India’s economy is posting the fastest growth among major economies putting it on track to become the world’s third largest before the end of the decade, according to financial forecasts.

As companies record strong growth and hand out pay hikes, there is a wave of optimism among professionals.

“There are good projections for the Indian economy. Plus, even in our friends’ circle, a lot of people are changing jobs, moving to better pastures. For us also, my wife, has switched recently to a new job,” said Jaideep Manchanda, a marketing professional in New Delhi who recently bought a new car.

Consumers like Manchanda and his wife, Tanya Tandon, are driving domestic demand as India emerges strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic — the automobile industry for example recorded its highest-ever sales in November. New investment is flowing into the country, helping it withstand the trend of slowing growth in most countries.

India is expected to grow by nearly 7% this year despite the economic turbulence created by Russia’s war in Ukraine. That momentum is likely to continue, helping it overtake Japan and Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy, according to a recent forecast by New York-based investment firm Morgan Stanley and S&P Global.

The International Monetary Fund projects India to reach that position by 2028. The United States and China are the world’s biggest economies.

The World Bank’s latest report on the Indian economy released in December also said that India is relatively well positioned to weather global headwinds compared to most other emerging markets.

“India’s economy has been remarkably resilient to the deteriorating external environment,” Auguste Tano Kouame, World Bank’s country director, said releasing the report “Navigating the Storm” earlier this month.

India’s economy is relatively insulated partly because it has a large domestic market and is relatively less exposed to international trade, according to the World Bank.

Growth is expected to dip in the coming year as, like many other countries, India grapples with inflation following a surge in global food and fuel prices. A potential global recession also poses a risk to its economic momentum.

However, that is not dampening optimism. “Even if the economy grows consistently at around five and a half or 6% will be remarkable,” according to Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, an economist at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “A lot of changes are happening across the world, and we hope that some of them will be beneficial for the Indian economy.”

New opportunities are opening for India as trade and geopolitical tensions between China and the United States deepen, analysists say.

For decades, global investors flocked to China to set up factories while India’s manufacturing sector lagged, holding back the economy. Efforts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promote a “Make in India” campaign since he took office eight years ago had met with a tepid response, but that could be changing.

On a visit to New Delhi last month United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke of building closer economic ties with India.

“The United States is pursuing an approach called friend-shoring to diversify away from countries that present geopolitical and security risks to our supply chain. To do so we are proactively deepening economic integration with trusted trading partners like India,” Yellen said addressing technology leaders at a Microsoft facility.

Analysts say that many companies are looking at India as they consider adding production capacity in a second nation besides China.

The U.S.-based tech company Apple is expected to move some iPhone manufacturing to India and scale it up over the next three years. Taiwanese electronic company Foxconn and local conglomerate Vedanta have announced a $19.5 billion investment to make semiconductors in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

“Now, after China, India is probably being seen as the next place where growth will come. This is the expectation, and the initial signs are already there,” points out economist Mukhopadhyay. “That is why a lot of global investment, direct investment and a lot of global financial capital are now betting on India.”

Modi’s government is making efforts to lure companies by offering incentives for producing in India and investing billions of dollars in improving the country’s creaky infrastructure that has long deterred investors.

The mood is upbeat among Indian professionals, who often looked overseas for career opportunities. Now many feel they are better off at home, especially after the tens of thousands of layoffs by leading technology companies in the United States that have impacted many Indians.

“India has great potential across the sectors, across geographies, and across small and bigger cities,” said Tanya Tandon, a marketing professional.

Maintaining high growth will be vital for India, a country of 1.4 billion people, which still needs to lift millions out of poverty and also faces a massive challenge in creating jobs for its huge, young population.
…

The Islamic State Khorasan Province group has released a video of two men it claims conducted Monday’s attack on a hotel in Kabul where Chinese nationals, among other guests, were staying.

Five Chinese citizens were wounded in the attack that left several Afghans, including Taliban forces, killed or wounded. A Taliban spokesman said the gunmen were killed by security forces.

The short video shared on Telegram by the Islamic State group (IS) shows two young men talking quietly in what seems to be a Tajiki accent in Farsi as they express allegiance to IS leader Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi.

Taliban authorities said three assailants were involved in the attack, but the IS video shows only two.

Attack condemned

Karen Decker, U.S. chargé d’affaires for Afghanistan, condemned the attack.

“Welcome swift investigation, robust response to protect diplomats and the Afghan people. My condolences to the families of the victims and hope for loved ones to recover quickly,” she wrote on Twitter.

On Tuesday, Beijing called on Taliban authorities to ensure greater security for its diplomats and Chinese citizens in Afghanistan.

China is among a few countries that did not shut their embassies in Kabul after the Taliban seized power last year.

In the aftermath of Monday’s attack, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry renewed Beijing’s advice that Chinese nationals leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Tajik fighters

Over the past year, IS has “increasingly tried to recruit ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks from Afghanistan and Central Asia,” according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

In June, an IS attacker, Abu Muhammad al-Tajiki, stormed a Sikh temple in Kabul, killing one worshiper and wounding seven others.

In the same month, the Taliban reportedly killed Yusuf Tajiki, an IS recruiter, in the north of Afghanistan.

“The Taliban are fighting two insurgencies — one led by the Islamic State’s local branch and the second comprising the National Resistance Front (NRF) and other groups aligned with the former [Afghanistan] government,” ICG said in a report in August.

Many NRF leaders are based in Tajikistan, souring Dushanbe’s relations with the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has called for the creation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan. 

Afghanistan shares a 1,357-kilometer border with Tajikistan. About 5,000 Russian forces are based in Tajikistan, primarily to prevent the flow of illicit drugs and terrorism threats from Afghanistan.
…

Police in India said they are planning to prosecute a man who allegedly created an app that listed photos and personal information of more than 80 Muslim women for online “auction.”

Delhi Police made the announcement Sunday after Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena granted permission to go ahead with the trial of Aumkareshwar Thakur, 25, in court.

With a supporting Twitter handle, Thakur created the open-source app “Sulli Deals” — which was hosted on web platform GitHub in July 2021 — posting profiles of Muslim women for “sale” or “auction.”

“Sulli” is vulgar derogatory Hindi slang that right-wing Hindu groups sometimes use to troll Muslim women.

Advertised women as ‘deals of the day’

A spoof of real online auction sites, Thakur’s app didn’t allow for actual transactions of any kind, but instead aimed solely to degrade and humiliate Muslim women. According to court documents, Thakur collected publicly available photos of the women — including journalists, activists, researchers, artists and other critics of right-wing Hindu activities under Narendra Modi’s government — and then created corresponding profiles to post as “deals of the day.”

In January, Thakur, a computer engineer, was arrested in the central Indian city of Indore by Delhi Police and charged with crimes “committed against the state,” which requires special permission from the government to go to trial.

After Sulli Deals surfaced online last year, “Bulli Bai” — a near-identical app with an equally offensive name hosted on GitHub with photos of more than 100 Muslim women — appeared online in January this year.

Both apps were taken down shortly after triggering a nationwide outcry. A preliminary police investigation found evidence that the development of both apps was influenced at least in part by right-wing Hindu ideology.

Thakur has not been formally linked with any specific right-wing Hindu organization, scores of which are incorporated nationwide, and no Hindu group has publicly supported the accused.

After Delhi Police arrested Thakur in January, the United Nations special rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, sought the prosecution of those behind the app.

“Minority Muslim women in India are harassed and ‘sold’ in social media apps, #SulliDeals, a form of hate speech, must be condemned and prosecuted as soon as they occur,” Varennes tweeted in January. “All Human Rights of minorities need to be fully and equally protected.”

‘They targeted me just because I am Muslim.’

Hana Khan, a Delhi-based commercial pilot, was shocked to find herself on Sulli Deals last year.

“I cannot describe in words how shocked and angry I was to find myself featured on Sulli Deals. I think I had never been so angry in my life. I could never believe that somebody could do something like sharing me on an online application as a ‘Sulli of the Day’ or as a ‘flavor of the month,'” Khan, 32, told VOA.

“I lived with that anger and trauma for many months,” she added. “I never said or wrote anything criticizing Hindu nationalists. Yet they targeted me just because I am Muslim.”

Victims threatened with rape, death

Scars left by the “vulgar Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai attacks” run deep in the minds of its victims, said Kolkata-based lawyer and activist Noor Mahvish, whose photo was featured on Sulli Deals.

“In India’s communally polarized climate, online trolling of Muslim women has increased,” she told VOA. “For being vocal on many issues on social media, several Muslim women even face death and rape threats. Most often the perpetrators of such hate attacks are Hindu right-wing groups as they were found to be behind Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai.

“Maybe people will forget the incidence of these apps and will stop talking about it, but one thing is for sure that those who had gone through the harrowing experience of being featured on Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai, a trauma will certainly haunt many of them for the rest of their lives.”
…

India says its forces clashed with Chinese troops last week along their disputed border in the eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The latest confrontation will deepen tensions between New Delhi and Beijing, whose relations have been frosty since a skirmish in another part of their border in 2020 killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.

The face-off took place last Friday and caused minor injuries to soldiers from both sides, an Indian army statement said. It said that both sides “immediately disengaged from the area” and that commanders from both sides held a meeting “to restore peace and tranquility.”

The site of the latest clash lies in the Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh state, which is controlled by New Delhi but is also claimed by Beijing.

The army gave no details of the clash, but the Indian Express newspaper quoted sources as saying there was “intense hand-to-hand combat with sticks and canes for a few hours.”

The Indian and Chinese border has been volatile since the deadly skirmish in 2020 between soldiers of the two Asian giants two and a half years ago that took place in Ladakh toward the west.

The nearly 3,500-kilometer frontier in the Himalayan mountains runs from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east and is called the line of actual control.

Protracted talks between their military commanders since that clash have resulted in troops disengaging from several so-called “friction” points. But both sides continue to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers backed with artillery tanks and fighter jets and are racing to build infrastructure along their Himalayan border.

Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing refers to as South Tibet, is one of the areas where India has strengthened defenses and where soldiers are hunkering down.

The clash took place two days after Indian foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, told parliament India has been “very clear with the Chinese” that New Delhi will not tolerate attempts to “unilaterally” change the line of actual control.

“So long as they continue to seek to do that and if they have built up forces which in our minds constitute a serious concern in the border areas, then our relationship is not normal and the abnormality of that has been in evidence in the last two years,” he said.
…

A bomb-and-gun attack targeting a hotel in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Monday, killed at least three assailants and wounded 21 other people, including two foreigners.

The multistory hotel in Shar-e Naw downtown commercial area of the Afghan capital’s home to, among others, several Chinese nationals.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said three gunmen had raided the building in the afternoon before being quickly engaged and killed by security forces. He said no foreign residents were killed.

“However, two foreign guests were injured when they jumped out of windows to save their lives,” Mujahid added. He did not elaborate.

An international humanitarian organization, known as EMERGENCY, reported a higher casualty toll, saying the attack took place about a kilometer from its hospital in the area.

“So far, we have received 21 casualties — 3 were already dead on arrival,” tweeted the Italy-based charity, without elaborating.

City residents said the siege, which lasted several hours, had started with explosions followed by gunfire. Social media videos showed flames and smoke in a part of the building.

Islamic State said the assailants were members of its regional affiliate, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, saying the targets were “Chinese communists and Taliban elements.”

The violence comes a day after the Taliban said China had asked them “to pay more attention to the security” of the Chinese embassy in Kabul.

Chinese ambassador Wang Yu raised the security issue in a meeting Sunday with Taliban deputy foreign minister Sher Abbas Stanikzai.

The United States condemned Monday’s attacks, urging the Taliban to live up to their counterterrorism commitments.

“One of those commitments is to provide a society that is free from this sort of terrorist violence,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington. “So, we’ll continue to watch very closely, and we continue to stand with the Afghan people who are suffering needlessly as a result of these levels of terrorist violence,” he added.

Last week, two gunmen opened fire on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul, in an attempt to assassinate the head of the diplomatic mission.

Pakistan’s Chargé D’affaires Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani escaped unhurt, but his Pakistani security guard was shot in the chest, according to officials in Islamabad.

ISIS-K took credit for plotting the attack.

In September, an ISIS-K suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Russian embassy in the Afghan capital. That attack killed six people, including two members of the Russian embassy staff.

The Taliban claim to have brought security to the conflict-torn South Asian nation since seizing power in August last year when the United States and NATO partners completed their military withdrawal.

But frequent bomb blasts and other militants, mostly claimed by ISIS-K, in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan have raised questions about the capability of the Taliban to combat the terrorist group.

The violence has killed hundreds of people in the past year, including the Taliban and members of the Afghan minority Shiite community.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said earlier this month that ISIS-K activities in Afghanistan concern Washington, noting that the Taliban “really don’t have the capability to go after it.”
…

A new study on China’s global influence puts Pakistan at the top of the list.

Cambodia and Singapore are in second and third place respectively as the “most exposed” to Beijing’s influence. Among the top 10 countries most exposed to influence by China, eight are in Asia. Paraguay, North Macedonia and Albania were ranked as ‘least influenced.’

The China Index 2022 explores China’s influence in 82 countries by asking experts to respond to questions about China’s activities in their country. The study was conducted and published by the China in the World (CITW) network, an initiative of Taiwan-based anti-disinformation group, Doublethink Lab.

The report asked questions across nine domains to assess each country’s exposure to Chinese influence.

The domains included media, academia, economy, society, military, law enforcement, technology, domestic politics and foreign policy. Some of Beijing’s activities abroad included paid trips for government officials, scholarships for students, journalism training, research funding, trade, investment and military cooperation.

Puma Shen, chairperson of Doublethink Lab told VOA this research lets people around the world see how China approaches their country.

“By comparing all these rankings and comparing all the different strategy, all these countries could learn [about] each other, like how to counter Chinese influence operations,” he said.

Measuring China’s influence

The report measures influence through three indicators, ‘exposure,’ ‘pressure’ and ‘effect.’

Exposure to China’s initiatives abroad make a country vulnerable to China’s influence, for example, economic dependence or receiving other benefits.

How much ‘pressure’ China puts on a specific country includes either direct or indirect actions by Beijing with the aim of altering people’s behavior.

The actual impact or the extent to which a country accommodates China’s demands, is described as ‘effect’ in the study.

Pakistan ranks #1

Pakistan, the county most exposed to China’s influence in the Index received a 70% rating on exposure, 10% on pressure and 75% on effect. However, the report says these percentages “do not suggest some degree out of a “completely influenced” level of 100%. The percentages express the country’s score out of the total achievable amount based on the indicators for each domain.”

According to the report, China’s influence in Pakistan is most active in the domains of technology, foreign policy and military.

Pakistan-China ties

Experts said it is not surprising to see Pakistan at the top of the China Index 2022 as both share an almost 600 km (373 miles) border with each other and a historic rivalry with India.

Decades old strategic ties between the two have deepened since the U.S. ramped up efforts to bolster India to counter China’s growing ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.

“We cannot decouple and only look at Pakistan and China because to be fair, you also have to look at how the U.S. and India are also working it because there is also this sort of strategic quadrilateral relationship” said Syed Muhammad Ali, non-resident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Others point out that Pakistan’s closeness with China is also a result of Islamabad’s ties with the West cooling off, especially during the last decade.

Arif Rafiq, President of Vizier Consulting, a political risk advisory company told VOA for Pakistan, China is filling a void left by the West.

“China provides Pakistan with goods and materials and funds that it can’t get from elsewhere, …that includes military hardware, …advanced technologies related to satellite remote sensing, and also includes funding for electric power plants and infrastructure,” said Rafiq.

In recent years the two countries have struck deals to jointly build submarines and fighter jets. Between 2017 and 2021, Pakistan imported 72% of its major arms from China according to the Sweden-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

While the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) launched in 2015 is considered the jewel in the crown of Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative with roughly $60 billion worth of infrastructure and energy projects, in October local media reported Beijing and Islamabad also agreed to officially launch three new corridors in the areas of agriculture, health and technology.

Pakistan’s top spot on the China Index 2022 also shows Beijing’s reliance on Islamabad, said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia program at Washington’s Wilson Center.

“These results highlight the fact that the strategic interests of China require a significant level of engagement and influence building with Pakistan,” Kugelman said.

He pointed to CPEC, which not only brought much-needed investment to Pakistan but also gives China access to Central Asian markets through the deep seaport of Gwadar in southern Pakistan.

China’s soft power in Pakistan

Beijing also exercises soft power through initiatives that include Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese language and culture, and provides funding for thinktanks and scholarships to court the Pakistani people, the research notes.

“China has historically had to make a lot of efforts to, not to say infiltrate, to really build out its influence across Pakistani society, to try to gain Pakistani trust,” said Kugelman.

Views critical of China being kept out of mainstream Pakistani media, military officials pushing for cooperation with China, and Pakistan purchasing Chinese-made surveillance cameras were among some of the effects of the exposure to Beijing, the report found.

China, Pakistan, US

However, analysts VOA spoke to differ on the long-term societal impacts of China making inroads in Pakistan.

While Kugelman expressed concern that anti-democratic practices like surveillance could increase, Rafiq said that Pakistan’s military and intelligence already engage in authoritarian practices and do not need inspiration from China.

“The U.S., because of its Hollywood and everything else, exerts a much larger cultural, socio-economic influence still on the country,” said Ali of the Middle East Institute.

Despite bilateral efforts to build on the “all-weather friendship,” the Brookings Institution’s Madiha Afzal told VOA via email that “there are signs that the [Pakistani] state has realized some of the disadvantages of an excessive dependence on China and sought to diversify its options – making overtures to the United States, for instance.”

Pakistani military and political leaders say their country would not like to choose between the U.S. and China.

Pakistan owes the largest portion of its external debt to China, roughly 30%. While Beijing helped provide a chunk of much-needed funds, Islamabad sought a bailout from the International Monetary Fund this summer to avoid defaulting on loan repayments.

The biggest donor to the IMF is the U.S.

Methodology

Some experts have raised questions about the methodology used for compiling the China Index 2022.

Berlin-based Tim Ruhlig of the German Council on Foreign Relations helped gather data from Sweden for the index said it was unclear when an “exposure” would be considered strong or weak.

Shen said to standardize the results, researchers were asked to provide supplemental notes and evidence of exposure which Doublethink reviewed against its own criteria to accurately assess the level of exposure.
…

A bomb-and-gun attack targeting a hotel in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Monday, killed at least three assailants and wounded 21 other people, including two foreigners.

The multistory hotel in Shar-e Naw downtown commercial area of the Afghan capital is home to, among others, several Chinese nationals.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said three gunmen had raided the building in the afternoon before being quickly engaged and killed by security forces. He said no foreign residents were killed.

“However, two foreign guests were injured when they jumped out of windows to save their lives,” Mujahid added. He did not elaborate.

An international humanitarian organization, known as EMERGENCY, reported a higher casualty toll, saying the attack took place about a kilometer from its hospital in the area.

“So far, we have received 21 casualties — 3 were already dead on arrival,” tweeted the Italy-based charity, without elaborating.

City residents said the siege, which lasted several hours, had started with explosions followed by gunfire. Social media videos showed flames and smoke in a part of the building.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for Monday’s attack and it was not immediately known whether Chinese nationals were the target.

The violence comes a day after the Taliban said China had asked them “to pay more attention to the security” of the Chinese embassy in Kabul.

Chinese ambassador Wang Yu raised the security issue in a meeting Sunday with Taliban deputy foreign minister Sher Abbas Stanikzai.

Last week, two gunmen opened fire on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul, in an attempt to assassinate the head of the diplomatic mission.

Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani escaped unhurt, but his Pakistani security guard was shot in the chest, according to officials in Islamabad.

Islamic State said that the assailants were members of its regional affiliate, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K).

In September, an ISIS-K suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Russian embassy in the Afghan capital. That attack killed six people, including two members of the Russian embassy staff.

The Taliban claim to have brought security to the conflict-torn South Asian nation since seizing power in August last year when the United States and NATO partners completed their military withdrawal.

But frequent bomb blasts and other militants, mostly claimed by ISIS-K, in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan have raised questions about the capability of the Taliban to combat the terrorist group.

The violence has killed hundreds of people in the past year, including the Taliban and members of the Afghan minority Shiite community.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said earlier this month that ISIS-K activities in Afghanistan concern Washington, noting that the Taliban “really don’t have the capability to go after it.”
…

With girls across Afghanistan denied access to schools, a radio station in Khost province has stepped in to broadcast literary programs. VOA’s Shaista Lami has the story. Roshan Noorzai contributed.
…

Deadly border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan killed at least seven people and wounded more than 30 others Sunday.

The Pakistani military said in a statement the skirmishes took place in the southwestern border town of Chaman, adjacent to the Afghan province of Kandahar.

The attack killed six Pakistani civilians and injured 17 others, it said.

But Akhtar Mohammad, a senior doctor at the main government hospital in Chaman, told VOA by phone they had received bodies of six civilians and 21 injured. He said that seven people among the injured were “in critical condition” and moved to a hospital in the provincial capital, Quetta.

The military statement said Taliban border security forces had “opened unprovoked and indiscriminate fire of heavy weapons, including artillery/mortars” against Pakistani civilian areas. The statement said Pakistani troops staged a “befitting albeit measured response” against “the uncalled-for aggression but avoided targeting innocent civilians in the area.”

Maulvi Ataullah Zaid, a spokesperson for the governor of Kandahar, told VOA by phone a Taliban border guard was killed and that 10 people, including three Afghan civilians, were wounded on the Afghanistan side.

Sunday’s clashes erupted when Pakistani troops were trying to repair a portion of the border fence on their side, but Taliban forces objected to the effort and subsequent attempts to find a negotiated settlement to the standoff failed, local officials and residents reported.

Afghanistan disputes the nearly 2,600-kilometer former British era demarcation with Pakistan, often sparking border tensions. Islamabad dismisses Kabul’s objections and maintains Pakistan inherited the international frontier when it gained independence from Britain in 1947.

Chaman and the northwestern Torkham border crossing serve as the main transit routes for landlocked Afghanistan for trade between and through Pakistan.

Last month, Pakistan had sealed the Chaman border crossing for all trade and pedestrian movements for a week to protest the killing of a Pakistani security guard by what Islamabad said was an “Afghan terrorist.”

The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021 and have mostly relied on Pakistan to generate much-needed revenues for their cash-strapped administration through increased bilateral and transit trade. But tensions stemming from border issues have lately strained ties.
…

Mohammad Shafi Dar, 55, picks up a piece of willow, called a cleft, and places it on a vertical bandsaw to cut out a V-joint from the wooden block before passing it on to one of his colleagues, Mohammad Yousuf Bhat, 45, for further modification on a mechanical planer.

Both Dar and Bhat are pod-shavers, as the people who make cricket bats are known, for Model Sports Industries, a cricket bat factory, in Bijbehera, a town in the Anantnag district in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Following the footsteps of his father, Dar joined the multimillion-dollar cricket bat industry in the Himalayan region when he was a teenager.

The industry provides income to more than 100,000 people, including migrant workers who come to Kashmir from different parts of India, such as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Fear of losing jobs

For the first time in his four-decade career, Dar fears losing his job because of a shortage of willow, the raw material of cricket bats that mainly comes from England and Kashmir.

Trunks of willow trees are first cut into lengths according to the size of the bat to be produced. The trunk sections are later split with the help of a hammer and wedge before being carved into a more familiar cricket bat shape.

“In all these years, I have never felt insecure about losing the job, but in the last couple of years, bat production has decreased gradually, as a result proprietors are firing employees,” Dar told VOA. “Half a dozen men have been removed from their jobs at this workshop,” he said, adding that the situation is similar in many other factories.

Skilled craftsmen who were fired, Dar said, had been making bats for decades.

“A few of the fired pod-shavers went on to become casual laborers, others joined the agriculture sector and the rest became sand diggers,” Dar said. “Not everyone can cross the line from being a skilled craftsman to becoming a casual worker or a farmer,” he said, adding that locals as well as migrant workers are going through tough times.

Behind the materials shortage

All along the national highway connecting the Kashmir valley to the rest of India, 400 factories welcome visitors with willow-clefts piled up on both sides of the road.

Fayaz Ahmad Dar, president of the Kashmir Cricket Bat Manufacturers Union, told VOA the raw materials shortage began five years ago because of accelerated tree cutting and a lack of planting of new willow trees in the region.

“Today we only receive 50% of the supply in our factories,” Dar said. “Our business is on the verge of extinction due to complete negligence,” he added.

Local farmers, Dar said, plant poplar or cottonwood instead of willow because they grow quickly and are in demand by plywood factories, earning them money faster.

“We cannot blame local farmers for not planting willow as it is their own choice,” Dar told VOA. “We expect (the) government to act as soon as possible in order to inject new blood into Kashmir bat industry, as it generates income worth 1 billion rupees [$12.1 million],” he said.

Kashmir willow bats, Dar said, supply nearly 70% of the global market, as they are more affordable than those made from English willow.

“The price of a good quality English willow starts from $300 and can go up to $1,500, but the same quality bats produced locally begin from $50 and vary up to $500,” Dar said.

“Thus, people belonging to cricket-playing nations prefer to buy our bats, thus making Kashmir the largest exporter of cricket bats in the world,” he said, adding that nearly 3 million bats are manufactured in Kashmir annually and are exported to 125 cricket-playing countries.

In a new workshop of GR8 Sports in Anantnag’s Sangam neighborhood, Niaz Ul Kabir, co-owner and production head, ensures each bat is manufactured according to his brand’s standards.

Kabir said GR8 Sports marketing agents approached several international cricketers to test GR8 Sports bats. He said the response from the veteran cricketers spurred them to approach the International Cricket Council, the governing body of international cricket, and get approval so that international cricketers can use their product.

50 out of 400 factories shut

Kashmir cricket bat industry stakeholders have approached the Kashmir government for help, as 50 out of 400 factories have closed workshops because they are out of raw materials.

“We met the honorable director of commerce and Industries of Kashmir and highlighted the issues bat manufacturers are facing,” Dar, the president of Kashmir Cricket Bat Manufacturers, said. “The director was presented with the facts and figures about the growing demands of cricket bats globally following the expansion of the sport from 10 countries to over 100 countries in the last decade,” he added.

The manufacturers, Dar said, want the government to identify multiple locations for the planting of willow trees in Kashmir.

Dar said after the meeting the department, in association with the Faculty of Forest of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, distributed 1,500 willow saplings to many bat manufacturers, which he said, “in no way is sufficient meet the requirement.” Dar added that the annual demand of one manufacturer is 10,000 to 15,000 trees.

VOA asked Saloni Rai, director of commerce and industries of Kashmir, for her response to the industry representatives. She said that she “does not currently have enough information regarding the subject and will comment after going through the data thoroughly.”
…

Batool Haidari used to be a prominent professor of sexology at a Kabul university before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. She taught mixed classes of male and female students and helped patients struggling with gender identity issues.

Her husband owned a carpet factory, and together they did their best to provide a good education for their 18-year-old son and two daughters, ages 13 and 8.

That comfortable life came to an abrupt halt on Aug. 15, 2021, when the former insurgents who adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam swept back into power following a costly two-decade U.S.-led campaign to remake the country.

Haidari, 37, was among the many women who fled the Taliban, fearing a return to the practices of their previous rule in the late 1990s, including largely barring girls and women from education and work. She reached Rome at the end of 2021, after a daring escape through Pakistan aided by Italian volunteers who arranged for her and her family to be hosted in the Italian capital’s suburbs.

She is among thousands of Afghan women seeking to maintain an active social role in the countries that have taken them in. Haidari and her husband are studying Italian while being financially supported by various associations. She keeps in touch with feminist organizations back home and tries to maintain contact with some of her patients via the internet.

“Being alive is already a form of resistance,” she said, adding that she wants her children to contribute to the future of Afghanistan, where she is sure her family will return one day.

“When my son passed the exam to access the faculty of medicine at a university in Rome, for me it was good news,” she said, during a commute to her Italian classes in central Rome. “Because if I came to a European country, it was mainly for the future of my children.”

After they overran Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban initially promised to respect the rights of women and minorities. Instead, they gradually imposed a ban on girls’ education beyond the sixth grade, kept women away from most fields of employment, and forced them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public.

Haidari tried to stay in Kabul with her family after the Taliban took over. She became an outspoken activist of the Afghanistan Women’s Political Participation Network to fight for women’s education, work and political involvement.

But the risks soon became too high. Haidari was not only an educated female activist, but also a member of the Hazara ethnic group.

The Hazara minority has been a frequent target of violence since the Taliban takeover. Most are Shiite Muslims, despised and targeted by Sunni militants like the Islamic State group, and discriminated against by many in the Sunni majority country.

Haidari received death threats for her research on sensitive issues in Afghan society, and in December 2021 decided to leave. She crossed to Pakistan with her family, and an Italian journalist, Maria Grazia Mazzola, helped her get on a plane from Pakistan to Italy.

“We heard that Taliban were shooting and searching houses very close to their hiding place,” Mazzola said. “We were frantically in touch with the Italian embassy in Pakistan, with confidential contacts in Afghanistan, and we decided together that they had to change their hiding place every three days.”

The Italian government evacuated more than 5,000 Afghans on military planes right after the Taliban takeover. Later, a network of Italian feminists, Catholic and Evangelical churches and volunteers like Mazzola kept organizing humanitarian corridors and set up hospitality in Italy throughout the following year.

Mazzola, who works for Italian public RAI TV and is an expert on Islamic fundamentalism, created a network of associations to host 70 Afghans, mostly Hazara women activists and their families.

Now that the refugees are in Italy and gradually getting asylum, Mazzola said, the priority is to secure for them official recognition of their university degrees or other qualifications that will help them find dignified employment.

“A woman like Batool (Haidari) cannot work as a cleaner in a school. It would be a waste for our society, too. She is a psychologist and deserves to continue working as such,” Mazzola said.

Haidari agreed. While she said she misses the streets and alleys of Kabul, and the easy life she used to have, “most of all I miss the fact that in Afghanistan, I was a much more useful person.”

 
…

The plight of a city in Kazakhstan left without heat for more than a week in temperatures that dropped to minus 30 degrees Celsius has sparked anger and highlighted the deplorable state of the country’s Soviet-era infrastructure.

This month, the northeastern city of Ekibastuz, with a population of around 150,000 people, descended into an icy hell, highlighting the dire consequences of power disruptions in winter as European countries struggle with shortages thanks to Moscow’s assault on Ukraine.

Ekibastuz was home to a Soviet-era prison camp where writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned between 1950 and 1953.

The camp became the inspiration for Solzhenitsyn’s classic novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”

Images broadcast in Kazakhstan in recent days showed long icicles forming inside apartments, while residents burned anything they could find to keep warm.

Teams worked day and night to repair water pipes that had burst because of the cold.

On November 28, authorities declared a state of emergency in Ekibastuz after a malfunction at a thermal power plant deprived several districts of electricity and heating.

The state of emergency was lifted on Thursday and the situation has gradually improved, but the problem has sparked outrage across the country.

Dimash Kudaibergen, a popular Kazakh singer with nearly 4 million followers on Instagram, said those responsible should pay for the “tears of the mothers left on the streets.”

“I believe that all the perpetrators, starting with the head of the thermal power plant, should be held accountable and serve their sentences in a prison without heating,” he said.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who saw deadly protests break out over fuel price hikes in January last year, fired the local governor and dispatched senior officials to the scene.

The city’s plight has sparked an outpouring of support, with residents of Kazakhstan collecting donations and sending heaters and blankets to Ekibastuz.

Funds were even collected in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, which itself suffers from power outages.

The Ekibastuz ordeal is just the latest in a long list of accidents involving thermal infrastructure in the vast Central Asian country.

Kazakhstan’s energy system, inherited from the Soviet Union, is still run-down despite investments.

“As they say here, the first time it’s an accident, the second time it’s a coincidence, but the third time it’s a rule,” energy expert Zhakyp Khairushev told AFP.

According to government data, heating plants were on average built more than 60 years ago under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Khairushev said that more than 1,000 emergency shutdowns had occurred at thermal power plants since the start of the year.

President Tokayev has lamented that the hydrocarbon-rich nation is “one of the world’s most energy-intensive countries” and depends on imports from Russia.

‘Unprofitable’ company

To meet the high demand, power stations need to operate at full capacity, which increases the risk of accidents.

Khairushev said the recent expansion of the power-hungry crypto mining industry was adding to the risks.

Twenty-two of Kazakhstan’s 37 thermal power stations are in private hands, and Tokayev has said he is considering the nationalization of a number of assets.

Many have laid the blame for the most recent accident on tycoon Alexander Klebanov, the owner of the Ekibastuz power station.

Klebanov, described by Forbes as the Central Asian country’s 15th-richest man, has denied responsibility.

In a video statement, he said he had repeatedly warned the authorities about the condition of the plant.

“But as a private company, we cannot raise consumer tariffs,” he said. “So the company has been unprofitable from the very beginning.”

Khairushev struck a similar note.

“The existing infrastructure is deteriorating,” he said. “If urgent measures are not taken, including the revision of tariffs, then, unfortunately, such accidents will not be uncommon.”
…

Pakistan said Saturday its security forces had intercepted and killed four Islamic State operatives in a remote mountainous district near the Afghanistan border.

The provincial counterterrorism department said the slain men were linked to Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), a regional affiliate of the self-proclaimed Islamic State group, and had intruded into the mountainous North Waziristan border district from the Afghan side.

Pakistani security forces, acting on intelligence information, conducted a “search operation” and an ensuing gunfight eventually killed the intruders, according to the statement.

ISIS-K operates out of Afghanistan and plots attacks on both sides of the border. It has intensified regional terrorist activities since the Taliban took over of the conflict-torn country last year as the United States and NATO partners withdrew troops after nearly 20 years of war.

Last week, two ISIS-K gunmen opened fire on Pakistan’s embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in an attempt to assassinate the head of the diplomatic mission.

Pakistan’s Charge d’Affaires Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani escaped unhurt, but his Pakistani security guard was shot in the chest, according to officials in Islamabad.

The Taliban claim their security forces in recent month have killed and captured dozens of ISIS-K members in Kabul and elsewhere in the country, significantly neutralizing the terror threat. But ISIS-K continues to plot high-profile bombings and gun attacks against the Taliban and members of the Afghan minority Shiite community, killing hundreds of people in the past year.

In September, an ISIS-K suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Russian embassy in Kabul, killing six people, including two members of the Russian embassy staff.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned last week that the Afghan-based terrorist group is among several top outfits posing a threat to America.

“ISIS-K is a concern and that is one that we are working to ensure that it does not become more of a concern,” Haines told the 2022 Reagan National Defense Forum in California.

“It’s largely focused on the Taliban right now and we are seeing the Taliban attempt (to combat ISIS-K). But frankly they (Taliban forces) really don’t have the capability to go after it,” she noted in her December 3 address.
…

This month, the Taliban acting minister of higher education in Afghanistan announced some changes to the country’s education policy. Former teachers are criticizing the changes, saying Afghanistan’s educational legacy is being damaged. VOA’s Ahmad Shikib has more in this report narrated by Shaista Lami.
…

A cyclonic storm killed at least four people in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on Saturday, the top state official said, as heavy rain and strong winds buffeted several districts damaging property and causing power outages.

Cyclone Mandous, which made landfall late Friday night, damaged 185 houses and huts, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, MK Stalin, told reporters. The storm uprooted 400 trees in the state capital Chennai, a hub for auto makers and technology firms.

Nearly 25,000 people, including disaster relief personnel, were involved in the relief work, and more than 9,000 people were moved to safety in 201 relief camps, Stalin said.

“We are still assessing damages,” he told reporters, as he visited some of the affected areas.

Mandous had weakened from an earlier severe category as it swept past Sri Lanka, where schools were closed on Friday due to high air pollution levels from the storm.

It was expected to gradually weaken into a low-pressure area, India’s meteorological department tweeted on Saturday.
…

Bangladesh’s next general election will be held during the first week of January 2024, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told a public rally Wednesday.

Hasina was reelected for a record third term in 2018, but her party’s landslide win was tainted by violence and allegations of vote-rigging.

During her speech in Cox’s Bazar, in southeastern Bangladesh, Hasina called on people to vote for her Awami League again.

“I urge you to cast your votes for the symbol of the boat again,” she said. A boat is the Awami League’s election symbol.

The opposition alliance alleged that in the 2018 vote, people they called pro-government thugs, with the help of police, illegally stuffed ballot boxes in polling booths across the country in the presence of election and security officials.

The alliance and pro-democracy activists rejected the results of the election and stories of the alleged rigging were reported across the global media.

In recent months, the United Nations and countries including the United States have urged the Hasina government to hold the next national election in a free and fair manner.

In October, on a visit to Bangladesh U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman affirmed the importance of upholding human rights and conducting “free, fair and peaceful” national elections in the country.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Nov. 7 that with respect to the “political process and the next election” in Bangladesh, the U.S. hoped for “a robust civic participation” and the people of the country would be able to “choose their own government through free and fair elections.”

“We urge the government of Bangladesh to create a safe environment for people to peacefully assemble and to voice their concerns, and relatedly, for opposition parties to campaign without facing intimidation and repression,” Price said.

A.K.M. Wahiduzzaman, a leader of the BNP, the country’s largest opposition party, who is now in exile in Malaysia, also worried about the potential fairness of the coming elections. “With the Bangladesh government in recent weeks beginning to crack down on dissidents as they did during the runup to the 2018 national elections, it is difficult to believe that the next national elections would be fair,” he said.

“The global community wants a free and fair election to be held in Bangladesh next time. But the government and the ruling party are not allowing the largest opposition party to exercise our political rights,” Wahiduzzaman told VOA.

“At least 4,000 BNP activists have been arrested under fake cases of violence and subversive activities in the past weeks while we have been conducting a nationwide campaign for a free, fair and all-inclusive national election. In such a situation, the world is going to witness another mock election in Bangladesh,” he said.

Awami League leaders say that the BNP claim that its activists are being framed in fake cases was not true.

“The BNP leaders are making hollow political statements. There is no basis of truth behind those statements,” Abdur Rahman, a member of the Awami League presidium told VOA.

“Their cadres are resorting to violence and threatening to destabilize the country, in the name of political activities. Law enforcement agencies are doing their duty. Following the law, the agencies are taking action against those opposition party activists,” he said.

However, Wahiduzzaman said the Hasina government cannot be trusted.

“Unless a neutral nonpolitical caretaker government is installed in the country in the coming months the next election would not be free and fair at all,” he told VOA.
…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has won an overwhelming victory in a state assembly vote in his home state of Gujarat, putting it in a strong position ahead of the 2024 general elections.    

The BJP, however, lost to the main opposition Congress Party in the small northern state of Himachal Pradesh.  

Political analysts said the party’s massive win in Gujarat where it is returning to power for a record seventh term, has reaffirmed Modi’s runaway popularity.   

Gujarat, which Modi had ruled for nearly 13 years before becoming prime minister in 2014, is one of India’s most economically progressive states.   

The BJP won 156 of the 182 state assembly seats, the largest victory secured by any party in the western state.      

“People blessed politics of development and at the same time expressed a desire that they want this momentum to continue at a greater pace,” Modi tweeted. The party’s supporters danced and beat drums as the vote count showed its record-breaking win.   

While BJP leaders attributed the Gujarat victory to the party’s governance, political analysts said that Modi’s wide appeal in his home state, where he campaigned extensively, and the party’s pro-Hindu ideology, have propelled it to a favorable position.   

“Hindutva ideology is very strongly rooted in Gujarat’s consciousness,” says Amit Dholakia, professor of political science at Maharaja Sayajirao University in the city of Vadodara. “And now with the record number of seats that the BJP holds in the state assembly, it will be in a position to implement the policies it wants with greater vigor.”  

A split in opposition votes also helped the BJP, whose main challenger has traditionally been the Congress Party; but a regional party entered the electoral fray for the first time in Gujarat in a bid to establish a footprint outside Delhi and Punjab state, which it rules.   

Although the Aam Aadmi party is set to win only a handful of seats, political analysts said its spirited campaign has helped it establish its presence in the state. The party emerged from an anti-corruption movement about a decade ago and has ambitions to displace the Congress Party as the principal challenger to the BJP by building its base among lower socioeconomic groups. 

It may have succeeded in doing so in Gujarat. “I see this election as the beginning of the end of the Congress in Gujarat. In five years, the Aam Aadmi party will be the main opposition party and Congress will go out of the race like it did in many other states in India,” says Dholakia.  

The results in Himachal Pradesh, where the Congress Party is set to wrest power from the BJP, brought a flicker of hope to India’s once-dominant party, whose electoral fortunes have tumbled in recent years.   

“Their performance in Himachal shows that the Congress can live to fight another day if they have a strong organization. It also shows that the Modi magic does not work everywhere,” according to independent political analyst Rasheed Kidwai. “After all, he campaigned here also but failed to make the same impact as in his home state, where challenging him was a herculean task.”  

The BJP also lost a key election to run the New Delhi municipality, which it had controlled for 15 years, to the regional Aam Aadmi party on Wednesday.   

While Modi’s wide appeal has helped the party shrug aside opposition criticism on issues such as inflation, unemployment and religious polarization, political analysts said the setbacks in Delhi and Himachal Pradesh showed that it is vulnerable.  

The BJP has ruled since 2014 after defeating the Congress Party and steadily expanded its presence across the country. The BJP now rules 17 of India’s 28 states. 
…

The hardline Taliban government in Afghanistan pushed back Thursday against an international outcry over its first public execution and application of Sharia, or Islamic law, to criminal justice at large, calling it “reprehensible” and “interference” in the country’s internal affairs.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement the criticism had “unfortunately” stemmed from a lack of understanding and research about Islam as well as Afghanistan, where he said more than 99% of the population are Muslim.

“They have rendered many sacrifices for the enforcement of Islamic laws and system in the country,” Mujahid said.

On Wednesday, the radical Taliban carried out their first public execution since seizing power last year, putting to death a man convicted of murder, causing outrage among global human rights defenders. The United States called the execution “despicable.”

The execution was staged in a sports stadium in western Farah province, where top Taliban leaders were among hundreds of spectators. Officials said the sentence, carried out by the father of the victim, was in line with “qisas,” an Islamic law stipulating the person is punished in the same way the victim was murdered.

The United Nations decried the action as a form of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and “contrary to the right to life protected” under international laws.

Mujahid defended the public execution, saying death penalties “are given all over the world, even in America and Europe.”

In recent weeks, Taliban authorities also have flogged dozens of men and women in crowded football stadiums in several areas, including the capital, Kabul, for committing alleged “moral crimes” such as adultery, theft, running away from home, “illegal relationships, and sodomy.”

On Thursday, the Taliban Supreme Court announced the public flogging of another 27 convicts, including nine women, in Parwan province, about 50 kilometers north of the Afghan capital. It said the “criminals confessed” to their crimes without any force.

“The fact that Afghanistan is being criticized for applying Islamic sentences shows that some countries and organizations have either insufficient knowledge or have problems with Islam, respecting Muslims’ beliefs and laws,” Mujahid stated.

“This action is an interference in the internal affairs of countries and is reprehensible.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington that officials were closely watching the Taliban’s treatment of Afghans and their strict interpretation of Sharia.

“This indicates to us that the Taliban seek a return to their regressive and abusive practices of the 1990s,” he said, referring to the hardline group’s previous rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

“It was an affront to the dignity and the human rights of all Afghans then; it would be an affront to the dignity and the human rights of all Afghans now. It is a clear failure by the Taliban to uphold their promises,” Price added.

While the former Taliban government was recognized by only three countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and neighboring Pakistan, no foreign government has yet established formal ties with the new male-only regime in Kabul over human rights concerns, especially the treatment of Afghan women.

Despite repeated assurances to the international community that they would respect women’s rights to public life and education, the Taliban have ordered women to cover their faces in public and not undertake long road trips without a close male relative.

Women are barred from entering public parks, gyms and baths, while most female government staff members have been told to stay at home.

Teenage girls have been banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade across most of Afghanistan.

Thomas West, the U.S. special Afghan representative, on Wednesday met with Taliban Defense Minister Mulawi Mohammed Yaqub in Abu Dhabi where he raised “the deteriorating” human rights situation in Afghanistan, particularly for women and girls.

“The country’s economic & social stability & the Taliban’s domestic & international legitimacy depend enormously on their treatment of Afghanistan’s mothers & daughters,” West said on Twitter after the meeting.

The Taliban regained power in August 2021 as the United States and NATO withdrew their troops from the country after 20 years of war.

The transition triggered enforcement of international sanctions against the former insurgent group and suspension of financial aid to Afghanistan, worsening humanitarian conditions and plunging the conflict-torn country’s economy into crisis.

The Taliban began implementing public punishments in early November, when their reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, ordered judges to fully enforce Sharia. Akhundzada has pledged repeatedly to govern Afghanistan strictly in line with Islamic law, telling the international community he would not compromise on Sharia, come what may.
…

Police in Bangladesh killed one person and wounded more than 60 people Wednesday in Dhaka when they fired upon activists and members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the largest opposition party of the country, according to reports in Dhaka newspapers.

The situation across the country is volatile as BNP gears up for a major political protest in Dhaka on Saturday. Police have arrested thousands of BNP activists in a crackdown in the past month. More than 1,300 of them were arrested Tuesday, according to a statement from the police. On Wednesday, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi was arrested, along with 300 other party leaders and activists.

Thousands of BNP activists were standing in front of the party headquarters Wednesday afternoon when police opened fire with live ammunition, pellets, rubber bullets and tear gas. The activists retaliated by throwing bricks and stones at the police, witnesses reported.

“Saturday’s rally is to be massive, and our party activists began gathering in front of the BNP headquarters this morning in preparation of Saturday’s protest rally when police attacked them,” Mohammad Arifur Rahman Tushar, a BNP leader who was present, told VOA. “It was a peaceful gathering. Some activists were chanting slogans in support of the BNP, when police began firing upon them without any provocation from our side.”

Unidentified police officers told reporters working for two Dhaka newspapers, however, the BNP protesters attacked the police first, triggering the police action “to disperse” them.

BNP leaders and other political observers estimate at least 1 million people will attend the Saturday rally if the government and ruling party activists do not try to curtail participation. They say BNP activists and supporters are planning to come from different districts of the country to join the protest in Dhaka.

Bangladesh is expected to hold national elections next year. The protest is part of the opposition’s demand for a non-political, neutral caretaker government before the election.

During the national election in 2018, opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling party of rigging the election, an accusation the party denied.

For the past few months, the United States and other countries have urged the Hasina government to hold the next election in a free and fair manner. However, opposition leaders say the Bangladesh government has begun cracking down on dissidents similar to what they had done before as elections approached.

Since September, at least seven BNP activists have been shot dead by police in Bangladesh while they were holding peaceful rallies protesting rising prices and other key issues.

The Bangladesh Internal Security Ministry has not responded to related queries from VOA on the extrajudicial killings of BNP activists.

After BNP announced its plan to hold the Saturday rally in a closed-door meeting with party leaders on October 29, Prime Minister Hasina said that if the BNP resorted to violence in the name of political activities, its cadres would be attacked the way Islamic group Hefajat-e-Islam was handled in the past.

In 2013, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch reported that about 50 protest participants of Hefajat were killed as a result of a violent crackdown by government security forces. 

A spokesperson for Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB, a paramilitary police force, said this week the force would be ready to tackle the BNP activists if they do anything “untoward” during the protests.

In the past, the RAB has been accused of human rights abuses, including forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. For its actions, the United States imposed human rights-related sanctions on RAB last year.

Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer of the Hong Kong-based Asian Legal Resource Center, said the core institutions such as the Election Commission, Judiciary, Anti-Corruption Commission, police and the bureaucracy collectively helped the Hasina regime rig the elections and then justify its actions.

“The citizens of Bangladesh do not trust that a credible and fair election can be held in Bangladesh without Sheikh Hasina being removed from the state’s power and while she is in a campaign of perpetual ‘absolute power,'” Ashrafuzzaman told VOA.

“Fearing a people’s uprising in the lead-up to the opposition’s December 10 public rally, the Hasina regime deployed SWAT — which was trained by the U.S. for combating armed terrorists — to disperse the unarmed BNP activists in Dhaka today.”
…

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers Wednesday carried out the first public execution of a man charged with murder since returning to power, applying their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, to criminal justice.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the early morning execution had taken place in a sports stadium in western Farah province, with top officials, including the deputy prime minister and the foreign and interior ministers, among hundreds of spectators.

The executed person was tried in the highest Taliban courts and subsequent appellate tribunals where he had “confessed to stabbing to death” a resident of Farah and stealing his belongings, including a motorcycle, Mujahid explained.

“He was found guilty, and the sentence of retribution was enforced on the murderer,” he said, noting the execution was in line with the “qisas” law, which stipulates the person is punished in the same way the victim was murdered.

“The killer was shot three times by the father of the deceased with an assault rifle,” the spokesman claimed.

Mujahid argued the decision to enforce the Sharia sentence was “very carefully” examined and finally approved by Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada.

The execution has followed the flogging of dozens of men and women by Taliban authorities in front of hundreds of onlookers in football stadiums in the capital, Kabul, and several Afghan provinces over the past month.

The victims were accused of committing “moral crimes,” such as adultery, theft, and running away from home.

Public floggings and executions were widespread under the previous Taliban government in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

The radical group regained power in August 2021 as the United States and NATO withdrew all of their troops from the country after 20 years of war.

Despite repeated assurances to the international community that they would govern the war-ravaged country exclusively and respect women’s rights to public life as well as education, the Taliban have brought back their harsh polices to rule the improvised Afghan nation.

Women have been ordered to cover their faces in public and not undertake long road trips without a close male relative. They are barred from entering public parks, gyms and baths across the country. Most female government staff members have been told to stay at home.

Teenage girls have been banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade across most of Afghanistan.

The restrictions on women have prevented foreign governments and the international community at large from formally recognizing the men-only Taliban government, worsening humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan and plunging its economy into a crisis.

Last month, a United Nations panel of independent experts warned that Taliban curbs on women’s rights and freedoms could amount to a “crime against humanity” and should be investigated as “gender persecution” under international law.

Mujahid denounced the U.N. panel, saying criticism of their Sharia-based criminal justice is “disrespect to the holy religion of Islam and against international rules.” 
…

Pakistan’s Supreme Court Tuesday began scrutinizing an apparently lackluster government investigation into what the top court said was “the brutal killing” of a highly regarded investigative journalist while in self-exile in Kenya.

Arshad Sharif, 50, was fatally shot in the head under mysterious circumstances by police officers at a checkpoint outside Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, last October in what was swiftly declared a case of “mistaken identity” for a carjacking.

A panel of five judges, led by the chief justice, at an initial hearing, asked Pakistan’s foreign and interior ministries, as well as federal investigation agencies, to submit their responses Wednesday when the court reconvenes.

“The journalist community and the public at large are deeply distressed and concerned about the death of the senior journalist and are seeking the court’s scrutiny of the matter,” said a Pakistani Supreme Court statement.

Sharif spent years hosting a popular prime-time television political talk show for ARY News before fleeing Pakistan for Kenya in July, citing threats to his life after the government registered a treason case against him.

His killing caused an uproar in Pakistan, with demands for an impartial investigation to determine who was responsible for his death.

In a report, Kenyan police said they had established a roadblock to intercept car thieves and opened fire on Sharif’s vehicle when it drove through the roadblock late at night without stopping. The report noted that one of the nine bullets fired at the car hit Sharif in the head. 

But Pakistani investigators, after visiting Kenya last month, disputed the police claims, saying Sharif was the victim of a targeted killing, not an accidental shooting.

“Arshad Sharif’s death is not a case of mistaken identity – I can say, and on the evidence we have so far, this prima facie is a target killing,” Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters in Islamabad while sharing initial findings of the government-led probe.

The minister said the journalist’s body bore bruises and torture marks. The government, however, has since been largely silent on the status of the probe while journalists and family members of the slain TV host have consistently called for Supreme Court intervention.

The sedition charges filed against Sharif stemmed from accusations he had used his show to magnify an opposition politician’s interview, which purportedly was instigating the Pakistani armed forces into mutiny.

The politician in question, a close aide to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the slain journalist, denied the allegations.

Khan has maintained in his speeches and media interviews that Sharif had been murdered for his journalistic work, leading calls for a judicial probe to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The Pakistani military and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have both denied allegations they had anything to do with the killing.

There are still questions regarding more than a dozen cases instituted against the murdered journalist in various Pakistani cities on treason charges, which many see as phony. The cases forced Sharif to flee the country.

International media freedom advocacy groups list Pakistan among the most dangerous countries for journalists.

Reporters Without Borders, a France-based global watchdog, said in a statement Monday that an average of five Pakistani journalists have died every year in the South Asian nation since 2012 because they were journalists. The rate of impunity for killings of journalists in Pakistan is more than 96%.

“Action is urgently needed,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, after visiting Pakistan. “A democracy cannot function when journalists literally risk their lives doing their job.”

Pakistan is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index. 
…

Pakistan said Monday that Russia had decided to export crude oil, gasoline and diesel to the South Asian nation at discounted prices.

Deputy Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik shared the details at a news conference in Islamabad after visiting Moscow last week where he met with his Russian counterparts.

“An inter-governmental delegation ed by Russian energy minister will visit Pakistan next month and we will try to firm up all the details I have shared with you so we can sign the agreement to buy crude oil, petrol and diesel at a discounted rate,” Malik said.

He did not share specifics such as the discount offered by Moscow or how soon Islamabad would be able to import Russian petroleum products.

“The discounted rate will be the same as the rate being offered to other countries in the world,” Malik asserted.

The minister said his talks “turned out to be more productive than expected” and they were driven by Pakistan’s “national interest” requiring the government to overcome domestic energy shortages from all possible sources.

Malik said Pakistan was also interested in buying liquefied natural gas, or LNG, but that Russian state-owned companies’ supplies of the product are tight at present.

“Russia is in the process of installing new production units and has invited Pakistan to initiate talks on long-term contracts to buy LNG,” he said. Malik added that Russian officials also arranged his delegation’s talks with private companies in Moscow on importing LNG.

There were no immediate comments from Moscow on possible energy deals with Pakistan.

Pakistan has struggled to meet its LNG supply needs as its gas reserves shrink by as much as 10% a year. The county’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves have constrained its ability to purchase fossil fuels from abroad.

Meanwhile, Malik said neighboring Iran had decided to donate nearly a million kilograms of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in “humanitarian aid” to Pakistan this winter. “It will reach the country within the next 10 days,” he said. 

 
…

Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities said Monday they had arrested a foreign operative of the Islamic State militant group for allegedly carrying out last week’s failed assassination attempt on Pakistan’s chief diplomat in the country.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed in a statement, citing initial investigations, that Friday’s gun assault on Pakistani Chargé d’affaires Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani in Kabul was plotted with the aim of sowing distrust with Islamabad.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that two gunmen from its regional affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province or ISIS-K, had carried it out. 

Mujahid wrote on Twitter the detainee “is a foreign country national and a member of Daesh.” He used a local name for ISIS-K but did not say what country the suspect was from. The spokesman asserted that the assault was jointly planned by ISIS-K and anti-Taliban forces.

Pakistani officials said Nizamani was on a routine afternoon walk inside the embassy compound when gunmen opened fire on him from a nearby building. He escaped unhurt, but his Pakistani security guard was hit in the chest and both legs by bullets.

“Some foreign groups are behind the attack and the intention was to create distrust between the two brotherly countries,” Mujahid said. He added the investigation into the shooting incident was continuing and promised to share future details later.

ISIS-K has stepped up high-profile bombings and other terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power last year. The violence has killed top Taliban clerics and hundreds of members of the minority Shiite community. The terrorist group also claimed responsibility for a September suicide bombing near the Russian embassy in Kabul that killed two Russian staff and four Afghan visitors.

Pakistan, which shares a nearly 2,600-kilometer border with Afghanistan, has long maintained close ties with the Islamist Taliban. It was one of the three countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that had formally recognized the previous Taliban government in Kabul from 1996 to 2001.

Over the past 20 years, the Pakistani military was routinely accused of sheltering and covertly supporting Taliban fighters as they waged an insurgency against U.S.-led NATO troops providing security to the internationally backed former Afghan government.

The Islamist insurgents regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021 when all foreign troops withdrew from the country and the U.S.-trained Afghan security forces collapsed.

No country has yet recognized the Taliban’s rule, but Islamabad has boosted its economic and trade partnership with Kabul to help it deal with the dire humanitarian and financial challenges facing Afghanistan.

Bilateral relations in recent months, however, have become strained over concerns fugitive militants linked to the Pakistani offshoot of the Afghan Taliban have stepped up attacks in Pakistan from Afghan bases since the Taliban takeover. 
…

The Islamic State group said Saturday it is responsible for a Friday assassination attempt on Pakistan’s chief diplomat in Afghanistan.

Sources said Charge d’affaires Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani survived, but his security guard was critically injured.

In a statement Saturday, the Islamic State group’s regional chapter said it had “attacked the apostate Pakistani ambassador and his guards.”

A police spokesperson in Kabul said one suspect has been arrested and two weapons seized.

Nizamani was on a routine afternoon walk Friday inside the sprawling embassy compound when unknown gunmen opened fire on him from a nearby building. The diplomat escaped unhurt, but his security guard was hit in the chest by three bullets, sources added.

A Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry statement in Islamabad condemned what it called an attempted assassination of Nizamani. It demanded the Taliban government in Kabul immediately investigate the shooting and bring the culprits to justice. Pakistan also called on local authorities to take urgent measures to ensure the safety and security of its diplomatic mission, personnel and citizens in Afghanistan.

Afghan Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a statement that his government strongly condemns “the failed firing attack” at the Pakistan embassy and that it will not allow “any malicious actors” to pose a threat to the security of diplomatic missions in the Afghan capital.

“Our security [agencies] will conduct a serious investigation, identify perpetrators and bring them to justice,” Balkhi said.

Pakistan and the world at large do not formally recognize Afghanistan’s Taliban government, although Pakistan — along with China, Russia, Turkey, Qatar and several other countries — has kept its embassy in Kabul open.
…