What is happening, and why is it important? A new, worrying pattern is emerging in Indian-administered Kashmir, where militants are targeting members of the small Hindu community for the first time in decades. Plagued by turmoil since separatists took up arms against the Indian state in 1989, Jammu and Kashmir is India’s only Muslim-majority region. Indigenous minorities include Hindu brahmins, […]

Residents and international human rights watchdogs are criticizing the Taliban for grave rights abuses that have been reported in its military campaign against a dissident commander in a remote part of northern Afghanistan. Civilians in Balkhab, a rural district in the Sar-e Pul Province, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that they have faced atrocities and collective punishment — including extrajudicial executions […]

CCP leader Xi Jinping swears in former cop John Lee to the top job amid accusations of broken promises of freedom. By Chen Zifei, Lee Yuk Yue for RFA Cantonese and Qiao Long for RFA Mandarin 2022.07.01 — Chinese leader Xi Jinping swore in a new, security-focused government in Hong Kong on Friday, 25 years after Britain handed the city […]

India and Afghanistan neither shares border nor have a direct rail and road links between the two countries but due to Afghanistan’s fluctuating relations with Pakistan, India has long been an active player in Afghanistan. In the previous Taliban rule (1997-2001) the relation between the two countries were uneasy and India’s ties with the Northern Alliance were not only close […]

In 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India had achieved Open Defecation Free (ODF) status after his government built over 110 million toilets. The federal government’s flagship program, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission), was the largest sanitation intervention of its kind globally. Its aim was to construct toilets to end open defecation and meet Sustainable Development […]

Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa’s post-Article 370 abrogation rant that “Pakistan Army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end,” and that “We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfil our obligations in this regard” was undoubtedly the public formalisation of Rawalpindi’s proxy war in Kashmir. While armies of democratic […]

The US special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights says she stayed away from meetings with Taliban officials in Doha. Rina Amiri tweeted on Saturday she was not part of the delegation, led by US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West, which met Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and members of the team he headed. She opted out […]

For quite a long time, the Kazakh ruling elites have managed to ensure a balance between the interests of Moscow and the West concerning Kazakhstan. And so far, they’ve been not bad at it. But as time passes it gets harder and harder for them to remain on that path. So one day, the possibilities of being ‘on the same […]

Pakistan is currently facing an unprecedented wave of inflation, electricity shortfall, and an obscure political environment. At such times great nations and great leaders work with unity and urge for national cohesion. When the great depression struck America in 1929-39, President Roosevelt Introduced the ‘New Deal’ that helped the nation work in close cohesion and the opposition at that time […]

1540 Support Unit of Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) hosted a side event entitled “Regional Approaches to Supporting UNSCR 1540 (2004)” on 1st June, 2022. UNSCR 1540 came in 2004 as a response to the threats of WMDs, non-proliferation and terrorism that emerged in 21st century. Pakistan has always supported the globally agreed objectives of promoting nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. […]