Tag: asia

Gunmen kill four, including three Spanish tourists, in central Afghanistan | Taliban News

No group claims responsibility for attack in Bamyan, which official says also injures seven people.

Gunmen have killed an Afghan citizen and three foreign tourists in central Afghanistan’s Bamyan province, the Ministry of Interior Affairs says.

Four foreign nationals and three Afghans were also injured in the attack on Friday when gunmen opened fire, ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said.

Four people have been arrested, he said.

The Taliban government “strongly condemns this crime, expresses its deep feelings to the families of the victims and assures that all the criminals will be found and punished”, Qani said in a statement.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the late evening attack.

Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs later confirmed that the three individuals killed on Friday were Spanish citizens. At least one Spanish national was also among those injured.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a post on social media that he was “overwhelmed by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan”, offering his condolences to the families and friends of the victims.

Sanchez also said he was following the situation closely and pledged consular support.

The mountainous region of Bamyan is Afghanistan’s top tourist destination, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the remains of two giant Buddha statues that the Taliban blew up during their previous rule of Afghanistan in 2001.

Since taking over the country again in 2021 after the withdrawal of United States-led forces, the Taliban have promised to restore security and encourage a small but growing number of tourists trickling into the country.

Friday’s attack was the deadliest since the Taliban took over three years ago.

ISIL (ISIS) claimed an attack that injured Chinese citizens at a hotel popular with Chinese businessmen in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in 2022.

The European Union condemned the attack in Bamyan in a brief statement on Friday.

“Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims who lost their lives and those injured in the attack,” it said.

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As India’s Modi drags Pakistan into election campaign, will ties worsen? | India Election 2024 News

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s former information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, says he did not realise that a three-word post on social media platform X on May 1 would inject his country into a heated conversation it had otherwise skirted until then: India’s noisy election campaign.

“Rahul on fire …” he wrote, reposting a video clip of Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the Indian opposition Congress party, in which he could be seen criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).

 

Chaudhry’s post, which came in the midst of India’s massive election process that spans seven different voting days, starting in April and ending in June, immediately went viral, racking up more than 1.8 million views. It was retweeted 1,800 times and received over 1,500 replies.

Among those who responded was Amit Malviya, the boss of the BJP’s information technology wing, who oversees the party’s vast social media machinery. Malviya accused Chaudhry of promoting Congress leader Gandhi.

“Is the Congress planning to contest election in Pakistan? From a manifesto, that has imprints of the Muslim league to a ringing endorsement, from across the border, Congress’s dalliance with Pakistan can’t get more obvious,” Malviya wrote.

The Muslim League, one of pre-Partition India’s major political forces, was behind the movement that led to the creation of Pakistan.

A day later, Modi himself referred to Chaudhry’s post during an election rally in his home state of Gujarat.

“You must have heard. Now, Pakistani leaders are praying for Congress,” Modi said. “Pakistan is too keen to make the prince [Gandhi] the prime minister. And we already know that Congress is the disciple of Pakistan. The Pakistan-Congress partnership is now fully exposed.”

Since then, Pakistan has repeatedly figured in speeches of Modi and senior BJP leaders like Home Minister Amit Shah as a battering ram with which to both target the opposition and demonstrate the government’s muscular response during tensions with India’s western neighbour.

After a veteran Congress leader referred to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, Modi used a crude, Hindi sexist metaphor to suggest that his government would show Pakistan its place. Shah, in a speech, said that India under Modi had given a “befitting reply” to “terrorism” from Pakistan.

Modi accused the Congress-led opposition INDIA alliance of batting for Pakistan, giving the neighbour a “clean chit” when it has been accused of “terrorism.”

That increased emphasis on Pakistan contrasts sharply with the months of campaigning that preceded May, when relations between the neighbours were virtually nonexistent as an election theme.

Chaudhry, whose post seemingly set it all off, said he was stunned. “I was not expecting this kind of reaction, particularly from their PM Modi,” the politician told Al Jazeera.

Pakistan’s government has also hit back at comments by Modi and Shah, terming them an “unhealthy and entrenched obsession with Pakistan”.

The statement, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 14, said the comments by Indian leaders revealed a “deliberate intent” to exploit hyper-nationalism for electoral gains.

“The bravado and jingoism exhibited by Indian leaders expose a reckless and extremist mindset. This mindset calls into question India’s capacity to be a responsible steward of its strategic capability,” the statement further said.

Yet a Pakistani infusion in Indian elections is not new; in the past, it has on occasion even become a dominant flavour.

A nationalist narrative

The two neighbours have had a tense relationship since they became sovereign states in August 1947, after the end of British colonial rule in the subcontinent. The nuclear-armed nations have fought three major wars, and share a contentious border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule only in parts.

Modi and his BJP won a second consecutive term in power in the 2019 election, in which the party’s campaign heavily focused on Pakistan.

On February 14, 2019, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian paramilitary forces in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 46 soldiers. The Pakistan-based armed group Jaish-e-Muhammad claimed responsibility. Pakistan condemned the attack and denied any involvement. But India has long accused Pakistan of sheltering groups like the Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Days later, on February 26, Indian fighter jets crossed the Line of Control – the de facto border between the two nations in parts of Jammu and Kashmir – and bombed what New Delhi claimed were hideouts of armed fighters preparing to target India.

Pakistan hit back a day later, sending its own fighter jets into Indian-controlled territory, shooting down an Indian jet and arresting the pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, who was released two days later.

The nearly week-long skirmish between the two days brought the two nuclear-armed nations to the brink of war, merely weeks before the Indian election that year.

Subsequently, Pakistan remained a key part of the election campaign. After multiple independent think tanks and analysts concluded, based on their investigations, that Indian jets had not hit any target of significance when they entered Pakistan-controlled territory, opposition parties asked Modi’s government for evidence of the success it had claimed in the mission.

Modi flipped those questions on their head, alleging that they showed how the opposition did not trust India’s armed forces and instead believed Pakistan – which had also denied any major damage from Indian strikes – more.

Though the Indian PM has once again brought Pakistan into the election campaign, Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer of international relations at London’s King’s College, said that compared with 2019, Islamabad was now a secondary concern for New Delhi, with Beijing becoming the “principal foreign policy challenge”.

“It is true that the events of the Balakot attack in 2019 were used in the campaign, but that was a pretty unusual occurrence,” Ladwig said, referring to the town in Pakistan that Indian jets bombed. “In this election, I see the invocations of Pakistan as a way of distracting attention from the fact that India has lost territory to China and the government has been unable to significantly improve the situation or achieve a return to the pre-2020 status quo.”

Ladwig was referring to the clashes between India and China in June 2020 in the Himalayan region of Galwan, in which more than 20 Indian soldiers died, whereas China lost four soldiers.

Since then, many independent analysts have pointed to evidence that the People’s Liberation Army has taken over chunks of territory India previously controlled along their disputed border. The Indian government denies it has lost any land to China.

Is it all rhetoric?

Despite the reaction to his post on May 1, Chaudhry doubled down, and two days, he later posted another message, suggesting that religious minorities in India could provide a robust challenge to the BJP if they united.

A few days later, Modi once again insinuated a pact between the Congress party and Pakistan, without offering any evidence.

“The Congress’s cross-border B-team has become active. Tweets are coming in from across the border to lift the Congress’s morale. In return, the Congress is giving Pakistan a clean chit in cases of terrorism,” he said.

For Qamar Cheema, an expert on international affairs and executive director of Sanober Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, the references to Pakistan in the campaign reflect the “changing nature of the idea of India”, from a secular state to a Hindu majoritarian polity.

What happens if the BJP wins again?

Many opinion polls suggest that Modi and the BJP are firm favourites to return to power for a third time.

If that happens, Chaudhry, the former Pakistani minister, said bilateral ties – already barely functional – would suffer further.

“If BJP and Modi win the election by sweeping the polls, the way they are claiming, relations with Pakistan will not improve, but instead, deteriorate even more,” he said.

But some analysts believe that despite Modi’s rhetoric, Pakistan’s endemic economic problems and India’s desire to focus its attention on the threat from China give both New Delhi and Islamabad an incentive to significantly improve relations.

Several Indian governments in recent decades, Ladwig pointed out, had tried – but failed – to work with their Pakistani counterparts to improve bilateral relations. In his first term, Modi too made a surprise visit to Pakistan, as the neighbours tried to revive talks before an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir soon after snuffed out those prospects.

“But now in his third term, Modi would be thinking about his legacy,” Ladwig said. “Some sort of lasting rapprochement with Pakistan” could serve that purpose, he added.



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India’s income inequality widens, should wealth be redistributed? | Business and Economy

Rising income inequality is a hot topic dominating the national elections.

India is the fastest-growing major economy in the world. But, the benefits of India’s growth are not trickling down to poor people. The richest 1 percent of the population owns 40 percent of the country’s wealth.

The inequality gap has widened sharply under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power. It is now a flashpoint in the country’s national elections, with hot topics including inheritance taxes and wealth redistribution.

Also, how much does the United States spend on foreign aid and does the funding help boost global stability?

Plus, why has Zambia banned charcoal production permits?

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Why are Kashmiris voting in Indian election they’ve long boycotted? | India Election 2024 News

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Haroon Khan huddled with his friends on the lawn of a polling station in the heart of Nowhatta, a part of the city of Srinagar that is known for its anti-India sentiments. Khan had just emerged from a small room after casting his vote in the ongoing parliamentary elections in India.

For years, most people in Indian-administered Kashmir have boycotted elections, which many here have seen as attempts by New Delhi to legitimise – using democracy – its control over a region that has been a hotbed of armed rebellion against India since 1989. Rebel armed groups and separatist leaders have routinely issued boycott calls ahead of every election.

Yet, as India votes in its national elections, that voting pattern is changing. Five years after the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, abolished its statehood, and brought it under the direct control of New Delhi, 21-year-old Khan and his friends outside the polling booth chose a new form of protest: voting.

“We have not achieved anything from boycotts or choosing other means [stone pelting] of protests to express our dissent,” Khan said. “Many of my friends, neighbours are languishing in jails for years now, nobody cares for them.”

Khan is not alone.

The Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley’s three seats in the lower house of India’s parliament, the Lok Sabha, have been given three different dates for voting in the elections. Srinagar, the only city that has voted so far – on May 13 – saw a 38 percent turnout for the region. That’s the highest voting percentage since 1989. The figure stood at 14.43 percent in the last elections in 2019.

That is no endorsement of India or its policies, say voters and local politicians. Instead, they say, it is a reflection of a dramatically changed political landscape in the region that they feel has left them with no other option to show their dissent against New Delhi.

‘Choose those who can speak for us’

Kashmir is disputed by India and Pakistan, both of which claim all of it, and parts of which each controls. The South Asian neighbours have fought three wars over the Himalayan region.

Since 1989, when the armed rebellion against Indian rule broke out, tens of thousands of people have been killed. A massive Indian army presence oversees most aspects of life in the part of Kashmir controlled by the country.

Still, the special status that Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed gave it some autonomy: Outsiders could not buy land there, for instance.

The 2019 abrogation of Article 370 – the Indian constitution provision that gave that special status – changed that, and things have worsened since then, said Khan. The region’s legislative assembly has not had elections since then either, so many Kashmiris feel they have no voice at all in the policies that shape their lives.

“The purpose I voted today was to choose my local Kashmiri representative who can speak on behalf of us to India. I want my friends to be released from jails,” said Khan.

Voting for the ‘lesser evil’

For the first time in decades, separatist leaders and armed groups have not called for an election boycott – most separatist leaders are currently in jail.

Meanwhile, since the 2019 crackdown, traditionally pro-Indian parties have become vociferous critics of New Delhi. Their leaders have been arrested, and they have accused India of betraying the people of Kashmir through the abrogation of Article 370. Parties that were once treated almost as sellouts to New Delhi are now seen as potential voices of the people, according to voters and analysts.

Faheem Alam, a 38-year-old web developer who cast his ballot in Srinagar’s city centre, Lal Chowk, said his vote was for a “lesser evil”, alluding to the BJP, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, as being the “bigger evil” compared with other political parties.

“I am voting for the INDIA alliance,” he said, referring to the grouping of opposition parties that is challenging Modi’s bid to return to power for the third time in a row. “I don’t like any political party, but I am casting my vote to keep the BJP at bay.”

Modi’s recent election speeches targeting Muslims – the prime minister described them as “infiltrators” and “those who have more children” – have added to Alam’s worries.

“Kashmir is Muslim-majority, but what is happening with Muslims in other states of India is appalling. Therefore, I came out to vote to save our region from the BJP,” he said.

Mainstream Kashmiri political parties have welcomed the shift in protest strategy, from boycotts to voting. Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, the candidate of the National Conference (NC) from Srinagar, said Kashmiris had paid a price for the “criminalisation” of participation in elections over the years.

“All these years, the mainstream political parties have been discredited in Kashmir. Election participation was considered [a] sin,” Mehdi told Al Jazeera at his party headquarters in Srinagar. “Today, Kashmiris have lost their identity. We are being ruled by outsiders.”

Waheed ur Rehman Para, Mehdi’s rival from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), agreed.

“People have now realised that [their] vote is a weapon,” Parra told Al Jazeera. “Today, there is a complete silence in Kashmir. People are even afraid of talking, but by participating in the elections, they have conveyed their dissent to New Delhi’s 2019 decision.”

Since the revocation of Article 370, the Modi government has imprisoned hundreds of human rights activists, journalists and political leaders, even placing restrictions on politicians from the NC and the PDP, which swear allegiance to the Indian nation.

Some 34km (21 miles) from Srinagar, in south Kashmir’s Pulwama – once an epicentre of armed uprising against Indian rule – people were queued up at the polling booths to cast their votes last Monday.

In the last parliamentary election, the Pulwama district, which falls in the Srinagar constituency, recorded just 1 percent polling in comparison to 43.39 percent this time.

Muneeb Bashir, 20, a computer science engineering student at AMC Engineering College in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru, is a first-time voter.

“We need young leaders to represent the aspirations of Kashmiri youth. The situation has changed here [in Kashmir] from boycotting days,” Bashir said, referring to fears that the BJP is trying to change the demographics of the Muslim-majority region by allowing people from other parts of India to buy land, take up jobs and settle in Kashmir.

Behind Bashir in a queue was 25-year-old Muneer Mushtaq. His reason to cast a vote for the first time was to save the “preamble” of India’s constitution, he said. That part of India’s fundamental law lays out the values at the heart of the modern Indian state – which it defines as a secular, socialist nation.

“It has been 10 years since Kashmir saw an assembly poll,” Mushtaq said, referring to the state legislature elections. “This vote is against the government of India.”

Unlike in the past, many women were also queueing up to vote.

Rukhsana, a 30-year-old voter from the village of Naira in south Kashmir, said her vote would help to release jailed youth in her village.

“There are lots of atrocities taking place in Kashmir. Our youth are jailed. I am sure if we have our people at the helm of affairs, our miseries will lessen,” she said.

Shopian, another district in southern Kashmir where armed groups have long had influence, also witnessed a 47.88 percent voter turnout compared with 2.64 percent in the 2019 general elections.

Who’s to credit? And who’s to blame?

Taking to X, Modi and Indian Home Minister Amit Shah both credited the abrogation of Article 370 for the higher voter percentage in the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency.

“Would especially like to applaud the people of Srinagar Parliamentary constituency for the encouraging turnout, significantly better than before,” Modi tweeted.

Modi reshared images posted by India’s Election Commission of long queues of voters in Srinagar.

Shah said the abrogation of Article 370 was a win for democracy in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The Modi government’s decision to abrogate Article 370 is showing results in the poll percentage as well. It has enhanced people’s trust in democracy, and its roots have deepened in J&K [Jammu and Kashmir],” Shah wrote on X.

“Through the surge in the poll percentage, the people of J&K have given a befitting reply to those who opposed the abrogation and are still advocating its restoration,” he added.

Yet, the BJP’s opponents point to the fact that the party has not fielded a candidate in any of the three Kashmir Valley constituencies – which experts say reflects their acknowledgement of the deep anger it faces in the region.

Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a political analyst, said that contrary to the BJP’s claims, it was actually “BJP-phobia” – built up also by the NC and PDP – that had made people vote in larger numbers this time than in the past.

At the same time, he pointed out, almost two-thirds of voters in Srinagar had still skipped the election, despite there being no boycott call. And the 38 percent voting percentage in the constituency is only about half of the 73 percent voting in 1984, the last national election before the armed rebellion broke out.

In Budgam’s Chadoora district, located about 14km (9 miles) from Srinagar, Inayat Yousuf, 22, cast his vote against “outsiders” taking over the reins of power in Kashmir. His worry: A giant majority for the BJP in the election could embolden it to change Kashmir in its image even more.

“The issues of development, jobs will always be there,” Yousuf said. “But this time, it is about our identity.”

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India’s silent youth crisis: College-educated but poorer than a farm hand | India Election 2024

Ralegaon, India – Sometimes, Shivanand Sawale rues his choices and dreams.

Growing up in Dabhadi village in the Yavatmal district of western India’s Maharashtra state, the 42-year-old was so inspired by teachers around him that he wanted to become one himself.

He battled poverty, his father’s untimely death and his growing farm losses and turned that aspiration into a reality.

He is now among the most well-educated in his village: Sawale obtained a Master of Science and a Diploma in Education, a certificate degree meant for elementary-level school teachers.

Yet, he is often the butt of jokes among his friends. The reason? He makes less money than a landless labourer in the village. After working for 13 years in a private school, Sawale makes 7,500 rupees ($90) a month, or 250 rupees ($2.4) a day.

In the village, a day’s wage for farm labourers is anywhere between 300 and 400 rupees ($3.7-$4.7).

“My friends keep mocking me, saying [that] even uneducated workers at corner shops earn more than I do,” Sawale says.

The only consolation for Sawale is that he is not alone.

As India elects a new government, jobs have emerged as a key issue. A pre-poll survey by the New Delhi-based Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) found that rising unemployment was foremost on the minds of voters.

There are also many millions of Indians like Sawale who are underemployed and in pitifully low-paying jobs they are overqualified for. Their education, often, counts for little.

Instead, like Sawale, they face gnawing questions from friends and family, questions that do not augur well for a country with the world’s largest youth population: If this is what education provides, are young people better off without it?

According to the New Delhi-based Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, India’s unemployment rate stood at 7.6 percent in March 2024. A report, released in March this year, by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Institute of Human Development (IHD) revealed that an overwhelming majority of unemployed youth were educated, with at least a secondary education. In 2000, only 35.2 percent of unemployed youth were educated; by 2022, that figure had doubled to 66 percent, the report said.

As Sawale reflects on the gulf between his education and income, his friend Ganesh Rathod walks in.

Rathod, also from Dabhadi, dropped out of school. A farmer, he doubles up as an agricultural trader, and today, his finances are “stable”. He has recently renovated his house – a sparkling new attraction just off the highway that links to the village.

“In the village, those who did not educate themselves are better off because they have been able to keep their ambitions in check and be happy with what they got,” Rathod says.

“Now, look at them,” he says, pointing to Sawale. “They are educated but have to toil just like we do.”

Private educational institutes like these, in Yavatmal, advertise a bright future for students. The reality is very different [Kunal Purohit/Al Jazeera]

A degree in vain

Nearly 100km (60 miles) away, in Ralegaon town, this reality defines 27-year-old Sidhant Mende’s life.

Mende is an engineer by education but this is not his job.

He works at a construction site, supervising the building of a new house, a job that requires no engineering-specific expertise, he says. For this, he gets 12,000 rupees ($145) a month, which is 400 rupees ($4.7) a day, just about what landless farm labourers make in the villages outside town.

He took the work after hunting for a job in Ralegaon that matched his qualifications. He even looked for jobs hundreds of kilometres away in big cities like Pune and Nagpur. But nothing offered him more than about 13,000 ($156) a month.

This was what he had earned when he worked in an automobile showroom before he pursued his engineering degree.

“It felt like my degree didn’t matter at all,” he says. “It didn’t make sense to take up such low-paying jobs, because I would have spent all of the money I make on my expenses living in a big city like Pune or Nagpur,” he says.

He rejected those job offers, confident that something better would come his way. After all, he had toiled for four years to get that coveted degree. Now, two years after he graduated, he realises how wrong he was.

In the 2014 elections, he backed aspiring Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), drawn by the enticing promise that they would create 250 million jobs in the country over a decade. But since 2019, he has backed the opposition Congress Party and says he will continue to do so.

Mende is now on the verge of giving up on his job search. He has done everything he thinks he could: applied to private companies and for a few government vacancies with the Regional Transport Office (RTO), which he never heard back from. He is exasperated and says he wants to now, maybe, start his own business.

What kind of a business? He does not have answers.

Sidhant Mende overseeing the construction of a small house in Ralegaon. His engineering degree, he says, has not helped him at all in securing a job [Al Jazeera/Kunal Purohit]

The privilege to dream

Not too far from Mende, also in Ralegaon, 21-year-old Aarti Kunkunwar is also underemployed. And unlike Mende, she cannot afford to look for jobs in other cities.

Kunkunwar is desperate for proper work. Her father, a goldsmith who was the family’s sole earning member, died last year, forcing her brother to abandon his education and start working. He was mid-way through his Bachelor of Science degree and had to join an automobile showroom as an administrative hand, earning 10,000 rupees ($120) a month.

Kunkunwar, who has an undergraduate degree in science, though has had no luck in finding stable employment. “I had only one constraint, which was that I would not be able to relocate to a different city since I could not leave my mother,” she says. She has not been able to find a single job in her town, despite multiple applications.

Local lawyer and social activist Vaibhav Pandit, who often works as a counsellor to young farmers, is not surprised.

The town, he says, has barely any jobs for people like Kunkunwar. “If this was a bigger city with more employment opportunities, then we could have possibly got small jobs going. But the problem is, here, there are no such small businesses which could employ people like her,” he says.

Kunkunwar is now reduced to teaching students in her neighbourhood. She earns 200 rupees ($2.4) each month for every student she teaches.

Like Sawale, the teacher, her consolation is that she has company in her misery. “Most of my female friends who graduated are either looking to get another degree or get married and stay home,” Kunkunwar said. “It is clear to us all that there are no jobs here.”

Chandrakant Khobragade, 40, has a postgraduate degree in science, with a specialisation in botany, and a degree in education, but cannot find a job [Kunal Purohit/Al Jazeera]

Bribes for jobs

Like Kunkunwar, Dabhadi resident Chandrakant Khobragade thought the road to a successful, prosperous life lay in gaining an education, whatever the challenges along the way.

Khobragade has a postgraduate degree in science, with a specialisation in botany. He also has a degree in education that qualifies him to teach in private schools. But when he started looking for jobs in Yavatmal, he came across an obstacle he had never imagined having to confront: In every private school he went to, the management and leadership asked him to cough up “donations” to get a job in the school.

These “donations” were in the range of 3-4 million rupees ($3,500-4,800), he was told.

“I didn’t have that kind of money to give,” he says. For years, he kept going from one school to another. “They were all the same.”

Demands for bribes by private schools and colleges are not uncommon, locals say. The lack of jobs means that private institutions sense an opportunity to auction any jobs they create.

Government recruitment for teaching positions has been few and infrequent – for six years, the regional government in Maharashtra had not recruited teachers. In February, newspapers reported that more than 136,000 applicants had applied for 21,678 vacant teacher posts in Maharashtra, of which only 11,000 were reportedly filled. Khobragade has yet to hear from them about his application. But time is running out.

Khobragade is now 40 and has resigned himself to the fact that his education will not get him anywhere. He now cultivates cotton and soybean crops on his family farm.

He insists that he knows better than to have expectations of finding a job, and yet, he still holds out some hope each time he sees a notification that the government is recruiting teachers for government schools.

And he consoles himself: “I keep saying to myself, at the very least, I am the most educated farmer of the village,” he laughs.

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Kazakhstan jails former minister for 24 years over wife’s torture, murder | Women’s Rights News

United Nations says about 400 women die from domestic violence in Kazakhstan each year, but many cases go unreported.

Warning: This article contains details of violent domestic abuse that some may find upsetting.

Kazakhstan’s top court has sentenced a former economy minister to 24 years in prison for torturing and murdering his wife, following a widely watched trial that many saw as a test of the president’s promise to strengthen women’s rights.

Kuandyk Bishimbayev, 44, was found guilty and sentenced by the Supreme Court on Monday.

His trial, which has been broadcast live over the past seven weeks, has been seen as an attempt by authorities to send a message that members of the elite are no longer above the law.

Surveillance footage played during the trial showed Bishimbayev repeatedly punching and kicking his wife, 31-year-old Saltanat Nukenova, and dragging her by her hair, near naked, into the VIP room of a restaurant owned by his family in the country’s largest city, Almaty.

As she lay dying in the suite with no security cameras covered in her blood, Bishimbayev phoned a fortune teller, who assured him his wife would be fine. When an ambulance finally arrived 12 hours later, Nukenova was pronounced dead at the scene.

Videos were also found on Bishimbayev’s mobile phone in which he insulted and humiliated the visibly bruised and bloodied Nukenova in the hours before she lost consciousness on the morning of November 9 last year.

This June 2017 photo provided by Aitbek Amangeldy shows a selfie taken by his sister, Saltanat Nukenova, in Astana [Courtesy of Aitbek Amangeldy via AP]

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has said he wants to build a fairer society including improved rights for women.

The case has helped rally public support behind a law criminalising domestic violence, which parliament passed last month.

Days after Nukenova’s death, her relatives launched an online petition urging authorities to pass “Saltanat’s Law” to bolster protection for those at risk of domestic violence. When the trial began, more than 5,000 Kazakhs wrote to senators urging for tougher laws on abuse, according to local media reports.

Government data show that one in six women in the Central Asian nation has experienced violence by a male partner.

According to the United Nations, about 400 women die from domestic abuse in the country each year. These figures could be higher as many cases go unreported.

During the trial, Bishimbayev admitted to beating his wife, but said some of her injuries were self-inflicted. He denied torturing or planning to murder her.

He served as the oil-rich nation’s economy minister from May to December 2016.

Bishimbayev was convicted of bribery in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but walked free after less than three years thanks to an amnesty and parole.

Kuandyk Bishimbayev, the country’s former economy minister, is escorted into court in Astana, Kazakhstan. [File: The Kazakhstan Supreme Court Press Office Telegram channel via AP]

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At least 14 killed as billboard collapses in Mumbai during thunderstorm | Weather News

The billboard collapsed on some houses and a petrol station next to a busy road in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar following gusty winds and rain.

At least 14 people have been killed and dozens of others injured after a huge billboard fell on them during a thunderstorm in India’s financial capital Mumbai, according to local authorities.

The billboard collapsed on some houses and a petrol station next to a busy road in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar following gusty winds and rain late on Monday.

Many others were trapped following the incident, with rescue operations continuing till early Tuesday. Mumbai’s municipal corporation said 74 people were taken to hospital with injuries following the accident, of which 31 were discharged.

Rescuers look for victims under the billboard that collapsed in Mumbai [Rafiq Maqbool/AP]

The rains, accompanied by strong winds, caused the 30-metre-tall (100-foot) billboard located next to a busy road in the Chheda Nagar area of Ghatkopar to fall over a petrol station and some houses on Monday evening.

The Press Trust of India news agency, quoting police officials, reported the billboard was installed illegally.

On Monday night, Devendra Fadnavis, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, said a high-level inquiry had been ordered into the incident and strict action would be taken against those responsible.

A “high-level inquiry has been ordered into the incident”, Fadnavis said in a post on X.

A resident reacts as she speaks on the phone during the rescue operation [Punit Paranjpe/AFP]

Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra, was hit by strong winds accompanied by rain and dust storms that uprooted trees and caused brief power outages in parts of the city, along with disruptions to the city’s train network.

The thunderstorm brought traffic to a standstill in parts of the city and disrupted operations at its airport, one of the country’s busiest, with at least 15 flights diverted.

India records heavy rains and severe floods during the monsoon season between June and September, which brings most of its annual rainfall. The rain is crucial for agriculture but often causes extensive damage.

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Australian war crimes whistleblower David McBride jailed for six years | Human Rights News

Former Australian Army lawyer David McBride has been sentenced to five years and eight months for revealing information about alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

Supporters of McBride have long expressed his concern that the Australian government was more interested in punishing him for revealing information about war crimes rather than the alleged perpetrators.

“It is a travesty that the first person imprisoned in relation to Australia’s war crimes in Afghanistan is not a war criminal but a whistleblower,” said Rawan Arraf, the executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, in a statement released after the sentencing.

“This is a dark day for Australian democracy,” Kieran Pender, the acting legal director of the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre, said in the same statement, noting McBride’s imprisonment would have “a grave chilling effect on potential truth-tellers”.

McBride, who arrived at the Supreme Court in Canberra, Australia this morning with his pet dog and surrounded by supporters, will remain behind bars until at least August 13, 2026, before he is eligible for parole.

In an interview with Al Jazeera before his trial began last year, McBride said he had never made a secret of sharing the files.

“What I want to be discussed is whether or not I was justified in doing so,” McBride stressed.

The former Australian Army lawyer’s sentencing comes almost seven years after Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, published a series of seven articles known as the Afghan Files based on information McBride provided.

McBride has attracted support from Australian human rights advocates, journalists and politicians who fear his sentencing has consequences for freedom of speech [Mick Tsikas/EPA-EFE/]

The series led to an unprecedented Australian Federal Police raid on ABC headquarters in June 2019 but details published in the series were also later confirmed in an Australian government inquiry, which found there was credible evidence to support allegations war crimes had been committed.

A Spokesperson for the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) told Al Jazeera that a former Australian Special Forces soldier who was charged with one count of the war crime of murder on March 20, 2023, is on bail with a mention scheduled for July 2, 2024.

“This is the first war crime arrest resulting from [joint investigations between the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) and the Australian Federal Police]”, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said the investigations were “very complex” and “expected to take a significant amount of time” but that they were conducting them as “thoroughly and expeditiously as possible”.

In a separate case last year, an Australian judge found Australia’s most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was “complicit in and responsible for the murder” of three Afghan men while on deployment. The finding was made in defamation proceedings brought by Roberts-Smith against three Australian newspapers who had reported on the allegations against him.

Roberts-Smith has appealed against the defamation ruling.

‘Greyer, murkier, messier’

McBride’s sentencing comes four months after Dan Oakes, one of two ABC journalists who wrote the Afghan Files, was awarded an Order of Australia Medal, with the citation simply saying he was recognised “for service to journalism”.

Oakes was quoted by the ABC at the time as saying, “I’m very proud of the work we did with the Afghan Files and I know that it did have a positive effect in that it helps bring some of this conduct to light.

“If [this medal] is at least partly due to that reporting then I do feel some sense of satisfaction.”

But Oakes, who has reportedly not spoken to McBride in six years, later told the ABC’s Four Corners programme that the story was “much greyer and murkier and messier than people appreciate”.

While Oakes and McBride have not stayed in touch, the whistleblower has attracted the support of a wide range of Australians, including human rights lawyers, senators and journalists.

Ben Roberts-Smith was ‘complicit in and responsible for the murder’ of three Afghan men, an Australian judge found in 2023 [Dan Himbrechts/EPA]

On Tuesday, supporters gathered outside the court, with speakers on McBride’s behalf including Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge.

It would be “an indelible stain on the Albanese Labor government” if McBride “walks into the Supreme Court this morning” and is then “taken out the back to jail”, Shoebridge said before the sentencing hearing.

In a joint statement from several Australians issued after the hearing, Peter Greste, the executive director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, said that “press freedom relies on protections for journalists and their sources”. He also noted that Australia had recently dropped to 39th in the global press freedom rankings.

Greste is a former Al Jazeera reporter who was jailed with two colleagues in Egypt from 2013 to 2015 on national security charges brought by the Egyptian government.

“As someone who was wrongly imprisoned for my journalism in Egypt, I am outraged about David McBride’s sentence on this sad day for Australia,” said Greste.

McBride is one of several Australians facing punishment for revealing information, while high-profile Australian Julian Assange will face hearings on his potential extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States later this month.

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Can Pakistan’s Imran Khan and army patch up, a year after violent clashes? | Politics News

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir was blunt. Addressing army officials during his visit to Lahore Garrison on May 9, Munir said, “There can be no compromise or deal with the planners and architects of this dark chapter in our history.”

Munir was referring to the events of May 9, 2023, when Pakistan erupted in violence and a subsequent crackdown after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested while appearing before the Islamabad High Court for a hearing into a case of corruption.

Thousands of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party workers responded to Khan’s arrest by storming the streets in various cities, demanding his immediate release and going on a rampage in which state buildings and military installations were targeted. Angry supporters in Lahore targeted the residence of a top military commander, torching the building. Another group of protesters raided the gates of the Pakistani military’s headquarters in Rawalpindi.

While Khan was released two days later, he was arrested again in August. The police had by that time arrested thousands of PTI workers and party leaders. An already tense relationship between Pakistan’s military and the PTI ruptured, descending into public hostility.

Now, a year later, that broken relationship continues to strain a political system that is also struggling to manage an economic crisis striking at the everyday lives of Pakistan’s 240 million people, analysts say. The military, which felt directly challenged — even attacked — on May 9, 2023, remains Pakistan’s most powerful institution. Meanwhile, the PTI, which emerged as Pakistan’s most popular political force in February national elections, even though its talismanic leader was behind bars and despite a crackdown against it, faces questions over its future.

“It is no secret that our relationship with military leadership has frazzled and there is significant mistrust on both sides,” Taimur Jhagra, a senior PTI leader and former minister in the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Al Jazeera. “This will have to be resolved because in no country can the largest political force and strongest institution in the state stand against each other.”

PTI has maintained that the riots on May 9, 2023, were part of a ‘false flag’ operation against the party [Rahat Dar/EPA]

Pakistan’s military — euphemistically known in the country as the “establishment” — has directly ruled the country for more than three decades since independence and has wielded significant influence under civilian governments too.

When Khan became Pakistan’s prime minister in August 2018 after winning elections, his rivals claimed that the military facilitated his triumph. Four years later, Khan accused the military of orchestrating his removal from power through a vote of no confidence. The military has rejected both those accusations and the claims that it plays kingmaker in Pakistani politics.

In the 12 months after he had to leave office, Khan took out huge rallies and long marches to Islamabad, survived an assassination attempt, delivered speeches daily, and repeatedly accused the military of joining a United States-backed conspiracy to eject him from office. The US too has consistently denied those allegations.

But those tensions between Khan and the military exploded in May last year. Within two weeks of the violent May 9 protests, as security agencies cracked down on alleged perpetrators, more than 100 party leaders announced their decision to leave the party in hastily arranged news conferences that often appeared stage-managed. The party, it seemed, was imploding.

A former PTI leader who was once considered close to Khan but ended up leaving the party after May 9 said he would often raise concerns within the party about the rising confrontation with the military months before the events that unfolded last year.

“I was saying this in our party meetings repeatedly that we might be heading towards a big disaster, as both sides, us and them, are perhaps underestimating each other and heading towards a confrontation,” he told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

Several party leaders were jailed on charges of plotting the events of May 9, 2023.

While the PTI insists that the events were part of a “false flag operation” to malign the party, some analysts believe that the party miscalculated the military’s response to the rioting that day.

“They assumed they had the room to challenge the military since Khan was able to get away with saying things publicly that others had been punished for saying, and swiftly. But they were mistaken in attempting to challenge the military’s monopoly over violence,” political scientist Sameen Mohsin, an assistant professor at the University of Birmingham, told Al Jazeera.

Asma Faiz, an associate professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, said the “very smooth relationship” the PTI once enjoyed with the military might have given the party confidence that it could survive the escalating tensions.

“PTI still continues to enjoy support among individuals within the military, judiciary and bureaucracy, so there is broad-based societal support also. That I think led to this miscalculation from them but they had their reasons and logic,” she said.

Despite having to contest without their symbol ‘bat’, PTI-backed candidates emerged with the highest number of seats in the February 8 elections this year [Bilawal Arbab/EPA]

Jhagra, the PTI leader, said the party was clear that anybody guilty of violating the law should be punished. “But you must remember that May 9 [protests and violence] did not happen in isolation. Starting from the vote of no confidence leading to the ouster of government, and the actual arrest of Khan on May 9, questions must be asked if May 9 would have happened if the events of last year hadn’t,” he said.

As the party continued to face arrests and legal challenges, Khan, who had already been charged in more than 100 cases, was arrested on August 5 last year in a corruption case related to state gifts since he was premier. He was barred from contesting elections due to his conviction. In December 2023, the party’s symbol, a cricket bat, was taken away by the country’s election panel over “irregularities” in the PTI’s intra-party elections.

With just 10 days to go before the polls, the former PM was sentenced in three different cases – revealing state secrets, illegal sale of state gifts, and unlawful marriage.

Despite these setbacks, candidates backed by the PTI, who were forced to contest as independents because the party had lost its symbol, emerged as the largest bloc, winning 93 seats in the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament.

“The people of Pakistan believe that Imran Khan is a patriotic leader, and his supporters are being unfairly treated. The February 8 election results showed this,” Jhagra said.

Still, the party refused to forge a coalition with either of its political rivals: PTI has long described the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan People’s Party, the two other leading national parties, as corrupt, and has maintained that it will not join hands with them.

So they joined hands themselves, forming the coalition that currently rules Pakistan, under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Meanwhile, a year after the May 9 protests, the rhetoric from both sides remains sharp. Khan, who remains behind bars, continues to criticise the military. The military, on its part, has insisted that those involved in the May 9 violence will be punished. “It was a futile attempt to bring about a misplaced and shortsighted revolution in the country,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, said in a press statement to mark the anniversary of the incident.

The military has described May 9, 2023, as “one of the blackest days” in the history of the country.

Jhagra insists that PTI is not an antimilitary party, but acknowledged that there was a lack of trust between the two.

Lahore-based analyst Benazir Shah noted that at this juncture, “both the PTI and the establishment must step back from the confrontation”.

“The ISPR press conference underscores that the establishment is still refusing to engage with the PTI. Despite the PTI’s history of populism and perhaps, certain undemocratic actions, it remains an electoral force. Disregarding it and avoiding dialogue with its leadership would not be in the state’s best interest,” she told Al Jazeera.

The PTI needs to reflect too, said the former party leader who quit after the May 9 violence. The party’s current strategy, he said, was incomprehensible to him.

“On one hand you have ruled out political settlement” with political parties, he said. “You have taken on the establishment believing they will buckle under pressure, but I don’t think this makes sense in reality,” he added.

Still, Faiz, the Lahore-based political scientist, pointed out that the PTI had survived the setbacks of the past year — just as the parties it now accuses of having betrayed democracy once did.

“We do not give enough credit to Pakistani political parties,” she said. “PPP survived martial law, PMLN survived martial law, and now PTI is showing courage. They all have certain resilience.”

What happens next could hinge on a few difficult questions for both sides, suggested Mohsin, the political scientist.

“The question for the PTI is whether prominent members of the party will decide that they prefer to be in power more than being loyal to Khan and continuing to be out of favour with the military establishment,” she said.

Shah, the Lahore-based analyst said the PTI needed to climb down from its position of refusing to speak to other political parties.

But the military establishment and Pakistan’s larger political class too must try to understand why so many people, including young men and women, “came out with such passion for their leader and the party” on May 9, 2023, she said.

“The question to ask here would be: What was the root cause of the anger among these people?” Shah said. “This is a question that must be answered to prevent another May 9 happening in the future.”

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Why isn’t the BJP fielding a candidate in Indian-administered Kashmir? | India Election 2024 News

These are the first parliamentary elections since the Indian government revoked the region’s semiautonomy.

Voters are going to the polls in Indian-administered Kashmir.

These are the first parliamentary elections since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the region’s partial autonomy in 2019.

The prime minister says repealing Kashmir’s special status has helped integrate it with the rest of the country.

He also says it’s brought peace and development after decades of separatist violence.

Why then has Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) not nominated any candidates to contest the three seats in the Muslim-majority region?

Presenter:

Laura Kyle

Guests:

Noor Ahmad Baba – retired political science professor at the University of Kashmir

Sunil Sethi – chief spokesman for the BJP in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir

Radha Kumar – author and academic

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