Author: Arif ArifArman

INTERNATIONAL DESK: In India’s foreign policy, Neighbourhood First is not just a slogan but a practical manifestation of always standing together and going the extra mile with neighbours to build “a collective neighbourhood”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday. Speaking at the Diamond Jubilee of the India International Centre (ICC), Jaishankar said, “When in foreign policy, we speak about neighbourhood first, it’s not just a slogan, it’s not something you put in a report it is a practical manifestation of the importance of standing by each other, of helping each other out, of actually building a larger neighbourhood.…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The Indian economy is likely to grow at the rate of 6.5 per cent in the coming decade on the back of the turnaround in financial and investment cycle, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran said on Wednesday. Addressing an event here, Nageswaran further said going forward, global exports growth volumes may be somewhat tepid in terms of their growth rates due to the kind of uncertainties the world is facing. “So, I think the restoration of the financial, credit and the investment cycle in the commercial sector and the real estate sector will probably see us…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Uttara South and Shewrapara stations of the metro rail are ready to open for commuters from March 31. Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd (DMTCL) has already taken steps to open these two stations, said sources of DMTCL, which operates the metro rail service. With the opening of Uttara South and Shewrapara stations, commuters will be able to enjoy the metro rail ride using all nine stations from Uttara to Agargaon. “We’ve formed two teams which will coordinate with the operation teams of the Uttara South and Shewrapara stations for operation,” said a DMTCL official. On December 28 last…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Head of the Department for External Economic and International Relations of Moscow Sergey Cheryomin on Wednesday expressed his expectation regarding the trade between India and Russia and said that it is expected to reach USD 50 billion or more. “Would expect that bilateral trade will be on the level of USD 50 billion, maybe even more and I think for that we have all the perspective,” Cheryomin told ANI on his expectation for India-Russia bilateral trade. He also urged India-Russia banks should be more active in establishing a relationship with each other stating, “we’ve to promote trades in…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Residents living in Manipur’s Reserved Forest (RF) and Protected Forest (PF) areas have been served eviction and show-cause notices since 2016. The Kuki tribes who had settled in K. Songjang village in Churachandpur were evicted from their villages. The government argued that several such households had been illegally encroaching on the RF and PF areas, and that the state must initiate this legal eviction procedure to safeguard the forest amid climate change and water scarcity issues in Manipur. Since 2016, several households have been evicted from RF areas. About 84 households were evicted from Heigang RF in 2016;…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India showed off domestically made helicopters, drones and artillery at a gathering of army chiefs and officials from 31 African nations on Wednesday, as the world’s largest arms importer seeks to become a major exporter too. India has pumped billions into its defence sector in an effort to become less reliant on imports, including from Russia, as it faces off against China on their disputed border. At the same time it has been trying to sell more of its domestically produced hardware to other countries, particularly poorer nations unable to afford more expensive Western-made kit. “We are making…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked the authorities concerned to transform land management into a digital one to put an end to the social and family problems regarding ownership of land and ensure hassle-free services. “Land distribution system has to be digitalised to specify the ownership of land and thus the family and social problems over the issues would be solved,” she said while inaugurating the country’s first-ever three-day National Land Conference at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) here today. She said that it is very common in society that both brothers and sisters deprive each other of paternal…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: The Bangladesh Genocide of 1971, also known as the Liberation War of Bangladesh, was one of modern history’s most brutal and tragic events. It was, in essence, a Bengali Holocaust: after the Jewish Holocaust during WWII, this was the worst human annihilation in history. A was It was a nine-month-long conflict between West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) that resulted in the deaths of millions of people, most of whom were innocent civilians. Despite the magnitude of this atrocity, the world has largely remained silent about it, and the perpetrators have never been brought to justice. It…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The United States and China’s technology war is not only about semiconductors but now also about undersea internet cables, with Washington moving to ensure that new cables will bypass Hong Kong and be free of Chinese investments and contractors. Before the Biden administration unveiled more chip export restrictions against China in mid-2022, it helped SubCom LLC, an American subsea cable company, win a contract to build the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 6, or SeaMeWe-6, internet cable. Details of how a former undersea cable arm of Huawei Technologies, China’s top telecommunications infrastructure company, lost the bidding were not known…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) spokesperson has claimed that PTI social media activist Arshad Siddiqui has been missing since Sunday morning and police are yet to tell his family about his whereabouts, Pakistan-based The News International newspaper reported. “The disappearance of PTI social media member Arshad Siddiqui is alarming. He is a resident of Karachi’s Mahmoodabad and left his residence at 8 am to go to work. However, the police have not revealed any information regarding Arshad’s arrest so far,” Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA), Shahzad Qureshi, said in a statement issued on Monday, The News International newspaper…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried paid a bribe of USD 40 million to a Chinese government official to get access to those accounts which are allegedly frozen by Beijing, a federal prosecutor alleged on Tuesday, according to New York Post reported. The details of his 2021 bribe were included in a new indictment against Bankman-Fried, filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. “Samuel Bankman-Fried aka ‘SBF’ authorized and directed a bribe of at least USD 40 million to one or more Chinese government officials,” the indictment states. “The purpose of the bribe was to influence and induce one or more…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Pakistan Army is now gearing up to tackle the widespread anti-army campaign launched by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with its own set of systematic campaigns online as well as offline, The Pakistan Military Monitor reported. The campaign is set to begin at the school level, first in Punjab. According to Pakistan Military Monitor, Imran Khan had kicked off a massive anti-army campaign on all media as soon as he was forced to resign as the Prime Minister last year by the then army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Once a patron of the former…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Pakistan and China are engaged in a “threshold alliance” but Beijing’s opponents, particularly the US, may prevent it from becoming a fully-fledged alliance, says a recent US report. The report titled The Future of the China-Pakistan Military Relati­onship describes the current status of the China-Pakistan relationship as “a threshold alliance,” but argues that it may not lead to a fully-fledged future alliance, “potentially due to China’s own missteps, or due to opponents’ active measures to arrest the relationship”. The author, Sameer P. Lalwani, works for the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a federal institution with a Congressional mandate.…

SPORTS DESK: A 17 year old Manipur boy N Tomchou Meetei from Manipur won three medals including two silver at the on-going 2023 IWF Youth Men and Women World Weightlifting Championships (March 25-April 1,2023) at Durres, Albania on Sunday. Tomchou Meetei won Bronze Medal in Snatch and Silver medal Clean & Jerk and a Silver Medal in overall with a total of 234 kg. He managed 131 kg in clean and jerk to win the silver and 103 kg in snatch to settle for a bronze and to amass a total of 234 kg in the men’s 55 kg category…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The killing of the Pakistan-based journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya was a case of “mistaken identity” and there was no conspiracy involved to murder him, an investigative report by the Kenyan authorities said, according to Geo News. According to the report, Arshad Sharif was killed by four members of the para-military General Service Unit (GSU) in a random shootout in Kenya when the journalist was on his way to his penthouse, where he was living at that time. The Kenyan account sticks to the police version, which states that the four guards were looking for a fleeing vehicle…

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: A new World Bank (WB) report shows that there are economically feasible, cost-effective solutions to achieve clean air in the South Asia region, but this requires countries to coordinate policies and investments. South Asia is home to nine of the world’s 10 cities with the worst air pollution, and Dhaka is one of them. The report said air pollution is responsible for about 20 percent of the total premature deaths in Bangladesh. The report titled “Striving for Clean Air: Air Pollution and Public Health in South Asia,” presented today in Dhaka, says concentrations of fine particulate matter such…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: China’s Big Tech companies saw their payrolls shrink in the past year as they streamline their businesses and rein in costs by shedding unprofitable projects to weather Covid-19 restrictions and a year-long regulatory crackdown, their latest financial reports show. Internet search titan Baidu and social media and video gaming behemoth Tencent Holdings each trimmed more than 4,000 roles in 2022, leaving some 41,000 and 110,000 full-time employees on their payrolls, respectively, as of December 31. E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and food delivery platform Meituan, both with a much larger workforce, cut around 20,000 and 10,000 jobs last…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: As Xi Jinping began his unprecedented third term, the political climate in China remains uncertain. A mix of economic slump and complex policies is making the wealthy rethink their stay in the country, reported modern diplomacy. The drive to reign in the economic influence of China’s private sector has diminished private sector expansion and business confidence. After receiving a unanimous endorsement from the National People’s Congress, President Xi Jinping was re-elected as president for a third term on March 10, effectively cementing his status as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. His drive to reign in…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The United States government has condemned recent violent incidents that have taken place during protests at Indian diplomatic facilities in the US, while also terming that violence, or the threat of violence is never an acceptable form of protest and is of “grave concern.” The response from the US Department of State comes after the pro-Khalistan supporters in the US threatened the Indian embassy and Indian Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu during their protest on Saturday. On Saturday, Pro-Khalistan supporters in the US threatened the Indian embassy and Indian Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Japan has demanded that one of its citizens who is currently being held in China be released as soon as possible and he be allowed to speak with consular officials, a top spokesman said on Monday, Kyodo News reported. China claims it has detained the man on suspicion of engaging in spying activities. Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the man is accused of breaking China’s anti-espionage law but did not go into any detail. He is an employee of Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma Inc, the company has verified. At a press briefing,…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The plight of Uyghur refugees in Thailand and Pakistan is due to the use of economic clout as a political tool by China, reported Voices Against Autocracy (VAA) – a private, non-governmental organisation based in Vienna, Austria. The death of an Uyghur refugee in a detention center in Thailand and fears of another refugee in Pakistan being deported to China provide clues to the plight of refugees fleeing Xinjiang fearing Chinese persecution. Uyghurs are witnessing a new challenge, they are being detained not only in other countries but also in China itself, fearing persecution. This is a function…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Lithuania’s Ambassador to India Diana Mickeviciene on Monday said her country takes pride in having a close connection with the Sanskrit language and urged that more research should be done. “Actually it’s a recognised, scientific fact that our language, which is my native tongue, Lithuanian is the closest living sister language of Sanskrit. We don’t know how it happened, so, our idea is to research it — make it more known. It’s a pretty known fact in Lithuania, we take pride in this — having this close connection. But, it’s not so known in India, so our intention…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The democracy summit, which would be hosted by US President Joe Biden in Washington this week, has forced Pakistan to walk a tightrope. Pakistan is among over 100 countries invited by the Biden administration on a three-day summit to be kicked off on Tuesday. However, Islamabad is in a bind — to take a call on the US invitation or not. Official sources said intensive consultations were going on late Monday night. “The final decision will be taken on Tuesday,” according to the sources. What makes Pakistani decision complicated is that the US has not invited China and…

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The first edition of the “Jita Kyoei Judo Cup” was held in Thimphu today. The tournament holds great significance as it not only promotes the practice of Judo in Bhutan but also the values of “Jita Kyoei” which is a Japanese phrase that means mutual welfare and benefit. Bhutan Judo Association in partnership with the Japanese government organised the inaugural tournament today. The President of the Kodokan Judo Institute said such tournaments will greatly help in the promotion of Judo in Bhutan. He also emphasised the Jita Kyoei spirit where people are more willing to promote the welfare…