Author: Moez Pirzada

Over 29,000 government schools were shut for more than a week in Nepal as teachers went on a nationwide strike against a new law that brings schools under the management of local bodies. This will affect the education of half-a-million students. Around the same time, almost all the hospitals were shut down, providing only skeletal emergency services. Doctors were on the streets to protest the assault of doctors on duty and damage of property at the Pokhara-based Manipal Teaching Hospital following the death of a patient brought in in “critical condition”. It was called off on Saturday after the government…

Copenhagen (17/08 – 78) Kidnapping, intimidation, and blackmail are just some of the means used to hit enlistment quotas in Tajikistan. When conscription season comes around in Tajikistan, military recruiters begin resorting to desperate measures. Scooping young men off the streets in actions tantamount to kidnapping is standard. But that is just for starters. To pressure communities into giving up their sons, recruiters will disconnect the electricity, detain relatives, and shut down mosques. Eligible levees draw lots to decide who will be the one to hand themselves over. The hunting season for men of draft age, which applies to people…

KARACHI, Pakistan Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Thursday said she will “not be surprised” if New Delhi blames Islamabad for the recent killing of security personnel in Indian-administered Kashmir. Mumtaz Zehra Baloch was commenting on Indian claims earlier in the morning that two army officers and a policeman were killed during a counter-militancy operation in the Himalayan region on Wednesday. Asked if New Delhi could use the incident to launch a “false flag operation” inside Pakistan, Baloch told a weekly news briefing in Islamabad that “India has a habit of dragging Pakistan in its domestic politics and we will not…

Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the presidential nomination from the Republican Party of the USA, who is in the top three in terms of popularity among Republican supporters, promises to recognize the Russian occupation of Ukraine and block its path to NATO if elected president. Source: Ramaswamy in the programme article for The American Conservative Details: Part of the material concerning Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine repeats the thesis expressed by the Republican that the greatest danger for the United States is the rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. At the same time, Ramaswamy draws parallels with the foreign policy of Richard Nixon (who decided to…

The cabinet has approved a draft of the New Development Bank Act, 2023 to welcome funds from the lending arm of the BRICS bloc of developing nations. The government expects $800 million from the NDB to fund two projects after the law comes into effect, a top official said after the cabinet passed the draft in a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday, reports bdnews24.com. The projects include the installation of Dhaka-Narayanganj gas pipeline and supply of water to Mohammadpur’s Basila by Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, said Cabinet Secretary Md Mahbub Hossain. The multilateral…

The monsoon season, which runs from June through September, has become a nervous time for the people of Nepal. The climate crisis has supercharged the fallout from the annual rains, which are triggering an increasing number of floods and landslides, disasters that are especially devastating in a nation defined by its vertigo-inducing slopes. From the glacial mountaintops of the Himalayas to the crowded streets of Kathmandu, the bitter irony is not lost on the Nepalese; the very life-giving monsoons that have shaped their culture have become a source of fear. Dhanmaya Thami, a mother-of-five, is well-acquainted with the threats posed…

For decades, Nepal has allowed its ethnic Gurkha soldiers to join the Indian army under a special agreement. The practice came to an abrupt halt last year after India introduced a controversial new army hiring plan, straining ties between the two neighbouring countries. The Gurkhas, famed for their ferocity and bravery, have fought several wars over the decades for both the Indian and British armies. They were first recruited by the British East India company in 1815 following a peace deal with Nepal. After the end of colonial rule in 1947 a tripartite agreement between Nepal, India and Britain allowed…

DHAKA: The Saudi Tourism Authority is establishing a representative office in Bangladesh, its Asia-Pacific president told Arab News on Thursday. The authority hopes to attract more than 3 million Bangladeshi travelers to the Kingdom by 2030. The STA was part of a Saudi delegation, led by Hajj and Umrah Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, that visited Dhaka this week to launch the Kingdom’s flagship Nusuk initiative and to sign agreements with Bangladeshi authorities to boost ties between the two countries. Nusuk is an e-visa and booking platform that allows pilgrims to create itineraries for Makkah, Madinah and beyond, and helps them arrange…

One year after catastrophic floods devastated swathes of Pakistan, some 4 million children in the South Asian nation remain without access to safe water, the United Nations children’s agency has warned. In a news release Friday, UNICEF said it estimates that there are 8 million people in the country, around half of whom are children, who continue to live in flood-affected areas without clean water. “Vulnerable children living in flood-affected areas have endured a horrific year,” Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan, said in the statement. “They lost their loved ones, their homes and schools. As the monsoon rains return, the…

Pakistan faces a savings and investment problem. It’s exacerbated by perpetual fiscal deficits that have crowded out the private sector and generated headwinds for productivity growth. Much of the recurring economic crises in Pakistan can be blamed on the inability (and unwillingness) of the government to expand the tax base. As a result, investment in the formal economy as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is near all-time low levels. To get out of the current crisis, Pakistan’s policymakers must incentivize the flow of private capital in key sectors of the economy, including infrastructure. Continuing to incentivize informal investments in sectors…