Tag: South Asia

ISLAMABAD (TIP): Pakistan began a nationwide vaccination campaign on October 28 to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases that has hampered years of efforts to stop the disease in one of the two countries where it has never been eradicated.
Pakistan regularly launches such campaigns, but violence targeting the health workers and police assigned to escort them is common.
Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.
“The campaign is the third this year and will continue until Sunday ?in response to the alarming increase in polio cases,” said Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s adviser for the polio eradication programme.
“We are re-energised in our efforts to combat polio,” she said in a statement.
During the door-to-door campaign, children younger than 5 will be vaccinated and given drops of Vitamin A supplements to enhance their immunity.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently met with front-line health workers, urging them to ensure no child was left unvaccinated by going door-to-door.
Anwarul Haq, who is the coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, also urged parents to fully cooperate with polio workers.
“Polio has no cure, but it can be prevented with this readily available vaccine,” he said.
Pakistan has recorded 41 cases across 71 districts so far this year, Farooq said.
Most were reported from southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The surge in cases in new locations is worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Authorities in Pakistan say the Afghan Taliban’s recent decision to stop door-to-door anti-polio campaign will have repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country. The World Health Organisation has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped. It is one of the world’s most infectious diseases, so it continues to spread anywhere people are not fully vaccinated. In severe cases, polio can cause permanent paralysis and death. (PTI)

islamabad (TIP) : The visit of India’s foreign minister to Pakistan earlier this week was a “good beginning” that could lead to a thaw in relations between the two rivals, former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was quoted as saying by Indian media on Friday. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was in Pakistan on October 15 and 16 for a meeting of governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with the capital city under tight lockdown. “This is how talks move forward. Talks should not stop,” Sharif, the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), and the brother of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, told a group of visiting Indian journalists, the Indian Express newspaper reported.
Jaishankar was among nearly a dozen leaders participating in the gathering in Islamabad, nearly a decade since an Indian foreign minister has visited amid frosty relations between the two nations.
Jaishankar and his counterpart Ishaq Dar had an “informal interaction”, an official in Pakistani foreign ministry said on Thursday, but New Delhi denied that any sort of meeting had taken place. (Reuters)
Pak police fire tear gas at protesting students
Rawalpindi (TIP): Pakistani police fired tear gas and charged at student protesters who ransacked a college building October 17, as anger spread over an alleged on-campus rape.
Tensions have been high on college campuses since reports about the alleged rape in the eastern city of Lahore went viral on social media, and protests have broken out in four cities so far.
The latest violence started when hundreds of students demonstrated outside a campus in the city of Rawalpindi in Punjab province. They burned furniture and blocked a key road in the city, disrupting traffic, before ransacking a college building. Police responded by swinging batons and firing tear gas to disperse them, police official Mohammad Afzal said. In a statement, police said they arrested 150 students on charges of disrupting the peace.
In Gujrat, also in Punjab, a security guard died in clashes between student protesters and police on Wednesday. The police have arrested someone in connection with the death.
They also arrested a man who is accused of spreading misinformation on social media about the alleged rape and inciting students to violence.
Earlier this week, more than two dozen college students were injured in clashes with police in Lahore after they rallied to demand justice for the victim, who they alleged was raped on campus at the Punjab Group of Colleges.
Authorities, including the province’s chief minister and the college administration, denied there was an assault, as did the young woman’s parents.
Sexual violence against women is common in Pakistan, but it is underreported because of the stigma attached to it in the conservative country. Protests about sexual violence against women are uncommon.
Hasna Cheema, from the rights group Aurat Foundation, said neither Pakistani police nor the media were trained to handle such sensitive matters.
“They turn things from bad to worse instead of solving them,” Cheema said.
The Sustainable Social Development Organization said last month that there were 7,010 rape cases reported in Pakistan in 2023, almost 95 per cent of them in Punjab. (AP)

NEW YORK (TIP): External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar expressed confidence that India’s relationship with neighbours Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would continue to be “positive and constructive.”
“I would urge you not to be deterministic about it. It’s not like India is seeking to control every political move of every neighbour. That’s not how it works. It doesn’t work, not just for us, it doesn’t work for anybody else,” Jaishankar said on September 23 during an interaction at an event titled ‘India, Asia and the World’ hosted by the Asia Society and the Asia Society Policy Institute here.
The minister was responding to a question that India has given unconditional aid to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but government changes there seemed to be potentially adverse for India.
“Every country will have its own dynamics. In foreign policy, you try to read, anticipate, and then respond to it. I’m very confident at the end of it all, in our neighbourhood, the realities of interdependence or mutual benefit and our ability to get along will serve both our interests. Those realities will assert themselves. That’s been the history,” Jaishankar said.
Jaishankar added that every few years, “something happens in our region, and people suggest that there is some kind of irretrievable situation out there. You then see the correctives beginning to manifest themselves.”
“So, I would take it in that spirit and am quite confident that in both these cases, our relationship would continue to be positive and constructive,” the EAM continued.
Jaishankar’s remarks came in light of the change of government in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
On Sri Lanka, Jaishankar said India stepped forward when Colombo was facing a very deep economic crisis and “very frankly, when nobody else came forward.”
“And I’m very glad we did it. We did it in a timely manner. We did it on scale. We put out USD 4.5 billion effectively,” he said, adding that the move stabilised the Sri Lankan economy.
“The rest of it was up to them. At that time we did it, it was not like we had a political conditionality which accompanied that. We were doing it as a good neighbour who did not want to see that kind of economic meltdown at our doorstep,” the EAM said.
Jaishankar said that what happens politically in Sri Lanka, “is for their politics to work out.”
“At the end of the day, each of our neighbours will have their own particular dynamics. It’s not our intention to suggest that their dynamics must necessarily adhere to what we might consider as being better for us. I think this is the real world. I mean, everybody makes their choices and then countries adjust to each other and find ways of working it out,” the minister said.
In the case of Bangladesh, he said: “It’s a little bit different. What we have done over the last decade is to do projects of various kinds, which have been good for both of us. Economic activity overall has picked up, and logistics of that region have improved.”
Jaishankar said both countries have gained a lot out of that.
In August, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as head of Bangladesh’s interim government after weeks-long violent protests culminated in the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has since fled to India.
Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 56, was on Monday sworn in as Sri Lanka’s ninth president following his victory in the Sri Lankan presidential election. (PTI)

Karachi (TIP): The IMF has approved a USD 7 billion new bailout package for Pakistan, authorising the immediate release of the first loan tranche of less than USD 1.1 billion to reinforce the cash-strapped country’s efforts to address the ongoing economic crisis.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) board met on September 25 in Washington to give a nod to the staff-level agreement with Pakistan after Islamabad promised to overhaul its agriculture income tax, transfer some fiscal responsibilities to provinces and agree to limit subsidies. It is the 25th IMF programme that Pakistan has obtained since 1958 and the sixth EFF.Pakistan will pay around 5 per cent interest rate on the loan. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday reiterated this would be Pakistan’s last IMF programme. (PTI)

Dhaka (TIP): Former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia was admitted to a private hospital in the early hours of September 12, according to a media report.
The 79-year-old Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson arrived at Evercare Hospital from her Gulshan residence around 1.40 am, BNP media cell member Sayrul Kabir Khan was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune newspaper.
Her physician, Professor AZM Zahid Hossain, said the medical board has recommended several tests and she has been placed in a private cabin following her admission to the hospital. “The next course of her treatment will be determined after reviewing the test results,” he said.
On August 21, Zia had returned home after 45-day treatment at the same hospital.
The former prime minister, who was under house arrest for the past five years, was freed by an order of Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin on August 6.
She was acquitted of all charges against her following the fall of the Awami League government led by her arch-rival Sheikh Hasina on August 5.
The BNP chief has long been battling various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to the kidney, lung, heart and eyes. A pacemaker was successfully installed in her chest on June 23 by a group of specialist doctors.

Her doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.
Earlier this month, Zia was acquitted in five separate cases, including one filed over allegations of celebrating a “fake birthday” and another for supporting war criminals.
Zia served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006. (PTI)

ISLAMABAD (TIP): Six Pakistan MPs from jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party were among more than 30 people remanded in custody on september 11 under a new law restricting protests. It comes after thousands of supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party gathered in the capital Islamabad on Sunday for a rally that was broken up with tear gas.
The party has faced a sweeping crackdown since former cricket start Khan was jailed in August last year on a series of charges that he says are politically motivated and designed to keep him from power.
The MPs appeared at an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad where a judge remanded them in custody for eight days, an AFP journalist witnessed.
They are accused of violating the Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act 2024 — passed just last week — according to a charge sheet seen by AFP in court.
In total 34 people were named on the charge sheet as having been remanded in custody.
PTI leader and senior lawyer Muhammad Shoaib Shaheen, who appeared in court alongside the MPs, faced a police complaint about an “attack on officials”, “armed riots” and “illegal assembly” after Sunday’s rally and was also remanded in custody.
“I was picked up from my office around 7:30 pm,” he said at the court.
“These small obstacles won’t hold us back. We are the soldiers of Imran Khan, and we stand with him,” he said.
Several of the group were rounded up by police as they left the National Assembly building in the capital on Monday night, PTI’s media team said.
Gohar Ali Khan, PTI chairman in Imran Khan’s absence, was also taken away by police but later released, he told reporters. “These are not the offences where you should charge people with terrorism legislation,” he told the media.
Thousands of Khan supporters turned out for Sunday’s rally, the largest in the capital since February elections when rival parties formed a coalition to keep PTI from power, despite the party winning the most seats. It was the first demonstration since the government passed a new law regulating public gatherings, which it said would allow for peaceful assembly subject to reasonable restrictions.
Political, religious and civil rights groups frequently stage sit-ins and protests in Pakistan that can see cities shut down for days.
However, rights groups say the law is a curb on freedom of expression and it part of a continued crackdown on peaceful protests. City authorities gave permission for the demonstration to go ahead but it continued beyond the stipulated time and authorities used to tear gas to disperse crowds.
Authorities had earlier warned of legal action “for violation of the permission”.
Imran Khan rose to power in 2018 with the help of the military, analysts say, but was ousted in 2022 after reportedly falling out with the generals.
A United Nations panel of experts found this month that his detention “had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office”.
Several convictions against him have been overturned by the courts.
Several members of the PTI’s social media and press team were rounded up last month and accused of “anti-state propaganda”. (AFP)

Karachi (TIP): Pakistani actress Nimra Khan suffered a near abduction ordeal last month while waiting for her car outside a hotel in Karachi’s posh Defence Housing area. “Initially there were fingers pointed at me as well and many trivialised my incident in the media and social media platforms but the fact that DSP Manisha Ropeta handled my case helped me calm down and deal with the situation better,” she recalled.
Nimra said speaking with an educated female police officer made her realise she was right in speaking about the incident in public. Nimra just didn’t speak with a female police officer; her case was handled by the first Hindu female officer in Sindh police, Ropeta, who has now spent two years on the force and become a name to reckon with.
Given the fact that there are very few educated female officers in Pakistani police, Ropeta stationed as Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in the Defence area has already made a big difference to the image of the police force in Sindh province. “It keeps me inspired and motivated that the reasons I joined the police force have turned out to be correct,” DSP Ropeta said.
“I have got respect and admiration from my fellow officers and those who I supervise purely on the basis of my work. In the end, there might be some gender issues but I don’t feel out of place nor does it count for anything that I am a Hindu woman. Even today when I put on my police uniform, it is a matter of pride for me and I hope girls in our community are inspired by my story to follow in my path,” she said. In Pakistan police, there are two types of officer categories: the rankers who come through to higher positions on the basis of their experience, and those who get posted and promoted after clearing the Central Superior Services (CSS) examinations. (PTI)

DHAKA (TIP): Chief Adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government, Muhammad Yunus, has said the issue of attacks on minority Hindus in his country is “exaggerated” and questioned the manner in which India projected it.
In an interview with PTI at his official residence here, Yunus said the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh are more political than communal.
He suggested that the attacks were not communal, but a fallout of a political upheaval as there is a perception that most Hindus supported the now-deposed Awami League regime.
“I have said this to (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi also that this is exaggerated. This issue has several dimensions. When the country went through an upheaval following the atrocities by (Sheikh) Hasina and the Awami League, those who were with them also faced attacks,” the Nobel laureate told PTI.
The minority Hindu population faced vandalism of their businesses and properties, as well as the destruction of Hindu temples, during the student-led violence that erupted following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
After unprecedented anti-government protests that peaked on August 5, Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled to India.
“Now, while beating up Awami League cadres, they had beaten up Hindus as there is a perception that Hindus in Bangladesh mean Awami League supporters. I am not saying that what has happened is right, but some people are using it as an excuse to seize property. So, there is no clear distinction between Awami League supporters and Hindus,” he said.
In his first direct contact with New Delhi last month, shortly after becoming the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Yunus conveyed to Prime Minister Modi that Dhaka would prioritise the protection and safety of Hindus and all other minority groups.
During the conversation, Modi reaffirmed India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful, and progressive Bangladesh and emphasised the importance of ensuring the safety of Hindus and other minority communities in the violence-hit country.
Hindus, who made up 22 per cent of Bangladesh’s population at the time of the 1971 Liberation War, now constitute about 8 per cent of 170 million and have predominantly supported the Awami League, known for its secular stance.
Describing the attacks as more political than communal, Yunus questioned the manner in which India is “propagating” them.
“These attacks are political in nature and not communal. And India is propagating these incidents in a big way. We have not said that we can’t do anything; we have said that we are doing everything,” the Chief Adviser said.
Prime Minister Modi, in his Independence Day address from the Red Fort on August 15, expressed hope that the situation in violence-hit Bangladesh would return to normal soon and said 1.4 billion Indians are concerned about the safety of Hindus and minorities in the neighbouring country.
Discussing the future of India-Bangladesh relations, Yunus expressed a desire for good ties with India but insisted that New Delhi must abandon the narrative that Bangladesh will turn into another Afghanistan without Sheikh Hasina at the helm.
“The way forward is for India to come out of the narrative. The narrative is that everybody is Islamist, BNP is Islamist, and everyone else is Islamist and will make this country into Afghanistan. And Bangladesh is in safe hands with Sheikh Hasina at the helm only.
“India is captivated by this narrative. India needs to come out of this narrative. Bangladesh, like any other nation, is just another neighbour,” he said.
The noted economist added, “The issue of trying to portray the conditions of minorities in such a big way is just an excuse.” (PTI)

Dhaka (TIP): Former Bangladesh Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury and ex-Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi have been arrested for the killing of a goldsmith during the recent quota reform protests that led to the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina-led government, media reports said on August 29.
Munshi, 74, was arrested by the Rapid Action Battalion in Gulshan, Dhaka, on Wednesday night in the murder case filed in Rangpur, the Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported.
The case was filed against 17 people, including Munshi and former speaker of Parliament Chaudhury, for the killing of Muslim Uddin Milon, a 38-year-old goldsmith.
Besides, many unnamed people were accused in the case.
Chaudhury, 46, served as the first female Speaker of the Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad from April 2013 until August 2024.
Milon was shot dead on July 19 in Rangpur during the student-led movement against a controversial quota system in government jobs, which later turned into a mass uprising that ousted 76-year-old Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, according to The Daily Star newspaper.
According to the case statement, when a clash broke out between students and Awami League activists during a protest in the City Bazaar area, police opened fire indiscriminately under the orders of the accused persons.
Milon was hit by a bullet at that time and taken to Rangpur Medical College and Hospital, where he was declared dead, the report said.
Over 230 people were killed in the incidents of violence that erupted across the country following the fall of the Hasina-led government, taking the death toll to more than 600 since the massive protest by students first started in mid-July.
Many senior Awami League leaders, lawmakers and former ministers went into hiding following the fall of Hasina-led government.
Munshi had also been hiding since August 5, according to the leading Bengali-language newspaper Prothom Alo.
He became the Commerce Minister during the third consecutive term of Awami League government led by Hasina, according to the report.
Hasina, who fled to India on August 5, is facing at least 75 cases, including murder charges, against her. (PTI)

Kuala Lumpur (TIP): Former Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was charged on August 27 with sedition over a speech he made that allegedly questioned the integrity of the country’s previous king.
Muhyiddin, who led Malaysia from March 2020 until August 2021, pleaded not guilty in a court in northeast Kelantan state. According to the charge sheet, Muhyiddin made the seditious remarks last month during a by-election campaign in Kelantan.
Nine ethnic Malay state rulers take turns as Malaysia’s king for five-year terms under the country’s rotating monarchy, which began when Malaysia gained independence from Britain in 1957. The monarchy plays a largely ceremonial role, but are revered by the nation’s majority Muslims.
In his speech on August 14, Muhyiddin had questioned why then-King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah didn’t invite him to be prime minister following a hung Parliament in November 2022. Muhyiddin had claimed he had the backing of majority lawmakers.
Sultan Abdullah appointed then-opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister after Anwar cobbled up support from rival parties to form a unity government.
Sultan Abdullah from central Pahang state didn’t comment on the case. But his son issued a strong rebuke to Muhyiddin, saying his remarks were dangerous and could divide the people and cause them to lose faith in the royal institution. Muhyiddin had then denied insulting the royalty, saying that his remarks were factual. (AP)
Imran Khan eyes Oxford University Chancellor post
London (TIP): Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan has decided to enter the race to be elected the new Chancellor of the University of Oxford to “give back” to the world.
The 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at the world-famous university’s Keble College from 1972 to 1975 and also captained the university cricket team.
He told ‘The Daily Telegraph’ from his prison cell in Rawalpindi this week that he would be a passionate advocate for the university.
“Oxford University helped me a lot in my formative years. As Chancellor, I would passionately advocate for Oxford, championing its values of diversity, equality and inclusion, both in the UK and abroad,” said Khan in his application. (PTI)