India’s southern Tamil Nadu state has put on hold a bill that would allow a 12-hour workday at factories after talks with labor unions that oppose the plan, a statement from the government said on Monday.

Several labor unions including the All India Trade Union Congress and Centre of Indian Trade Unions had opposed the bill and were planning a one-day strike affecting workers from dozens of factories next month.

The Tamil Nadu government passed the bill last week, but it has yet to become law. At the time, it said those working 12 hours for four straight days would get three paid days off each week. But several workers raised concerns over proper implementation of the rule at factories.

“The government passed the bill aiming to attract big investments and increase employment opportunities for youngsters,” said a statement from M.K. Stalin, the state’s chief minister, on Monday.

A group of ministers at a Monday meeting told union representatives the state would not compromise on workers’ welfare and that the extended working hours would apply only to certain types of factories approved by the government, the statement said.

The move was expected to boost industrial production in the state, which has attracted billions of dollars in investments from companies hoping to diversify their supply chain away from China, including Apple suppliers Foxconn and Pegatron as well as Nike shoemaker Pou Chen.

“The state government has only put the bill on hold, but it needs to withdraw the bill as there is a chance it looks to bring it back. We are going to hold our ground,” said K. Bharathi, an activist with the Left Trade Union Centre.
…

India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country by the end of this month, the United Nations said Monday.     

By the end of April, India’s population is expected to reach 1.425 billion, which means it will match and then surpass mainland China’s population, the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) said.   

“China’s population reached its peak size of 1.426 billion in 2022 and has started to fall. Projections indicate that the size of the Chinese population could drop below 1 billion before the end of the century,” the agency said.  

The DESA announcement comes after the U.N. Population Fund said last week that India would have 2.9 million more people than China by the middle of 2023. 

The announcement has sparked questions about whether India can repeat the economic miracle that took China out of poverty and into the ranks of the world’s leading powers.     

India is promoting itself as a rising global power as the host of this year’s Group of 20 Summit, to be held in New Delhi in September. The G-20 is made up of the world’s major economies.   

Demographers say the limits of population data make it impossible to calculate an exact date when India’s population will surpass China’s. It’s possible it may have already done so.     

“The precise timing of this crossover isn’t known, and it will never be known,” said John Wilmoth, director of the United Nations population division, at a news conference at the U.N. in New York. 

India, which last conducted a census in 2011, has not commented on the U.N. estimates. 

The timing of when India surpasses China in population will likely be revised once India conducts its next census, Wilmoth said.   

China’s population peaked in 2022 and has started to fall. The country’s elderly population is swelling while its birth rate is plunging, from 1.7 babies per woman in 2017 to 1.2 in 2022, according to U.N. data.     

In contrast, India has the world’s largest young population, a higher fertility rate and is seeing a consistent decrease in infant mortality. Experts don’t see a need for alarm regarding overpopulation as the country’s fertility rate has been steadily falling, from over five births per woman in the 1960s to two in 2022.     

India’s population is expected to stop growing and stabilize around 2064, The Associated Press reported.   

Some information from this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

After Indian citizens made frantic appeals to the Indian government to help them flee Sudan over the past few days, New Delhi on Monday launched “Operation Kaveri” to evacuate the Indians stranded in the conflict-torn African nation.

Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said India has begun the process of evacuating Indians from Sudan.

On Monday, he tweeted: “Operation Kaveri gets underway to bring back our citizens stranded in Sudan. About 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan. More [are] on their way. Our ships and aircraft are set to bring them back home. Committed to assist all our brethren in Sudan.”

The clashes in Sudan began when a power struggle between the country’s top two generals — army chief and military ruler General Abdel Fattah Burhan and commander of the state-sponsored militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) General Mohammed Dagalo — erupted into warfare on April 15.

With military fighter jets bombing RSF positions in densely populated urban areas and both sides fighting pitched battles on the streets using guns and artillery fire, the violence is escalating. Tens of thousands of people, caught in an acute shortage of food, water and medicine, have fled their homes, according to the World Health Organization. More than 400 civilians have died and thousands have been wounded in the past nine days.

As Sudan rapidly descended into war, nations scrambled to evacuate thousands of foreigners, including diplomats and aid workers, who were stranded in the country.

With the Khartoum international airport lying in shambles, air evacuations have been limited. Some governments are attempting to evacuate their citizens by ship via Port Sudan, the country’s main port on the Red Sea.

About 4,000 Indians live in Sudan.

Soon after the fighting erupted on April 15, some Indians sent appeals via Twitter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the foreign minister urging them to evacuate them and loved ones from the conflict zones of the African country.

“Hi @narendramodi sir, I am here (in Sudan) with my colleagues. Please do something to take us out of this situation. @DrSJaishankar,” Rohan Bagul, an Indian stranded in Sudan, tweeted on April 15.

The appeals for evacuation prompted the Indian Embassy in Khartoum to open a telephone line that provides evacuation-related information to Indians in Sudan.

On Saturday, a stranded Indian in Sudan told the Indian news channel Mirror Now that the situation on the ground was “scary.”

“We’re not able to go outside. There is no power and water supply. This is the eighth day of the war in Khartoum and the miseries of the people are growing every day. We have just got a message from the Indian Embassy that they are planning to evacuate us,” the Indian man told Mirror Now, in a phone interview.

A statement Sunday from the Indian Foreign Ministry said that two military transport aircraft from the Indian Air Force were on standby in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah and an Indian Navy ship had reached Port Sudan with a plan to evacuate the Indians from Sudan.

“Government of India is making all-out efforts to ensure the safety and security of Indians stranded in Sudan. We are also coordinating closely with various partners for the safe movement of those Indians who are stranded in Sudan and would like to be evacuated,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Sunday in Delhi, “Our embassy is in regular touch with the stranded Indians in Sudan and is advising them on the viability of safe movement and the need to avoid unnecessary risk. It is also coordinating all possible assistance including possible exit from Khartoum city as and when the security situation permits safe movement.”

Three Indians were evacuated Saturday to Saudi Arabia, along with 150 other people. Those three were crew members of the Saudi Arabian Airline aircraft that was fired on in Khartoum just after the fighting broke out. On Sunday, a French evacuation mission helped five Indians flee Sudan, along with citizens of 27 other countries.
…

Monday marks the tenth anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,000 people.

The tragedy shined a light for all the world to see the horrific working conditions that the garment workers endured.

Survivors of the collapse, some of them disabled, came out Monday in Dhaka to place wreaths at the site where so many lives were lost ten years ago.

While their lives were changed forever, the factory owners and building owners have hardly received any punishment through the country’s slow court system. Factory and building owners are a powerful and monied group in Bangladesh.

Improvements to working conditions and wages were made after the accident, but workers say they did not go far enough.

“We want full compensation and lifelong medical treatment,” Shila Akhter told Agence France-Presse, “as we’ve lost the ability to work.” She said, “Some survivors are forced to beg on the streets.”

Some information for this report was provided by Agence France-Presse.
…

A Sikh separatist leader accused of reviving a movement for a Sikh homeland was arrested in the north Indian state of Punjab Sunday after being on the run for weeks, authorities said. 

Punjab police had launched a hunt for Amritpal Singh — who heads separatist organization Waris Punjab De or “Heirs of Punjab” — in March after hundreds of followers of the self-styled Sikh preacher stormed a police station in Punjab with sticks, swords and guns, demanding the release of a member of their group. 

On Sunday, police in Punjab confirmed in a tweet that Singh was arrested in the Moga district of the state. In the tweet, the police urged people to maintain peace and harmony but gave no details on the situation that led to the arrest of the 30-year-old separatist leader. 

Jasbir Singh Rodde, a local Sikh religious leader, said that Amritpal Singh prayed at a gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, in the village of Rode in Moga before surrendering. Then the police arrested him and took him to a jail 2,500 kilometers away in Dibrugarh, in the northeastern state of Assam. 

“Amritpal Singh came to the gurdwara at night Saturday. He himself informed the police that he was present at the gurdwara and that he would surrender Sunday at 7 a.m.,” Rodde said to Indian news agency ANI.

In the Dibrugarh high security jail, eight of Amritpal Singh’s aides were already being held after being arrested weeks ago and charged under India’s stringent National Security Act. However, Amritpal Singh was being kept in an isolation cell away from his aides.

While searching for Amritpal Singh, Punjab police said they had received a tip a few days ago that said Amritpal Singh was hiding in Rode village. 

After the arrest, Sukhchain Singh Gill, an inspector general of police in Punjab, said during a news conference that under “relentless pressure from police,” the separatist leader was forced to surrender. 

“We surrounded him from all sides. He had no other option but to surrender,” Gill said. 

Pictures of Amritpal Singh, wearing a white traditional robe and orange turban, showing him being taken into custody appeared on social media Sunday. 

In the past weeks, thousands of police and paramilitary personnel combed different states in search of Amritpal Singh and arrested more than 150 of his supporters. Indian authorities suspected that he could escape to a third country after sneaking into Nepal. So, they requested that Nepal arrest him in case he traveled there. 

Amritpal Singh’s surrender came days after his wife, who is a British national, was stopped at Amritsar airport before flying to the United Kingdom. Some weeks ago, Amritpal Singh said that he would live with his wife in Punjab and keep leading the movement for the Sikh homeland. 

Before surrendering to the police Sunday, Amritpal Singh said in a video message that he had options to sneak out of the country and escape arrest in India, but he chose to surrender at the gurdwara in Rode because it was the birthplace of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, his guru. 

Bhindranwale, a Sikh religious leader, became a political revolutionary and was accused of leading an armed insurgency for Khalistan, or an autonomous Sikh homeland, in the 1980s.  

In 1984, Bhindranwale moved to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, taking along his followers and stockpiling weapons. Indian Army soldiers then stormed the site, one of the holiest Sikh shrines. The Army operation ended up killing Bhindranwale and hundreds of his followers. 
…

Afghanistan’s Taliban have pushed back against a leaked American military assessment claiming the Islamic State is using the country to plan and coordinate international terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies.

The secret document has reportedly portrayed the threat as a growing security concern. It noted that Afghan soil had become a base for the regional affiliate of the terrorist outfit, known as Islamic State-Khorasan or IS-K to conduct “aspirational plotting” against U.S. and European targets. 

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Sunday refuted the assessment, calling it “fake” and part of an “ongoing propaganda campaign” against their governmen

An official statement quoted Mujahid as saying the Taliban government “has full control” over Afghanistan and does not allow anyone to use its soil for attacks against other countries. He said that IS-K and other terrorist groups in in the country “have been severely affected and are in the process of being destroyed.”

Mujahid added that the Taliban had brought security to Afghanistan since regaining control of the country in August 2021, citing peaceful celebrations of the three-day, nationwide, annual Eid festival, which ended Sunday.

“It is obvious that the spread of such biased reports shows that some people in America have not forgotten their hatred and enmity with the people of Afghanistan,” he said. The Washington Post reported the Afghanistan-related U.S. intelligence findings, saying they are part of a trove posted to the social media platform Discord and obtained by the newspaper.

“ISIS has been developing a cost-effective model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, operatives in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks,” the newspaper reported, citing the top-secret Pentagon secret assessment. 

“The model will likely enable ISIS to overcome obstacles — such as competent security services — and reduce some plot timelines, minimizing disruption opportunities,” The Post reported, citing the assessment, which used an acronym for IS-K. 

The leaked document reportedly detailed specific efforts to target embassies, churches, business centers and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, which drew more than 2 million spectators last November in Qatar. 

The U.S. military assessment raised the number of Islamic State plots coordinated in Afghanistan from nine to 15.

The Taliban reclaimed control of the country in August 2021 from the then-internationally backed government in Kabul as the U.S. and NATO troops chaotically withdrew after nearly two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.

U.S. officials have not verified the authenticity of the leaked documents, but the IS-K threat from Afghanistan has been a concern for the military.

Gen. Michael Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, warned last month that IS-K had strengthened under the Taliban’s rule. 

“They can do external operations against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” Kurilla told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The United States’ longest-running war ended in August 2021, when President Joe Biden withdrew the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan after two decades of conflict and the loss of 2,400 American forces. The withdrawal was marred by tragedy when an IS-K suicide bomber killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. soldiers at the airport in Kabul.

U.S. senators said Wednesday the leak of top-secret military intelligence records by a 21-year-old U.S. Air National Guard member should prompt a serious reevaluation of security procedures in the United States. 

The suspect, Jack Teixeira, was arrested April 13 by FBI agents at his mother’s residence in Dighton, Massachusetts. He faces criminal charges for allegedly leaking those documents to a group of friends on the gamer website. His scheduled detention hearing was delayed by two weeks.
…

A 50-member Indian business delegation starts a four-day visit to Russia Monday as both countries seek to deepen economic ties that have grown in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

India and Russia are also in talks for a free trade deal, ministers from the two countries said earlier this week during a visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov to New Delhi.

In recent months, Moscow has become India’s largest supplier of crude oil as sanctions-hit Russia seeks more trade with Asian countries.

New Delhi has not joined U.S-led Western sanctions on Moscow or condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine outright but has been calling for a negotiated resolution of the conflict.

It is also continuing to step up its economic engagement with Russia despite Western calls to gradually distance itself from Moscow.

The Indian business delegation headed to Russia is expected to meet buyers in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

“We see opportunities in Russia and that is why we put together this delegation. It is going to explore markets in food and agricultural products,” Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations told VOA.

He said that the aim is to double Indian exports to Russia to about $5 billion this year.

Trade analysts say India is trying to step up its exports to Russia to bridge a trade deficit that has become huge as New Delhi’s crude oil imports from Moscow rise exponentially.

While India’s imports from Russia have jumped fourfold to over $46 billion since 2021, its exports to Moscow add up to less than $3 billion.

But as Russia’s trade with the West dries up, it has been seeking products from India, including manufactured goods, electronics devices and automobile components.

“It is a windfall situation. We are getting discounted oil which is a huge advantage for India. Compared to virtually nothing prior to the Ukraine invasion, India’s crude oil imports have risen to over a million barrels of oil per day from Russia,” Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation told VOA. “And now that they are under sanctions, India sees an opportunity in promoting exports also, so that will be a double advantage.”

Russia, India’s Cold War ally, was its largest defense supplier for decades. Even though New Delhi has strengthened strategic partnerships with the United States and other Western countries in the last two decades, it maintains close ties with Moscow.

Addressing a business forum with Manturov on April 17 in New Delhi, Indian External Affairs Minister Subramanyam Jaishankar called the India-Russia relationship among the “steadiest” in global relations, and said that the partnership is drawing attention not because it has changed but because it has not.

Jaishankar said Russia’s resources and technology can make a powerful contribution to India’s growth as Moscow is looking more toward Asia.

“We are looking forward to intensifying trade negotiations on a free trade agreement with India,” Manturov, who is also Russia’s industry and trade minister said.

Indian exporters however say that issues such as logistics, market access and payment difficulties pose a challenge. “The opportunity is there to grow trade, but only time will tell how far we can exploit it,” Sahai said.

While Western countries want India to decrease its reliance on Russian imports to isolate Moscow over the Ukraine war, New Delhi has remained firm in maintaining its economic engagement with Russia.

“India’s message to the West is clear. We will pursue a relationship in our self-interest and we will go wherever our interests take us,” Joshi said.

“Yes, the West would like India to pressure Russia by not buying oil from them, but they have reconciled to the position that New Delhi has taken,” he said.
…

On the receding shorelines of low-lying Vypin Island off India’s western coast, T. P. Murukesan fixed his eyes on the white paint peeling off the damp walls of his raised home and recounted the most recent floods. 

“The floods are occurring more frequently and lasting longer,” he said. The last flood was chest-height for his young grandson. “Every flood brings waters this high, we just deal with it.” 

Sea level rise and severe tidal floods have forced many families in Murukesan’s neighborhood to relocate to higher grounds over the years. But the retired fisherman has almost singlehandedly been buffering the impacts of the rising waters on his home and in his community. 

Known locally as “Mangrove Man,” Murukesan has turned to planting the trees along the shores of Vypin and the surrounding areas in the Kochi region of Kerala state to counter the impacts of rising waters on his home. 

Tidal flooding occurs when sea level rise combines with local factors to push water levels above the normal levels. Mangroves can provide natural coastal defenses against sea level rise, tides and storm surges, but over the course of his life forest cover in the state has dwindled. 

Murukesan said he grew up surrounded by beautiful, abundant mangroves that separated islands from the sea. Now, only fragmented patches of mangroves can be seen in Kochi, the state’s financial capital. 

“They protected our houses against floods, sea erosion, and storms, used to be an inseparable part of our life, our ecosystem,” he said. “Only these can save us.” 

Murukesan said he has planted over 100,000 mangroves. He plants saplings on alternate days and does most of the work himself. Some help comes in the form of saplings from the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, a non-government organization based in Chennai, India. 

His efforts come up against a strong trend in the opposite direction. 

Ernakulam district, which includes Kochi, has lost nearly 42% of its mangrove ecosystems, including major decreases in the southern Puthuvypeen area in Vypin, according to a study released last year by the Indian Space Research Organization and the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies. 

Mangrove cover in the state has reduced from 700 square kilometers (435 square miles) to just 24 square kilometers (15 square miles) since 1975, according to the Kerala Forest department. 

“The construction of coastal roads and highways has severely damaged mangrove ecosystems in the state,” said K K Ramachandran, former member secretary of the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority, a government body mandated to protect the coastal environment. “There should be an incentive for people who are making efforts to protect them.” 

Murukesan’s dedication to the cause has won him praise, awards and the audience of senior politicians but not incentives beyond the immediate benefits to his home. 

He said the mangroves he planted in and around the area in 2014 have grown into a dense thicket and are helping reduce the intensity of tidal flooding, but he’s nevertheless continuing his efforts. 

Despite the thousands of new mangrove trees, other factors like climate change mean tidal floods have become more frequent and severe, sometimes keeping children from going to school and people from getting to work. It’s all mentally exhausting, Murukesan and his wife, Geetha, said. 

“I have to travel a lot to collect seeds. My wife helps me in the nursery as much as she can. I am tired but I cannot stop,” he said. 

Geetha said they do the tough work “for our children,” preserving the forest for decades to come. 

“It keeps us going,” she said. 

Vypin is at high-risk for tidal flooding, said Abhilash S, director of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at the Cochin University of Science and Technology. 

“The sea level has risen and has damaged freshwater supplies. Sea erosion and spring tides have worsened. Coastal flooding is a common occurrence now,” he said. “The carrying capacity of the backwaters has reduced due to sediment deposition and encroachment, and the rainwater enters residential areas during the monsoon season.” 

Backwaters in the state of Kerala are networks of canals, lagoons and lakes parallel to coastal areas, unique ecosystems that help provide a buffer to rising sea levels. 

According to the World Meteorological Organization, global mean sea level rose by 4.5 millimeters per year between 2013 and 2022. It’s a major threat for countries like India, China, the Netherlands and Bangladesh, which comprise large coastal populations. 

NASA projections show that Kochi might experience a sea level rise of 0.22 meters (8.7 inches) by 2050, and over half a meter (nearly 20 inches) by 2100 in a middle-of-the-road climate warming scenario. 

“Many families have left,” Murukesan said. 

Fishing families living within 50 meters (55 yards) of the shore get a financial assistance of 10 lakh rupees ($12,000) through a rehabilitation scheme run by the Kerala government. Only few of those not covered under it have means to relocate to safer places. 

Some fishing families shift to government shelters in the monsoon season and return after it ends. A few have built stilt houses that stand on columns to fight tidal floods. 

Murukesan knows the sea is rising, but it’s the backwaters that make him more anxious. The backwaters have become shallow due to the silt deposited by heavy floods. During heavy rain events, the water inundates the island. 

“We are caught between the sea and the backwaters. They are likely to swallow the island in some years, but I am not going anywhere,” he said. “I was born here, and I will die here.” 
…

Pakistan is bracing for a new military offensive that is expected to target militants in the northwest as ethnic Pashtuns in the area say they are still looking for accountability for the army’s last offensives in the region, in 2014 and 2017.

The country’s national security committee, comprising top civilian and military leaders, has not said when the operation will start. When announcing it earlier this month, the committee described it as a nationwide anti-militant operation to halt a rise in attacks on security forces by the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups.

Pakistan’s government has said that previous operations led to a drop in terrorist attacks; however, Pashtun civil society members and peace activists say it came at a steep cost to many innocent people.

“The generals and those involved in bringing back armed men [militants] to the area haven’t been arrested and have not [been] held accountable. … We will oppose any [new] operation,” an elected member from South Waziristan, Ali Wazir, told Parliament on April 7 after the government disclosed its intentions for another offensive.

Rights activists say previous military-led operations in their region killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, destroyed towns and market centers, and led to the creation of a harsh security law that gives the armed forces sweeping powers in the whole province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including the former federally administered tribal areas.

Wazir is a household name in Pakistan for his opposition to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, illegal detentions, landmines and the Taliban’s shadow rule in the Pashtun region. He was in jail for half of his 60-month term in Parliament, purportedly for his opposition to Pakistan’s former chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Earlier this month, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif responded to Wazir’s opposition by saying he would work to assuage local fears over the operation.

“I want to tell members from Waziristan that their concerns will be heard, and they will be answered,” the prime minister said on the floor of the lower house.

Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif also supported the stance of the Waziristan members of Parliament and told the house that “they [MPs] are right in saying that those people [involved in talks with militants] should be reckoned with.”

News spreads fear

Leaders and activists of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a nonviolent Indigenous organization with serious reservations about the army’s series of operations, are skeptical of the motive and timing of the announcement of the new operation, which could come during an election year and would be the military’s first offensive since the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan.

“The announcement of yet another military operation has indeed spread fear among locals because what they saw in the past operations was they were the ones who suffered the most,” said Idris Bacha, a civil rights activist from Swat and the leader of a local movement, the People’s Resistance Against Militancy.

“Someone needs to tell us, what did they achieve in the previous campaigns? 80,000 people have been killed, whole villages destroyed, and their bazaars lay in ruins. They don’t want to see that happen again,” Bacha told VOA.

Marvin Weinbaum, a longtime regional analyst with the Washington-based think tank Middle East Institute, shares Bacha’s concerns.

“I am very skeptical that there will be anything like a campaign they had in 2014, when they pushed them out of North and South Waziristan. I am skeptical of that in part because [of] the feelings in the tribal areas where they suffered terribly when that campaign was on its way. Many, many thousands were evicted from their homes. They became refugees.”

Other activists have gone further, saying they will actively oppose a military campaign.

“We are united against another war in our area. The military can force us to leave our houses again, but we won’t leave them on our own will,” South Waziristan writer and social activist Shehrayar Mehsud told VOA in a Twitter Spaces conversation.

Pakistan economy

Others see a financial benefit in launching such an operation as Pakistan waits for another major International Monetary Fund bailout loan.

“We have said it before that in the past whenever Pakistan needed money, they would launch an operation in Pashtun areas to get funds from abroad,” said Mir Kalam Wazir, a former provincial legislator and PTM supporter from North Waziristan.

“Looks like it’s the same this time, too. With Pakistan’s difficult economic situation, they need funds, especially from the U.S.,” Wazir continued.

The U.S. gave Pakistan billions of dollars during the height of the war on terrorism, but aid dropped off sharply during the Trump administration. Last year, the total reported U.S. aid to Pakistan was around $150 million.

That drop in aid and the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan have led some to question whether Islamabad has the capacity to carry out an offensive while its economy is under severe strain.

Pakistan hopes the suspended IMF bailout package will resume so it can avoid defaulting on its debt obligations. The IMF has stalled its $6.5 billion program since November, while a bruising political battle rages between the sitting coalition government and former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

“We are talking of a campaign which is very expensive, at a time when Pakistan is struggling to read its bills, particularly its debt obligations,” Weinbaum told VOA.
…

As China strengthens its relations with Central Asian countries, U.S. influence has fallen behind, according to some observers.

U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia has been shaped by strong Russian influence in the region, but China’s growing presence in Central Asia has caused Washington to refocus its strategy through a lens of competition with Beijing. Experts speaking at a recent webinar sponsored by the Caspian Policy Center said the U.S. should not make competing with China the sole focus of its Central Asia strategy.

China and five Central Asian countries recently agreed to sign additional cooperation agreements at a gathering expected to take place in May called the China+Central Asia Summit, Chinese state media reported.

Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative — which aims to link China to the world through land and sea routes, infrastructure and technology — has exacerbated U.S. concerns about economic dependence and unsustainable infrastructure projects around the world, including in countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

“China has a relatively easy task in the region by virtue of its geography, the attraction of its markets, its status as the number one trade partner in the region, and its offering of connectivity,” said Wilson Center analyst Robert Dale.

Benefits from China

China’s CGTV quoted Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao as saying that China’s trade volume with Central Asia grew by 22% in the first two months of this year. Wang added, “The cross-border e-commerce between China and Central Asia increased by 95 percent year-on-year in 2022, and nearly 300 Central Asian enterprises joined China’s e-commerce platforms.”

According to the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker, Beijing’s 2005-2022 investments totaled $850 million in Kyrgyzstan, $1 billion in Tajikistan, $1.56 billion in Uzbekistan, $1.79 billion in Turkmenistan and $19.86 billion in Kazakhstan.

While China observers have noticed the country’s strategy on BRI is changing and the pace of new investments has been decelerating, many Central Asians still see China and BRI positively, with benefits to the region that include China’s help in human capital development, education, research and technology transfers.

“Also in telecoms, ICT [information and communications technology] is regarded as a major benefit. Diversification by investing not only in mining and traditional resource extraction but also in agriculture, industry and banking, and free trade zones in support of trade and industrial development and service development. All regard that as positive features of BRI,” said Johannes Linn at the Brookings Institution.

There also have been increased Chinese security activities in the region, specifically bilateral and multilateral exercises, said Brianne Todd, professor at the National Defense University in Washington.

“We know that [Chinese uniformed personnel] are present in Tajikistan, meaning that the Tajik government has invited them,” she said. “They’re doing everything from border security to counterterrorism.”

Chinese presence

BRI investments have dropped dramatically in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan. There are no new projects, and envisioned rail transit from China to Europe via Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for now remains on paper.

China is not always effective in Central Asia, Linn said. “They’ve seen Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in conflict, unrest in Kazakhstan. … China was left outside of these events not really understanding what was going on or being able to contribute meaningfully to resolution.”

Some anti-Chinese sentiment does exist, said Elizabeth Wishnick, senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses.

Clashes between local residents and workers, including in Chinese mining operations, have pushed Beijing to rely on private security companies in Kyrgyzstan, for example.

In Kazakhstan, a recent study showed China as the least preferred partner, noted Wishnick. “That doesn’t mean Kazakhstan is not going to engage with China. It will, but unwillingly, leave opportunities for others,” she said.

Some Central Asians worry about being exploited and overrun through Chinese land use. There is also some concern about China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, including Kazaks and Kirgiz in Xinjiang, said Dale.

Other potential downsides to Chinese presence noted by Linn include excessive debt owed, Chinese extraction of natural resources in the region, unfair and nontransparent revenue sharing, little investment in the soft part of infrastructure, concerns about BRI transport infrastructure being directed more toward China than to world markets, data security sovereignty, lack of adequate attention to climate change, agricultural land issue, heavy reliance of Chinese investors on Chinese employees and migration challenges stemming from that problem.

“The lack of transparency in BRI investments and show projects, such as presidential palaces and sports arenas, finance corruption,” said Linn.

US and Central Asia

Amid complex relationships between China and Central Asian countries, analysts at the Caspian Policy Center said that when it comes to influence, U.S. has fallen far behind China.

“Beijing’s emphasis on development, status as a market for energy, interest in agriculture and water projects, all dwarf what the U.S. is actually able to bring to the table even when China underdelivers,” said Dale.

Todd doubts the U.S. will ever be able to compete with China economically and militarily in Central Asia.

“I don’t think that should be the goal, because we know that is not attainable in terms of financial or security interests,” Todd said. “Certainly, we want to have relationships with all the countries in Central Asia, but they should be more broadly based and have everything from economic development to people-to-people exchanges with each of these states.”

For Todd, the key question is how U.S. interests align with those of the region.

Balancing China, Russia

There is also the consideration that Russia is still “very present” in the region despite its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, observers noted.

Wishnick said Russia remains quite active in the region, “despite being viewed as toxic.” Specifically, Kazakhstan is trying “very hard not to inflame relations with one while engaging with the other.”

Central Asia’s geographic location necessitates a balancing act between China and Russia, experts say.

“All of these countries are facing energy transition, suffering potentially from climate change and are stuck dealing with Russia and China because of the fixed pipelines that connect them,” said Wishnick.

Dale said the U.S. government should not demonize everything China and Russia do in the region but has to understand Central Asians’ needs, “because they are still open to other ideas and connections.”

The best long-term strategy should be to give the region more choices, he said.
…

The reclusive Taliban chief said Friday that he would not allow foreign interference in his Islamic governance in Afghanistan, come what may.

Hibatullah Akhundzada spoke to worshippers in a mosque in the southern city of Kandahar at the start of the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Akhundzada hailed the establishment of what he described as an Islamic “Sharia-based” government in Afghanistan after the Taliban reclaimed power in August 2021.

“It is the success and good fortune of the Afghan nation that Allah has blessed them with an Islamic Sharia system,” he said. “I have promised Allah that so long as I am alive, not a single law of infidelity will find a place in Afghanistan.”

Akhundzada, officially referred to as the leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and commander of the faithful, said that he would forbid “any action that threatens or negates Islam and is against Islamic principles.”

Media was, as usual, not allowed to cover the speech of the unseen Taliban leader, an Islamic scholar who rarely leaves Kandahar, the Taliban heartland. His spokesman officially released audio of the sermon late Friday.

Taliban not recognized as legitimate

The Taliban waged a deadly insurgency for almost two decades. They seized control of the country 20 months ago from the then-internationally backed Afghan government as the United States and NATO troops withdrew after two decades of involvement in the war.

Akhundzada has since issued a series of edicts, banning girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and barring most Afghan women from public life and work across Afghanistan. The ban has recently been extended to nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations despite severe global criticism and demands to end restrictions on women.

The international community has refused to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers, citing bans on women’s access to education and work, among other human rights concerns.

Friday’s defiant speech by the Taliban leader came as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to host a meeting of envoys on Afghanistan from countries around the world in Qatar early next month to discuss the way forward in the wake of intensifying restrictions on Afghan women.

The United States has rejected any discussions about recognizing the Taliban at the U.N.-hosted meeting scheduled for May 1-2.

“The intent of — purpose of this meeting was never to discuss recognition of the Taliban, and any discussion at this meeting about recognition would be unacceptable to us,” Vedant Patel, the principal deputy spokesperson of the U.S. State Department, told reporters on Thursday.

The rebuttal came after U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed shared details of the planned meeting in the Gulf state, suggesting the recognition issue would also be on the agenda.

“We hope that we will find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition … of the Taliban — in other words, there are conditions,” Mohammed told a seminar at Princeton University on Monday.

That discussion must happen because Taliban authorities demand diplomatic recognition, and “that’s the leverage we have,” she stressed.

Taliban demands UN ‘fulfill its responsibility’

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq, speaking to reporters in New York on Thursday, attempted to downplay Mohammed’s remarks, saying the deliberations at the meeting in Qatar’s capital, Doha, would not focus on recognition of the Taliban.

“The point of the discussion, which will be held in a closed, private setting, is to build a more unified consensus on the challenges at hand,” Haq said.

“There’s a need to reinvigorate international engagement around the sort of common objectives that the international community has on Afghanistan. We consider it a priority to advance an approach based on pragmatism and principles to have a constructive engagement on the issue,” he said.

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has demanded that the U.N. “fulfill its responsibility” toward the people of Afghanistan.

“Islamic Emirate wants the recognition process to be completed soon. It will build mutual trust with world countries and help resolve all issues that can benefit regional security and stability,” Mujahid told VOA. He used the official title of the Taliban government.
…

It’s 36 hours before Eid al-Fitr, the festival that marks the end of a month of fasting for Ramadan. In Javed Abbas’ tiny tailoring shop in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, it is supposed to be the busiest time of the year as customers wait for their new clothes to be ready in time for the celebrations.

This year, however, the motorized sewing machines in Abbas’ basement shop are only rumbling intermittently. His three apprentices, down from eight, are resting in the cramped loft above his work area. Only a few custom-made outfits hang on a wall, waiting to be picked up.

“I used to stitch 20 or 40 suits before Eid. Now it’s 15, 20 or five. Some clients who used to come every year haven’t come this time,” Abbas told VOA.

Abbas and his customers are feeling the pinch of Pakistan’s deep economic crisis. Inflation touched 35% in March, a half-century high. Fuel is the most expensive it has ever been. Prices of food items are more than 47% higher than a year ago. At least 21 people have died in recent months trying to get cheap or free flour to feed their families.

Kashif Chughtai, an engineer in Lahore, told VOA he will not take his wife and children about 500 kilometers south to celebrate Eid with his extended family, to save money on fuel.

“We have decided to stay here to manage our budget,” he said.

In a recent Gallup and Gilani Pakistan poll, 90% of respondents reported canceling their travel and vacation plans because of inflation.

Pakistan’s import-dependent economy is struggling under the weight of mounting external debt payments. The country’s $350 billion economy was already hit hard by the global economic slump during the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s devastating floods that caused damage to the tune of $30 billion.

In its latest forecast, the World Bank cut Pakistan’s GDP growth rate for this year to 0.4% from last October’s forecast of 2%.

Foreign exchange reserves held by the country’s central bank are hovering just below $4.5 billion. To avoid default, Pakistan desperately needs a tranche of $1.1 billion from a $6.5 billion bailout deal reached with the International Monetary Fund in 2019.

However, despite taking a wide range of steps such as raising taxes, slashing fuel subsidies and ending artificial manipulation of the rupee’s value, Pakistan has, for months, failed to reach a Staff Level Agreement with the IMF to revive that stalled deal.

Disagreement with the IMF over how much money Pakistan should gather from friends to prop up its economy; hesitation on the part of traditional allies like China, Saudi Arabia and UAE to provide support to Pakistan without Islamabad making necessary reforms; and the unexpected announcement of a fuel subsidy scheme by the government have led to delays.

In recent weeks, though, China has rolled over $1.3 billion in debt, and Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced via Twitter that the UAE had also confirmed to the IMF it will provide a billion dollars to Pakistan.

But, as the country struggles to correct its economic trajectory, many Pakistanis are forced to cut down on expenses this Eid.

Nadia Umer, a mother of two who chose to work at a henna stall to earn some extra cash before the holiday, told VOA that because “it’s hard to manage,” she bought new clothes only for her young daughters this Eid and not for herself.

“We only thought of the children,” she said.

While some garment vendors in Lahore told VOA that business picked up a little in the last few nights of Ramadan, others, like Shafqat Mehmood, said “business used to be good, even during the COVID-19 pandemic but not this time.”

According to a Reuters report, Pakistani retailers are recording a sharp decline in sales this festive season.

Pakistani government officials have repeatedly said a deal with the IMF is in sight. Speaking to reporters during the IMF and World Bank’s annual spring meetings a week ago in Washington, the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said she hoped that “with the goodwill of everyone, and the implementation of what has been already agreed by the Pakistan authorities, we can complete our current program successfully.”

The $1.1 billion lifeline from the fund would help open doors for additional funding from other multilateral lenders like the World Bank.

Back in his basement tailoring shop in Lahore, Abbas says he thinks of the days when inflation was low, the rupee was strong, and he could save more despite charging less. Now, he said, “I charge much more, but I can barely meet my expenses.”
…

Sri Lankan Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera’s announcement that authorities were considering exporting 100,000 endangered toque macaque monkeys to a private Chinese company has sparked protests from animal rights activists.

While the toque macaque, which is endemic to Sri Lanka, features in the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of endangered animals, it is not a protected species in Sri Lanka.

Amaraweera said last week the Chinese proposal to import the toque macaques for more than 1,000 of the country’s zoos was being evaluated by a government-appointed expert committee.

Conservationists and animal rights activists warned, however, they do not believe the Chinese zoos have space for 100,000 toque macaques and that it was more likely the monkeys would be used for testing in labs.

Sri Lankan authorities say farmers view the roughly 3 million toque macaques in Sri Lanka as a menace because they damage crops.

“Toque monkeys are the foremost among the animals that cause crop damage in this country. All the efforts made by the government so far to reduce its population have failed,” Amaraweera said.

Activists fear monkeys will land in labs

The Agriculture Ministry said last week that exporting the toque macaques might reduce the excessive population, but conservationists have criticized the move, with many expressing fear the animals may be used for tests in labs.

Four conservation groups — Wildlife & Nature Protection Society, Center for Environmental Justice, Federation of Environmental Organizations, and Rally for Animal Rights and Environment Sri Lanka — said in a statement last week there are only 18 Chinese zoos fitting the “globally accepted criteria” of a zoo.

“This averages out at 5,000 macaques per zoo. This is not credible,” the statement said.

“Macaques, with their human-like qualities have been particularly popular, especially with medical testing facilities in the U.S. and Europe. The potential income from such a trade would be far greater than that from the sale of this species to zoos,” the statement continued.

The name of the Chinese company that sent the request for the toque macaques is Zhejiang Wuyu Animal Breeding Co. Ltd., and it has not issued any kind of a reply regarding the issue.

In a statement issued Wednesday, though, the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka said the government agency that manages the import of wild animals in China was “not aware of the request [from China] and has not received such application from any side.”

The claim that the Sri Lankan monkeys could be used for “experimental purpose” was “disinformation,” it contended.

“The Chinese government always attaches great importance to wildlife protection and actively fulfill international obligations, which makes China one of top countries in the world in terms of wildlife protection legislation and law enforcement,” the embassy statement added.

Panchali Panapitiya, executive director of Colombo-based Rally for Animal Rights and Environment said it is “obvious that this company has plans to supply the monkeys to animal testing labs.”

“Even if the toque macaques are sent to 1,000 zoos, as the Sri Lankan Minister of Agriculture claims, each zoo would have 100 monkeys. Have you ever seen a zoo housing 100 monkeys of the same species? The claim that these animals are going to zoos lacks credibility,” Panapitiya told VOA.

“We believe, these monkeys will land in the labs where they will be burnt with chemicals and poisoned with toxins. And they will die untimely and painful deaths,” she said.

Expert calls proposal ‘reprehensible’

Bangalore-based primatologist Anindya Sinha asserted the Chinese proposal is “reprehensible on ethical grounds.”

“Can one even imagine the trauma that these individual macaques would undergo if they are indeed caught and transported? Family groups would be torn asunder, and many individuals will needlessly die in transit,” Sinha who has studied toque macaques in Sri Lanka, said.

The ecological consequences of exporting such a huge number of toque macaques out of Sri Lanka would be enormous, Sinha noted.

“What we worry about most is that the toque macaque populations could crash, never to recover again,” he said.

“We hope the Sri Lankan authorities will see the light of reason, recognize the enormity of the repercussions of this act — ethically, morally, nationally and ecologically — and unconditionally refuse to comply with this offer.”
…

An Indian court on Thursday acquitted 69 Hindus, including a former minister from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of the murder of 11 Muslims during communal riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.  

The killings occurred in Ahmedabad on Feb. 28, 2002, a day after a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, setting off one of independent India’s worst outbreaks of religious bloodshed.  

A total of 86 Hindus were accused of the killings in the Naroda Gam district of Ahmedabad, 17 of whom died during trial. All the accused were free on bail.  

“We have been saying from the first day that they were framed,” defense lawyer Chetan Shah, who represented 82 of the accused, said. “Some of the accused were not present at the scene on the day of the incident.”  

Shamshad Pathan, who represented the victims, said they would challenge the court’s decision in a higher court.

“Justice has eluded the victims once again. We will study the grounds on which the court has acquitted the accused persons,” Pathan said.

Those acquitted include Maya Kodnani, a former minister of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, who was a lawmaker at the time of the riots, former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Jaydeep Patel.  

Bajrang Dal and VHP are Hindu nationalist groups and have close links to the BJP.

Kodnani was also an accused in a case in which 97 people were killed in the 2002 riots. She was convicted but later acquitted by a higher court.

At least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed across Gujarat in the 2002 riots. Activists put the toll at over twice that number.

Critics accused Modi, who was chief minister at the time, of failing to protect Muslims. Modi denied the allegations and a Supreme Court-ordered investigation found no evidence to prosecute him.
…

Five Indian army soldiers were killed on Thursday when rebels fighting against Indian rule ambushed a military vehicle in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, the military said.

Militants attacked the army vehicle with gunfire in the southern Rajouri sector near the highly militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, a military statement said. It said five soldiers died in the attack and another was seriously injured.

The statement said the “unidentified terrorists” took “advantage of heavy rains and low visibility in the area.”

“The vehicle caught fire due to likely use of grenades by terrorists,” it added.

There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence or merger with neighboring Pakistan.

Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

New Delhi insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
…

Large parts of the Muslim world marked the end of the fasting month of Ramadan at sundown Thursday and ushered in the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, but the festivities were overshadowed by raging battles for control of Sudan and a deadly stampede in Yemen.

In other parts of the region, the holiday came against the backdrop of reconciliation and rapprochement between former rivals.

The Islamic calendar is lunar and depends on the sighting of the moon — something Muslim religious authorities tend to disagree on. Ramadan sees worshippers fasting daily from dawn to sunset, ending with Eid al-Fitr celebrations.

This year again, the holiday comes amid fighting and devastation, particularly in the Middle East.

In Sudan, the holiday was eclipsed by raging battles between the army and its rival paramilitary force, despite two attempted cease-fires. The fighting since Saturday has killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands.

In Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, a stampede late Wednesday at a charitable event in the rebel-held capital of Sanaa killed at least 78 people and injured 77.

Religious authorities in both Sudan and Yemen said they will mark the start of Eid al-Fitr on Friday.

In Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population worldwide, the second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah — with over 60 million members — said that according to its astronomical calculations, the holiday of Eid al-Fitr starts on Friday. However, the country’s religious affairs minister had announced on Thursday that the start of the holiday would fall on Saturday.

In some places, tensions and fighting had calmed. Long-time Mideast rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed last month to restore diplomatic ties after China-brokered negotiations — an ongoing reconciliation that has de-escalated proxy wars in the region.

Saudi officials and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen recently began talks in Sanaa and during the last days of Ramadan exchanged hundreds of prisoners captured in Yemen’s civil war, which erupted in 2014.

Riyadh also sent its top diplomat to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad on Tuesday, a significant step toward ending his political isolation and potentially returning the war-torn country to the Arab League.

However, Tehran and Riyadh disagreed on the start of the holiday — for Saudis, Eid al-Fitr would begin Friday while officials in Iran said it starts on Saturday.

The start of the holiday is traditionally based on sightings of the new moon, which vary according to geographic location, while some countries rely on astronomical calculations rather than physical sightings to determine the start of Eid al-Fitr.

The United Arab Emirates and Qatar followed Saudi Arabia and announced the holiday would begin for them on Friday, while their Gulf Arab neighbor, Oman, declared that the moon had not been sighted and the holiday would begin on Saturday.

Iraq’s Sunni authorities announced the holiday would begin Friday, while the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, set a Saturday start date. The governments of Lebanon and Syria, both in the throes of crippling economic crises, said Friday would mark the beginning of the dayslong holiday.

Indonesia’s Security Minister Mohammad Mahfud called on Muslims to be respectful of each other’s celebrations, and asked Muhammadiyah members to have their holiday feasts at home — in consideration of the Muslims who would still be fasting on Friday.

The country’s roads and highways were gridlocked as millions crammed into trains, ferries, buses and on motorcycles, as they left cities to return to their villages to celebrate with family. The government estimated that more than 123 million travelers were expected to criss-cross the vast archipelago that spans 17,000 islands, with about 18 million departing from Jakarta’s greater metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, clerics of Pakistan’s state-backed moon sighting committee announced at a news conference in Islamabad that Eid al-Fitr would be celebrated on Saturday in Pakistan as there were no sightings of the moon there.

Egypt and Jordan said that for them, Eid al-Fitr would begin on Friday. In divided Libya, the religious authorities based in the capital of Tripoli, said it would start on Saturday. In the country’s east, run by a rival administration, authorities marked Friday as the start.

In Afghanistan, the head of the Taliban-appointed judiciary, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, also said the holiday would start on Friday.
…

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, will travel to India early next month, the first visit by a top Pakistani official to the arch-rival neighboring country in almost a decade.

Zadari will visit to attend a meeting of a regional bloc, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO.

The last high-ranking Pakistani official to visit India was the country’s then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who traveled to New Delhi in 2014 for the swearing in of his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi.

Traditionally strained bilateral diplomatic relations have since deteriorated, fueling military tensions and halting official dialogue for resolving disputes between the nuclear-armed South Asian rival nations.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahrah Baloch told a weekly news conference in Islamabad Thursday that the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting will be held in the western Indian coastal state of Goa on May 4.

She said Zardari was invited by India’s external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in his capacity as the current chair of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers.

“Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities,” Baloch said.

She declined to say whether Zardari is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Jaishankar on the sidelines of the multilateral gathering. “In coming days, as decisions are taken, we will be making further announcements,” Baloch said, stressing that the chief Pakistani diplomat is visiting India to attend the SCO conference.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a regional bloc jointly founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in 2001 to promote mutual security, economic cooperation and cultural relations among member nations.

India and Pakistan became full SCO members in 2017.

Both rival nations have a long-standing history of conflicts and acrimony stemming from their territorial dispute over Kashmir. New Delhi controls two-thirds of the Himalayan region and Islamabad the rest.

India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought two of their three wars over the region since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

The dispute almost brought the two countries to the brink of another military conflict in February 2019. Later that year, New Delhi revoked a decades-old special status of Kashmir, further worsening the relationship and prompting Islamabad to downgrade an already tense diplomatic relationship and trade ties with India.

Analysts in India welcomed Pakistan’s decision to send its foreign minister to attend the SCO meeting.

“Whether there is a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the [Indian state of] Shanghai Cooperation deliberations remains to be seen. One can only hope and pray that both countries manage this meeting with dignity minus acrimony,” said Amit Baruah, the senior associate editor of The Hindu newspaper.

“It’s election season in both countries, which is all the more reason to keep both the volume and the rhetoric low,” Baruah said in written comments to VOA.

China maintains close military and economic ties with staunch ally Pakistan. It has recently invested billions of dollars in infrastructure projects in the South Asian neighbor under Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

Relations between China and India are characterized by both cooperation and competition, as well as occasional military tensions and conflicts. The two countries have engaged in extensive economic cooperation, with Beijing being New Delhi’s largest trading partner.

Military tensions have worsened since 2020, when a deadly clash occurred between Indian and Chinese troops along their 3,440-kilometer disputed border in the Himalayan region. It resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and several Chinese border forces. Another conflict in the area in 2021 injured troops on both sides.

The tensions have prompted China and India to increase their regional military presence.
…

Bangladesh is being forced to cut power to millions of people as a relentless heatwave has led to a surge in demand for power resulting in massive electricity supply shortfalls.

Greater use of irrigation pumps by farmers and an increase in commercial activity due to preparations for festivities for the end of the holy month of Ramadan have contributed to increased power demand, officials say.

“It’s difficult for us to sleep at night without power, and it is even more painful after fasting all day,” said Munna Khan, a resident of the town of Ashulia on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.

Power shortages have been most severe at night, government data showed. The port city of Chittagong, along with the textile, pharmaceutical and jute manufacturing hub of Mymensingh, were among the worst affected by the power cuts.

The average maximum temperature in Dhaka was 6.5% higher during the seven days ended Tuesday, compared with the week before, government data showed.

The maximum temperature soared to 42.8 Celsius on Wednesday in the west of the country.

“People, especially children and the elderly, are suffering a lot. We express our sincere sympathy and sorrow for this untold suffering,” Minister of Energy Nasrul Hamid said in a Facebook post late Tuesday.

The weather office has warned that there is no end in sight for the heatwave as the country prepares for the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of Ramadan this weekend.

“We were expecting that sales would pick up this week but due to the severe power cuts, there are hardly any buyers,” said Abdul Karim, a shopkeeper in Chittagong.

Overall electricity supply fell short of demand by 6.2% over the seven days to Tuesday, government data showed, as demand surged nearly 15% compared with the preceding seven days.
…

Two decades ago Nurul Islam, 70, earned his living by fishing in the Buriganga River that flows southwest of the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka and was once its lifeline.

With hardly any fish to be found in the now dead river, thanks to pollution from widespread dumping of industrial and human waste, Islam sells street food on a small cart nearby to make ends meet.

“Twenty years ago, this river water was good. It was full of life,” said Islam, whose family has been living on the bank of the river for generations.

“We used to bathe in the river. There were lots of fish … many of us used to earn a living by catching fish in the river. Now the scenario has changed.”

Shallow and smelly

The Buriganga, or Old Ganges, is so polluted that its water appears pitch black, except during the monsoon months, and emits a foul stench throughout the year.

The South Asian nation of nearly 170 million, with about 23 million living in Dhaka, has about 220 small and large rivers, and a large chunk of its population depends on rivers for a living and transport.

Bangladesh is the world’s second-biggest garment exporter after China, but citizens and environment activists say the booming industry is also a major contributor to the ecological decline of the river.

Untreated sewage, byproducts of fabric dyeing and other chemical waste from nearby mills and factories flow in daily. Polythene and plastic waste piled on the riverbed have made it shallow and caused a shift in course.

“Those who bathe in this river often suffer from scabies on their skin,” said Siddique Hawlader, 45, a ferryman who lives on his boat on the river. “Sometimes our eyes itch and burn.”

Too few to enforce rules constantly

In 1995 Bangladesh made it compulsory for all industrial units to use effluent treatment plants to keep pollution out of its rivers, but industries often flout the rule.

While the government makes regular checks to ensure the rules are being followed, it lacks the staff for round-the-clock monitoring, said environment official Mohammad Masud Hasan Patwari.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said all textile factories had effluent treatment plants for wastewater.

“This is mandatory and there is no way to skip the rules as they must ensure compliance with international standards,” said Shahidullah Azim, one of its officials.

Pollution in the river water during the dry season was well above standard levels, a recent survey by the River and Delta Research Center showed, identifying industrial sewage as the main culprit.

“The once-fresh and mighty river Buriganga is now on the verge of dying because of the rampant dumping of industrial and human waste,” said Sharif Jamil of environment group the Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon.

“There is no fish or aquatic life in this river during the dry season. We call it biologically dead.”
…

The watchdog for U.S. assistance to Afghanistan warned lawmakers Wednesday that American aid to the country could be diverted to the Taliban as he accused the Biden administration of stonewalling his efforts to investigate. 

“Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer, we are not currently funding the Taliban,” John Sopko, the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, testified to the House Oversight Committee. “Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending for the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.” 

The stunning disclosure by Sopko comes as House Republicans are using the power of their new majority to hold the Biden administration accountable over its handling of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. 

It also comes a week after the White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called “hotwash” of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that President Joe Biden was “severely constrained” by former President Donald Trump’s decisions. 

Republicans, who have called Biden’s handling of Afghanistan a “catastrophe,” and a “stunning failure of leadership,” criticized the review and after-action reports conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon as partisan. The White House privately transmitted the reports to Congress last week, but they remain highly classified and will not be released publicly. 

Sopko initially started the job in 2012 to oversee U.S. spending in Afghanistan when there was a large American presence in the country. But since the withdrawal, the work of the IG has shifted to monitoring the more than $8 billion dedicated to Afghanistan. The lack of U.S. military presence in the country has made keeping track of the large sums of money flowing into the country nearly impossible, Sopko said. 

He testified Wednesday to Congress that work is more complicated by the fact that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have not been cooperating with his probe since withdrawal and asked for lawmakers’ help in getting access to the necessary documents and testimony. 

“We cannot abide a situation in which agencies are allowed to pick and choose what information an IG gets, or who an IG can interview, or what an IG may report on,” Sopko said in his opening testimony. “If permitted to continue, it will end SIGAR’s work in Afghanistan but also Congress’s access to independent and credible oversight of any administration.” 

Sopko, who previously served in oversight roles in the House and Senate, testified that he had never seen this level of “obfuscation and delay” from any of the other previous administrations. 

Republicans were quick to join in Sopko’s criticism of the administration. Even one Democrat on the committee, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., said that he regretted the agencies’ refusal to cooperate. 

“I’m going to go on the record and urge all three of those agencies today to cooperate more so that we might not be in a position of hearing what we’ve heard today or in a position of frustration like I am right now,” Mfume told Sopko during the hearing. 

The White House on Wednesday called the hearing, led by Oversight Chairman James Comer, another example of House Republicans’ “political stunts.” 

“You can expect they will continue to falsely claim that the Biden Administration has ‘obstructed’ oversight — despite the fact that we have provided thousands of pages of documents, analyses, spreadsheets, and written responses to questions, as well as hundreds of briefings to bipartisan Members and staff and public congressional testimony by senior officials, all while consistently providing updates and information to numerous inspectors general,” Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, said in a statement. 

A spokesperson for USAID said Wednesday that the agency “has consistently provided SIGAR responses to hundreds of questions, as well as thousands of pages of responsive documents, analyses, and spreadsheets describing dozens of programs that were part of the U.S. government’s reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.” 

A request for comment from the State Department was not immediately returned. 

Since the withdrawal, SIGAR has released several reports, nearly all of them critical of both Biden and Trump’s handling of how to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan in its final months. 

Over the past two years, Sopko said his staff has requested numerous documents and interviews with officials who were involved in the withdrawal but had been stonewalled. He said those requests involved information about the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals as well as ongoing humanitarian aid and questions about whether that assistance might be transferred to the Taliban. 

“It sounds like you’re a Republican member of Congress because Republican members of Congress send letters over to the administration and we don’t get answers either,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told Sopko during his testimony.

Despite the so-called stonewalling, Sopko said that he and his agents have been able to compile interviews with around 800 current and former U.S. employees who were involved both in the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal. 

“I think we had more sources in Afghanistan than all the other IGs combined and the GAO. So, we’re still trying to get that information, but the best information, like actual contract data, and actually the names of people is best, and it should by law come from State and AID,” Sopko said. 
…

After nearly two years of standoff diplomacy with de facto Taliban authorities, Washington is reviewing its Afghan policy in response to what U.S. officials call “draconian” Taliban governance.

The review comes as the United Nations is reportedly mulling a suspension of operations inside Afghanistan because the Taliban have banned Afghan women from work at U.N. agencies.

“The U.S. government has been reviewing our approach and engagement with the Taliban in the context of their increasingly draconian edicts targeting and discriminating against women and girls in Afghanistan,” a spokesperson for the Department of State told VOA.

Unmoved by global condemnation of their misogynistic policies, including from Muslim-majority countries, the Taliban insist that depriving women of education, work and political participation is an internal Afghan issue.

Washington’s tougher tone comes as the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is reportedly planning to convene an international gathering in May to discuss the possibility of giving the Taliban a seat at the U.N. General Assembly in exchange for reversing the Islamist regime’s cascade of restrictions on Afghan women.

When asked about the proposed meeting’s goals on Wednesday, Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told reporters in New York that he does not believe the group will consider recognition.

“I understand the Secretary-General, as he shared it with some of the member states, me included, will be looking for the opinion of those special envoys on how they see the way out for Afghanistan.”

Despite maintaining firm control over the entire country for nearly two years, the Taliban have failed to gain recognition from any government while the Afghanistan seat at the U.N. is still occupied by Naseer Ahmad Faiq, an appointee of the former Afghan government.

Meeting the opposition

Amid growing U.S. frustration with the Taliban, American diplomats have reached out to some former Afghan politicians and warlords who have set up political bases outside Afghanistan.

This week, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West met with several Afghans in Istanbul saying he heard “deep concerns” about the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

The National Resistance Council for the Salvation of Afghanistan, an anti-Taliban group, said its representatives met West on Monday at his request. The group said in a tweet that it gave West a roadmap for “saving the country from the ongoing crisis.”

No U.S. official has traveled to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021, but Washington has bypassed the Taliban and maintained robust diplomatic and humanitarian engagement with Afghans.

Still, some think the U.S. should do more to engage. “Why is every other envoy traveling to or staying in [Afghanistan] but him,” tweeted Obaidullah Baheer, an Afghan analyst, about West’s meetings in Turkey. “I fail to see the logic behind meeting exiled and failed Republic warlords and politicians.”

While not extending a formal recognition, most regional countries, including Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan, have kept their embassies open in Kabul and have accredited Taliban representatives in their capitals.

Shinkai Karokhail, a former Afghan ambassador to Canada and a women’s rights activist, said even if U.S. diplomats were to travel to Afghanistan, they would not have access to unfiltered realities.

“The Taliban will not allow meetings with the representatives of the people or women’s groups and other civil and political activists,” she told VOA.

The U.S.’s continued engagement with former Afghan officials, often blamed for massive corruption and cataclysmic failures, is also seen by some as unhelpful.

“When there is a vacuum of representation or leadership, what is achieved by filling that vacuum by platforming victors of tragic failures?” said an Afghan activist who asked not to be named.

Intervention?

Under the Doha agreement signed between U.S. and Taliban officials in February 2020, the U.S. committed not to intervene in Afghanistan’s domestic affairs.

U.S. officials say they are not backing military uprisings against Taliban rule but demand they form an inclusive government.

Last month, an audio of part of a speech to a group of Afghan women by Karen Decker, the Qatar-based charge d’affaires of the U.S. mission to Afghanistan, was circulating on WhatsApp.

“We are trying to figure out how to get the best parts of the previous government and create and figure out how we can help Afghans create a new government for their country,” Decker is heard saying.

A spokesperson for the Department of State said Decker’s comments were consistent with a long-standing position by the international community.

“We have been clear in calling on the Taliban to form an inclusive and representative government that can legitimately speak for all Afghans.”

U.S. officials say the formation of an inclusive government should be exclusively an issue for Afghans to handle, not imposed by the international community.

“If the Taliban hope for a government that enjoys international legitimacy, launching a political dialogue among Afghans is a first step. Legitimacy begins at home,” the spokesperson said.

Such calls have thus far found no listeners among Taliban leaders.

“It is not clear yet whether the Taliban leadership in Kandahar has a roadmap for a political process that would strengthen legitimacy at home and abroad,” Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador to France, told VOA.

While the Taliban remain internationally isolated, Samad said “conditions, circumstances, threat perceptions, balance of power and the regional and international order are very different” now compared to the 1990s.

The Taliban made a commitment in the Doha agreement to forbid international terror groups in areas under their control, a change from their position that allowed al Qaida to operate freely. And unlike the 1990s when the Taliban were battling warlords for control of the country, since the 2021 U.S. withdrawal the Taliban has been Afghanistan’s ruling power with no real challengers.

“The question now is whether there is political will in both capitals for reframing and relaunching new talks on the way forward,” Samad said.

Margaret Besheer contributed to this article from New York.
…

India is on track to become the world’s most populous nation, surpassing China by 2.9 million people by mid-2023, according to data released by the United Nations on Wednesday.

The South Asian country will have an estimated 1.4286 billion people against China’s 1.4257 billion by the middle of the year, according to U.N. projections. Demographers say that the limits of population data make it impossible to calculate an exact date.

China has had the world’s largest population since at least 1950, the year United Nations population data began. Both China and India have more than 1.4 billion people, and combined they make up more than a third of the world’s 8 billion people.

Not long ago, India wasn’t expected to become most populous until later this decade. But the timing has been sped up by a drop in China’s fertility rate, with families having fewer children.

Today, China has an aging population with stagnant growth despite the government retreating from its one-child policy seven years ago.

In contrast, India has a much younger population, a higher fertility rate, and has seen a decrease in infant mortality over the last three decades. Still, the country’s fertility rate has been steadily falling, from over five births per woman in 1960 to just over two in 2020, according to World Bank data.

India’s continued growth is likely to have social and economic consequences. India has the largest number of young people at 254 million aged between 15-24 years, according to the U.N.

Experts hope this means an expanding labor force that can help fuel growth in the country for decades to come. But they warn it could just as swiftly become a demographic liability if the growing number of young people in India are not adequately employed.
…

Hundreds of thousands of people in India are demanding the release of a Sarus crane from a zoo in India so it can be reunited with the farmer who rescued the injured wild bird and nursed it back to health.

Arif Gurjar’s extraordinary bond with the 5-foot-tall Sarus crane made the farmer from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh a social media celebrity as it made international headlines.

But soon after the story of Gurjar and the bird spread across media, wildlife officials landed in his village of Mandkha, confiscated the bird, and placed it in a cage at a zoo in the Uttar Pradesh city of Kanpur.

The Indian public sharply protested the separation of the bird from Gurjar. Many are flooding Twitter to protest the zoo’s caging of the crane. Several people have also launched online petitions on Change.org asking for the crane to be freed and returned to Gurjar.

In March 2022, Gurjar discovered a crimson-throated Sarus crane that lay in a field shivering and bleeding from a broken leg. He brought it home and using traditional medicine, nursed it back to health in six weeks before setting it free.

Gurjar thought that the bird would fly away as soon as it recovered. The wild bird, however, had no intention of leaving its new human friend.

“After I found the bird wounded, I nursed it well and performed the duty of a human being,” Gurjar, 30, told VOA. “Strangely enough, it did not fly away after its recovery. It chose to remain closer to me, and my emotional attachment to it grew. We became good friends.”

In one of the several videos of the pair that went viral online, the Sarus crane — which Gurjar simply calls “Sarus” — can be seen flying alongside him as he rides his motorcycle.

The bird ate from Gurjar’s hands, sharing his traditional Indian meals.

Even when Sarus regularly visited a nearby field or a body of water — usually for a few hours during the day — it still flew back to Gurjar’s house in Mandkha village in the afternoon.

The two friends were separated, however, when Indian wildlife authorities confiscated the crane on March 21. Saying the Sarus crane — the world’s tallest flying bird — is classified as a “vulnerable” species and cannot be kept as a pet, authorities charged Gurjar under India’s Wildlife Protection Act “for keeping an endangered bird at home.”

On April 11, Gurjar was allowed to visit Sarus for the first time since the bird’s zoo confinement.

In a video documenting Gurjar’s zoo visit that has evoked deep emotion in many viewers, Sarus can be seen flapping its wings frantically and jumping and flying around the cage upon seeing Gurjar — apparently attempting to rush out of the cage and reunite with its human friend.

During his visit to the zoo, Gurjar was allowed to stand outside Sarus’ cage “just for five minutes,” he said.

“[Before Sarus was confiscated,] when I returned home after being away for some hours, Sarus would run towards me jumping in joy and we would embrace. After seeing me and hearing my voice at the zoo, Sarus attempted to come towards me in the same manner,” Gurjar told VOA.

“It was very painful for me to see Sarus trying to reach me and being stopped by the wall of the cage. … It hurts to see Sarus confined in a cage with no freedom.”

Last week, Varun Gandhi, a member of Parliament from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, called for the crane to be freed from the zoo cage.

“The love between Sarus and Arif is genuine. The joy that we witnessed when the two met at the zoo shows how clean and guileless their love is. This beautiful bird has been born to fly in the sky or move around freely; it should not be confined in a cage,” the member of Parliament tweeted in Hindi, with the video of the bird jumping around excitedly in the cage after seeing Gurjar.

“Please return the bird its sky, freedom and the friend.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, one of the petitions on Change.org, “Free the Sarus Crane Now!” had amassed more than 14,000 signatures. The online petition, started by Soumitra Pathare, is addressed to the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department of Uttar Pradesh and emphasizes the distress plaguing the caged bird as it is away from its human friend.

“The crane committed no crime,” the petition said. “Is being friendly with human beings a crime? Why is the bird being punished for no reason? It has lost its freedom and is clearly distressed and unhappy in the cage.” 

Gurjar has not returned to his village since seeing Sarus at the zoo.

“Sarus became the center of my universe since it chose me as a friend. My house feels empty now that it’s gone. … Sometimes I also hold myself responsible for it ending up confined in a cage, and it makes me feel guilty,” Gurjar said Tuesday from a friend’s place in Lucknow, 150 kilometers away.

“I think I cannot return to my village until Sarus is freed and we are reunited.”
…

The United Nations deputy secretary-general said Monday that the organization plans to arrange a conference in the coming days to discuss granting recognition to Afghanistan’s Taliban, stressing the need for engagement with the fundamentalist authorities.

Amina Mohammed’s remarks come as the reclusive Taliban chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, renewed his resolve Tuesday to achieve his goal of “the religious and moral reform of the [Afghan] society” through the vigorous implementation of Islamic law, or Shariah. 

Mohammed told an audience at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs that the international meeting would bring envoys working on Afghanistan to the table, among others. 

“What we are hoping is that we’ll gather them now in another two weeks in the region, and they will have that first meeting of envoys across the board — the region and internationally — with the secretary-general for the first time,” she said. 

“And out of that, we hope that we’ll find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition [of the Taliban], a principled recognition,” Mohammed said. “Is it possible? I don’t know. [But] that discussion has to happen. The Taliban clearly want recognition, and that’s the leverage we have.”

The top U.N. official visited Afghanistan in January and discussed with Taliban leaders the sweeping curbs the fundamentalist authorities have imposed on women’s freedom of work and movement since taking control of the strife-torn nation. 

The restrictions have effectively blocked women and girls’ access to work and education beyond 6th grade across the country. Afghan female staff have been banned from working for the U.N. and nongovernmental aid groups. 

Mohammed said the Taliban maintain they have enacted several laws to deter gender-based violence and to give more inheritance rights to women, among others, besides eliminating corruption in Afghanistan. 

“But I don’t have any engagement that the international community will allow me to have to know whether they are implementing it or not,” she said.

Mohammed said engagement with the Taliban would help to hold them accountable for their actions. “We cannot allow that they continue to get worse, which is what happens when you don’t engage,” she said. 

She noted that the Taliban are becoming stronger because neighboring countries are engaging with them economically to ensure Afghanistan does not plunge into chaos and implode from within. 

“There are trade surpluses with Afghanistan today. There’s the banking system that’s put in place for Afghanistan today, and we still say there are sanctions. So, we either engage and pull them to the right side, or we don’t and see where it drifts. We must dine with the devil with [a] long spoon,” she said.

Mohammed said the U.N. told its Afghan female staff to work from home while it negotiates with the Taliban for the removal of the ban on women. She added that female employees could work from home and earn a salary. 

“Please treat the Taliban like COVID. We don’t know what they’re going to do or how they’re going to react. … But I know three or four [women] are picked up, and maybe I wouldn’t see them again. I am not going to risk any one Afghan woman to people we know are unpredictable,” she said.

The Taliban waged a deadly insurgency for almost two decades. They reclaimed power in August 2021 from the then-internationally backed Afghan government as the United States and NATO troops withdrew.

The international community has refused to give the Taliban legitimacy, citing human rights concerns, particularly the restrictions on women. 

In his statement Tuesday in connection with the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival later this week, Akhundzada lauded “reforms” in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.

“Significant reform measures have been taken in culture, education, economy, media and other fields, and the bad intellectual and moral effects of the 20-year occupation are about to finish,” he said. 

The Taliban chief referred to the U.S.-led Western military intervention in Afghanistan and its former Afghan allied government in Kabul. Akhundzada has rejected calls for lifting bans on women, saying it is an internal Afghan matter and should be respected by all sides. 

The Taliban takeover prompted Washington and other Western nations to suspend economic aid to Afghanistan, impose financial and banking sector sanctions, and strictly enforce long-running curbs on the Taliban to press them to ease restrictions on women and combat terrorism. 

Billions of dollars in Afghan central bank foreign reserves have also been blocked. However international humanitarian aid has continued to flow into the country.

The international restrictions have pushed the Afghan economy to the brink and exacerbated humanitarian conditions in a country where the U.N. estimates that more than 28 million people — two-thirds of the population — require urgent aid. 

A study released Tuesday by the U.N. Development Program warned that the Taliban edicts restricting the rights of women and girls would worsen Afghanistan’s economy and may also affect the level of aid inflows.

“The development of Afghanistan is the responsibility of Afghans. We should not rely on others. Rather, with courage and enthusiasm, we should build this country and provide all possible conveniences to the people,” Akhundzada said in his Eid message.
…