Month: August 2020

India is grappling with whether entrance examinations for engineering and medical colleges should take place amid a pandemic as it prepares to hold the twice-postponed tests for an estimated 2.5 million students.  
 
Saying further delay would jeopardize students’ future, the government is going ahead with the nationwide examinations, starting September 1.  
 
Turning down a plea filed by a group of students against the decision to conduct the examinations, the Supreme Court last week gave the green light, saying “life must go on” and students “cannot waste a whole year.”  
 
Those arguments have not convinced tens of thousands of students and parents who point to the rapidly rising numbers of coronavirus infections in the country to underline the risk they will face as they travel and take the test.   
India has been reporting record high numbers in recent days – the country added nearly 1.5 million cases in the last three weeks.  
 
Online campaigns against the examinations have gathered momentum, and groups of  
students held sporadic street protests Friday in several cities demanding their cancellation.  
 
The tests are crucial in determining the path for students aspiring to become engineers and doctors – the grades determine the students’ eligibility to attend colleges that include highly sought-after institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology. High school students usually do intensive preparation for one to two years for these tests. Poorer families spend hard-earned savings to fund coaching for their children, hoping it will open doors to successful careers.   
 
Opinion on the forthcoming tests appears to be evenly divided. While many academicians and even students want the examinations to be held, others have expressed deep concern.  
 
Students living in distant towns say they are worried about the challenge of reaching examination centers while public transportation, such as buses and trains, have still not been fully restored. Others say they are apprehensive about taking the test that is crucial for their careers with gloves and masks, and amid anxiety over contracting the virus.  
 
Speaking to India Today television, Ravikant, a student in Ludhiana asked who would take responsibility if he or his family gets infected. Another student from Patna said he was not afraid of the test, but his concerns about the virus run deep because of his asthma. Activists of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) take part in a protest demanding the government postpone college entrance exams, in Guwahati, India, Aug. 28, 2020.Opposition parties have thrown their weight behind demands for postponement of the tests.
 
“It’s important that the government listens to students,” Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the opposition Congress party, said in a video statement.
Ministers in six opposition-ruled states — West Bengal, Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand — Friday filed a review petition asking the Supreme Court to revisit its decision to green-light the tests.  
 
“It would be impossible to make provision for the huge logistics required for lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of students appearing in the examinations, including transport and lodging during the pandemic,” the petition said.
 
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in a tweet earlier this week also urged postponement, calling it “deeply unfair” that Indian students must take the exams during the pandemic and while millions have been affected by floods.
 
The government however has reiterated that further delays risk costing students an academic year and said tens of thousands of students want to take the test.  
 
Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said 1.7 million registration cards for taking the test have already been downloaded online.
 
“It shows that students want that exams are held at any cost,” Pokhriyal said. “We are very mindful of the safety of our students, we will take full precautions,” he said.  
 
Authorities say they have increased the number of testing centers and spread the tests over several days to ensure that social distancing can be maintained.  
 
Preparations are in full swing – authorities are equipping centers with sanitizer and masks and gloves for the students.
 
The Indian Express backed the government’s decision in an editorial, pointing out that discussions everywhere are moving to “opening up while minimizing the risk.” It said “given that the COVID curve continues its upward climb at different rates in different states there is no evidence that delaying the exam by weeks or months will reduce the risk.”  
 
The tests start Tuesday – those for engineering colleges will be held September 1-6, while the test for medical colleges will be held September 13.  
 
…

your ad here

A string of mammoth drug busts and low street prices for methamphetamine across Southeast Asia this year suggest COVID-19 has done little to stem the flood of illegal drugs washing over the region, even as the pandemic seals borders.If anything, the coronavirus has proven just how resilient the transnational cartels dominating the meth trade out of Myanmar truly are, experts say.”We think it’s business as usual in 2020, which is to say that supply is still surging just as it has been in the last few years,” Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and the Pacific chief for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told VOA.”If Myanmar, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodia data is any indication — and we think it is — then at least within the Mekong the supply is as high or higher than last year in those countries,” he said by phone from Bangkok.The price is rightMethamphetamine prices across the region last year were already the lowest they had been in a decade, even as the purity of the drugs shot up.Data compiled by the UNODC during the pandemic show the price of a kilogram of crystal meth, or ice, in Myanmar and Vietnam on par with 2019. In Cambodia, the price of “yaba,” a popular mix of meth and caffeine, has actually fallen by roughly half, to less than $1 per pill. The UNODC says Thailand also reported a drop in both ice and yaba prices in late 2019 and early 2020 compared with the same period a year before.Long a hub of the heroin trade, the Golden Triangle — where the remote and lawless corners of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet — has in recent years seen transnational cartels turn it into one of the world’s premier meth laboratories, according to the UNODC. Protected by government-backed militias and ethnic rebel armies in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state, the U.N. agency says the cartels’ drugs pour across Southeast Asia and on to more lucrative markets as far off as Australia and Japan. The UNODC now puts the meth market in East and Southeast Asia at some $61.4 billion a year.Since the pandemic, drug seizures have kept pace with 2019 as well, or even picked up.In early July, Thai authorities said they intercepted 1.42 tons of crystal meth on its way to Malaysia. In May, authorities in Myanmar announced Asia’s largest drug bust in decades, netting 200 million meth pills and 500 kilograms of ice; they also seized 35.5 metric tons and 163,000 liters of precursor chemicals and arrested 33 suspects.On their own, more seizures can mean either a spike in production or better enforcement. The fact that prices have stayed low argues strongly in favor of the former, said Richard Horsey, a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group based in Myanmar.Given the stable prices for the drugs, “there’s every indication that big seizures reflect big production, and not that … somehow the police are winning this and seizing everything that’s being produced,” he said.”So, I think the transnational criminal organizations, the synthetic drug trade in Shan state, has shown itself to be extremely resilient to COVID,” he told VOA by phone from Yangon.Plan B, and C and DHorsey likened the cartels to the relatively few big business winners of the pandemic, such as online retail giant Amazon, using their scale, dexterity and deep pockets to adapt quickly to changing market conditions.”They have supply chains that are very sophisticated but also multiply redundant. And that means that border closures and so on, they can find ways around that. They’ve got a Plan B and a Plan C and a Plan D,” he said.”So, they have multiple different routes that they’re constantly testing with test shipments and constantly innovating and constantly keeping lots of options open so that if their main preferred channel fails, they’ve got lots of other options. And that works very well for COVID.”The cartels’ penchant for innovation looks to be paying off.Since the string of large busts earlier this year, Horsey said the cartels have started shifting more of their shipments out of Myanmar from northern Shan to the state’s east and south. He said there were also early signs that they have started shipping much more ice out of Myanmar through the country’s far western Rakhine state, taking advantage of its coastline to reach markets via the Bay of Bengal.The UNODC says seizures of precursor shipments to Myanmar over the past few years also show the cartels tweaking their meth recipes by replacing ephedrine and its sort with sodium or benzyl cyanide, yet more proof of their flexibility.Most of the chemicals come from neighboring China.On Myanmar’s side of the border, experts say a patchwork of militias and warlords in command of virtually autonomous fiefdoms helps make the frontier more sieve than wall.That, too, helps the cartels evade the worst of the border restrictions brought on by the pandemic, said Tom Kramer, a Myanmar-based researcher for the Transnational Institute who studies the nexus of the country’s drug trade and ethnic conflicts.”These illegal routes are still there, and what the government has been controlling of course is the formal trade routes,” he said.Considering the bulk of some of the shipments, he suspects many of them cross formal checkpoints as well but slip through thanks to rampant corruption.”There’s so much money involved, and people can always find different ways of course of getting stuff into the country. The borders are so porous it would be very hard to control them,” he said, even under lockdown.Market shareDouglas, of the UNODC, said the relative ease with which the cartels in Myanmar can continue to access precursors during the pandemic may even help them gain market share over competitors farther afield who source more of their chemicals by sea and air, where supply chains have frayed most.”They’re using the moment in front of them very effectively,” he said.”They never had a problem maintaining production. They had huge chemical stockpiles in place and continuing access to chemicals to ship in to production points in the Triangle, and they kept production at very high levels during the pandemic, and they’ve essentially just continued pumping that supply out.”
…

your ad here

This month marks three years since Myanmar’s military launched an escalated campaign against the mostly ethnic Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state, with systematic rape, beatings, killings and burning of villages. Now, activists are calling on the United States to designate the persecution of the Rohingya as genocide, saying if the U.S. leads, other countries will follow. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Camera: Steve Sanford
…

your ad here

As Afghanistan’s warring sides prepare to hold long-awaited negotiations next week to establish peace, Pakistan is trying to push the Taliban to come to the table in a move that experts say is an attempt by Islamabad to increase its influence in postwar Afghanistan and counter its rival India.Pakistan, however, claims that it is only facilitating the peace process in its neighbor to the west and that it is up to the Afghans to decide their future. The claim has been received with suspicion by Afghan officials given Islamabad’s history of alleged interference in the country and support for the Taliban.Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met with a group of Taliban representatives in Islamabad on Tuesday to discuss the latest efforts to begin talks between the group and the Afghan government. It comes as negotiations between the two sides have been hampered by a dispute over a prisoner swap and rising violence.Following the meeting with the Taliban team, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry in a statement said Qureshi emphasized the importance of a peace settlement in Afghanistan for regional stability and “highlighted the importance of Pakistan-Afghanistan ties based on amity, shared history and geography, and reaffirmed Pakistan’s abiding solidarity with the brotherly people of Afghanistan.”Pakistani officials have repeatedly said that they do not care who rules in Kabul as long as there is peace in Afghanistan. Despite the publicly announced position, Pakistan actually wants the Taliban to “emerge in some sort of position” by having a stake in the future power-sharing arrangement, according to Madiha Afzal, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.Afzal told VOA that having a friendly government on its western border is “crucially important” for Pakistan, adding “an Islamist government … will be more friendly towards Pakistan than it would be towards India.”Pakistan was the main supporter of the Taliban during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s. It was one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001.Afghan and Western officials have charged Pakistan, particularly its military establishment, of supporting and sheltering the Taliban since the group’s collapse in 2001.The U.S. Defense Department in a report released in May said that Pakistan harbors Taliban militants, including the Haqqani network, which can plan and conduct attacks inside Afghanistan. It said that Islamabad’s strategic objective was to “mitigate spillover of instability into its territory.”However, Pakistan has rejected those accusations, saying it has suffered human and financial losses in the war against terror groups crossing Afghan borders.Ashley Tellis, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said Pakistan at this point considers the Taliban an instrument to control Afghanistan’s choices with respect to “whom it allies with and whom it partners with.”“Pakistan gives the Taliban leadership sanctuary in Pakistan, and it has become an advocate for the Taliban’s peace process,” Tellis said, adding that Pakistan’s contribution at the operational level has been insignificant, as the Taliban have enough resources of their own.He charged that Pakistan hopes Taliban control or a significant presence in the new government in Kabul could help Islamabad “to keep the Indians at bay.”Indian factorWith more than $3 billion in development funds, India is the largest regional donor to Afghanistan.Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, president of India-based Mantraya research forum, told VOA that India insists that bypassing Kabul would undermine the elected government of Afghanistan. India is, therefore, “not directly involved in any kind of peace talks with the Taliban.”The country in the past has labeled the Taliban an instrument of the Pakistani army and blamed their major faction, the Haqqani group, for attacking Indian assets in Afghanistan.In return, Pakistan has accused India of supporting anti-Pakistani politicians in Kabul and funding Pakistani separatists and militants in Afghanistan.Homayoun Khan, a former Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan, told VOA that Pakistan wants “a government in Afghanistan that does not favor India.”“There is a security phobia in Pakistan – having India on one side and an unfriendly Afghanistan on the other side would not be good,” Khan said.Risks for PakistanSome experts maintain that Pakistan’s alleged support to the Taliban does not come risk-free for the country. They say the group in the future could very well support anti-Pakistan Islamist militants.Marvin Weinbaum, the director of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told VOA that a future Taliban rule in Afghanistan may end with the group giving sanctuary to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that has been mainly targeting Pakistan since 2007.According to the U.N. there are 6,000 to 6,500 Pakistani militants operating as foreign fighters in Afghanistan. It said that the majority of these militants are affiliated with the TTP, a U.S. designated terror group.Weinbaum said that unlike the 1990s when Pakistan wanted the Taliban to fully control Afghanistan, it now “wants those Taliban who it trusts to have a piece of power, but it does not want to see the Taliban dominate the government.”VOA’s Afghanistan service contributed to this report.  
…

your ad here

The coronavirus has hit a threatened tribe in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, raising concerns about the impact the pandemic could have on other endangered tribes in the archipelago that lies off the mainland.   
 
Authorities say 10 cases have been detected among the Great Andamanese tribe, whose numbers have dwindled to 56.   
 
The string of islands is home to several endangered tribes that live in isolation in secluded areas, and access is barred for outsiders.      
 
Some members of the Great Andamanese, however, have integrated more closely with the mainstream population and travel to and even work in the archipelago’s main city, Port Blair. It was among this group that six coronavirus infections were initially diagnosed — authorities say these persons have recovered.    
 
But red flags were raised after four people living in the remote Strait Island, where the tribe is based, also tested positive this week. Two have been admitted to the hospital, while two are at an isolation center.    
 
A health official posted at Strait Island is keeping a close watch to monitor other tribe members for the infection, according to Avijit Roy, joint secretary, Health, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.    
 
Authorities also are stepping up measures to watch four other endangered tribes that anthropologists fear could be at risk as the pandemic rages in India.   
 
The number of these tribes is about 900. Having lived in seclusion for centuries, they are extremely susceptible to diseases brought in from the outside, authorities say.   
 
The 500 or so members of the nomadic Jarawas, in particular, are believed to be particularly vulnerable. Authorities say they moved the tribe along the farthest edge of the jungle after the pandemic began ravaging India to ensure they are isolated. Authorities also have restricted movement on a huge road that cuts through their forest reserve and exposes them to outsiders.Isolation offers no protection   
 
But some anthropologists say they fear this is not enough. “The Jarawas are in the interior forests so some say nothing is going to happen, but the road here has turned this into a porous area,” points out anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya, director of the Andaman and Nicobar Tribal Research and Training Institute.   
 
Poachers and fishermen, for example, can pose a problem. “Nobody can give an assurance that the area is completely sealed off from outsiders,” according to Pandya.
 
London-based Survival International, which works for tribal people’s rights, has called on authorities to ensure the tribes are protected from the pandemic.   
 
“The Andaman authorities must act urgently to prevent the virus from reaching more Great Andamanese and to prevent infection in the other tribes,” Survival senior researcher Sophie Grig said. “The waters around North Sentinel must be properly policed, and no outsiders should enter the territories of any of the Andaman tribes without their consent.”   
 
Pandya says more of an effort should be made to communicate coronavirus symptoms to the tribal members so that they are alerted to the pandemic. “They are like any other person who is susceptible to COVID. There is concern whether medical facilities are reaching there or not,” he says. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.
 
The number of these tribes has been reduced drastically. For example, the Great Andamanese, who now number at 56, were estimated to be about 5,000 strong when the British colonized the islands in the mid-19th century.   
 
The indigenous tribes have in the past been decimated by outbreaks of measles, influenza and syphilis.   
 
“They are completely conditioned to their own environment. An external element, an external infection disturbs the equilibrium they have developed,” says Soumendra Patnaik, an anthropology professor at Delhi University.   
 
The Andaman and Nicobar islands initially reported only a handful of infections of COVID-19, but cases have surged since mid-July, and they have reported nearly 3,000 infections to date.   
 
India is now the world’s third most affected country with nearly 3.4 million infections and more than 61,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking cases globally.  
 
…

your ad here

The international community, human rights advocates, and Uzbeks themselves were agreeably surprised when, after a quarter century of then-Uzbek president Islam Karimov’s iron-fisted rule, his successor launched the nation in 2016 on a series of often bold reforms. Today, approaching the fourth anniversary of the new president’s ascent to power, many of those same analysts are giving Shavkat Mirziyoyev a mixed report card and calling for him to follow through on the reforms he put in motion. FILE – Uzbekistan’s then-President Islam Karimov attends a summit in Ufa, Russia, July 10, 2015.Many Uzbeks tell VOA that Mirziyoyev won his citizens’ hearts and minds by saying what they had longed to hear — that the system needed transformation. His plain-spoken acknowledgment of problems ushered in a new era of high hopes and higher expectations. And he received solid support from the international community. Daniel Rosenblum, the U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan, says Mirziyoyev is changing the framework of internal governance with a philosophy that the state exists for its citizens, not the other way around. “This has not always been realized in practice,” said Rosenblum, “but it establishes an expectation and a standard that should begin to change things for the better.” Heightened expectationsStill, with those reforms have come heightened expectations, and in too many areas, critics say, positive steps have been counterbalanced by inertia or steps backward. In announcing his reforms, Mirziyoyev promised rule of law, transparency and greater engagement with the world. What he has delivered is a hybrid that combines reforms with elements of the old system, leaving many to question whether Uzbekistan has escaped its authoritarian past. Fears and doubts persist amid the steps forward. Rosenblum sees Mirziyoyev’s biggest achievement as opening Uzbekistan to trade and investment, allowing the free flow of people, ideas and technology. “I credit President Mirziyoyev with dramatically changing the tenor of relations in the region from mutual suspicion to mutual cooperation,” he said in an interview. “There is resistance,” he added, because “changing established habits and ways of thinking is hard and takes time; there are people and institutions with vested interests in old ways of doing business. The public believes their quality of life should improve if reforms are ‘working’—but how long will their patience last?”Mirziyoyev’s biggest test has been in dealing with a once-in-a-century pandemic. FILE – People wearing protective face masks line up at a safe social distance outside the grocery store amid the coronavirus outbreak in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, April 9, 2020.Rosenblum says Tashkent acted decisively to adopt lock-down measures. A midsummer surge in infections created some chaos, but Rosenblum credits the leadership for collaborating with the international community and for welcoming assistance and advice. ‘Stopping far short’Steve Swerdlow, a human rights lawyer at the University of Southern California, says that progress on the most systemic issues is faltering and requires a reboot. “Whether on freedom of expression, political pluralism, the registration of NGOs, justice for past abuses, forced evictions, or the outsize influence of the security services, Tashkent is stopping far short of what it must do and, in some areas, backsliding on rights,” he said. “Early in his presidency, Mirziyoyev promised accountability and opened up the internet and media space. But he has largely stood by as security services use the old tactics of intimidation against critical and independent voices.” In recent months, he notes, some journalists who reported on corruption or the COVID-19 response have been harassed or detained. “Instead, they should be invited to press conferences where it is possible to pose direct questions to Mirziyoyev.” FILE – A man casts his ballot next to a portrait of Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev during parliamentary election in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dec. 22, 2019.Swerdlow laments that no opposition party has been allowed to enter the political scene. And despite the release of dozens of political prisoners, authorities have taken no meaningful steps to investigate the human rights violations that led to their arrests. Helena Fraser, the U.N. coordinator in Uzbekistan, values Tashkent’s championing of multilateralism, increased transparency of data and statistics, and engagement with U.N. human rights mechanisms. “The first big challenge is the long-term culture shift to enable sustained ambitious reform,” said Fraser. But the second is to match rhetoric and the promise of clear dividends to society and economy with results for the most vulnerable. “It’s about doing so in a way that shores up reforms and ensures that progress to date – whether on anti-corruption, women’s empowerment, diversifying energy sources, fiscal policy, or child labor – is not halted or reversed, but accelerated and deeply anchored.” Fraser says recovery from the pandemic requires a culture shift and bold policy choices, including tackling inequalities, supporting civil society, and creating an enabling environment for human rights. How fast Uzbekistan emerges from this crisis will depend not only on solidarity within society, but also on solidarity and partnerships across government, academia, civil society, businesses, the media and, of course, parliament, Fraser told VOA.Economic successes Jennifer Murtazashvili, director of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh, agrees that Mirziyoyev’s biggest successes have been economic —”eliminating archaic restrictions on foreign currency and trade”—and in foreign policy. “For decades, Uzbekistan only saw Afghanistan as a threat. Seeing Afghanistan as a friendly neighbor opens many possibilities. If reforms continue, Uzbekistan can emerge as a very serious regional hub for economies in Central and South Asia.” Murtazashvili is disappointed with the lack of public sector reform. “The challenges with this old system of public finance, budgeting, and service delivery were on display during the second lockdown when the state tried to deliver cash directly through the community-based ‘mahalla’ system,” she said. “Many people reported corruption and being treated unfairly. This undermines trust in the state, as citizens experience it the same way as the past.” Mirziyoyev has called for the election of governors and mayors to ensure greater accountability. But most of this accountability still emanates from his top-down imprimatur, rather than bottom up, says Murtazashvili. “The president has been remarkably popular. He would do well to embark on more reforms sooner rather than later. Making changes is hard in any country and requires strong public buy-in.” 
 
…

your ad here