SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS

epubdos : Afghanistan

Prepared for the U.S. Department of State

Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs

By TechMIS
www.TechMIS.com

Mobile User Copy

TO:	SCA & Staff
DATE:	Friday, January 31, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan

Iran, Afghanistan increase cooperation on migration (Deutsche Welle)

Deutsche Welle [1/30/2025 3:22 PM, Shabnam von Hein, 13448K, Negative]
Earlier this month, the Iranian foreign minister traveled to Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban took power in August 2021. According to Iranian officials, the aim of Abbas Araghchi’s one-day visit to Kabul was to hold diplomatic talks about the tensions on the two countries’ shared 950-kilometer (590-mile) border, the situation of Afghan refugees in Iran and the use of water resources in the Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan into Iran.

Although Iran has not yet officially recognized the Taliban government, it does maintain diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. The Iranian Embassy in Kabul is open, as is the Afghan Embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran.

As migration from Afghanistan to Iran has increased, Tehran has been seeking to cooperate more with the Taliban in Kabul. Iran is currently deporting up to 3,000 refugees a day back to Afghanistan.

Many migrants fear returning to Afghanistan

"Afghans are being arrested at random, sometimes beaten, and then deported," Marzia Rahimi, an Afghan who fled to Iran with her family two years ago, told DW.

"I am a journalist and worked in the profession for 10 years. When the Taliban returned, I was unemployed. My life was suddenly turned upside down. I was afraid for myself and my family. Then, secondary schools were banned for girls from the sixth grade onwards. So, I fled to Iran with my husband and our five children because I wanted to save them. But they can’t go to school here either.".

Rahimi currently has no documents: she did not register as a refugee for fear of being deported. She would have had to go to the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants’ Affairs to apply for asylum, but said she was reluctant.

"Anyone who tries to make an application there is treated very badly and arrogantly, even insulted. In the end, there is hardly any chance of being accepted.".

It’s unclear exactly how many Afghan nationals, who have been fleeing civil war, poverty and now the Taliban for 40 years, are currently living in Iran. But the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that their number stands around 3 million. About 750,000 are officially registered as refugees and around 500,000 are immigrants with short-term residence permits and/or restricted work permits.

Many others have no papers and are in Iran illegally. They are often exploited, working for very low wages on construction sites or in companies on the outskirts of large cities.

Anti-refugee rhetoric rife in Iran

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in December that there were "more than 6 million Afghans in Iran," and that this had put a strain on the country’s limited resources. He complained that the annual cost to Iran was more than $10 billion (€9.6 billion), and that there was not enough support from the international community.

Iranian society generally is not particularly favorable toward Afghans. There are almost daily posts in social networks, as well as reports in the traditional media, about supposed "criminal refugees," or the alleged burden they put on the health system. Refugees are blamed for the shortages of subsidized foods such as bread.

But Iran has suffered from an ongoing economic crisis for years, one that has been exacerbated by mismanagement, corruption and international sanctions.

Marzia Rahimi and her family receive no support from the Iranian state, and have been forced to find low paying jobs to feed themselves.

"We are committed to the Afghans in Iran," Abdul Rahman Rashid, the Afghan minister for refugees and repatriation, told DW. "Refugees who have valid documents must have access to education and opportunities to work legally in Iran. We have communicated this to the Iranian authorities. We support returnees who come to Afghanistan.".

Afghanistan not prepared for return of refugees

But it’s not known what resources there are for this support. Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an independent humanitarian organization helping people forced to flee and one of the few international NGOs still active in Afghanistan, has warned that Afghanistan is not prepared for the return of the numerous refugees from Iran, and also Pakistan.

In response to a DW inquiry, the Norwegian Refugee Council wrote that on a visit to Afghanistan , Egeland had met families with young children who had returned to the country from Iran without knowing how they would survive. It said economic insecurity and a lack of employment opportunities were the biggest concerns for many of those who had returned and did not know what the future held.

The NRC also said refugees with valid documents were not safe in Iran either, explaining that some had already been deported, and others had left in anticipation of being deported. It added that many children born in Iran were "returning" to a country that they did not know.

‘We can kill your family’: Journalist shares his flight to the US to escape the Taliban (Spokane Public Radio)

Spokane Public Radio [1/30/2025 4:00 PM, Monica Carrillo-Casas, 8K, Neutral]
In 2016, moments after speaking on a TV interview about the dangers of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Zia Danesh’s car was bombed on his way home.

The explosion, a targeted suicide attack, killed his driver.

"They called and they left a message to me saying ‘This was the first one and we can kill your family,’ " Danesh said.

At the time, with the Taliban out of power, Danesh tried not to dwell on the threats, even as they escalated and began targeting his family. But it wasn’t long before it became impossible to ignore, forcing him to leave his home country .

It was only two years ago that Danesh made the difficult decision to leave Afghanistan with his family, driven by the constant danger tied to his work as a journalist and government official.

Now settled in the safety and comfort of Spokane with his family, Danesh feels ready to share his story and the dangers he lived through – many of which persist as the Taliban continues to hinder the rights of women, journalists, and what remains of Afghan culture.

"Unfortunately, they are becoming more and more daring every day and are increasing restrictions step by step," Danesh said.

Danesh and his parents fled Afghanistan in 1996 for Iran, where he completed high school as the Taliban seized control of his home country.

That year, the Taliban captured Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and killed former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah. They remained in power until 2001, enforcing strict Islamic law that denied women basic rights and barred them from working or attending school.

It was during this time that Danesh began his career as a journalist in Iran and worked with Afghan immigrant media.

"I defended modern values like democracy, human rights, and women’s rights, and I spoke out against the dangers of fundamentalist and terrorist groups, highlighting their beliefs and crimes," Danesh said.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. and it allies launched airstrikes against the Taliban and helped establish a new government in Afghanistan beginning in late 2001.

He returned with his family and resumed his work as a journalist, notably becoming editor-in-chief of Rah-e-Nejat, the country’s first private newspaper, at just 19 years old.

Everything seemed good, he said, but at this point, the Taliban already knew of his work.

Danesh said it wasn’t long before he began receiving threats from the Taliban, even in the years they weren’t in power.

He brushed it off.

For Danesh, it was more important to report on the issues happening in his country.

"The media had the power to convey the voices of the people of Afghanistan to the global community and to inform the public about the hidden agendas of terrorist groups," Danesh said.

"For this reason, I chose to stand alongside the military forces, amplifying the voice of our people through the media.".

He continued his work for eight years, writing for private newspapers covering primarily human and women rights and in between he obtained master’s degrees in Islamic Knowledge and Business and Administration.

In 2009, Danesh transitioned as the announcer for a political roundtable on television, where he discussed Afghan and international politics. The segment quickly gained popularity among Afghan viewers.

A few years later, he pivoted once again, accepting a government role to oversee Afghanistan’s border system.

This career shift led him to becoming one of the leaders at the Ministry of State for Peace in Afghanistan in 2020.

The State Ministry for Peace in Afghanistan was a government institution created to oversee and coordinate efforts related to peace-building, negotiations, and conflict resolution.

It was specifically tasked with managing Afghanistan’s peace process, particularly in the context of negotiations with the Taliban and played a crucial role in facilitating the negotiations and promoting the government’s stance on peace, security, and stability.

"My colleagues and I provided logistical and informational support to the Afghan negotiating team in Doha, Qatar, and were responsible for reporting on the progress of the negotiations, obstacles, the Taliban’s demands, intentions, and objectives," Danesh said.

"In a way, I can be considered one of the spokespeople for the peace negotiation process.".

The Taliban signed a peace treaty with the United States that year.

However, peace for Afghanistan didn’t last.

In just a few days, the Taliban regained control in 2021 after the United States and NATO withdrew from the country in August of that year.

Immediately, Danesh and his family were told by government officials that they had no other choice but to go into hiding.

For nine months Danesh and his family moved every two days, traveling under the cover of night and avoiding using their phones out of fear of being tracked.

His children, 9 and 5 at the time, were unsure of everything that was going on and would repeatedly ask when they were going back home.

"We were hiding in Iran, in Italy," Danesh said. "They were very hard days.".

In March 2022, while Danesh and his family were still moving from home to home in Italy, they were informed that they could register for the Special Immigrant Visa, which offers a path to citizenship and resettlement for individuals in danger. This visa is primarily available to those from Afghanistan or Iraq who have worked in government positions.

This allowed Danesh and his family to resettle in the United States, with Spokane being their assigned destination.

However, as of Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program indefinitely, which has directly impacted Afghan other such refugees awaiting resettlement.

The executive order has halted flights for more than 40,000 Afghans approved for special U.S. visas, leaving them at risk of Taliban retribution.

Additionally, the State Department has suspended funds for groups that assist Special Immigrant Visa holders with housing, education, and employment in the U.S., further complicating the resettlement process.

"They are a very special category of people. These were literally wartime allies who put their lives on the line, and gave their lives to support us, the U.S. government in Afghanistan," said Ryan Crocker, former American ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Special Immigrant Visa Program is designed to make good on our promise that, as they supported us, we would support them.".

Crocker said this would not affect the Special Immigrant Visa that Danesh and others in Spokane have already received, but it is still unknown how the cessation of funding would affect him and others in the area.

Danesh declined to comment on this issue.

Upon arrival, Danesh got connected to World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization, and secured housing and employment through their help.

Christi Armstrong, executive director of the organization, said World Relief has resettled 726 people to Spokane in the last year with a large number of them coming from Afghanistan.

Since his arrival, he said he’s felt safe and has seen his family embrace opportunities.

"My children are going to school, I’m working, and my wife is studying English; It’s a good opportunity," said Danesh, who’s now an employment specialist for the organization.

Despite his gratitude for the safety and opportunities his family now enjoys , Danesh remains haunted by the plight of his homeland and the people who are struggling under relentless oppression and suffocating bans imposed by Taliban rule.

In December 2024, the Taliban announced a new decree prohibiting women and girls from attending public and private medical institutes in Afghanistan.

Later that month, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, issued an order banning the construction of windows overlooking areas used by Afghan women. Other decrees include a warning that any organization that employs women will have their operating licenses revoked.

"I was speaking with a few journalists who are still in the country and they told me about the increasing pressures on various ethnic, religious, and racial minorities in Afghanistan," Danesh said. "There is rising pressure on universities, censorship of books, and the collection of books that emphasize different thinking, tolerance, and coexistence.".

He said with other issues diverting the world’s attention from Afghanistan, it has given the Taliban the opportunity to consolidate power making them feel "stronger and more accepted.".

"Even European countries are sending positive signals to them," Danesh said. "The UN has either compromised with the Taliban or is truly powerless, and we have yet to see any real pressure to change the Taliban’s behavior and actions.".

Danesh said he doesn’t expect anything to change within the next year, making him more deeply concerned for the future.

He hopes his story can draw attention to the worsening crisis in Afghanistan and rekindle a global sense of responsibility.

"I really feel bad about this," Danesh said. "I feel sorrow and regret for the women and girls of Afghanistan and a sense of hopelessness regarding the responsibility of the world.".

Pakistan

Father Slays New York Girl, 14, in TikTok ‘Honor Killing’ (New York Times)

New York Times [1/30/2025 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman, 831K, Negative]
Hira Anwar, 14, lived in two contrasting worlds in New York, where she was born and raised. Outside her home, she was a typical American teenager, laughing with friends, posting videos on TikTok and dreaming of a boundless future.

Inside the home, her reality was very different. Her parents, Pakistani immigrants who had settled in the United States over two decades ago, expected her to adhere to their cultural and religious values, which demanded modesty from women. To them, Hira’s bold, expressive online presence was a direct challenge.

That tension, familiar in South Asian immigrant households across the West, ended in deadly violence this week. Hira was fatally shot by her father and an uncle on Monday night, several days after arriving in Pakistan on what she had been told was a family vacation, the police said. The authorities called her death an “honor killing.”

In a chilling confession in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Hira’s father, Anwar ul-Haq, said she had brought shame to the family by posting what he called inappropriate videos online, the police said.

Hira’s death is part of a deeply ingrained pattern of violence against women in Pakistan and within its diaspora, rights advocates said, an ancient problem that has taken on dangerous new dimensions with the rise of social media.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights group, recorded 588 so-called honor killings in Pakistan in 2024, up from 490 in 2023 and nearly matching the 590 reported in 2022.

Women often become targets by refusing forced marriages, seeking divorce or separation, being in relationships deemed inappropriate by families, or engaging in other actions seen as violating conservative values. In one case last year, a girl was killed by her brother for using a cellphone. In another, a young woman was fatally poisoned by her parents for dating.

In several cases, families of Pakistani origin in Western countries have lured their daughters back to Pakistan under false pretenses. There, they have restricted their freedom, forced them into marriages with cousins — often to secure visas for the men — or, in some cases, killed them.

In 2022, two Pakistani sisters holding Spanish residency permits were tortured and killed a day after arriving in Punjab Province, the police in Pakistan said. Their husbands, an uncle and a brother carried out the killing after the sisters sought divorces from forced marriages, according to investigators.

Other killings have taken place in the West, and perpetrators in some cases have fled to Pakistan to avoid arrest.

In May, the authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, working with Italian officials, arrested a woman who had been convicted, along with her husband, of murdering their teenage daughter. The killing, which took place in northern Italy, was over the daughter’s refusal of a forced marriage in Pakistan, the authorities said.

Experts studying the South Asian diaspora in Western countries say that intergenerational tensions are widespread, as younger overseas-born generations increasingly challenge traditional values.

Kavita Mehra, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, a New York-based nonprofit organization, said that in the United States, gender-based violence happened at higher rates within South Asian communities. Nearly half of South Asians in the United States report experiencing such violence at least once, according to surveys.

“This is not because our community is inherently more violent,” Ms. Mehra said, “but rather because we are enmeshed in intergenerational trauma — cycles of pain, silence and patriarchal control, shaped by histories of colonialism, displacement and migration.”

In the case of the killing this week of 14-year-old Hira, her father initially told the police that unidentified gunmen had opened fire on him and his daughter while they were traveling to her uncle’s house, according to Babar Baloch, a police officer in Quetta.

But after gathering evidence and recording witness statements, the police became suspicious and detained the father, who worked as an Uber driver in New York and has two other daughters. The father, Mr. ul-Haq, and his brother-in-law were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of murder.

In his confession, the police said, Mr. ul-Haq expressed objections to his daughter’s clothing, lifestyle and social relationships.

Pakistan has introduced laws over the years, some carrying the death penalty, to curb so-called honor killings.

In 2016, after public outrage over the murder of the social media star Qandeel Baloch by her brother, Parliament passed a law closing a legal loophole that let families forgive perpetrators.

Still, gender-based violence persists because of societal acceptance and systemic bias in law enforcement and the judiciary in Pakistan, experts said.

“Honor crimes and femicide should be treated as crimes against the state,” said Shazia Nizamani, a Karachi-based legal expert. “Even if a family chooses not to pursue legal action, the state has a responsibility to ensure justice is delivered.”

US teen shot dead by father in Pakistan over TikTok videos (BBC)

BBC [1/30/2025 6:47 AM, Kelly Ng, 57114K, Negative]
A man who recently moved his family back to Pakistan from the US has confessed to killing his teenage daughter because he disapproved of her TikTok videos, police have told the BBC.

Anwar ul-Haq was charged with murder after he admitted to shooting his daughter Hira in the south-western city of Quetta on Tuesday. He initially told investigators that unidentified men were behind the shooting.

The father, who has US citizenship, said he found his daughter’s posts "objectionable".

Police said they were looking at all angles, including the possibility of an honour killing, which is not uncommon in the country.

Hundreds of people - most of them women - die in so-called honour killings in Pakistan each year, according to human rights groups. These killings are usually carried out by relatives who say they are acting in defence of their family’s honour.

In the case of Hira Anwar, who was between 13 and 14 years old, a police spokesman said her family "had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle and social gathering".

The family lived in the US for 25 years and Hira started posting content on TikTok even before her family moved back to Pakistan.

Investigators said they were in possession of her phone, which is locked.

Her father’s brother-in-law was also arrested in connection with the killing, police said.

If it is found to be an honour killing and they are found guilty, the men will face a mandatory life sentence - a change made to the law by Pakistan’s government in 2016. Previously, they could avoid a jail term if pardoned by the victim’s family.

In 2023, an Italian court handed a Pakistani couple life sentences for killing their 18-year-old daughter because she refused an arranged marriage.

The year before, the brother of Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch was acquitted of murdering her on appeal. He had earlier been sentenced to life in prison after confessing to the 2016 killing, saying it was because the star had brought shame on the family.

Father shoots his daughter, 15, dead in honour killing after she refused to stop posting on social media when the family moved from US to Pakistan (Daily Mail)

Daily Mail [1/30/2025 9:30 AM, Elena Salvoni, 63029K, Negative]
A father who moved his family from the United States to Pakistan has been arrested after shooting his daughter dead in an honour killing over her use of social media.

Anwar ul-Haq, believed to be a US citizen, was charged with murder after he admitted to shooting his 15-year-old daughter Hira dead on Tuesday.

Mr ul-Haq had reportedly forbidden his daughter from making TikTok videos which he deemed ‘inappropriate’, and decided to kill her when she continued to post.

Hira’s family ‘had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle and social gathering,’ according to police.

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.

Mr 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, which is used by 54 million people in Pakistan.

The family had lived in the US for 25 years, Mr Baloch said, before Mr ul-Haq moved them back to Pakistan recently.

Officers said they are continuing to investigate all angles, including the possibility of an honour killing.

If the men are found guilty of an honour killing they will face a mandatory life sentence.

So-called honour 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.

More than 1,000 women are killed every year in the country at the hands of community or family members over perceived damage to their ‘honour’, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

A change to the law to require a life sentence for the crime was brought in by Pakistan’s government in 2016.

Prior to this, offenders could avoid a jail term if they received a pardon from the victim’s family.

Pakistan says Afghan-based ‘terrorists’ increasingly use US arms for cross-border attacks (VOA)

VOA [1/30/2025 2:48 PM, Ayaz Gul, 2717K, Negative]
Pakistan said Thursday it had provided Taliban leaders in Afghanistan with "sufficient proof" to substantiate its claims that militants are using modern weapons left behind by the United States military for cross-border terrorism.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan stated at a weekly news conference in Islamabad that the presence of U.S. advanced weapons in the neighboring country "remains a source of concern," and it has been communicated multiple times to the Taliban government in Kabul.

"The proofs are regularly provided," Khan said when asked for his comments on whether Pakistan has shared any evidence with the Taliban.

"We have given sufficient proof, and this remains an important component of our engagement with the Taliban authorities to convey that the terrorists enjoy sanctuary [in Afghanistan] for attacks inside Pakistan," the spokesperson asserted.

Khan said Islamabad has consistently urged the de facto Afghan leaders to ensure that the weapons "do not fall into the wrong hands.".

Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy Taliban spokesperson, vehemently dismissed allegations Thursday that the military hardware in question has been acquired by terrorist organizations and is being utilized in attacks against Pakistani territory.

"All weapons and military equipment are safely stored and maintained to prevent any potential misuse," Taliban-run state television quoted Fitrat as claiming.

Pakistan has seen an increase in militant attacks since the Taliban regained control in Kabul, leading to the deaths of hundreds of civilians and security personnel. The violence is primarily attributed to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, a globally designated terrorist organization that Islamabad claims is being sheltered and supported by the de facto Afghan rulers.

The TTP has been waging deadly attacks for more than 15 years, but regional experts note a marked increase in the precision and lethality of militant raids against Pakistani security forces over the past couple of years, inflicting heavy losses on them.

U.S.-led Western troops were stationed in Afghanistan to protect the internationally backed government in Kabul for nearly two decades. They hastily and chaotically withdrew in August 2021, just days after the then-insurgent Taliban regained control of the war-torn South Asian nation.

A U.S. Department of Defense report in 2022 found that about $7 billion worth of military hardware was left behind in Afghanistan after the military withdrawal was completed. The equipment, including aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, communications equipment and other materials was subsequently seized by the Taliban.

President Donald Trump pledged on the eve of his Jan. 20 inauguration to retrieve the U.S. military weapons from the Taliban, claiming former President Joe Biden’s administration "gave our military equipment, a big chunk of it, to the enemy.".

Trump stated that future financial assistance to Afghanistan would be contingent upon the return of U.S. military equipment.

"If we’re going to pay billions of dollars a year, tell them we’re not going to give them the money unless they give back our military equipment," he said.

Taliban officials have not publicly responded to Trump’s assertions but privately claim they fought against and defeated American troops, acquiring the military equipment as "spoils of the war.".

The Kabul government, not recognized by any country, has repeatedly displayed U.S. military gear in their so-called victory day celebrations over the past three years.

China urged to play ‘leading role’ in Pakistan anti-terror drive after string of attacks (South China Morning Post)

South China Morning Post [1/30/2025 5:00 PM, Zhao Ziwen, 9355K, Neutral]
China should play a "leading role" in counterterrorism efforts with Pakistan to prevent further attacks on Chinese personnel and projects, particularly in Balochistan province, a think tank report has said.

The two countries should strengthen intelligence gathering and sharing and allow private Chinese security companies to play a greater role, according to Feng Zhizhong, a researcher at the Security Studies Centre, which is affiliated to the People’s Public Security University of China, the country’s top police academy.

China has invested heavily in Pakistan as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, a transcontinental infrastructure project. But there have been a series of terrorist attacks targeting Chinese citizens and projects, particularly in Balochistan, where many major belt and road projects are located.

The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) was responsible for many of these attacks and has accused China of exploiting local resources and empowering the government in Islamabad.

"In the face of the increasingly rampant terrorist activities of the BLA, [China] should change its mindset … and should even gradually play a leading role [in countering terrorism]," Feng’s report read.

Feng said China should strengthen its intelligence gathering and sharing with Pakistan, adding that the attacks were "directly related to China’s lagging counterterrorism capacity building in Pakistan".

The report said: “Cooperation between China and Pakistan in the areas of extradition treaties, intelligence sharing and mutual legal assistance is not sufficiently advanced, and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters rarely involves the exchange of information on terrorists or their extradition.”

Feng also called for a greater role for private security firms, “allowing China to set up security companies or set up market-oriented, Chinese-Pakistani joint security forces”.

Beijing has reportedly been pushing for a large-scale security presence, but Islamabad has so far shown little interest in the proposals.

Last October, when Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Pakistan – less than a fortnight after an attack killed two Chinese citizens – he left with no apparent progress on the issue.

China has repeatedly promised to support Pakistan’s efforts to improve security, but has provided few details about what extra measures may be taken.

Feng’s paper was published online on Wednesday, but taken down again the following day without explanation.

Feng hinted that India and the United States may be backing the BLA, saying they had tried to weaken the relationship between Beijing and Islamabad and prevent the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor from moving forward.

“For China and Pakistan, Balochistan has great strategic value and has the potential to become an international trade centre, based on which Balochistan has traditionally attracted the attention of the United States, India and other countries,” he wrote.

Pakistan has previously accused India of supporting separatist activities in Balochistan and said there was evidence to back up its claims. India has largely refrained from directly responding to these allegations.

India opposes the China-Pakistan corridor because it includes projects in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, which is also claimed by New Delhi.

Despite the security concerns, Feng argued that China should continue investing in Pakistan, arguing that economic development and improved living standards could help reduce terrorism in the region.

Pakistan is a key belt and road partner, with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as its flagship project. The scheme, which will link China to the deep water port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean, has seen China invest around US$65 billion in a series of megaprojects largely located in Balochistan.

Pakistan sacks, blacklists dozens of officials after Mediterranean deaths (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera [1/31/2025 12:00 AM, Abid Hussain, 19.6M, Negative]
When Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif removed Ahmed Ishaq Jahangir from his position as the chief of the country’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday, he became the highest-profile casualty in a sweeping organisational purge following the deaths of at least 43 Pakistanis off the coast of Morocco earlier in January.

The drowning incident came to light on January 15, when Moroccan authorities rescued 36 people after their boat was stranded in the Mediterranean Sea for 13 days. At least 37 others, including several Pakistanis, remain missing.

Just four weeks before that, Greek authorities and merchant navy ships carried out four separate rescue missions near the Greek coast, saving at least 200 people, while close to 50 died, at least 40 of them Pakistanis.

These incidents have set off a rare crackdown by the Sharif-led government on officials who were tasked with stopping the human smuggling networks that lure Pakistanis from rural towns and villages with dreams of a life in Europe, and take them on dangerous, illegal migration routes that far too often end in death and tragedy in the waters of the Mediterranean.

Before Jahangir’s removal, almost 50 FIA officials were dismissed for alleged negligence related to both the Greece and Morocco incidents. Additionally, the FIA said that more than 50 officials had been blacklisted from serving at any immigration checkpoints or anti-human trafficking units across the country, following a government inquiry, while several arrests were made targeting individuals who facilitated human smuggling networks.

These moves follow mounting criticism of the government for failing to dismantle human smuggling rackets and for its apparent inability to safeguard the lives of citizens who feel compelled to take risky journeys to Europe in breach of migration laws.

A senior government official, who is part of the task force formed by Sharif, said the prime minister was now keenly supervising the government’s response.

“The premier is taking these incidents very seriously. He realises the implications and reputational damage to the country, as well as the tragedy that afflicts the families of those who die or get stuck in far-off countries,” the official told Al Jazeera, requesting anonymity.

“We have improved not only our border screening but are also focusing on enforcement and prosecution. Now, smuggling someone out of Pakistan is going to be a daunting task,” the official claimed.

A long history of migration

This is easier said than done, as the recent deaths off Morocco – despite the Sharif administration’s ongoing crackdown – show.

Pakistanis seeking to migrate to European nations is not a new phenomenon. The trend began more than six decades ago, following the construction of Pakistan’s major hydroelectric project, the Mangla Dam.

The initial wave of migrants consisted of those displaced by the dam’s construction. They were compensated by the Pakistani and British governments, allowing them to relocate to the United Kingdom.

Most came from Punjab, Pakistan’s most prosperous and populous province, particularly from cities such as Gujrat, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Mandi Bahauddin and Faisalabad.

A 2023 research report by the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR), an autonomous state body accountable to parliament, revealed that the same districts that contribute heavily to legal migration also see some of the highest instances of undocumented migration.

“Among the top 20 districts contributing to 50 percent of the total labour outflows from Pakistan between 1981 and 2021, 13 are in Punjab, six in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one in Sindh, specifically Karachi,” the report noted.

While central Punjab has experienced economic growth due to its fertile land and industrial expansion, migration from this region continued – often illegally – after European nations tightened their border controls at the turn of the century.

According to statistics from Frontex, the European Union’s border and coastguard agency, more than 150,000 Pakistanis have entered European countries using land and sea routes since 2009.

Land routes were more common in the 2010s when economic migrants from Pakistan would undertake perilous journeys on foot, sometimes walking for months. However, as crackdowns intensified, the routes evolved.

While the previous decade saw an influx of refugees into Europe from Afghanistan and Syria, two countries facing prolonged conflict, and from some African nations, Pakistan’s migration numbers remained relatively consistent, with an average of close to 10,000 undocumented Pakistanis entering Europe each year, according to Frontex.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, new migration routes emerged, making it harder for Pakistani authorities to detect undocumented travellers.

Nearly 300 Pakistanis were killed or declared missing in the June 2023 Adriana boat disaster in the Mediterranean. Families told Al Jazeera that their sons had flown from Pakistan to Dubai, then to Cairo, before making their way to Libya for a boat journey to Europe.

And if that route was long, the trip that Pakistanis who died off Morocco in January took was even more circuitous: from Pakistan to Dubai, then to Ethiopia, then Senegal, and finally, a road trip up the Atlantic Coast to Mauritania, where they began the boat ride.

Munir Masood Marath, a senior FIA official, explained that the operations of human smugglers, who manage vast networks across multiple countries, are not easy to stop because, on the surface, immigrants do not always come across as “illegal”: Their documents to travel out of Pakistan are legitimate, and officials have no sureshot way of knowing what they intend to do after landing in their first destination.

“People now travel on completely legitimate grounds. They have a valid passport, a valid visa, and a ticket. There is no reason to stop them at the airport,” he told Al Jazeera in a recent conversation at his office.

But the Adriana disaster was a major turning point, the government official on Sharif’s task force said. The fishing trawler, carrying about 700 people, capsized off the Greek coast near Pylos. Only 104 people survived, including 12 Pakistanis.

“After the 2023 incident, we took a hard look at our operations and began a massive crackdown. The results are now visible in the declining numbers of Pakistanis leaving the country,” he said.

The statistics appear to support this claim. According to FIA figures, about 19,000 people were stopped from leaving Pakistan in 2022, with most being intercepted on land routes.

By contrast, FIA’s Marath noted that, collectively, in 2023 and 2024, close to 70,000 people were stopped from leaving Pakistan. Frontex data also shows a nearly 50 percent decline in the number of Pakistanis reaching Europe in 2024, about 5,000 compared with 10,000 the year before.

Yet Marath, who recently returned from Morocco after investigating the latest tragedy, also acknowledged that smugglers were identifying and using new routes in a cat-and-mouse game with authorities.

That is why, he said, the government was now enhancing surveillance and detection mechanisms at the country’s key exit points.

“We profile travellers by looking at their travel history and social and educational background. If a person’s destination is Egypt, Ethiopia, or Senegal – African countries with minimal cultural or people-to-people ties with Pakistan – it raises alarm bells,” he explained.

The social drivers

Pakistan has consistently ranked among, or close to, the top 10 countries whose citizens have sought entry into Europe through irregular means over the last decade, according to Frontex.

While the past two years saw the country’s economy teetering on the brink of default, with inflation hitting 38 percent in mid-2023 and poverty rates reaching 39 percent, the government insists economic hardship is not the sole reason for migration.

Officials argue that social pressures play a more significant role.

Marath, who himself hails from Mandi Bahauddin, a district from where irregular migration is common, said that family influence and peer pressure were the key drivers behind the dangerous journeys.

“In most cases, families themselves urge their members to find a way to reach Europe,” he said.

“It becomes a matter of competition. If a neighbour has two sons in Italy and has bought a car and renovated his house, others feel pressured to do the same, either by going themselves or sending their sons,” he added.

The recent Morocco incident involved people from relatively well-off families, including business owners and those with prior experience working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Marath said that while Gulf nations, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are host to a large Pakistani diaspora working there, for many, their objective is to emulate their cousins who are in European countries.

“Going to Gulf countries is usually a backup plan. The dream is Europe. Having family or friends there makes settling in easier,” Marath explained.

A changing landscape

The recent crackdown on officials points to the government’s intent, the senior government official on Sharif’s task force suggested.

“There are obviously varying factors at play, but the key point is that we recognise them, and we are working to fix things,” the official said.

He added that thousands of Pakistanis remained stranded in Libya, and that the government was working towards their repatriation.

“Libya is a challenge due to the lack of an organised government, with different factions controlling different areas. If those still there attempt to cross into Europe, bringing them back will be difficult,” he said. “But for others who try to leave Pakistan for this purpose, we are hopeful about cracking down on human smuggling.”

However, Marath, the FIA official, said that besides improving enforcement and training for the FIA staff, it was just as important to provide sensitisation and awareness to the people who put their lives at risk “knowingly”.

“People pay anywhere between 2.5 to 3.5 million rupees [$8,900 to $12,500] to smugglers. Why not use that money to build a future here instead of risking their lives?” he asked.

Pakistan Cracks Down On Free Speech Online (Radio Free Europe)

Radio Free Europe [1/31/2025 1:11 AM, Abubakar Siddique, 235K, Negative]
Pakistan has adopted a new law that criminalizes online disinformation in a move that the authorities say is aimed at combating the spread of fake news on social media.

But critics say the law is designed to quash dissent in the South Asian country, where independent media have faced growing censorship in recent years.

Signed into law by the president on January 29, the law has triggered protests by journalists across the country of some 240 million people.

"This is a complete clampdown on free speech and the right to a fair trial," said Munizae Jahangir, a TV journalist based in the capital, Islamabad.

Under the new law, anyone found guilty of "intentionally disseminating" false or fake information faces a prison sentence of up to three years and fines of 2 million rupees ($7,100).

The law calls for the establishment of a new regulatory authority. which will have its own investigation agency and tribunals.

Jahangir said the law allows the authorities "to accuse somebody on very flimsy charges and put them behind bars" and give "unfettered powers" to the government regulatory authority tasked with investigating and adjudicating cases.

‘Excessive Criminalization’

The new law is an amendment to the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act, which was passed in 2017 to combat online hate speech, harassment, and cybercrime.

Activists say hundreds of journalists and activists have been targeted under that law. Critics say the successive governments have used it to stamp out dissent, particularly criticism of Pakistan’s all-powerful military.

Hundreds of members of the Pashtun and Baluch ethnic minorities have faced cybercrime and defamation cases for criticizing the military’s brutal crackdown on Islamist and nationalist insurgencies in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Members of the Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI), the leading opposition party, have also faced a clampdown.

During the past two years, scores of PTI members and leaders have been targeted for protesting the jailing of their imprisoned leader, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the military’s alleged meddling in politics.

"Everything they were doing in practice has been legalized through this [new] amendment," said Farieha Aziz, co-founder of the nongovernmental digital rights group Bolo Bhi.

She said the new law will strengthen state censorship. The new regulator created under the law requires social media companies to register with them and can issue fines and directives. The categories of content it can block has also been expanded.

"It’s broad over-regulation and excessive criminalization on weak grounds," she said. "And that has a substantive effect on freedom of expression."

‘Black Day’

During the past year, Islamabad has attempted to block virtual private networks (VPNs) after imposing a China-style Internet firewall in the country.

The firewall has been blamed for Internet outages and slowdowns that have disrupted businesses and triggered widespread complaints in the country.

Babu Ram Pant, deputy South Asia director of campaigns with global rights watchdog Amnesty International, said the new law is "in step with the deployment of intrusive digital surveillance technologies" but "fail to incorporate any human rights safeguards."

Journalists across the country observed a "black day" on January 28.

Beh Lih Yi, the Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, a global press freedom watchdog, said the new law is "deeply concerning" because it "will disproportionately curtail freedom of speech in Pakistan."

Asad Iqbal Butt, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said digital freedoms have already been over-regulated.

He said this was "to the detriment of people’s right to information and connectivity, both of which are integral to a 21st century democracy."

India

In India, concerns of cover-up after stampede at massive Hindu festival (New York Times)

New York Times [1/30/2025 7:14 AM, Hari Kumar and Mujib Mashal, 1373K, Neutral]
The predawn stampede at the massive Hindu festival in northern India created havoc. But order was restored swiftly in the next few hours.

On Wednesday morning, ambulances cut through a swarm of millions of people who had gathered in the city of Prayagraj. They ferried dozens of people to hospitals, including some who had been trampled to death.

Local officials moved to resume the rites at the Maha Kumbh Mela, relying on thousands of "AI-powered" video cameras. Soon, the faithful were doing what they came for: bathing at the confluence of three rivers considered sacred, one of them mythical. A helicopter showered rose petals on seers leading the holy dip.

Officials had studied stampedes at earlier iterations of the festival. But as prepared and equipped as they seemed to be, they did not release even an initial death toll for nearly 15 hours after the tragedy.

What they kept releasing was good news: regular updates on how many people had completed the bathing ritual.

The dearth of information on the victims of the stampede, analysts said, appeared to be an official effort to cover up damage at an event that holds significance to the fortunes of political leaders. It left families of those searching for loved ones in the dark, running from hospital to morgue.

And it left a cloud over the official tally that was finally released Wednesday evening -- 30 dead and 90 injured.

Among those searching for their loved ones in the vacuum of information was Shiv Shankar Singh, 55, a retired army officer. He and his wife had bathed at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, and the mythical Sarasvati, soon after midnight, and then got caught in the stampede.

He searched for her all day, making his way on foot from hospital to hospital in an area where vehicular movement had been restricted for miles.

"Everybody was pushing everybody else. My wife fell down," Mr. Singh said. "I grabbed a pole and stood on the ground. I saved myself, but I don’t know what happened to her.".

The Kumbh Mela, which happens every 12 years, is a massive undertaking by any standard. This year, because of a rare celestial alignment, it was deemed a once-in-a-century occurrence. The government in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, said it expected more than 400 million pilgrims and visitors to arrive in Prayagraj for the 45-day festival.

Yogi Adityanath, the state’s chief minister, is considered among the contenders to succeed Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Analysts said he put himself front and center as the organizer of the world’s largest gathering in an attempt to build his national profile as an administrator who could mix two things dear to India: faith and technology.

While assessing the preparations for the festival early in January, Mr. Adityanath, 52, had pointed fingers at his predecessors over the operation of past festivals, which had led to deadly stampedes. He said he wanted arrangements that could be "a lesson to those who had made the organization of the Maha Kumbh synonymous with filth and stampede.".

"Yogi has been touted as larger-than-life, larger-than-Uttar Pradesh," said Rasheed Kidwai, an author and political analyst. "The success of the event would have meant to announce to the world, ‘Here is a man who micromanaged a gathering of 400 million people effortlessly.’ This posturing would become important for the post-Modi era.".

The Uttar Pradesh government has a public relations budget of over $100 million for the year, and some of that goes to media outlets that provide friendly coverage.

It has also introduced a new social media policy that gives financial incentives to influencers who promote the state’s success, while promising action against the reporting of "government schemes in a wrong manner or with wrong intention," according to news reports.

The hold of that influence was clear in the aftermath of the tragedy. Television channels headlined Mr. Adityanath’s regular phone conversations with Mr. Modi, 74, and that everything was under control. They repeated throughout the day a video statement by Adityanath, in which he made no mention of deaths but asked people to not fall for rumors.

But some saw through the public relations campaign.

"It is reminiscent of the opacity of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his government after the widespread deaths during the second COVID-19 wave in March 2021, the scale of which was evident later when horrific images of bodies floating in the Ganga emerged," The Hindu, a national newspaper, wrote in an editorial Thursday.

Mr. Adityanath has ordered a probe into the lapse. His officials have not explained what caused the delay in providing a casualty toll. His office did not respond to requests for comment.

Vikram Singh, a former police chief of Uttar Pradesh who has overseen arrangements in past Kumbhs, said a part of the delay could be attributed to the massive logistical demand of such a huge event. Officials would have been focused on evacuating the injured and getting them proper treatment, he said.

But he, too, struggled to understand the extent of the delay, which he said only fueled a rumor mill that "was working overtime" to put the death toll anywhere from 50 to 200 in the vacuum of official information.

The other Mr. Singh, who had been separated from his wife, went to the festival’s lost and found stands to look for her. He registered a complaint with her details. He went back to the confluence of the rivers. He walked from hospital to hospital and back to the festival site.

There, in the evening, Singh finally had good news at one of the lost and found centers. His wife had fallen down in the stampede but, luckily, wasn’t hurt and had been waiting for him for hours.

"If they had communicated, then I would have found her much earlier," he said, referring to the lost and found booths. "But I am happy now that I found my wife.".

Families in India cremate loved ones killed in stampede at religious festival (AP)

AP [1/30/2025 7:16 AM, Rajesh Kumar Singh, 33392K, Neutral]
Grieving families cremated their loved ones while others cared for their injured relatives in hospitals on Thursday, a day after a stampede killed at least 30 people and injured 60 others on a riverbank at the Maha Kumbh festival in northern India.

The Uttar Pradesh state government ordered a retired judge to investigate the stampede and submit his findings within a month as millions of Hindus continued the bathing ritual without a break as part of the festival in Prayagraj.

A woman wept uncontrollably as an ambulance left a hospital mortuary for the cremation site.

Sharvan Kumar Chaudhary, an injured pilgrim on a stretcher in a hospital ward, said, "I fell during the stampede. I was with a friend who brought me here.".

Rakesh, who uses one name, is searching for missing family members who came on the pilgrimage without him.

"My wife, aunt, and children came for a bath, and they have been missing since the Jan. 28 evening," he said.

Witnesses said that religious chants turned to screams and cries for help as thousands of pilgrims rushing to a sacred river confluence jumped barricades erected for a procession of holy men in Prayagraj, trampling those waiting for their turn to bathe in the river.

Wednesday was a sacred day in the six-week Hindu festival, and authorities expected a record 100 million devotees to engage in a ritual bath at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati rivers. Hindus believe that a dip at the holy site can cleanse them of past sins and end the process of reincarnation.

Nearly 400 million people are expected in Prayagraj for the festival over 45 days, making it the world’s largest religious gathering. The number of people is more than the population of the United States and around 200 times the 2 million pilgrims who were in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year. The festival started on Jan. 13.

India opposition lawmaker arrested on rape charges, ANI news agency says (Reuters)

Reuters [1/30/2025 7:11 AM, Shilpa Jamkhandikar, 48128K, Negative]
A lawmaker from India’s opposition Congress party was arrested on Thursday on charges of rape and assault, news agency ANI reported.

Rakesh Rathore, who represents the Sitapur constituency in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in the Indian parliament, was arrested days after a woman accused him of rape and assault. He has denied the charges but a local court declined to grant him bail, Indian media reported.

"I am confident that I will get justice in the court of the people and court of law," Rathore told ANI before being led away by police.

Reuters, which has a minority stake in ANI news agency, was unable to reach Rathore or his lawyer for a comment.

Police in Uttar Pradesh registered a case against the lawmaker on January 17 after a complaint from a woman who accused Rathore of having sexually assaulted her for four years, the Times of India newspaper reported.

A spokesperson for the police could not immediately be reached for comment.

US tariff worries may push rupee to all-time low before India budget (Reuters)

Reuters [1/30/2025 9:52 PM, Nimesh Vora, 5.2M, Neutral]
The Indian rupee is expected to open weaker on Friday, possibly dipping to a lifetime low on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threat, while traders wait for the federal budget to be presented over the weekend.

The 1-month non-deliverable forward indicated that the rupee will open at 86.64-86.65 to the U.S. dollar compared with 86.6250 in the previous session and flirting with the record low of 86.6475 hit about two weeks back.

The rupee was forming a range "around 86.50 and thereabouts" and whether it can shake that range "is entirely dependent on how Trump tariff agenda plays out", said Srinivas Puni, managing director at QuantArt Market Solutions.

"The Indian budget in Feb is unlikely to disrupt this view."

Trump is planning to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Saturday and is considering fresh tariffs on China. Trump said on Thursday he would soon decide whether to exclude Canadian and Mexican oil imports from the 25% tariffs that he has vowed to impose.

With both Mexico and Canada pledging to retaliate to any trade levies it would notably raise the risk of tit-for-tat tariffs and weigh on world growth and trade, MUFG Bank said in a note.
Asian currencies were down on Friday. The offshore Chinese yuan was at 7.29 to the U.S. dollar.

INDIA BUDGET

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the federal budget on Saturday, aiming to stimulate economic growth through measures such as income tax cuts.

India equity markets are open on Saturday, while the forex and money markets’ reaction to the budget will be seen on Monday.

"U.S. tariffs and what happens to the dollar will be the main drivers (for the rupee)," a currency trader at a bank said.

Indian equities reaction, if it is "sizeable", may have a temporary impact on the rupee at Monday’s open, the trader said.

KEY INDICATORS:

- One-month non-deliverable rupee forward at 86.81; onshore one-month forward premium at 17 paise
- Dollar index up at 108.11
- Brent crude futures up 0.6% at $77.3 per barrel ** Ten-year U.S. note yield at 4.53%
- As per NSDL data, foreign investors sold a net $207.5mln worth of Indian shares on Jan. 29
- NSDL data shows foreign investors bought a net $13.5mln worth of Indian bonds on Jan. 29

India could tackle economic slowdown, US tariff threat in annual budget (South China Morning Post)

South China Morning Post [1/31/2025 2:35 AM, Biman Mukherji, 9.4M, Neutral]
India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the federal budget on Saturday amid signs the world’s fastest-growing major economy is slowing down, with economists calling for a broad policy reset to address stagnant consumption and drive far-reaching reforms.

The International Monetary Fund in its global economic outlook this month estimated the South Asian nation’s economic growth would remain at 6.5 per cent through this year and the next amid slowing industrial activity, down from a robust 8.2 per cent in 2023.

Despite retaining its status as a global growth leader even with the downturn, India faces a challenging landscape that industry executives hope the budget will tackle by removing pain points such as sluggish consumer demand and stalled privatisation.

“It will be the first full-term budget for the government’s third term and I would love to see broad directional reforms,” said Naushad Forbes, co-chairman of multinational engineering company Forbes Marshall.

India’s last federal budget was in July, after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in national elections albeit at the head of a coalition, following a loss of its outright majority.

Youth unemployment, inflation and stagnant consumption have eroded the party’s voter base, according to analysts.

A slide in the rupee’s value to a record low against the US dollar has intensified these concerns because it raises the cost of importing essential goods such as oil and has prompted some foreign investors to shift funds into the US dollar.

The threat of higher import tariffs under Donald Trump hangs over India, with the US president having previously called India a “very big abuser” on trade because of stiff levies. In 2023-24, India posted a trade surplus of US$32 billion with two-way trade with the US surpassing US$118 billion.

Forbes said the budget could set the tone for India to lower tariffs, which could help open up the economy to foreign investments. India’s average import tariffs on goods are about 18 per cent, but on some products such as whiskies they can be as high as 150 per cent.

Privatisation of state-run industries and deregulation of higher-education institutions were among other areas for deeper reforms, while a pathway to implement a programme worth 1 trillion rupees (US$11.7 billion) that was announced last year needed to be spelled out, Forbes said.

Industry executives are also pinning their hopes that the budget will rejig income tax that could potentially help improve stagnant consumption, which has hurt industrial activity.

According to a pre-budget survey conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry among industrialists released this month, more than half of the respondents emphasised the importance of reforms such as easier land acquisition, labour and power supply.

They also expressed concern over the “muted demand situation”, with a number of them calling for a review of income taxes that “could leave more money in the hands of people and spur consumption” and boost development of green technologies.

“The coming budget may help India in lifting consumption if adequate measures are proposed to incentivise sectors that drive consumption and increase the disposable income in the hands of middle- and lower-income groups,” said Mitesh Jain, partner at Economic Laws Practice.

People had been expecting relief in personal taxes for the last few years, but nothing substantial had been forthcoming, Jain added.

Sujan Hajra, group chief economist and executive director at Mumbai-based Anand Rathi Financial Services, said people who earned less than 1 million Indian rupees annually could be exempt from taxes if they could fully avail of various concessions. The current income ceiling to qualify for tax exemption is at 800,000 rupees.

Hajra said the budget was likely to focus on two key areas: public partnership models that built up infrastructure to potentially generate employment, and narrowing the gap between government spending and revenues.

The latter was expected to help the country’s sovereign ratings improve attractiveness for international investors, he said.

The government had set a fiscal deficit target of 4.9 per cent for 2024-25 last year, with the aim of reducing it to 4.5 per cent or below by 2025-26.

Analysts say Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is also unlikely to implement big changes to halt a slide in the rupee, as the US may intervene to cap the dollar’s value to avoid hurting American exports.

Rishi Shah, partner and economist at Grant Thornton Bharat, noted the nature of currency markets to go through “somewhat wild swings” and “uncertainty around geopolitics” seemed to have exacerbated the trend.

The rupee’s slide – which hit a record low of 86.6 to the US dollar in mid-January, despite intervention by India’s central bank – could continue over the long term, Aditi Raman, associate economist at Moody’s Analytics, said in a report on Wednesday.

Persistently high inflation that had curtailed domestic demand and elevated bank interest rates could continue to pinch the economy for some time, she said, as the tumbling rupee would add to costs of inputs.

“We expect a budget that supports domestic demand, particularly investment, while aiming for a fiscal deficit of less than 4.5 per cent of GDP by the end of the financial year [March 2026],” she said.

For India budget, tightrope walk between creating jobs and gov’t deficit (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera [1/30/2025 9:29 PM, Saumya Roy, 19588K, Neutral]
Prema Salgaonkar wakes up hours before dawn and begins to cook food in her suburban Mumbai home to sell. Her son, Amar returns from work only when the sun is well above and she is done making her nearly 100 vegetable-stuffed parathas.

Salgaonkar lost her job at a nonprofit nearly a year ago and her son Amar, 35, lost his job selling mobile phones and data plans six months ago. With no retailers hiring, he eventually took up temporary work, travelling nights on transport trucks, helping drivers negotiate with police and other officials.

This week as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the budget on March 1, she will have to find a way to spur growth and employment for the millions of people like the Salgaonkars, who are struggling to find steady work, while keeping to fiscal deficit targets.

“We don’t sit at home,” Prema says, about how they ended in these temporary jobs. She quickly lists how prices for vegetables have shot up, leaving her with little money to meet expenses and save up for Amar’s wedding, which now seems like a distant dream given that he doesn’t have a steady job.

India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth fell to 5.4 percent for the quarter ending September 2024, the latest data available and the slowest in seven quarters. Growth is expected to slow to 6.4 percent for the fiscal year ending March 31, the slowest in four years. However, “there is no room for fiscal leniency,” or increasing government spending to kick-start growth, says Dhiraj Nim, an economist at ANZ Bank.

Increased government spending during the pandemic led to India’s fiscal deficit ballooning to 9.3 percent in the fiscal year ending March 2021. Sitharamanan has said she plans to bring it down to 4.9 percent this year and below 4.5 percent next year.

Economists say weak consumer demand and low capital investment by private companies have been a drag on the economy.

“Some economists, including me, have flagged that post-COVID demand was a problem,” says Sunil Sinha, professor of economics at the Institute for Development and Communications, Chandigarh.

Demand for goods and services recovered to pre-pandemic levels only in certain areas, such as from wealthy Indians, for international tourism, luxury cars and other premium products, Sinha says. But demand for mass-consumption products, such as soaps, shampoos and biscuits had remained low and fell further in the past quarter.

Amar, who worked in India’s booming mobile sales sector for nine years, found that, after the pandemic, selling mobile phones and data plans got harder, friends and colleagues got fired from their jobs and finding a new job has been tough.

‘Limit’ to government spending

In the last decade that it has been in power, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has spent funds on building highways, bridges and other large infrastructure projects to generate growth and employment. But that may no longer be possible given fiscal spending targets.

“There is a limit to how much the government can spur growth,” says Nikhil Gupta, chief economist at Motilal Oswal Securities, a Mumbai-based securities firm. “We are burdening the government too much by expecting it to boost growth a lot.”

India’s private sector investment in building capacity has remained low despite tax rates being reduced in 2019 to 22 percent from 30 percent for businesses.

Sinha says corporate spending would come only with the visibility of demand, which has remained weak.

This tightrope walk of encouraging demand without overspending has also gotten harder with the new administration in the United States.

“The government will stick to the [fiscal deficit] target as it would like to signal confidence that it has its expenses under control, especially when capital flows have been volatile due to policy changes around the world,” says Rumki Majumdar, economist at professional services firm Deloitte India.

Trump threat

Foreign investors sold shares worth more than $8bn in Indian stock markets this January when President Donald Trump took office, as the dollar strengthened and Trump promised to support US businesses over offshoring to other countries. India’s foreign currency reserves also fell in this period.

The Trump administration has threatened tariffs against imports and questioned the need for H-1B visas for highly skilled professionals, which could affect India’s technology sector.

“There is a pretty vibrant, visible debate in the Trump camp on skilled worker visas. So, it is too early to predict how this will play out,” says Rick Rossow, chair on India and emerging Asia economies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC-based think tank.

Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products could lead to manufacturing moving to India, efforts that India has been trying to encourage in the last few years of the trade war between Washington, DC and Beijing. However, New Delhi has had mixed success.

“America’s push to reduce over-reliance on Chinese manufacturing has helped India land a few technology manufacturing investments in sectors like semiconductors and solar manufacturing. But there is an expectation that under Trump, India cannot expect the US government to continue encouraging American companies in these sectors to ‘friendshore’ to India. India will need to win the investments based solely on domestic market conditions, requiring aggressive reforms at the [federal] and state levels,” Rossow said.

Sinha says many such bottlenecks for investors, including land acquisition, water and power supply are now in the hands of state governments, many of whom have dealt with high unemployment and weak consumer demand by offering election sops, such as cash handouts. This has likely affected state finance deficits adversely.

Salgaonkar, for instance, says she has benefitted from a Maharashtra government scheme which gives cash handouts of 1,500 rupees ($17) a month to women. It has helped her balance a precarious household budget.

But Motilal Oswal’s Gupta says “We have to ask, are these schemes necessary? What is the basis on which these schemes are designed? Are they just a political tool? Structurally speaking, we don’t like these and there is a limit to how much they can spur growth.”

Need for a plan

If state governments spend on capital expenditure, such as smaller-scale roadbuilding, it could lead to employment more so than the union government’s large infrastructure projects that are increasingly mechanised, says Sinha.

The government needs to also improve access to labour, land, capital to boost production which in turn will help create jobs, says Deloitte’s Majumdar.

India’s growing construction sector, which is also its second-largest employer after agriculture, could also get a boost in the budget, says Motilal Oswal’s Gupta.

While there has been some debate on whether there could be relief given on income tax rates, economists do not entirely agree that this could lead to increased demand from India’s lower middle class.

Although sluggish demand has been a growing problem in the economy, Sitharaman has said the slowdown is “not systemic”. Last quarter’s slowdown came due to a slowing in public investment in an election year, during which governments are barred from spending to influence election outcomes by India’s election commission, she said. Sitharaman expects growth to recover in the next quarter.

Salgaonkar has her own prescription for Sitharaman: lower prices, increase buying capacity by creating jobs, or both.

Inflation surged to 6.2 percent in October, reaching a 14-month high and surpassing the central bank’s target of 4 percent and Salgaonkar talks about rising prices of wheat, cooking gas and clothes among other essential items while incomes in her home have dropped.

While investments in physical infrastructure are likely to continue despite the fiscal constraints, ANZ’s Gupta says, “I think establishing a vision and roadmap to improve India’s human capital [by improving skills and education] will be a welcome step”. It could be the only long-term way to boost growth in the most populous country and the world’s fifth-largest economy.

India trade deal should secure release of detained British citizen, says MP (The Independent)

The Independent [1/30/2025 6:36 AM, Will Durrant, 57769K, Neutral]
Talks to secure a trade deal with India should also support the release of a British citizen arbitrarily detained there, a Labour MP has urged.

Ahead of a visit to India by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, Douglas McAllister urged negotiators to discuss the release of 37-year-old Jagtar Singh Johal.

Mr Johal, a Sikh activist from Dumbarton in Scotland, was in Punjab, northern India, for his wedding in 2017 when his family said he was arrested and bundled into an unmarked car.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his imprisonment breached Mr Johal’s human rights, and have called for his release and compensation.

Mr McAllister asked on Thursday: "Whilst it’s appreciated that a new trade deal with India could support jobs and prosperity in the UK and thus drive growth, can I ask the minister to include in the work underway across Government to prepare for negotiations with India, that those discussions include the immediate release of my West Dunbartonshire constituent Jagtar Singh Johal from arbitrary detention in India prior to concluding any trade deal?".

Business and trade minister Gareth Thomas told the Commons in his reply: "I recognise this is a very significant issue for (Mr McAllister). We remain absolutely committed to encouraging the government of India to see faster progress to resolve this case.

"The Prime Minister (Sir Keir Starmer) raised this case with prime minister (Narendra) Modi back on November 18. We’ve made clear the need for faster progress towards a resolution on this issue.".

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her Oxfordshire speech on Wednesday that Mr Reynolds would visit India "shortly to restart talks on the free trade agreement and bilateral investment treaty that the last government failed to deliver".

Ms Reeves insisted the Government would be "guided by one clear principle, above all, to act in the national interest for our economy", adding: "That means building on our special relationship with the United States.".

Mr Thomas confirmed in the Commons that the Business Secretary would travel to Delhi in February.

Asked by Bob Blackman, Conservative MP for Harrow East, to "make sure that we in the UK gain access to the services market in India", the minister declined to give a "running commentary" on negotiations.

He told MPs: "We’re absolutely determined to do everything we can do to secure a trade deal with India.".

Fund managers in Davos see India appeal, despite foreign exodus (Reuters)

Reuters [1/30/2025 8:10 AM, Divya Chowdhury, 48128K, Neutral]
Indian markets offer an attractive medium-to-long term investment opportunity, despite a recent exodus of foreign money, fund managers told Reuters on the sidelines of last week’s World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

India’s economic growth prospects, a large consumer-oriented population, limited exposure risk to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs and continued de-risking from China make it an attractive choice among emerging markets, they said.

"India is not necessarily always the cheapest market, (but) I think that having India as part of your emerging markets portfolio makes a lot of sense," Saira Malik, chief investment officer at Chicago-based Nuveen, which manages assets worth $1.3 trillion, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.

Foreign portfolio investors have withdrawn more than $31 billion from Indian equity markets since October, provisional exchange data shows. January 2025 has seen outflows of around $8 billion, on concerns over slowing growth and falling corporate profits, even as domestic funds continue to provide support.

"When you have 6%-7% growth in real terms and 10%-12% nominal growth, you can support an investment thesis that can deliver in high-teens growth, despite the fact that you’re actually paying full value going in," said Rishi Kapoor, vice chairman and CIO at Investcorp, the Middle East’s biggest alternative investment firm.

A weaker manufacturing sector and slower corporate investments are seen reducing India’s growth rate to 6.4% in 2024/25, its slowest pace in four years.

Kapoor said Investcorp, with assets under management of $55 billion, has widened its India focus from consumer-oriented companies to healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and IT services.

The benchmark NSE Nifty index (.NSEI) is down nearly 12% from a record high in September 2024, while the Indian rupee continues to hover around the all-time low it touched earlier this month against the U.S. dollar.

Nevertheless, Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah’s managing director, Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir, said he felt "confident and bullish" about India.

"It’s been very good for us in terms of returns, the public markets, and even the private market as well, especially for innovation," Amirul Feisal said.

India is set to announce its budget on Feb. 1, followed by the central bank’s monetary policy decision, the first under its new governor, Sanjay Malhotra, on Feb. 7.

Economists in a Reuters poll forecast New Delhi will stick to the fiscal deficit target of 4.5% of gross domestic product, with gross borrowing forecast at 14.28 trillion rupees.

Meanwhile, Indian bond yields have eased over last few days on bets that the Reserve Bank of India will cut rates to help a sagging economy, after it announced liquidity measures earlier this week, with investors expecting the bond rally to continue.

"India is the new China," said Jennifer Grancio, global head of distribution at Los Angeles-based asset manager TCW Group, which manages assets of nearly $200 billion.

"You’re going to see a lot of new capital flows and foreign investments that I think is going to continue to propel the market there," Grancio said.

India struggles to get cash to people producing carbon credits (Reuters)

Reuters [1/30/2025 11:35 AM, Bhasker Tripathi, 63029K, Neutral]
Farmer Jitendra Singh stopped flooding his rice fields in the northern Indian state of Haryana so they produce less polluting methane and he could get paid for the greenhouse gas emissions he saves, but three years on he has not received a single rupee.

Allowing companies to buy credits from projects that lock carbon away and use them to offset their emissions is seen by many environmental experts as an important way to help developing countries and custodians of the land like Singh protect the environment.

Corporations globally, from airlines and fashion houses, to technology giants, have spent billions of dollars buying carbon credits to offset their emissions.

In return, companies label products "carbon neutral" and consumers feel safe they are not deepening the climate crisis.

But while trade in credits generated from projects including renewables, forestry and agriculture reached about $2 billion in 2021, it shrank sharply to $723 million in 2023 after reports found that most of the credits issued by certification organisations were likely to be "phantom credits" that did not represent genuine carbon reductions.

That has led to organisations certifying carbon capture projects exercising greater scrutiny and has meant delays in approving them, hitting people like farmer Singh.

"It will happen when it happens," he said stoically.

VERIFICATION, MIDDLEMEN HOLD UP PAYMENTS

In a vast country like India, with 60% of its land under cultivation, mostly in small farms, carbon credits could provide much-needed help to both farmers and the environment.

India generates about 20% of the world’s carbon credits, said a 2023 report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based think-tank, and had earned more the $650 million from them.

But on top of the concerns about verifying the efficacy of carbon capture projects, the CSE said most of the money earned was eaten up by middlemen and little or nothing trickled down to people on the ground.

"The market only seems to work in the interest of the project developers and, of course, the paraphernalia of consultants and auditors," the report said.

"This also means that it is ineffective in terms of real emission reduction. The communities get virtually nothing from the proceeds, and this means that they also have no stake in the emission reduction programme," it said.

"The main question that needs attention is whether farmers are getting enough money to change their practices for adaptation or mitigation," said Trishant Dev, a carbon market expert and one of the authors of the CSE analysis.

"Currently, the compensation that farmers receive is not encouraging enough," he said.

PVS Suryakumar, ex-deputy managing director of India’s premier agriculture bank NABARD, said there was "so much greed" in the voluntary carbon market with intermediaries - from project developers to contractors - rushing to enlist communities in the carbon market and make money off them.

Carbon credit certification organisations are taking more time to review their rules and standards for projects due to the concerns over the origination, credibility and efficacy of certain credits, said an executive working with an Indian carbon asset management firm who asked not to be named.

The process of enrolling farmers and selling the credits in global markets is costly and can now take up to two years, the executive said.

INDIA MOVES TO CREATE ITS OWN MARKET

Strict regulation is needed, said Suryakumar.

"In this chaotic noise around carbon markets, uniform standards and strict regulations are a must to make sure the interests of the communities are protected," he said.

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), an independent global governance body, has sought to address integrity concerns by launching its Core Carbon Principle standards for certifying projects.

The ICVCM said in August that around a third of existing carbon credits had failed to meet the criteria for its new standard.

Meanwhile, India has set-out to create its own registries or marketplaces to generate, verify and sell agriculture credits internally. The Indian government said last year it wanted to use its vast potential to generate a steady supply of agriculture-based credits to meet its climate goals.

Ritu Bharadwaj, principal researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development, said the London-based think-tank was working with the Indian government and ICVCM to develop a robust framework for the Indian market.

Bharadwaj said the goal was to ensure "the monitoring, reporting and verification of carbon credits are accurate, accessible and affordable for farmers and it prioritises their rights".

Transparency in the entire process, from verification to the final credit sale, would increase market confidence and boost the money received by farmers, she said.

To do so, the Indian market is looking to use a number of methods, including crowd-sourcing monitoring, reporting and verification data directly from communities using smartphones, aggregating farmers into cooperatives to improve their bargaining power and creating a payment system to send the proceeds of sales directly to farmers.

The hope is that allowing farmers to monetise sustainable practices will help realise India’s significant emissions mitigation potential.

NSB

Bangladesh minority rights group accuses interim government of failing to protect minorities (AP)

AP [1/30/2025 6:59 AM, Julhas Alam, 63029K, Negative]
Bangladesh’s largest minority rights group accused the country’s interim government on Thursday of failing to protect religious and ethnic minorities from attacks and harassment, a claim the government has denied.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council said the government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is also using state institutions to suppress minority groups. Yunus took over after a student-led uprising last year in which hundreds of people died forced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to India on Aug. 5, ending her 15-year rule.

The council earlier said 2,010 incidents of communal violence took place across the Muslim-majority country between Aug. 4 and 20. The Yunus-led government disputed the claim, saying that most of the incidents were caused by “political reasons” and not by communal issues.

Traditionally, Hindus and other members of minority groups have been seen as supporters of Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League party.

In a news conference on Thursday, the council reiterated its claim of earlier attacks and said 174 new incidents of communal violence had taken place between Aug. 21 and Dec. 31 last year in which 23 members of minority groups were killed and nine women were raped. It said other incidents involved arson, vandalism, looting and forcible takeover of property and businesses. It said at least 15 members of minority groups were either arrested or tortured for allegedly undermining Islam.

Manindra Kumar Nath, the group’s acting general secretary, accused the government of manipulating state institutions to harass people from minority groups.

“We have observed that the interim government has begun using various important state institutions to carry out discriminatory actions against minorities. This is unexpected and undesirable from a government that was established based on the anti-discrimination student movement,” he said.

The council said minority groups were being targeted in a systematic way, and called for the release of a jailed Hindu leader.

Nath said the leader, Chinmoy Das Prabhu, was being deprived of his legal right to bail in a sedition case. He is also known as Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari.

Nath said many minority leaders had gone into hiding because of false charges against them. The interim government has said they face specific charges and were not targeted for any communal reason.

Under Yunus, Bangladesh has been going through a tense period with Hindu-majority India over minority issues, sparking protests and counter-protests. Less than 8% of Bangladesh’s 170 million people are Hindu. Many in the interim government are unhappy that India is sheltering Hasina, and a special tribunal in Bangladesh has sought her arrest. An official request to India for her extradition remains unanswered.

India, which sheltered 10 million refugees and helped Bangladesh gain independence after a nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971, considers Hasina to be a trusted friend. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the independence leader of Bangladesh, then the eastern part of Pakistan, India’s regional foe.

Tens of thousands of Muslims attend annual Biswa Ijtema event in Bangladesh (AP)

AP [1/31/2025 5:28 AM, Julhas Alam, 63029K, Negative]
Tens of thousands of people gathered on a riverbank near Bangladesh’s capital on Friday to listen to sermons by Islamic scholars at the Biswa Ijtema, or global congregation of Muslim devotees.

The three-day annual event will end Sunday when hundreds of thousands of Muslims are expected to join final prayers like every year. This is the first phase of Biswa Ijtema, while the second phase will be held Feb. 3-5. The third phase will be held Feb. 14-16.

Biswa Ijtema is one of the largest gatherings of Muslim devotees, held on the sandy banks of the Turag River in Tongi, just north of Dhaka, the capital. The event dates back to the 1950s when the Tablighi Jamaat movement started hosting the event.

On Friday, Muslims joined the weekly afternoon prayers as many more continued to stream toward the venue from across Bangladesh.

About 2,150 foreign Muslims from 72 countries were among the tens of thousands of Bangladeshis who joined the first phase of the congregation, said Habibullah Raihan, a spokesman of the organizing committee.

He said that scholars and clerics from India, Pakistan and other countries delivered their sermons on the tenants of Islam as the devotees slept in tents erected on the riverbank.

Security checkpoints and camaras have been installed, while plainclothes security officials joined uniformed officers in the area.

A.K.M. Shahidur Rahman, director-general of the elite Rapid Action Battalion force, said Friday that there was no particular security threat, but that adequate measures were in place to ensure safety.

Mohammed Nadim, a grocer from the northern district of Rangpur, traveled overnight with many others from his area to join the weekly prayers on Friday.

“I come here every year to seek blessings. It gives me peace,” he told The Associated Press at the scene.

“Many people came here like me. We raise our hands together. We want peace in my life, we want peace in the world. May Allah accept us, may Allah forgive us,” he said.

Sri Lanka eases vehicle import ban, but can people afford a new car? (BBC)

BBC [1/31/2025 12:24 AM, Anbarasan Ethirajan, 76.2M, Neutral]
Sri Lanka is set to relax a ban on some vehicle imports in a sign the country is returning to normal after a severe economic crisis that toppled a president.

From 1 February, imports of buses, trucks and utility vehicles will be allowed to resume, while restrictions on other vehicles are expected to be gradually lifted.

Many Sri Lankans are waiting for authorities to also drop an import ban on private cars, sport utility vehicles and three-wheeled trishaws - which are commonly used as taxis.

But with prices of vehicles forced up by a scarcity of new ones to buy, a weak currency and high taxes, some are asking who will be able to afford a new car.

In 2022, Sri Lanka faced a severe foreign currency shortage, which meant it was unable to meet its obligations to creditors for the first time in its history.

The island nation of 22 million people was thrown into turmoil as it faced crippling shortages of fuel, food and medicines.

Massive anti-government protests toppled then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa just months later.

Colombo negotiated a $2.9bn (£2.3bn) bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while Rajapaksa’s successor introduced austerity measures including hiking taxes and ending energy subsidies.

The country’s finances have since improved and the economy is gradually returning from the brink.

The announcement to lift the import ban on vehicles has triggered a buzz among Sri Lankans who have been waiting for years to buy a new car or a van.

Murtaza Jafeerjee, chair of Advocata, an economic think tank based in Colombo, told the BBC he thought the move was long overdue.

"The vehicle imports will not only increase the government’s revenue but will also trigger other economic activities like car financing, dealer revenue, car servicing and other related activities, creating jobs," he said.

But Nalinda Jayatissa, the country’s information minister told a media briefing on Tuesday that the country was "moving very cautiously because we don’t want a surge of imports that will deplete our foreign reserves".

‘We’ve been waiting for a long time’

The country, which doesn’t have any major factories producing cars and trucks, imports almost all its vehicles, many of them from countries like Japan and India. Now there’s a also lot of interest in Chinese cars, particularly electric vehicles.

Prices of used cars in Sri Lanka have soared, with some models now costing two or three times as much as they did before the ban.

The restrictions have been particularly difficult for people like Gayan Indika, who provides vehicles for weddings and is a part-time cab driver.

"I want to buy a new car so that I can do my work and resume my private cab rental. Without a car, without mobility, I am losing a lot of my revenue," he said.

In a country with poor public transport, a car can be vital, Sasikumar, a software professional from the central city of Kandy explained.

"As we don’t have a good public transport system, a car is essential to travel to other parts of the country. Either the government should lift the ban on cars or improve the public transport."

Sri Lanka imported about $1.4bn worth of vehicles in the year before the ban was imposed. This year the central bank says it’s planning to allocate up to a billion dollars for vehicle imports, but said the money will be released gradually.

Arosha Rodrigo, from the Vehicle Importers Association of Sri Lanka, and his family have been running a car dealership for more than four decades.

The firm was importing about 100 vehicles a month before the ban. Since the restrictions came into force they have not been unable to import a single vehicle.

He points out that even if the ban is relaxed further, to allow passenger cars and other vehicles to be imported, many people won’t be able to afford them because of increased taxes and Sri Lanka’s weak currency.

The government has sharply raised excise duties on imported vehicles, both new and second hand, to 200% and 300% depending on engine size.

On top of excise duty, there is also 18% Value Added Tax (VAT) for any vehicle brought from abroad.

The price of imported vehicles will also be impacted by the weakness of the Sri Lankan rupee against major world currencies like the US dollar.

Those soaring costs are putting off people like school teacher R Yasodha.

"We have been waiting to purchase a vehicle for a long time. But if we calculate the tax and the price, the cost of an average sized car has doubled from 2.5 million rupees ($8,450; £6,800) to five million rupees," she told the BBC.

"It would cost a fortune for us."

Central Asia

Kazakhstan intent on going full-on nuclear (EurasiaNet)

EurasiaNet [1/30/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Following up on last year’s referendum that endorsed the pursuit of nuclear energy in Kazakhstan, the government is moving quickly to lay the groundwork for at least two reactors. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has expressed a desire to eventually construct a “nuclear cluster” in the country to power economic growth.

The government is working to finalize an agreement on the construction of an initial nuclear plant in the Almaty region “in the near future,” according to a report published by the Kazakh news outlet Vlast.kz, citing Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov. Preliminary work is being performed to identify a second site for a nuclear plant, Bektenov added during a January 28 government session.

In a major policy speech on January 28, Tokayev indicated that Kazakhstan’s ability to sustain economic growth depends on the construction of even more plants.

“Our strategic course on achieving carbon neutrality remains unchanged. However, its implementation should be approached more rationally. We need to effectively use our natural wealth and natural advantages,” Tokayev stated, adding that at present the country is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants.

“Against the background of a growing energy deficit, the construction of the first nuclear power plant should be accelerated and, in general, the creation of a nuclear cluster in the country should be started. This is an important task to ensure the progress of our country,” Tokayev stated.

A majority of Kazakhs approved a referendum question last autumn on the construction of a nuclear power plant. The question that remains open is who will build the plants envisioned by the government. There is widespread public concern that Russia’s nuclear agency, Rosatom, will get the construction contracts, despite worries about the Russian firm’s spotty record of adherence to safety standards.

Although Kazakhstan may be embracing nuclear energy, the country is not de-emphasizing natural resource extraction: Bektenov announced January 28 that the country will launch a fracking project to extract shale oil.

“This year, the first Kazakh shale oil is expected to be produced. This will create additional incentives to attract investments to the oil and gas industry,” Bektenov announced. Initial estimates peg the potential fracking production total at roughly 800 million tons in oil equivalent.

Torture Trial in Kazakhstan Ends in Prison Sentences, But Dissatisfaction Lingers (The Diplomat)

The Diplomat [1/30/2025 11:13 AM, Catherine Putz, 857K, Negative]
On January 17, a court in Kaskelen, a city east of Almaty, found six police officers guilty of abuse of power and the torture of dozens of foreigners – including Kyrgyz jazz musician Vikram Ruzakhunov – during the hectic and deadly Qandy Qantar, Kazakhstan’s bloody January 2022.

In early January 2022 protests in Zhanaozen over a hike in gas prices spread across Kazakhstan, unleashing a wave of chaos and violence that was most acute in the country’s largest city, Almaty.

In a series of remarks made between January 5 and 10, 2022, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev reverted to a familiar set of scripts: The unrest was an orchestrated conspiracy and the violence was perpetrated by "20,000 bandits" and foreign fighters.

And so, Kazakh law enforcement went out and found some foreigners.

On January 9, Kazakh television station Khabar 24 showed a video of man, with a puffy, cut, and bruised face, confessing to having taken $200 and a plane ticket to travel to Kazakhstan to protest. In the video, the man says he is unemployed.

But it was blatant disinformation. The man in the video was immediately recognized in neighboring Kyrgyzstan as the well-known jazz pianist Vikran Ruzakhunov, who frequently traveled to Almaty to play shows. His fame was his good fortune: Ruzakhunov was released and returned to Kyrgyzstan on January 10.

In an interview with Vlast.kz in September 2023 he recounted that after he returned to Bishkek he was advised to keep his mouth shut. As a result of the torture he experienced, Ruzakhunov had broken ribs, damaged lungs, and a concussion. "But after I went through all this, all this pain, I rethought what had happened and began giving interviews," he said.

And he began pursuing justice.

Criminal cases related to the torture he, and others, experienced were opened in February 2022 but made little progress at first. In May 2022, one of Ruzakhunov’s lawyers told Orda.kz that her client was afraid to go back to Almaty, even to participate in the investigation. It was temporarily suspended for a lack of suspects. By September 2022, however, Ruzakhunov did go back – and he identified 10 police officers who beat him.

Ultimately, six police officers – Bauyrzhan Sopakov, Arman Shoibekov, Berik Abilbekov, Olzhas Aidarkhanov, Serik Turpanov, and Nursultan Khamitov – were put on trial in relation to the torture of 44 recognized victims. The victims were Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik citizens who were detained on their way out of Almaty when the KNB Border Service set up a checkpoint on the Almaty-Bishkek highway near the village of Targap. According to the indictment, 99 people were detained at the checkpoint and taken to a detention facility in the village of Koshmambet.

Although the six officers were convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, victims and activists are not completely satisfied.

After the verdict, Ruzakhunov commented, "This trial is only a small step towards justice, and, unfortunately, it has once again shown that the fight for human rights in Kazakhstan continues in the face of constant resistance from the system. Bloody January remains a wound that does not heal.".

Dozens of police officers gathered outside the court on the day of the verdict, creating an atmosphere that Ruzakhunov characterized as "intimidation.".

Aina Shormanbanbaeva, president of the International Legal Initiative Public Foundation, who defended the interests of the 23 Uzbek victims, noted that only three of her clients were able to travel to Kazakhstan to participate in the investigation – the remainder were deported from Kazakhstan and subject to a 5-year entry ban.

Shormanbanbaeva said that at least 98 people were subject to torture at Koshmambet, but only 44 were officially recognized as victims.

It wasn’t just foreigners who were tortured amid the chaos of Qandy Qantar. As Alva Omarova, a pseudonymous researcher with International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), wrote in a commentary earlier this month, "While hundreds of complaints about torture were filed after Bloody January, most of them have not made it to court for the same reason, resulting in widespread impunity for perpetrators and the lack of adequate compensation for victims.".

The defendants, and their supporters, were also left unsatisfied by the verdict. The six police officers did not admit guilt and claimed that they were following orders during a state of emergency.

The mother of one defendant told RFE/RL, "The trial of citizens who defended the country is an injustice. There is no justice in Kazakhstan.".

Suspected U.S.-Russia Arms Trafficker Arrested in Kyrgyzstan (Newsweek)

Newsweek [1/31/2025 5:00 AM, Jon Jackson, 857K, Negative]
Law enforcement authorities in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday announced the arrest of a suspected arms trafficker who is accused of shipping weapons from the United States to sell in Russia.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security said in a statement that the suspect is believed to be part of a criminal group that has trafficked hundreds of weapons from the U.S. to Kyrgyzstan and then sold them to unidentified individuals/parties in Russia.

Newsweek reached out to the State Committee for National Security via email on Thursday for comment.

Why It Matters

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in recent years has emphasized the importance of thwarting illegal arms trafficking, which is often carried out by transnational organized crime groups.

Last year, the UN General Assembly declared November 15 the International Day for the Prevention of and Fight against All Forms of Transnational Organized Crime as a call to action against weapons trafficking.

What To Know

Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is one of Russia’s Central Asian allies. It’s part of the Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Union, which is made up of five former Soviet countries, including Russia, to allow easier travel and trade between members.

The AFP wrote that since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kyrgyzstan "has faced allegations of being a back door for Moscow to buy sanctioned Western goods."

According to the State Committee for National Security, a Kyrgyzstani identified only by the initials S.M.M. purchased firearms through online stores in the United States. Other individuals were also allegedly involved in the trafficking scheme, but no identifying information about the other suspects was provided by Kyrgyzstan’s law agency due to the ongoing investigation.

Kyrgyzstan’s authorities said that after the illegal weapons were mailed from the U.S. to Kyrgyzstan, the suspected criminals then sold the arms in Russia. The law agency added that the criminal group is made up of citizens from Kyrgyzstan, Russia and the United States.

The group is accused of shipping than 300 weapons, including Glock pistols and AR-15 assault rifles.

What People Are Saying

According to AFP, the State Committee for National Security said in its statement that it had "uncovered and suppressed the criminal activity of a transnational group" that had illegally trafficked weapons and military uniforms.

The statement added that the suspect, S.M.M., was caught "red-handed" earlier this month when he received a package containing parts for a rifle and handgun.

What Happens Next

Kaktus Media, an independent news agency in Kyrgyzstan, reported that the Pervomaisky District Court of Bishkek on January 25 sent S.M.M. to the pretrial detention center of the State Committee for National Security of the Kyrgyz Republic for two months to await trial.

VOA Uzbek: Veteran diplomats say stability is most important thing in Central Asia (VOA)

VOA [1/30/2025 4:34 PM, Navbahor Imamova, 2717K, Positive]
A conversation with Ambassador Matthew Klimow, the former top U.S. diplomat in Turkmenistan, takes a deeper look into a country often described as one of the most closed and repressive in the world. Klimow argues that there has been noticeable progress in Turkmenistan and that significant factors must be considered in U.S. policy toward the nation.

Indo-Pacific

Polio Diplomacy Between Pakistan and Afghanistan (The Diplomat)

The Diplomat [1/30/2025 8:24 AM, Bantirani Patro, 857K, Negative]
Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988, the global incidence of poliomyelitis (polio) fell by more than 99 percent, and two of the three wild poliovirus (WPV) serotypes (types 2 and 3) were eradicated. After being endemic in over 125 countries at the time of GPEI’s launch, Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only polio reservoirs of the type 1 strain today.

In 2024 alone, Pakistan reported 70 WPV1 cases, while Afghanistan, as per the most up-to-date open source information, recorded approximately 25 cases. This is a sharp increase compared to 2023, when the combined tally for both countries stood at only 12, with six reported in each country. It is then no coincidence that both Afghanistan and Pakistan are under the sway of firebrand Islamists, who have actively sought to disrupt anti-polio initiatives, and concurrently, have wrestled with dramatic internal upheavals.

This begs a pivotal question: can Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to collaborate on eradicating polio, even as their relations have soured, best evidenced by the cross-border air strike Pakistan launched into Afghanistan in late December 2024?

In 2024, Pakistan witnessed an array of attacks on polio vaccination teams and their police escorts amid a sudden spike in polio cases across the country. With the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on an upward trajectory since the Afghan Taliban’s ascent to power, the group has launched more and more attacks – including against polio vaccination teams, a common target since the TTP’s inception.

Such resistance to vaccination stems from a flurry of propaganda floating around in Pakistan, particularly in its tribal belt abutting Afghanistan. The TTP, in this case, can be regarded both as a victim of this misinformation and also an active perpetuator of it. Some of the most widely held misconceptions include: vaccination is a Western machination to sterilize Muslim children; immunization cannot be given before the occurrence of a disease as it is deemed un-Islamic; polio drops cause early maturity in girls; and the notion of vaccination being Jewish-American propaganda.

Beyond these beliefs, the bogus Hepatitis B vaccination program run by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to track down Osama bin Laden, then hiding in Pakistan’s Abbottabad, created a trust deficit between locals and vaccinators, which endures to date. This ruse, whose impact on the discovery of bin Laden remains unclear, was facilitated by a Pakistani physician, Shakil Afridi. It is imperative to note here that Afridi, convicted of treason for assisting the CIA, is still languishing in jail, bearing the consequences of the United States’ Global War on Terror and risking being forgotten despite the heavy price he paid. The sham vaccination program further vindicated militants’ concerns that polio eradication efforts were, indeed, a means for intelligence gathering, based on which they sought to disrupt vaccination campaigns.

The fear that this ruse generated extends beyond Pakistan, spreading its tentacles in Afghanistan as well. For example, after allowing house-to-house (door-to-door) vaccination in early 2024, the Taliban reportedly banned it in September 2024, possibly due to fears that it could reveal the location of the Taliban leaders, making them prone to foreign threats. It was in any case already banned in the southern province of Kandahar, where the top nucleus of the Afghan Taliban resides. It is thus no coincidence that Kandahar plays host to a majority of Afghanistan’s polio cases. In fact, even before the Taliban stormed back to power in August 2021, they had banned door-to-door drives in areas under their control.

It is thought that the Taliban do not want to ban vaccination drives outright but only aim to modify their modality, preferring vaccination at local mosques instead, where families would be required to bring their children. This will severely hinder the vaccination process for every child, as site-to-site or mosque-to-mosque strategies are less effective than the gold standard of house-to-house campaigns – more so in Afghanistan, when the Taliban have implemented sweeping restrictions on women’s public movements. Research has shown that the inclusion of women in vaccination teams has previously led to a reduction in vaccination refusals. However, with the recent ban on women receiving medical training (one of the last fields in which women were permitted to work and study), the future of Afghanistan’s health care infrastructure hangs in the balance.

While the situation seems bleak, there is cause for hope.

Until 2019, Nigeria was among the three polio-endemic countries, and was plagued by similar conditions as the Af-Pak region, such as anti-polio propaganda, the threat of Islamist militant groups (Boko Haram in this case), and other traditional barriers like a lack of sanitation and clean water. Subsequently, in a landmark achievement in 2020, the African continent in toto was declared as wild poliovirus free.

Nigeria was able to eliminate wild polio, thanks partly to the cooperation of influential religious leaders. Including the Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria’s Muslim community, these revered figures delivered sermons in favor of vaccinations. Since such leaders and religion at large are woven into the socio-cultural fabric of Afghanistan and Pakistan, religious representatives carry far more leverage than government officials, and as such, could be integrated into the governments’ efforts to eradicate polio. Besides, many of these religious figures maintain cross-border ties and influence that could further aid eradication efforts.

In the past, Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology had ratified fatwas (an opinion or decree given by an Islamic religious leader) endorsing polio vaccination. Similarly, the late influential cleric Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, who governed the Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania seminary – a place infamously dubbed the "university of jihad" for nurturing the Taliban’s top brass (Taliban founder Mullah Omar himself had received an honorary doctorate from this seminary) – had ratified similar fatwas.

There is, however, no unified doctrine among such religious institutions and figures, and to complicate matters further, they often retract or dilute their fatwas. For instance, in 2014, Sami-ul-Haq was reportedly against the government advertising his fatwa, believing that the publication’s timing risked jeopardizing the ongoing dialogue process with the Taliban.

A Pakistani official previously lamented that the polio virus would eventually spread across both countries Afghanistan and Pakistan if vaccination campaigns are not executed "regularly and in a synchronized manner." Given their geographical proximity, it is not entirely preposterous to imagine a day when a densely populated country like India (declared polio-free in 2014) or another neighboring country, could report a case or detect polio in environmental samples, thus auguring ill for the region. This is notwithstanding the restricted movement between regional countries and Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a stark reminder that so long as there is one body playing host to a virus anywhere in the world, national boundaries offer little protection. No one is safe until everyone is safe. The fact that even a highly isolated country like North Korea was not completely impervious to the pandemic vindicates this concern. Complacency thus is not an option – neither for Afghanistan and Pakistan, nor for the neighboring countries in South Asia.

With the onset of winter, considered the low-transmission season for polio, Afghanistan and Pakistan have an opportunity to work hand-in-hand to ramp up vaccination efforts. Besides the positive effect on polio eradication, it could perhaps act as a "cooperation multiplier," expanding pre-existing cooperation between the two countries, especially at a time when their relations appear to have taken a hit over the TTP issue.

Arguably, one of the chief reasons for increased polio cases in Afghanistan can actually be attributed to the souring of Af-Pak relations. When the then-Pakistani administration in October 2023 decided to expel over a million undocumented Afghan refugees, the majority ensconced themselves in southern and eastern Afghanistan, regions near the Pakistani border that have reported the most polio cases.

Fortunately, though, over polio, both countries seem willing to cooperate, as Pakistan’s National Emergency Actions Plans (NEAPs) for Polio Eradication evince. From NEAP 2020 to the newly approved NEAP 2024-25, a special emphasis has been placed on Af-Pak coordination, including the provision of vaccination at border crossing points (Torkham and Friendship Gate), coordination between rapid response units (RRUs) of both countries, and synchronized vaccination drives. The launch of fresh vaccination drives in both countries in late October 2024 best symbolizes such cooperation.

However, the enduring absence of any policy to protect polio workers, including security personnel, in Pakistan’s NEAPs for Polio Eradication paints a rather ominous picture. Neither NEAP 2020 nor the NEAP 2024-25 appears to have incorporated such a policy. This, coupled with the overall worsening security situation, underscores the need for Pakistan to buttress its civilian law enforcement agencies, in particular the police force, considering they are now the first line of defense by dint of accompanying polio workers to shelter them from militant attacks.

More broadly, reversing the grave security situation in Pakistan would have a positive impact on the fight against polio. Studies have shown that polio has higher chances of resurging in areas prone to conflict and instability – take, for example, the discovery of polio cases in the Gaza strip. This would then explain the rise in polio cases not only across Pakistan, but particularly in Balochistan, a region wrestling with a tempestuous ethno-nationalist insurgency. While correlation does not imply causation, a disaggregated evaluation reveals that 27 out of the 70 polio cases in Pakistan emerged from Balochistan, the highest tally of any province.

Lastly, given the Taliban are no longer an insurgent group but constitute a government machinery, they have governance-based reasons to double down on vaccination efforts – and direct their ideological twin, the TTP, not to attack polio vaccination teams. While this may be idealistic, considering their reluctance thus far to rein in the TTP, a massive polio outbreak on top of Afghanistan’s existing health crises could undermine the Taliban’s ability to govern. At the end of the day, despite possessing a repressive tool-kit at their disposal to crush any dissent or opposition, the Taliban, much to their dismay, remain mortal human beings, equally vulnerable to the very maladies afflicting the population they rule over.

Twitter

Afghanistan

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/31/2025 1:50 AM, 247.5K followers, 2 retweets, 14 likes]
Tulsi Gabbard says that if Al-Qaeda & IS take root in Afghanistan, the U.S. must return to eliminate them. Reports indicate Al-Qaeda operates training camps in at least 10 provinces. IS also maintains presence in eastern and northern Afghanistan.

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/30/2025 2:38 PM, 5.5K followers, 8 likes]
They stood with you in war, shoulder to shoulder, fighting the same enemy, risking everything for the mission that kept America safe. These Afghan allies didn’t just work for you—they bled for you, lost their families for you, believed in the values that make your country great. They upheld freedom, fought against terror, and proved their loyalty not with words, but with sacrifice. Now, in their most desperate hour, they are left in limbo—stranded, vulnerable, hunted. These are not just refugees; they are America’s wartime brothers, vetted and proven. Denying them safety now is not just abandoning friends—it is breaking a bond forged in battle. Mr. President, let them finish the journey they started with you. Let them stand under the flag they defended.

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/30/2025 9:45 AM, 5.5K followers, 18 retweets, 71 likes]
Thank you to the honorable congressional leaders, @RepRaskin, @PramilaJayapal, @SenatorDurbin, and @SenAlexPadilla, encouraging @SecRubio—who has always stood for lawful, principled resettlement—to reopen refugee pathways for those devoted Afghan allies who fought alongside American troops for two decades, including persecuted minorities who can never safely return. With utmost respect for President Trump’s enduring commitment to your national security and greatness, we humbly urge recognition of these brave partners who risked everything—families, faith, and freedom—to uphold the values that make your nation exceptional. They have been rigorously vetted under P-1 and P-2, share our passion for law and order, and pose no threat to your communities. Denying them the chance to start anew would contradict your proud legacy of defending those who defend you. Honor their sacrifice, grant them legal refuge, and keep America strong, free, and greater than ever.

Pakistan

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[1/30/2025 10:16 AM, 3.1M followers, 12 retweets, 25 likes]
Islamabad: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif chairs a review meeting regarding the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme.

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[1/30/2025 9:56 AM, 3.1M followers, 8 retweets, 11 likes]
Secure Seas - Prosperous Future AMAN-25 brings together naval forces from around the world..! Over 60 countries to participate in the 9th edition of Exercise AMAN and the maiden AMAN Dialogue at Karachi 7 - 11 February #Aman2025 #PakistanNavy #AmanDialogue #NavalDiplomacy

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[1/30/2025 9:52 AM, 3.1M followers, 13 retweets, 35 likes]
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif chairs the Federal Cabinet Meeting, today in Islamabad.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[1/30/2025 9:26 AM, 218.3K followers, 102 retweets, 526 likes]
This week, Gentry Beach, an investor close to the Trump family, was in Pakistan and then here in Bangladesh to discuss investment possibilities. These are two countries expected to struggle to get the new administration’s attention. So these visits are nothing to sneeze at.

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[1/30/2025 10:02 AM, 96.2K followers, 1K retweets, 1.7K likes]
PAKISTAN: Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act 2025 was hastily passed within a week by Pakistan’s National Assembly and Senate, and was signed into law by the President yesterday. The latest amendment, criminalizing "fake and false news" based on vague and overbroad provisions, threatens the right to freedom of expression and violates Pakistan’s obligations under international human rights law. Pakistani authorities must immediately repeal the amendment, ensure the right to freedom of expression is upheld and ensure that all laws applicable to online speech are brought in line with international human rights law. Read Amnesty International’s comment on the amendment: https://amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/pakistan-authorities-pass-bill-with-sweeping-controls-on-social-media/.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[1/30/2025 2:03 PM, 43K followers, 1 like]
I told the FT: Pakistan’s military believes “that it alone can fix Pakistan, that it alone can guarantee the political stability needed for economic progress and can ensure that the economic ship is righted.”

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[1/30/2025 1:27 PM, 43K followers, 16 retweets, 79 likes]
Pakistan’s geopolitical importance has all but evaporated in recent years, but in many ways, its leadership seems stuck, wishing for a reversion. It would be better for it to focus inward and really work to create a productive economy - strategic importance can then follow.

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[1/30/2025 10:15 PM, 8.6M followers, 40 retweets, 133 likes]
Grand alliance of media, lawyers and human rights bodies formed to resist new draconian law for silencing the voices of dissent in Pakistan. @HRCP87 @RSF_inter @CPJAsia @UNHumanRights @amnestysasia @hr https://hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/coalition-for-freedom-of-expression-formed-in-response-to-peca-law/

India

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/30/2025 11:50 PM, 105M followers, 2.9K retweets, 11K likes]
Speaking at the start of the Budget Session of Parliament. https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1BdxYEZLdaQx

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/30/2025 9:39 AM, 105M followers, 2.3K retweets, 24K likes]
Attended a prayer meeting at Gandhi Smriti this evening.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/30/2025 9:22 AM, 105M followers, 6K retweets, 36K likes]
When it comes to the space sector, bet on India!

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/30/2025 8:04 AM, 105M followers, 4.5K retweets, 29K likes]
Special moments from the Beating Retreat Ceremony, in which the Armed Forces honoured our freedom fighters in a unique way.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/30/2025 3:50 AM, 105M followers, 3.4K retweets, 33K likes]
Paid homage to Pujya Bapu at Rajghat earlier today. We reiterate our commitment towards realising his vision for our nation.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[1/30/2025 3:20 AM, 26.3M followers, 357 retweets, 3.1K likes]
President Droupadi Murmu met personnel of the Tri-Service Band contingents and Provost Outriders of the three Services who participated in the Republic Day Parade and Beating Retreat Ceremony 2025.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/30/2025 7:25 AM, 3.3M followers, 147 retweets, 1K likes]
Good to interact with MEA’s 5th Disarmament & International Security Affairs Fellows today in Delhi. The international security situation is undergoing rapid and radical changes. This necessitates new approaches to finding solutions. Confident that this exercise promoted an understanding of India’s thinking. @SSIFS_MEA

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/30/2025 7:18 AM, 3.3M followers, 108 retweets, 1K likes]
Delighted to meet young winners of Mann Ki Baat Quiz Competition from Kerala in Delhi today. Thank @VMBJP for organizing the interaction. Great to hear their impressions of Republic Day celebrations and other experiences in Delhi. Spoke to them about how Mann Ki Baat captures the emotions of every Indian.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/30/2025 4:54 AM, 3.3M followers, 152 retweets, 1.3K likes]
Always great to visit Hansraj College in Delhi to meet our young minds. Spoke to them about the their crucial role in building of a Viksit Bharat and how youth can excel to be at the forefront of global talent. A Viksit Delhi is critical for motivating the nation and showcasing our progress before the world.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[1/30/2025 9:11 AM, 218.3K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
India’s status as a net security provider will help its cause in its relations with the Trump administration, as Trump wants US allies and partners to do more burden-sharing. Me this week for @ForeignPolicy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/29/india-security-indonesia-prabowo-brahmos-trump/

NSB

Awami League
@albd1971
[1/30/2025 7:39 AM, 655.4K followers, 31 retweets, 74 likes]
#Bangladesh’s #media is enjoying “unparalleled freedom” now, according to the head of the unelected, unconstitutional, and illegal regime Dr. Md. #Yunus. This is how that “unparalleled freedom” is being manifested for #journalists and media workers:
⁃False wholesale murder and criminal charges
⁃Arbitrary arrests and detentions
⁃Routine denial of bail and remands in custody
⁃Cancellation of press accreditations
⁃Revocation of press club memberships
⁃Financial harassment using central bank
⁃Wholesale firing from press and media jobs
⁃Forcible takeover of management in media houses
⁃Attacks on, and sieges of, newspaper and TV offices
If anyone even cursorily checks out newspapers and TV news stations these days, they would be hard pressed to to find any differing voices. The intimidation tactics have had a chilling effect on the entire media landscape. The only apparent freedom on display is the freedom to extol the virtues of the so-called Interim Govt, the so-called “July-Aug Revolution”, and the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) Movement. These challenges to press freedom in Bangladesh have been well-documented by int’l orgs such as, among others, the @CPJAsia, @RSF_inter, @IFJGlobal, @CFWIJ, and the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA). A @UN_SPExperts procedure has already been initiated by UK based int’l law firm @DoughtyStreet, the lawyers acting for arbitrarily detained journo couple Farzana Rupa and Shakil Ahmed.

Yet, Dr. Yunus can manage to make the outrageous claim of there being “unparalleled freedom” for media now. Don’t know about media, but the unelected, unconstitutional, and illegal so-called Chief Adviser sure seems to be enjoying “unparalleled freedom” to lie without any shame. And of course, the “unparalleled freedom” for media means he has little to no risk of being fact-checked or contradicted, let alone being held accountable. #BangladeshCrisis #MediaFreedom #PressFreedom #StepDownYunus #YunusMustGo #GoBackYunus

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[1/30/2025 5:34 AM, 111.9K followers, 101 retweets, 101 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu concludes his three-day visit to some islands of North Thiladhunmathi Atoll. During this visit, the President sat down with stakeholders from the island communities and devised solutions for their most pressing concerns.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[1/30/2025 2:47 AM, 144.9K followers, 15 retweets, 167 likes]
An economic growth rate exceeding 4%... https://x.com/i/status/1884870932742774890

Central Asia

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[1/30/2025 1:49 PM, 6.1K followers]
It was a pleasure to welcome newly arrived Ambassador Duyshenkul Chotonov of Kyrgyzstan at the International Institute for Central Asia (@IICAinTashkent) this afternoon. As your tenure begins, I wish you, Mr. Ambassador, lots of success and fulfillment in your new job. There is no better time than now to represent your country in Uzbekistan. Best of luck to you!

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[1/30/2025 2:50 AM, 211.1K followers, 40 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev inspected the final stage of construction of the Center for Islamic Civilization in #Uzbekistan. This unique complex will integrate centuries-old heritage, rare Quranic manuscripts, and exhibitions dedicated to distinguished scholars, thinkers, and influential women of the past. Envisioned as both a guardian of historical legacy and a dynamic intellectual hub, the center will underscore the pivotal role of science, culture and education in Islamic civilization. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience the richness of this history firsthand, recognize Islam as a religion of peace, progress, and tolerance, and gain a deeper appreciation of the Uzbek people’s profound contribution to global civilization. The center will also collaborate with leading international academic institutions, with its initiatives focused on the in-depth study and contemporary interpretation of the intellectual and cultural heritage of past generations.

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[1/30/2025 11:55 PM, 28.8K followers, 2 retweets, 4 likes]
Parliament passes law banning sales and imports of vapes in #Uzbekistan

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[1/30/2025 4:50 AM, 28.8K followers, 2 retweets, 8 likes]
Government plans big hike in VAT, possibly up to 20% (from 12%), which is sure to increase public disaffection in #Kazakhstan

{End of Report}

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