Month: March 2024

In a neighborhood that was once a hotbed of gang violence in Pakistan’s economic hub, Karachi, one school is focused on healing the wounds of trauma passed down through generations. With emphasis on mental health, the Kiran Foundation’s school is empowering children and mothers to end the cycle of aggression and abuse. VOA Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman has the story. Camera: Wajid Asad.
…

your ad here

New Delhi — Traversing 6,600 kilometers through 15 states over the last two months, the leader of India’s opposition Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi, beat out a message that the ruling  Bharatiya Janata Party has failed to deliver economic and social justice for the country’s masses. 

Gandhi’s “Unite India Justice March” that ended in Mumbai on Saturday aimed to give his party a boost ahead of general elections that begin on April 19. At dozens of roadshows, he said government policies have benefited business tycoons, not the marginalized masses. He promised his party would address issues such as joblessness, especially among educated youth. 

Pledging to enact a “Right to Apprentice Act” if voted to power, Gandhi said that “we will ensure that every person getting a diploma graduating from college will get a one-year job as an apprentice” and earn the equivalent of $1,200 a year. He said the plan will change the “destiny of the youth.” He also pledged to fill vacancies for three million government jobs. 

But can such promises dent the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who according to most recent surveys will win a third term in office? 

“[Gandhi] is seen as a symbol for all those dissatisfied with the Narendra Modi regime,” according to political analyst Neerja Chowdhury.  “But his message, which is about the alleged corruption of the Modi regime, growing unemployment, rising prices and the hardships that people are facing, is not having the kind of traction at the ground level that one would have thought might have happened.” 

That poses a challenge to the Congress Party’s hopes of weakening the BJP’s hold on power in parliamentary elections beginning April 19.  Congress, the largest opposition party in India, won just 52 seats in 543-seat lower house five years ago. BJP and its allies won more than 350.

“Beyond a shadow of doubt, Rahul Gandhi is raising the right issues,” said political analyst Sandeep Shastri, pointing out that recent data shows that unemployment and inflation are key concerns in the country. “But will the right issues being raised convert into votes is a big question mark, because that is more a question of the voter perception of who is capable of solving the problem.”

At public meetings in recent weeks, Modi has pitched himself as a leader who can deliver results and has improved the lives of India’s poor during his ten years in power.   

“We have opened bank accounts for the poor, helped them build concrete houses, and given them water, electricity connections and free vaccines,” Modi told a meeting in the southern state of Telangana, where his party is trying to make inroads. “There is only one guarantee of change, that is Modi’s guarantee.” 

To counter the BJP, the Congress party forged an alliance with about two dozen regional parties last year to put up a united front to unseat Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.  

But hopes of mounting an effective challenge to the BJP have dimmed as the opposition coalition called INDIA, an acronym for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, shows signs of fraying.  

The alliance had aimed to put up a common candidate against the BJP to prevent splintering of votes in parliamentary constituencies which are often contested by multiple candidates. As a result, parties win elections even if they secure less than 50% of the votes cast. 

However talks on seat-sharing have made limited headway in some states like West Bengal, where a powerful regional leader, Mamata Banerjee, decided that her party will contest all seats. 

“It is a lost opportunity. Some of its big leaders have left the INDIA alliance, some other big leaders are not joining with the Congress and other parties to form a broad platform which was the whole idea,” says Chowdhury. 

Analysts attribute the fissures in the alliance to the crushing losses that the Congress Party suffered in state elections held in December. The party lost power in two states, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and was unsuccessful in unseating the BJP in a third. 

“It weakened the Congress Party’s role as the pivot of the alliance and subsequent to that, I think even state-based parties which were part of the alliance started redefining their individual strategies because they were more concerned with challenging the BJP in their individual states,” says Shastri. 

Opposition parties also accuse the BJP government of weakening their ranks by using the country’s main financial investigation agency to launch probes against some of their leaders — charges the government strongly denies.

The stakes in the upcoming polls are highest for Rahul Gandhi. While most regional parties have been holding ground in states that they govern, the Congress Party has suffered two humiliating losses in the last two national elections. 

Analysts say the opposition faces an uphill task in countering Modi — a  strong, charismatic leader, who remains hugely popular amid a rising tide of Hindu nationalism. 

“Gandhi has revived his image and tried to offer an alternative narrative, but so far many don’t see him as an alternative to Modi,” said Chowdhury. 

The cross-country march by Gandhi was his second  he trekked through 12 states over a year ago to connect with voters. It remains to be seen his efforts can resurrect the Congress Party that dominated India for seven decades, or whether it will continue to languish.
…

your ad here

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan carried out cross-border aerial strikes against suspected militant hideouts in Afghanistan early Monday, killing several people, according to officials.

A Pakistani security official, speaking anonymously to VOA because he was not authorized to interact with the media, confirmed the pre-dawn strikes, saying they targeted commanders linked to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization operating out of the neighboring country.

The military action apparently came in retaliation to Saturday’s high-profile TTP raid against a Pakistani military base in the volatile North Waziristan border district that killed seven soldiers, including two officers.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government confirmed in a statement that Pakistani planes had bombed multiple locations in its southeastern Paktika and Khost provinces but said the attack resulted in the deaths of eight civilians, including women and children. It was not possible to ascertain the identities of the slain people from independent sources.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly condemns these attacks and calls this reckless action a violation of Afghanistan’s territory,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. He used the official title of his government, which has yet to be recognized internationally.

Mujahid denied again that the Taliban allowed Afghan soil to be used by militant groups against Pakistan or any other country.

“Pakistan should not blame Afghanistan for the lack of control, incompetence, and problems in its own territory. Such incidents can have very bad consequences, which will be out of Pakistan’s control,” the spokesman warned without elaborating.

Security sources told VOA that the air strikes had sparked skirmishes between Pakistani and Afghan security forces across several posts along the nearly 2,600-kilometer border between the two countries.

The Taliban Defense Ministry later confirmed in a statement that its border security forces targeted Pakistani outposts with “heavy weapons” in retaliation to the aerial incursions into Afghan territory.

Separately, a TTP statement claimed the strikes hit Pakistani refugee camps in the Afghan border area rather than its members. The claim could not be verified immediately.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani military said Monday that its troops had conducted a pre-dawn intelligence-led security operation in North Waziristan, killing eight TTP members. The slain militants included a key commander who played a role in plotting Saturday’s attack on the army base, the statement said.

Islamabad says that TTP has intensified cross-border attacks from Afghan sanctuaries since the establishment of the Taliban government in Kabul in 2021. The violence has reportedly killed about 2,000 Pakistanis, including police and military personnel, and strained relations between the two countries.

In April 2022, Pakistani fighter planes also carried out raids against TTP hideouts in Afghanistan.

Pakistan and the United Nations dispute Taliban claims they are not harboring foreign militant groups on Afghan soil.

“In the region and beyond, there are well-founded concerns over the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan,” Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, told a March 6 U.N. Security Council meeting.

“It is not only Daesh that constitutes a threat but also TTP, a major concern for Pakistan, which has seen an increase in terrorist activity,” Otunbayeva said.

Daesh is an acronym for the Islamic State, and this militant group is an Afghanistan-based regional IS affiliate that conducts terrorist attacks on both sides of the long border between the two countries.
…

your ad here

Bangaluru, India — Bhavani Mani Muthuvel and her family of nine have around five 20-liter (5-gallon) buckets worth of water for the week for cooking, cleaning and household chores.

“From taking showers to using toilets and washing clothes, we are taking turns to do everything,” she said. It’s the only water they can afford.

A resident of Ambedkar Nagar, a low-income settlement in the shadows of the lavish headquarters of multiple global software companies in Bengaluru’s Whitefield neighborhood, Muthuvel is normally reliant on piped water, sourced from groundwater. But it’s drying up. She said it’s the worst water crisis she has experienced in her 40 years in the neighborhood.

Bengaluru in southern India is witnessing an unusually hot February and March, and in the last few years, it has received little rainfall in part due to human-caused climate change. Water levels are running desperately low, particularly in poorer areas, resulting in sky-high costs for water and a quickly dwindling supply.

City and state government authorities are trying to get the situation under control with emergency measures such as nationalizing water tankers and putting a cap on water costs. But water experts and many residents fear the worst is still to come in April and May when the summer sun is at its strongest.

The crisis was a long time coming, said Shashank Palur, a Bengaluru-based hydrologist with the think tank Water, Environment, Land and Livelihood Labs. “Bengaluru is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and the infrastructure for fresh water supply is not able to keep up with a growing population,” he said.

Groundwater, relied on by over a third of the city’s 13 million residents, is fast running out. City authorities say 6,900 of the 13,900 borewells drilled in the city have run dry despite some being drilled to depths of 1,500 feet (about 457 meters). Those reliant on groundwater, like Muthuvel, now have to depend on water tankers that pump from nearby villages.

Palur said El Nino, a natural phenomenon that affects weather patterns worldwide, along with the city receiving less rainfall in recent years mean “recharge of groundwater levels did not happen as expected.” A new piped water supply from the Cauvery River about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the city has also not been completed, adding to the crisis, he said.

Another concern is that paved surfaces cover nearly 90% of the city, preventing rainwater from seeping down and being stored in the ground, said T.V. Ramachandra, research scientist at the Center for Ecological Sciences at Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science. The city lost nearly 70% of its green cover in the last 50 years, he said.

Ramachandra compared the city’s water shortage to the “day zero” water crisis in Cape Town, South Africa, 2018, when that city came dangerously close to turning off most taps because of a drought.

The Indian government estimated in 2018 that over 40% of Bengaluru residents won’t have access to drinking water by the end of the decade. Only those that receive piped water from rivers outside Bengaluru are still getting a regular supply.

“Right now, everyone is drilling borewells in buffer zones of lakes. That is not the solution,” Ramachandra said.

He said the city should instead focus on replenishing the over 200 lakes spread across the city, stop new construction on lake areas, encourage rainwater harvesting and increase green cover across the city.

“Only if we do this will we solve the city’s water problem,” he said.

Palur added that identifying other sources and using them smartly, for example by  

reusing treated wastewater in the city “so that the demand for fresh water reduces,” could also help.

Until then, some residents are taking serious measures. S. Prasad, who lives with his wife and two children in a housing society made up of 230 apartments, said they have begun water rationing.

“Since last week we’ve closed the water supply to houses for eight hours every day, starting at 10 a.m. Residents have to either store water in containers or do everything they need to in the allotted time. We are also planning on installing water meters soon,” he said.

Prasad said their housing society, like many others in Bengaluru, is willing to pay high costs for water, but even then, it’s hard to find suppliers.

“This water shortage is not only impacting our work but also our daily life,” Prasad said. “If it becomes even more dire, we’ll have no choice but to leave Bengaluru temporarily.”
…

your ad here