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Eyeless and Cashless In India
These are surreal times in India. With most of its citizens forced into queues, it is a country at a near standstill. There is despair and death as people scramble to access their money after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the most sweeping and arbitrary demonetisation since Independence, declares that the most commonly used notes have been withdrawn. That is, 86 per cent of the currency. As anger grows over people’s inability to meet even their food requirements, outraged opposition MPs seek answers from the prime minister who studiedly avoids parliament but insists the abrupt switchover is essential to fight black money and counterfeit currency used to fund terrorism. Using the overheated rhetoric of nationalism, he puts critics on the defensive portraying them as deshdrohis or enemies of the state. He makes several such public speeches where he dubs anyone questioning the so-called demonetisation as both anti-national and black money hoarders. Never mind that most opposition politicians are only calling for better management of what must rank as the most ill-prepared and ham-handed implementation of a major policy decision. The prime minister mocks everyone, even those harassed citizens standing in endless queues — overwhelmingly the poor who have no bank accounts — as people with ill-gotten riches. This is as bizarre as it can get. Unmindful of the distress caused to millions, the prime minister even jokes about the currency crisis during a surprise video appearance at a Coldplay concert in Mumbai. But these are times defined by the cult of the leader who is mesmerised by his own myth, the myth of an invincible and infallible strongman who knows what is best for the nation. It’s clear that Modi’s hold over his cabinet colleagues, his BJP party and even the once independent central bank, the RBI, is complete and unchallenged. So is it surprising that senior ministers are fumbling for answers as to how matters have gone so awry? For Modi it’s all about keeping...
Still Weighing Options
The Taliban are still dithering over whether they should resume talks with the Afghan government to promote national reconciliation. Consequently, Afghanistan continues to wallow, occasionally in blood and perpetually in chaos and instability. The new Taliban victories, incidentally on the rise, inversely affect the prospects for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. In certain quarters, opinion prevails that Afghanistan has already suffered de facto disintegration. The only things common in all 34 Afghan provinces are the use of the Afghan passport and accumulation of power to seize more power and influence. It is thought that there is endemic corruption, failing central administration, collapsing government structures and the encroaching capacity of Taliban, facilitated by the actions of Daesh and other groups. Buoyed over its recent successes, the Taliban are consolidating their control over about 10-15 percent of Afghan territory, more than at any time under their occupation since 2001. Many provincial capitals are in danger. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has reported that the Afghan government has lost control of nearly five percent of its territory to the Taliban since the beginning of 2016 (a loss of 19 of approximately 400 governing districts). The Taliban feel bullish. The internal power strife between the National Unity Government leaders and its fallout in the provinces suggest that there will be no real combined force to deal with them. Afghanistan is not likely to witness any letup in fighting and bloodshed. This alarmingly gloomy scenario needs to be avoided by all stakeholders including countries indulging in proxy wars in Afghanistan. The main responsibility to initiate talks lies with the Afghan government, which needs to enforce its territorial sovereignty and protect Afghan nationals. Apart from normal reconstruction and rehabilitation work, it has to ensure the active support of the Taliban....
Breaking the Ice, Islamabad Reaches Out To Kabul
Pakistan and Afghanistan have resumed high-level contacts rekindling hopes for normalisation of their bilateral relationship. On Saturday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Afghan President Dr Ashraf Ghani in Ashgabat on the sidelines of the Global Conference on Sustainable Transport and the outgoing army chief, General Raheel Sharif, spoke to Afghan Chief Executive Dr Abdullah Abdullah on the phone. The prime minister and the army chief contacted the Afghan leaders at a time when Islamabad has stepped up efforts to encourage the Taliban to join the peace process. The Express Tribune has learnt that there had been some diplomatic efforts this month when a three-member Taliban delegation was in Pakistan’s capital to explore peace prospects. “The Taliban’s Qatar office is now considering a strategy for possible political negotiations,” a member of the Taliban office in Qatar told The Express Tribune this week. Nawaz and Ghani discussed peace prospects and the former ‘appreciated’ Afghan government’s efforts for peace and stability in the strife-torn country. “[He] also expressed support to the peace deal between Afghan government and Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan,” the PM office said in a statement. The prime minister said a politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan owned and Afghan led peace process is the most viable option for lasting peace in Afghanistan. “Pakistan will continue its serious efforts for facilitating the peace process, including through the Quadrilateral Cooperation Group (QCG) of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US,” he told Ghani. The chief military spokesman, Lt Gen Asim Bajwa, confirmed that the army chief made a ‘farewell call’ to Abdullah. “Next talk with Dr Ashraf Ghani is planned,” Gen Bajwa, who heads the Inter-Services Public Relations, told The Express Tribune in a text message. Earlier the Afghan chief executive’s office tweeted: “Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif made a phone call to [Afghan] chief executive as...
Taliban Leaders May Have Moved to Afghanistan from Pakistan
After operating out of Pakistan for more than a decade, the leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban movement may have moved back to their homeland to try to build on this year's gains in the war and to establish a permanent presence. If confirmed, the move would be a sign of the Taliban's confidence in their fight against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. It could also be an attempt by the militants to distance themselves from Pakistan, which is accused of supporting the movement. The Taliban's leaders have been based in Pakistani cities, including Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar, since their rule in Afghanistan was overthrown in the 2001 U.S. invasion after the 9/11 attacks. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the leadership shura, or council, relocated to Afghanistan "some months ago," although he would not say to where. One Taliban official said the shura had moved to southern Helmand province, which the insurgents consider to be part of their heartland and where most of the opium that funds their operations is produced. The official refused to be identified because of security reasons. Other Taliban sources said the justice, recruitment and religious councils had also moved to southern Afghanistan. The statements could not be independently confirmed. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's office said it had no confirmation that any such move had taken place. "No intelligence confirms that the Taliban has shifted its shura to Afghanistan," said Haroon Chakhansuri, Ghani's spokesman. "We still believe they are still operating in their safe havens outside Afghanistan." Mujahid, however, said Kabul officials were aware of the moves, prompted by battlefield gains that the insurgents believed would put them in a strong position once talks with the Afghan government aimed at ending the war were restarted. Dialogue broke down earlier this year. The insurgents have spread their footprint across Afghanistan since international combat troops scaled down in 2014. They have...
Public Education Must for Enlightened and Crime-Free Society, Concurrently with Police Reforms
While reforming police is critical for strengthening rule of law in KP, concurrently, educating public about their roles and responsibilities is also crucial to ensure a just, enlightened and crime-free society, Mr. Sahibzada Sajjad Ahmed, SP Security, Peshawar spoke during a consultative meeting of working group on police reforms in Peshawar. He added that the collective vision of the KP police leadership is driving all these reforms to turn KP police into an organization oriented for public service. The initiatives like Criminal Record Verification System (CRVS), Identity Verification System (IVS), and Vehicle Verification System (VVS) are some important developments to achieve the milestones for crime control and public facilitation. The School of Intelligence has significantly improved the intelligence gathering and spot analysis skills of KP police and has thus addressed the issues hampering counter-terrorism and crime-control roles of police. He also said that the citizens who have interacted with the police after reforms so far had found visible changes and were all-praise for the reformation. The most important community policing development in the KP police is the establishment of Dispute Resolution Councils (DRCs). DRC is a restorative justice system which has immensely reduced the burden of civil cases on police station and helped focusing on the investigation of important cases and on their core crime-control and CT roles. The meeting was a part of the project “Ulasi Police”, which is an awareness and advocacy campaign undertaken by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) – as part of USAID Small Grants and Ambassadors’ Fund Program – to strengthen the rule of law in KP province by promoting and disseminating the significant police reforms aimed at incorporating local communities’ policing needs and international human rights standards. The endeavor aims to tackle the trust deficit between the public and police, help KP police become an...
Islamic State Strengthening Presence in Afghanistan
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) is expanding its terrorist activities and getting stronger in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as it loses fighters and territory in the Middle East, reports Voice of America (VOA), citing Afghan officials and analysts. “As [ISIS] has found itself increasingly on the defensive in the Middle East, it seems to be looking for new areas to carve out a presence,” Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Wilson Center, a global policy research group, told VOA. “The Afghanistan-Pakistan region, where it already has a light footprint, appears to be one of the targets.” VOA’s report comes less than a month after American Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, warned that the Afghanistan-Pakistan region’s ISIS branch, known as the Khorasan Province (IS-KP/ISIL-K), is seeking to establish its own Caliphate on Afghan soil. Eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan, has been identified as ISIL-K’s stronghold. In Nangarhar, VOA has learned that the Islamic State has been using mosques as military centers. “IS has turned at least 60 mosques in five districts of Nangarhar into military training centers,” Abdul Zahir Haqqani, director of religious affairs in Nangarhar, told VOA, noting that “the imams have fled to Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s capital city.” VOA adds that ISIL-K in Nangarhar has also “launched multiple attacks on Afghan police checkposts and villages in recent months, it has imposed taxes on agriculture activities in areas it controls, and it has been cutting down trees in some parts of the province in a timber-smuggling operation to neighboring Pakistan.” The Sunni jihadist group is reportedly operating in the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Ghazni, Kunar, and Nuristan, reported Khaama Press (KP) earlier this year. Except for Ghazni, the provinces lie on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Ghazni is located near the Pakistan border, next to Zabul. ISIL-K “is getting stronger and, in...
Learning from Modi’s Mistakes
November 8 will go down in history for two very different reasons in India and the US. The Americans elected Donald Trump to its highest office, while Indians will remember it as the day that PM Modi unleashed an unprecedented cash crunch. Under heavy criticism for not fulfilling his promise to combat corruption, PM Modi suddenly introduced a policy that appears more smoke and mirrors than substance, and at the very least ill thought out. With a simple pronouncement the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) leader declared that all Rs500 and Rs1,000 bills — 86 per cent of the money in circulation — were not legal tender effective as of midnight. The cancelled bills must be converted to newly minted Rs2,000 notes before December 30, 2016, in regulated tranches to make it easier to track. Understandably, the populist move has created chaos in an economy where over 85 per cent of the wages and 90 per cent of transactions were cash-based. The announcement was intended as a “surgical strike” to clamp down on “black money,” or untaxed money and counterfeit currency, terrorism financing and corruption. Sadly, the intended targets are not the ones feeling the pain. In fact, responding to a batch of petitions, the Indian Supreme Court noted on Tuesday that rather than a “surgical strike” the policy was more akin to “carpet bombing” with the “collateral damage” being suffered by the average Indian. The court stated that the government’s objective of going after black money and fake currency may be laudable but “the common man should not be made to suffer.” The bench led by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur gave the Center a deadline of November 25 to submit documents to justify the move and to detail the measures it has undertaken to address the public concerns and troubles. The stealth nature was aimed at catching cash hoarders before they laundered their loot. The rich, of course, prefer real estate, other property, gold, stocks and most importantly money abroad as opposed to cash...
Making CPEC A Game Changer
Pakistan is caught in euphoria over China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Called a game changer, all hopes are pinned on this project to bring change in the economic conditions of Pakistan. This network of roads and the intervening projects, especially those related to energy are considered the only straw that would save Pakistan from falling off the delicate balance where energy crisis could either build or fail the country. The PML-N government would have to prove that their tenure had done the needful in bringing the country around from the energy crisis that had eaten away its potential to become the Asian Tiger — a metaphor that was initially spelled out by the PML when it was not annexed to the ‘N’ factor. It is now a matter of concern that much of the terror activities are targeted at Balochistan, where Gwadar is based. Whether it is China, that our so-called enemy India, and the half-friend-half-foe the US, are trying to intimidate, or it is Pakistan whose success is not acceptable to India, in both the cases, it is Pakistan, which would bear the brunt. How many lives will fall before CPEC begins bearing fruit is not known. However, the government does carry the burden of making this project bring structural changes in the lives of the people. That would only be possible if businesses thrive through a consistent supply of electricity. The government claims that it would end loadshedding or restore the country to a steady supply of power by 2018. According to the figures available, the country is producing almost 17,400 megawatts of electricity with the added success of taking up the receivables to 93.5 per cent. The circular debt is being managed at Rs320 billion per month, down from Rs 500 billion. The loss to the GDP due to the power sector was earlier 2.4 per cent, which has come down to 0.4 per cent. The annual loss to the electricity sector has been reduced to Rupees eight billion from Rs200 billion. Industrial units have been barred from...
ATC Sentences Five To Death Over Burning Alive Christian Couple In Kot Radha Kishan In 2014
An Anti-Terrorism Court on Wednesday sentenced five men to death on two counts for their involvement in the burning alive of a Christian couple in Kot Radha Kishan in 2014. ATC-I Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Azam imposed a fine of Rs200,000 on the five men identified as Mehdi Khan, Riaz Kambo, Irfan Shakoor, Muhammad Hanif, and Hafiz Ishtiaq ─ a local prayer leader ─ for their involvement in the lynching. Eight others have also been charged with involvement in the lynching and sentenced to two years each in prison. The eight men were identified as Muhammad Hussain, Noorul Hasan, Muhammad Arsalan, Muhammad Haris, Muhammad Muneer, Muhammad Ramazan, Irfan and Hafiz Shahid. A challan submitted in court claimed the five men handed the death penalty gathered a large mob of hundreds by making announcements over a mosque loudspeaker and incited them to violence with incendiary speech. Kot Radha Kishan lynching A mob of around 400 people lynched Shahzad and Shama for their alleged role in desecrating the Holy Quran in November 2014. Both husband and wife were brick kiln workers from Chak-59 of Kot Radha Kishan, a town in Kasur district. The woman, mother of three, was pregnant. Police and witnesses told Dawn in Nov 2014 that announcements had been made from mosques on Tuesday asking villagers to gather at the Yousaf brick kiln where 25-year-old Shama and her husband Shahzad Masih worked as bonded labourers. Over 1,000 charged people from three villages took out the couple from a room (where they had taken shelter) after tearing apart its roof. The mob tortured the couple before putting them into the kiln’s furnace. The mob held hostage five policemen who tried to rescue the couple. The villagers also manhandled some media personnel and snatched their cameras. Police registered a case against 660 villagers, including 60 who were nominated in a First Information Report lodged on the complaint of Sub-Inspector Muhammad Ali of Chowki Factory Area. The FIR said the mob had thrashed...
Afghan Weekly (Nov 18 – Nov 24, 2016)
This week witnessed another deadly attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria targeting a Shia mosque, Baqir-ul-Ulum Mosque, in the Kabul city, killing over 32 people while wounding 85.[1] In a press release by Pakistan’s Foreign Office, Pakistan conveyed profound condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and prayers for early recovery of the injured. Reiterating its unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all forms and manifestations, the Foreign Office reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment for continued efforts and cooperation for eliminating the menace of terrorism.[2] The US State Department, also, condemned the attack on the mosque in the strongest possible terms, affirming the US’ support to Afghanistan,[3] while the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, condemned the attack, endorsing India’s support to Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism.[4] Other highlights of this week’s security, internal politics, international engagements and socio-economic developments in Afghanistan follow below. A Security Overview 25 Insurgents, 8 Security Forces Killed in Separate Incidents – November 19, 2016 At least 13 insurgents were killed and 17 others wounded in Afghan security forces' ground operations and air strikes in Sar-e-Pul province.[5] Taliban Commander Killed in Badakhshan Attack – November 19, 2016 Rahm Khuda, a Taliban commander was killed in an attack on a security check post in north-eastern Badakhshan province on 19th November's night, local officials said.[6] 14 Insurgents Killed in Joint Operations Fourteen insurgents were killed in several operation around the country in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement early 20th November. According to the statement the operations were carried out by the Afghan National Army and National Directorate of Security (NDS) members in Laghman, Uruzgan, Helmand, Paktiya, Maidan Wardak and Nangarhar provinces. "As a result 14 armed militants were killed, 10...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.