Hamidullah, a young resident of the southeastern Afghan city of Ghazni, recently had a harrowing experience. While returning from a trip to the southern city of Kandahar this month, the Taliban stopped the bus he had taken for the 350-kilometer return journey. “A Taliban fighter asked me to hand over Read more ………
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Russia remain near the top on the list of countries where the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says “impunity” in cases of murdered journalists is “entrenched.” The New York-based watchdog’s 2020 Global Impunity Index highlighted a total of 12 countries where “journalists are singled out for murder Read more ………
Years ago, Pakistan declared victory against the Taliban after large-scale military operations in a north-western mountainous region. But the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the formal name of the Pakistani Taliban’s umbrella organization, is now back in parts of Malakand Division, an administrative region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, where thousands were Read more ………
India has set up an expert committee to look into alleged snooping by the Chinese company, Zhenhua Data Information Technology, after Indian Express reported its massive operations in the country and abroad. The Shenzhen-based company, whose customers included Chinese intelligence and military agencies, targeted individuals and institutions in politics, government, Read more ………
A quick look at the goings-on in Pakistan shows that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, backed up by the all-powerful military, seems to be in trouble since 11 opposition parties, under the banner of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), are out to unseat it. Will they succeed? We cannot be sure. Read more ………
Pakistani opposition parties have mounted the most significant challenge in years to the country’s all-powerful military, publicly calling out the institution for its alleged meddling in politics. It’s a red line that few have dared to cross. The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), a newly formed alliance of 11 opposition parties, Read more ………
The ever-blustering foreign minister of Pakistan, Mahmood Qureshi, had declared just ahead of the three-day (October 21-23) plenary of FATF in Paris that it would see Pakistan pulled out of the grey list that carries the opprobrium of terror financing and money laundering. His boast was duly magnified by the Read more ………
By Mervyn Piesse The United States announced a new Mekong-US Partnership at a virtual summit hosted by Vietnam on 11 September. An initial US$153 million ($210 million) will be made available to Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos to encourage collaboration on a number of projects. It includes grants for Read more ………
Two years after Pakistan merged the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the administrative and political mainstream, disputes over land ownership have emerged as a dominant form of conflict in the western region, which reeled from military operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda for more than a decade. In Read more ………
Nothing can be more disquieting than the “disenchantment” expressed by Retired Justice Prafulla Kumar Misra after working as Lokayukta in Goa for four-and-a-half years. His regret is that the Government of Goa has failed to act on even one of the 21 reports that he had submitted against public functionaries Read more ………
By Tushar Charan After suffering disgusting, relentless attacks from pro-Modi TV channels for over three months, the Indian Hindi film industry seems to have decided to show its spine and take on the most powerful Enlish language TV channels in the country and four of their top anchors-cum-editors. Four Bollywood Read more ………
