UN Envoys Calls Upon Taliban To Allow Girls’ Education

Hardening stand against anti-women measures of the Taliban, the envoys and representatives of the European Union, US, and the European countries in a joint statement have said that the international aid to Kabul will depend on Afghanistan’s ability to ensure access to education for girls at all levels, said a media report.

In the joint statement, the envoys and the representatives have said that the type and scope of “international donor assistance will depend, among other things, on the right and ability of girls to attend equal education at all levels,” reported Tolo News.
The joint statement further stressed that the progress towards normalized relations between the Taliban and the international community will depend mostly on Kabul’s actions and delivery on commitments and obligations to the Afghan people and to the international community.

The joint statement was issued after a meeting in Brussels of the special envoy and representatives of the EU, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The participants also raised concerns regarding the human rights situation in Afghanistan, including those of ethnic and religious minorities and groups.

“If the Taliban is considering governance, they should reopen schools for all girls and boys. The development in the society depends on the development of men and women,” the Afghan news agency quoted a women’s rights activist, Anisa Basheeri.

However, the Taliban has said that the provision of aid should not become a political tool and called upon the international community to not politicalize humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

“The humanitarian and the political issues should be separated. The humanitarian issue should not be used as a tool. Afghans call for further aid should be provided,” the media outlet quoted Bilal Karimi, the Taliban deputy spokesman as saying.

The Taliban regime has issued a decree banning female students above grade six from participating in their classes in schools. The girls were further told to stay home until the Islamic Emirate announces its next decision.

The decision by the Islamic Emirate has drawn severe backlash across the world with the Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union issuing a joint statement to condemn the Taliban’s decision to deny so many Afghan girls the opportunity to finally go back to schools. (ANI)

Cable-Car Mishap: 1 Dead, 48 Trapped In J’khand

The rescue operation at Jharkhand’s Deogarh has been taken over by Indian Air force (IAF), where some cable cars on the Trikoot ropeway collided on Sunday, leaving 48 stuck and one dead.

Some cable cars collided on a ropeway at Trikoot hills close to Baba Baidyanath Temple.

The Deoghar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Manjunath Bhajantri said, “One woman, of the 11 rescued yesterday, has been declared dead while one person is seriously injured in the ropeway cable-cars collision on Sunday. The rescue operation is still on.”

As per reports, 48 people are still trapped and the IAF has been involved in the rescue operation. Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams are also present at the spot, the DC added.

The IAF received the request for the rescue of approximately 40 tourists stuck in the Trikoot Hills Ropeway Service, in the Deoghar district of Jharkhand. Acting on the request, the IAF deployed one Mi-17 and one Mi-17 V5 helicopter early in the morning on Monday.

The IAF contingent also has a component of IAF Garud Commandos for conducting the operations. A recce was conducted by one of the helicopters in the morning and operations are underway in coordination with the district administration and NDRF, as per reports.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren tweeted in the noon, “The administration, army and NDRF team are working with full readiness to rescue the people trapped in the Deoghar Trikoot ropeway accident. I am constantly monitoring the situation. Soon all will be taken out safely.”

Various people had arrived to visit the Baba Baidyanath temple on Sunday on the occasion of Ram Navami, including women and children. (ANI)

Tikait Joins TRS Protest At Telangana Bhavan

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Monday joined the ongoing protest by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) at the Telangana Bhavan against the alleged “discriminatory policy” of procurement of foodgrains.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is leading the protest, and he’s joined by the TRS leaders.
Speaking to the media, TRS MLC K Kavitha, daughter of the Telangana Chief Minister, urged the Centre to procure the crop and demanded a common procurement policy for the country.

“Our farmers are not getting the right price. We request the Central government to procure paddy from our state. We demand a common procurement policy. Rakesh Tikait has earlier also talked to CM K Chandrashekar Rao over agricultural issues and he has come here to support us,” Kavitha said.

The TRS MPs, MLCs, MLAs and other elected representatives are taking part in the “dharna” while raising claims that the “Centre’s policy is discriminatory towards Telangana farmers”.

Recently, the TRS workers had blocked four National Highways in Telangana to press their demand for a “uniform” procurement policy in the country. The party decided to protest in Delhi in their bid to raise the issue at the national level.

Earlier on Sunday, addressing the media, Kavitha said that the food security of the country will be endangered if there is no ‘uniform procurement’ policy by the Centre.

PM Modi On Ukraine Conflict

Jaishankar To Meet US Trade Rep On Tuesday

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will meet United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai on Tuesday.

“Ambassador Tai will meet with India’s Minister of External Affairs Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. This meeting is closed press,” US Trade Representative said in a statement on Sunday.
As per the statement, Ambassador Tai will also meet with Germany’s State Secretary for International and EU Affairs and G7/G20 Sherpa Dr Jorg Kukies.

She later will meet with Austria’s Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs Margarete Schrambock and Minister for Labor Martin Kocher, as per the US Trade Representative.

India and the US are set to hold the 2+2 dialogue between Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and their respective American counterparts on Sunday.

In November last year, USTR Katherine Tai paid his first visit to India for two days after she assumed office in March last year and hold discussions with officials on enhancing trade and economic ties between the two countries. She was accompanied by Deputy US Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi.

During the twelfth ministerial-level meeting of the India-United States Trade Policy Forum (TPF) in New Delhi, the US had marked its support to India’s ambitious goal of reaching 20 per cent ethanol blending country in the next five year and expressed an interest in supplying ethanol to India for fuel purposes.

“The United States noted its support for India’s ambitious goal of reaching 20 percent ethanol blending with petrol by 2025 and expressed an interest in supplying ethanol to India for fuel purposes,” a joint statement from the countries informed.

This had come as Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal and US Trade Representative had co-chaired the TPF meeting.

The Ministers had also agreed to explore ways for enhancing collaboration for the implementation of their respective ethanol blending programs.

In June 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the report of the expert committee on the roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India by 2025. (ANI)

Europe Turns To Middle East, Mediterranean For Gas

As the war in Ukraine rages on, leaders of European countries, notably Germany, have come to realize that they made a serious mistake by becoming so dependent on Russian energy. Currently, Europe depends on Russia for roughly 40 percent of its natural gas needs, and European leaders have vowed to reduce their dependence by two-thirds.
So, European countries are feverishly trying to secure supplies from the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Energy security has become one of Europe’s top priorities, putting on the back burner the fight to contain climate change and global warming.

Of course, the gas and oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members were the first countries which European leaders requested to cover the energy shortfall to be created by a future removal of Russian gas and oil from the scene.

However, GCC countries say that they are unable to significantly increase their hydrocarbon exports to Europe, due to production constraints and the fact that most of their future production is locked in long-term contracts with their clients in Asia.

In the past few weeks, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom sent senior representatives to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are major hydrocarbon producers, asking them to increase energy supplies, but their requests fell on deaf ears.

Qatar was the only country that offered some help when it diverted to Britain and Belgium six LNG tankers that were originally destined for Asia and indicated that it would increase its gas production to cover part of the shortage.

The emirate of Qatar currently supplies about 30 per cent of its liquefied gas to the European Union, but none of this goes to Germany, because it does not have LNG terminals. To correct this situation, Germany is fast-tracking the construction of two LNG terminals, but these will become operational in three years’ time.

Last month, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck during a visit to Doha said that a long-term gas supply deal has been reached between his country and Qatar and added: “We might still need Russian gas this year, but not in the future.”

He also admitted that the previous German government had made a mistake by becoming so dependent on Russian gas supplies.

It’s worth noting that US President Joseph Biden last month tried to call Mohammed Bin Salman (known as MBS) to ask Saudi Arabia to increase its oil supply, after the US formally banned Russian oil imports, but as relations between the two countries remain frosty, MBS didn’t accept the call.

Perhaps MBS remembers vividly that Joseph Biden had promised to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah state” and described it “as a state with no redeeming social value” over the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and so decided to give Biden the cold shoulder.

Another reason for ignoring Biden is that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE believe that they are no longer supported by the US against the Houthis in Yemen and their missile attacks against oil installations in the two countries. They are also angry because Biden had delisted the Houthis as a terrorist organization.

On March 21, after three drone attacks on Saudi Aramco installations, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia declared that it will not be held responsible for shortages in the global energy market because Houthi missile attacks will disrupt supply.

Saudi Arabia does not want to alienate Russia because it considers Moscow as a potential arms supplier, and it no longer wants to be viewed by the US (as former President Donald Trump described the Kingdom) as “a cash cow for the US defense industry.” Furthermore, it sees Russia as a major country that can exert pressure on its archenemy Iran.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia understands that it must supply oil to some European countries because it does not want to encourage Europe to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy.

It should be noted that Saudi Arabia already covers a large part of Poland’s energy needs and last January Aramco -the Saudi state oil giant- said it had agreed to buy a 30 per cent stake in Poland’s second-largest refinery and to increase oil supplies to the state’s top energy firm PKN Orlen to 200,000-337,000 barrels per day.

Apparently, the reluctance of Gulf energy producers to substantially increase production to replace Russian gas and oil in European markets made the US and European leaders turn their attention to other possible sources of supply and particularly to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Moreover, both the EU and the US are currently re-examining the feasibility of the building of pipelines that will carry natural gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe, the EastMed Pipeline, or a pipeline transporting Israeli gas to Turkey and from there to Europe.

Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharar has recently stated that the EU requested the Israeli government to supply it with natural gas. Israel could provide Europe with 10 per cent of the gas it currently buys from Russia.

Last Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid travelled to Athens to meet with his Greek and Cypriot counterparts, Nikos Dendias and Ioannis Kasoulides, in one of their frequent trilateral meetings focusing on energy and security matters taking place every year.

Lapid said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will “change the structure of the European and Middle Eastern energy markets,” adding that there are risks but the crisis also offers “opportunities which we must examine together.”

In July 2021, the Israeli government approved the 6 billion Euro EastMed project which would have created a new gas pipeline from Israel and Cyprus to Europe to lower dependency on Russian fuel.

However, it is doubtful if this pipeline will be built, as Turkey which is the largest gas consumer in the region has strong objections and the United States decided in January to rescind its support, citing economic and environmental reasons. (ANI)

Twitter Announces Elon Musk Will Not Join Board Of Directors

Microblogging site Twitter on Monday announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk will not be joining the company’s board of directors.

The announcement was made by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
“Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here,” tweeted Agrawal sharing the note.

According to the note, Musk who was to officially join Twitter’s board on April 9 shared the same morning that he will no longer be joining the board.

“The Board and I had many discussions about Elon joining the board, and with Elon directly. We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks. We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward. The board offered him a seat,” read the note.

“We announced on Tuesday that Elon would be appointed to the Board contingent on a background check and formal acceptance. Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best,” it added.

The note further said that Twitter will still remain open to the inputs from the Tesla CEO, who is also a shareholder of the social media platform.

“We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input,” it said.

Earlier last week, Musk had disclosed that he had taken a nine per cent stake in the social media platform.

Following this, Twitter said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it plans to appoint the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to its board for a term that ends in 2024. As part of the deal, Musk has agreed not to acquire more than 14.9 per cent of the company’s shares while he remains on the board, CNN reported. (ANI)

China: 1,164 New COVID-19 Cases In Past 24 Hrs

The Chinese mainland reported 1,164 fresh locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the National Health Commission said on Monday.

Of the new locally transmitted cases, 914 were reported in Shanghai, 187 in Jilin, 19 in Guangdong, and the rest of the cases were reported in 12 other provincial-level regions, Xinhua reported citing the commission.

Besides the locally transmitted cases, 20 new imported COVID-19 cases were also reported on Sunday, according to the commission.

Sunday also witnessed 26,411 new asymptomatic carriers on the Chinese mainland, including 26,345 local ones and 66 imported ones.

Of the local asymptomatic carriers, 25,173 were reported in Shanghai and 797 in Jilin, Xinhua reported citing the commission. (ANI)

Pak: PTI To Launch Countrywide Protests On Wednesday

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to launch a countrywide protest campaign on Wednesday (April 13) against the removal of its government and the formation of the new administration which is most likely to be headed by Pakistan Muslim League-N President Shehbaz Sharif.

“We are going to start a nationwide campaign from Wednesday from Peshawar,” PTI leader and Pakistan former Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry was quoted as saying by Dawn newspaper.
Chaudhry informed that the ousted prime minister will address a public meeting in Peshawar on Wednesday, Dawn reported.

Yesterday, supporters of PTI staged a protest in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates against Imran Khan’s ouster as the Prime Minister through a no-confidence motion last night.

Taking to Twitter, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf said: “Dubai, UAE Call was for Pakistan but Pakistanis across the globe standing up for #ImranKhan.”

In Pakistan, PTI has taken out massive rallies in several cities including Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, and Lahore with demonstrators shouting slogans against the Opposition.

On Monday, Imran Khan expressed gratitude to the people of the country for supporting the protests against his ouster as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

“Thank you to all Pakistanis for their amazing outpouring of support and emotions to protest against US-backed regime change abetted by local Mir Jafar to bring into power a coterie of pliable crooks all out on bail. Shows Pakistanis at home & abroad have emphatically rejected this,” Imran Khan tweeted.

“Never have such crowds come out so spontaneously and in such numbers in our history, rejecting the imported govt led by crooks,” he said in another tweet.

The voting on the no-confidence motion against the Imran Khan-led PTI government in the country’s National Assembly was held late on Saturday night where 174 members recorded their votes in favour of the resolution that ousted Imran Khan.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s National Assembly will vote today at 2 pm to elect a new Prime Minister. (ANI)

Shiv Subrahmanyam’s Funeral To Take Place In Mumbai

The last rites of veteran actor Shiv Subrahmanyam will be conducted at Mokshdham Hindu Shamshanbhoomi, Andheri, Mumbai on Monday morning.

Taking to Instagram, filmmaker Hansal Mehta mourned the demise of Subrahmanyam and shared the details of his funeral. According to his post, Subrahmanyam’s cremation ceremony will take place from 11 am onwards.
“The funeral will leave from Shishira, Yamuna Nagar, Lokhandwala Back road, Andheri West at 10 am, 11.04.2022. The cremation will be at 11 am at Mokshdham Hindu Shamshanbhoomi, Ceasar Rd, Amboli, Andheri West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400058,” Hansal wrote.

He also extended his heartfelt condolences to Subrahmanyam’s family members.

“With profound and heartfelt grief, we wish to inform you of the passing of one of the most dignified and noble souls to inhabit human form – our dearest Shiv Subrahmanyam. Incredibly talented, he was much loved and revered personally as well as professionally. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife Diyya, her mum, dad, Rohan, Rinki, and family; Bhanu chitti and all of Shiv’s family; and his huge legion of friends and fans,” Hansal grieved.

The cause of death is knot known at the moment.

Subrahmanyam, best known for writing the screenplay for ‘Parinda’, was last featured in ‘Meenakshi Sundareshwar’. (ANI)

Modi, Biden To Discuss Ukraine, Indo-Pacific Security

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden on April 11 to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the security situation in the Indo-Pacific region.

“President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will meet virtually with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on Monday, April 11 to further deepen ties between our governments, economies, and our people,” the White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The leaders will discuss ending the COVID-19 pandemic, strengthening the global economy and bolstering “security, democracy and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific.

“President Biden and Prime Minister Modi will discuss cooperation on a range of issues including ending the COVID-19 pandemic, countering the climate crisis, strengthening the global economy, and upholding a free, open, rules-based international order to bolster security, democracy, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific,” Psaki added.

According to the White House, Biden will continue close consultations on the consequences of “Russia’s war against Ukraine” and mitigate its impact on global food supply and commodity markets.

PM Modi and Biden last spoke during the Quad Leaders meet in March.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), in a separate statement, informed that the two leaders will review ongoing bilateral cooperation and exchange views on recent developments in South Asia, the Indo-Pacific region and global issues of mutual interest.

“The virtual meeting will enable both sides to continue their regular and high-level engagement aimed at further strengthening the bilateral Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership,” the MEA said.

The virtual meeting is scheduled to precede the fourth India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue. (ANI)