairs of India rejected the report, saying it made “unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter”.

A day later, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) published another report, saying a “nest” of Indian spies was uncovered and expelled from the country for trying to steal defence secrets and monitor expatriate communities in 2020.

So, is India’s spy agency increasingly targeting dissidents abroad? Here’s the latest:

What is the US case about?

In November, US authorities said an Indian government official had directed an unsuccessful plot to murder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist and dual citizen of the US and Canada.

Pannun is the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice, a group that India labelled an “unlawful association” in 2019, citing its involvement in extremist activities. In 2020, India listed Pannun as an “individual terrorist”.

Sikhs for Justice is part of a decades-old movement pushing for an independent Sikh state, called Khalistan, incorporating mostly the Indian state of Punjab. While the movement at its peak saw the killings of thousands of Sikhs and Indian security personnel in the 1980s, it largely lost momentum in India, even though it retains influence among some Sikh diaspora groups in the US, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

In its report, The Washington Post said Vikram Yadav, an Indian RAW official, ordered Pannun’s killing around the same time that Modi visited the White House in a high-profile tour as the two nations build closer ties in the face of shared concerns about China’s growing power.

According to the indictment, on June 20, 2023, two days before Modi spoke at the White House, Yadav emailed Nikhil Gupta, an Indian man hired for the killing, that Pannun’s assassination was a “priority now”. But Gupta turned out to be an informer, working with US federal agencies, and that is how the plot was foiled.

Pannun’s killing did not take place, but the whole episode left a lot of questions for New Delhi to answer.

“India should get to the bottom of this appalling murder-for-hire case – and the United States should make clear that it will not tolerate such crimes within its borders,” said an editorial in The Washington Post on Tuesday.

What happened in Australia?

Public broadcaster ABC on Tuesday reported that Indian spies were caught there by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in 2020 while they were trying to “steal secrets about sensitive defence projects and airport security, as well as classified information on Australia’s trade relationships”.

Citing unnamed “national security and government figures”, the report said the Indian “nest of spies” was also accused of surveilling Indians living there and developing close relationships with current and former politicians.

Australian intelligence officials in 2021 had mentioned a “nest of spies” but the country’s government refused to name the country they were working for.

The revelations by the ABC are politically awkward for Canberra, given the growing security relationship between India and Australia. Alongside the US and Japan, they are members of the Quad security partnership.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and foreign, defence and treasury ministers all dodged questions about allegations that Indian spies tried to steal defence secrets and monitor diaspora groups. Albanese said he would not comment on intelligence matters.

Like Biden, Albanese had also wooed Modi last year, referring to the Indian leader as the “boss” during a massive rally of Indian Australians.

Are other countries involved as well?

Yes, there is Canada – home to the largest Sikh population after Punjab – where an alleged Indian hit on a critic of the Modi government was actually successful last year.

As the alleged plot in the US to kill Pannun was unfolding, another Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia province on June 18, 2023.

Nijjar, an associate of Pannun, had also been declared a “terrorist” by New Delhi.

In September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly linked Indian intelligence to Nijjar’s killing on Canadian soil.

Speaking in Parliament, Trudeau said Canadian security agencies were investigating “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the killing.

New Delhi called the allegations “absurd” as the row between the two nations saw the mutual expulsion of diplomats and withholding of visas.

Then there is India’s archenemy Pakistan, where at least eight Sikh and Kashmiri separatists living in exile and labelled “terrorists” by the Modi government have been killed in the past three years. Pakistani officials have blamed India for their killings.
As India votes, misinformation surges on social media: ‘The whole country is paying the price’ (AP)
AP [5/2/2024 12:13 AM, David Klepper and Krutika Pathi, 456K, Neutral]
Bollywood stars seldom weigh in on politics, so videos showing two celebrities criticizing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and endorsing his main opposition, the Congress party — were bound to go viral.

But the clips of A-list actors Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh were fake, AI-generated videos that were yet another example of the false or misleading claims swirling online with the goal of influencing India’s election. Both actors filed complaints with police but such actions do little to stanch the flow of such misinformation.

Claims circulating online in India recently have misstated details about casting a ballot, claimed without evidence that the election will be rigged, and called for violence against India’s Muslims.

Researchers who track misinformation and hate speech in India say tech companies’ poor enforcement of their own policies has created perfect conditions for harmful content that could distort public opinion, spur violence and leave millions of voters wondering what to believe.

“A non-discerning user or regular user has no idea whether it’s someone, an individual sharing his or her thoughts on the other end, or is it a bot?” Rekha Singh, a 49-year-old voter, told The Associated Press. Singh said she worries that social media algorithms distort voters’ view of reality. “So you are biased without even realizing it,” she said.

In a year crowded with big elections, the sprawling vote in India stands out. The world’s most populous country boasts dozens of languages, the greatest number of WhatsApp users as well as the largest number of YouTube subscribers. Nearly 1 billion voters are eligible to cast a ballot in the election, which runs into June.

Tech companies like Google and Meta, the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, say they are working to combat deceptive or hateful content while helping voters find reliable sources. But researchers who have long tracked disinformation in India say their promises ring hollow after years of failed enforcement and “cookie-cutter” approaches that fail to account for India’s linguistic, religious, geographic and cultural diversity.

Given India’s size and its importance for social media companies, you might expect more of a focus, say disinformation researchers who focus on India.

“The platforms are earning money off of this. They are benefiting from it, and the whole country is paying the price,” said Ritumbra Manuvie a law professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Manuvie is a leader of The London Story, an Indian diaspora group which last month organized a protest outside Meta’s London offices.

Research by the group and another organization, India Civil Watch International, found that Meta allowed political advertisements and posts that contained anti-Muslim hate speech, Hindu nationalist narratives, misogynistic posts about female candidates as well as ads encouraging violence against political opponents.

The ads were seen more than 65 million times over 90 days earlier this year. Together they cost more than $1 million.

Meta defends its work on global elections and disputed the findings of the research on India, noting that it has expanded its work with independent fact-checking organizations ahead of the election, and has employees around the world ready to act in case its platforms are misused to spread misinformation. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said of India’s election: “It’s a huge, huge test for us.”

“We have months and months and months of preparation in India,” he told The Associated Press during a recent interview. “We have teams working around the clock. We have fact checkers in multiple languages operating in India. We have a 24-hour escalation system.”

YouTube is another problematic site for disinformation in India, experts say. To test how well that video-sharing platform was doing in enforcing its own rules, researchers at the nonprofits Global Witness and Access Now created 48 fake ads in English, Hindi and Telugu with false voting information or calls for violence. One claimed India raised its voting age to 21, though it remains 18, while another said women could vote by text message, though they cannot. A third called for the use of force at polling places.

When Global Witness submitted the ads to YouTube for approval, the response was disappointing, said Henry Peck, an investigator at Global Witness.

“YouTube didn’t act on any of them,” Peck said, and instead approved the ads for publication.

Google, YouTube’s owner, criticized the research and noted that it has multiple procedures in place to catch ads that violate its rules. Global Witness removed the ads before they could be spotted and blocked, the company said.

“Our policies explicitly prohibit ads making demonstrably false claims that could undermine participation or trust in an election, which we enforce in several Indian languages,” Google said in a statement. The company also noted its partnerships with fact-checking groups.

AI is this year’s newest threat, as advances in programs make it easier than ever to create lifelike images, video or audio. AI deepfakes are popping up in elections across the world, from Moldova to Bangladesh.

Senthil Nayagam, founder of an AI startup called Muonium AI, believes there is growing demand for deepfakes, especially of politicians. In the run up to the election, he had several inquiries on making political videos using AI. “There’s a market for this, no doubt,” he said.

Some of the fakes Nayagam produces feature dead politicians and are not meant to be taken seriously, but other deepfakes circulating online could potentially fool voters. It’s a danger Modi himself has highlighted.

“We need to educate people about artificial intelligence and deepfakes, how it works, what it can do,” Modi said.

India’s Information and Technology Ministry has directed social media companies to remove disinformation, especially deepfakes. But experts say a lack of clear regulation or law focused on AI and deepfakes makes it harder to squash, leaving it to voters to determine what is true and what is fiction.

For first-time voter Ankita Jasra, 18, these uncertainties can make it hard to know what to believe.

“If I don’t know what is being said is true, I don’t think I can trust in the people that are governing my country,” she said.
Vote or work? Tough call for India’s ‘invisible’ migrant workers (Reuters)
Reuters [5/1/2024 8:02 AM, Annie Banerji, 11975K, Neutral]
To go back home in eastern India, cast his vote and spend time with his wife and three children would be ideal, said Shafiq Ansari, but he cannot afford to lose wages and so has to keep toiling under the sweltering summer sun near New Delhi.

Ansari is far from alone. Many millions of migrant workers across India face a similar dilemma as voting takes place in the world’s biggest election, with nearly 1 billion people eligible to vote until June 1. Results are due by June 4, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi predicted to win a rare third term.

For those like Ansari, a road building labourer from Jharkhand state earning 600 rupees ($7) a day in the satellite city of Noida, the costs of voting are high - from leave without pay, threats of wage theft and job loss to lofty travel expenses, including the expected gifts for family members.

"If I could get free (train) tickets and paid leave, I would go. But since that is not happening, I will stay and hope for the best," said Ansari, 37.

"We are here out of compulsion. It is just for work ... because we could not find anything back home," he said, gesturing to about 30 of his fellow migrant labourers, who mostly hail from the impoverished eastern states of Jharkhand and neighbouring Bihar.

All the men echoed Ansari, saying they would not go back to cast their votes this month as it would mean losing at least 4,000 rupees ($48) in two days’ lost wages and travel costs. In Noida, they can earn as much as 24,000 rupees in a month.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to another two dozen migrant workers in and around New Delhi, with only four saying they would go back to their home town to vote. Of those four, three said their towns were relatively close so it would only cost them a day’s wage and a few hours’ of travel time.

While the number of internal migrants in India has not been updated in official figures for more than 10 years, experts say they could make up as much as 40% of the electorate.

According to the latest available figures, albeit from 2011, India’s then population of 1.21 billion people included 456 million internal migrants.

Their number has likely increased by another 150 million, said S. Irudaya Rajan, chairman of the International Institute of Migration and Development think tank.

"Migrants are still invisible in our country’s policies and programmes," Rajan said.

He observed that neither the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nor its rivals had debated or discussed the COVID-19 migrants’ crisis in their campaigns or rallies.

An estimated 100 million migrants were among the worst hit by a strict lockdown in early 2020, which led to an exodus from cities. Many workers walked home, their adversity unfolding live on television and making global headlines.

"It can’t be a memory lapse. This happened only four years ago," said Rajan.

"This just indicates that nobody is bothered about them."

RURAL DISTRESS

Rajan described most migrant workers as short-term, seasonal, distressed, illiterate and informal, making it difficult for them to organise and fight for their rights.

He warned that without their say in elections, it could exacerbate their exploitation, and limit their bargaining power as they are left out of key decision making.

"The problem is that migrants are not treated as a vote bank despite their great contributions to the economy ... This needs to be fixed," he said, urging the creation of a ministry for migrant affairs.

Internal migration is bound to intensify in the world’s most populous nation as economic slowdown hits rural India, home to 60% of its 1.4 billion people, according to migration and economic experts.

Many, especially those under 35, flock to the cities to take whatever jobs they can - becoming labourers, drivers or helpers in shops and homes - to tap into the country’s spectacular economic growth and the prosperity of its urban areas.

Benoy Peter, the executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development in the coastal state of Kerala, warned that people engaged in farm-based jobs could face rising pressure from climate change, which hurts harvests and fuels debt, forcing them to migrate.

He said that if there were enough well-paying jobs at home, most would not opt "to be treated as second-class citizens in the urban centres of India".

"People can live with dignity, exercise their agency if they have decent-paying jobs at their native places. But that is going to be a remote dream," he said.

In the last general election in 2019, more than 300 million people did not vote - migrant workers likely made up a huge proportion of those, according to government data.

In the first and largest phase of this year’s general election, voter turnout dipped by nearly four percentage points compared to 2019, according to data.

M. Venkaiah Naidu from the BJP cautioned in an op-ed days after that voter apathy could "automatically allow others to dictate the course of their lives".

REMOTE VOTING?

All the migrant workers said it was neither feasible to drop everything and go home to vote, nor possible to change their voting constituency to their place of work since most of them hop from place to place doing temporary jobs.

India’s election panel has been working on alternative voting mechanisms, including proxy voting, early voting at special centres and online voting.

It has also considered remote polling stations that would mean migrant workers would not have to travel back to their home district to vote.

But these methods have not been implemented due to administrative, legal and technological challenges, including ensuring secrecy of voting.

The Election Commission of India did not respond to repeated requests for comment on voting solutions for migrant workers.

Most, barring two migrant workers, said they would not vote online or via smartphone apps even if given the choice, citing chances of manipulation.

"I cannot trust (technology). My thumb needs to push that button," said Binita Ahirwar, a labourer at a Delhi-based cardboard box factory, referring to buttons on electronic voting machines (EVMs) used in India.

Ahirwar, 32, said she was not going to go to her home state of Madhya Pradesh to vote over job loss fears.

But not everyone is choosing to sit it out.

For Kaju Nath, a building labourer in Noida, voting is a responsibility, and to fulfil it he said he had informed his boss in advance about taking a week off to travel some 1,100 kms (684 miles) to Bihar.

"I will lose about 10,000 rupees ... but at least I will vote for a better future. There are no industries, no factories, no jobs in my state, and I need to vote to change that," he said as he clapped cement dust off his hands.

"I have to do this for my children, so that by the time they grow up they can have jobs there. They should not have to do what I am doing."
‘No one is bigger than him’: On the campaign trail with India’s popular yet divisive leader (CNN)
CNN [5/1/2024 11:13 PM, Will Ripley, 6098K, Neutral]
The whir of the helicopter shakes the marquee tent’s roof and kicks up a plume of dust that swirls through the thronging crowd, announcing the arrival of the man they’ve all come to see.

Chanting his name, waving his party’s flag and quoting his slogans, in many of their eyes he can do no wrong. Narendra Modi, India’s hugely popular but deeply polarizing prime minister, has landed in the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh as he campaigns for a third consecutive term in power.

Arrival at the rally in Aligarh, a three-hour drive from New Delhi, was preceded by a cacophony of horn-honking cars, motorcycles, and trucks all muscling their way in and out of traffic with few discernible lanes.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state of 240 million people, is right in the heart of the nation’s “Hindi belt”, the predominantly Hindi-speaking Indian states where support for Modi and the devotion of his followers is especially strong.

Win UP, so they say, and you win India.

As the sun glares down on the dusty field in Aligarh and temperatures soar to 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), the crowd don’t seem to mind.

“Modi! Modi! Modi!” they chant, as the prime minister speaks about the BrahMos – a nuclear-capable, land-attack cruise missile jointly developed by Russia and India – that will soon be assembled in a local factory.

With nearly 970 million eligible voters, India’s ongoing weekslong election – the world’s largest democratic exercise – is seen as critical in shaping the South Asian country’s trajectory over the next five years, with Modi widely expected to win. And here in Uttar Pradesh, a sense of pride is evident among the thousands gathered to hear the prime minister speak.

“We feel proud to have such kind of a leader,” says math teacher Pramod Charma. “Whatever he says, he does – that’s why he calls it ‘Modi’s guarantee.’ In politics, he is the biggest star right now. No one can replace him.”

In many ways Modi is part of the wider global wave of populist leaders with an authoritarian streak that have amassed a fervent voter base in recent years.

Modi projects himself as an outsider from humble origins. Born as the son of a tea seller in a small town in western Gujarat state, he does not fit neatly within the often privately educated, resolutely metropolitan, English-speaking template set by many previous Indian leaders.

To his devoted followers, he’s a man who has transformed the lives of ordinary Indians with his welfare and social policies – while cementing India as a key power broker. But to his critics, he’s a divisive leader, whose Hindu nationalist ambitions have given rise to growing religious persecution and Islamophobia, with many of the country’s more than 200 million Muslims fearing his re-election.

Just a day before this April 22 rally in Aligarh, Modi sparked a row over hate speech while campaigning in northwestern Rajasthan state when he accused Muslims – who have been present in India for centuries – of being “infiltrators.” He also echoed a false conspiracy voiced by some Hindu nationalists that Muslims are displacing the country’s majority Hindu population by deliberately having large families.

That speech stirred widespread anger and calls for election authorities to investigate the comments. BJP spokespeople subsequently said Modi was talking about undocumented migrants.

And Modi’s remarks did little to shake the faith of his devoted followers in Aligarh.

Lawyer Gaurav Mahajan says this is the fifth Modi campaign rally he has attended. “(He is the) most powerful leader in the world,” he says. “Indians have faith in Modi.”

With just two out of seven phases of voting complete, Indian politics remains unpredictable. But with no one in the opposition camp to possess the kind of brand name and star quality that Modi has, analysts say his re-election is widely expected.

Opposition leaders have meanwhile accused Modi’s right-wing government of becoming an electoral autocracy by attempting to rig the vote, weaponizing state agencies to stifle, attack and arrest opposition politicians, and undermining democratic principles. They also warn that Modi’s brand of Hindu nationalism is uncorking dangerous religious divides in a country with a long and tragic history of sectarian bloodletting.

The BJP’s national spokesperson has previously said the party is not prejudiced against Muslims and that democracy is protected under the constitution.

Modi is expected to remain on the campaign trail until India’s next prime minister is named in early June, traversing the huge country, visiting city after city and delivering his roaring speeches that attract the masses.

In Aligarh, the mood feels like a jovial pep rally, and there is none of the divisive rhetoric that was on show in Rajasthan.

When the crowd spots our camera, as if on cue, they begin to chant: “Modi! Modi! Modi!”

Old and young, the sentiment in the crowd appears universal.

“There are no words to express the goodness of Modi,” says engineering student Narayan Pachaury, 17.

“No one is bigger than him.”
India Top Refiner Resumes Trade on Russian Sovcomflot Ships (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/2/2024 2:33 AM, Rakesh Sharma and Sharon Cho, 5.5M, Neutral]
Indian Oil Corp. resumed buying Russian crude oil delivered on a tanker owned by Sovcomflot PJSC this week, paving the way for a restoration of oil flows between Russia and India, after tightened US penalties had disrupted shipments.

Suezmax tanker Vladimir Tikhonov discharged around 1 million barrels of Russian flagship Urals crude at Paradip port, where Indian Oil has a refinery, on Thursday, according to Bloomberg ship-tracking data. That’s the first tanker belonging to the Russian state tanker giant to deliver crude after another smaller vessel, SCF Baltica, offloaded fuel oil last week off Sikka, in the state of Gujarat.

Indian Oil didn’t reply to an email seeking comment.

The acceptance of Sovcomflot tanker by the country’s largest refiner carries significance as it could embolden other smaller refiners to also use the Sovcomflot vessels for their oil purchases from Russia.

Refiners in India, who have emerged as key buyers of Russian crude since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, had decided in March against receiving oil hauled on all tankers owned by Sovcomflot, after the US in February imposed stricter sanctions in a joint effort with Group of Seven nations to thwart Russia’s attempts to evade a price cap on crude exports.

That brought in a number of fresh names — a new one popping up after another loses prominence — in terms of traders and marketers handling the Russian crude trade with India. That’s formed an ever-evolving network of transporters and kept some of the cargoes flowing from Moscow.

Indian refiners, however, started feeling more at ease with purchasing Russian crude, even on Sovcomflot tankers, since US officials visited New Delhi earlier last month and said that they never expected the country to stop buying Russian oil, as it was in Washington’s interest to keep energy flowing to prevent supply shocks.

India’s daily crude imports from Russia climbed to more than 1.9 million barrels in April, the highest since July, according to data intelligence firm Kpler. Deliveries of Urals and Sokol have risen sharply on-month, the data showed. Comparatively, refiners cut shipments from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, India’s second and third largest oil suppliers.

Meanwhile, at least five Sovcomflot tankers carrying Urals are signaling India as their destination this month, with tanker Suvorovsky Prospect anchored off the country’s west coast, according to Bloomberg ship tracking data.
India widens spices probe amid contamination concerns (Reuters)
Reuters [5/2/2024 4:34 AM, Rishika Sadam, 5.2M, Neutral]
India’s food safety regulator said on Thursday it had ordered testing and inspections at all companies making spice mixes, widening an investigation into the sector as global regulators look into suspected contamination in two popular local brands.

Hong Kong last month suspended sales of three spice blends made by India’s MDH and an Everest spice mix for fish curry. Singapore ordered a recall of the same Everest mix as well, flagging high levels of ethylene oxide, which is unfit for human consumption and a cancer risk with long exposure.

MDH and Everest products are hugely popular in India and also sold in Europe, Asia and North America, and the companies have said they are safe. Still, U.S. and Australian food authorities said they are gathering more information on the matter, and India had already ordered testing of the two brands’ products.

The Indian regulator has now ordered officials to conduct "extensive inspections, sampling and testing at all the manufacturing units", for powdered spices, with a focus on those making curry powders and mixed spice blends for local and foreign sales.

"Each of the product sampled will be analysed for the compliance with quality and safety parameters," the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India said in a statement.

The agency added checks would also be made for any presence of ethylene oxide, whose use is banned in India, and "appropriate actions will be initiated as fit" after testing was completed.

India is the world’s biggest exporter, producer and consumer of spices, and its domestic market for the products was valued at $10.44 billion in 2022, according to Zion Market Research.

Beyond MDH and Everest, other major manufacturers include Madhusudan Masala (MADD.NS), NHC Foods (NHCF.BO), opens new tab and consumer giants Tata Consumer Products (TACN.NS), opens new tab and ITC (ITC.NS).

None of the companies responded to a request for comment.

The Spices Board says India exported spice products worth $4 billion in 2022-23.

The Global Trade Research Initiative, a New Delhi-based think tank, said in a report on Wednesday that rising global scrutiny could put more than half of country’s spice exports at risk.

If China decides to implement similar measures as other countries, Indian spice exports could see a "dramatic downturn", the report said.
Indian spice makers under heat in Asia for alleged contamination (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [5/2/2024 1:24 AM, Sayan Chakraborty, 293K, Neutral]
India’s packaged spice manufacturers MDH and Everest are under regulatory scrutiny in several countries after their products were allegedly found to contain carcinogenic elements, barely a year after cough syrups made in the South Asian nation were linked to the deaths of over 140 children in Africa.

Countries like Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. are weighing investigations into the packaged spices made by the companies after Hong Kong authorities raised a red flag over their quality. This isn’t the first time that the two -- among the largest such companies in India -- have faced these kinds of issues, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordering a recall of Everest spice mixes in 2023 and some MDH products in 2019, both due to salmonella contamination.

The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) in Hong Kong said in a statement on April 5 that it found ethylene oxide (ETO), a pesticide that can cause cancer if consumed in large amounts, in three types of packaged spices manufactured by MDH and one made by Everest. The products were taken off the shelves and recalled, the CFS said.

Taking its cue from the Hong Kong authorities, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) a couple of weeks later recalled the Everest Fish Curry Masala product, saying in a statement that consumers who had purchased it were "advised not to consume it."

The SFA also said, "As the implicated products [in Hong Kong] were imported into Singapore, the SFA has directed the importer to recall the products." The agency clarified that "although there is no immediate risk to consumption of food contaminated with low levels of ethylene oxide, long-term exposure may lead to health issues."

India’s Spice Board, a government agency that oversees spice exports, said that the limit for ETO varies between countries, from 0.02 milligram per kilogram of spices in places like the U.K. and Norway to 7 milligram per kilogram in Canada and the U.S.

Pesticides are widely used in agriculture in India, often leaving traces in food products. According to Indian government estimates, the cultivated area where chemical pesticide is used grew 33.4% from the fiscal year ending March 2019 to fiscal 2023, reaching 108,216 hectares. That was about seven times the area cultivated with biopesticides in 2023.

"We tend to look critically at the end product, but even more rigor is needed at the level of the ingredients," said Devangshu Dutta, CEO at consultancy firm Third Eyesight, referring to the use of pesticides in cultivation. "Otherwise, we will end up kind of catching the product at the last point of control, which is not enough."

Hong Kong and Singapore did not disclose the amount of ETO content in the recalled products. MDH and Everest had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.

Authorities elsewhere have also taken note of the allegations. "Food Standards Australia New Zealand is working with our international counterparts to understand the issue with federal, state and territory food enforcement agencies to determine if further action is required in Australia, e.g., a food recall," the agency told Nikkei Asia in an email statement on Wednesday.

The regulatory scrutiny in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, raises questions over an export market worth about $700 million, research firm Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said in a report on Wednesday.

"Swift investigations and the publication of findings are essential to re-establish global trust in Indian spices," GTRI said, adding that the "lack of clear communication [from government agencies] is disappointing."

Indian food has been under scrutiny in Europe as well. The European Commission Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed estimates that since the beginning of 2023, Indian food products were deemed to pose "serious" risks in 166 instances. These included nine cases of ethylene oxide found in food supplements and spices in countries including Sweden, Greece and Italy.

Chinese food imports were found to pose serious risks on 115 occasions and those from the U.S. on 152 occasions.

The recalls come at a time when New Delhi is rolling out incentives to support local manufacturers and exporters in transforming India into a $5 trillion economy. India is the world’s largest exporter of spices with shipments worth $3.9 billion in 2023, followed by Vietnam and Mexico, according to data provider Tendata. Those figures give India a market share of 37.2%, with Vietnam at 28.1% and Mexico at 9.6%.

The issue with food products follows an outcry over the quality of medicines manufactured in India. Since 2022, the World Health Organization has linked the deaths of at least 141 children in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon to cough syrups made by India’s Maiden Pharmaceuticals, Marion Biotech and Riemann Labs that it alleged contained toxins.

But while the pharma companies are small local players, MDH and Everest made revenues of $260 million and $360 million respectively, in the fiscal year ended March 2023.

Poor food quality in India stems from a general lack of awareness about food safety and insufficient resources to track ingredients, among other reasons, said U.S.-based food and beverage consultancy AIB International in a report in October.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India found 16,582 samples unsafe in the fiscal year 2022, the latest such data available. That was a threefold jump from the previous year.

"Most of the food and beverage manufacturers in India are focused on reducing costs to make their product affordable to the public," the report said. "As a result, many cannot prioritize food safety as a pillar of their business because it could prevent them from meeting their profit margins."

"Food manufacturing and processing facilities can lack the resources to maintain proper hygiene," it noted, adding that food-borne illnesses in India is estimated to top 100 million every year.
India Predicts Sweltering May, Raising Power Shortage Worry (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/1/2024 10:12 AM, Pratik Parija, 5543K, Neutral]
Several parts of India will witness scorching heat in May, raising concerns about health risks for residents as well as power shortages.

The number of heat wave days are also likely to be higher during the month, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department, said at an online press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The forecast comes as the world’s largest democracy is in the middle of a six-week long national election. Political parties have been organizing large outdoor meetings, but protection from the blazing sun is not always guaranteed. Scores of people died in eastern India last year, either directly due to heat waves or because their existing medical conditions were exacerbated by the hot summer.

Authorities have asked people to be vigilant about their health and avoid any unnecessary heat exposure. The weather department has asked the government to set up cooling centers and issue regular heat advisories.

As many as eight to 11 heat wave days are likely this month in some areas of of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, compared with a normal of three days, according to the weather office.

Maximum temperatures in the range of 44C to 47C are expected to continue over some parts of eastern India until Friday, before abating, it said.

“Efforts are essential for safeguarding public health and minimizing the adverse impacts of heat waves,” Mohapatra said.
Parts of India record hottest April as heatwave kills nine (Reuters)
Reuters [5/1/2024 9:37 AM, Shivam Patel, 11975K, Negative]
Eastern India experienced its hottest April on record as a heatwave scorched parts of the country amid a general election, killing at least nine people, and the weather office on Wednesday forecast above normal temperatures for May too.

Searing heat has been cited by political analysts as one of the reasons for low voter turnout in the seven-phase parliamentary election that began on April 19, with results due on June 4.

Heatwave conditions are, however, forecast to abate gradually in the coming days.

The mean temperature in eastern India was 28.12 Celsius (82.61 Fahrenheit) in April, the warmest since records began in 1901, with experts blaming a combination of factors.

"In an El Nino year, you get more heating," said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, chief of the India Meteorological Department, referring to a climate pattern that typically leads to hot and dry weather in Asia and heavier rains in parts of the Americas.

He said fewer thunderstorms and an anti-cyclonic circulation near India’s southeastern coast were causing heatwaves. "Wind blows from land towards the sea during an anti-cyclone ..., so land becomes warmer and temperature rises."

In April, the eastern Indian state of West Bengal recorded the most number of heatwave days for the month in the last 15 years, followed by the neighbouring coastal state of Odisha where heat conditions were the worst in nine years.

Authorities have also declared a rare heatwave in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala, where at least two deaths have been recorded due to soaring temperatures.

Central and northwestern India, which includes major wheat producing states that typically witness heatwaves this time of the year, have been largely spared due to intermittent thundershowers last month, Mohapatra said.

The weather office said rainfall in May is likely to be normal and that it expects more showers during the second half of the monsoon season in August and September as compared to June and July due to the La Nina climate pattern, which typically brings higher rainfall to India.

Monsoon is the lifeblood of India’s economy, delivering 70% of the rain needed to water crops and recharge reservoirs, and the met department has predicted that India will receive above normal monsoon rainfall in 2024.
NSB
Bangladesh: Garment Workers Must Receive Rights-Based Compensation and Justice Immediately (Amnesty International)
Amnesty International [5/1/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 147K, Neutral]
Garment workers in Bangladesh continue to face a climate of fear and repression as corporate impunity for business-related human rights abuses remains unchecked amid state sanctioned crackdown on workers’ rights, said Amnesty International on International Workers’ Day.

Last month marked the 11th anniversary of the collapse of Rana Plazaopens in a new tab, which left more than 1,100 garment workers dead and thousands injured. The collapse was preceded by a deadly fire in Tazreen Fashions Factoryopens in a new tab five months earlier resulting in the death of at least 112 workers trapped by blocked fire exits and padlocked factory premises. Both disasters in Dhaka region, caused by wholly negligent workplace monitoring are shocking examples of business-related human rights abuses. They expose the human cost of systemic lack of regulation of corporate activities and the desperate need for improved occupational health and safety in line with international standards on business and human rights for all workers in Bangladeshopens in a new tab.

The compensation cases opens in a new tabfiled in connection to the Rana Plaza collapseopens in a new tab and Tazreen Fashionsopens in a new tab by the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and other NGOs against relevant state authorities, as well as local building and factory owners, have not been resolved in the last eleven years. Among other remedies, the cases sought just compensation for the reprehensible negligence that led to the deaths and injuries of thousands of workers.

“It’s been more than a decade but attempts to establish corporate accountability for the Rana Plaza collapse and Tazreen Fashions fire at nationalopens in a new tab and internationalopens in a new tab levels have been largely unsuccessful, highlighting the precarious conditions the garment workersopens in a new tab continue to face in Bangladesh. Rights-based compensation for occupational injuries remains a distant dream with arbitrary limits in labour law and lack of compliance, both of which must change,” said Nadia Rahman, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for South Asia.

In addition to the lack of justice, most workers today are still fighting for decent wages in an industry that brings the most revenue to Bangladesh and paying a heavy price for fighting for their rights.

Garment workers are paid poverty wagesopens in a new tab and face innumerable obstacles including harassment, intimidation and violence, as well as legal hurdles when attempting to voice their demandsopens in a new tab for justice, wages, adequate safeguards and working conditions.

In June 2023, Shahidul Islamopens in a new tab, president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF) in Gazipur district committee, was killed while trying to secure unpaid wages for factory’s workers and at least four garment workers have died during protests around the national minimum wageopens in a new tab between October and November 2023.

‘They ruined workers’ lives’: Arbitrary cases against garment workers
Since the protests in 2023, at least 35 criminal casesopens in a new tab have been filed against garment workers with the First Information Reports (FIRs) accusing around 161 named workers and an estimated total of between 35,900 – 44,450 unnamed workers for taking part in the protests. 25 out of the 35 recent cases have been filed by the factories who are believed to sell to major global fashion brands and retailers.

While speaking to Amnesty International, many union leaders have reported that keeping thousands of protestors unnamed in the criminal cases is used as a blanket threat for grounds for dismissal to further intimidate the factory workers. The tactic is also used for denying any potential claims for injury or compensation by workers during the protests. This has resulted in a chilling effect on union leaders and labor rights groups who have effectively been silenced due to fear of arrest, detention and imprisonment.

At least 131 people were arrested in relation to the 35 recent cases, including several key trade union leaders. Most have been released on bail but several, including trade union leader Amzad Hossen Jewel, were repeatedly denied bail for weeks. Most charges relate to alleged vandalism, illegal gathering, injury, causing a riot, illegal entry into factory premises and damage to property.

Speaking to Amnesty International, Aamin Haq*, a Bangladesh labor activist, said, “Year after year, the protesting workers are required to give attendance in courts [due to the FIRs] … failure to do so may result in bail cancellation… [resulting in] the loss of wages as well as putting their jobs in jeopardy. The financial implications are enormous.”

‘Beaten, shot at and arrested:’ Use of unlawful force against protesting garment workers
Amnesty has reviewed several of the case documents filed by police, in the aftermath of the wage related protests. In one such case, the Konabari Police Station in Gazipur charged eight named workers and 2,500-3,000 unnamed workers with vandalism, unlawful assembly, obstruction of government duties and assault on October 26, 2023. In response to garment workers blocking a main highway, police dispersed workers by firing 215 shotgun rounds, 127 tear gas shells and 52 sound grenades. Clashes between the police and protesters resulted in injuries to six police officers. The number of workers who were injured is not specified in the police cases.

In another case document from October 29, 2023, the police charged 29 named workers and 850-900 unnamed workers with unlawful assembly while carrying bamboo sticks and other tools, interrupting government duties, beating with the intent to kill, setting fires, and using threatening force. Documents indicate the police fired a total of 118 shotgun rounds, along with tear gas and sound grenades.

As the protests continued on October 30, in another incident, the police fired an additional 17 rounds of tear gas and 107 shotgun rounds and filed a case against 3,000-4,000 unnamed workers.

The case files clearly document the use of unlawful force by the police while dispersing protesters, which is in breach of international human rights standards. Under international law, authorities must protect the right to peaceful assembly and if protests turn violent, they are obliged to exhaust non-forceful means and then use only the minimum and proportionate force needed to disperse protestors. Less lethal weapons such as tear gas shells should only be used as a last resort, following a verbal warning and after adequate opportunity has been given for protesters to disperse. In only one of the three casefiles reviewed by Amnesty International did the police issue such a warning.

Speaking to Amnesty International, Taufiq*, a labor NGO worker in Bangladesh, said, “When workers raise their voices, they are ignored; when they try to organize, they are threatened and sacked; and finally, when workers protest, they are beaten, shot at and arrested.”

It’s been six months since the start of the garment workers protests in October 2023, but to date no police official has been held accountable for the unlawful use of force and death of protestors. The Government of Bangladesh has an obligation to effectively, impartially and in a timely manner investigate the unlawful use of force by police and the killing of four workers during the wage demonstrations in 2023. All individual officials responsible for violations, including all supervisors and commanders, must be held accountable and effective remedies must be available to victims.

‘Eleven years of waiting for rights’: Corporate impunity for workplace injuries and deaths

Sokina*, a survivor of the Tazreen Fashions fire in 2012 told Amnesty International, “It has been over eleven years and we have still not received our rightful compensation. The owner of the factory is roaming scot-free and running new businesses by establishing strong ties with the ruling party while we are living a life of destitution.”

Despite some global reforms that followed the Rana Plaza tragedy, such as the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Garment and Textile Industryopens in a new tab, occupational safetyopens in a new tab remains non-existent for many workers in many sectors in Bangladesh. Conservative estimates from the Safety and Rights Society, an NGO working to improve working conditions in the country, recorded more than 5,608 work related deaths between 2013 and 2023 excluding the death toll from the Rana Plaza collapse. 875 workers were killed in workplace ‘accidents’ in 2023 alone.

The snail-paced progress during the last eleven years in the Rana Plaza and Tazreen compensation cases, together with widespread preventable occupational deaths and injuries underscores the wider culture of corporate impunity in Bangladesh.

“We call on the government to remove the limits on compensation for occupational injuries under labor lawopens in a new tab, ensure those affected receive adequate compensation, and introduce a national data repository on workplace deaths and injuries to ensure transparency and fill the current gaps in official data,” said Nadia Rahman.

Bangladesh must also ratify and then comply with the two key International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions 155 and 187 on occupational health and safety along with ILO conventions 102 and 121 on minimum standards of relief for victims of occupational injuries and deaths.

“We also urge the Government of Bangladesh to immediately end the repression of worker rights and ensure that they can exercise their right to freedom of expression and association, including by being able to form and join trade unions at the factory level, without fear of reprisals,” said Nadia Rahman.
Nepal Battles Raging Wildfires Across The Country (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/2/2024 5:30 AM, Staff, 951K, Neutral]
Firefighters and local residents battled a massive wildfire on the outskirts of Nepal’s capital Thursday as the Himalayan republic endures a severe fire season authorities have blamed on a heatwave.

Nepal sees a spate of wildfires annually, usually beginning in March, but their number and intensity has worsened in recent years, with climate change leading to drier winters.

Emergency crews worked through the night to fight the blaze which engulfed a forested area in Lalitpur, on the southern periphery of the Kathmandu valley.

More than 4,500 wildfires have been reported this year across the country, nearly double compared to last year according to government data but less than the worst fire season on record in 2021.

"Wildfires have increased in an unimaginable ratio, and the season is expected to last for a month more," Sundar Prasad Sharma of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority told AFP.

"It is challenging to put out fires because of our difficult terrain," he added.

Environment ministry spokesman Badri Raj Dhungana said the increase in the number of wildfires this year was because of a lengthy drought and heatwave conditions in Nepal’s southern plains.

"Generally, wildfires peak late April but this year they are still increasing because of rising temperatures," he said.

Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

Large swathes of South and Southeast Asia have sweltered through a heatwave since last month, with the El Nino phenomenon also driving this year’s exceptionally warm weather.

Temperatures have risen above 40 degrees Celsius in the Buddhist pilgrimage city of Lumbini and other parts of the south, with more hot weather forecast in the days ahead.

More than a hundred schools in the southern city of Butwal were closed on Thursday for two days out of fears the heatwave would impact the health of students.
Central Asia
In Kazakhstan, a ‘storm’ over domestic violence after minister killed wife (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [5/1/2024 8:52 AM, Niko Vorobyov, 2060K, Negative]
On November 9 last year, in the VIP room of a restaurant in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, Saltanat Nukenova was beaten to death by former minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev, her husband.

Surveillance footage shows him viciously punching and kicking Nukenova in the restaurant, which is owned by his family, before dragging her by the hair to a separate room, where there were no cameras.

As she lay dying in the suite, covered in her blood, Bishimbayev phoned a fortune-teller, who assured him his wife would be fine. When an ambulance finally arrived 12 hours later, Nukenova was pronounced dead at the scene. She was 31 years old.

Bishimbayev, 44, has admitted guilt. He has acknowledged causing her death, but said he had not acted “with exceptional cruelty”, which is what he has been charged with.

The ongoing murder trial, which is being livestreamed over social media like a dark reality show, has gripped not only Kazakhstan but also Russia and beyond and led to debate about traditional gender roles.

According to the United Nations, about 400 women die from domestic abuse in the country each year. This figure could be higher, however, as some cases go unreported.

“In Kazakhstan, there has been a storm, and now the whole country and even the whole world is involved,” Dinara Smailova, founder of the women’s rights NGO NeMolchi, which means Don’t Be Silent, told Al Jazeera.

“We’ve been working with high-profile cases for many years, and we see how people are afraid and ashamed to talk about domestic violence. [But] from the very beginning, the relatives of the victim told what happened with an open face.”

Smailova said Bishimbayev, previously convicted of corruption, is a “favourite” of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

“He is of the old system,” said Smailova. “He was pardoned by Nazarbayev himself, and now he’s being publicly tried by the new president. And this had such an effect on Kazakhs, that now we can release all our fury and indignation [at the old system] that’s bottled up all these years. The system gave us a whipping boy, and the boy certainly deserves it.”

Bishimbayev, economy minister in 2016, had been sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison for pocketing state funds. However, he was granted an early release the following year by then-President Nazarbayev.

Nukenova’s friends and family say over the year they were together, she suffered prolonged physical and mental abuse at the hands of Bishimbayev, whom she tried leaving several times.

They often saw her with bruises and rope marks around her neck, and say the disgraced minister forbade her from speaking with them. He was jealous, they have said, and monitored the contents of her phone.

Her brother Aitbek Amangeldy has been in court every day to defend her memory from Bishimbayev’s defence team, which has portrayed her as a hysterical, promiscuous woman who drank heavily and provoked her husband.

“I listened to how they shamed her in court, how it was her fault she drank, and this hit me very hard,” Smailova said. “I immediately found a photograph of myself holding a glass of wine and uploaded it, and said just because you can see me with a glass of wine doesn’t mean you can kill me. I didn’t expect it, but a lot of Kazakh women picked it up and it started to explode.”

Celebrities and everyday Kazakh women responded by posting photos of themselves holding glasses of wine, with the hashtag #ZaSaltanat, meaning For Saltanat.

The high-profile case has seen longstanding social norms questioned.

Popular rapper Jah Khalib came under fire on social media after a 2022 podcast resurfaced, in which he agreed with the statement of another guest that “85 percent of rapes of women” are because the victim “happened to be at the wrong place, in the wrong clothes, at the wrong time”.

“It’s a historical event that will completely change the mentality and consciousness of the people,” said Smailova.

“We see the old generation that is still clinging to the patriarchy, and the younger generation that is completely intolerant and impatient to any violence. And I think this is great that we have finally come to this understanding and we managed to do it so quickly, but it came at the expense of a beautiful young girl. And it’s very sad that it came at such a price.”

Amid the public outcry, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on April 15 signed new legislation making striking women and children a criminal offence punishable by jail time. Previously, most instances of domestic violence were treated as lesser, civil infractions.

Police are now obliged to investigate all cases concerning domestic violence, even those the victim did not report.

But the new law has met pushback from male lawmakers.

One deputy from the governing Amanat party suggested that if abusive husbands were to be placed in solitary confinement, so should their wives, for provoking them. Another proposed a special law just for men, who he argued do not have enough rights in Kazakhstan.

Smailova believes the law is an important first step, even if it falls short of all the measures to protect women and children from domestic abuse. But others are disappointed it does not go far enough.

“I think the law of April 15 is just a small concession to society to make people shut up,” said Dinara’s colleague, Almat Mukhamedzhanov.

“I can separately clarify what we expected from the new law and what we received. Most importantly, we did not receive protection for the constitutional rights of women and children. That’s why I thought for a long time about what to say about the new law, because I think that this is a mockery of the memory of dead women and injured children.”

Russian reaction

Interest in the livestreamed murder trial reaches beyond Kazakhstan’s borders.

“We women of Russia are with you, women of Kazakhstan,” reads one top-rated YouTube comment under a video with more than seven million views.

“Women of Kazakhstan, women of Armenia are with you!!” and “Belarus is also with you”, read others.

The case is particularly resonating in Russia, where certain forms of domestic violence were controversially decriminalised in 2017, wherein hitting a spouse or child is merely punishable by two weeks imprisonment or a fine if it causes only mild injury and happens once a year.

In 2021, the Russian Consortium of Women’s NGOs reported that almost 10,000 women were killed by their partners between 2011 and 2019; the authors of the study warned that the “most dangerous place for a woman is in Russia”.

“Abuse and violence are often hidden behind a beautiful facade,” model Anastasia Reshetova posted on Instagram, saying she knows “firsthand” the dangers of domestic violence.

“Psychopaths are always distinguished by their ability to win over people and create the impression of a very pleasant person … After each outburst of aggression in your direction, you will be showered with gifts or simply reassured with the right words, usually convincing you that it’s your fault.”

Well-known psychiatrist Vasily Shurov released a video warning how to recognise a psychopath and an abusive or controlling relationship. In the early “honeymoon” phase, the abuser tests boundaries while the victim is emotionally trapped, he said.

“The very first act of violence is reason [enough] to end the relationship,” Shurov told his viewers.

Famous Russian TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak attended the Almaty court and sat next to the victim’s family.

A “quiet revolution” was taking place in Kazakhstan, she said.

“The conservative part of the population literally dictated to women: don’t talk, don’t wash dirty linen in public, keep quiet, put up with it and fall in love,” she wrote on Telegram. “And now the girls have not only united in a campaign against domestic tyrants, but have also achieved the adoption of a special law.”

Sardana Guryeva, the human rights ombudsman for Yakutia in Russia’s far east, called for domestic violence to be recriminalised.

“It is necessary to join forces so that everyone can feel safe in their home. [It is necessary to] create a society where domestic violence will be absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote on VK, a Russian online social media platform.

But blogger Katya Konasova added that this was not enough.

“Unfortunately, in Russia still there is no law against domestic violence yet,” she told her 1.7 million YouTube subscribers. “Even though in this regard I will always support such legislative initiatives, unfortunately, as the cases with [Bishimbayev] show, for boys, laws alone are certainly not enough. Laws are important, but we also need to change how the culture itself treats women differently.”
Tajikistan Advises Citizens Against Travel to Russia (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [5/1/2024 11:28 AM, Catherine Putz, 201K, Negative]
Tajikistan is finally taking issue with the treatment of Tajik nationals in Russia, a month after a distinct spike in xenophobic attacks and commentary directed toward Tajiks in the wake of the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack.

On April 26, Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Semyon Grigoriev was invited to the Foreign Ministry for a meeting. During the meeting, according to a pithy Foreign Ministry readout, the Tajik side raised concerns about “problems” faced by Tajik nationals crossing the Russian border, specifically what it termed “widespread” and “unfounded” refusals of entry. The readout did not identify whom Grigoriev met with, but a photograph released with the statement shows Deputy Foreign Minister Sodik Imomi, as identified by Asia-Plus.

A day later, the ministry posted a single-sentence advisory recommending that citizens “temporarily refrain from traveling to the territory of Russia by all means of transport.”

Tajikistan’s restrained warning comes a full month after neighboring Kyrgyzstan issued a far more detailed warning to its citizens, despite reporting that Tajiks in particular have been the subject of increased xenophobic abuse, deportation, and denials at points of entry.

On March 24, the four main suspects in the Crocus City Hall attack – all Tajik nationals – were paraded into a Moscow court. Each bore clear signs of torture; videos of their abuse at the hands of the FSB circulated widely on social media.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t until April 12 – three weeks later – that Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Mukhriddin criticized the torture and abuse directed toward Tajiks. At a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Foreign Ministers in Minsk, he called the torture “unacceptable” and condemned the surge in xenophobia as the result of an “ill-considered information campaign.”

As political anthropologist Malika Bahovadinova explained in a recent interview with The Diplomat, “Racialized violence was always part and parcel of mobility to Russia, with Tajikistani citizens often bearing the brunt of such violence for no reason other than being representatives of the least protected group.”

When asked to what extent the Tajik government cares about the safety and conditions of its citizens working abroad, Bahovadinova said “not much.” She went on to characterize the foreign minister’s condemnation as “too little and too late” and explained in detail the dynamics between Russia and Tajikistan that perpetuate the present system.

Bahovadinova’s interview was conduced in April, before the latest developments, but nevertheless was prescient in framing how we can understand Dushanbe’s shift.

“The lack of protection that we have seen over the past decades of racialized abuse speaks volume about the lack of any ‘social contract’ between the Tajikistani state and migrant workers,” Bahovadinova said. “If there is a contract, it is only one that feeds on migrant labor and their remittances, but which provides no responsibility or protection.”

What has motivated Dushanbe to finally warn its citizens against attempting to reach Russia? The apparent threat of a breakdown in that contract.

On April 28, the day after issuing its advisory against traveling to Russia, the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed media reports that, as of April 27, 954 Tajik citizens were being held at ​​Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow. The statement complained of the poor sanitary conditions in the holding area and noted that Tajik diplomats, in cooperation with diaspora groups, were delivering food to those detained – citing a lack of sufficient hot food being provided by the Russian authorities. The foreign ministry’s statement noted that 322 people were eventually allowed to enter Russia, 306 people were put on lists to be denied entry and expelled, and 27 people had been deported. The ministry cited “complicated” situations at Moscow’s other airports.

As much as Russia needs migrant labor, Tajikistan needs to export such labor – or rather, Dushanbe has continually failed to address the local economic dynamics that make it unable to support a growing population with jobs or sufficient opportunities. This has been a mutually beneficial (at the elite political level, at least) arrangement for three decades. But with the Crocus City Hall attack putting pressure on the Russian authorities, Moscow’s calculations have shifted and Tajiks make a ready scapegoat for the state’s security failures. As such, Dushanbe has been forced to act to try and preserve the status quo because the alternative is unfathomable.
Turkmenistan’s natural gas exports to China outearn Russia’s supplies (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/1/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Russia’s energy behemoth Gazprom announced with great fanfare in early 2024 that it had overtaken Turkmenistan as China’s largest supplier of natural gas in terms of volume. But when it comes to export earnings, Ashgabat still tops Moscow.

The Turkmen portal, Oil & Gas, reports that during the first quarter of this year, Ashgabat generated $2.4 billion in income from gas exports to China. That figure was confirmed by Daryo, Uzbekistan’s most popular news website. The Daryo report noted that Russia earned $2 billion from its gas sales to Beijing during the same period.

The reason for the volume-earnings differential is that China is hoovering up Russian gas at bargain basement prices. The Kremlin’s need for cash to keep the country afloat while maintaining its war effort in Ukraine has deprived Russia of most of its negotiating leverage in its dealings with Beijing.

Russia’s edge in export volume may last only as long as the steep pricing discounts continue. An independent outlet, The Chronicle of Turkmenistan, reported that the capacity of Russia’s Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China is projected to be 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2025. Meanwhile, the collective capacity of three pipelines connecting Turkmenistan and China totals 55 bcm.

Turkmen state-affiliated media outlets have cast some shade on the Kremlin’s exports: in reports about Ashgabat’s gas earnings from China they have omitted mention of Russia. For example, in addition to Turkmenistan, a report published by Turkmenportal names only Australia ($3.6 billion), Qatar ($3.1 billion) and Malaysia ($1.15 billion) as key suppliers, mainly with liquefied natural gas.

Meanwhile, the head of Turkmengaz, Maksat Babayev, has announced plans to develop what he described as the “world’s largest gas field” at Galkynysh. The first stage of development already “stably ensures the export of 30 bcm of gas per year to China,” the second stage will bring another 25 bcm of gas per year online. A third phase of development can supply the long-planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project with a projected capacity of capacity of 33 bcm, according to Turkmenportal.
Uzbekistan: Striving to improve conditions for labor migrants (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/1/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Uzbekistan is implementing a new strategy to regulate labor migration. Its underlying philosophy appears to be ‘steer clear of Russia if at all possible.’

That goal, of course, won’t be achieved anytime soon. Russia will likely remain the primary destination for a large majority of the hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks who leave the country each year in search of work.

Uzbek labor migration numbers have reportedly declined over the past decade-plus. In 2010-2014, upwards of 4 million Uzbeks were estimated to work abroad; today the estimates range from 2-3 million, according to Uzbek media reports.

The new measures strive to reduce the level of illegal labor migration. Upwards of 90 percent of migrants go abroad without formal work authorization.

Those working abroad account for a significant share of Uzbekistan’s economy. According to World Bank figures, Uzbek labor migrants sent home $16.7 billion in remittances in 2022, an amount equivalent to 21 percent of GDP. Numbers fell significantly in 2023, but are still substantial.

A decree issued by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in early April significantly expands the authority of the government’s External Labor Migration Agency. One of the decree’s key provisions is the establishment of diplomatic attachés at a host of Uzbek embassies abroad to promote and manage Uzbek labor migration. The countries specified in the decree are United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Hungary, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Japan.

Although unarticulated, the decree’s phrasing indicates that the Uzbek government is doing what it can to point labor migration in any direction except north, towards Russia.

In the weeks since the decree’s publication, Uzbek officials have signed labor-migration agreements with several foreign states. For example, the UK has agreed to accept up to 10,000 Uzbek medical professionals to work as support staff at hospitals and clinics across Britain, according to an April 28 Uzbek report. Another deal has created 390 openings for Uzbek workers at Volkswagen and Volvo facilities in Slovakia, according to Radio Ozodlik, RFE/RL’s Uzbek-language service.

Such agreements, which cover highly skilled workers, will benefit only a small percentage of Uzbek labor migrants. Most Uzbeks heading abroad, especially those going to Russia, are unskilled and work mainly in menial jobs in such fields as construction, transportation or janitorial services.

The decree strives to improve the lot of this legion of unskilled Uzbek labor migrants. Those who register with a government platform, titled Jobs Abroad, will become eligible to receive health insurance and welfare assistance if they encounter employment troubles abroad. Returning labor migrants can tap into job training and placement services. The state will provide subsidies to enterprises in Uzbekistan that employ returning migrants.

Labor migrants who experience harassment, discrimination and/or violence while abroad can gain access to legal aid to seek redress of their grievances. The decree tasks the Ministry of Employment with developing procedures and systems to implement the decree’s provisions by this summer.

Authorities also want to improve conditions for the families that labor migrants leave behind. The decree instructs the National Social Protection Agency to develop a system by the end of 2024 to provide social support services and financial assistance to labor-migrant families. The decree calls for regular check-ins by social workers to ensure the well-being of children.

Where the funding will come to support all the new services mandated by the president is anyone’s guess. The decree glosses over finances.

Although not stated, the decree seems motivated in part by changes taking place in Russia, in particular a shift in Russians’ mood toward Central Asian labor migrants since the late March terrorist tragedy at Crocus City Hall in Moscow, in which Tajik nationals are accused of killing over 140 innocent civilians. Instances of harassment and violence against migrants have spiked across Russia since then.

On one level, the decree shows the Uzbek government is interested in defending the rights of citizens working abroad. But some provisions also suggest that officials in Tashkent worry about potential consequences of rising Russian hostility towards Central Asian guest workers. Specifically, the decree exudes a sense of concern that some Uzbek migrants could become radicalized within the cauldron of hate currently bubbling in Russia.

Some of the decree’s provisions, especially the monitoring of children by social workers, appear aimed at providing authorities with early warning about potential radicalization candidates. Likewise, the assistance provisions for labor migrants abroad can be seen as an attempt to forestall feelings of alienation and frustration among those who encounter difficulties. Such feelings are often a precursor for radicalization, according to experts.

Analysts with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other agencies tracking labor migration say that adverse working conditions in Russia historically have played a role in incubating radicalization among vulnerable segments of Central Asian labor migrants.

Piotr Kazmierkiewicz, an IOM expert on Central Asian migration patterns, said in an interview published by the organization that the underlying conditions enabling labor migrant radicalization tend to shift along with the changes in the political and social environments in the hosting country.

“Typically, radicalization occurs in Russia,” Kazmierkiewicz added. “Vulnerable groups include alienated youth, who have no social or community support, those with low levels of religious education and little prospect for advancement, and youngsters who get involved in crime, or hang out with criminals.”
Indo-Pacific
India and Pakistan’s New Shadow Rivalry (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [5/1/2024 9:33 AM, Krzysztof Iwanek, 201K, Neutral]
Over the past few years, Pakistan has attempted to strengthen its ties with other non-Arabic Muslim-majority nations, such as Azerbaijan and Turkey. This element of Islamabad’s foreign policy is interestingly being met with a response from New Delhi: When Pakistan is more active in building relations with a certain Muslim-majority country, India engages more with that country’s rival. The cases in question here are two pairs of nations: Turkey-Greece and Azerbaijan-Armenia.

Turkey-Pakistan cooperation has significantly deepened in recent years. In 2016, the countries signed a deal according to which the Turks would modernize Pakistani submarines, and in 2018 they settled another deal, under which Turkey would manufacture four corvettes for Pakistan. The latter program commenced in 2019 and the first vessel was delivered to in September 2023. It is hard to imagine Pakistan using its ships against the navy of any other nation but India, and thus Ankara’s moves must have been read negatively in New Delhi.

Islamabad, for its part, provided Ankara with trainer aircraft. Some sources suggest Islamabad and Ankara are also cooperating on drone production. Defense collaboration went hand in hand with political statements: Turkey voiced its support for Pakistan’s position on the Kashmir issue.

In tandem with this, Islamabad extended a hand toward Baku. Pakistan not only expressed its support to Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia but, much more importantly, it has been reportedly decided that the JF-17 aircraft – which Pakistan jointly developed with China – will be sold to Azerbaijani forces.

India may have noticed these engagements, and reacted by reaching out to Greece and Armenia. While Pakistan has been holding military drills with Turkey, India began to hold exercises with Greece in 2021. In 2024, the prime minister of Greece was invited to give the opening address at the Raisina Dialogue, the most important conference on international relations held annually in India. As a side note, an Indian company, GMR Group, is co-developing an airport in Greece, but this is arguably a private undertaking.

India’s countermove to Pakistan’s support for Azerbaijan has been much stronger. New Delhi and Yerevan signed deals in recent years under which India would provide the Armenian forces with Pinaka rocket launchers, Swathi radar systems, and certain types of artillery ammunition. Not all of these military products apparently reached Armenia before the recent iteration of the Karabakh conflict – and in hindsight, even the delivery of all of them would have likely not changed the general outcome – but at any rate, with these exports New Delhi took a political stance.

However, these rival policies have their limits and are unlikely to lead to the creation of two blocs. First, both New Delhi and Islamabad (even more so) are simply not powerful enough to form blocs of states around them.

Second, both India and Pakistan attempt to follow a more multilateral approach in international relations. Or, to put it more simply, they hedge their bets and keep various partnerships despite divides between those partners. For instance, both New Delhi and Islamabad attempt to retain a partnership with both the West and Russia, though both governments do so in their own way.

Third, while Islamabad will remain New Delhi’s rival, India’s economic relations with many other Muslim states remain deep. As such, India may not want to counter Pakistan’s every engagement. This conclusion applies especially to New Delhi’s relations with richer, Arabic states of the Persian Gulf, but to a degree, the same will be true for Turkey, given the sheer size of the latter country’s economy. For instance, in 2022, Indian exports to Turkey were ten times larger than to Greece (2.25 percent vs 0.27 percent of India’s total exports).

However, one aspect that will be affected is Turkey-India defense cooperation. New Delhi is trying, as much as possible, not to deal in military equipment with a country that sells the same kit to Pakistan. In 2023, a deal according to which India was to acquire fleet support ships from Turkey was canceled and it’s hard not to see this as connected to Ankara-Islamabad collaboration.

As a counterpoint to this, it may be observed that India did (grudgingly) tolerate U.S. exports of military products to Pakistan (and minor Russian exports to the same country) – all while New Delhi remained a major buyer of both American and Russian arms. The explanation is very simple: U.S. and Russia are simply too strong as states, and too important as partners for India, and thus New Delhi is forced to accept their dealings with Pakistan. But the same may not apply to a country which is not as powerful, or not as important to India.

Thus, while the scale of economic relations between Turkey and India will likely be retained, they very well may lose their defense aspect. This will be one of the tangible outcomes of the current “shadow rivalry” between New Delhi and Islamabad.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[5/1/2024 8:48 AM, 2.5K followers, 7 retweets, 11 likes]
Several widows of former Afghan National Security Forces members say Nangarhar province’s Department for Martyrs and Disabled Affairs has stopped paying them the government pension:

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[5/1/2024 2:54 PM, 62.5K followers, 19 retweets, 53 likes]
As this Workers Day comes to an end, thinking about all the women in Afghanistan who have been shut at out of paid work by the Taliban, at risk to their independence, dignity, health, safety, and lives. And them and all the women everywhere doing unpaid work.

AAN Afghanistan
@AANafgh
[5/2/2024 2:44 AM, 168.7K followers, 6 retweets, 6 likes]
The #Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography 2024 is a valuable index of some 8,000 titles. But, to err is human and it’s not possible to 100% of publications. Help us grow the catalogue. See Annex B to see how to send us the citation of a title we’ve missed.
Pakistan
The President of Pakistan
@PresOfPakistan
[5/1/2024 12:50 PM, 733.4K followers, 25 retweets, 46 likes]
President Asif Ali Zardari has urged Sindh Chief Minister to take strict action against the criminals in Karachi, dacoits in Kacha area and drug traffickers in close collaboration with the federal govt and other provinces to ensure law and order situation in the province.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/2/2024 12:35 AM, 97.5M followers, 2K retweets, 7.4K likes]
Addressing a massive rally in Anand. There is outstanding support for the BJP here.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/2/2024 12:36 AM, 97.5M followers, 5.8K retweets, 34K likes]
After today’s massive rallies in Banaskantha and Sabarkantha, went to Kamalam, the @BJP4Gujarat Party office and spent time with fellow Karyakartas. Their energy and enthusiasm are outstanding. They are working hard to ensure our Government comes back for a third term.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[5/1/2024 7:15 AM, 97.5M followers, 4.9K retweets, 18K likes]
It is very special to be amongst the sisters and brothers of Banaskantha. The region has significantly transformed under the BJP and is strongly supporting our Party.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[5/1/2024 9:37 AM, 24.6M followers, 1.9K retweets, 6.9K likes]
LIVE: President Droupadi Murmu visits the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, has Darshan and attends Aarti https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1MnxnMNEVXVJO

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[5/1/2024 11:08 AM, 3.1M followers, 346 retweets, 2.7K likes]
Joined @BJP4India President @JPNadda ji and ministerial colleague @AshwiniVaishnaw ji in welcoming representatives of political parties this evening in New Delhi. Confident that their visit to India will contribute to a better understanding of our robust democratic processes.

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[5/2/2024 12:11 AM, 24.1M followers, 518 retweets, 1K likes]
Campaigning in Bihar today. Looking forward to address election meetings in Saran and Supaul Lok Sabha constituencies.

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[5/1/2024 12:01 PM, 24.1M followers, 487 retweets, 958 likes]
My interaction with senior journalist @rahulkanwal. Shared my thoughts on a wide range of issues. https://twitter.com/i/status/1785701099095437656

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[5/1/2024 8:31 PM, 263.5K followers, 117 retweets, 312 likes]
The first India-PRC troop clashes occurred at beginning of May 2020 as the Indian side discovered Chinese encroachments into Ladakh and PLA sought to create diversions by opening fronts elsewhere. The military standoff has entered its fifth year this week. https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/China-s-Indian-land-grab-has-become-a-strategic-disaster
NSB
Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP
@bdbnp78
[5/1/2024 10:22 AM, 48.9K followers, 9 retweets, 100 likes]
Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Shramik Dal, an associate body of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), arranged a grand rally on May Day at Nayapaltan in Dhaka.

Abdulla Shahid
@abdulla_shahid
[5/2/2024 3:42 AM, 117.7K followers, 33 retweets, 68 likes]
Happy #MayDay2024 to all workers across the Maldives. Workers are the backbone of our society and economy. @MDPSecretariat is proud to have contributed immensely to the realisation of workers rights, fair wages and justice, including through the enactment of minimum wage legislation. At a time we are witnessing wide-scale intimidation of employees for political purpose, threats to their employment and livelihoods, we pledge to continue our work to secure worker rights in the Maldives.

Awami League
@albd1971
[5/1/2024 12:11 PM, 637.3K followers, 25 retweets, 76 likes]
Prime Minister #SheikhHasina has dubbed the #AwamiLeague government as pro-labour, saying it does everything for workers’ welfare whenever it comes to power. "Workers’ wages are raised whenever the Awami League comes to power," she said at a discussion marking #MayDay https://albd.org/articles/news/41396/ #Bangladesh

Awami League
@albd1971
[5/1/2024 6:18 AM, 637.3K followers, 31 retweets, 92 likes]
Marking the historic #MayDay, HPM #SheikhHasina said the #AwamiLeague government is working to change the fate of the labourers. No one will be spared if he or she deprives of workers. PM asked the mills and factories owners to pay special attention to the labourers’ welfare cutting some luxury in their lives. https://albd.org/articles/news/41396/Govt-working-to-change-fate-of-labourers:-PM-Sheikh-Hasina

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[5/1/2024 12:27 PM, 5.2K followers, 1 retweet, 5 likes]
Amnesty International on Wednesday said that garment workers in #Bangladesh continued to face a climate of fear and repression as corporate impunity for business-related human rights abuses remained unchecked amid state sanctioned crackdown on workers’ rights..... Bangladesh garment workers continue to face a climate of fear, repression: AI https://newagebd.net/post/human-rights/234109/bangladesh-garment-workers-continue-to-face-a-climate-of-fear-repression-ai

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[5/1/2024 3:43 PM, 108K followers, 87 retweets, 89 likes]
Vice President @HucenSembe attended the ACC2024 Maldives Award Night and Closing Ceremony tonight. The 6th Asian Carrom Championship took place in Male’ City from April 26th to May 1st, 2024 with the Maldivian men’s team winning silver, and the women’s team winning bronze.

Mohamed Nasheed
@MohamedNasheed
[5/2/2024 3:32 AM, 271.4K followers, 5 retweets, 15 likes]
Traveling to Kathmandu to speak at a summit on press freedom and the climate & biodiversity crises, for World Press Freedom Day. Journalists highlighting and exposing these crises is the first step to solving them.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[5/1/2024 12:57 PM, 317.6K followers, 21 retweets, 104 likes]
As part of the government’s commitment to uplift the lives of the people of the plantation community and secure their rights, I have raised the minimum daily wage for tea and rubber workers to Rs. 1,700. The plantation community has faced hardships throughout but has never ceased to contribute to strengthening the economy. Tea production earned significant foreign exchange in 2023 and 2024 and played a major role in overcoming the economic instability we faced in 2022. I thank you for your dedication and contribution to stabilising the economy. The Prime Minister and I have discussed legally recognising areas with line rooms as villages, which enable them to access the same facilities as villages. We are currently addressing the teacher shortage the children from the plantation community are facing and focusing on improving the quality of the education they receive. We have also taken steps to improve vocational education in the plantation sector. The government remains committed to ensuring the rights of plantation workers.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[5/1/2024 11:48 AM, 317.6K followers, 11 retweets, 91 likes]
Acknowledging and honouring Sri Lanka’s workforce this Labour Day. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMgSivxWcAAyiey?format=jpg&name=large

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[5/1/2024 10:44 PM, 5.3K followers, 2 likes]
Sri Lanka engages in Global dialogue at WEF meeting https://thediplomaticinsight.com/sri-lanka-engages-in-global-dialogue-at-wef-meeting/ via @DiplomaticIns
Central Asia
Peter Leonard
@Peter__Leonard
[5/1/2024 5:45 AM, 22.6K followers, 4 retweets, 14 likes]
Kazakhstan will host peace treaty negotiations between Armenia & Azerbaijan. Kazakh President Tokayev draws parallels between this development and the Alma-Ata Protocol of 1991, which sealed the death of the Soviet Union

Peter Leonard
@Peter__Leonard
[5/2/2024 3:20 AM, 22.6K followers, 2 likes]
Following mass deportations of Tajiks, border officials in Russia now reportedly turning away Kyrgyz, Uzbek nationals on "an unprecedented scale." Facial profiling being deployed to implement this unofficial policy

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[5/1/2024 8:16 AM, 28.9K followers, 2 retweets, 8 likes]
Burning with a hot iron was a torture technique in #Kazakhstan during Bloody January - artist Askhat Akhmedyarov brands torture testimony with the then interior minister’s face in his new exhibition about Qantar

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[5/1/2024 9:30 AM, 167.7K followers, 10 likes]
At a meeting focused on geology and mining sectors, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev set forth essential tasks to be undertaken. He called for the development of a future-oriented program that would draw in foreign expertise and investment, particularly in the area of rare earth metals. The President also gave orders to cut down production costs at the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Combine, as well as to broaden industrial partnerships and increase localization efforts to bolster the industry.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[5/1/2024 7:59 AM, 167.7K followers, 1 retweet, 13 likes]
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev examined the current status of the preparations for the upcoming 3rd Tashkent International Investment Forum. The President imparted directives to guarantee an exceptional standard of execution for the event, emphasizing the importance of presenting the investment capabilities of all industries and regions in a thorough manner.

Furqat Sidiqov
@FurqatSidiq
[5/1/2024 9:30 PM, 1.3K followers, 2 retweets, 5 likes]
Had a great meeting with @RepDonBacon, a key member of the Congressional Caucus on #Uzbekistan. Discussed enhancing bilateral relations, focusing on agricultural cooperation with Nebraska.

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[5/1/2024 7:32 PM, 23K followers, 1 retweet, 4 likes]
33-year-old Jovokhir Attoev UZ was apprehended by US Border Patrol in Arizona in February 2022. He was later released on bond. In May 2023, Uzbekistan put out an international notice that Attoev was wanted for his alleged affiliation with ISIS. He is detained in Pennsylvania now. https://nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrant-alleged-isis-ties-living-us-two-years-officials-say-rcna150281

{End of Report}
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