Day: June 15, 2022

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says government is committed to complete Special Economic Zones at the earliest to ensure development and prosperity in the country.

Addressing a meeting at Rashakai Special Economic Zone in Rashakai on Wednesday, he said all problems and hurdles in the smooth execution of SEZs would be addressed on a priority basis.

The Prime Minister said focusing on establishing SEZs across the country would boost industrialization and exports and generate employment.

He said the solution to Pakistan’s economic problems is the massive industrialization and diversifying the export base. He said massive economic activity in the country would create employment, encourage exports and stimulate import substitution.

The Prime Minister said nine SEZs have been planned to be developed in Pakistan for promoting industrial infrastructural and technology transfer.

He invited the Chinese companies to invest in Pakistan. He said Chinese expertise in technology and the cheap labour of Pakistan could act in a balance to benefit both sides.

The Prime Minister proposed the launch of roadshows in China to highlight Pakistan’s potential for trade and investment.

He emphasized on sharing of expertise between the two countries and need to further augment development by exploring areas in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and other parts of Pakistan.

He directed the authorities to follow the timelines of the projects related to SEZs and announced holding a virtual meeting in the future to sort out ways for improvement.

Source: Radio Pakistan

Religious tensions in India have prompted some activists, both inside and outside the world’s second most populous country, to call for a boycott of Indian products and of Qatar Airways.

On Friday, thousands of Muslims marched in Bangladesh and Pakistan chanting slogans, among other things, to boycott all Indian products in Muslim countries.

“The global Muslim community has been united. We ask the whole world to boycott Indian products,” Moulana Imtiaz Alam, leader of a Bangladeshi Islamist party, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Separately, some Hindu activists have used the hashtag #boycottqatarairways to voice anger against Qatar’s strong diplomatic protest recently of allegedly Islamophobic remarks by members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Inside India, police arrested hundreds on Saturday after two Muslim teenagers died from gunshots and several others were injured in the weeks-long protests by Muslims in different parts of the country.

Since his ascent to power, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP’s leader, has been accused of stoking Hindu-Muslim tensions, a charge he and his supporters have repeatedly rejected.

About 14.2% of India’s 1.3 billion population are Muslim.

Strong ties

Experts say calls for boycotts and the strong reaction by Muslim nations to India’s latest religious tensions are unlikely to affect New Delhi’s trade and economic relations with the Muslim world.

India has maintained strong economic ties with Muslim countries, particularly the oil-rich nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Despite a major slump in India-GCC trade volume in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GCC exports to India quickly jumped to $98 billion and imports hit $40 billion in 2021, according to the International Institute of Finance (IIF).

More than 8 million Indian laborers and expatriates work in the GCC region, accounting for upwards of $26 billion in annual remittances.

“Expats account for more than half of the total foreign workers in the GCC,” Garbis Iradian, an economist at IIF, told VOA. “The rapid development of the GCC countries in the past two decades, including infrastructures, owes to foreign workers, particularly from India.”

Strong economic ties will likely weather the current religious and political tensions between India and GCC nations, experts say.

“Going forward there will likely be a new framework for relations focusing on investment, political dynamics, and defense and security as growing areas of India-Gulf relations, working to enhance the levels of trust between the two sides,” Viraj Solanki, a South-Asia expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told VOA.

Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, two GCC members, have pledged to invest about $200 billion in India in the coming years.

India also maintains robust trade and economic ties with Turkey, Indonesia and majority Muslim countries elsewhere in Asia as well as in Africa.

Homes razed

On Sunday, local authorities in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh reportedly demolished the homes of several Muslim activists who were allegedly behind the recent protests.

One of homes belonged to the parents of Afreen Fatima, a Muslim rights activist and university student.

Fatima has blamed local authorities for razing the house in retaliation for her father’s alleged involvement in recent protests by Muslims.

While some local officials were quoted in the media saying Fatima’s house was bulldozed because it was built illegally, an adviser to Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister tweeted a photo of the house saying, “Unruly elements remember, every Friday is followed by a Saturday.”

Human rights groups and Indian Muslims say Islamophobia has reached dangerous levels in the world’s largest democracy.

Earlier this year, BJP political rallies included threats of mass violence against Muslims, and some party leaders labeled Muslims as terrorists.

Last week, a report from the U.S. State Department named India, among countries like China, Russia, Myanmar and Pakistan, a violator of religious freedoms and cited numerous reports of attacks on and discrimination against Indian Muslims.

The Indian government condemned the U.S. report calling it “ill-informed and biased.”

Source: Voice of America

Russia said Wednesday it was not considering granting legitimacy to Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities but maintained that humanitarian problems facing the conflict-torn nation oblige many countries to “enter into contacts” with the new rulers in Kabul.

“It’s not being discussed at the moment; we have said this many times. It is useless now to predict when this will happen,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow when asked about the possibility of recognizing the Taliban regime.

The insurgent-turned-Islamist group took over Afghanistan last August and installed an interim administration following the end of almost 20 years of U.S.-led foreign military intervention in the South Asian country.

No country has yet recognized the Taliban government, citing concerns the Islamist group has reneged on pledges to respect the rights of all Afghans and prevent terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, from using Afghanistan for international attacks.

The all-male Taliban Cabinet is being criticized for not having representation of all Afghan ethnic and political groups.

Zamir Kabulov, the Russian special presidential envoy for Afghan affairs, on Tuesday outlined Moscow’s conditions for recognizing the Taliban.

“[An] inclusive ethnopolitical government should be the first step towards this. We make no secret of this and we say so outright to our Afghan partners,” Kabulov told Russian state-run television.

“As soon as this happens, there will be the basis for a serious discussion. We will act regardless of what the United States and everybody else may think.”

The Taliban reject criticism of their government, saying it represents all Afghan ethnic and political groups. The hardline ruling movement strongly defends restrictions on women, saying the conditions are in line with Afghan culture and Islamic tradition.

Since the Islamist group took control of Afghanistan on August 15 of last year, it has not allowed most teenage schoolgirls to resume classes.

“It’s still unclear today, as it was 10 months ago, how the Taliban want to run this country. The clouds of uncertainties are larger & darker. The international community exacerbated the crisis with sanctions & halting development projects,” tweeted Mohsin Amin, an Afghan policy analyst and researcher. He estimated in a separate tweet that the education ban has prevented 2 million Afghan girls from going to school.

China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey are among several countries which have kept their embassies in Kabul open even after the exit of the United States and its NATO-led partners from Afghanistan.

The Russian Foreign Ministry recently accredited the Taliban-appointed Afghan chargé d’affaires to allow him to run the Afghan Embassy in Moscow, calling it “a step toward resuming full-fledged bilateral diplomatic contacts” with Kabul.

An already bad humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has worsened since the return of the Taliban to power in the wake of international financial sanctions on the group, pushing the national economy to the brink of collapse.

The United Nations estimates that more than half of Afghanistan’s estimated 40 million population are suffering from acute hunger and urgently need humanitarian aid. Some 1.1 million Afghan children are suffering malnutrition.

Source: Voice of America