Author: Inaaya Kalyal

Budapest (12/8 – 33) Mahmadzohir will theoretically be eligible to run for president in 2027. In Tajikistan, only the president is permitted to enjoy an unfettered public profile. An intriguing exception to this norm is emerging, however, with another figure amassing huge levels of apparent popularity and prominence. This person too is a member of the ruling family. Ismoil Mahmadzohir, who turned 26 last month, is the grandson of President Emomali Rahmon. His mother, Firuza, is one of Rahmon’s seven daughters. He attended the Elite British Prep School Queen Ethelburga’s College and is the CEO of IM Group. Ismoil Mahmadzohir is born…

This June, monsoon rains wreaked havoc in Nepal’s hilly regions, but the country’s southern lowlands were instead reeling from a severe lack of water. Tube wells dried out in several parts of Parsa district, in a drought shared by regions over the border in India. The southernmost foothills of the Himalayas – known as the Churia Range where they lie in Nepal, and Siwalik in India – face serious environmental problems due to soil erosion, deforestation and rapid population growth. In addition, shifting rainfall patterns caused by climate change have led to severe water crises in several areas. However, experts say this transboundary water crisis is absent from…

Bhutan’s Druk Air is gearing up to introduce direct flights between the Paro International Airport in Bhutan and the Pokhara Regional International Airport (PRIA) in Nepal. Druk Air has secured the necessary permissions to initiate flights from Paro to Pokhara, with the maiden chartered flight scheduled for September 9. Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) Information Officer Gyanendra Bhul conveyed this update, highlighting that the flight will be a chartered service. The flight will take off from Pokhara and employ narrow-body aircraft for its operations. While the new airport in Pokhara is gradually facilitating flight operations, it is anticipated that…

Hundreds of community members, diplomats, dignitaries, businessmen and traders enjoyed the sweet taste of popular Pakistani mangoes during an event held by the Pakistan Business Professional Council (PBPC) in Abu Dhabi. Mango is the national fruit of Pakistan, and its local produce is renowned for its distinct flavour. The five-hour-long free-to-attend Pakistan Mango Festival saw visitors enjoy 14 different varieties, including Lal Badshah, Chaunsa, Dussehri, Anwar Ratool, Fajri, and Hyder Shah among others. The event was organised by Pakistan Business Professional Council, and all the members contributed to its success. “These are fresh and finest varieties of mangoes flown in…

The bamboo-and-net pen looks like a small hen’s cage. Inside, however, is a black kite – a large bird of prey. The raptor is a resident of a small ‘zoo’ in the Mankamana Community Forest in eastern Nepal’s Morang district, the last survivor of a set of six kites that had been handed over to the Manakamana community forest users’ group (CFUG) two years ago. With limited regulation such CFUG-managed ‘zoos’ have proliferated in Nepal, but the state of the animals in them is raising a host of concerns among conservationists. At the centre of the issue are CFUGs, a legally…

Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar could be among the candidates to lead the incoming caretaker government, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party said on Monday, a move aimed at helping continuity of economic reforms under a $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout program. The current legislature is set to complete its five-year term on Aug. 12, paving the way for the next general elections in October. Under the constitution, the caretaker prime minister is to be appointed by the president in consultation with the prime minister and leader of the opposition in the outgoing National…

Nineteen female undergraduate students from Pakistan participated in the second annual U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council Future of Women in Energy Scholars program, hosted by Texas A&M University at Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university. The program was sponsored by the U.S.-Pakistan Women’s Council, a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of State and Texas A&M University, that seeks to increase women’s economic participation in Pakistan by promoting women’s entrepreneurship, employment, and access to career-enhancing educational opportunities. In addition, USAID, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, and the U.S. Embassy in Qatar provided significant support for the program.The young…

Clearly, the US President Joe Biden has his own acute and geo-strategic compulsions so he is obliged to inch closer to an illiberal democrat and a political man who is highly Islamophobic to the extent that he is taken as a “terror machine” inside India by the 200 million plus minority Muslims. The China factor has urgently necessitated President Joe Biden to keep the uneducated Indian Prime Minister Modi in good stead only to send signals to the already rising and competing world power China that close to the country there is India, born 1947, standing tall which has an equal…

Brussels, Frankfurt (16/6 – 33) The European Union declared late last year that it intended to investigate how Russia acquired so-called “kamikaze drones” from the Islamic Republic of Iran, for battlefield deployment. While the production of these game-changing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was not reported until after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, numerous media claim the Russian military is deploying Iranian-made Geran-2 drones on the battlefield. This was confirmed through analysis of fragments from Russian Geran-2 drones shot down by Ukrainian forces; experts conclude that these UAVs are identical to the Shahed-136 kamikaze drones produced by Iran. While the West…

Former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Jawwad S Khawaja on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court (SC) against the trial of civilians in military courts and demanded that it should be declared “unconstitutional”. The petition, filed through Advocate Khwaja Ahmad Hosain, sought to declare that “sections 2(1)(d)(i) and (ii) of the Pakistan Army Act 1952 are inconsistent with the fundamental rights conferred by the Constitution and are void and struck down”. The plea, which has not been fixed for hearing yet, named the Federation of Pakistan through secretaries of law and justice, interior, defence, and chief secretaries of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,…