SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Friday, November 22, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says (Reuters)
Reuters [11/22/2024 3:44 AM, Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield, 5.2M, Neutral]
At least 10 people were killed by gunmen in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province, Interior Ministry Spokesperson Abdul Mateen Qaniee said on Friday.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
The Taliban took over the country in 2021 and vowed to restore security to the war-torn nation. Attacks have continued, many of them claimed by the local arm of the militant Islamic State (IS) group.
In September, 14 people were killed and six others injured in an attack claimed by IS in central Afghanistan. Addressing America’s unfinished business in Afghanistan (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [11/21/2024 11:30 AM, Daniel J. Rosenthal, 60726K, Neutral]
President Biden was proud to have overseen the end of America’s longest war in Afghanistan during his administration. This despite the chaotic and deadly withdrawal, and despite the fact that it had been former President Donald Trump who set the withdrawal in motion during his first term.
But to finally bring this long chapter of U.S. foreign policy to an end, both presidents have unfinished business to attend to.
First, in our chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, we abandoned tens of thousands of Afghan partners, people who loyally stood arm-in-arm with us throughout the conflict. Since then, they and their families have been systematically hunted, tortured, and killed by the Taliban; their crime was honorable service alongside U.S. troops in the hopes of a more hopeful and free future for Afghanistan.
We made a sacred promise that we would not leave them behind. We failed to keep it, thus creating significant moral injury to our U.S. military veterans and damaged our international standing.
Second, the withdrawal from Afghanistan deprived us of invaluable on-the-ground assets to gather intelligence about terrorist plotting from Afghanistan. While Biden officials have touted "over-the-horizon" intelligence and military capabilities, there simply is no substitute for assets and relationships in the country.
As a result, we are now less able to assess and deal with terrorist plotting that occurs unimpeded under Taliban rule. Indeed, since the withdrawal in 2021, Afghanistan has once again become a safe haven for terrorist organizations. According to a congressional investigation, "al Qaeda has set up eight new training camps in Afghanistan, propped up madrasas throughout the country, and established a new base to stockpile weapons.".
Finally, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay remains a potent example of U.S. hegemony and double standards. Thirty detainees remain, languishing since their capture nearly a quarter century ago. It is time to shutter Guantanamo once and for all.
These stains on our security, values, and international standing urgently need to be addressed, and Presidents Biden and Trump can each do their part.
First, Trump could "fix what Biden broke" (to borrow from the campaign slogan), and honor our commitment to our Afghan partners. These Afghans bravely served alongside our servicemembers and we left them behind. Trump should renew efforts to rescue them and support bipartisan legislation providing permanent residency for the previously rescued Afghans who remain in legal limbo inside the U.S.
Both Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — Trump’s picks for national security advisor and secretary of State, respectively — criticized President Biden for leaving our Afghan partners behind, so both should be poised to help right what they are on record as seeing as a grievous wrong. Trump can take the win.
Second, to make good on his campaign pledge to reassert American strength on the global stage, Trump should task his incoming national security team to evaluate the current state of threats to U.S. interests emanating from Afghanistan, including whether we have adequate resources in place to address them.
While Trump will take office facing multiple foreign policy challenges, he must not ignore terrorist threats that are reconstituting from within Afghanistan. Failure to take seriously the growing terrorist threat today will set the stage for the calamitous attacks of tomorrow.
Finally, as one of his final acts as President, Biden should turbocharge efforts to transfer from Guantanamo those detainees who can be safely resettled to other countries.The Biden administration reportedly scuttled a planned transfer of 11 Yemenis to Oman after the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A renewed effort to transfer them — along with any other detainees who can be safely transferred — should be a top priority. By doing so, Biden will be leaving Trump with fewer than 20 detainees at Guantanamo, and momentum to potentially complete the job of closing the facility once and for all.
Trump, potentially motivated by the exorbitant cost of detaining the aging detainee population (estimated at nearly $13 million per detainee each year) and eager to end this remaining vestige of our war in Afghanistan, could take decisive steps to close the facility for good. Again, Trump can take the win and brag about doing what Presidents Bush, Obama and Biden could not.
Rescuing our Afghan partners will fulfill our sacred promise, taking seriously the terrorist threats from Afghanistan will keep us safe, and closing Guantanamo will end a shameful chapter. Those steps would constitute measurable foreign policy wins that finally put an end to the story of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. As power transfers in Washington, these are steps that both Presidents can and should take. Afghanistan: Caught between climate change and global indifference (Al Jazeera – opinion)
Al Jazeera [11/21/2024 8:44 AM, Andreas Stefansson, 25768K, Neutral]
The world is facing a climate crisis, and few nations are feeling its impact more acutely than Afghanistan. It is currently ranked seventh on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of countries most vulnerable and least prepared to adapt to climate change. Afghanistan’s population is caught in a vicious cycle of floods, droughts, cold and heatwaves, and food insecurity. For a country with the 11th lowest contributions per capita to global carbon emissions, the scale of the consequences it faces is a tragic injustice.
In 2024, Afghanistan experienced severe flooding that devastated vital agricultural land in the northern provinces, and hundreds of people were killed. Before this, the country was ravaged by drought for three consecutive years. Crops were destroyed, leaving millions of people without their primary source of income and food. And yet, despite the increasingly visible impact of climate change on the Afghan people, the country has been excluded from representation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - the primary mechanism for global climate cooperation - since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Major sources of funding for climate adaptation have also been suspended.
At the UN Climate Change Conference COP29, the country is once again excluded from the negotiations. However, in a positive step towards inclusion, Afghanistan’s National Environment Protection Agency has been invited as a guest of the host country and will hopefully be given the opportunity to present Afghanistan’s updated climate action plan. The country is also represented by delegates from two Afghan civil society organisations accredited as observers.
To withhold climate assistance is to punish the Afghan population for the acts of its leaders. The consequences are being borne by the people, not the de facto authorities. Afghanistan is being denied access to the Green Climate Fund, a crucial source of financing for developing nations to adapt to the effects of climate change. This exclusion strikes directly at the most vulnerable in Afghanistan and occurs at a time when international support to Afghanistan in general is rapidly decreasing.
The need for intervention is urgent. A total 12.4 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity, and four million people, including 3.2 million children under five years old, are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Farmers need sustainable irrigation systems and more resilient crops, and communities need stronger disaster preparedness. Without these investments, poverty will deepen, and millions of people will face an even more severe humanitarian crisis. Women and children who are already bearing the brunt of food insecurity will suffer the most. Agriculture employs more women than any other economic sector in the country, and by excluding Afghanistan from climate financing, the international community is in fact punishing those it has vowed to protect.
The reluctance among predominately Western governments to engage with the Taliban should not come at the expense of the Afghan people. Experts and NGOs have proposed concrete strategies to ensure that climate funding reaches the Afghan people without legitimising the Taliban, e.g. through partnerships of international and national NGOs. The international community must listen to their recommendations and commit to finding constructive, long-term strategies to provide support.
The science is clear: if nothing is done, Afghanistan’s problems with drought and flooding will only worsen. Afghanistan had the highest number of children displaced by extreme weather in 2023, more than 700,000, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Just last month, the WFP warned that the persistence of La Nina weather patterns through winter 2024 will likely lead to less rain and snow in Afghanistan, jeopardising the next wheat harvest and pushing even more people towards hunger.
Climate change knows no borders, and the international community must demonstrate solidarity with the most vulnerable. We cannot afford to turn our backs on Afghanistan. Every day of inaction deepens Afghanistan’s climate disaster. Pakistan
At Least 38 Killed as Gunmen Ambush Shiite Convoys in Pakistan (New York Times)
New York Times [11/21/2024 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman, 831K, Neutral]
At least 38 people, most of them Shiite Muslims, were killed in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday as gunmen ambushed convoys of vehicles that had been under the protection of security forces.
The attack was one of the deadliest in months of sectarian violence in the Kurram region, a scenic mountainous district bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistan is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, but Kurram’s population of 800,000 is nearly half Shiite Muslim, contributing to a cauldron of tribal tensions.
Conflicts, often rooted in disputes over land, frequently escalate into deadly sectarian clashes. The violence highlights the government’s persistent struggle to maintain control in the region.
Javedullah Mehsud, a senior district government officer, and Hidayat Pasdar, a journalist from Kurram, said that the latest attack involved separate ambushes of two convoys passing through Sunni-majority villages.
The vehicles had been traveling in opposite directions on the main road connecting Parachinar, a Shiite-majority town in Kurram, to Peshawar, the provincial capital 135 miles away.
The road, a vital lifeline for the district, had only recently reopened after being closed for three weeks because of an ambush on Oct. 12 that left at least 16 people dead.
During the closure, residents of Parachinar were cut off from essential supplies, including food and fuel, leading to a growing humanitarian crisis.
Earlier this month, thousands of people from Parachinar staged a peaceful 10-mile march demanding the road’s reopening and guarantees of security. The authorities responded by temporarily restoring access and promising government-protected convoys three times a week.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but various militant groups, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or T.T.P., have a history of targeting Shiite Muslims in the district.
Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which includes Kurram, condemned the attack and directed the authorities to establish a provincial highway police force to secure key transport routes.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights body, said that the repeated attacks in Kurram showed the federal and provincial governments’ failure to protect citizens.“We demand immediate and decisive steps from both governments to permanently break this cycle of violence,” the commission said in a statement.
This year has been particularly deadly in Kurram. In late July, a weeklong clash between Sunni and Shiite communities left 46 dead and hundreds injured. Another bout of violence in September claimed 45 lives and wounded dozens.“This violence has become a cycle that the authorities seem unable to break,” said Sharif Hussain, a university student from Parachinar who had planned to travel to Peshawar in the coming days. “The state has abandoned us. Even in security-escorted convoys, we are left to die at the hands of terrorists.” Gunmen fire on vehicles carrying Shiites in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 42 (AP)
AP [11/21/2024 8:40 PM, Riaz Khan, 24052K, Negative]
Gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Shiite Muslims in Pakistan’s restive northwest on Thursday, killing at least 42 people, including six women, and wounding 20 others in one of the region’s deadliest such attacks in recent years, police said.
The attack happened in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where sectarian clashes between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites have killed dozens of people in recent months.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack. It came a week after authorities reopened a key highway in the region that had been closed for weeks following deadly clashes.
Local police official Azmat Ali said several vehicles were traveling in a convoy from the city of Parachinar to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, when gunmen opened fire. He said at least 10 passengers were in critical condition at a hospital.
Aftab Alam, a provincial minister, said 42 people were killed in the attack, and that officers were investigating to determine who was behind it.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called the shootings a "terrorist attack." Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, and Sharif said those behind the killing of innocent civilians will not go unpunished.
Kurram resident Mir Hussain, 35, said he saw four gunmen emerge from a vehicle and open fire on buses and cars.
"I think other people were also firing at the convoy of vehicles from nearby open farm field," he said. "The firing continued for about 40 minutes." He said he hid until the attackers fled.
"I heard cries of women, and people were shouting for the help," he said.
Ibne Ali Bangash, a relative of one of the victims, described the convoy attack as the saddest day in Kurram’s history.
"More than 40 people from our community have been martyred," he said. "It’s a shameful matter for the government."
Baqir Haideri, a local Shiite leader, denounced the assault and said the death toll was likely to rise. He accused local authorities of not providing adequate security for the convoy of more than 100 vehicles despite fears of possible attacks by militants who had recently threatened to target Shiites in Kurram.
Shop owners in Parachinar announced a strike on Friday to protest the attack.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15% of the 240 million population of Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions have existed for decades in some areas, especially in parts of Kurram, where Shiites are the majority.
Dozens of people from both sides have been killed since July when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.
Pakistan is tackling violence in the northwest and southwest, where militants and separatists often target police, troops and civilians. Violence in the northwest has been blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that is separate from Afghanistan’s Taliban but linked to them. Violence in southwestern Balochistan province has been blamed on members of the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army. Gunmen attack Pakistan passenger vehicles, killing at least 38 people (Reuters)
Reuters [11/21/2024 6:51 AM, Mushtaq Ali, 46778K, Negative]
Gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles in a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 38 people and wounding 29, the chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, said.
Among the fatalities in the attack, which occurred in the Kurram tribal district, were a woman and a child, Chaudhry said, adding: "It’s a major tragedy and death toll is likely to rise.".
Tensions have existed for decades between armed Shia and Sunni Muslims over a land dispute in the tribal area that borders Afghanistan.
No group claimed responsibility for the incident.
"There were two convoys of passenger vehicles, one carrying passengers from Peshawar to Parachinar and another from Parachinar to Peshawar, when armed men opened fire on them," a local resident of Parachinar, Ziarat Hussain, told Reuters by telephone, adding that his relatives were traveling from Peshawar in the convoy.
President Asif Ali Zardari, in a statement, strongly condemned the attack on passenger vehicles.President Asif Ali Zardari, in a statement, strongly condemned the attack on passenger vehicles. Gunmen Kill 38 In Attack On Shi’ite Convoy Amid Rising Tensions In NW Pakistan (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [11/21/2024 1:00 PM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
At least 38 people were killed and more than 40 wounded after gunmen opened fire on a convoy of cars carrying Shi’ite Muslims in northwest Pakistan as religious tension in the region rises.
Three women and a child were among those killed in the November 21 attack, police told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.
The convoy of 200 cars was heading from Peshawar to Parachinar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province near the border with Afghanistan when the unknown gunmen attacked.
No one has taken responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of deadly confrontations in the Kurram region.
Police, who were escorting the cars, said the death toll could climb. There were about 700 people in the convoy, according to law enforcement.
Tension in Kurram began to heat up after 17 people were killed in an attack on a convoy on October 12. There have been about a handful of deadly attacks since then.
Sunnis and Shi’a live together in Kurram and have clashed violently over land, forests, and other property as well as religion over the years, despite government and law enforcement efforts to build peace. Pakistani court bars party of jailed former PM from rallying on eve of visit by Belarus president (AP)
AP [11/21/2024 2:42 PM, Staff, 31638K, Negative]
A court in Pakistan’s capital has barred the party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding a planned rally in Islamabad on Sunday on the eve of an official visit by the president of Belarus.
The ruling Thursday was a setback for supporters of Khan who planned to stage a massive rally ahead of the three-day visit of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, which starts Monday, to demand the former prime minister’s release. It was not immediately clear whether Khan’s party would withdraw its call to hold the protest.
The court has asked authorities to inform Khan’s party about the sensitivity of Sunday when authorities will be making arrangement to receive Lukashenko who will be in the capital along with a 60-member delegation on Monday. The court also asked the government not to allow any rally or sit-ins in the capital on that day.
Pakistani authorities have already banned rallies in the city for two months for security reasons, and the government has vowed that it would not allow anyone, including the supporters of Khan, to violate the ban.
Khan was ousted in 2022 through a no-confidence vote in Parliament and he has been held in a prison for more than a year after his first conviction in a graft case.
Thursday’s court order came a day after another court granted bail to Khan, but with a slew of other charges pending against him, the opposition leader is staying behind bars.
Khan has so far been embroiled in over 150 cases and has been sentenced in several, including to three years, 10 years, 14 years and seven years to be served concurrently under Pakistani law. His convictions were later overturned in appeals but he cannot be freed due to other, pending cases against him. Surprise Solar Boom in Pakistan Helps Millions, But Harms Grid (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/21/2024 7:00 PM, Faseeh Mangi, 27782K, Positive]
There’s a shiny new addition to Pakistan’s dusty agricultural heartland: rows upon rows of solar panels.Imports of solar equipment from China in the first nine months are well ahead of those for the whole of 2023, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF. The $1.7 billion of purchases would equate to 17 gigawatts of generation, more than a third of Pakistan’s total power capacity, if it’s all deployed on rooftops and farms across the country, according to industry estimates.For corn grower, Mohammad Murtaza, installing panels has enabled him to slash his power bill by switching irrigation pumps from diesel or pricey electricity from the grid. Farmers like him are the latest to join the solar craze, following households and factories, in a country where power prices for some have tripled since 2021 as the government cut subsidies to meet International Monetary Fund loan requirements.This breakneck solarization has several benefits. It’s brought financial relief to consumers and businesses who can afford the panels, it’s saving the government money on fuel imports, and it will help Pakistan move toward its goal of doubling renewables to make up 60% of the energy mix by the end of the decade. But the rapid and unregulated boom also threatens to weaken the country’s utilities and destabilize the fragile economy.“There’s a great solar rush happening in Pakistan: the numbers are staggering,” said Muhammad Mujahid, executive director at Lahore-based panel distributor Innovo Corporation. But it’s also creating the “risk of a utility death spiral,” he said.As many customers curb their consumption from the grid or even abandon it completely, Pakistan’s power companies are permanently losing a major chunk of demand and revenue. State-owned utilities have accumulated losses of 2.4 trillion Pakistani rupees ($8.6 billion) between 2014 and 2023, according to government data. The IMF has said retaining demand should be a key objective of reforms.“Pakistan’s distribution companies are losing every day as solar becomes attractive,” said Salahuddin Riffai, who was chairman at Islamabad Electric Supply Co. until 2022. “The burden is ever increasing on the customers who are left.”The country was already struggling financially after borrowing heavily from China under the Belt and Road Initiative over the last decade to build up power generation capacity. Pakistan is now in negotiations to try and lengthen the maturities of that debt. The government is also in talks with local power producers to revise or end purchase contracts and is considering privatizing some utilities as cost-cutting measures.“If the government opens up the power market without capping solar capacity, most of the current generation fleet will become idle,” said Syed Faizan Ali Shah, who sits on the prime minister’s solarization committee. “So then who will pay for those power plants? This is a major concern.”The flood of solar panels from China started in 2023, and turned into a deluge after Pakistan removed import curbs late last year, making it the third-largest destination for Chinese panels, according to BNEF. Now they’re being advertised on billboards in major cities and during cricket matches.The frenzy wasn’t restricted to the energy sector: real estate companies and electronics firms started flipping panels, with the biggest traders bringing in up to 250 megawatts’ worth every month, according to Usman Ahmad, chief executive officer at solar distributor Nizam Energy Pvt.Driving the demand were households and factories producing everything from cement to apparel, who have suffered frequent blackouts in the past due to the unreliable grid. Speculation that the grid will collapse is “extreme,” but the reduction in demand is indeed a concern, Pakistan’s Power Minister Awais Leghari said in an interview. Utilities “have to be a little more sensitive to the demands of customers in terms of reliability and tariffs,” he said. “We all realize that the status quo can’t prevail.”For Murtaza, the decision to switch to solar on his farm near Lahore was an easy one. It will take him less than a year to recover the cost of installing the panels, and his electricity bill has plunged by 80%, he said. With the savings, he’s able to plant three crops a year instead of two.
“I have never seen such a big change in farming. Ninety-five percent of farmland has switched to solar in this area,” he said, pointing to his photovoltaic array towering over piles of harvested corn cobs. The panels are now cheaper than the frames they’re supposed to be mounted on, so some farmers just lay them on the ground, he said.Despite the hubbub, it’s hard to tell how much of the imported equipment has actually been installed due to a paucity of official data. A satellite data analysis carried out in April by Norwegian firm Atlas revealed around 400 solar plants across the country, clustered mostly in industrial hubs. But many more installations went undetected, the geospatial analysis firm said. Most panels have been deployed almost equally across homes, factories, and farms, solar distributors say.The growth of solar in Pakistan has been interesting because it happened so fast and without any subsidies, said Jenny Chase, an analyst at BNEF. However, the boom is likely to be followed by a bust, she said.For Pakistan’s government, dealing with the consequences of the solar frenzy and its aftermath, and maintaining the health of the grid and traditional power companies will be essential. For the country’s economy and the millions of people who can’t afford to install solar panels, a failing electricity network would be disastrous.
“The solar onslaught is happening in a very unsafe, very unregulated way,” said Amin Sukhera, chief executive officer of Sky Electric, a Pakistani solar firm. “The people who are running the grid, they do not know what kind of imbalance it’s creating when other people attach solar connections. I think it’s already a pretty sick grid. I fear it may get more sick.” India
Bribery Charges Against Tycoon Strike at Heart of Modi’s India (New York Times)
New York Times [11/21/2024 4:14 PM, Alex Travelli, 831K, Neutral]
Gautam Adani is no ordinary Indian billionaire. Over the past 10 years, he has become in effect an extension of India’s government. His conglomerate, Adani Group, builds and buys ports, factories and power plants, often under state contract or license. It operates airports. It even owns a TV news channel.Mr. Adani’s business empire has become central to India during the rise of Narendra Modi, first elected as prime minister in 2014.
As Mr. Modi brought India to the center of the world stage, he brought Mr. Adani in tow. Today, Mr. Adani’s flagship company is worth about 10 times what it was at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, the U.S. government charged Mr. Adani, one of the world’s richest people, with multiple counts of fraud. Federal prosecutors accused him and his associates of offering $265 million to Indian officials and lying about the bribery scheme to Wall Street investors when raising money for a massive renewable energy project.
The Adani Group denied prosecutors’ claims, calling the allegations “baseless.” A spokesman said the company wanted to “assure our stakeholders, partners and employees that we are a law-abiding organization, fully compliant with all laws.”
Doubts about the Adani business are not new. Less than two years ago, a small investment firm in New York City accused the company of stock manipulation and accounting fraud in what it called “the largest con in corporate history.” Hindenburg Research, a short seller that makes money by betting that stocks will drop, published these claims in a scathing report, which pummeled the prices of the conglomerate’s stocks and bonds. At one point, Mr. Adani’s empire had lost $150 billion on paper.
But after the dust kicked up by Hindenburg had settled, Adani’s stocks recovered most of what they had lost. New investors made a killing.
Mr. Adani himself also ventured back into public view, posing with Eric Garcetti, the U.S. ambassador to India, who visited an enormous Adani solar project this summer. Afterward, Mr. Garcetti declared himself “inspired.”
Now, once again, India’s corporate champion has been roughed up. Together, the Adani empire’s stocks lost about 20 percent of their value on Thursday, or more than $30 billion, and an imminent bond sale was canceled.
Mr. Adani’s current troubles promise a rockier ride: The criminal charges by the U.S. government, brought by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, along with a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission, take aim at Mr. Adani personally.
According to the indictment, the defendants, in keeping track of their bribes to Indian officials, used “code names” for different participants in the scheme. Several of the defendants referred to Mr. Adani as “Mr. A,” “Numero uno” and “the big man.”
Within India, Mr. Adani’s reputation is of a politically connected businessman who gets things done. After the accusations by Hindenburg, India’s Supreme Court appointed a panel to look into the allegations but gave up when the country’s markets regulator admitted to “drawing a blank” in its investigation. The regulator’s chair, Madhabi Buch, was subsequently accused of holding stakes in an offshore entity used by Mr. Adani’s family. Despite protests by employees of the agency she oversees, Ms. Buch has kept her job.
Mr. Adani is “being protected by all the investigative agencies, all the regulators — even by the courts,” said Prashant Bhushan, a lawyer who has battled in court against both Mr. Adani and Mr. Modi’s government.
Mr. Modi is Mr. Adani’s “main person and protector,” Mr. Bhushan said, adding that Mr. Adani had relationships with other politicians, too. “The only person he has not been able to control or get to his side is Rahul Gandhi,” a leader of India’s opposition Congress party, Mr. Bhushan said.
Mr. Gandhi, speaking to the press on Thursday at Congress headquarters, said that “the prime minister is involved in corruption” and that “Mr. Adani should be arrested.” Moments later, in Hindi, he said that “this won’t happen, because India’s prime minister is behind Mr. Adani.” The news channel Mr. Adani bought two years ago carried none of Mr. Gandhi’s statement.“The company will defend itself, and the law will take its course,” said Sambit Patra, a spokesman for Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. Mr. Gandhi’s allegations, he said, were designed to “bring down the Indian market” and harm “25 million small investors.”
The U.S. indictment implied that enormous sums had been offered to state governments controlled by parties other than the B.J.P. Mr. Adani is known to make deals across the political spectrum.
Mr. Adani is so central to India’s politics that he can broker deals between sworn rivals. Last week, Ajit Pawar, a former ally of Mr. Gandhi’s who is fighting an election in Maharashtra state, stunned a television interviewer by mentioning that Mr. Adani hosted the dinner at which his new alliance with the B.J.P. had been hashed out. Mr. Pawar took it back a few days later, saying he had misremembered.
Mr. Adani is not the only business leader whose interests meld with those of the Indian government. Another billionaire who has thrived during the Modi years, Naveen Jindal, has been pulling in government contracts to support infrastructure projects like India’s biggest green-hydrogen steel plant, announced in September as part of a $2.5 billion investment.
Rohit Chandra, a political scientist and economic historian at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, explained why governments like Mr. Modi’s find it useful to team up with private companies.
Spending on “infrastructure is great for short-term growth,” and hopefully for the broader economy, Mr. Chandra said. And, he added, “as in most of the world, infrastructure contracts are very close to politics.”
Finding money to pay for these projects is the tricky part. After a financial crisis under the previous government, India’s banks became hesitant to lend to projects like Adani’s. So, Mr. Chandra said, “this government has made a very strong effort to attract interest” to projects like “solar, highway and ports” from investors abroad.“The problem is that when you borrow from foreigners, you have to play by their rules,” he said. It was because Mr. Adani’s assets succeeded in attracting investors at the New York Stock Exchange that he had fallen under U.S. legal jurisdiction.
Mr. Chandra also pointed out that infrastructure “tends to be front and center as a part of Indian diplomacy and geopolitics these days.” Adani has become an interface between India and the rest of the world, not only its capital markets.
Adani Group has bid for giant contracts in India’s back yard. Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are all negotiating with the company and often the Indian government at the same time. Mr. Modi’s travels farther abroad, to Indonesia, Israel, Kenya and Tanzania, have also been followed by the announcements of offers or deals with Adani companies.
It is unclear how the U.S. Department of Justice under a new administration will pursue the case. President-elect Donald J. Trump is thought to have a rapport with Mr. Modi that is warm, if transactional. Mr. Trump has spoken against the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, under which Mr. Adani has been indicted, arguing that its rules put American companies at a disadvantage.
The day after Mr. Trump’s election this month, Mr. Adani posted congratulations on social media, praising the president-elect as “the embodiment of relentless determination and the courage to stay true to his beliefs.” Last week, he pledged to invest $10 billion in American projects. U.S. case against Adani targets a close ally of Indian prime minister (Washington Post)
Washington Post [11/21/2024 10:52 PM, Gerry Shih, Karisha Mehrotra, and Anant Gupta, 52865K, Neutral]
When U.S. prosecutors Wednesday unveiled fraud and bribery allegations against Gautam Adani, they charged not just one of India’s top business figures but a man seen as an arm of Indian domestic and foreign policy — and a proxy for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The billionaire has accompanied Modi on trips abroad and struck infrastructure deals with India’s geopolitical partners, from Sri Lanka to Israel. At home, he has followed Modi’s energy and manufacturing policies, helped him broker political alliances, and encouraged patriotic Indians to view his business success as a reflection of India’s rise.Given Adani’s closeness to the prime minister, the federal charges could complicate U.S.-India relations just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s second term begins, analysts said.In recent years, Adani has faced mounting scrutiny from domestic critics and foreign investors over what they said were tax breaks and favorable treatment he has received from Modi and friendly foreign governments. But officials from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party have often rallied around Adani and characterized his critics as enemies of India.“The Biden administration was hoping to go out on a high note with India, and this will obviously sour the mood,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia program at the Brookings Institution.On Wednesday, the Justice Department and the Securities Exchange Commission accused Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and six associates of lying to U.S. investors about their business practices between 2020 and 2024. In that time, according to court documents, Gautam Adani’s fast-growing conglomerate was seeking to sell more than $1 billion in bonds, and Adani and his associates assured investors that they followed the law even as they conspired to bribe Indian officials with $250 million in payments.In the indictment, prosecutors say they detained Sagar Adani in the United States in 2023 and obtained evidence from his confiscated phone. Arrest warrants have been issued for Gautam Adani and his nephew, court records show.The Adani Group has denied the allegations as “baseless” and said in a statement it would seek “all possible legal recourse.”Whatever the cases’ outcome, the charges could threaten Adani’s access to global capital markets and derail his ambitious domestic and overseas plans, which have often overlapped with Modi’s development agenda.Another $600 million bond offering the company had been pitching was called off in the wake of the U.S. allegations, the company told Indian regulators Thursday. In Kenya, the government on Thursday called off a multimillion-dollar expansion of the Nairobi airport led by Adani, citing “new information provided by our investigative agencies and partner nations.”Even before the U.S. indictment, Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, said in recent weeks he would review what he called the previous government’s “corrupt Adani deal” for a $440 million wind power project.“What [the U.S. case] for the first time reveals is a paper trail,” said Ashoka Mody, a Princeton economist. “It has taken the U.S. judicial system to unearth a vast alleged bribery scheme.”Since 2014, when Modi campaigned to become prime minister while flying on an Adani Group jet, the conglomerate has played a key role behind the Indian leader’s push to modernize India’s infrastructure. Adani has acquired eight airports and 13 seaports that account for a quarter of India’s air passenger traffic and 24 percent of its seaport capacity.After Modi outlined ambitious plans for India to shift toward renewable energy, Adani — briefly ranked the world’s second-richest man in 2022 — spent billions pivoting to the solar panel industry. And as Modi began to play a greater role on the international stage and present India as the leader of the Global South countries, Adani, too, ventured abroad to strike a growing number of strategic deals.He contracted with Bangladesh to provide power at highly favorable rates, beat Chinese bidders to acquire the Haifa Port in Israel, and sought to lease the Nairobi airport in Kenya. After Sri Lanka handed control of a strategic port to China in 2017, alarming officials in New Delhi and Washington, the U.S. government announced it would back Adani with a $500 million investment to build another port terminal in the Sri Lankan capital.“When you think of Adani, you think of Modi,” said Harish Damodaran, author of the book “India’s New Capitalists.” “Modi has been clear that foreign policy should advance India’s economic interests, which has often been synonymous with the interests of a few conglomerates, particularly Adani.”Some Indian and U.S. analysts say that law enforcement cases should be seen as distinct from the overall U.S. policy toward India. Nevertheless, bilateral ties over the past year have been affected by another federal case alleging that an Indian intelligence officer attempted to assassinate an American Sikh separatist on U.S. soil.On Thursday, Indian hard-liners warned that the Adani case could have diplomatic repercussions. “The U.S. should focus on cleaning up in its own house,” said former Indian foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal. “Such buccaneering will cost India-U.S. relations.”It is unclear how Trump, who has a close relationship with Modi and whose victory was widely celebrated among the Indian right, will respond to the charges. But analysts say it would be unsurprising if the Modi government intervened on Adani’s behalf.“You can bet that behind-the-scenes conversations are already happening with the Trump team to take their temperature,” said Vaishnav, with the Brookings Institution.This month, hours after Trump clinched the U.S. election, Adani praised Trump on X as the “embodiment of unbreakable tenacity, unshakable grit, relentless determination.” A few days later, he posted again, tagging Trump and speaking of collaboration between nations.“As the partnership between India and the United States deepens, the Adani Group is committed to leveraging its global expertise and invest $10 billion in U.S. energy security and resilient infrastructure projects, aiming to create up to 15,000 jobs,” he wrote.He added three emojis: an Indian flag, an American flag and a handshake. How Indian Coal King’s Bid to Rule Solar Sparked U.S. Bribery Charges (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal [11/21/2024 4:33 PM, Shan Li, Tripti Lahiri, and Corinne Ramey, 810K, Neutral]
Gautam Adani became one of the world’s richest men by building coal-fired power plants to fuel India’s rise as a global economic power. Now, he is accused of paying bribes to turn India into a clean-energy powerhouse.
The U.S. Justice Department allegations against Adani, his nephew and some close advisers have come as a shock to India’s establishment and threaten Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plans to electrify his vast country with solar, wind and hydrogen power. It also could create more tension between India and the U.S., after U.S. charges that Modi’s government tried to kill a Sikh activist on U.S. soil.“You never know which friction point might be the trigger to push a wider pause on the relationship,” said Richard Rossow, an India policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank. “This keeps adding to the list on the negative side of the ledger.”
Prosecutors also alleged that Adani conspired to misrepresent his conglomerate’s antibribery and corruption practices to U.S. investors and financial institutions to obtain financing to produce power. In an indictment in New York, prosecutors said Adani and others paid about $250 million in bribes in India to secure domestic solar contracts.
The Adani Group on Thursday denied the allegations and called them “baseless.” The company said it is committed to “the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliance.”
The prime minister’s office was silent about the allegations Thursday, but a leader of the opposition—which has long criticized Adani for benefiting from close ties to Modi—called for his arrest. Companies bearing the Adani name tumbled on Thursday, with Adani Enterprises, the group’s flagship, falling 23%. In all the companies lost $24 billion in market valuation.
The U.S. charges may ultimately amount to a name-and-shame indictment, if the Indian government doesn’t honor an extradition request, but they will cast a shadow on Adani and the other defendants, said Sidhardha Kamaraju, a former U.S. prosecutor. “These public criminal charges can have an impact, like on ability to travel and whether U.S. companies will want to deal with these companies,” said Kamaraju, now at the law firm Pryor Cashman.
Adani, who is worth more than $80 billion and regularly figures in lists of the world’s top-10 richest people, looms large over India’s political and business landscape. A close ally of Modi whose energy-and-logistics empire has expanded in tandem with the prime minister’s rise, the 62-year-old tycoon has long supported the prime minister’s most ambitious policy goals.
In addition to coal plants, Adani operates India’s largest private port and eight airports.
In recent years, Modi has pledged that India will have 500 gigawatts of renewable-energy power by 2030. Reaching that goal rests heavily on Adani, which has a little over 11 gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity, surpassing rivals, according to Vibhuti Garg, director of South Asia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
The U.S. indictment concerns the largest solar contract ever awarded in India, an agreement that went to Adani’s renewable-energy unit in 2020. The company said it would invest $6 billion to develop 8 gigawatts of solar power over the following five years, as well as begin building out a solar supply chain, a bid described in the indictment.
But selling renewable power has proved challenging for developers in India’s complex energy landscape. India is hampered partly by the reluctance of state electricity-distribution companies to buy power from solar and wind farms, which is cheaper than coal but less reliable.
The state-run firm that awarded the contract was to act as a broker between Adani’s solar plants and buyers of its energy. The indictment alleges that after the state-run firm ran into difficulties finding buyers for solar power, Adani, his nephew and executives hatched a plan to persuade government officials to enter into agreements with the state-run firm. That would enable the state-run firm to follow through on buying the power Adani produced.
The indictment said Sagar Adani, Gautam Adani’s nephew, tracked payments to be given to officials across states on his cellphones and calculated a bribery rate per megawatt of power. In coded messages, Gautam Adani was referred to as “Mr. A” and “Numero uno” and “the big man.”
The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh figured as a main focus of the alleged bribery, according to the indictment, with a person identified as “Foreign Official #1” offered the bulk of the bribes, or nearly $230 million. The state then agreed to buy 7 gigawatts of power that would come from Adani.
The charges are the latest bombshell lobbed against Adani and his conglomerate. Last year, U.S. short seller Hindenburg Research released a 104-page report accusing the Adani Group of fraud and stock manipulation. His companies’ stocks and bonds plunged, leaving investors with billions of dollars in losses and wiping out more than $80 billion of his net worth in a few days.
The indictment came the week after Adani posted a congratulatory message to President-elect Donald Trump, vowing to do more business in the U.S. and create jobs there. The company has benefited from Washington’s efforts to avoid Chinese solar-power components, with the firm sending much of its solar-panel production to the U.S.
Renewable-energy analysts expressed concern about what the prosecution could mean for India’s energy transition, given the Adani Group’s central role.
In Kenya, President William Ruto said Thursday that he would cancel plans to have the Adani Group expand the country’s main airport and run it for 30 years, saying he would take action “in the face of undisputed evidence or credible information on corruption.” Modi’s Ties to Adani Will Face Tougher Scrutiny This Time Around (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/21/2024 8:29 AM, Diksha Madhok and Preeti Soni, 27782K, Negative]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will find it increasingly difficult to distance himself from the latest controversy erupting around Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest businessmen who’s widely seen as having close ties with the Indian leader.Hours after US prosecutors charged Adani with helping direct a massive bribery scheme, opposition leaders in India renewed their questioning of Modi’s relationship with the billionaire, whose business empire has expanded in tandem with the prime minister’s decade in power.Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s main political rival, challenged the prime minister to arrest Adani and said he’ll use his expanded powers in parliament to investigate the tycoon’s businesses.“It’s now pretty clear and established in America that Mr. Adani has broken both American and Indian laws,” Gandhi told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday. “I’m wondering why Mr. Adani is still roaming free in this country,” he said, suggesting that Modi’s close links with Adani shield him from being questioned over corruption charges.Modi is currently out of the country, making his way back to India from the Group of 20 summit in Brazil earlier this week. His office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. India’s Ministry of External Affairs earlier declined to comment on the Adani allegations. A spokesperson for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party told reporters Thursday that “it is for the company to give clarification and defend itself. Law will take its own course.”Modi and the BJP largely stayed mute when the Adani Group faced a barrage of accusations of wrongdoing by US short-seller Hindenburg Research, which wiped over $150 billion of the group’s combined market value at one point. But after national elections earlier this year, Modi will confront an emboldened opposition ready to wield the controversy to permanently damage the Indian leader’s reputation, analysts said.“This puts Modi in an awkward position — he projects himself as an incorruptible leader, but his friendship with Adani is an open secret,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington. “For Modi, the biggest challenges will be fending off the opposition, and carefully balancing his political image as a non-corrupt leader with his long friendship with Adani.”Even with the opposition’s threats, Modi’s government is unlikely to be threatened. The BJP’s coalition partners have so far refrained from commenting on the charges, an indication of the wide support Adani enjoys in the South Asian nation. US prosecutors alleged on Wednesday that Adani and other defendants promised to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to win solar energy contracts, and concealed the plan as they sought to raise money from American investors. The Adani Group on Thursday denied the allegations and said it would seek legal recourse.The indictment comes at a sensitive time for Modi. His BJP had its weakest showing in a decade in elections that ended in June, resulting in the party losing its majority in parliament and being forced to rely on coalition partners to govern. The Congress party and its allies more than doubled their seats.The BJP’s support was also tested in crucial state elections this week. Results for Maharashtra, home of the financial hub of Mumbai, where Adani’s businesses have pumped billions of dollars of investment, are due to be released on Saturday. Exit polls show the BJP leading by only a small margin. A defeat for Modi, 74, would be yet another signal that his once-ironclad grip on the world’s most populous nation is weakening.“BJP is not BJP alone in power — its allies, partners are also there,” said Amit Ranjan, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.Gujarat TiesWhile Modi has stayed silent on his ties to Adani, 62, the two men are believed to be close. Both men hail from the western state of Gujarat and the billionaire has aligned his business plans with the prime minister’s growth strategy for India. The Adani Group is involved in key infrastructure projects across the country, from harbors to airports, and employs tens of thousands of people.Modi “has a strong political incentive to distance himself from Adani. But given Adani’s massive commercial clout, Modi can’t afford to push him away, either,” said Kugelman.After the bombshell Hindenburg report in January last year, in which Adani was accused of stock market manipulation and accounting fraud, India’s fragmented opposition mounted an attack on the ruling party, demanding a parliamentary investigation. They are on even firmer footing this time, said Ranjan.“It is not going to be very easy for the prime minister,” he said. “Politically it’s a scoring point for Rahul Gandhi and others who were against Gautam Adani for a long time.”Scrutiny in ParliamentGandhi said Thursday that the alliance of opposition parties in the country will take up the matter up in parliament next week. He called for a joint parliamentary committee to scrutinize Adani’s businesses and asked authorities to arrest the tycoon.Still, it won’t be easy to initiate a probe against Adani. The infrastructure mogul has made substantial investments across the country, including in states that are not governed by the BJP or its allies. An investigation by a parliamentary committee may not also result in any punitive action.The Aam Aadmi Party, a key opposition party that governs New Delhi, said on X that the US bribery probe had “exposed” the “Modi-Adani nexus” once again. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) called for an investigation by federal agencies.“The Modi government cannot hide behind any smokescreen now,” the party said in a statement. “The Central Bureau of Investigation must be directed to immediately file a case based on the material provided by the prosecution in the United States.” US Says Adani Made False Statements to Lenders About News Report (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [11/21/2024 2:56 PM, Tom Schoenberg and Ava Benny-Morrison, 27782K, Negative]
Nestled among the corruption allegations leveled against Gautam Adani by the US are his conglomerate’s reactions to a news story this year reporting that he was being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery.The article referenced in the indictment is a March 15 Bloomberg News report that US prosecutors were digging into whether an Adani entity — or people linked to the company, including its billionaire chairman — were involved in paying officials in India for favorable treatment on an energy project. In that article, Adani Group said it wasn’t “aware of any investigation against our chairman” and that it was fully compliant with anti-bribery laws in India and elsewhere.Prosecutors contend the denial was a false statement meant to further the alleged fraud scheme, given that Adani’s nephew, Sagar Adani, received a grand jury subpoena and search warrant a year earlier. Sagar is executive director of Adani Green Energy Ltd., India’s largest renewables developer.The indictment also details further denials made by company officials and outside lawyers to investors and lenders over several weeks, including an email from Adani’s head of corporate finance referring to the article as “baseless,” “malicious” and “defamatory."“These false statements concealed both the United States government’s investigation and the bribery scheme from investors and financial institutions,” prosecutors said in the indictment, “all to ensure the conglomerate’s and the Indian energy company’s continued access to capital in the United States and elsewhere.”A representative for Adani Group didn’t immediately reply to a message seeking comment. In response to the indictment, a spokesperson for the conglomerate denied the allegations and called them baseless. Adani Group is “a law-abiding organization, fully compliant with all laws,” the spokesperson said in a statement. To Quit Their Jobs, Sugar Workers Risk Kidnapping, Assault and Murder (New York Times)
New York Times [11/21/2024 4:14 PM, Qadri Inzamam, Megha Rajagopalan, and Saumya Khandelwal, 831K, Neutral]
When his daughter turned 12, Gighe Dutta decided this would be the year that he and his wife quit cutting sugar cane in the fields of western India. The work required a long migration, and his daughter would have to drop out of school — the first step for many girls on a lifelong path of abuse and poverty.
But his employer refused to let them quit. He and his friends beat up Mr. Dutta and forced him into a car, Mr. Dutta said. According to a report that he filed with a local government agency, the men drove him to a mill that says it supplies sugar to many international companies.
Mr. Dutta was locked there for two days, he said, and left to sleep on the floor to reconsider his decision.
The sugar-rich state of Maharashtra supplies companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsico and Unilever. Local politicians and sugar barons say that laborers like the Duttas are free to leave. The work is hard, they concede, but laborers can always seek work elsewhere.
But the sugar workers of Maharashtra are far from free. With no written contracts, they are at the mercy of their employers to decide when they may leave. They frequently work under the threat of violence, abduction and murder.
There is no official data about how often such treatment occurs, and abuses often go unreported because workers fear retaliation. But workers’ rights groups, local government authorities, experts and even some mill owners say that kidnapping is not uncommon and that workers have little recourse.
The New York Times and Fuller Project obtained police reports and local government records, interviewed factory owners and collected the firsthand accounts of a half dozen families involved in recent kidnapping cases.“Some say they will murder you. People say all sorts of things,” said Vinobai Taktode, a laborer who reported to the police that her husband had been kidnapped by his employer. “There are so many fears on our minds.”
Earlier this year The Times and The Fuller Project revealed that household-name companies and Indian politicians profit off a brutal system that forces children to work, pushes them into underage marriages and coerces women to get unnecessary hysterectomies to keep them working in the fields, unencumbered by menstruation or routine ailments.
All of those abuses can be linked to what is known as bonded labor, a system in which workers are perpetually in debt to their employers and cannot leave.
Bonded labor, or debt bondage, is an internationally recognized human rights violation. It is illegal in India and explicitly denounced by the Western companies that buy sugar from Maharashtra.
Yet worker abuse in Maharashtra is hardly a secret. Bonded labor is endemic across the state, according to researchers, industry officials and workers’ rights groups. A court-appointed government fact-finding team found last year that the sugar industry relies on an extensive system of bonded labor, according to a document obtained by The Times and Fuller Project.
Several Western brands that source from Maharashtra either declined to comment or pointed to their published human-rights policies without addressing the issue of bonded labor in Maharashtra.
Far from addressing the problem, the Maharashtra government denies that it exists. A court affidavit submitted this year on behalf of several state agencies said that sugar laborers were “free to move anywhere and they are never imprisoned by the employer.”
The mill where Mr. Dutta says he was held, Jaywant Sugars, denied any involvement. The mill has many customers and has supplied Sucden, a major commodity broker that says it commands 15 percent of the global sugar trade.
In response to questions, Sucden said that it had not purchased from Jaywant Sugars since 2020. Sucden said that the mill had signed a code of conduct assuring that no labor abuses were involved in its operations. Sucden said that it would not source from Jaywant again without “clear and documented prior clarification on labor practices.”
Debt bondage persists because sugar cutters in Maharashtra are paid through cash advances at the beginning of each season. Almost invariably, according to laborers and contractors alike, it is impossible to repay the money in a single year. The debt rolls over, and families are trapped, typically with no contract and no recourse.
Violence can occur when workers try to break that cycle.
One sugar cutter, Prahlad Pawar, said that his employer told him last year that he and others had not worked hard enough during the harvest.
So the employer ordered Mr. Pawar, his wife and children, and another family to work as his personal servants during the off-season, according to a report filed with a local government agency and interviews with family members. Mr. Pawar and his family eventually escaped, hiking for days toward their village, begging for food and sleeping in fields.“People in the cities, who drink these cold drinks and eat chocolates, they are living their lives and they do not even think of us,” Mr. Pawar said. “I wish they, for once, tried working like us.”
Women Pay the Price
Vinobai Taktode isn’t sure how old she is — maybe 30, she said, or 35. Like many female sugar cane cutters, nobody had recorded her birthday.
She lives in the village of Alepur, many hours’ drive from Mr. Dutta’s family. But, like Mr. Dutta’s preteen daughter, she had grown up among the crops, doing chores for her parents along with her siblings.
Unlike Mr. Dutta, her parents had not sought a way out. When she was in her early or midteens, she was married to a man who cut sugar cane, too.
In Maharashtra, the crop is generally cut by a husband-and-wife team known as a koyta. Each couple supplies a specific sugar mill but is hired by a middleman contractor who doles out the mill’s money every season.
Lump-sum payments allow workers to pay for major costs like home repairs or medical expenses. But most agricultural workers have only oral agreements and no recourse if their contractors change the terms. Sugar mills deny any relationship with the workers or any responsibility for their treatment.“Labor is completely invisible, and that invisibility is critical for profit making,” said Seema Kulkarni of Makaam, a group that advocates on behalf of female farm workers in India.
Ms. Taktode, her husband and five children struggled financially. She does not know all the details because, as in most farming couples, her husband made all the arrangements with the contractor.
But her husband, Shivaji Bhivaji Taktode, battled alcoholism. Years ago, he missed two weeks of work while bingeing on a sticky, sweet country wine made from molasses. Every night for days, she said in an interview, the contractor and half a dozen friends roughed up Ms. Taktode’s husband for not working.
One night, she recalled, someone beat him with the blunt side of a scythe, the tool used to cut cane. Her husband’s back was covered in bruises. Another night, she said, a man knocked him on the head with a rock, sending him to the hospital.
It was then that Ms. Taktode learned that, while the men control the finances, women and children can pay the price. The contractor forced Ms. Taktode and her eldest son to do days of extra work in the sugar fields, she said.
But that still wasn’t enough to make up for the lost time.
The contractor told Ms. Taktode that her husband had stolen from him by missing work, she said. She was terrified. They had no records and no way to calculate their labor, their debt or a way out.
She knew they had to escape.“They used to threaten us,” she said. She remembers her contractor saying, “If you leave, we will kill you.”
Late one night in 2022, the family bundled up some possessions and slipped away, marching for hours, she said, through “a jungle” of rustling sugar cane until they reached a train station. When her 6-year-old son could no longer walk, Ms. Taktode carried him.
After two years in hiding, they returned home this summer, assuming that things had quieted down.
They were wrong. The contractor showed up again in late August and forced her husband into a car. A relative recalled having witnessed the abduction and recounted the details, which were also listed in a police report.
The contractor could not be reached despite repeated phone calls. The mill for which he worked declined a request for an interview.
Ms. Taktode, though, said that the contractor had called her family and demanded money for her husband’s release.
Then, this fall, Mr. Taktode returned, shaken up and badly injured, his son said. He escaped, his family said, but details were few. The contractor’s mobile phone was switched off.
It is unclear whether that was the end of Ms. Taktode’s ordeal. They are destitute. Food is scarce. When it rains, droplets of water seep through gaps in the tin roof of her mother-in-law’s home, turning the dirt floor to mud.
If the contractor returns, Ms. Taktode says she has no idea how they will find the money.
A Father’s Desperation
Mr. Dutta and his wife are desperate to avoid the harsh life of sugar cane cutting for their children. This fall, they decided that they would not migrate for the harvest as usual. They were done.
Their daughter was finishing primary school and they wanted her to take her classes seriously. Mr. Dutta never got the education he wanted. “I need to educate them. Both my kids,” he said.
But by the time they had decided to quit, they had already taken their yearly advance. For most workers, that would be the end of it. They would have to return to the fields.
The Duttas, though, had scratched together some money by farming cotton, millet and lentils in the offseason.Mr. Dutta arranged a meeting with his contractor. He offered to repay 70 percent of the advance upfront, then return with the rest in a few days.
The contractor, who had been drinking with friends, was furious, Mr. Dutta recounted. He demanded that Mr. Dutta pay back double the advance if he wanted to quit. They argued, and the contractor and his friends turned on Mr. Dutta, beating him up.
Mr. Dutta’s contractor did not respond to repeated calls for comment.“There were eight to 10 people, and they were all drinking. Who listens after drinking?” Mr. Dutta said in an interview, biting his nails as he spoke. “I was alone.”
They pushed him into a car, took his phone away and began to drive southeast. It was half a day’s drive before they arrived at the Jaywant Sugar mill, he said.
Like most of Maharashtra’s mills, Jaywant is controlled by a politically powerful family.
The mill’s president, C. N. Deshpande, denied that anyone had been held against their will at his factory. He said he knew nothing about Mr. Dutta.
But he acknowledged that sugar laborers who refuse to work or cannot repay their advances posed a problem. Ultimately, the mill’s money is at stake. “Contractors come and say that laborers have run away,” Mr. Deshpande said. They ask what to do, he added. “We tell them we don’t know, but we need the money.”
Kidnappings and beatings were common in the industry, he said. Often, he added, mill executives know about these tactics or abet them. And he acknowledged that the mills rarely faced consequences.
Some laborers have even been murdered, he said. In one case in 2014, a contractor beat and abducted a worker, then stabbed his son in the chest, according to arrest records and an interview with the family.
Mr. Deshpande’s mill does not use violence or threats, he said. But, he noted, he has never failed to recoup an advance.
Escape
Mr. Dutta, weak from hunger and his beating, was taken to a dark room without furniture, he later told a government legal aid agency. Over the next two days, he was let out only to use the bathroom.
He said that, despite Mr. Deshpande’s denial, mill workers had seen what was happening. One was even assigned to bring him meals from the canteen but threatened him when he begged to be released.
Mr. Dutta had no idea when, or if, he’d be freed.“I was so scared,” he said. “I could not think, it was as if my head had stopped working.”
When he could focus, he was torn up by thoughts of his mother, wife and children and how worried they must be. He thought of his daughter, he said, a shy girl who liked animals and who hand-fed the family’s goat.
After two days, Mr. Dutta’s brother discovered what had happened. He phoned the contractor, who reiterated his demand — twice his money back. In response, Mr. Dutta’s brother and wife filed a police report.
The contractor told Mr. Dutta that it was time to leave and ushered him to a car. Mr. Dutta was terrified about where they were taking him, he said. At a roadside stop, he made a break for it.
He arrived home about a week later and filed a report with the legal aid agency.
Weeks passed and nothing happened.
When reporters inquired, the police played down the incident and said that Mr. Dutta and the contractor were working things out.
Mr. Dutta said he was afraid that the contractor would return for him. But he and his wife are adamant that they will not return to sugar cane cutting.
Decades of farm labor harms your body irreparably. Mr. Dutta can feel it in his knuckles and at the base of his spine. His wife is no different.
Harvesting cotton and millet for a living will be painful, too. And it had never before generated enough money to live on. But Mr. Dutta said that didn’t matter. “In any work, one has to suffer,” he said.
He would make sure his daughter stayed in school, he said — whatever it took. How a change in rice farming unexpectedly made India’s air so much worse (Washington Post)
Washington Post [11/22/2024 2:00 AM, Karishma Mehrotra, 6.9M, Neutral]
An Indian initiative to preserve vanishing groundwater by delaying the annual sowing of rice has led to a dramatic worsening of air pollution in New Delhi and the surrounding region, already infamous for its suffocating smog, according to farmers and researchers. And no one saw it coming.
For decades, farmers have burned the field stubble that remains after harvesting rice to prepare for the next crop.
But when government officials ordered a delay in the summer sowing of rice in part of India by a few weeks to take advantage of the coming monsoon rain, they did not consider that India’s winds would have shifted by harvest time. Now, the harvest coincides with winter weather, and the winds blow the smoke across the plains of northern India.The agricultural mandate, first adopted in 2008, has caused up to a 20 percent increase in smoke particles in northern Indian cities, including Delhi, according to a team of researchers from the United States, India and elsewhere.
This week, Delhi’s poisonous air reached its worst level in five years. In response, the government shut down schools, construction and some offices.“The growing season for rice has shifted, and you would think that would be fine,” said Loretta Mickley, an atmospheric chemist at Harvard University. “The average person will say: What does groundwater have to do with air pollution in Delhi?”
But India’s farmers say they can see the impact.
Gurpreet Sangha’s family owns farmland in two Indian states. In the western state of Rajasthan, where the government-ordered delay does not apply, his farmers continue to harvest rice and burn the stubble near the end of September.
Nearly a month later, after the winds have shifted, the farmers on the tract in the northern state of Punjab do the same. The law in Punjab prohibits sowing rice seedlings into nurseries of long troughs before mid-May and transplanting those seedlings into flooded paddies before mid-June, delaying the harvest and the stubble burning.“If you are standing in my land in Rajasthan or in my family’s land in Punjab, the smoke from the burning is all the same,” Sangha said. “But in September, the smoke just withers away from Rajasthan. And in October or November, my smoke from Punjab goes and chokes Delhi.”“They plugged one problem and gave rise to another,” he added.
Shifting winds
The northern states of Punjab and Haryana have been known as India’s breadbasket, growing alternating crops of rice and wheat. But the irrigation of rice is water intensive, and the rapid depletion of groundwater in those states was putting the country’s food supply at risk.
So in 2008, the state governments mandated the delay of sowing until the start of the monsoon season, pushing back the harvest and burning of stubble.
Before the change, the winds at harvest time were “active, turbulent, with more ventilation,” Mickley said, demonstrating on a video call by moving her hands back and forth. “Later, the polluted air hugs the Earth.” She stacked her arms one above the other.“We now have remarkable satellite images of huge swaths of smoke just making their way slowly, slowly,” she said. Since 2018, she and her colleagues have published academic papers documenting these effects.
The delay in rice cultivation has also prompted even more field burning than before, according to interviews with farmers, household surveys and satellite data. That’s because farmers have less time to prepare the fields for their next crop, usually wheat, and need to clear the fields more urgently. Harvard researchers found that the shift in timing has coincided with 40 percent more burning in Punjab.“We have to take a step back and consider the whole picture,” said Tina Liu, another researcher who was at Harvard when she quantified the delay’s impact on air pollution. “There is this trade-off between the economics of getting the agricultural season transition smoothly versus the impact on people’s health.”
Despite the evidence, the government officer who drafted the law denies any impact on air pollution.“There is not even a single unintentional consequence from this law,” said Kahan Singh Pannu, Punjab’s former secretary of the agriculture department. He said the delay in sowing times has not delayed harvests because new rice varieties take less time to mature. If the winds are now carrying smoke over Delhi, it may be due to climate change, he said, not his law.
Raised in a farming family, Pannu said he had grown alarmed by 2006 that Punjab’s water table was descending at an alarming speed. It took him a half hour to draft the law delaying the rice cultivation, he recalled, and the measure was steadily adopted over the following years.“If this law hadn’t been made, there would be no [rice] paddy in north India by now, and our country could be importing food grains,” he said.
Flames on the horizon
The government bans the burning of fields, but a household survey by the researchers conducted in 2016 and 2017 found that as many as 80 percent of Punjab’s farmers burned the residue of their rice crops.
Since 2019, the Indian Supreme Court has repeatedly issued orders trying to hold farmers and government officials accountable for the burning, but the practice persists, filling Delhi’s skies every winter with carcinogens.
Under a rising full moon, Punjabi farmers who work for Sangha’s cousin recently explained why they feel forced to burn the fields after harvesting basmati rice. For one, they said, using a machine to gather the rice stubble is too expensive and takes too long. They also said that nutrients from the burned stubble help nourish the subsequent wheat crop.
In a neighboring district, another farmer gathered stubble remaining from his harvest into rows. Then he took a matchbox from his pocket, struck a match and threw it onto the stubble. The fire moved down the rows of stubble, issuing dark smoke and leaving heaps of ash. He nudged the burning material forward with a pitchfork and covered his nose with a handkerchief, periodically pausing to rub his burning eyes.“I don’t have any other option,” said the 26-year-old farmer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the activity is illegal. He pointed toward the dark cloud forming above. “If I start thinking about pollution, I will end up starving my family.”Within 15 minutes, his 10 acres of land were covered in a thick layer of smoke. Dozens of other fires were visible along the horizon.
At its root, the issue goes deeper than a change in timing, according to Jyoti Pande Lavakare, a clean air advocate in Delhi, who dates the problem to India’s adoption of Green Revolution agricultural practices 60 years ago. The adoption of new farming techniques, irrigation and fertilizer allowed Punjabi farmers to begin growing rice along with wheat in an area where other crops requiring less water had long been cultivated. But rice cultivation is increasingly unsustainable here, agriculture experts say.
Now, the delay in sowing may be taking a toll, not only on Delhi’s air but on the global climate.
Some scholars have shown how crop burning releases black carbon, a greenhouse gas even more effective than carbon dioxide at absorbing light and warming the atmosphere. Some scientists, and even the Indian government, have found that black carbon, commonly known as soot, is falling onto the glaciers of the Himalaya Mountains, heating the surface and quickening the melting.“Human beings are inventive and we always want to fix things,” said Mickley. But, she added, “Scientists and policymakers should be aware that unintended consequences can occur when we change something on a large scale, like the timing for crops for hundreds of thousands of farms.” US and India lead G20 on climate action, report says (The Guardian)
The Guardian [11/21/2024 10:00 AM, Jonathan Watts, 92374K, Neutral]
The United States and India have made the greatest progress among the world’s top 20 economies in implementing climate policies since the 2016 Paris Agreement, a study commissioned by the Guardian has found.
The data underscores the importance of political leadership and international coordination, both of which are coming under intense pressure ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has threatened to pull the US out of the United Nations climate treaty.
Over the past nine years, the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies have together introduced policies that are likely to reduce CO2 discharges by 6.9 gigatons by 2030, the report by Climate Action Tracker shows.
Although this is not enough to keep global heating within the Paris target of 1.5C to 2C above preindustrial levels, the authors of the study say it is a substantial improvement on what was forecast in 2015, showing the Cop process – despite its many flaws – has had some effect in reducing the climate dangers facing the world.
Instead of emissions increasing by 20% between 2015 and 2030, as was predicted at the start of that period, the new policies – mostly to support renewable energy and phase out high-polluting power plants – adopted by most countries mean that CO2 emissions are now projected to return to 2015 levels by the end of this decade. This change in the policy scenario has contributed to avoided warming of about 0.9C since Paris.
"This is nothing to brush off. This is a major improvement in the group of countries covering more than 80% of global emissions," said Leonardo Nascimento, an analyst at Climate Action Tracker, who compiled the statistics. "There is progress at the international level. I completely disagree that Cop is a useless process.".
There are, however, concerns that this already insufficient progress is stalling: Firstly because recent Cop agendas have been dominated by host nations that plan to expand fossil fuel production, including Egypt (Cop27), the United Arab Emirates (Cop28), Azerbaijan (the ongoing Cop29), and Brazil (next year’s Cop30). Prominent critics have said the process needs reform because it is "not fit for purpose.".
The other major threat comes from Trump, who will take power in January. Once again, by taking the world’s most powerful nation out of the Paris Agreement negotiations. Conservative supporters urge him to go further and entirely remove the US from the Cop process and roll back the renewable incentives introduced during the administration of Joe Biden.
This is a worry for two reasons. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which supports solar, wind, electric vehicles and energy efficiency, is the main reason the US leads the G20 in projected CO2 reductions from 2015 to 2030. It accounts for two gigatons, far ahead of second-place India with 1.4Gt, and third-place European Union, and the UK with 1.1Gt. Depending on how far Trump goes with his rollback, these gains could be lost.
The other reason is the message this sends to the world. Different countries may be less inclined to accelerate the energy transition and provide funds for mitigation, adaptation and compensation for developing nations if the biggest economy steps back.
With global emissions still rising despite two years of record heat, frustrations with Cop are growing. Climate Action Tracker says current policies put the temperature rise on track for 2.7C by the end of the century, which would be calamitous.
Analysts said it was essential for nations to step up rather than back.
Relative to their size, many smaller countries have made greater progress than the US in trimming emissions. And some large emerging economies are moving in the right direction. China – the world’s biggest emitter – has invested heavily in renewables and is forecast to hit some of its 2030 climate targets six years early and perhaps peak its CO2 output next year. "It is not just developed countries that are doing a lot, it is also developing nations with big populations and big inequality," Nascimento said.
The analyst said that under the most optimistic projections, global emissions may finally peak next year – though this long-awaited moment has been wrongly predicted on multiple occasions in the past. The key, he said, is to maintain the political momentum behind the technological and business trends that have made wind and solar cheaper than coal, oil and gas.
"Fossil fuels are growing in a linear fashion, while renewables are growing exponentially. The displacement is happening faster than expected," he said. "But we must not underestimate the impact of Trump. If the US, the world’s second-largest emitter, were to permanently walk away from its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, our optimistic scenario for global temperature could increase by a few tenths of a degree, which would be very significant. It also depends on whether countries continue to pursue climate action in the light of cheap renewables and whether other leaders like EU, China, Brazil and others step up and remain united.".
"Despite improvements in global climate policy, the overall direction of travel remains bleak," Nascimento said. "Countries need to substantially scale up past efforts to keep any chance of meeting the 1.5C goal. The pace of improvement is simply not enough.". India’s Modi seeks energy security from Guyana and its vast oil deposits (AP)
AP [11/21/2024 5:36 PM, Bert Wilkinson, 31638K, Positive]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday during a visit to Guyana that his government views the South American country as key to its energy security.
Modi spoke a day after his foreign minister said India is interested in buying up to two million barrels of crude from the oil-producing nation where vast deposits of oil and gas were found offshore nearly a decade ago.
Addressing a special sitting of Parliament at the end of his two-day trip, Modi said he views Guyana as an important energy source and that he plans to encourage large Indian businesses to invest in the country.
Guyana produces about 650,000 barrels a day of sweet, light crude oil from three oil fields, with production expected to ramp up to more than one million barrels daily, with production at three more oilfields slated to start in the next three years.
On Wednesday, External Affairs Minister Jaideep Mazumdar said India was not necessarily disappointed about not being able to seal a long-term oil sale deal with Guyana, saying talks will continue. He said such a deal would ensure "greater predictability."
The two sides did sign a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday to strengthen cooperation for hydrocarbon trade and petroleum products.
Guyanese Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat told reporters that while Guyana is willing to supply India with a large amount of crude, the matter is not simple because ExxonMobil, the main operator in Guyana’s offshore oil production, would have to be consulted and agree to such an arrangement.
"We know Exxon has to do some amount of changes to their lifting schedule and logistics because their preference is for the very large vessels that can accommodate two million barrels mainly because of distance and cost," Bharrat said.
He added that Guyana prefers that Indian companies bid for oil blocks and that negotiations could occur if a bid is submitted. Indian PM Modi highlights interest in Guyana’s oil (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/21/2024 1:31 PM, Staff, 88008K, Positive]
Visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday his country is interested in oil from Guyana, the small South American nation with the world’s highest per capita crude reserves. In a speech to parliament, Modi said demand for energy in India is growing and it is diversifying its sources."In this regard, we view Guyana as an important energy source," Modi said.On Wednesday, Indian foreign ministry official Jaideep Mazumdar told reporters his country wants predictability as it buys oil."We need large quantities and if we were to know well in advance the quantities that are available, the contracts would be much more easy to conclude," said Mazumdar.India wants prices set in advance but Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, said Wednesday his country did not want to make that commitment.Guyana, which sits on the northeast coast of South America and borders Venezuela, produces just over 600,000 barrels per day of crude oil but aims to double this by 2030.On Wednesday the two countries signed a series of cooperation agreements in agriculture, military affairs and hydrocarbon fuel.Some 40 percent of the population of Guyana is of Indian origin. Wildlife monitoring tech used to harass, spy on women in India (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [11/21/2024 8:31 PM, Staff, 88008K, Negative]
Camera traps, drones and other technology for monitoring wildlife like tigers and elephants are being used to intimidate, harass and even spy on women in India, researchers said on Friday. In one particularly egregious example, a photo of an autistic women relieving herself in the forest was shared by local men on social media, prompting villagers to destroy nearby camera traps.Trishant Simlai, a researcher at the UK’s Cambridge University, spent 14 months interviewing some 270 people who live near the Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India.For women living in villages around the reserve, the forest has long been a space for "freedom and expression" away from the men in a "heavily conservative and patriarchal society," Simlai told AFP.The women sing, talk about taboo subjects such as sex, and sometimes drink and smoke while collecting firewood and grass from the forest.But the introduction of camera traps, drones and sound recorders as part of efforts to track and protect tigers and other wildlife has extended "the male gaze of the society into the forest," Simlai said.On multiple occasions, drones were deliberately flown over the heads of women, forcing them to drop their firewood and flee for cover, according to a study led by Simlai in the journal Environment and Planning.‘We are afraid’"We cannot walk in front of the cameras or sit in the area with our Kurtis (tunics) above our knees, we are afraid that we might get photographed or recorded in a wrong way," a local woman was quoted in the study saying.A forest ranger told the researchers that when a camera trap took a photo of a couple engaging in "romance" in the forest, "we immediately reported it to the police".In perhaps the most appalling example, a photo of an autistic woman from a marginalised caste relieving herself in the forest was inadvertently taken by a camera trap in 2017.Young men appointed as temporary forest workers shared the photo on local Whatsapp and Facebook groups to "shame the woman," Simlai said."We broke and set fire to every camera trap we could find after the daughter of our village was humiliated in such a brazen way," one local told the researchers.Aiming to avoid the cameras, some women have started roaming farther into the forest, which has the highest density of tigers in the world.The women also sing less than they used to, which was used to deter animal attacks.One local woman -- who spoke about fear of cameras forcing her into "unfamiliar spaces" in 2019 -- was killed by a tiger earlier this year, Simlai said.‘New ways to harass women’Another woman took advantage of the constant surveillance."Whenever her husband would beat her, she would run in front of the camera so that her husband did not follow her," Simlai said.Overall, "these technologies are actually very good" and are revolutionising conservation efforts, Simlai emphasised.But he called for more consultation with local communities about the technology, as well as more transparency and oversight from forest authorities, and sensitive training for local workers."A lot of that can be done by conservation organisations that -- in the first instance -- introduced these technologies to the government," Sim added.Rosaleen Duffy, a conservation expert at Sheffield University in the UK, told AFP that "sadly" she was not surprised by this research."What surprises me is conservationists who imagine that technologies can be introduced and used in a social, political and economic vacuum," she said."The cases in this research are not accidental," Duffy pointed out. "They were actively using the drones to provide new ways of continuing to harass women."While this technology can be a powerful tool to conserve wildlife, "there must be clear rules for what they can and cannot be used for, and clear consequences for anyone misusing them," she added. India Welcomes Donald Trump’s Second Term (Wall Street Journal – opinion)
Wall Street Journal [11/20/2024 4:26 PM, Sadanand Dhume, 810K, Neutral]
Some countries have greeted Donald Trump’s election with despair. In India, the dominant feeling is hope.
Many pundits and policymakers in the world’s most populous nation view Mr. Trump’s return to the White House as an opportunity to boost U.S.-India ties. They’re optimistic about the president-elect’s rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They appreciate Mr. Trump’s clear-eyed view of China and Pakistan, as well as the cabinet members he has nominated to implement his foreign policy. And they believe Mr. Trump will end the war in Ukraine and repair U.S. relations with Russia. Trump 2.0 puts India “in a geopolitical sweet spot,” tweeted Yusuf Unjhawala, a foreign-policy expert with Bangalore’s Takshashila Institution.
Mr. Trump’s devotees in India also believe that the incoming administration is less likely than the outgoing one to listen to left-leaning Western nongovernmental organizations and publications that are hostile to Mr. Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Some of Mr. Modi’s most prominent foreign critics—such as the financier George Soros—are also foes of Mr. Trump. The proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” puts Mr. Modi in the same bucket as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who are also loathed by progressives.
Unlike China, Russia or Iran, India won’t be among the most pressing concerns facing the new administration. Nonetheless, since Mr. Trump was first elected, India has become a bigger player on the world stage. In 2016, India’s $2.3 trillion economy was the world’s seventh largest at market exchange rates. Today, India’s $3.9 trillion economy is the fifth largest. Bilateral trade in goods and services grew from $114 billion in 2016 to $195 billion in 2023, which made India America’s ninth-largest trading partner.
During his first term, Mr. Trump appeared to build rapport with Mr. Modi. The leaders spoke together at joint rallies in Houston in 2019 and Ahmedabad in 2020. On the campaign trail this year, Mr. Trump referred to Mr. Modi as “a friend” and “the nicest human being.” According to media reports, the Indian prime minister was among the first global leaders to congratulate Mr. Trump on his election victory this month.
On the policy front, the U.S. deepened its defense cooperation with India during the first Trump administration. New Delhi signed agreements to allow greater intelligence sharing and interoperability with the U.S. military. India also significantly increased its purchases of U.S. oil and gas from $4.1 billion in 2018 to $9.5 billion in 2021.
Early on during the first Trump administration, Washington cited its relationship with India as a key part of its broader Indo-Pacific strategy. The U.S. eased export controls on the country, put pressure on Pakistan to stop supporting Islamist terrorism, and backed New Delhi in 2020 after clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Himalayas killed dozens of soldiers. Mr. Trump also revived the Quad, an informal grouping of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia.
U.S.-India ties have continued to deepen on President Biden’s watch. His administration feted Mr. Modi at a state visit to Washington last summer, ensured that India successfully hosted the Group of 20 summit later that year, stepped up technological cooperation and further raised the profile of the Quad.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. The sharp downturn in U.S.-Russia relations following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has disconcerted Indian policymakers, who worry that Russia, an old friend and major arms supplier to India, will be pushed irrevocably into Beijing’s embrace.
Another complication: The ouster by protesters this year of Bangladesh’s India-friendly prime minister Sheikh Hasina raised fears in New Delhi that the Muslim-majority nation will endanger India’s security by lurching toward religious extremism. Ms. Hasina’s exit “left scars with the security establishment in India” and strengthened skeptics of closer cooperation with the U.S., said Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of the think tank Observer Research Foundation America, in a phone interview.
Many Indians view 84-year-old Bangladeshi interim leader Muhammad Yunus as an ineffectual figurehead manipulated by Islamists and the military. Mr. Trump appeared to echo those concerns when he called out the deterioration of law and order in Bangladesh under Mr. Yunus. “I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Oct. 31.
Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks are another reason for Indian optimism. The nominees for secretary of state (Marco Rubio) and national security adviser (Mike Waltz) are both proponents of closer U.S.-India ties. Mr. Rubio has called for a military pact with India and for New Delhi to be treated on par with close U.S. allies such as Israel, Japan and South Korea. Mr. Waltz served as co-chairman of the India Caucus on Capitol Hill.
This doesn’t mean U.S.-India relations won’t face hiccups during the second Trump administration. The war in Ukraine and the U.S. promotion of liberal democracy are complex issues not easily addressed. Last time round, India’s protectionist trade policies led to a mini trade war between the two countries. And Mr. Trump’s crackdown on immigration will almost certainly ruffle feathers in New Delhi. On the whole, though, India has good reason to welcome Mr. Trump’s return to the White House. NSB
Once a free-market pioneer, Sri Lanka takes a leap to the left (The Economist)
The Economist [11/21/2024 7:28 AM, Staff, 7430K, Positive]
Sri Lanka was once a pioneer of free-market capitalism in South Asia. After J.R. Jayewardene took power with a super-majority in 1977, he introduced a French-style executive presidency and economic reforms that overturned the left-wing orthodoxy of the previous two decades. Cheered on by Western governments concerned about Soviet influence, Sri Lanka became the first country in the region to liberalise its economy.South Asia’s most developed nation has now leapt back to the left. It was surprising enough that Anura Kumara Dissanayake, an outlier from a party with Marxist roots, won a presidential election on September 21st. More stunning still was his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition’s landslide victory in a parliamentary poll on November 14th. It won 159 of 225 seats, more than enough to change the constitution. Previously, the NPP had just three.Mr Dissanayake’s mandate is another clear warning to South Asia’s political and business elites in 2024, following electoral upsets in Pakistan and India and a student-led revolution in Bangladesh. Considering his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party’s past links to China, his victory could intensify that country’s tussle with India for influence in the region. It is also a test for the International Monetary Fund (imf), given his pledge to review a bail-out.But the outcome raises questions for Mr Dissanayake too. What exactly does “Comrade President” (as he was introduced at rallies) plan to do with his vast powers and how will ideology shape those plans? Can he meet voters’ high expectations within the IMF’s constraints? And how open to criticism and political opposition will he be if public support wanes?His campaigns were based on broad promises to end endemic corruption and cronyism. That proved hugely effective among voters still reeling from Sri Lanka’s first debt default, in 2022. Mass protests ousted the president that year, and though his successor stabilised the economy and secured a $2.9bn IMF bail-out, voters penalised him in September over continuing corruption and austerity measures.Opponents portrayed Mr Dissanayake as a dangerous radical. They cited the JVP’s two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s (the party renounced violence in 1994). They pointed to his paltry government experience—he was briefly an agriculture minister two decades ago. And they said he would cause a financial crisis by trying to renegotiate the IMF bail-out.So far, such warnings have been unwarranted: Mr Dissanayake has been far more of a pragmatist than a revolutionary. As he often boasted in election rallies, he has run the country with a cabinet of just three for almost two months without spooking markets. Harini Amarasuriya, the prime minister whom he reappointed on November 18th, is widely respected. And the cabinet of 21 people he named after this month’s election includes a sensible balance of academics, seasoned politicians and new faces.His handling of the IMF has been especially telling. While it may be possible to adjust tax rates and other parts of the existing plan for meeting bail-out benchmarks, some feared that he would demand much more, potentially re-opening debt-restructuring talks with creditors, including India and China. But in a meeting with an IMF team that arrived in Sri Lanka on November 17th, Mr Dissanayake committed to the existing agreement, according to people familiar with the discussions. “That question is at least resolved in the short term and that is important for the stability of the economy,” said one.At the same time, in a nod to the public pressure he faces to increase social spending, Mr Dissanayake urged the IMF to maintain a “balanced approach that considers the hardships faced by citizens”. And his government did not provide details on longer-term questions, such as its growth strategy and its views on trade or the role of the state sector. “That’s where you will have an ideological issue,” predicts Murtaza Jafferjee of Advocata Institute, a think-tank in Colombo, the capital. He fears that the government’s protectionist and statist instincts could stifle badly needed productivity growth.Some answers may become clearer in the next few weeks, when Mr Dissanayake is expected to present an interim budget. Not all Sri Lankans may like what they hear. For the moment, though, most are just glad to be rid of a political old guard that pushed their once promising economy to the brink of collapse. Central Asia
Central Asia Investing in Itself (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [11/21/2024 9:19 AM, Staff, 1198K, Positive]
Foreign investment has long been a focus for Central Asia, but regional countries are now increasingly investing within the region itself.Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s visit to Astana in August 2024 marked the inaugural meeting of the Supreme Interstate Council of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. As both parties celebrated strides made in bilateral cooperation, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for the accelerated development of an International Center for Industrial Cooperation, located in the border regions of Syrdarya and Turkestan. The center, with special economic zone status in Uzbekistan and industrial zone status in Kazakhstan, offers significant investment appeal through tax and regulatory incentives designed to draw greater foreign capital.Foreign investment has long been a focus for Central Asia, as net recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI), but regional countries are now increasingly investing within the region itself. As of the first half of 2023, the Eurasian Development Bank reported 27 large-scale mutual FDI projects among Central Asian countries, valued at $1.1 billion, almost double the volume in 2016. The EDB identified Kazakhstan (87 percent) and Uzbekistan (13 percent) as the largest regional investors, with Kyrgyzstan receiving the majority of intra-regional FDI (63 percent). Tajikistan is also a net recipient of Central Asian capital.Recent developments suggest an expansion in both the scale and scope of investment cooperation, including through joint ventures and portfolio investments.A key milestone in these efforts was the trilateral agreement signed by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan to construct the Kambar-Ata-1 hyropower plant on the Naryn River. Announced at the International Energy Investment Forum in Vienna in June 2024, the $4.5 billion project has garnered interest from major donors, including the World Bank, Eurasian Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Financing will also come from the three Central Asian governments, each taking an equity stake in the joint-stock company established to oversee the project.What’s noteworthy about this investment cooperation is not only its sheer scale, but that it focuses on the energy sector, signaling a regional commitment to sustainable development and energy security.In fact, downstream countries Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are increasingly investing in renewable energy in upstream republics, in part to address energy security concerns. For example, Uzbekistan is backing two hydropower plants (with a combined capacity of 275 MW) along the Zarafshan River in Tajikistan, totaling $552 million that will provide electricity to Uzbekistan as well. Uzbekistan is also supporting a 6.7 MW hydropower plant in Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan, through the Uzbek-Kyrgyz Development Fund. Kazakhstan is investing in solar power in Kyrgyzstan with the $35 million “Kun-Bulagy” power plant in the Issyk-Kul region.Beyond energy, Central Asian nations are making inroads in joint logistics projects, essential for facilitating intra-regional trade. PTC Holding from Kazakhstan is establishing a logistics hub near Tashkent with an initial investment of $70 million, expected to grow to $230 million by 2034. The center will channel cargo flows from China, Southeast Asia, CIS countries, and West Asia to Uzbekistan and the other way round, also benefiting Kazakhstan as a transit location. In turn, Uzbekistan is financing logistics initiatives in Tajikistan, such as the Oybek and Fatekhobod trade-industrial zones and the Andarkhon logistics center in the Sughd region.Industrial cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan continues to grow, with Kazakh officials projecting 60 joint projects worth $2.6 billion. Existing Kazakh projects in Uzbekistan include an autoclaved aerated concrete plant in the Tashkent region ($12 million), and three cement plants – Kusavaycement, Bekabadcement, and Kyzylkum Cement. In Kyrgyzstan, one of Kazakhstan’s major investments is KazMinerals’ Bozymchak gold and copper mine, valued at $350 million.Uzbekistan’s investments across Central Asia prioritize high-value manufacturing, with projects in Kazakhstan such as an metallurgical plant in Taraz ($121.3 million), a metal rolling facility in Almaty ($60 million), a household appliances manufacturing plant in the Karaganda region ($54.2 million), a steel blanks plant in the Kostanay region ($40 million), and an automobile production partnership in Kostanay with SaryarkaAvtoProm ($50 million). In Kyrgyzstan, UzAuto jointly with Kyrgyz DT Technic oversaw the launch of the Tulpar Motors plant ($50 million). In 2023, Tashkent and Bishkek signed 15 intergovernmental agreements, including investment agreements on the joint pharmaceutical production facility ($10 million), and a joint production of plastic pipes, plastic products and furniture in Kyrgyzstan ($3 million). Meanwhile, in Tajikistan, Uzbek firms have established a textile production plant and a utility appliances manufacturing plant.Uzbekistan’s approach to regional industrial investments frequently involves joint investment funds, a model demonstrating long-term commitment to neighboring markets. The Uzbek-Kyrgyz Development Fund, founded in 2021 with $50 million in capital, reportedly holds a portfolio of 33 projects valued at $186 million. Similarly, the Tajik-Uzbek Investment Company, formed with a capital pool of $12 million (later increased to $50 million), is planning to implement 14 projects valued at $135 million in Tajikistan. Uzbekistan is also considering the possibility of creating a joint investment fund with Kazakhstan.In the financial sector, Kazakhstan stands as a leader in regional investments. The Uzbek subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s Halyk Bank, Tenge Bank, holds an FDI stock exceeding $100 million, along with $400 million in direct loans for Uzbek projects. Halyk used to have a subsidiary in the Kyrgyz Republic, which was sold to Visor, a company majority owned by Kazakhstani businessman Aidan Karibzhanov, for around $38 million, and is now called “O! Bank.” The new owners of the rebranded bank are planning to create a “financial ecosystem.” In addition, Kazakhstan’s Freedom Bank announced plans to open a subsidiary in Tajikistan.The export of Kazakhstan’s fin-tech expertise to neighboring markets represents another remarkable tendency in mutual investments. Compared to investments from external actors, which often focus heavily on extractive industries, intra-regional investments in Central Asia are notably more diverse, covering sectors with higher added value, such as manufacturing, infrastructure, and financial services. This mirrors regional trade patterns, which a recent study by CAPS Unlock showed are more diversified and less commodity-focused compared to Central Asia’s trade with external markets.Despite these promising trends in mutual investment, challenges remain. Most incoming capital in Central Asia still originates from outside the region. Structural challenges – small markets, limited infrastructure, property rights issues, informality, regulatory hurdles, and fiscal pressures – continue to complicate investment conditions for both foreign and regional investors. However, the latter hold a competitive advantage while entering the Central Asian markets, at least according to the Uppsala model of internationalization. In that model, firms’ entry into international markets starts with the neighboring markets given geographical and cultural proximity as well as similar business environments.Whether regional businesses can fully leverage such familiarity advantage depends on the pace and scale of improvements to business environments and enhanced infrastructure. The impetus for deeper investment cooperation from the top appears steady. Journalist seized in Turkmenistan ahead of Swiss award ceremony, say rights groups (Reuters)
Reuters [11/21/2024 11:39 AM, Emma Farge, 37270K, Negative]
A journalist was seized by security forces in Turkmenistan as she was due to travel to Switzerland for an international human rights award ceremony, a group of NGOs said on Thursday, calling for her immediate release.
Turkmenistan’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Authorities in Turkmenistan could not immediately be reached.
Soltan Achilova, a journalist and photographer, was set to be presented with a Martin Ennals Award, a high-profile human rights award at a ceremony in Geneva this week.
Achilova was awarded the prize in 2021 but could not claim it as the ceremony was held virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But on Nov. 20 ahead of her scheduled departure, security forces pushed her and two family members into an ambulance and took her to a hospital for infectious diseases where she is being held under guard, the group of 11 NGOs including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
"(We) once again condemn Turkmen authorities for their continued harassment of woman human rights defender and photojournalist Soltan Achilova and her family members and call for their immediate release," the statement said.
"We are very worried for her life," Manon Karatas, director of the Martin Ennals Foundation, which is one of the statement’s signatories, told Reuters. She added that Achilova is diabetic.
Last year, during an initial attempt to travel to Switzerland to claim the prize, she was blocked at the airport in Turkmenistan by officials who alleged her passport was not valid, Karatas said.
The Martin Ennals award, named for a former secretary-general of Amnesty International, has been awarded annually since 1994 based on a jury of 10 global rights groups.
This year’s prize went to an Afghan activist Zholia Parsi and Manuchehr Kholiknazarov from Tajikistan, a lawyer currently being detained. Past recipients include jailed Chinese lawyer Yu Wensheng. Indo-Pacific
With Start of Trilateral Hydropower Trade, South Asia Begins Historic Cooperation (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [11/21/2024 7:52 AM, Staff, 1198K, Negative]
Regional cooperation received a boost with the inauguration of a project that will see Nepali hydropower supplied to Bangladesh via the Indian power grid.On November 15, a trilateral power-sharing agreement between India, Nepal, and Bangladesh came into effect. Under the agreement, which was signed on October 3, hydropower-rich Nepal will export 40 MW of electricity to energy-starved Bangladesh through the Indian power grid.Nepal and Bangladesh do not share a border; hence, India, which connects the two countries, is part of the transborder power trade initiative. The project, which was jointly inaugurated by ministers from the three countries, is a historic milestone in regional cooperation.It is the first trilateral hydropower project in South Asia.India, Nepal, and Bangladesh are also collaborating to develop the 683 MW Sunkoshi-3 hydropower project. While the dam is located 60 km from Kathmandu in Nepal, the project will be jointly developed by conglomerates and developers in the three countries in cooperation with the three governments.According to media reports, relations between India and Nepal, and between India and Bangladesh, are not in the best of health.New Delhi is said to be upset with Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli and has therefore not extended him an invitation to visit India. India’s relations with Bangladesh are said to have soured after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reported to have “rejected” a request from Bangladesh for a meeting with Chief Adviser of the Interim Government Muhammad Yunus on the sidelines of the recent United Nations General Assembly summit in New York.Their difficult relationships notwithstanding, cooperation among these countries on multilateral projects is making progress on the ground. The recent launch of the trilateral power supply agreement between Nepal, India, and Bangladesh is an example.India-Nepal hydro-power sharing goes back several decades. Last year, the two countries signed agreements providing for India’s purchase of 10,000 MW of hydropower from Nepal in the next 10 years.There has been progress in the India-Nepal fuel supply connectivity too. On September 10, 2019, the two countries reached a historic milestone when they inaugurated a 69-kilometer-long oil pipeline from Nepal’s Amalekhunj to India’s Motihari. The $45 million India-funded pipeline is the first cross-border oil pipeline in South Asia. India, which is landlocked Nepal’s sole supplier of fuel, previously transported oil to Nepal only through tankers. The oil pipeline has now enabled Nepal to import fuel at a lower cost. In effect, the India-Nepal pipeline will save Nepal about $8.7 million annually in transport costs for fuel.Intra-South Asia connectivity is among the worst in the world. Bilateral tensions, anti-India sentiments, and apprehension of the smaller countries that India will dominate their far smaller economies have stood in the way of improving connectivity.As a result, South Asian countries suffer from poor “HAT” connectivity, where H stands for hydropower, A for aviation, and T for transit and tourism.Transborder hydropower projects are few and far between in South Asia and the full potential of bilateral and trilateral cooperation between hydropower-exporting countries like Nepal and Bhutan and importing countries like India and Bangladesh is yet to be tapped.As for aviation, flying from Kathmandu in Nepal to Thimphu in Bhutan — the two countries are separated by a narrow strip of Indian territory — is more difficult than flying from Kathmandu to Thailand. There is no direct flight between New Delhi and Islamabad. Travelers have to take flights via cities in the Gulf.Transit travel is not easier either. Bangladesh is less than half an hour’s drive from Nepal’s eastern border. However, in order to travel to Bangladesh, a Nepali traveler from Far East Nepal has to go to the Bangladesh embassy in Kathmandu, which is a 15-hour-long drive away, to get a visa. To come to Nepal from Bangladesh via India, there are troubling single entry or double entry issues, which are hurting potential tourism connectedness in the region.Nepal’s hydropower exports to Bangladesh and India’s oil exports to Nepal via pipelines, are among the rare transborder connectivity projects in South Asia.As the largest country in South Asia and the only one that shares borders with almost all the region’s countries, India is in a unique position to facilitate, even lead, HAT connectivity initiatives.India’s recent efforts on the energy connectivity front vis-à-vis some of its neighbors indicate that it is keen to emerge as a hub for trading in electricity and petroleum products in the region. Besides, Nepal and Bangladesh, where it has stepped up power connectivity cooperation, India will supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) for Sri Lanka’s power plants. It is also working on an undersea transmission line for supplying electricity to the island nation.However, such transborder power transmission arrangements are not always easy. India’s Adani Power has been supplying electricity to Bangladesh since April 2023. However, in the wake of the forex crisis and the political crisis following the resignation of Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh has not been able to pay over $800 million in dues to Adani Power. Adani Power has cut supply by over 60 percent and says it will resume supply once Bangladesh begins to repay the outstanding amount. With post-Hasina bilateral relations in a state of flux, India seems unwilling to budge from its position.Despite some visible irritants on the diplomatic and political fronts, voices in support of regional connectivity and cooperation are growing in all countries. Such cooperation is an important item on the agenda of private players. South Asian governments need to heed their demands and match their energy on the issue of regional cooperation. Twitter
Afghanistan
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/21/2024 2:42 PM, 244.7K followers, 43 retweets, 245 likes]
Heela Najibullah, daughter of Afghanistan’s former president, who was killed by the Taliban, says that while she doesn’t expect other countries to defend women’s rights, she does expect Afghans, especially the politicians, to take a stand. https://x.com/i/status/1859683843596484992
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/21/2024 11:35 AM, 244.7K followers, 37 retweets, 133 likes]
44 civilians, including women and children, were massacred in Pakhtunkhwa. The minority Pashtun Shia tribes face systematic persecution and violence at the hands of Sunni extremist groups, supported by the Pakistani spy agency.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[11/21/2024 11:04 AM, 244.7K followers, 175 retweets, 609 likes]
Resistance fighters in the Hindu Kush vow to keep battling Taliban rule despite severe weather, limited resources, and no global support. Attacks by NRF and AFF targeting the Taliban across Afghanistan have intensified in recent months. https://x.com/i/status/1859629014345986547 Freshta Razbaan@RazbaanFreshta
[11/21/2024 4:58 AM, 5K followers, 4 retweets, 6 likes] This is the generation the Taliban wants to keep locked up at home. This is the song the Taliban wants to silence. This is the courage and beauty that scares the Taliban.
Freshta Razbaan@RazbaanFreshta
[11/21/2024 4:31 AM, 5K followers, 8 retweets, 19 likes]
I just wanted to give a massive shoutout to all of you who have been working tirelessly to help save your Afghan allies. You’ve shown the world that America stands by its friends, no matter what. You’ve proven that the U.S. doesn’t turn its back on its allies and that means the world to us. Seriously, thank you so much for your dedication and effort. It’s truly appreciated and deserves all the recognition it gets. Keep up the great work! Pakistan
Imran Khan@ImranKhanPTI
[11/21/2024 1:54 AM, 21M followers, 4.7K retweets, 8.5K likes]
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s media talk at Adiala Jail: (November 21, 2024)
We will protest on Sunday, November 24th, under any circumstances. Pakistan has been made into a banana republic. Democracy, the constitution, and the rule of law have all been annihilated from our country. Ever since the passage of the 26th Amendment, the High Courts and the Supreme Court have become as powerless as district courts, from where nobody can get any justice.
The Pakistani nation must come out on the 24th for the future of their generations. I received a message that if we postpone the protest for ten days, then negotiations can take place. Among our demands is the release of innocent political prisoners, which could have been acted upon immediately. Our party leaders have been imprisoned in Lahore on fabricated charges for over a year-and-a-half. Releasing them would have been a positive step towards serious negotiations. I have been in jail for over a year, and during this time, I have been implicated in more than sixty cases. Instead of releasing me yesterday after bail was granted by the High Court, I was arrested in yet another absurd case. This shows that the powers-that-be are not serious about negotiations.
Protesting is our fundamental right. We have already put forth our three demands for which we are protesting and negotiations can be based on. Both the protest and negotiations will continue. We are political representatives, and any progress can only be made through negotiations. If they are serious about negotiations, then all our prisoners who are currently awaiting trial must be released.
Nobody will invest in the country unless there is rule of law. The Indian and Chinese economies were built by the Indian and Chinese diaspora overseas. Countries develop not only through remittances but also through investments. Overseas Pakistanis have known me for the past fifty years. Why would they invest here when they see that there is no rule of law in the country?
You will see on Sunday that overseas Pakistanis will hold historic protests all over the world against the fascism and oppression in Pakistan. They will not have to endure any police brutality because they live in free, democratic countries!
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[11/21/2024 10:46 PM, 215K followers, 3 retweets, 10 likes]
Pakistan recently made a pitch for "smog diplomacy" with India. In reality, the India-Pakistan smog crisis can’t be fixed through regional diplomacy—because the main causes are meteorological patterns and national-level policy. Latest for @ForeignPolicy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/20/india-pakistan-smog-pollution-climate-health/
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[11/21/2024 8:20 AM, 215K followers, 206 retweets, 656 likes]
Pakistan is reeling from a series of mass-casualty terrorist attacks in recent days, including a horrific one today that killed dozens of civilians. Pakistan has seen upticks in terror for 3+ years, but the number of attacks and fatalities appears to now be intensifying.
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[11/21/2024 8:20 AM, 215K followers, 11 retweets, 46 likes]
The current wave of terror has largely been in the west and north and mostly targeted security forces, in contrast to the 2007-2014 period that saw a nationwide campaign of terror targeting anyone. But with no clear CT strategy, a danger of a return to that awful earlier period.
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[11/21/2024 8:20 AM, 215K followers, 12 retweets, 46 likes]
What’s concerning is that multiple terrorist actors (TTP, BLA) are expanding their attacks geographically. Today’s attack suggests a possible resurgence of sectarian militancy, whether via Islamic State or local actors like LeJ. Again, the lack of a clear CT strategy stands out.
Hamid Mir@HamidMirPAK
[11/22/2024 12:43 AM, 8.5M followers, 405 retweets, 1.4K likes]
Another journalist Janan Hussain killed in Kurram yesterday along with 42 others. He was coming back from Malaysia and was going home to Parachanar. My condolences to his family and friends. 10 journalists have been killed in Pakistan this year 2024. India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[11/21/2024 5:56 PM, 103.7M followers, 1.6K retweets, 6.9K likes]
Moved by the warmth of the Indian diaspora in Guyana. Addressing a community programme. Do watch. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OyKAZQoAZDGb Rajnath Singh@rajnathsingh
[11/21/2024 5:34 AM, 24.3M followers, 142 retweets, 846 likes]
It is always a matter of immense joy to meet my friend, Lloyd Austin. He has been a great friend to India. His contribution towards strengthening India-US defence partnership has been exemplary. I wish him very best in all his future endeavours. @SecDefRahul Gandhi@RahulGandhi
[11/22/2024 3:29 AM, 27.3M followers, 718 retweets, 1.8K likes]
Air pollution in North India is a national emergency—a public health crisis that is stealing our children’s future and suffocating the elderly, and an environmental and economic disaster that is ruining countless lives. The poorest among us suffer the most, unable to escape the toxic air that surrounds them. Families are gasping for clean air, children are falling sick, and millions of lives are being cut short. Tourism is declining and our global reputation is crumbling. The cloud of pollution covers hundreds of kilometres. Cleaning it up will need major changes and decisive action - from governments, companies, experts and citizens. We need a collective national response, not political blame games. As Parliament meets in a few days, MPs will all be reminded of the crisis by our irritated eyes and sore throats. It is our responsibility to come together and discuss how India can end this crisis once and for all.Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[11/21/2024 8:34 AM, 215K followers, 10 retweets, 27 likes]
Last night I appeared on @BloombergTV to discuss the implications of the Adani indictment—for Adani and his businesses, for India’s renewable energy sector, for US-India relations, and more. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-11-21/what-does-the-adani-case-mean-for-trump-modi-ties-videoRichard Rossow@RichardRossow
[11/21/2024 10:17 AM, 29.6K followers, 1 like]
The U.S. Secretary of Defense and Indian Minister of Defence meet on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting in Laos. Wraps up a very good 4-year run in expanding defense operational cooperation. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2075524
Richard Rossow@RichardRossow
[11/21/2024 10:55 AM, 29.6K followers, 5 retweets, 21 likes]
India draws in $4.1b in FDI (new equity) in September. The 12-month total is $55.2b, up 35% year-on-year. Still well off the mid-Covid peak of $72b in a 12-month period. https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Bulletin/PDFs/34T_20112024535F2DFE59664579A97D010C730D349A.PDF NSB
Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP@bdbnp78
[11/21/2024 7:30 AM, 71.1K followers, 113 retweets, 948 likes]
At a reception marking Armed Forces Day, Begum Khaleda Zia, the BNP chairperson and former prime minister, exchanged pleasantries with Professor Muhammad Yunus, the interim government’s chief advisor. The event, held on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at Sena Kunja in Dhaka Cantonment, saw Professor Yunus delivering his opening remarks as the chief guest. He began by thanking Begum Khaleda Zia for her presence, emphasizing its significance. “Former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia is with us today,” Professor Yunus remarked. “For over a decade, she has not had the opportunity to attend this grand occasion. Today, she joins us, and we are both delighted and proud to have made this possible.” Acknowledging her health challenges, he added, “Despite her physical ailments, we deeply appreciate her participation on this special day.” He extended a warm welcome to her, calling her presence a highlight of the gathering, and wished her a swift recovery.
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[11/21/2024 1:41 PM, 110.9K followers, 100 retweets, 102 likes]
Vice President Uz @HucenSembe attends the ceremony organised by @BCC_mv to inaugurate the Maldives MSME Awards 2025, recognising and celebrating the achievements of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). During the ceremony, the Vice President officially launched the Maldives MSME Awards 2025.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/21/2024 9:21 AM, 137.5K followers, 36 retweets, 442 likes]
Today (21), I appointed 29 Deputy Ministers, who took their oath before me at the Presidential Secretariat. Together, we’ll work towards building a better future for Sri Lanka under the National People’s Power (NPP) government.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake@anuradisanayake
[11/21/2024 9:16 AM, 137.5K followers, 83 retweets, 837 likes]
I just delivered my speech at the inauguration of the 10th Parliament, where I emphasized key priorities: no room for racism, building national unity, restoring Parliament’s dignity and new economic stratrgies We’re focused on stabilizing the economy, strengthening democratic values, and ensuring justice. Together, we will build a stronger, more prosperous Sri Lanka.
Namal Rajapaksa@RajapaksaNamal
[11/22/2024 12:00 AM, 436.6K followers, 1 retweet, 18 likes]
With G.C.E. A/L exams starting Nov 25, the Education Ministry must urgently address disaster risks. Students in flood-prone areas need alternative arrangements to ensure fair access to exams. Many students also couldn’t complete syllabuses due to various issues. No student’s future should be at risk!
Namal Rajapaksa@RajapaksaNamal
[11/21/2024 6:58 AM, 436.6K followers, 19 retweets, 100 likes]
Tragic incident at Mannar General Hospital: Vanaja and her newborn lost their lives due to alleged medical negligence. Locals are holding the hospital accountable and demanding justice. We welcome the immediate government inquiry into this issue and will closely follow every update.
Eran Wickramaratne@EranWick
[11/21/2024 10:37 PM, 70K followers, 14 retweets, 266 likes] Yesterday, I visited parliament and sat in the gallery as a citizen, to watch president @anuradisanayake deliver the government’s policy statement. It was a unifying, ambitious and stirring speech, and for that the president must be commended. I particularly agree with his words on governance, IMF, national harmony, and debt restructuring. However, there are many challenges ahead, especially on the economic front. Therefore, it’s important to make the plans in the policy statement a reality. I wish him the best in that endeavour. Central Asia
Asel Doolotkeldieva@ADoolotkeldieva
[11/22/2024 1:55 AM, 14.1K followers, 3 retweets, 15 likes]
Kyrgyz Parliament finally adopted a long-awaited Law on rehabilitation of the victims of political repressions 1918-1953, after many years of negotiations & deliberations. All taking place in the shadow of fears of Russia’s criticism and provocations https://rus.azattyk.org/a/33208893.html
Asel Doolotkeldieva@ADoolotkeldieva
[11/22/2024 1:55 AM, 14.1K followers, 1 like]
A step that will be celebrated by many in the Kyrgyz civil society and academia. The law is far from perfect, but I hope is the first step in the right direction!
Asel Doolotkeldieva@ADoolotkeldieva
[11/22/2024 2:50 AM, 14.1K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
The story of Avaza sea resort in Turkmenistan is about harm done to nature in connection to the full-invasion of Ukraine. The resort & surrounding expensive infrastructure were built just in 2018 and now face problems due to the drying of the Caspian sea
Asel Doolotkeldieva@ADoolotkeldieva
[11/22/2024 2:50 AM, 14.1K followers, 1 like]
The drying is so significant that Turkmen authorities deepen the seabed near the Turkmenbashi port, in order to increase its capacity within the project of developing the Middle Corridor. The transport corridor seeks to bypass Russia in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion.
Asel Doolotkeldieva@ADoolotkeldieva
[11/22/2024 2:50 AM, 14.1K followers]
I bet, no environmental evaluation has been done on Turkmen side, but what about EU who’s also involved in the project? There are many more new projects on energy, resources & trade in Central Asia that appeared after the war. What’s going to be the price for nature?
MFA Tajikistan@MOFA_Tajikistan
[11/22/2024 2:11 AM, 5K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
Meeting with the EUSR for Central Asia https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/16185/meeting-with-the-eusr-for-central-asia
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[11/21/2024 11:44 AM, 205.7K followers, 2 retweets, 10 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev held a meeting with Igor Krasnov, the Prosecutor General of #RussianFederation. The discussion focused on strengthening cooperation in combating crime, terrorism, extremism, corruption, illegal migration and the recovery of criminal assets.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[11/21/2024 9:05 AM, 205.7K followers, 1 retweet, 11 likes]
Today President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev reviewed proposals to boost youth participation in #sports, focusing on improving conditions for team competitions, sports clubs, and national leagues. He emphasized that sports is a key part of youth policy and stressed the need to create more opportunities for nurturing well-rounded young people.{End of Report} To subscribe to the SCA Morning Press Clips, please email SCA-PressOfficers@state.gov. Please do not reply directly to this email.