Guranda

15/01/2024

PM Modi, Putin discuss developments in India-Russia strategic partnership
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday agreed to chalk out a roadmap for future initiatives to further strengthen the “special and privileged strategic partnership” between the two nations.

Last month, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited Russia, during which the two countries decided to step up military and technical cooperation, including manufacturing of modern weaponry.

“Had a good conversation with President Putin. We discussed various positive developments in our Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership and agreed to chalk out a roadmap for future initiatives. We also had a useful exchange of views on various regional and global issues, including Russia’s Presidency of the BRICS,” the Prime Minister said on X.

Later in a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said Modi and Putin reviewed progress on a number of issues of bilateral cooperation in follow-up to recent high-level exchanges between the two countries.

“They positively assessed the developments in bilateral relations and agreed to develop a roadmap for future initiatives to further strengthen the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership,” the MEA statement said.

Mr. Modi also conveyed his best wishes for Russia’s Presidency of BRICS in 2024 and assured India’s full support, the MEA statement said, adding that the two leaders agreed to remain in touch.

BSP will go it alone in Lok Sabha polls: Mayawati
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Monday reiterated her stand to fight the 2024 parliamentary polls alone but did not rule out a post-poll alliance.

“We suffer more losses from alliances. Most of the parties want to ally with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). But, the BSP will fight the elections alone. An alliance can be considered after the polls,” said Ms. Mayawati, addressing a press conference in Lucknow on her 68th birthday.

“With the support of people hailing from backward community, tribals, Dalits and Muslims, we [the BSP] formed a majority government in the State in 2007 Assembly polls, and that’s why we have decided to contest the parliamentary elections alone. We will maintain a distance with those who are casteist and communal, and we will not join any alliance,” added the former four time U.P. CM.

Ms. Mayawati also put on rest speculation of retiring from politics adding she will continue towards strengthening the BSP. “Last month, I declared Akash Anand as my political successor at the National Council meeting of the party, following which it was being speculated in media that I may soon retire from politics. However, I want to clarify that it’s not the case, and I will continue to work towards strengthening the party,” said the BSP president.

The BSP chief asked the party leaders and workers to put all the necessary effort going into the 2024 polls.

Over 24.8 crore people moved out of poverty in India in nine years: NITI report
As many as 24.82 crore people moved out of multidimensional poverty in nine years to 2022-23, with Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh registering the largest decline, NITI Aayog said in a report on Monday.

According to the NITI discussion paper, multidimensional poverty in India declined from 29.17% in 2013-14 to 11.28% in 2022-23, with about 24.82 crore people moving out of this bracket during this period.

The national multidimensional poverty measures simultaneous deprivations across three equally weighted dimensions of health, education, and standard of living that are represented by 12 sustainable development goals-aligned indicators, according to NITI Aayog.

These include nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, maternal health, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets, and bank accounts. The National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by Niti Aayog uses the Alkire Foster methodology to assess the decline in poverty rates. However, the National MPI covers 12 indicators while global MPI covers 10 indicators.

At the State level, Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 5.94 crore people escaping poverty followed by Bihar at 3.77 crore and Madhya Pradesh at 2.30 crore.

The paper said India is all set to reach single-digit poverty levels during 2024.

Want to make Manipur peaceful, harmonious again: Rahul on 2nd day of Nyay Yatra
The Congress stands with the people of Manipur and wants to make the State peaceful and harmonious again, former party chief Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday as he interacted with the people on the second day of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

Starting the yatra this morning in a custom-made Volvo bus, Mr. Gandhi also walked for some distance meeting people and enquiring about their problems.

Addressing the people from atop his bus in Senapati, he said the Congress did a yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and the idea was to bring people of India together.

“It was a very successful yatra where we walked over 4,000 km,” he said.

The Congress stands with the people of Manipur and wants to make the State peaceful and harmonious again, former party chief Rahul Gandhi said on January 15 as he interacted with the people on the second day of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

Starting the yatra this morning in a custom-made Volvo bus, Mr. Gandhi also walked for some distance meeting people and enquiring about their problems.

Several people, a number of them women and children, had lined up along the yatra route and cheered on Mr. Gandhi as his bus made its way along several busy areas in Senapati.

Addressing the people from atop his bus in Senapati, he said the Congress did a yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and the idea was to bring people of India together.

“It was a very successful yatra where we walked over 4,000 km,” he said.

“We wanted to do another yatra from east to west and we decided that the most powerful thing would be to start the yatra from Manipur so that the people of India get a sense of what the people of Manipur have been through, the difficulty that they have been through, the struggles they have been through,” the Congress leader said.

11/01/2024

Maldives, China agree to ‘elevate’ strategic cooperation
Noting that the “strategic significance” of China-Maldives relations has become more prominent, the two countries committed to greater strategic cooperation this week, while China said it “firmly opposes” external interference in the internal affairs of the Maldives, according to a joint press communiqué.

“The two sides agree to elevate China-Maldives relations to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, better leverage the political guidance of high-level engagement, expand practical cooperation between the two countries in various fields, strengthen collaboration on international and multilateral affairs, enhance the well-being of the two peoples, and work toward a China-Maldives community with a shared future,” said the communiqué, issued on January 11, on the penultimate day of Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s five-day state visit to China.

The move is among many initiatives the two countries announced, including Maldives’s participation in the Global Security Initiative, following Sri Lanka’s affirmation in October 2023. The two governments agreed to draw up an “action plan” for building a “China-Maldives Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership from 2024 to 2028.

President Muizzu’s visit coincides with a diplomatic row between Maldives and India, after three junior ministers in the Maldives posted controversial remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, referring to his recent trip to Lakshadweep.

Meanwhile, the Maldivian President made a significant pitch for the country’s tourism industry in his ongoing visit, urging Chinese tourists to reclaim their top spot in arrivals, effectively replacing Indian tourists holding the position for the last two years.

In his meeting with President Xi, the newly elected Maldivian leader hailed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and said his country looks forward to expanding new channels of cooperation and promote high-quality partnership in the construction of the Belt and Road, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. China said it “respects and supports” the Maldives’s “exploration of a development path that suits its national conditions”, and “firmly opposes” external interference in the internal affairs of the Maldives, according to the joint statement.

Two governments agreed to cooperate — the two leaders presided over the signing of 20 MoUs — in several areas including blue economy, digital economy, infrastructure development projects linked to the BRI, disaster and risk mitigation, and news cooperation, through an MoU between the Public Service Media of the Maldives and the Xinhua news agency of China.

11/01/2024

Can Putin Afford Ukraine?

By most accounts, the Russian economy has survived President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. Despite a US-led effort to punish Russia’s state finances and national economy with sanctions, Russian GDP is expected by some economists to grow this year. “Key sectors of Russia’s economy are adapting and in some cases completely rebounding from unprecedented international sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine,” Bloomberg reported in November. Russia’s financial technocrats have received plaudits for successfully navigating rough waters.

But not all is well, Alexandra Prokopenko argues in a Foreign Affairs essay, writing that strong economic indicators are “symptomatic of overheating.” Prokopenko identifies economic problems in Russia that suggest “Putin is facing an impossible trilemma. … (H)e must fund his ongoing war against Ukraine, maintain his populace’s living standards, and safeguard macroeconomic stability.”

War spending has artificially propped up Russian output, Prokopenko writes. Inflation in Russia currently sits at 7%; interest rates, at 16%; and continued borrowing at that rate suggests Russians expect inflation to continue. Putin may “splash” even more government spending into the economy before the spring election, feeding the sugar high even further. Prokopenko’s broader point: “With the war unlikely to end soon, the financial and economic costs will mount and are likely to bite Russia several years from now. This process could be speeded by a major global recession or a slowdown of the Chinese economy, which would hit Russia hard because of its heavy dependence on revenues from commodities exports. The specter of a bitter economic hangover looms large unless a new and sustainable Russian economic model emerges.”

10/01/2024

Ukraine’s Race to Rearm

“(T)he war may not be won outright this year,” The New Yorker’s Joshua Yaffa writes of the fierce conflict between Russia and Ukraine, “but the conditions for victory may well be set in motion.”

The battlefield is stalemated, as top Ukrainian commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny told The Economist in a widely publicized fall interview, but Yaffa and others see Ukraine and Russia now entering a critical race to rearm themselves. As the Global Briefing noted recently, Royal United Services Institute military expert Jack Watling made a similar argument in Foreign Affairs—pointing to flagging Western support for Kyiv, as additional US aid is mired in partisan congressional politics and as the European Union is set to miss its targeted sum of artillery-shell and missile deliveries to Ukraine by March; to Russia’s acquisition of shells from North Korea; and to Russia’s rates of artillery fire that now far surpass Ukraine’s.

“This year is likely to be marked by exchanges of missile and rocket fire rather than dramatic, large-scale maneuver warfare,” writes The New Yorker’s Yaffa, quoting Watling and other experts along the way. “But the most decisive fight may also be the least immediately visible: Russia and Ukraine will spend the next twelve months in a race to determine which side can better reconstitute and resupply its forces, in terms of not only personnel but also shells, rockets, and drones.”

Western weapons supplies loom as a limiting factor in Ukraine’s war effort and could determine the war’s ultimate outcome, analysts have said throughout the conflict. That fits well within Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent viewpoint, Yaffa writes: “(A)s Putin has always seen it, his real interlocutor is not the government in Kyiv but its Western backers, the U.S. most of all.” In that vein, talk of a negotiated settlement seems poised to percolate in Western capitals, as Putin signaled in late December that he might be ready to make a deal. In a Moscow Times op-ed, Oleksa Drachewych writes that even under a ceasefire, Moscow likely wouldn’t stop trying to dominate Ukraine.

08/01/2024

TRUMP'S MOST DANGEROUS ARGUMENT YET Trump is trying to quash his indictment for the attempt to steal the 2020 election by arguing before a federal appeals court that presidents have an “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution, even after leaving office. That flies in the face of U.S. history, common practice and conception as a democratic republic, HuffPost's Paul Blumenthal reports.

08/01/2024

Weekly update 225: Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir Jan 2 2024, to Jan 8 2024 R**e, extra judicial killings, draconian laws,

communications lockdown, curfew, extra judicial killings, r**e, Weekly update 1: Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir

07/01/2024

Weekly Kashmir update 266 Jan 1 2024 to Jan 7 2024 , struggle of Kashmir’s for freedom, Human rights violations, lock down ,r**e ,extra judicial killings ;https://javedrashid.blogspot.com/2021/10/kashmir-struggle-news-update-weekly.html

05/01/2024

A ‘New Suez Crisis’ Percolates

Is the war in Gaza spilling across the Middle East, as analysts have feared since Oct. 7?

Signs are troubling. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a bombing in Iran. Israel has killed a deputy Hamas leader in Lebanon. Late last month, it killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards member in Syria. The US on Thursday struck in Baghdad at Iran-backed Iraqi militias, as Le Monde’s Hélène Sallon writes, apparently to send a message to Iran about proxy attacks on US forces in the region. Questions linger as to whether the Iran-backed terrorist group and dominant Lebanese political party Hezbollah will involve itself in Israel’s war on Hamas.

Debatably, the most concerning developments have happened in the Red Sea, where Iran-backed Houthi militants—engaged in a long and violent civil war for control of Yemen—have begun attacking international cargo ships, saying they will target all international ships heading for Israeli ports if Gaza does not receive needed shipments of food and medicine. The US—along with allies Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and the United Kingdom—has warned the Houthis of “consequences.”

The Economist calls this a “new Suez crisis,” hearkening back to the 1956 British–French–Egyptian standoff over the Sinai Peninsula. Noting major significance to global trade, the magazine writes: “Bab al-Mandab is a narrow strait between Africa and the Arabian peninsula through which an estimated 12% of global trade by volume normally flows, and perhaps 30% of global container traffic. It has become a no-go zone as the Houthis, based in Yemen, attack shipping, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

At The World Politics Review, Alexander Clarkson marvels at what’s happening: “That the Houthi movement would eventually acquire the military power to paralyze a sea route crucial to the globalized economy would have seemed improbable when it was founded in 1992. … (O)utside observers were caught off-guard by the speed with which the movement opted for confrontation with global powers in response to events in Gaza. … With every major shipping firm diverting its vessels away from the Red Sea and insurance rates skyrocketing for the few commercial vessels still willing to dock at (the Yemeni port of) Hodeidah, the specter of confrontation with the U.S., Europeans and perhaps even India has led to further deterioration of conditions for those living under Houthi rule.”

05/01/2024

LIMS: Agriculture reforms in Pakistan:
LIMS ,Agriculture

LIMS ,Agriculture

05/01/2024

War in the shadows http://t.co/pWHqKvS9Yr , India's ongoing secret war against Pakistan

Pakistan will have to defeat India’s secret war against Pakistan if it is to defeat the TTP.

01/01/2024

Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus convicted in Bangladesh labour law case
Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was convicted on January 1 of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a case decried by his supporters as politically motivated.

Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but has earned the enmity of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor.

Hasina has made several scathing verbal attacks against the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was once seen as a political rival.

Yunus and three colleagues from Grameen Telecom, one of the firms he founded, were accused of violating labour laws when they failed to create a workers’ welfare fund in the company.

A labour court in the capital Dhaka convicted and sentenced them to “six months’ simple imprisonment”, lead prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan told AFP, adding that all four were immediately granted bail pending appeals.

All four deny the charges. “This verdict is unprecedented,” Abdullah Al Mamun, a lawyer for Yunus, said. “We did not get justice.”

Yunus is facing more than 100 other charges over labour law violations and alleged graft. He told reporters after one of the hearings last month that he had not profited from any of the more than 50 social business firms he had set up in Bangladesh.

Another of his lawyers, Khaja Tanvir, told AFP that the case was “meritless, false and ill-motivated”.

Irene Khan, a former Amnesty chief now working as a U.N. special rapporteur who was present at the verdict, said that the conviction was “a travesty of justice”.

“A social activist and Nobel laureate who brought honour and pride to the country is being persecuted on frivolous grounds,” she said.

In August, 160 global figures, including former U.S. president Barack Obama and ex-UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, published a joint letter denouncing “continuous judicial harassment” of Yunus.

01/01/2024

Monthly update: 53 Dec 2023 Muslims in India. This page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India. Lynching, cow killings,

cow killings, lynching’s, Monthly update: Muslims in India. . Monthly update September 2019: Muslims in India

01/01/2024

Weekly update 224: Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir Dec 26 2023, to Dec 31 2023 R**e, extra judicial killings, draconian laws,

communications lockdown, curfew, extra judicial killings, r**e, Weekly update 1: Human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir

31/12/2023

Weekly Kashmir update 265 Dec 25 2023 to Dec 31 2023 , struggle of Kashmir’s for freedom, Human rights violations, lock down ,r**e ,extra judicial killings ;https://javedrashid.blogspot.com/2021/10/kashmir-struggle-news-update-weekly.html

30/12/2023

Crisis looms over 2024 election as Maine becomes second state to rule Trump off the ballot
The challenges to Trump’s ballot status form a patchwork of the 50 states that gives a glimpse of the dimensions of the political crisis ripping the US apart.

29/12/2023

Dear (departed and living) children of Gaza (and West Bank IO Kashmir and Syria and Libya) we are deeply ashamed that we the Muslims have been unable to provide for an environment where you could safely grow up as useful mature and responsible human beings. I regret that we made mistakes:

Starting from the inability of the Muslims (In their heydays) to transfer the scientific advances into every day Muslims (Imam Ghazali did protest on this)

And the failure to educate every Muslim.

For the Turks failure to use technology that was available
For the Arabs to attack peacefully retreating Turks on the false narrative of Lawrence

For recognizing Israel or allowing the Arab springs and Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria to be destroyed on fabricated and false Western narrative

For the Arab World silence on the gross mistreatment of Muslims on India and Kashmir

For the sectarian racial and linguistics divisions within the Muslim World

We still do not have a clear vision of how to develop and seek true independence
I am afraid more Muslim children elsewhere are also not safe and may suffer the same outcome as the unfortunate children of Gaza

I can only weep and write useless posts may be the better amongst us will do more

26/12/2023

Talat Hussain

End 2023, beginning 2024, General Asim Munir is at the peak of his power. And that’s his core problem. No peak lasts forever; peaks plateau and inevitably decline. He would complete his second tenure year in 2024. There the road will fork into two— start packing or seek to extend your stay for another term. Neither is a great option.

Planning for retirement is a graceful way of ending a career; however, the moment the word gets out, jockeying for a replacement starts with a ferocity that is unparalleled for any other office in the country. While the army chief remains fully in control of his institution, the environment starts to become, say, less conducive for big moves. Let’s call it a nascent lame-duck phase in which considerations for a stable exit overtake all other agenda items. The second option is to extend the tenure. That has been used so many times that it is now assumed that every army chief will claim it as his right. The argument for this option is often “completion of the agenda” and the assertion that you don’t change command mid-war.

The issue is that since Pakistan is always fighting this war it is hard to determine where the middle is. Or even the beginning or the ending of a war. There is no guarantee that an extra three years would allow cementing of the good work (whatever that is) done in the first tenure. In fact, history tells us that the contrary happens.

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All generals who extended their tenures, by hook, by crook, or by book, ended up facing personal and professional disasters. Ayub, Zia, Musharraf, Kiani, Bajwa. The first three were dictators and did for themselves by themselves. The last two feigned being politically correct and had civilian governments do it for them. All five fell flat on their faces as luck, power, and friends deserted, divorced, and dumped them. A general on extension is always an over-extended general, juggling a shrinking moral high ground and a command that is quietly questioned even if obeyed.

General Asim Munir will face this binary in 2024. That will be a fraught situation.

It would have been an easy choice if he had full control of the terrain he was battling on. That is not the case. It is not a test of competence or skill or spirits, or strength of the flesh but of compulsions generated by the circumstances. The irony in the case of General Asim Munir is that while most of his predecessors created or vitiated their operational environment and fell victim to their follies, he has inherited pretty much every nasty challenge he has to deal with.

From Imran Khan’s assaults on the state to a divided judiciary to a dilapidated economy to the rising tide of terrorism to a political domain that is broken into a million pieces. He had almost nothing to do with any of these directly, and yet all of these nerve-testing problems have landed on his plate in their most advanced stage. An even more telling irony is that as he deals with this tough terrain nobody will remember whether he inherited this or not; everyone will judge him for what happens next.

And while he has made progress in tackling many issues at hand, there is no closure on any front. Imran Khan’s shadows continue to lengthen and hold large parts of the nation hostage; his Trojan horses trample on reason and stability; the hatred for the Establishment’s messy past combined with the backlash to the 9th May response from the state has created a lethal brew that every witch wants to keep stirring — discarded political and media assets of the state, why-don’t-you-hire-me wannabes, ethnically-charged and aggrieved groups; pseudo-liberals who have always wanted the inner core of the state to collapse; Nawaz-Zardari haters, warts and all. They have all created what the N***s benefited the most from — Negative Cohesion. Not as many loved Adolf Hi**er as the numbers showed; it is just that they hated others more, and thus stood for Hi**er. The same is happening now in Pakistan. Right next to this boiling pot of political madness is rising terrorism and an economy that refuses to come out of the doldrums.

Pledge your support

Predictably, General Asim has a finger in every pie. He may not like it, but this ties him down. As the 9th May of experience shows, cracking the whip has limits. Eight months after this national tragedy, perpetrators of crimes against the state are now effectively playing the injured, innocent victims. They are contesting polls and are posing as Jesus on the cross, redeeming the suffering masses. Imran’s cases continue to hang fire. Elections that are expected to resolve national problems are dented and de-shaped by countless controversies. Nawaz Sharif is still on lunar energy, his mind torn between his past and his present. And as the Establishment looks towards him to carve a way out of this morass, his party is looking towards the Establishment to ensure that it gets its way to power. This situation is unenviable. It is untenable.

Sooner or later General will face the moment when has to seek closure on all these fronts. What does he do with Imran Khan? What does he do when a new government comes to power and starts to reclaim the space that for now belongs to him and his institution? How does he deal with an assertive judiciary, politicized judges, fake-news peddlers, Baloch marchers, deluded and deranged political power brokers, terrorists, and a public that can no longer be sweet-talked into believing that dawn is nigh?

What does he do as the second-year clock starts to tick faster in reality than the days may show? How much more whip can he crack? Or charm can he pull? Or fire-fighting can he do? If he brings in billions of dollars of investment from the Kingdom and the UAE that he said he would and makes the Special Investment Facilitation Council the miracle-maker we are told it is, does he stick around longer than his 3-year tenure to see it all come to real fruition or does he plan to go home on time? Many of these questions will land at the General’s doorstep in 2024. This year will draw out answers. 2024 is General Asim Munir’s tipping point.

26/12/2023

Chairman Kashmir Council Europe (KCEU) Ali Raza Syed has urged the international community to its role to stop and custodial killings and other extra judicial murders of the Kashmiri civilians by Indian authorities in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Strongly condemning the barbaric custodial killing of three Kashmiri civilians in Baffliaz area of Poonch district of the occupied Kashmir, in a statement he said, extra judicial murders of Kashmiris should be immediately stopped.