Month: June 2024

NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alliance was headed for a narrow majority as vote-counting in the general election neared completion on Tuesday, with its tally well short of an expected landslide in a surprise setback for the populist leader.  

Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was falling short of a majority of its own in the 543-member parliament, the trends showed. Having to depend on allies to form the government could introduce some uncertainty into policymaking after a decade in which Modi has ruled with an authoritative hold.  

The Hindu nationalist BJP won a majority on its own when it won power in 2014, ending India’s era of unstable coalition governments, and repeated the feat in 2019.  

The prospect of Modi having to rely on allies spooked markets, with stocks falling steeply. The blue-chip NIFTY 50 .NSEI sank 5.9% and the S&P BSE Sensex .BSESN tumbled 5.7%, posting their steepest decline on an election outcome day since 2004, when a BJP-led coalition lost power.

The rupee also fell sharply against the dollar and benchmark bond yields were up.  

Markets had soared on Monday after exit polls on June 1 projected Modi and BJP would register a big victory, and the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was seen getting a two-thirds majority and more.  

At 1300 GMT, TV channels showed the NDA was ahead in nearly 300 of the 543 elective seats in the lower house of parliament, where 272 is an overall majority, with counting nearing its end.

Full results are likely later on Tuesday evening.

They showed BJP accounted for around 240 of the seats in which the NDA was leading, compared with the 303 it won in 2019. 

Poor showing

“The NDA will form the government for the third time. PM Modi will be sworn-in for the third time. Congress will sit in opposition for the third time,” BJP spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said, referring to the main opposition Congress party.  

“Introspection about the slide and the decrease in the seats will be done threadbare. We will put our ear to the ground,” he said.  

Two key regional allies in the NDA endorsed Modi as the next prime minister, rejecting local media speculation that they could be wavering in their support or possibly switch sides.  

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Janata Dal (United) said their pre-poll alliance with BJP was intact and they would form the next government.  

The BJP’s numbers were likely pulled down by the party’s poor showing in the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, which also sends 80 lawmakers to parliament.  

The party was leading in 33 seats in the state, down from the 62 it won there in 2019, with analysts saying bread-and-butter issues had overshadowed the BJP’s appeal to the Hindu majority.  

A grand temple to Hindu god-king Lord Ram that Modi inaugurated in January had not boosted the BJP’s fortunes as it was expected to, they said.  

The opposition INDIA alliance led by Rahul Gandhi’s centrist Congress party, was leading in over 230 seats, higher than expected. Congress alone was leading in nearly 100 seats, almost double the 52 it won in 2019 – a surprise jump that is expected to boost Gandhi’s standing.  

“The country has unanimously and clearly stated, we do not want Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to be involved in the running of this country, we do not like the way they have run this country,” Gandhi told reporters, referring to Modi’s powerful number two, Home Minister Shah. “That is a huge message.”  

Gandhi said Congress would hold talks with its allies on Wednesday and decide on the future course of action, when asked if the opposition would try to form a government.

Markets in panic

If Modi’s victory is confirmed even by a slim margin, his BJP and its allies will have triumphed in a vitriolic campaign in which parties accused each other of religious bias and of posing a threat to sections of the population.

Investors had cheered the prospects of another Modi term, expecting it to deliver further years of strong economic growth and pro-business reforms, but the margin of victory emerged as a worry during the counting.

“The key question is whether BJP can retain single party majority. If not, then would its coalition be able to deliver economic development, particularly infrastructure?” said Ken Peng, head of investment strategy, Asia, at Citi Global Wealth in Singapore.

“There may be more expansionary fiscal policy to strengthen welfare and other local government spending,” he said.

Neelesh Surana, chief investment officer, at Mirae Asset Mutual Fund, said the market reaction was an over-reaction that reflected a sense of disbelief. “However, despite the verdict, there will likely be underlying continuity in government policies,” he said.

Modi, 73, who first swept to power in 2014 by promising growth and change, is seeking to be only the second prime minister after India’s independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru to win three straight terms.
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ISLAMABAD — The Islamabad High Court has overturned the conviction of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in a case pertaining to mishandling state secrets. 

In a short verbal statement witnessed by a VOA reporter Monday, two members of the high court announced the acquittals of Khan and Qureshi as it accepted their appeals against the convictions. 

The decision in what is known as the “cipher case” comes after a special, lower court in January sentenced Khan and Qureshi to 10 years each in prison for making public the contents of a secret diplomatic cable sent by Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the United States.  

The two men had argued the “sham case” was politically motivated and that the trial was conducted in an unfair manner. 

Despite the high court’s order, Khan and Qureshi are not expected to walk free. Khan, imprisoned since last August, is serving time for a conviction for an illicit marriage.  

Qureshi remains under arrest, facing a list of charges regarding violence that erupted in May of last year after Khan’s supporters stormed military and government installations to protest the former prime minister’s arrest. 

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, hailed Monday’s verdict. Congratulating supporters on the much-needed legal relief, party leader Syed Zulfikar Bukhari said in a post on X that the state’s “malafide attempt to establish IK [Imran Khan] and SMQ [Shah Mahmood Qureshi] as traitors goes into the dustbin.”    

In a hastily called press conference, the government’s spokesperson for legal affairs, Aqeel Malik, said the prosecution might appeal the decision in the country’s top court. 

“If the prosecution feels that there was an error [in the judgment] or it should be challenged, it will decide whether to appeal [the verdict] in the Supreme Court,” Malik said. 

The court should have considered the national security implications of its decision, he added. 

The cipher was not presented in the court at any stage. 

Case history 

In April 2022, Khan was expelled from power in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. He had served fewer than four years of a five-year term. 

Since then, Khan has alleged that a secret diplomatic cable, or cipher, proves that Washington conspired with Pakistan’s military and then-opposition leaders to remove him from office. The cable was sent by Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. 

State authorities alleged Khan and his allies used the document for political purposes and that the former prime minister did not return the decoded copy of the classified diplomatic message to the foreign office. 

The special court, established under the Official Secrets Act, tried Khan and Qureshi in prison and sentenced both to a decade behind bars on January 30, before Pakistan held national elections February 8. 

Cipher contents 

In August 2023, American news outlet The Intercept published what it said was the text of the cipher. 

The cable described a March 7, 2022 meeting between then-Ambassador Khan and Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, in Washington. 

According to the purported cable, State Department officials at the meeting encouraged the ambassador to tell Pakistan’s powerful military that Islamabad could expect warmer relations if Khan were removed from office because of his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Pakistani prime minister was in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, 2022, the day the invasion began, and did not condemn it. 

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. … Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead,” the document quoted Lu as telling the Pakistani ambassador.

While the State Department has consistently rejected the allegation of orchestrating Khan’s ouster, the department’s spokesperson, Mathew Miller, conceded last year that the Biden administration was unhappy with Khan’s overtures to Russia.

“We expressed concern privately to the government of Pakistan as we expressed concerns publicly about the visit of then-Prime Minister Khan to Moscow on the very day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We made that concern quite clear,” Miller said at a regular press conference while responding to a question about The Intercept’s reporting.

The Pakistani military and Khan’s successors have also rejected his allegations.
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Islamabad — The United Nations said Monday that flash floods in Afghanistan, caused by extreme weather events related to climate change, are impacting tens of thousands of children, especially in northern and western provinces.

The impoverished South Asian country has experienced unusually heavy seasonal rainfall and flash flooding over the past month, affecting more than 100,000 people and resulting in loss and damage to houses, infrastructure, and the livelihoods of people in 32 out of 34 Afghan provinces. 

The calamity has killed at least 350 people, including women and children, damaging close to 8,000 homes and displacing more than 5,000 families besides destroying crops and agricultural land, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.

“The recent extreme weather in Afghanistan has all the hallmarks of the intensifying climate crisis — some of the affected areas experienced drought last year,” the agency noted in a Monday statement.

It attributed the loss of lives and livelihoods and damage to infrastructure to an increase in the “frequency and ferocity” of extreme weather events in the country. 

Aid agencies have cautioned that many flood survivors cannot make a living and have been left with no homes, no land, and no source of livelihood. 

Tajudeen Oyewale, the UNICEF representative in Afghanistan, urged the international community to redouble efforts and investments to support communities to alleviate and adapt to the impact of climate change on children.

“The growing number and severity of extreme weather events will require UNICEF and other humanitarian actors to step in with even more rapid and large-scale humanitarian responses,” Oyewale added.  

He stressed the need for UNICEF and the humanitarian community to prepare themselves for “a new reality of climate-related disasters in Afghanistan.

The war-ravaged country ranks 15th out of 163 countries in the Children’s Climate Risk Index. “This means that not only are climate and environmental shocks and stresses prominent in the country, but children are particularly vulnerable to their effects compared with elsewhere in the world,” UNICEF said. 

The Save the Children charity has warned through a recent statement that about 6.5 million Afghan children are forecast to experience crisis-level hunger this year, citing the impact of floods, prolonged drought, and the return of hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans from neighboring Pakistan.

The World Food Program estimates that 3 million Afghan children are malnourished, and it can only reach one-third of them. The decline in international assistance has led to a rise in children’s admissions to malnutrition clinics in Afghanistan, the agency cautioned.  

Afghanistan, one of the countries most at risk of global climate crisis, is among the least responsible for carbon emissions. 

Afghan children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate and environmental shocks and stresses compared to elsewhere in the world, the statement said. 

The return of the fundamentalist Taliban to power in Kabul in 2021 has led to the immediate termination of financial aid to the country, while international humanitarian assistance has recently also declined. This has worsened humanitarian conditions and pushed Afghanistan’s economy to the brink.
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Islamabad — Police and relatives in majority-Muslim Pakistan reported Monday that a Christian man who was severely injured in a mob attack a week ago over disputed blasphemy allegations has died due to his injuries.

Nazir Masih, the 70-year-old victim, was receiving treatment for severe head injuries at a military-run hospital near the capital, Islamabad, after being rescued, along with family members, from angry protesters gathered outside his residence in the city of Sargodha on May 25. He underwent multiple surgeries but could not survive, a police official said.

The mob ransacked Masih’s house and burned down his shoe shop, claiming he had desecrated Islam’s holy book, the Quran, allegations his relatives rejected as baseless.

Social media videos from Sargodha showed Christians carrying Masih’s coffin through the street, shouting “Praise to Jesus” and “Jesus is great.” The coffin was covered in black fabric and had a small crucifix on it.

Christian community leaders lamented the latest mob lynching and urged the Pakistani government to ensure the protection of religious minorities and to punish those responsible for inciting mob violence in the name of religion over controversial blasphemy charges.

 

“Yet again, hate has brought us to the place where we must ask questions,” Bishop Asad Marshall, the president of the Church of Pakistan, said in a statement posted on X Monday.

“The question is when will those who make a change and those who pursue justice seek truth and cry for a more just and fair world? When will those lives rise up for the sake of Pakistan’s own?” Marshall asked. ‘’We lift our voices in lament, regret, solidarity, and for an honest plea for justice.”

Police have arrested dozens of suspects in connection with the mob attack under Pakistan’s anti-terrorism law. They had also launched an investigation into the blasphemy charges against Masih. 

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, and mere allegations have led to mobs lynching dozens of suspects — even some in police custody. Insulting the Quran or Islamic beliefs is punishable by death under the country’s blasphemy laws, though no one has ever been executed.

The Sargodha incident revived memories of one of the worst attacks on Christians in August 2023 in Jaranwala, another city in the central Punjab province, the country’s most populous.

That attack involved thousands of Muslim protesters attacking a Christian settlement and burning 21 churches as well as damaging more than 90 properties over allegations two Christian brothers had desecrated the Quran. 

The violence prompted several Christian families to flee their homes. A subsequent police crackdown arrested scores of people, including the Christians accused of blasphemy. 

Critics have long called for reforming the blasphemy laws, saying they are often misused to settle personal scores. Hundreds of suspects, mostly Muslims, are languishing in jails in Pakistan because external pressures deter judges from moving their trials forward. 

“While the majority of those imprisoned for blasphemy were Muslim, religious minorities were disproportionately affected,” the U.S. State Department noted in its recent annual report on human rights practices in Pakistan. 

The report noted that Pakistani courts often failed to adhere to basic evidentiary standards in blasphemy cases. The U.S. report attributed the lack of adherence “to fear of retaliation from religious groups if they acquitted blasphemy defendants, and most convicted persons spent years in jail before higher courts eventually overturned their convictions or ordered their release.”
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