epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Thursday, January 30, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Trump’s refugee ban leaves Afghan allies abandoned (Deseret News)
Deseret News [1/29/2025 11:00 PM, Samuel Benson, 57114K, Neutral]
Hashmat, a vehicle contractor in Afghanistan, spent 10 years providing assistance to the U.S. military. His work made him a target for the Taliban; when Kabul collapsed in 2021, he and his family fled to Pakistan.

He was repeatedly assured his allegiance to the Americans would be repaid with a visa to live in the U.S. He underwent security clearances and a medical exam. Finally, in late 2024, his visa application was awaiting final approval.

Last week, his status was instantly put back in limbo.

Hashmat is among the thousands of Afghan allies who were affected by President Donald Trump’s pause on refugee resettlement. Nearly 1,660 Afghans were scheduled to travel to the U.S. and their flights were canceled due to Trump’s order. Others, like Hashmat, were anxiously awaiting the final green light but now have no reasonable expectation of a path forward.

"I really feel disappointed and betrayed," Hashmat, who requested that his last name not be used for safety reasons, told the Deseret News.

Trump promised to halt all refugee admissions into the U.S. on the campaign trail, and he did so within hours of assuming the presidency last week. His executive order, titled "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program," suggested that pausing refugee admissions was a matter of national security, and there is no end date for the pause — only when the president decides resuming resettlement "would be in the interest" of the country.

The pause angered immigrant advocates, faith groups and veterans alike. "Our allies that we put into harm’s way — (Trump) shut them down," said Charles Kuck, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "This is literally going against the very idea of what America is.".

As a whole, refugees are the most thoroughly vetted legal immigrants that enter the U.S., and the visa category for Afghan allies — Special Immigrant Visa — involve the "the most arduous background check in U.S. immigration law," Time reports. Created by Congress in 2009, the Special Immigrant Visa pathway is for Afghan nationals who provided valuable service to the U.S., like interpreters or translators, and were put in danger by doing so. The 14-step process for applicants includes multiple background screenings, a health examination, and a letter of commendation by their U.S. military supervisor.

Hashmat completed these steps years ago. Bureaucratic backlogs — and now this refugee pause — have been his largest hurdles. He began providing ATVs and other non-tactical vehicles to the U.S. military in 2009. A decade later, his first SIV application was rejected over a technical error; in a letter of commendation, the U.S. supervisor did not identify himself specifically as Hashmat’s "direct supervisor." Others tell similar stories: One interpreter told The New York Times he was rejected for "unprofessional conduct" after using profanity in 2013; another was denied because, as a 9-year-old, he gave bread to quell the demands of an angry Taliban member who threatened to burn his house down.

As the U.S. began its withdrawal in 2021, Hashmat went into hiding. He told me in June of that year that he received threats daily on WhatsApp from Taliban members; he didn’t leave his home. Come August, as the Taliban took control of Kabul, Hashmat expected to die. "We are betrayed," he told me. "We are trapped. We are waiting behind a closed door for someone to come and haul us outside and execute us in front of our family." He didn’t know what would happen next, he said. "But the only thing we know is that we will not survive.".

Hashmat eventually escaped. His wife and youngest son, less than one year old, secured visas to travel to India; Hashmat and his two older sons, ages 10 and 8, fled to Pakistan.

They expected it to be a temporary move. "At the beginning, we were thinking that the resettlement process would not take that long," Hashmat told me Monday. It’s been nearly four years now. They don’t have legal status in Pakistan, so Hashmat doesn’t have work authorization and his oldest sons, now 13 and 11, are unable to attend school. Hashmat does his best as their tutor, relying on YouTube educational videos. Their youngest son, now four years old, has no memory of life outside of Pakistan.

The older sons remember, however. They want to get to the U.S., to safety. Every day, Hashmat says, they ask for an update on his visa. "Most of the time, I have to lie," Hashmat said, instilling a fabricated sense of hope in them. But the boys, from social media or friends, hear about what’s going on in the U.S. — the visa backlogs, the refugee pause. "I try to keep them away from these things, but they’re aware of everything that’s going on," Hashmat said.

In the U.S., a makeshift team of volunteers has done all it can to welcome Hashmat. Christy Staats, an associate vice president of field and constituencies at the National Immigration Forum, assembled a group to sponsor Hashmat and his family through the Welcome Corps program. They pulled together donations and helped Hashmat with the application process. When Hashmat’s first application was rejected, the group tracked down his direct supervisor.

"They had their security checks, their health checks, passed them all, and we’ve just been waiting on the final decision," Staats said. "And then Trump took over.".

Hashmat said he does not have "a good feeling" about his future under the Trump administration. But his frustration predated the refugee executive order. "I mean, the Biden administration — the first failure was because of them," he said. He called the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a "failure.".

"If you come to go to war and make allies, and get support from the local people, and then they left them without said support — it’s quite disappointing," Hashmat said. "These things will be written in the history.".

For now, Hashmat waits, hoping that the refugee pause will be lifted and his application approved. In Pakistan, the government has conducted raids and deportations of Afghans; Hashmat hopes he will be taken to the U.S. before his family is sent back to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

"I know the veterans and the U.S. military who bled in Afghanistan," Hashmat said. "They sacrificed a lot as well. ... But they returned safe to their families. We remain stranded.".
Abandoning Afghans Who Worked With US Troops Hurts Our Credibility (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [1/29/2025 8:30 AM, Patricia Lopez, 21617K, Negative]
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said they want to bring back the “warrior” culture to the US Armed Forces.

A key principle of that warrior ethos is to leave no one behind.

But the administration has abandoned 1,600 Afghans who had been vetted and ready to board a plane to the US — part of a promise this country made to the Afghans who served alongside American troops in the longest war the US has fought. As part of his blitz of executive orders, Trump halted the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for at least three months.

The Afghans’ flight was abruptly canceled. Thousands more were still being processed but now are in limbo — some hiding in Afghanistan, others scattered across several countries. And because Trump has also frozen foreign aid, there may not be the resources even to complete those screenings.

Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a volunteer operation dedicated to Afghan resettlement, told me he tried to warn Trump and Vice President JD Vance (himself a Marine Corps veteran) two weeks earlier in a letter, urging an Afghan carve-out. He later hand-carried that letter to House and Senate leaders, incoming and outgoing.

The urgency is driven by a simple fact: The Afghans who helped us, along with their family members, are considered traitors by the ruling Taliban.

“If we don’t get them out and soon, they’re done,” VanDiver said. “They will be hunted down and killed. And they did everything for US troops over there. They kept our servicemen and servicewomen alive. This can’t be our response.”

Trump typically prefers the sledgehammer to the scalpel. His decision to shutter USRAP reflects that mindset. Were the Afghans providing vital assistance to US troops during Trump’s first term just overlooked? Perhaps. But Trump has not rushed to correct it and Hegseth, now in charge of the some of the very troops who worked alongside the Afghans, has apparently not asked him to do so.

It was just in December that then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a ceremony at the State Department to honor Afghan allies. In short order, he said, they had become “new friends, new partners, new citizens-to-be,” who had become “an integral part of our communities.”

That mindset is nowhere to be found in the new administration, which appears to have lumped these allies into the greater pool of refugees to be kept out. For not only did Trump shutter USRAP, he also has frozen the aid that sustains the many organizations working to process Afghan refugees abroad and the resettlement funds that should help those here build a new life.

The nearly 20-year slog in Afghanistan ended in August 2021. The ignominious fall of Kabul and abrupt withdrawal of US troops stranded hundreds of thousands of Afghans who opposed the Taliban and had sided with the Americans fighting to save their country. Since then, the US has honored its commitment to these Afghan allies — if slowly — bringing a steady stream of them here. But the biometric and biographic vetting that must take place is rigorous and time-consuming.

Some of the 1,600 who should have been on that plane were expected to resettle in Minnesota, which has a substantial refugee population and has already taken in 1,300 Afghans since the war ended. Nasreen Sajady, executive director at the Afghan Cultural Society in Minneapolis, said in recent interview that now the evacuees are in limbo, along with the fate of her own program. “How do we keep going?” she asked. “These are federally funded programs. We’re just trying to find hope in all of this mess.”

The aftermath of any war is messy and comes with obligations that extend far past the conflict itself. Veterans come home in need, sometimes, of lifelong care. There is aid to help rebuild the ravaged country. And in the case of the Afghans, a promise made to those who fought alongside our troops.

I first wrote about the plight of the Afghans in February 2024, when a small group of Democratic and Republican senators led by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar worked furiously to attach permanent status for these refugees to an aid bill for Israel and Ukraine. The bill passed, but the amendment that would have helped the refugees failed. That failure left them without the congressional protection that might have prevented Trump’s abandonment.

At the time, Klobuchar said that “Many of these Afghans are highly educated. They were skilled interpreters and intelligence gatherers who can do well here.”

But more importantly, she said, “We gave our word. It’s just wrong not to keep our promises. We don’t want to be the country that turns our back on people who stand with us, that says you can come, but there’s a trap door under you.”

Hegseth, whose platoon leader days are not so long ago, should know from experience how vital the assistance of locals on the ground can be. He should not want one of the first acts on his watch to be a broken promise that would telegraph to the world that in future conflicts, locals should think twice before aiding US troops and risking exposure.

That would be a poor start to America’s new “Golden Age.”
The Long Road to Justice for Afghan Women (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [1/29/2025 4:00 PM, Ruth Pollard, 21617K, Negative]
For Afghan women, who feel deserted by the international community as their lives have been crushed under the brutal rule of the Taliban, there may finally be a potential avenue for justice.

We should welcome International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan’s decision to apply for arrest warrants for the Taliban’s Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, who he says bear criminal responsibility for the persecution of Afghan women and girls. The list of violations is extensive, and includes murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence and enforced disappearances.

Three judges will now decide whether to issue the warrants, a process that usually takes several months. Even then, there isn’t likely to be any immediate action. Akhundzada rarely leaves his base in Kandahar, and Haqqani is unlikely to risk arrest by traveling.

Since the militant group retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, it has banned post-primary education for women and girls, restricted their access to public spaces, prohibited them from singing or reciting poetry in public and severely curtailed their employment opportunities and access to health services. Just last month, the Taliban issued an order banning the construction of windows in residential buildings that overlook areas used by women, and said the existing ones should be blocked.

In his Jan. 23 statement, Khan said: “These applications recognize that Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban. Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable. Afghan survivors, in particular women and girls, deserve accountability before a court of law.”

The case against Akhundzada and Haqqani should worry those nations that have chosen to normalize ties with the Taliban, including China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia. If the court does go ahead and issue the arrest warrants, it will complicate trade and diplomatic relations and force countries to think twice before making the leap toward warmer dealings.

It also presents a conundrum for US lawmakers, who have been highly selective in their support for the ICC, threatening sanctions against court officials over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest warrant, but commending its actions against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite America’s damaging and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 that preceded the Taliban’s sweep into Kabul, the US was, as of October, the nation’s largest donor and the fate of women and girls is still a concern. In the turmoil of President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office, it is not clear how the government views this latest development.

Groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also urged the ICC prosecutor to bring cases for alleged crimes committed by US military and intelligence personnel and former Afghan security forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. This is unlikely to happen.

The split in global support for the ICC’s actions, and its lack of enforcement mechanisms, highlight the court’s limitations. Its move in 2023 to issue a warrant for the arrest of Putin for war crimes committed in his invasion of Ukraine has not resulted in his apprehension. Nor did the ICC’s November warrant for Netanyahu for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza do much to restrain him.

Having devoted years to covering conflict, political violence and terrorism, it is easy to lose faith and question whether international law means anything any more. It certainly doesn’t seem to — impunity is all around us. But however flawed the “rules-based international order” is, it’s all we’ve got. The alternative is a global version of what Trump is attempting to do at home: Defund, defang or dismantle governing institutions and let anarchy rule. We cannot lose hope at this time.

Afghan women and girls need every bit of global support they can get to push back against the Taliban’s unhinged misogyny. They are trapped in a country facing a multidimensional crisis: As the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, the stability of the economy and the welfare of the people are extremely tenuous.

Another legal avenue against the Taliban opened up in September, when a group of countries including Australia, Korea, Spain, Canada and Germany announced a dispute with Afghanistan under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. This could lead to future proceedings before the International Court of Justice, the top UN court that hears cases brought between states.

These complicated, fraught and flawed processes matter. They show Afghan women that they have not been forgotten and vindicate their brave, ongoing struggle against the Taliban. They also encourage nations to come together in the defense of human rights — a critical show of solidarity in a world ridden with conflict.
Pakistan
Pakistan police arrest father for killing US-born daughter over TikTok video in southwest (AP)
AP [1/30/2025 2:14 AM, Staff, 57114K, Negative]
A man who recently moved his family back to southwestern Pakistan from the United States shot and killed his teenage daughter in a so-called honor killing after she allegedly refused to stop sharing videos on TikTok that he believed were inappropriate, police said Thursday.

The shooting happened on Tuesday in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, said Babar Baloch, a local police chief. He said the father of the 15-year-old girl initially suggested that an unidentified gunman had killed his daughter, but after he was taken into custody for questioning he confessed to the crime. Officers are continuing to investigate.

Baloch said the man’s brother-in-law was also arrested in connection with the murder, adding that both men had apparently objected to her sharing of "objectionable" content on TikTok, a social media platform used by 54 million people in Pakistan.

So-called honor killings are common in Pakistan, where family members and relatives sometimes kill a woman if she does follow local traditions and culture or chooses to marry a man of her choice.
US-born girl shot dead by father in Pakistan over TikTok videos, say police (Reuters)
Reuters [1/29/2025 9:55 AM, Saleem Ahmed, 82995K, Negative]
A man who had recently brought his family back to Pakistan from the United States has confessed to shooting dead his teenage daughter, motivated by his disapproval of her TikTok content.

The shooting happened on a street in the southwestern city of Quetta on Tuesday. The suspect, Anwar ul-Haq, initially said that unidentified gunmen shot and killed his American-born, 15-year-old daughter before he confessed to the crime, police official Babar Baloch said.

"Our investigation so far has found that the family had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle, and social gathering," another police investigator, Zohaib Mohsin, said. "We have her phone. It is locked," he told Reuters. "We are probing all aspects, including honour killing.".

The family had recently returned to Balochistan province in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, a nation with conservative social norms, having lived in the US for about 25 years, Baloch said.

The suspect has US citizenship, the officer said. He said Haq had told him his daughter began creating "objectionable" content on the social media platform TikTok when she lived in the US.

He told police that she continued to share videos on the platform after returning to Pakistan. Baloch said the main suspect’s brother-in-law had also been arrested in connection with the killing.

Police said they had charged Haq with the murder. They did not offer proof of Haq’s US citizenship except for the suspect’s own testimony and declined to say whether the US embassy had been informed of the incident.

His family declined to respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

More than 54 million people use TikTok in Pakistan, a nation of 241 million. The government has blocked the video-sharing app several times in recent years over content moderation.

Islamabad often takes issue with what it terms "obscene content" with the social media platform, which has lately started complying with requests from Pakistan to remove certain content.

Over 1,000 women are killed each year in Pakistan at the hands of community or family members over perceived damage to "honour", according to independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

That could involve eloping, posting social media content, fraternising with men, or any other infraction against conservative values relating to women.
Polio outbreak spreads in Pakistan as militants target vaccination teams (Washington Post)
Washington Post [1/29/2025 10:25 AM, Haq Nawaz Khan, Rick Noack, and Shaiq Hussain 40736K, Negative]
After years of decline, polio is surging again in this populous South Asian nation, dimming hopes that the viral disease — eradicated nearly everywhere else on Earth — can be stamped out here.

Pakistan reported at least 73 cases last year, up from only one in 2021, and health officials say the virus is now rapidly spreading in the country’s most volatile regions, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where militant groups are waging expanding insurgencies and, increasingly, targeting vaccinators and their security details.

The remote, and in some parts lawless, provinces share a border with Afghanistan, the only other country where polio remains endemic. Cases have been rising there, too: from two in 2022 to 25 last year.

The global campaign against polio — once the leading cause of paralysis in children — is considered one of the greatest public health triumphs in modern times. Yet it has reemerged as a political issue in the United States after President Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, to be his top health official. Kennedy told reporters in December he was “all for” the polio vaccine, seeking to reassure nervous senators ahead of his confirmation hearing.

Polio has persisted in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which have both struggled with low vaccination rates in far-flung regions. While the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 in Afghanistan opened many areas to vaccinators for the first time, growing safety concerns across the border have had the opposite effect.

Pakistani officials said there were more than two dozen attacks targeting Pakistani polio teams or their security details last year. Authorities in Islamabad are particularly concerned about efforts by the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, to disrupt vaccinations in the northwest of the country. Smaller-scale attacks on health workers have also occurred in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, where separatist groups are escalating their fight against the government.

Ahmad Bhittani, 24, resigned from his position as a vaccinator in a remote part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa eight months ago, along with at least 30 other health workers.

He said he was alarmed by the kidnapping of colleagues and a fatal attack on a police officer guarding a convoy of vaccinators. The risk, he said, was simply too high, and the pay — around $18 a day — was too low.

“Now, I can’t even visit my home village anymore,” said Ahmad Bhittani, speaking on the condition that only his surname be used due to security concerns. “I’m worried the militants will shoot me because of the work I did in the past.”

TTP views vaccination teams guarded by police officers or soldiers as justified targets and has claimed responsibility for several such attacks in recent months.

Many militants believe vaccination campaigns are used as a cover for domestic or foreign spying. That perception deepened in 2011 after the CIA, in its hunt for Osama bin Laden, ran a fake hepatitis vaccination program aimed at collecting DNA that matched that of the al-Qaeda leader.

Pakistan, once accused of sheltering Taliban leaders during America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, is now urging Kabul to rein in TTP, which has long sworn allegiance to the Afghan Taliban.

While the Afghan government denies having sway over TTP, a 2024 U.N. report concluded that “Taliban rank and file” have “assisted” the Pakistani Taliban in recent cross-border attacks and supplied the group with weapons and equipment.

Both “the frequency and intensity of terrorist attacks” by TTP are surging, reaching levels not seen in a decade, the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank, said in a report this month.

TTP denies receiving support from the Afghan Taliban and says its attacks on health workers are a necessary part of its insurgency against the state. If vaccinators agreed to be guarded by TTP rather than the Pakistani army, “we would provide full security to their teams under our areas of influence,” said a senior TTP militant, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Muhammad Shoaib Khan, 26, was one of four members of a polio-monitoring team kidnapped in late 2023 by unidentified militants in a remote part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where TTP and its splinter factions are known to operate.

“Our kidnappers said that jihad against polio workers is a religious obligation,” Shoaib Khan recalled, and they accused him and his colleagues of “killing our children.”

The men were released after local elders intervened. Shoaib Khan continued working as a vaccination official until last summer, when he resigned because his family pleaded with him to leave the job.

“These workers risk their lives despite low pay,” said Muhammad Nasir Rana, a Pakistani pediatrician, calling on the government to “take care of the needs of these national heroes.”

Islamabad claims it is taking all possible measures to protect health workers. Ayesha Raza Farooq, a senior polio eradication official in Pakistan, said “security challenges persist in a few isolated pockets,” but she added that “significant progress has been made in reducing such risks across most areas.”

Security is not the only factor hampering vaccination efforts, according to Pakistani doctors, who also point to insufficient funding and interruptions in cold storage during the transport of vaccines.

Nasir Rana said authorities have also failed to provide rural communities with clean water. “No one cares,” he said, even though unvaccinated children can contract polio by drinking contaminated water.

For 47-year-old Rafi Ullah Kundi, a lawyer, the resurgence of the virus in his home district of Dera Ismail Khan, where Pakistan’s first case of this year was reported, has been disturbing to watch. Kundi contracted poliovirus as a child, which left his lower body paralyzed for years. “My mother used to tell me: ‘Raising you was as difficult as raising three children,’” he said.

Pakistan’s struggle to contain polio could be compounded by Trump’s decisions to suspend foreign aid and to withdraw from the World Health Organization. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. government provided almost $7 million in polio immunization funding to Pakistan in 2023. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a humanitarian waiver Tuesday for the aid suspension, but it was not immediately clear to which programs it applied.

“The impact could become significant within a couple of months,” Hamid Jafari, director of the WHO’s regional polio eradication program, said in an email. “Any let up at this crucial stage,” he said, “could significantly delay polio eradication, paralyze many more children, and increase the risk of international spread of polio.”

Historically, Afghanistan and Pakistan have experienced overlapping polio clusters, as cases are carried across the porous border region. There are fears now that the disease is being allowed to spread in both countries, making it even more difficult for teams to track and control.

The Taliban-led government in Kabul, after initially supporting vaccinations, has recently hindered door-to-door campaigns, officials in Afghanistan said. While the group still allows children to be vaccinated in mosques and other public places, keeping health workers out of homes could mean missing up to 30 percent of children in affected areas, according to a public health official in a polio hot spot in northeastern Afghanistan. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

The Afghan Health Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Pakistani physician Rana Muhammad Safdar, formerly in charge of the country’s anti-polio program, fears what’s to come. “Pakistan and Afghanistan will both face the consequences,” he warned.
2 Pakistani soldiers and 6 militants are killed in a raid in the northwest, the military says (AP)
AP [1/30/2025 3:05 AM, Staff, 4368K, Negative]
Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in the restive northwest, triggering an intense shootout in which two soldiers and six militants were killed, the military said Thursday.

The raid was carried out Wednesday in North Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, it said in a statement. The military said a major was among the two soldiers who were killed and its forces were going after other militants in the area "to wipe out the menace of terrorism.".

Authorities often carry out such operations against the Pakistani Taliban, who are also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The TTP, an ally of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, has stepped up its assaults in the region and elsewhere since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
India
At Least 30 Dead and Many More Hurt in Stampede at Huge Hindu Festival in India (New York Times)
New York Times [1/29/2025 2:30 PM, Hari Kumar and Anupreeta Das, 3238K, Neutral]
At least 30 people were killed and dozens more were injured early Wednesday after millions of Hindu pilgrims at the Maha Kumbh Mela, a huge festival in the Indian city of Prayagraj, rushed to bathe in holy river waters on what is considered one of the most auspicious dates in the Hindu calendar.

As pilgrims rushed to the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, which Hindus consider sacred, thousands of people who were lying or sitting on the river banks were trampled, safety barricades broke, and fences were pulled down, according to government officials and witnesses. Others were trying to escape after bathing, adding to the chaos.

New York Times journalists saw people stretched out on the ground, their bodies and faces covered, and emergency personnel carrying people away on stretchers and into ambulances.

Government officials released casualty figures more than half a day after the stampede happened between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said Wednesday evening that he would start a judicial inquiry to find out how, despite heavy precautions, accidents such as these could occur.

Expressing his condolences, Adityanath said that the state government would give the families of those who had died about $29,000 per victim.

Around three dozen injured pilgrims were being treated in hospitals, said Vaibhav Krishna, a senior police official. The rest left with family members. Among the dead, 25 people had been identified, Krishna said at a news conference.

In a post on the social platform X, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India expressed his condolences to the families of those who lost their lives, and wished those injured a speedy recovery. "The accident in Maha Kumbh is extremely sad," he wrote.

Political rivals of Mr. Adityanath and the Bharatiya Janata Party, to which both he and Modi belong, swiftly attacked him for what they called mismanaging the event and engaging in self-promotion.

"Mismanagement, mismanagement, and the administration’s special focus on VIP movement instead of common devotees are responsible for this tragic incident," said Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party in a post on X. A parade of senior politicians and other public figures, such as Bollywood star Hema Malini and Indian guru Baba Ramdev, visited the fair in recent days.

"They were inviting us here to die," said Ajay Singh, a farmer from the district of Gonda in Uttar Pradesh. "They invited devotees through media, channels, phones, newspapers," but mismanaged the event, Singh said.

He had been sleeping on the river banks with his family when police began pushing people out. Singh’s mother, aunt, and uncle fell down, and they all suffered injuries on their backs and ribs. He said he saw around five dead bodies when he was trapped.

The Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, one of the world’s biggest religious gatherings, occurs every 12 years. Hindus believe that bathing at the spot where the two holy rivers meet, along with a third mythical river called Sarasvati, will purge them of all sins and help them attain salvation. Because of certain favorable celestial alignments, millions more were expected this year at the event, named the "Maha" or Great Kumbh.

Although there are a number of days considered auspicious for bathing during the event, the period starting late Jan. 28 and heading into the morning of Jan. 29, was seen as especially favorable. Government officials had said they expected around 100 million people to come to the rivers then.

The government of the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Prayagraj is, estimated that around 400 million people in total would attend the six-week festival from all corners of India. To house them all, the government built a temporary city on the banks of the Ganges, with tents, toilets, streets, pontoon bridges, and waste management facilities. The government also built temporary bathing platforms using sandbags to make it easier for people to step into the water.

However, most of the temporary pontoon bridges built to connect river banks were cordoned off Tuesday, according to witnesses, reducing the number of paths that pilgrims could use to get to the confluence and increasing the likelihood of overcrowding. It was unclear why the bridges were closed.

During his speech, Mr. Adityanath had appealed to pilgrims to perform their rituals at the nearest platform rather than pushing to get to the confluence, saying that the day’s significance lay in bathing anywhere along the Ganges.

Mr. Adityanath said Mr. Modi and Amit Shah, the minister of home affairs, had called him several times for updates and offered assistance. Mr. Shah was among those who bathed at the confluence earlier this week.

The danger posed by huge crowds has been a frequent problem at the Kumbh Mela and other religious events. In 2013, 42 people were killed and 45 injured in a crowd crush on a train platform. And in July, more than 100 people were killed and many injured during a prayer meeting organized by a local guru. Officials blamed the casualties on high temperatures and overcrowding.

Government officials became much more organized and focused on the safety and security of pilgrims after the 2013 deaths. This year, the Uttar Pradesh government has employed more sophisticated technology to monitor the inflow and outflow of people so that police personnel on the ground can redirect crowds.

The pilgrims “come gradually and exit simultaneously,” Vijay Vishwas Pant, a senior government official, said on Tuesday. Millions of pilgrims had begun trickling in during the day, but there was no set formula for how the crowds would exit, Mr. Pant said. The goal was to keep pilgrims moving safely, he added. “It is all dynamic.”

Despite the precautions, festival employees and others were encouraging people to go toward the confluence of the rivers, with some even using the public address system to do so. Police officials were unable to clear the bathing areas before more pilgrims rushed in, officials said. As pilgrims tried to escape, they created stampede-like situations elsewhere, according to witness accounts. The Kumbh Mela festival, which is rotated among four cities every three years, is known for the massive number of Hindu devotees who attend, including monks and ascetics from various orders of Hinduism and ordinary pilgrims.
At least 30 killed in stampede at massive Hindu festival in India (Washington Post)
Washington Post [1/29/2025 1:10 PM, Anant Gupta and Karishma Mehrotra, 40736K, Negative]
At least 30 people were killed and dozens injured in a stampede early Wednesday at a Hindu religious festival in northern India, officials said.

Videos from the scene of the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Uttar Pradesh state showed victims being rushed to ambulances or lying motionless on the ground. People rummaged through piles of clothes and shoes left in the aftermath of the stampede.

After hours of confusion about the death toll, police official Vaibhav Krishna told reporters that 90 people had been rushed to hospitals and 30 ultimately died. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a message on X, offered his “deepest condolences to the devotees who have lost their loved ones.”

During the six-week festival, held every 12 years, Hindu pilgrims bathe at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, which are considered sacred. Some 450 million people were expected to take part this year. There was a particularly large surge of visitors beginning Tuesday in the hours around a new moon, a period of the festival considered auspicious.

In a news conference late Wednesday, Krishna said the stampede started after a crowd of devotees broke through police barricades between 1 and 2 a.m.

“Once they had breached the barricades, people from this crowd trampled over the devotees waiting to take a dip in the river,” he said. Witnesses told local reporters that sleeping pilgrims were also among the victims.

Dilip Trigunayat, a senior official in the city of Prayagraj, said authorities were still coping with a “big crowd,” despite the tragedy. “People are bathing in the river even now,” he said in a telephone interview.

The festival has a history of stampedes. During the last Maha Kumbh Mela, in 2013, at least three dozen people died when a bridge in a train station collapsed. Hundreds of people died in a stampede during independent India’s first Kumbh Mela festival, in 1954.

More than 120 people were killed in a stampede in July during another religious gathering, also in Uttar Pradesh.

Ramesh Kumar, a sanitation worker, said the government should be held responsible for the latest disaster. He said he saw at least five ambulances, carrying three bodies each, as the crowd separated for them.

“The police are not able to do anything,” he said. “The government should have provided the proper amount of staff, but instead they are leaving everything to the public and at the very end are trying to stop a stampede. It’s not as if the masses can be stopped at that point.”

Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, said Wednesday evening that bereaved families would receive $29,000 for each loved one who had died, and that a committee had been formed to investigate the incident.

“The accident is heartbreaking,” he said, choking back tears. “My sympathies are fully with those families.”

Mamata Mishra, 58, was taking a dip in the river when she was separated from her husband by the rushing crowd and left stranded without a cellphone. She finally found him after an all-night search; her children, unable to reach her, learned that their mother was safe on Wednesday afternoon after hours of worrying.

“It was harrowing for her,” said her son, Deepak. “There was just such a sudden surge.”
Sea of Devotees Overwhelms World’s Biggest Religious Festival With Deadly Results (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal [1/29/2025 12:03 PM, Shan Li and Esha Mitra, 810K, Negative]
It has been billed as the “world’s largest congregation of humanity.” In a showcase of India’s growing religious tourism, an estimated 450 million people are gathering over six weeks in northern India in a celebration of ritual bathing where two holy rivers meet.

But on Wednesday, as devotees headed for the river on the most auspicious bathing day of the calendar, a tragedy unfolded. A crowd broke through barriers and crushed people sleeping on the river banks near the meeting point of the two rivers, officials in Uttar Pradesh state said.

At a press conference on Wednesday night, senior police official Vaibhav Krishna said that 30 people were killed and 60 injured after overexcited pilgrims broke through barricades.

Earlier, a police official helping the injured said that at least 40 people were killed, and that authorities were still counting the dead. The state government announced nearly $30,000 in compensation for the families of the dead.

Officials said they had worked for at least two years to prepare for the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Great Pitcher festival, to take place without incident. The Hindu pilgrimage, where people flock to take a ritual dip at the convergence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers to purify their sins, has been the scene of deadly overcrowding in the past.

This time around, they said they were prepared to handle upward of 100 million devotees in a single day.

“That many people we have already provisioned for,” said Sanjeev Singh, a senior state official at a press conference last week. “If it’s going to be less than that, then no problem so far as the capacity which has been put in place is concerned.”

The festival, which started on Jan. 13, is believed to be at least two millennia old. It attracts a tapestry of visitors—Hindu holy men, politicians, tourists—to bathe at a spot where a drop of the nectar of immortality churned by the gods is believed to have spilled from a pitcher.

Preparations included the installation of 175,000 tents, 150,000 toilets, 30 floating bridges and nearly 70,000 streetlights for the duration of the festival.

In recent years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have increasingly seized on religious events such as the Kumbh Mela as symbols of Hindu pride. Religious tourism also gives a boost to the economy.

On X, Modi called the incident “extremely sad” and extended his condolences to “the devotees who have lost their loved ones.”

At a command center in the festival, which spans an area the size of 8,000 football fields, police officers scan footage from about 1,600 security cameras installed throughout the fair, looking for trouble spots such as agitated crowds or bottlenecks, said Amit Kumar, superintendent of police in charge of the Kumbh’s Integrated Command and Control Centre, in an interview earlier this week.

Asked how to avoid overcrowding deaths, he said, “This is the holy grail.”

Police have a number of tactics, including putting up additional barricades and forming human chains to divert and slow down crowds, Kumar said. But people were continuously finding creative ways to skirt obstacles to get to the rivers’ convergence for bathing. On Monday, people broke through barricades. During an earlier big bathing day, he said, pilgrims tried to climb onto the sides of a closed bridge in order to cross.

“The crowd is one big organism,” he said. “They will find new ways, they will find new methods.”

The holiest day, or Mauni Amavasya—when religious fervor runs especially high—has long been the riskiest moment of the festival. At the Kumbh Mela in 2013, at least 36 people were killed in a stampede at the nearby railway station as they headed to the festival site on the holiest bathing day that year. A deadly crowd crush at the 1954 Kumbh Mela killed at least 500 people.

On Wednesday, about 80 to 100 million were present at the festival, Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, told reporters.

In a religious gathering, people sometimes don’t behave with the same instincts for self-preservation as in other crowd situations, said Jon Corbishley, a crowd-safety expert based in Australia.

“Many are so full of religious fervor that their own safety is the last thing on their minds,” he said. “The word ‘stampede’ was used frequently in reports of the tragedy and this implies a crowd desperate to get away from a threat, whereas the risk is from the sheer numbers trying desperately to get to an already overcrowded area.”

Eyewitnesses said there were at least two different crush incidents near the confluence of the two rivers on early Wednesday morning. In Hindu belief, a third mythical river also joins them there.

Murlidhar Pandey, 55, and his wife, Malti, arrived at the riverbank around midnight, but were soon relocated by police further down along the water. They avoided the crush that occurred around 2 a.m.

But shortly after, they moved back closer to where the rivers meet. Around 3:30 a.m., a second crush broke out after people began jumping over the barricades and running toward the river. He was kicked into the river, and he and his wife lost sight of the relatives they had traveled with.

“The cops ushered us through but there were dead bodies all around,” said Murlidhar Pandey, who was hospitalized for leg injuries.

Police had blared messages over loudspeakers to remind pilgrims that the entire riverfront area is suitable for sacred bathing, and not just the confluence point.

But loudspeakers sometimes broadcast a slightly different prerecorded message. They encouraged pilgrims to bathe at the convergence of the rivers and then head home to make way for more devotees.

Harsh Wardhan, former group managing director of G4S India, a leading security services provider, said he believed organizers had made far more robust arrangements—compared with previous years—to manage crowds. But, he added, they would have to analyze how entry and exit points to key areas and communications to the pilgrims were managed.

“People go with a lot of sentiment,” said Wardhan. “They want to go to a specific area.”

Police had cleared the beach area of sleeping pilgrims overnight, but many people came back after authorities left, said a festival adviser who requested anonymity.

“It was unexpected, and we couldn’t have anticipated it,” the person said.

The festival administration has dormitories set up for pilgrims to rent beds relatively cheaply for 12 hours, at a cost of about $2.30, but for those traveling in a family, the cost is more than they can manage. Prices also tend to go up around the holiest days, pilgrims said. Sleeping on the riverbank is free.

When people started pushing and jumping over barricades early Wednesday, it was dark and they couldn’t see the people sleeping on the ground.

Sarita Devi, 48, said she was sleeping on the beach with her husband and daughter when a surge of people “came out of nowhere” and trampled her husband. She was trying to revive him when her daughter dragged her away.

“She said, ‘He’s gone, but we have to get out of here too,’” said Devi, amid sobs.
Millions of Hindus take ‘holy dip’ a day after fatal stampede (Reuters)
Reuters [1/30/2025 2:36 AM, Saurabh Sharma and Shivam Patel, 48128K, Neutral]
Millions of devout Hindus thronged the northern Indian city of Prayagraj on Thursday for the Maha Kumbh festival, a day after dozens died in a stampede on the most auspicious day of the six-week event.

But some devotees remained nervous after the fatal crush.

Krishna Soni, a student from the western state of Rajasthan’s Bikaner city, and his family of eight linked themselves together with string to ensure they would not lose each other in the massive crowd.

"We are walking very carefully and trying to avoid the crowded areas," he told Reuters.

Police said 30 people were killed on Wednesday in a crush at the world’s biggest gathering of humanity and 60 were injured, but sources told Reuters the death toll was nearly 40.

Indian authorities have ordered a probe into the incident which occurred when people surged towards a river to take a dip in its waters as part of the festival.

More than 76 million people on Wednesday took what is called a "royal dip" in the river waters up until 8 p.m. (1430 GMT), and three more "royal dips" are scheduled before the festival ends.

On Thursday, more than nine million people took a "holy dip" at the confluence of three sacred rivers by 10 a.m (0430 GMT), officials said.

Devotees take ‘holy dips’ everyday, but on specific dates the practice is considered particularly sacred and is called a "royal" dip, attracting larger crowds.

Devout Hindus believe that taking a dip at the confluence of three sacred rivers - the Ganga, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati - absolves them of sins and brings salvation from the cycle of birth and death.

The Hindu festival - held every 12 years - is expected to draw some 400 million devotees in 2025, officials estimate. The Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, in comparison, drew 1.8 million people last year.

Railway and bus stations across Prayagraj saw a surge in crowds on Thursday as people continued to arrive for the festival, but authorities said the rush was being managed and there were no incidents.

"Things are now totally under control," senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna told Reuters.

Opposition leaders have blamed the stampede on mismanagement and urged the government to improve festival arrangements, while local media said on Thursday that better crowd planning was needed to prevent such incidents.

"There is much scope for improving crowd management at the Kumbh," the Hindustan Times newspaper said in an editorial.

Authorities erected a temporary city across 4,000 hectares (9,990 acres) on the river banks - the size of 7,500 football fields - with 150,000 tents to accommodate devotees and almost an equal number of toilets. More than 50,000 personnel are on guard to ensure the safety of visitors.
India’s Modi speaks with ‘dear friend’ President Trump amid hopes of furthering ties (FOX News)
FOX News [1/29/2025 9:53 AM, Kyra Colah, 57114K, Neutral]
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has sent ripples across the globe, but India remains largely optimistic about his second term. Just over a week into Trump’s presidency, India is signaling its readiness to adapt to his transactional style of diplomacy.

Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a "productive call" on Monday, focused on "expanding and deepening cooperation.".

According to a White House readout, the leaders discussed geopolitical issues and bilateral trade. Trump emphasized the importance of India increasing its purchases of American-made security equipment to help balance the trade relationship between the two countries. The call is believed to be among the first Trump has taken from foreign leaders since his return to office.

"Expectations are high for U.S.-India relations with Trump having taken office. He and Modi have a strong chemistry, given their similar worldviews and governance styles," Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, told Fox News Digital.

Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport and personal bond with Trump. "We have a very good relationship with India," Trump told reporters on Air Force One after his call with Modi.

In 2020, Modi threw a massive rally for Trump in his home state of Gujarat, where both leaders spoke admiringly of each other in front of a crowd exceeding 110,000 people. The previous year, Trump likened Modi to Elvis Presley for his ability to draw large crowds at a joint rally in Texas. However, Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown is raising some concerns for Indians.

According to the Pew Research Center, India is one of the top sources of illegal immigration to the U.S. An estimated 725,000 Indians were residing in the U.S. illegally as of 2022. Furthermore, Customs and Border Patrol encountered nearly 90,500 Indian citizens in fiscal year 2024 alone. The immigration unease also comes as H-1B visas, one of the most common legal pathways of entry for Indians, have been a hotly contested topic by Trump’s supporters. On Monday, however, Trump dismissed immigration concerns, expressing confidence India will "do what is right.".

Trade is another possible point of contention that could affect U.S.-India relations.

Just a day after Trump held his call with Modi, he denounced India, China and Brazil as "tremendous tariff maker(s)." Speaking to House Republicans in Florida, Trump emphasized that the nations harm the U.S. with high tariffs. He highlighted plans to target the countries, asserting that "we’re not going to let that happen any longer because we’re going to put America first.".

Trump threatened high tariffs on imported goods throughout his presidential campaign and slammed India as a "very big abuser." During his first term, Trump dubbed India the "tariff king" amid trade disagreements. In 2019, he revoked India’s special trade privileges. In retaliation, India slapped tariffs on more than two dozen U.S. goods.

Modi is casting India as a rising global player and seeks to enhance trade ties with the U.S., especially in the face of Trump’s international tariff threats. Trump has proposed a "universal" tax of 10% or 20% on all international imports, and India would be no exception. India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, aims to boost bilateral trade with the U.S. while reducing dependence on China. The two countries are India’s top trading partners.

Recent legal allegations have also tested the burgeoning relationship between India and the U.S. Last year, American prosecutors charged Indian government agents with what they said was a plot to assassinate an American citizen on U.S. soil. Months later, the Justice Department indicted Indian tycoon Gautam Adani on fraud and bribery charges. Despite these challenges, the bilateral relationship has endured.

"There will be challenges to navigate, for sure, both those inherited from the Biden administration — like the Justice Department investigation of an alleged Indian government involvement in a murder-for-hire plot in New York, and new ones like trade," Kugelman explains. "But we can see from New Delhi’s recent signaling that it’s prepared to act preemptively to lower the risk of tensions.".

In the days since Trump took office, India has said it would explore lowering tariffs, taking back some of the illegal Indian migrants and importing more U.S. oil to reduce imports from Russia.

As India works to bolster defense, technology and trade ties with the U.S., the nation is expressing confidence that it is better positioned than others to weather Trump’s "America First" administration. "I know today a lot of countries are nervous about the U.S., let’s be honest about that. We are not one of them," Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar said days after the November election.

Washington views India, the world’s largest democracy, as a counterbalance to China’s growing assertiveness. Additionally, Trump is largely unconcerned with Modi’s policies, which have been deemed problematic by many global leaders. The two align in style and rhetoric, particularly when it comes to national pride.

Kugelman told Fox News Digital, "The U.S. and India will continue to share a number of strong policy and strategic convergences, chief among them countering China.".

Trump’s administration also features prominent Indian-Americans. His pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, faces a high-stakes Senate confirmation hearing this week. If confirmed, he will be the FBI’s first Indian American leader, as well as its youngest director. Trump has also picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for director, National Institutes of Health, and Harmeet K. Dhillon as assistant attorney general for Civil Rights. Others, like former 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and senior policy adviser for AI, Sriram Krishnan, already hold significant advisory roles in the administration. While they brought hope to many Indian immigrants, Krishnan, a first-generation Indian, has become a MAGA lightning rod. Additionally, while not a member of the cabinet, Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha, is the first woman of Indian origin to be second lady.

India remains optimistic about strengthening its relationship with the U.S. under Trump’s leadership, viewing it as an opportunity to further its strategic interests on the global stage. Modi is expected to meet with Trump as soon as next month. Meanwhile, Trump is expected to visit India later this year to attend a Quad Leaders’ Summit hosted by New Delhi.

"The fact that India, with its nationalist government and strong confidence as a rising power, would so quickly and publicly acknowledge a willingness to consider making concessions to the U.S. says a lot about just how much it wants its partnership with Washington to work in the second Trump administration," Kugelman said.
India Knows What Makes Trump Tick (Foreign Policy)
Foreign Policy [1/29/2025 5:11 PM, Michael Kugelman, 1436K, Positive]
The highlights this week: New Delhi hosts Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto for Republic Day as it seeks to finalize a missile sale to Jakarta, trains across Bangladesh are canceled amid a railroad workers’ strike, and Pakistan’s senate passes a controversial misinformation law.

India Seeks to Finalize Missile Sale

On Jan. 26, India hosted Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto as the chief guest at this year’s Republic Day festivities. Indonesia is one of India’s closest partners in Southeast Asia, and the visit produced pledges to cooperate on issues including infrastructure, counterextremism, health, and maritime safety.

Prabowo’s trip also featured negotiations on a $450 million prospective sale of Indian supersonic cruise missiles to Indonesia. Though the advanced-stage talks haven’t led to a deal yet, they highlight India’s growing status as a net security provider—especially coupled with recent Indian negotiations with several other Southeast Asian states on missile sales.

All of this should provide a boost to India’s ties with U.S. President Donald Trump’s new administration, which hopes to see its allies and partners stepping up on the security burden-sharing front.

India is the world’s largest arms importer, but in recent years it has started to ramp up arms sales in its neighborhood and beyond. It has a deal in place with the Philippines—and another soon expected to be concluded with Vietnam—to ship Brahmos missiles, the same type that India hopes to send to Indonesia.

But these are just the high-profile examples: New Delhi sells arms to more than 85 countries and set a record for arms sale profits in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, according to Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. India has also flexed its growing naval power in the Middle East, where its warships provide protection to commercial vessels threatened by Houthi attacks and assist others targeted by piracy.

These activities help push back against long-standing criticism that India punches below its weight on the global stage. But India’s increasingly active security posture will also be music to the Trump administration’s ears. The Brahmos deals are intended to strengthen the capacity of Washington’s friends in the Indo-Pacific to fend off Chinese provocations, directly serving U.S. interests.

Additionally, with Trump likely to take a "what have you done for me lately" approach toward top U.S. allies and partners, New Delhi’s performance could score it points. Not only is India projecting power to protect critical sea lanes and working to arm U.S. partners against China, but it is also sending military supplies to U.S. allies including Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, Trump’s return allows India to dodge a bullet with these missile talks. Brahmos missiles are produced by an Indian-Russian consortium; Trump’s more restrained position on Russia compared to that of former U.S. President Joe Biden suggests that arrangement won’t be a problem for Washington.

India has sent many positive signals to the United States since Trump took office last week, essentially taking steps to reduce the risk of tensions. The new president spoke to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by phone on Monday. New Delhi has stated that it is exploring reducing tariffs, taking back undocumented Indian immigrants in the United States, and importing more U.S. oil to reduce supplies from Russia.

So, by showing its commitment to finalize talks with Indonesia on its latest Brahmos missile shipment, India might not intend to send a direct message to the United States. But it is another reason to believe that India could get off to a better start with the new Trump administration than some closer U.S. allies.

What We’re Following

Bangladesh railroad strike. This week, I am in Bangladesh, which has returned to relative normalcy six months after the movement that led longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign. The spirit of last summer’s mass protests remains palpable, though, with street murals in the capital of Dhaka commemorating the event.

One of the consequences of that mass movement is an increased hunger for activism. On Tuesday, trains across Bangladesh were canceled as the country’s railway workers went on strike, demanding higher pensions and benefits such as overtime pay.

Saidur Rahman, the acting president of the Bangladesh Railway Running Staff and Workers Union, said that the strike was called after the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus failed to reach a deal with workers on Monday. Bangladesh’s state-run railway network employs around 25,000 people and carries more than 250,000 passengers daily.

Pakistan’s senate passes controversial bill. On Tuesday, Pakistan’s upper house of parliament passed a bill that allows the government to impose fines on or jail social media users for intentionally spreading misinformation. The amendment to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act expands the scope of content that the government can ban.

Though the bill is aimed at combating misinformation, critics argue that it grants the government the power to suppress freedom of speech and exert tighter control over digital platforms. It marks the latest step by Pakistan’s leadership to crack down on social media, one of the country’s last redoubts for dissent.

Hundreds of journalists participated in protests on Tuesday across Pakistan’s major cities, including Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore.

India maneuvers between giants. This week featured some significant diplomacy for New Delhi. In Trump’s call with Modi, according to a U.S. readout, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to advancing the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue partnership and discussed security and trade. Trump told reporters that Modi will likely visit Washington "sometime in February," with Indian reports suggesting Feb. 14 and 15.

Meanwhile, India reached a key accord with China on Monday, as the two sides agreed to resume direct flights after nearly five years of tensions stemming from a deadly border clash. The announcement came after Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited Beijing. India and China have also discussed resuming access to a popular Hindu pilgrimage site in Tibet.

Regional Voices

In the Print, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon warns against Bangladesh’s warming relations with Pakistan and China. "[T]he synergy of China-Pakistan-Bangladesh is potentially a serious security threat that calls for India’s security planners to first and foremost take whatever internal steps required to stabilise the northeastern states and avoid providing generative grounds for exploitation," he argues.

In the Himalayan Times, scholar Vidhu Prakash Kayastha underscores the urgent need to address Nepal’s unemployment and underemployment crisis. "With an economy heavily reliant on low-productivity agriculture and struggling to diversify into manufacturing and services, the country’s growth has stagnated," he writes.

A Kuensel editorial celebrates British singer Ed Sheeran’s historic concert in Bhutan, which makes him the only international artist to have performed in the country: "For Sheeran, whose music speaks to universal themes of love, hope, and resilience, the performance aligned perfectly with Bhutan’s narrative—a young nation striving to preserve its rich heritage while embracing modernity.".
India Approves $1.9 Billion Program for Critical Minerals (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/29/2025 11:32 PM, Rajesh Kumar Singh, 21617K, Positive]
India’s cabinet approved a 163-billion-rupee ($1.9 billion) program to secure supplies of a range of minerals used mainly in battery, electronics, defense and agriculture sectors.

The National Critical Mineral Mission will focus on local mining and processing of 24 vital minerals, as well as acquisitions of mining blocks overseas, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters.

The initiative, which will also give a thrust to the recycling of materials such as lithium, cobalt, potash and graphite, will help reduce the country’s reliance on imports, he said in New Delhi on Wednesday. The nation relies almost entirely on overseas shipments for energy transition materials, including cobalt, nickel, lithium and copper ore and concentrates, with China being a key supplier.

The plan ties into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call in 2020 for national economic self-reliance amid upheavals caused by the pandemic. The country has since been part of global efforts to diversify supply chains away from China.

India has also been focusing on speedy implementation of several policies to meet its green targets. Modi’s government aims to more than double the country’s green power capacity by 2030 and has offered incentives for the manufacturing of battery storage systems to enable a round-the-clock supply of clean energy.

“Given the country’s vulnerability to geopolitical shifts surrounding critical minerals, this mission addresses a key area of concern,” said Rakesh Surana, a partner of Deloitte India. “By improving self-sufficiency in this area, the country will be better positioned to meet its energy and industrial requirements, while also contributing to its long-term sustainability goals.”

The mission is expected to attract an investment of 180 billion rupees, the government’s Press Information Bureau said in a statement.

Batteries will also be crucial for decarbonizing India’s ground transport fleet that runs mostly on fossil fuels. Minerals such as lithium, cobalt and graphite would be key to the success of its battery-making plans.

The initiative will also help the country’s ambitions in electronics, nuclear and aerospace industries, the government statement said.

The mission will intensify the exploration of critical minerals within the country and in offshore areas. It aims to create a fast track regulatory approval process for such projects, besides offering financial incentives for exploration and to promote the recovery of such materials from mining waste, it said.

The government will encourage state-run and private-sector companies to acquire critical mineral assets abroad and enhance trade with resource-rich countries, according to the statement.
More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey shows (Reuters)
Reuters [1/29/2025 8:04 AM, Shivangi Acharya and Aftab Ahmed, 48128K, Neutral]
More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud future prospects, a survey showed, in disappointing news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this week’s annual budget.

More than 37% of respondents in a pre-budget survey said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, the highest such percentage since 2013, findings released by polling agency C-Voter showed on Wednesday. Modi has been prime minister since 2014.

C-Voter said it polled 5,269 adults across Indian states for this survey.

Persistent eye-watering food inflation has squeezed Indian household budgets and crimped spending power, and the world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest pace of growth in four years.

Nearly two thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and that prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister, while more than half said the rate of inflation had "adversely" affected their quality of life.

Modi, in the nation’s annual budget this week, is expected to announce measures to shore up faltering economic growth, lift disposable incomes and placate a stretched middle class.

Nearly half of respondents said their personal income had remained the same over the last year while expenses rose, while nearly two thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, the survey showed.

Despite world-beating economic growth, India’s job market offers insufficient opportunities for its large youthful population to earn regular wages.

In the last budget, India earmarked nearly $24 billion to be spent over five years on various schemes to create jobs but those programmes have not yet been implemented as discussions on the details drag on.
India’s finance minister faces a tough choice crafting the annual budget — boost growth or cut deficit? (CNBC)
CNBC [1/29/2025 6:58 PM, Anniek Bao, 36472K, Neutral]
As the Indian government walks a tight rope between fiscal prudence and reviving growth, experts suggest it will likely favor cutting deficit in its annual budget over spending aimed at turbocharging Asia’s third-largest economy.

For the fiscal year ending March 2026, the Indian government could lower the fiscal deficit target by 50 basis points to 4.4% of the country’s gross domestic product from the 4.9% target for the current fiscal year, economists at investment bank UBS said.

They also projected the government would set a nominal GDP growth target of 10.5% for the next fiscal year.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the national budget on Feb. 1, in what would be the coalition government’s first full-year budget after assuming power in June.

The budget comes against the backdrop of a growth slowdown in the world’s fifth-largest economy, weak domestic demand, a depreciating rupee and rising global uncertainties.

The slowdown in the economy has largely been attributed to factors such as unseasonal rainfall, fiscal tightening and tepid credit growth in the private sector as the central bank took steps to curb unsecured lending growth.

The upcoming budget is likely to re-emphasize on jobs growth in the labor-intensive manufacturing sector, while promoting rural housing programs and additional steps to control prices volatility, Goldman Sachs said.

As domestic consumption and economic activity slows, the budget might focus on “fine-tuning existing measures and medium-term demand boost,” said Radhika Rao, senior economist at DBS.

“Tax relief [also] tops this list ... even though a reduction in the personal income tax rates or standard exemption will impact a small part of the population, some support is likely in the pipeline,” Rao added.

To give consumption a boost, the central government is expected to lower personal income tax for middle-income households, she said, while continuing to prioritize spending on infrastructures, upgrading the country’s roads, railways, airports and highways.
Deficit focus

After surging to 9.2% of GDP during the pandemic, the Indian government has been steadily lowering its budget deficit in recent years, a key requirement for the country to win a credit rating upgrade.

S&P Global Rating raised in May India’s sovereign rating outlook to “positive” from “stable” while retaining the country’s credit rating at “BBB-” — its lowest investment grade level — citing the country’s robust economic expansion and political commitment to fiscal consolidation.

The finance minister pledged in her July budget speech to narrow the deficit to 4.9% in the current fiscal year, and 4.5% next fiscal year. “From 2026-27 onwards, our endeavor will be to keep the fiscal deficit each year such that the central government debt will be on a declining path as percentage of GDP,” she said.

The government is expected to achieve a deficit of less than 5% in the current fiscal year, in part thanks to a $25 billion record dividend from the central bank. Nomura economists attributed it partly to “a sharp underspend” in capital expenditure.

Over the last seven years, the Indian government has consistently fallen short of fully utilizing the budgeted and additional expenditures approved through supplementary grants, using on average around 80% of the total available funds each year, according to Goldman Sachs. The shortfall has narrowed post-pandemic, when the government overshot its budgeted subsidies expenditure to cover rising food prices, it said.

The investment bank projected the government’s public expenditure to shrink further in the coming years, slowing to 3.2% of the GDP in fiscal year 2025-26.

That fiscal discipline would “remain a drag on growth in the next fiscal year,” it said, suggesting that “the fastest growth pace in public capex is behind us ... overall, there is not much room to boost welfare spending.”
Economic slowdown

The world’s fastest growing major economy has seen a growth downturn. India has been steadily cutting its full year real GDP forecasts after economic growth missed expectations in the quarter ending September, when its grew by 5.4% — its slowest expansion in nearly two years.

The government has trimmed its economic growth outlook for the current fiscal year to the slowest level in four years, after three rounds of cuts brought estimates to 6.4% earlier this month from 7.2% in October.

For the next fiscal year, Nomura analysts said the government might set a nominal GDP growth target of 10.3%, up from 9.7% for the current fiscal year ending March 2025.

Still, hopes that Sitharaman will deliver a large fiscal package to pull the economy out of its recent soft patch in the upcoming budget are likely to be disappointed, Shilan Shah, deputy chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics said in a note.

While some additional “accommodative tax and spending measures are on the cards,” they are likely to be “piecemeal,” Shah added.
Monetary easing

The Reserve Bank of India has held the interest rate steady since February in 2023, however, a sharper-than-anticipated slowdown in India’s economic growth has made the central bank’s task tougher.

With the rupee hitting record lows against the greenback, any cuts to the bank’s policy rate could spark a further rise in domestic inflation, putting further pressure on the currency and likely triggering capital outflows.

India’s consumer price inflation has fallen within the central bank’s tolerance ceiling of 6%, coming in at 5.22% in December and 5.48% in November — it had breached the upper limit in October — offering the RBI some room to lower rates.

The RBI faces a “tough choice,” said Tanvee Gupta Jain, chief India economist at UBS, adding that she expected a “shallow monetary easing cycle” of about 75 basis points, starting the February policy meeting.

The central bank, however, said last month that monetary conditions could remain tight for some time while it looked at further curbing inflationary pressures.

India-watchers have also been on tenterhooks over possible actions by President Donald Trump, who had floated the idea of universal tariffs during his campaign trail.

With a trade surplus of nearly $42 billion with the U.S., India faces heightened scrutiny under Trump’s policy focus on reducing trade deficits.

The U.S. trade policy framework under Trump’s second presidency could strengthen the dollar and Treasury yields, keeping the U.S. interest rates elevated for longer. That has complicated the policy decisions for central banks in Asia, including the RBI, as boosting growth by loosening policy would mean widening the rate differentials.
Disinvestment goal

One part of the budget that investors will be focused on is the government’s divestment of stakes in state-run entities.

India is looking to cut its disinvestment and asset monetization goals by 40% — or to less than 300 billion rupees ($3.47 billion) from 500 billion rupees — for the current financial year, domestic media outlet The Economic Times reported earlier this month.

Divestment receipts have “lagged this year” and stood at 90 billion rupees compared to the government budget estimate of 500 billion rupees, said UBS’ Jain.

She expects the government to lower the target “towards 300 billion” rupees for the next fiscal year.
India seeking energy, lithium investments in Argentina (Reuters)
Reuters [1/29/2025 9:32 AM, Lucila Sigal, 48128K, Positive]
India is looking to expand its investments in Argentina’s mining, gas and oil sectors, with a focus on lithium, to secure resources needed for its energy transition, the country’s mining secretary told Reuters.

Secretary V.L. Kantha Rao visited Buenos Aires for the first in-person meeting with Argentine counterparts since the two countries tied up a preliminary agreement in 2022 on mineral exploration, critical minerals supply and technology development.

Indian state firms Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) and Coal India (COAL.NS) along with private company Greenko, are already exploring lithium in Argentina’s northwest province of Catamarca, on the border with Chile.

"We hope that in the next six months there will be a new announcement," Rao told Reuters at an event at the Indian embassy in Argentina on Tuesday, where he added that there is interest in other nearby provinces such as Salta.

India, a major greenhouse gas emitter, is securing key minerals in resource-rich nations like Australia, Argentina, and Chile. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has identified 30 critical minerals, including lithium, for its clean energy push.

"India has a very ambitious plan to transition many vehicles to electric. We aim to convert 30% of our vehicles by 2030," India’s ambassador to Argentina, Dinesh Bhatia, told Reuters.

Indian officials, who will visit Catamarca and meet Argentine Economy Minister Luis Caputo, touted potential benefits from the Latin American nation’s so-called Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), which offers tax benefits for investments over $200 million.

"We want a stable (framework), not one that changes every five years," Rao told reporters. "Right now, policies are investment-friendly, and companies are coming.".

Argentina, the world’s fourth-largest lithium exporter, is part of the "lithium triangle" with Chile and Bolivia. President Javier Milei is pushing deregulation to attract investment and ease a prolonged economic crisis.

India is also eyeing investments in Argentina’s copper, gold, gas and oil resources. Last week, Argentina’s state-controlled oil firm YPF (YPFDm.BA) signed a memorandum of understanding with three Indian companies for potential liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
NSB
Transcript: Bangladesh students win a chance for change (Financial Times)
Financial Times [1/29/2025 4:14 PM, Gideon Rachman, 14.8M, Neutral]
This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Bangladesh students win a chance for change’

Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about Bangladesh, the eighth most populous country in the world. My guest is Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and Bangladesh’s interim leader. The students who led the uprising that overthrew the government of Sheikh Hasina last summer say they want a new Bangladesh. But can the country really stabilise and move forward?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[AUDIO CLIP OF PROTESTS]

The Bangladesh student and people’s uprising of July and August last year overthrew the government of Sheikh Hasina, who had been running the country since 2009. She was widely accused of corruption and human rights abuses. 

Protester voice clip
They’re killing people indiscriminately. People are being jailed. People are being tortured. At the same time, you are seeing the courage of the people of Bangladesh who have decided they will not sit down, they will not, you know, go down without a fight.

Gideon Rachman
The tipping point may have been the so-called July massacre, in which it’s estimated that over a thousand protesters, many of them children, were killed. With Sheikh Hasina gone, the student protesters turned to Muhammad Yunus. He’s trying to stabilise the country and to crack down on corruption. One of the unexpected side effects was the resignation in Britain of a government minister, Tulip Siddiq, who was the niece of Sheikh Hasina.

I met Muhammad Yunus at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. A word of explanation before we listen to Bangladesh’s interim leader. We met in a fairly crowded coffee lounge, so there’s a bit of background noise, but stick with it. Muhammad Yunus is an extraordinary man in an extraordinary situation. He started by explaining how he saw last summer’s uprising.

Muhammad Yunus
This unique event that has taken place in Bangladesh, almost unique in human history because they had no intention of bringing the government down. They were in an innocent kind of campaign for their jobs and things like that. It had no leader.

Gideon Rachman
So what drove it? Was it a graffiti revolution?

Muhammad Yunus
Graffiti is a later thing. When this demonstration came to the peak, boys and girls just painting things on the walls, just on the roadside, miles and miles of it. In the emotion expressed, they’re not painters. They’re school kids, they’re college kids. Amazing quality of the painting and the vision. That’s why it’s unique. You don’t have a political leader. Nothing. They didn’t have a theory. Simply, this is a government we don’t want. They took away everything from us. One letter touched me very much. A 12-year-old wrote a letter, left it at home for the mother. Mother, you’d have been stopping me going to the demonstration. My friends are there demonstrating and some of them were killed. I feel guilty. I’m sitting home because you would not allow me to go. I don’t want to be a coward. I want to stand up for my country. So I’m leaving. I seek your blessing. In case something happened to me, if I don’t come back, please forgive me. And he went, didn’t come back. So you can feel the emotions of the moment of that tremendous amount of unity that is created. When the children are going, parents are going to stop them. Parents join them. So it’s the mother, it’s the father accompanying the son so that he is protected. That became a mass movement for everybody. It’s a tidal wave of human bodies, the final day, moving into the direction of the house of the prime minister.

Gideon Rachman
And where were you at this point?

Muhammad Yunus
I was in Paris, organising the Paris Olympics because I was giving them a design, how an ideal Olympics should be. I call it a social Olympics. Sports is not just fun. Sports has huge social power, the fact that you bring so many people together all over the world.

Gideon Rachman
And so how did you then get the call and come back?

Muhammad Yunus
That day when the first call came, I was in the hospital just for a small operation. So they called. I was watching the news everyday on the mobile phone what is happening in Bangladesh. They said she left. Now we have to have a government. Please form the government for us. I said, no, I’m not the one. I don’t know anything about it and I don’t want to get involved with it.

Gideon Rachman
Who was it who contacted you?

Muhammad Yunus
Students. I don’t know these guys. Never heard of them. Never knew them. So I try to convince them you’ll find somebody. There are lots of good leaders in Bangladesh, you’ll find them. They said, no, no, no, you have to be there. We can’t find anybody. I said, try harder. No, we don’t have time. I said use at least one day again for my sake, 24 hours later, you can call me back. If it’s settled, I’ll be extremely happy. They called me back, said no, we tried very hard. It’s not possible. You have to come back. So I finally I said, look, you have given lives and can see those pictures, shootings and so on. So much blood have been shed. And you are at the forefront of this. If you have done all of this, probably I should do something against my wishes and it is the time that it has to be done. Government has to reform. Do you agree? I said, yes, I agree. That’s it. They didn’t say a word.

Two hours later, a nurse from the hospital comes with a bouquet to present to me. I said, what is this for? She said you are the prime minister of Bangladesh, we didn’t know that. I said, I just talked to these kids. I said, how do you know? She said it’s all over the press, all over television. They’re saying that you are the prime minister. I said, oh my god, I’ve heard this news from you. Nobody told me yet. Two hours later, the head of the hospital comes with the board, people with more bouquet greet me, you are the new prime minister. Hospital says you cannot leave until afternoon. So I told the hospital director, now that he is here, they said they are insisting that I have to go. Can you prepare me so that I can travel? He said, of course, you are the prime minister. I have to obey you. So we’ll make all the preparations so that you can go safely and give you medication and everything with you. And I think we can make it. And I’ll be in touch.

And a few hours later, when morning came, the big detachment of French army came to take me to the airport. And I said, my God, what happened to me? So that is the journey that I have to take. I go to Bangladesh, entire nation waiting for my plane to come. It was a commercial flight. So then they get a new government. So I have to address the nation right at the airport, asking for patience, peace, unity and all those kind of things. So that was the beginning of the whole story.

Gideon Rachman
So you’ve been in charge. How do you even start? And what have been your priorities? How have you adjusted them?

Muhammad Yunus
First thing, they said you form your cabinet. I said, who do I get? Because you have to take oath. So I’ve tried to get to my house first. And then I was back to the president palace so that we can all take the oath. In the meantime, I have to find people to form the cabinet and so on. So we’re together. So this is very fast track. What do you do? That’s the next question. Where do we begin now? Sit down and take a breath and see action one after another.

Gideon Rachman
And now, I mean, fast forwarding to today, what’s the top priority?

Muhammad Yunus
Top priority, number one: get the economy moving again. Because the whole economy is devastated. The economy, I don’t have to explain to you, you know that. The entire country was kind of a subject of a highway robbery by the people who are running it. They stole everything. Banks are empty because they took the money and taking over the bank is easy on gunpoint. The board was asked to resign and the government had its own people to sit in the board and start issuing loans to people that they want. It was a loan to you, friend, any amount you want. On paper, you’ll never have to pay back.

So that’s how all the money went. $17bn worth of money from the banking sector was plundered away. These are the facts that we have collected. Overall in the country, $16bn per year on average taken away. So you see the economy, what it is right now. It is an empty shell of an economy. We were worried about the garment industry, which is a mainstay for the economy. So if that goes, we are gone, finished. We are very happy to see the confidence of the buyers. They’re still there and the factories are still running. So luckily that they stayed and our export earnings started increasing. Our exports expanded. That made us happy.

Our foreign exchange went down and luckily again, suddenly the remittances came as a saviour for us. Remittances started increasing. Our outstanding payments to be made to our people who supply things, we have to make payments and so on, we bought things from them. We didn’t have enough money to pay them. Huge loans taken. Loans are becoming due, we have to pay. So that’s a big tension. How do you pay? So this is one part, restoring the economy part of it.

And in the meantime, tell the people what we do from here. So one way we explain that since all the institutions have collapsed, we have to have a reform agenda. So we created 15 different reform commissions — on constitutional reforms, on election procedure reforms, on judiciary reforms, on human rights reforms. Many, many things, the police administration reforms, everything. We gave them 90 days to submit a report. The 90 days are over this month. Some of them needed a week or two weeks extension. We did that. We already have five commission reports in our hand. But it will take two or three weeks more to get all of them together. So our idea is when all the reports are available, we will have a consensus-building commission so that you have so many reports, so many things. So we wanted to have a process of building consensus on which we all agree. Then we will form what we call a July charter, the month of our student uprising. July charter will be the thing which unify the country, unify all our wishes into a charter. Because you all agreed, and you signed the charter. And that will be our historical document that we’ll follow then.

How much would be implemented before the election? How much will be done after the election? Whichever the government is coming, their commitment because you are a signatory here and make sure that you follow this pact. So we have announced election dates. One is by the end of this year. And I explain to people that that will not allow us enough time to do all the reforms. Some essential reforms can be done by that time. If you want some more reforms, then we need another six months of time. So you choose whether by the middle of next year or by the end of this year. These are the two choices we give. The politicians want faster track, let’s get the election done and then we’ll take care of the rest of it.

So this is where we are. And I complained to the global community. I said you have been dealing with this government for all these years. You gave them awards. So what kind of system is it, tell me.

Gideon Rachman
And here in Davos, do you think a lot of the people who facilitated it, the bankers, they’re here.

Muhammad Yunus
They’re all here. You’re dealing with her and praising her for fast growth. These are fake numbers.

Gideon Rachman
Can you get the money back? Do you think there’s any chance? 

Muhammad Yunus
This is what we’re discussing here, how do we get the money back. Because this track is such a crazy thing. You give responsibility to somebody to bring the money back. You wonder whether he will bring the money back to us or give back the money to them. We don’t know. So we are trying to find out who do we trust with this huge amount of money going out. They’re building houses, building real estate, investing in companies, and putting it in the bank account. One of the things that make news in the UK about Tulip and the . . . 

Gideon Rachman
Yeah.

Muhammad Yunus
Yes, this is a part of the whole thing.

Gideon Rachman
Do you think the British government was just naive or do you think they knew what was going on?

Muhammad Yunus
That’s a question we ask, ourselves. How can you not know this thing?

Gideon Rachman
You know, Tulip’s job was anti-corruption.

Muhammad Yunus
Yeah, she was a minister of anti-corruption. And this is what she did. And the whole family’s involved. It is not just Tulip alone. Anybody connected with the family is making lots of money.

Gideon Rachman
And Sheikh Hasina herself is still in Delhi.

Muhammad Yunus
She’s in Delhi. And we said, well, you decide what you want to do, because legally you have to repatriate. At the same time, whatever time she spends there, make sure she doesn’t talk because she’s speaking all the time, attacking Bangladesh, addressing Bangladeshi people. There’s a lot of misinformation in the press. Indian government tells us that this is not us, we are not doing it. It’s the press doing it, but it’s very, very negative. For example, headline would be Yunus is a terrorist. He has been trained in Pakistan. He wants to establish a Taliban regime in Bangladesh. And this Yunus has been sent by Americans. The whole American authority has prepared the whole scenario and put him there.

Gideon Rachman
What’s the most important thing you want from the outside world, particularly perhaps the Europeans?

Muhammad Yunus
Europeans have been wonderful. I didn’t expect so much warmth in them. They went out of their way to support us. They brought all the ambassadors from Delhi. Most of the European Union ambassadors are located in Delhi, looking after Bangladesh. So we bring all the ambassadors to Dhaka as the European Union. They are committed to do all the things they need. So I cannot expect more than that.

Gideon Rachman
Have you spoken to the IMF and the World Bank?

Muhammad Yunus
We have. (Inaudible) And they are very helpful. We have lots of problems, we have not met many of the conditions that were put during the previous regime. We said, sorry, we are not responsible, but we will do our best. Help us to put the economy in a good footing. This is a chance. This is a historical chance. That’s what we tell everybody. I genuinely believe that it is a historical chance for Bangladesh, and historical chance for our international friends.

Gideon Rachman
Can I just press you a little bit on the elections thing? It was interesting because we were talking to Syrians. They have the same issue. Do they have elections? And some people said, in theory it’s great to have elections quickly. But actually in the Syrian case, big mistake. Don’t do it too fast. It can just split the country if you do it too quickly.

Muhammad Yunus
This is a good time because always I’m protecting the unity of the nation. I do not want to depart from that. One of the possibility is the student themselves will form a party. In the beginning when they are forming the cabinet, I took three of the student into my cabinet. I said, if they can give life for the country, they can sit in the cabinet and decide what is that they are giving life for. And they are doing good work. Now the students are saying, why don’t you form your our own political party, we’ll take a chance. And they said, you have no chance. You don’t even get one seat in the parliament. Why? Because nobody knows you. I said the whole nation knows them. Let them take a chance, whatever they want to do. So they will do it.

Maybe in the process of forming party, they will fall apart. That’s also a danger because politics is getting in, all the politicians will penetrate into them. So we don’t know whether they can remove themselves from the politics that we have in the country. This is the kind of chance we have to take. But the students are ready. They are campaigning. They are organising throughout the country.

Gideon Rachman
Can I put to you that one of the arguments that the Indians make and they say Bangladesh, it’s very fragile. Yunus may not be OK, but there are Islamists who are going to take the country over. What do you say to that?

Muhammad Yunus
We don’t see such signs. At least I don’t see any such signs. Young people are really committed. They have not a touch of ill will or a personal desire to make a political career for themselves. They are joining or creating political party under the circumstances. This is needed because they have to protect the things they have earned by their blood. Otherwise, they will be taken away by all the people who are looking for opportunity to repeat the previous kind of administration and so on. That’s our political kind of environment with Bangladesh. So they are trying to protect that. So I would say students will have transparent intentions.

Gideon Rachman
You’ve obviously got enormous problems you have to deal with. What’s the potential of the country there?

Muhammad Yunus
Deal with them. You don’t run away with the problem because you have tremendous support internally, globally. What else do you need? Bangladesh will never have this kind of support, global support, probably many, many years from now or never had it before. So that moment we have to capture. Use it to build, as they call new Bangladesh. This is an opportune moment for all of us.

Gideon Rachman
And in terms of economic sectors, you mentioned garments as crucial. I mean, when you look forward 20 years, what can Bangladesh . . . 

Muhammad Yunus
When I talk to businesspeople, investors, I said, look, Bangladesh is a unique country in a sense of population, the eighth-largest population in the whole world. Tiny little country. All are young people. Our median age is 27, sort of half the population is under 27 years old. Bubbling with ideas, they have technology in their hand. Everybody has a phone. They’re international young people, although born and raised in Bangladesh. But their interest, their thinking is completely different and that’s why they could do such a thing. I said, this is what Bangladesh is all about. I said, you don’t have to invest in Bangladesh, a foreign country. We don’t know. You locate your industry in Bangladesh, you run everything, we only work for you. This is your factory. We produce technology-related things. They know all the scope. Give them a chance.

You want to make machinery? Vehicles? Give them a chance. They’ll build it for you. We never had any idea about the garment industry. Garment industry was thrown at us, and rural women never see an effect in their life were hired to do that. Didn’t know what effect is. Today, 80 per cent of these workers are women coming from the villages and the most skilful, nobody could beat them. They are the second-largest garment industry product in the whole world. So this is what’s waiting for you. So all we have to do is to provide you the space. We have the space already designated. You come. If power is a problem, we will solve the power problem because of hydroelectricity in Nepal. It’s unlimited capacity. Humanity has given us this opportunity. Clean energy. All you’d have to do is to persuade India to let it come over India. Just a small space of 40 miles or something.

And we have enormous green energy. We do. And we serve not Bangladesh. We are not talking about Bangladesh (inaudible). Nepalese young people will be working, Bhutanese people. This will be an economy of Nepal, Bangladesh and eastern India. So I said our future economies, this region, they will be all over Bangladesh. They’ll ship their products from Bangladeshi ports. We have a lot of port facilities. We’ll have more because we have long shore, with the Bay of Bengal. This is the economy that we are talking about. It will grow just like anything.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Gideon Rachman
That was Muhammad Yunus, the interim leader of Bangladesh, speaking to me in Davos and ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for listening, and please join me again next week.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
Maldives Government Beset by Corruption Scandals (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [1/29/2025 4:09 AM, Ahmed Naish, 857K, Negative]
A succession of corruption scandals has left the Maldives government reeling as a resurgent opposition gears up for direct action.

Top officials of President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s administration have been implicated in fraudulently awarding coveted plots of land, diverting welfare funds to operate a pro-government TV channel, and boosting the ruling party’s membership through identity theft.

In all of the cases, whistleblowers exposed damning evidence through an anonymous X account, an unfiltered and provocative outlet for "citizen journalism" that has been playing an increasingly consequential role in Maldivian politics.

Seizing on the multiple corruption scandals, the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has decided to stage a protest march on January 31, taking to the streets for the first time since demoralizing losses in the September 2023 presidential election and April 2024 parliamentary elections.

The first scandal broke in mid-December with the leak of internal documents from the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), a state-owned company tasked with the urban development of artificial islands near the capital Malé.

The leak contained forged documents that claimed ownership of a land plot in Hulhumalé for the brother of HDC managing director Ibrahim Fazul Rasheed. The prime real estate was among 1,351 plots awarded under the previous government’s housing scheme for native residents of Malé.

But Fazul’s brother Mohamed Fazeel Rasheed, who is deputy managing director of the Malé Water and Sewerage Company, was not among the nearly 19,000 eligible applicants for reclaimed land in the Greater Malé Region. According to the final list of recipients published by the outgoing administration in August 2023, Fazeel’s application had been disqualified on the grounds of having been a beneficiary of a previous social housing scheme.

At a combative press conference called after the leak, HDC boss Fazul dismissed his brother’s involvement as a "coincidence" and denied granting permission for Fazeel to build a boundary wall. But journalists soon found a newly-built wall at the lot in question.

The revelations inflamed the public as the alleged theft concerned housing, the most sensitive issue in the Maldives, a small island state where land is scarce and 40 percent of the population is crammed into the densely-packed capital.

Fazul and the HDC board of directors were promptly suspended. Both Fazul and Fazeel, along with several HDC and Housing Ministry officials, were barred from leaving the country as the police and Anti-Corruption Commission launched a joint investigation.

But the HDC remained under the media spotlight. The government company, valued at $2.5 billion, was described as a "nest of unchecked corruption" with a management that routinely sought bribes to sell social housing flats and grant concessions for businesses. New owners of beachfront properties and premium land purchased at discounted rates included Fazul’s wife and senior government officials.

Amid growing calls for Fazul’s dismissal, Muizzu denied receiving a seven-page letter from former HDC Chairman Ahmed Zuhoor in July 2024 that detailed suspicions of illicit enrichment with Fazul at the helm.

Fazul resigned on December 21. Late on the following night, police raided the former lawmaker’s residence, where they seized electronic devices and discovered 1.4 million Maldivian rufiyaa ($90,790) in cash. Fazul has since been questioned on charges of destroying official documents, the police confirmed on January 21.

The HDC scandal fueled speculation about arson as the cause of a massive fire that destroyed the Housing Ministry office on December 12. Documents and servers used to store information about staff and ongoing projects were lost. The cause of the fire remains unclear.

Meanwhile, complaints started to pile up from individuals registered as members of the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) without their consent.

In the wake of a recruitment drive launched in August, several fraudulent membership forms were posted online with altered photos and forged signatures. An opposition lawmaker was among those who found themselves signed up to the ruling party.

The PNC conceded the submission of invalid membership forms, citing its inability to verify each one among thousands, but denied any systemic fraud.

A day after the PNC’s denial, photos leaked online showed Homeland Security Minister Ali Ihusan and other officials cropping ID photos and filling out membership forms. The location was identified as a meeting room at the Department of National Registration (DNR), which functions under the Home Ministry.

The opposition accused the PNC of stealing personal information from the DNR database. The MDP claimed to have received 3,000 complaints and sought a police investigation.

On January 21, two political appointees in charge of the DNR met the press to address "false allegations" of identity theft. But the state minister and deputy minister fled in the face of tough questioning. A "pizza party" offered as an explanation failed to convince reporters.

According to updated membership figures released by the Elections Commission on January 23, the PNC has become the largest party with nearly 69,000 members. The MDP has fallen from over 50,000 to 43,700 members. Only parties with more than 10,000 members are eligible for state funding, which is allocated based on the number of members.

The HDC and DNR scandals followed revelations about the National Social Protection Agency leasing two floors of office space from a new TV channel managed by communications officials at the President’s Office. The five-year $2.2 million contract was allegedly inflated to cover the rent for four floors, including MMTV studios on two floors in the same building. The agreement was later terminated.

But as with the concerns raised by the former HDC chairman, Muizzu claimed to have been completely unaware of the incident. "If I receive any such information, it will be submitted to the relevant authorities," he told the press.
Invitation to Visit India Eludes Nepali Prime Minister Oli (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [1/29/2025 4:45 AM, Birat Anupam, 857K, Neutral]
Although it is seven months since K. P. Sharma Oli took over the reins as Nepal’s prime minister, he has yet to visit India, the country’s powerful southern neighbor. An invitation from New Delhi remains elusive.

A new government in Nepal has usually been followed by a Nepali prime ministerial visit to New Delhi in response to an Indian invitation. That has long been the tradition in India-Nepal relations. This was the case in Oli’s previous prime ministerial terms as well. He visited India early in his tenure in 2016 and 2018.

That has not happened so far, and it has triggered much speculation in Kathmandu. Many in Nepal believe that New Delhi is displeased with several of Oli’s moves in previous prime ministerial terms.

During his first term as prime minister, Oli strongly criticized the Indian blockade of 2015. In 2020, his government published a new political map of Nepal that included the disputed territories of Lipulekh, Kalapani, and Limpiyadhura, which are under Indian control at present. These are being cited as some of the visible and invisible irritants underlying India’s displeasure.

Domestically, India’s disapproval of Oli and his repeated provocations of India have boosted his Nepali nationalist credentials. It has won him support in Nepal. In the 2022 general election, although his Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) was relegated to the second position under the first-past-the-post system, it won the largest number of popular votes under the proportional representation system.

Oli isn’t the only Nepali prime minister to not be invited by India. Since 2008, when Nepal became a republic, two other prime ministers — the CPN-UML’s Jhalanath Khanal in 2011 and the Nepali Congress’ Sushil Koirala, who was in New Delhi for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in May 2014, but wasn’t extended an invite for an official bilateral visit — didn’t make the cut.

Oli has already made an official visit to China, making him the first post-2008 prime minister to make Beijing the destination of his first official bilateral foreign visit.

People close to Oli say he waited for India’s invitation, but with no invitation from Delhi in the offing, he headed to Beijing.

When asked about his decision to make China rather than India the destination of his first official visit as prime minister, Oli said: "We have two great neighbors. We need to have good relations with both. [The] China visit doesn’t affect our ties with India. There is no reason [for it] to happen so.".

Interestingly, some of South Asia’s other leaders who started off being perceived as hostile to Delhi did get the invitation for an official visit. In October last year, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, who ran on an "India Out" election campaign, made an official visit to India. Sri Lanka’s newly-elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the National People’s Power (NPP) too was in India on an official visit in December. Dissanayake leads the Janata Vimukti Peramuna, the core of the NPP, which was virulently anti-India in the past.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Oli on his appointment as prime minister for the third time in July last year. A meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly followed in September.

In November, Nepal’s Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba called on Modi during her Delhi visit and invited him to Nepal. Modi "accepted the invite for a visit to Nepal on mutually convenient dates to be decided through diplomatic channels.".

However, Modi has not come to Nepal, nor did India invite Oli for an official India visit.

In December, the Nepali foreign minister headed to Delhi for another visit. However, she could not meet high-level Indian leaders. This was attributed to India’s displeasure over Nepal signing a BRI Framework agreement with China during Oli’s visit. Already a BRI member state, Nepal’s latest inking of the framework agreement was just a formality, providing continuity to its BRI participation since 2017.

According to noted Nepali author and podcaster Sudheer Sharma, India’s reluctance to invite Oli is due not only to policy differences mainly on the map and borders, but also to ego issues. Both Modi and Oli are egotistic, he says.

Sharma says India’s invitation to the Nepali prime minister may not come when Oli wants but only when India deems it necessary.

Gopal Khanal, a former foreign affairs adviser to Oli, said India’s unwillingness to invite Oli is a reflection of India’s choice. As the prime minister of an independent, sovereign country, Oli has the right to decide which country to go to for his first bilateral visit based on Nepal’s national interest. If invited by India, "PM Oli will visit at a mutually agreeable time," Khanal said.

Oli may not have visited India since the start of his fourth prime ministerial term, but this has in no way hampered cooperation.

Since November 15, hydropower-rich Nepal has started selling electricity to Bangladesh via India based on a trilateral accord signed on October 3. Oli and Modi created trade history in 2019 when they inaugurated South Asia’s first cross-border oil pipeline.
Central Asia
OPEC+ to take joint stance on Trump oil policy, Kazakhstan says (Reuters)
Reuters [1/29/2025 7:53 AM, Tamara Vaal, 48128K, Neutral]
The OPEC+ group of leading oil producers is set to discuss President Donald Trump’s efforts to raise U.S. oil production and take a joint stance on the matter, Kazakhstan said on Wednesday.

Trump last week laid out a sweeping plan to help maximise oil and gas production, including by declaring a national energy emergency to speed permitting and rolling back environmental protections.

Trump has also publicly called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its leading member, Saudi Arabia, to lower oil prices, saying doing so would end the conflict in Ukraine.

OPEC+, which groups the de facto Saudi-led OPEC and allies including Russia and Kazakhstan, has yet to react to Trump’s call. The group already has a plan in place to start raising oil output from April, gradually unwinding previous cuts.

That plan had been delayed several times because of weak demand.

OPEC+ is due to hold a meeting of its Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee on Feb. 3.

"In the nearest future, a meeting is planned at the level of OPEC+ representatives, at which the organization’s policy regarding the current situation will be discussed, including U.S. plans to increase production volumes, and a coordinated position will be adopted," Kazakh Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev told a briefing.

OPEC+ members are currently holding back 5.86 million barrels per day of output, or about 5.7% of global demand, in a series of steps agreed since 2022 to support the market.
Uzbekistan: Going green in a big way (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [1/29/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Uzbekistan is launching a green energy offensive in 2025 that aims to boost the share of renewable energy usage in the country from 16 percent at present to 26 percent by the end of the year.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has declared 2025 “the Year of Environmental Protection and Green Economy,” according to a statement issued by the presidential press service.

“The ‘Green economy’ is not only the development of clean energy, but also the improvement of energy efficiency in various industries,” the statement notes. “This year, the goal is to maintain the rate of economic growth at a level of at least 6 percent and increase the gross domestic product to more than $125 billion. To achieve this, rationality and savings are key factors.”

To help meet the administration’s goal, 16 solar- and wind-energy generating projects with the capacity of 3.5 Gigawatts are expected to come online in 2025.

Earlier in January, Mirziyoyev announced a goal to increase the share of renewables in Uzbek energy generation to 54 percent by 2030, instead of the previously planned 40 percent. “We will introduce national systems for monitoring greenhouse gas emissions and trading emission quotas,” an Uzbek government statement quoted Mirziyoyev as saying. “By 2030, we intend to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent and constantly increase this indicator.”

Mirziyoyev mentioned on January 28 that by 2030, 55 percent of new industrial and infrastructure projects should be “green” with the aim of catering to environmentally conscious importers in the West. He also instructed government ministries to prioritize developing industries that produce more value per unit of energy used, such as automobile, pharmaceutical and food industries that, according to him, “produce 15-20 times more value added per ton of [oil equivalent of] energy than chemical, construction and textile sectors.”

Mirziyoyev is pushing the use of solar panels, setting a goal of generating 1GW of power via solar panels on the roofs of businesses and private houses. Solar panels have already been installed on 60,000 roofs throughout Uzbekistan, and the plan is to install them on 50 percent of all roofs in the nation, according to a presidential press service statement, which did not specify a timeframe for reaching the goal.

Mirziyoyev’s green energy push is likely motivated by a desire to diversify the Uzbek economy, which is heavily dependent on revenue generated by raw material exports. The president also is betting on green energy to drive an economic transformation that better positions Uzbekistan in the global trading framework.
Japan’s Ishiba aims for resource partnerships with Central Asia outreach (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [1/29/2025 3:04 PM, Kana Baba, 1286K, Positive]
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba seeks to advance his resource diplomacy agenda with a senior adviser’s trip to Central Asia this week, hoping to leverage the technical capabilities of Japanese companies to support energy and mineral development in the region.

Akihisa Nagashima, a special adviser to the prime minister, departed Wednesday on a 10-day tour of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan amid calls by local governments to make the region more of a priority.

Nagashima will meet with key figures to discuss arranging summits along with measures to bolster supply chains for key minerals as well as energy resources such as oil and gas. He also will check on the progress of local projects involving Japanese companies.

Previous Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was slated to visit Central Asia last August for a summit with leaders from the five countries, but canceled the trip after an advisory for an increased risk of a massive earthquake along the Nankai Trough.

Kazakhstan is the world’s top producer of uranium, and is rich in metals that are key to manufacturing electronics. Though Japan is poor in resources, its private sector has strengths in extraction and refining technology. Tokyo is encouraging partnerships between companies from the two countries.

Ishiba’s interest in resource diplomacy has grown through visits to various countries since taking office in October. When the prime minister traveled to Peru in November, he met with President Dina Boluarte and agreed to cooperate on strengthening supply chains for materials such as copper and zinc. He also signed a memorandum of understanding on mineral resources.

Ishiba also looks to visit the U.S. in early February, during which he is expected to discuss buying more American shale gas in a meeting with President Donald Trump.

The emphasis on resource diplomacy stems not only from its economic benefits, but also from its impact on Japan’s economic security and the broader regional situation.

Central Asia is situated between Russia -- which has invaded Ukraine -- and China, which continues to expand its military. Tokyo has been encouraging Central Asian nations to rely less on their much larger neighbors, as did the U.S. under previous President Joe Biden.

China similarly has been gaining influence in Southeast Asia and South America via Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Japan aims to mobilize both its public and private sectors to strengthen bilateral relationships and ensure that geopolitical developments do not put its supplies of critical commodities at risk.
China enhances position as Central Asia’s economic overlord (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [1/29/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Top Trump Administration officials have set countering China’s growing global influence as a top foreign policy priority. In Central Asia, US officials will face an uphill struggle in trying to reduce Beijing’s expanding economic footprint.

Beijing has reinforced its position as the dominant economic player in the region, which sits on China’s western border, recording an almost 5 percent growth in trade turnover in 2024, according the data published by the country’s General Administration of Customs. China has muscled Russia aside as the region’s top trade partner.

The figures show that the balance of 2024 trade leans heavily in China’s favor. Overall turnover with Central Asia reached $94.8 billion, up from $89.4 billion the previous year. Chinese goods and services exported to Central Asia were worth $64.2 billion, accounting for more than two-thirds of trade. Most of the $30.6 billion that China imported from Central Asia last year comprised natural resources, including oil, natural gas, rare earths, precious metals and minerals. Another major import item was fruits and other foodstuffs.

Kazakhstan remained China’s largest trade partner in the region, with bilateral trade turnover reaching $43.8 billion, a nearly 7 percent increase over the previous year’s total. Kazakhstan imported $28 billion worth of goods and services and exports totaled $15.9 billion.

Kyrgyzstan achieved the greatest percentage gain year-on-year with China, with bilateral turnover increasing by about 15 percent to $22.7 billion. The most notable aspect is that Kyrgyzstan grew its exports to China by an astounding 3,270 percent, from a relatively paltry $80 million in 2023 to $2.8 billion last year. Nevertheless, Kyrgyzstan ran a massive trade deficit with China in 2024 as imports reached $19.9 billion.

Trade with Turkmenistan, China’s third-largest trade partner in the region, was flat at $10.6 billion. But Turkmenistan remained the only Central Asian state to record a trade surplus with Beijing. Ashgabat’s exports totaled $9.6 billion, while imports were limited to just over $1 billion. The Turkmen surplus is far from an anomaly. The country’s favorable balance of trade with China dates back at least to 2014, which is as far back as GACC data goes.

Uzbekistan experienced a marginal decline in Chinese trade by about 2 percent to just under $13.8 billion, with exports to China amounting to $2 billion and imports $11.8 billion.

Tajikistan also saw a decline in bilateral turnover by nearly 2 percent to about $3.9 billion. While Dushanbe’s exports to China grew by almost 40 percent year-on-year to $350 million, Tajik imports stood at just over $3.5 billion.

Meanwhile, China’s economic influence in the Caucasus also is on the rise, with trade turnover with the region’s three countries reaching $6.5 billion in 2024, up from the previous year’s total of $5.4 billion, an increase of 22 percent. As with Central Asia, the balance of trade overwhelmingly benefited China: the Caucasus states’ imports were worth $5.3 billion, while exports amounted to $1.1 billion.

Azerbaijan accounted for the largest share of the region’s trade turnover, at nearly $2.5 billion, and showed the most growth: more than 43 percent year-on-year. But growth was driven exclusively by imports from China that soared by 55 percent to $2.4 billion, while Baku’s already negligible export total plummeted by 64 percent to $61 million.

Georgia’s trade with China grew by about 10 percent to $2.3 billion. Imports remained largely flat at around $2 billion. And while exports grew by about 142 percent, the grand total was still a relatively modest $276 million.

Armenia’s bilateral turnover increased by 15 percent to $1.8 billion. But, as with Azerbaijan, it was the expanded flow of goods from China that accounted for virtually all of the growth: Chinese imports skyrocketed by over 75 percent to exceed $1 billion, while exports shrank by around 22 percent to $768 million. Prior to 2024, Armenia had run positive trade balances with China dating back at least to 2014. Yerevan’s efforts to dramatically reduce its economic dependence on Russia likely helped push the country’s trade balance with Beijing into negative territory.
Indo-Pacific
WHO warns polio progress in Afghanistan, Pakistan at risk due to US funding cut (VOA)
VOA [1/29/2025 3:29 PM, Ayaz Gul, 2717K, Neutral]
A senior World Health Organization official cautioned Wednesday that the eradication of polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the only countries where the paralytic virus persists, is threatened by the suspension of funding from the United States.

In an online news conference, Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, emphasized the crucial role of U.S. financial contribution to the organization’s surveillance efforts for polio and all other communicable diseases, particularly within her region.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered an unprecedented 90-day suspension of almost all foreign aid to give his administration the time to evaluate whether to continue funding the numerous humanitarian, development and security programs that receive U.S. assistance.

On his first day back in the White House, Trump announced he was withdrawing the United States from WHO.

His executive order accused the United Nations agency of mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health crises, as well as failing "to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.".

Balkhy referred to Trump’s announcement to withdraw from WHO as "very unfortunate" and highlighted that the U.S. has been a "major" supporter of her organization’s work in the Eastern Mediterranean region for decades.

"The U.S. funding was indeed decisive in fighting polio, eradicating polio. Currently, we are in the last round of eradicating polio in the last two countries in the world: Afghanistan and Pakistan," the Saudi physician said through an interpreter.

"We hope that our collaboration with our partners will enable us to achieve our goal of fully eradicating polio in these countries during this final stage," she added.

Balkhy emphasized WHO’s dedication to safeguarding the world against the resurgence of polio.

In 2024, Pakistan reported 73 cases of the paralytic poliovirus, while Afghanistan reported 25 cases. Although there have been no additional polio cases in Afghanistan so far, Pakistani officials confirmed the first poliovirus infection of 2025 last week.

Balkhy attributed efforts led by WHO to contain what she described as the "inevitable" spread of polio in Gaza due to the destruction of its sewage and sanitation services.

She stated they are prepared to discuss the reforms the United States plans to propose and carry out necessary internal assessments to help advance the organization’s work.

"Funding shortfalls in 2024 have already led to devastating cuts to lifesaving health operations. We ask for your support in amplifying our message — help us save lives, restore health systems and bring hope to millions," Balkhy said.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/29/2025 11:38 AM, 247.5K followers, 27 retweets, 97 likes]
The Taliban credited their policies for the currency stability, but following the suspension of U.S. aid, the currency has sharply declined (10%). Without restored cash inflows, Taliban’s financial system faces potential collapse.

Bilal Sarwary
@bsarwary
[1/30/2025 2:48 AM, 254K followers, 8 retweets, 9 likes]
Massive lawlessness in Afghanistan where people with affiliation with the former Republic continue to disappear and later their bodies recovered. This has happened in Kabul, Parwan, Kandahar, Herat, Uruzgan, Nimroz Helmand, Khost, and Takhar provinces . Does every province or person in charge have their own code under the Taliban?

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/29/2025 5:36 PM, 5.5K followers, 4 retweets, 9 likes]
Waited over three years for P-1 approval, cleared every vetting process, proved their loyalty, and were finally granted entry—only to have their flights halted. These are America’s wartime allies, left in limbo, vulnerable and abandoned. If left behind now, they won’t survive.

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/29/2025 9:54 AM, 5.5K followers, 4 retweets, 8 likes]
A strong America never forgets its allies Mr. President @POTUS, your Afghan wartime allies stood shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. in its longest, toughest fight against terror. They risked everything—facing death, torture, and exile—because they believed in the greatness of America, in its strength, its values, and its promise. These aren’t just refugees; they are warriors against radicalism, partners in securing American interests, and defenders of freedom. They passed every vetting, every security check—loyal, proven, and battle-tested. Leaving them behind isn’t strength; it’s abandoning those who fought for America’s safety. Give them the shelter they earned. A strong America never forgets its allies.
Pakistan
Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[1/29/2025 11:51 AM, 3.1M followers, 9 retweets, 12 likes]
Commonwealth Asia Youth Alliance (CAYA) Youth Summit 2025 Pakistan proudly hosts CAYA, uniting young voices across Asia for advocacy, collaboration, and leadership. With the Asia Region Youth Ministers Meeting, this initiative is shaping policies for sustainable development and meaningful youth participation. From policy dialogues to dynamic discussions on leadership, digital transformation, climate action, and regional integration, young leaders engaged in roundtables, workshops, and networking, working alongside policymakers to drive real change. Get a glimpse of this remarkable event, where young voices are shaping the future.

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[1/29/2025 4:29 AM, 3.1M followers, 31 retweets, 139 likes] A delegation of leading US Investors led by Mr. Gentry Beach called on the Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad.

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/29/2025 10:15 PM, 21.1M followers, 1.1K retweets, 1.8K likes]
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Media Talk in Adiala Jail - January 29, 2025
"In civilized societies, defamation is penalized with fines; it is considered a civil liability. However, in Pakistan, the draconian PECA law was passed, increasing the punishment for defamation to five years. For the first time in world history, individuals are being penalized for insulting government institutions. In developed countries, including the UK, defamation is punished with fines because the world is progressing based on democratic values and freedom of expression. But in Pakistan, such undemocratic laws are being enacted to strangle democratic values, suppress freedom of expression, and suffocate press freedom. The purpose of all this is to ensure that no one dares to speak out against the stolen mandate of February 8th (2024), the violation of citizens’ privacy, the false-flag operation of May 9th (2023), or the massacre of November 26th (2024).

This puppet government has achieved nothing except violating the fundamental rights of citizens through illegal amendments. The 26th Constitutional Amendment has weakened the judiciary. Despite the presence of senior judges in the Islamabad High Court, attempts are being made to appoint a Chief Justice from outside, who is expected to be Qazi Faez Isa Part 2. We strongly condemn such judicial appointments.

The appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner should also be based on merit; otherwise, figures like Sikandar Sultan Raja emerge—those who serve the establishment instead of the people. He deserves to be tried under Article 6 because he facilitated the government of Form 47 [Election fraud and stolen mandate] by stealing the people’s mandate in broad daylight.

February 8th will be observed as a ‘Black Day’ nationwide. On that day, the public mandate was betrayed. First, elections were postponed, then the May 9 narrative was fabricated to crush PTI. Despite this, the people came out in droves to vote for PTI, but the results were shamelessly and ruthlessly altered, plunging the country into darkness. Now, to cover up the robbery of February 8, laws like PECA and the 26th Amendment are being passed. A lie always needs a hundred more lies to sustain itself.

The government staged a sham dialogue, but it only exposed their true faces. They will neither allow the formation of a judicial commission, nor allow investigations into May 9th or November 26th because they fear that the truth will come out. Because the truth is that they are themselves involved in these incidents. A dishonest person never plays with a neutral umpire. In any case, they have no real power; whatever they do is at the behest of the Establishment.

The Quran repeatedly emphasizes ‘Amr Bil Ma’ruf Wa Nahi Anil Munkar’—standing for what is right and resisting evil. The very foundation of democracy lies in morality. God has described the hallmark of a hypocrite as standing with the wrongdoers. Such people face humiliation both in this world and in the hereafter. There is no cure for shamelessness and dishonor. La ilaha illallah (There is no God, but One) instills dignity in a person. A dishonorable person begs before others instead of relying on God. A nation stands and thrives on self-respect. Otherwise, it remains dependent on handouts. A society can only progress through justice and rule of law. Justice is delivered only by those who uphold morality. The state of Medina was built on these principles, and Muslims ruled the world because of them. If we want to set our direction right, we must focus on teaching ethics, uphold fundamental human rights, and value human life. Otherwise, our future will remain bleak. In the state of Medina, even a Jew [a minority] won a case against the Caliph of the time, Ali (RA). These principles of justice are the true traditions of an Islamic society, which we have forgotten. 1/2

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/29/2025 10:15 PM, 21.1M followers, 448 retweets, 680 likes]
Our society and economy are being destroyed because we have neglected the principles of Islam and democracy. If we truly seek ‘Haqeeqi Azadi’ (Genuine Sovereignty), we must adopt these principles and continue our struggle. Only a person who fears no one but God succeeds. A coward can never be victorious. One who never gives up is the one who ultimately prevails—so my nation must never accept defeat." 2/2
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/29/2025 11:25 AM, 105M followers, 1.4K retweets, 7.3K likes]
The Cabinet’s decision relating to revised ethanol procurement price will help boost ethanol production and blending targets. It will also help reduce crude imports, empower farmers and promote clean energy. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2097305

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/29/2025 11:24 AM, 105M followers, 1.8K retweets, 9.5K likes]
A major step towards self-reliance in critical minerals! The Union Cabinet’s decision on National Critical Mineral Mission will encourage India’s high-tech, clean energy, defence and other key industries. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2097308

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/29/2025 11:21 AM, 105M followers, 2.8K retweets, 24K likes]
Attended the majestic Beating Retreat Ceremony, an awe-inspiring display of tradition and the spirit of our forces. Here are some glimpses.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/29/2025 8:12 AM, 105M followers, 7.3K retweets, 53K likes]
Congratulations to @isro on the historic 100th launch! This incredible milestone illustrates the vision, dedication and commitment of our scientists and engineers. With the private sector joining hands, India’s space journey will continue to attain new heights.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/29/2025 10:31 PM, 3.3M followers, 37 retweets, 303 likes]
On Martyrs’ Day, join the nation in paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi. His noble ideals and teachings inspire the world towards a peaceful and sustainable future.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/29/2025 3:47 AM, 3.3M followers, 175 retweets, 1.2K likes]
Nice to interact with members of the @orfonline Middle East Think Tank Council, meeting for the first time in Abu Dhabi. A welcome initiative for fostering greater exchange of ideas and perspectives in the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East region.

Rajnath Singh
@rajnathsingh
[1/29/2025 11:03 PM, 24.4M followers, 38 retweets, 273 likes]
Today, 30th January, I shall be addressing election meetings in Delhi Cantt and Vishwas Nagar assembly constituencies. Looking forward to it.

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[1/29/2025 6:34 AM, 269.5K followers, 124 retweets, 392 likes]
My column: The world’s deadliest dam failures have occurred in China. And if a powerful earthquake caused China’s super-dam to collapse, millions downstream could die, largely in India’s populous Brahmaputra Valley. Yet India has said little on the threat. https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/China-s-super-dam-is-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen

Ashok Swain
@ashoswai
[1/29/2025 7:27 AM, 621.4K followers, 101 retweets, 459 likes]
Scores of people are killed in Stampede in Mahakumbha in India. Hindutva regime can’t even conduct a Hindu festival properly, forget the Deepseek!
NSB
Jon Danilowicz
@JonFDanilowicz
[1/29/2025 12:35 PM, 12.9K followers, 7 retweets, 60 likes]
This is an outstanding piece of analysis from @mushfiq_econ that underscores the critical need for economic and political reforms in Bangladesh. These are longstanding issues made worse during the 15 years of Awami League misrule. The interim government won’t be able fix all these issues, but there needs to be sufficient progress to make reforms irreversible. https://atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/books/after-the-monsoon-revolution-bangladeshs-economy-and-government-need-major-reforms/

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[1/29/2025 9:10 AM, 269.5K followers, 237 retweets, 659 likes]
Mega-donor Alex Soros, while vowing to "fight back" against the Trump administration, is pledging to continue supporting Bangladesh’s military-installed regime. In Dhaka today he met Yunus, who is presiding over Bangladesh’s descent into violent jihadism. https://thedailystar.net/analysis-1/news/will-the-mob-decide-bangladeshs-future-3811371

Ashok Swain
@ashoswai
[1/29/2025 6:33 PM, 621.4K followers, 4 retweets, 19 likes]
Talibanization of Bangladesh: A mob of madrasa students and Muslim extremists stormed a football field in Bangladesh and forced a women’s match to be cancelled, calling women playing football is "anti-Islamic."

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/29/2025 11:55 PM, 111.9K followers, 12 retweets, 12 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu inaugurates Juvenile Halfway House in Hoarafushi Island in North Thiladhunmathi Atoll. The establishment of this facility demonstrates the Administration’s unwavering commitment to providing comprehensive access to rehabilitative services and care for juveniles.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/29/2025 12:41 PM, 111.9K followers, 107 retweets, 103 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu meets with the residents of HA. Hoarafushi Island. The President urged all citizens to exercise their constitutional rights to the fullest extent, while adhering to the law, to ensure peace and harmony within the nation.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/29/2025 10:39 AM, 111.9K followers, 109 retweets, 110 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu inaugurates the Huravee Outdoor Volley Court developed by Ihavandhoo Island Council. The President then joined the island youth to test the newly constructed volleyball court.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/29/2025 10:38 AM, 111.9K followers, 101 retweets, 104 likes]
President Dr @Mmuizzu inaugurates the Hinna Futsal pitch, a project developed by the Ihavandhoo Island Council. The President then joined the island youth on the pitch to test the new futsal facility.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/29/2025 9:03 AM, 111.9K followers, 104 retweets, 103 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu attends the signing of the agreement to build a hospital in Ihavandhoo Island. The initiative underscores the Administration’s unwavering dedication to fostering the development and growth of the healthcare sector.

MOFA of Nepal
@MofaNepal
[1/29/2025 1:09 AM, 261.5K followers, 6 retweets, 37 likes]
Shri Munu Mahawar, Additional Secretary (North), Ministry of External Affairs of India paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon. Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba today. Bilateral matters pertaining to strengthening Nepal-India relations were discussed during the meeting.
Central Asia
MFA Kazakhstan
@MFA_KZ
[1/29/2025 9:57 AM, 58K followers, 1 retweet, 5 likes]
Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Met with the Head of Gateway Ventures C.A. https://t.me/pressmfakz/18850

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/29/2025 6:20 PM, 24K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
A conversation with Amb. Matthew Klimow, America’s former top diplomat in Turkmenistan, takes a deeper look into a country often described as one of the most closed/repressed in the world. @caspiancenter

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/29/2025 11:02 AM, 24K followers, 2 retweets, 1 like]
“Turkmenistan is not North Korea …” - A leading theme in today’s @caspiancenter conversation with Ambassador Matthew Klimow, Washington’s former top diplomat (2019-2024) in Ashgabat. Video soon @AmerikaOvozi @VOANews

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[1/29/2025 12:18 PM, 13K followers, 4 retweets, 14 likes]
Together with ministers in charge of foreign affairs, trade/economy, and transport, we successfully held the 2nd Trilateral Meeting. Through effective diplomacy, dynamic investment cooperation, increased trade, and enhanced connectivity, our three brotherly nations stand to gain not only for ourselves but for the wider regions we represent. Our discussions were comprehensive, addressing the most pressing issues and outlining concrete steps to overcome challenges while creating the best possible conditions for our countries. A key outcome of our meeting was the signing of the #AnkaraDeclaration, a significant step in strengthening our friendship and cooperation for the sustainable development of our nations.

{End of Report}
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