by Editor | Mar 26, 2023 | Asia, Business, Economy, News, Politics
Nepal government is sending an advance team to New Delhi to lay the ground for Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s upcoming visit to India.
Kathmandu, March 26,2023: Nepal government is sending an advance team to New Delhi to lay the ground for Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s upcoming visit to India.
The team will jointly work with the Indian officials to set bilateral talks agenda even though the dates of Dahal’s trip are yet to be finalised, according to a report published in Kathmandu Post on Sunday.
Report stated that in the absence of a designated foreign minister, Prime Minister Dahal aka Prachanda has instructed Chief Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi to coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to dispatch an advance team.
Due to the delays in Cabinet expansion, the prime minister himself is in charge of the foreign ministry, besides 15 other ministries.
Prachanda could visit India between the second and third week of April, with exact travel dates subject to an official announcement.
Prime Minister’s chief personal secretary Ramesh Malla told the Post that Dahal has already instructed the chief secretary to form an advance team of representatives from various ministries who will discuss the visit agenda to make it fruitful.
This will be the Prachanda’s “return” visit, following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hop over to Lumbini in May last year.
Sources told the Post that a joint-secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, probably heading the South Asia division, could lead the team involving joint-secretaries from various other ministers. The team will have representatives from ministries including energy and water resources; physical infrastructure and transport; industry, commerce and supplies; and culture, tourism and civil aviation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will coordinate with the officials, mostly from the ministries that have important agendas to be taken up during the visit, Malla told the Post, who will lead the team is still unsure, but officials at the prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry will take the lead.
The date of the prime minister’s India visit will be fixed only after he gives his Cabinet full shape. Prime Minister Dahal has said that his first foreign visit will be to India.
After the prime minister expressed his intent to visit India first, New Delhi had sent Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kawtra to Kathmandu last month.
After winning a vote of confidence on March 20, Dahal reiterated that he would focus on the planned India tour. “I will go to India before April 20,” Dahal said.
“Though we are yet to finalise the date of visit, it could happen in the first or second week of April,” he told reporters at Parliament.
From China, which he visited first for the Beijing Olympics during his first stint as prime minister, Dahal has already received an invitation to the “Boao Forum for Asia” annual conference.
by Editor | Feb 17, 2023 | Asia, News
PESHAWAR FEB 2023: In a bid to avoid any “untoward incident”, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Gomal University has imposed a complete ban on mixed gatherings of students and coupling (male and female) on its premises, the media reported.
According to a notification issued by the varsity, “It is notified for all the concerned that gathering/coupling (Male & Female) is totally banned in any ground, roads beyond the premises of department.”
The university also directed “female students” to be careful and limit themselves in their classrooms and the department’s common rooms, Geo News reported.
“Strict action would be taken against those students, violating the rules,” warned the varsity.
According to the university administration, the decision would help provide a better and safer environment for female students.
The university had imposed a Rs 5,000 fine on two students of its Institute of Computing and Information Technology (ICIT) Department for listening to music while classes were in session last year, Geo News reported.
Then chairman of the ICIT Department had said the two students had been playing music on a Bluetooth speaker in a teaching area of the varsity.
He had added that their action, “disturbed the classes ongoing in the department at the time”.
“Both students were warned multiple times to stop (the music) and were fined when they did not pay heed to the requests,” the chairman had said.
by Editor | Feb 5, 2023 | Asia, News
VIKAS DATTA
Pakistan’s fourth military dictator Pervez Musharraf, who passed away on Sunday, had, like his predecessors, an eventful, even tumultuous, tenure and left a contested legacy. Like them, he was not very successful in his attempts at changing the country, and did not escape the virulent odium they faced after they demitted – or were made to demit – office. But what will be his particular legacy?
In one respect, it will be very mixed. He is the one who took his country to the brink of war with India – twice, and then, to the brink of peace, before his domestic misadventures and misfortunes left the latter prospect a tantalising mirage. And then, his quick support to the US post 9/11 – after a not-so veiled threat, was also not as full-hearted as it later emerged – and had consequences for him too, in the form of two assassination attempts in quick succession.
However, Musharraf has to be seen in the light of his uniformed predecessors in power – and as per an Indian observer, he did not score very highly compared to two of them – at that point in time. Veteran Indian diplomat M.K. Rasgotra, who met him in 2000, soon after his coup, termed him “shrewd, also perhaps also not without cunning but he is not wily like Gen. Zia ul-Haq. Nor does he possess the bluff exuberance of Gen. Mohd Ayub Khan”.
But, Rasgotra’s estimate did not hold true in the long run. For those who remember his official visit to India – in 2006, though not in 2001 for the abortive Agra Summit, and subsequently, for various media summits, Musharraf proved to be an extremely telegenic and effective in media and personal interactions.
I remember Musharraf effectively dominating the breakfast meeting with editors in 2005, when he came to New Delhi see the cricket match, and dealing jocularly with questions like if South Asia catches a cold if the US sneezes, in his trademark bluff joviality, or drolly recounting how his and Manmohan Singh’s plan to catch another session of the match was derailed by his team’s collapse. Earlier, leaving for an official engagement, he especially came to the group of cameramen, photographers, and the odd journalist (including me) waiting for him, shook hands, and asked: “Gentlemen, you did not go to see the match?”
But, personality apart, Musharraf, like his predecessors Ayub Khan and even Zia-ul-Haq – came very close to peace with India, but some spoilers – Ayub’s civilian ministers like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and in the later case, a gaggle of US Congressmen who termed a proposed India-Pakistan Friendship Treaty, on the verge of signature, as anti-US – did not allow this particular course in the history of South Asia to be pursued.
However, when it comes to the conditions when he took over power, Musharraf, like Ayub Khan and Zia, was seen a force for deliverance.
Ayub Khan, whose rule ended a near decade of turbulence in Pakistan where autocratic civilian governor generals freely dismissed elected governments, did not technically stage a coup, but managed to nudge aside the man who actually did – Gen Iskandar Mirza. And his near-decade long rule was seen as among the most peaceful in Pakistan. Zia, on the other hand, overthrew a civilian near-dictator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was facing widespread public protests after a questioned election.
Likewise, when Musharraf overthrew Nawaz Sharif in October 1999, it must be recalled that Sharif was at the height of his powers, having dislodged a President and an Army Chief, and having introduced the 15th Constitutional Amendment to introduce Sharia law in Pakistan.
Under Musharraf, as was in the Ayub era, there was a stress on moderation and modernisation but Musharraf went much further in press freedom too, presiding over a bouquet of new news channels – that are still vibrant despite the recent attempts at repression by both the secret services and terrorists.
And then like Ayub, Yahya Khan and Zia, Musharraf was done in mostly by the civilian politicians he backed.
But, where Musharraf might differ from his predecessors, as could be evinced from some actions like Kargil, the Lal Masjid episode, the suspension of Chief Justice Iftekhar Chowdhury, the imposition of a state of emergency after the lawyers’ agitation, could probably be attributed to his service background – of being a commando. For commandos, unlike other armed force personnel, are trained to be independent-minded but also fixated on bold – but tactical – operation or course before them. If it succeeds, it is great but, if it blows up in one’s face?
Possibly, Musharraf’s major impact could be how his particular example made the army chary of taking power directly again – despite worse cases of political instability or misrule. That might be his most abiding legacy.
by Editor | Jan 31, 2023 | Asia, News, News & Trending
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan : The death toll from Monday’s suicide bombing at a mosque inside a police headquarters in Pakistan’s northern city of Peshawar has risen to 93, as more bodies were retrieved from the rubble, an official said.
Shafi Ullah, the deputy commissioner of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, confirmed the increase in casualties and told reporters that 57 injured people remain hospitalized, 10 of whom are in critical condition.
Earlier, Muhammad Asim, a spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, while speaking to Anadolu, put the number of casualties at 83.
Nearly 100 injured have been discharged from the hospital, he added.
On Monday, a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up during midday prayers at the mosque within the Police Headquarters in Peshawar.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a conglomerate of several militant groups, has denied involvement in the attack on its propaganda website.
According to city police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan, the attack was a suicide bombing as police recovered the head of the bomber from the spot.
Several people were buried under the debris after most parts of the mosque building collapsed, so the rescue operation continued through the night.
The deceased included several senior police officers and the prayer leader.
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told the local Geo TV channel that the suspected bomber was standing in the front row of the mosque and blew himself up as soon as the prayers began.
“As soon as the imam (prayer leader) began praying, there was a deafening explosion, which tossed me into the air and threw me away,” Mohammad Mushtaq, a police officer who got injured in the blast, told reporters at the hospital.
In neighboring Afghanistan, the Taliban administration condemned the bombing, calling it “against the teachings of Islam.”
In a statement, the Afghan Taliban Foreign Ministry also expressed sympathy to the families of the deceased and injured.
Meanwhile, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is observing a day of mourning across the province on Tuesday.
“In view of the two most unfortunate incidents of capsizing of a boat full of children at Tanda Dam, Kohat on 29-01-2023 and the terrorist attack at Police Lines, Peshawar on 30-01-2023, causing irreparable loss of human lives, the Provincial Government with a deep sense of grief and sorrow announces Tuesday as a day of mourning throughout the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” said a notification.
“The National Flag of Pakistan shall fly at half-mast throughout the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” it added.
4 militants killed
Four militants were killed in a joint intelligence-based operation by security forces and police against terrorists in the districts of Swabi and Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to police, the joint operation was carried out after the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), police, and intelligence agencies received information about the presence of militants in Hind village in Swabi on Monday.
The militants opened fire on security forces and police, but two of them blew themselves up and the third surrendered, they said, adding that two police officers were also injured during the operation.
Separately, two militants were killed in the Dera Ismail Khan district during an encounter with security forces in the Loni area on Monday.
A search operation was conducted in the area based on a tip-off about the presence of terrorists, the local Dawn newspaper reported citing unnamed sources, who also said a huge amount of weapons were also recovered from the possession of the slain terrorists.
by Editor | Jan 15, 2023 | Asia, News, News & Trending
After a passenger plane with 72 people onboard, including five Indians, crashed in Nepal on Sunday, the Indian embassy here issued helpline numbers, saying that it is touch with local authorities and monitoring the situation.
Kathmandu, Jan 15,2023: After a passenger plane with 72 people onboard, including five Indians, crashed in Nepal on Sunday, the Indian embassy here issued helpline numbers, saying that it is touch with local authorities and monitoring the situation.
Helpline numbers issued by the Indian Embassy are
1. Kathmandu: Diwakar Sharma: +977-9851107021
2. Pokhara: Lt Col Shashank Tripathi: +977-9856037699
An ATR 72 aircraft of Yeti Airlines with a call sign 9N-ANC that took off to Pokhara from Kathmandu at 10.32 a.m. crashed at Nayagaun of the city.
The Nepal government has announced a national mourning on Monday.
The government has also formed a five-member team to investigate the plane crash, in which most of the passengers are presumed dead.
by Editor | Jan 15, 2023 | Asia, Employment, World
Japan will raise its mandatory employment rate of people with disabilities to 2.7 per cent from 2.3 per cent.
Tokyo, Jan 15,2023: Japan will raise its mandatory employment rate of people with disabilities to 2.7 per cent from 2.3 per cent.
This marked the largest increase since the current system was introduced, local media has reported.
The government plans to increase the rate in two stages, first to 2.5 per cent in April next year and then to 2.7 per cent by the end of fiscal 2026, according to the Mainichi Shimbun on Saturday, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Prefectural education boards are required to increase the ratio to 2.9 per cent, while national and local governments, whose current employment rate of individuals with disabilities is higher than that of the private sector, will raise the percentage to 3 percent.
Companies with 43.5 or more employees are currently required under the Act to Facilitate the Employment of Persons with Disabilities to have an employment rate of at least 2.3 per cent for individuals with disabilities, amid efforts to give such people more work opportunities.
About 614,000 people with disabilities have been employed by businesses as of June 1, 2022, setting a record for 19 years in a row. Only 48.3 per cent of businesses overall, however, have met the legally required employment rate.