Month: May 2022

Despite repeated denial from China over plans to militarise the Solomon Islands, the security experts remain wary of Beijing’s intentions.

Soloman Islands and China last month signed the framework agreement on security cooperation that US and allies fear could be used to establish a military base in the Pacific island nation.

Writing for the Geopolitica.info, di Valerio Fabbri said the details of the security pact alarmed countries around the world, in particular in New Zealand, Australia and the US, which went on high alert.

They believe that China has much greater ambitions in the region.

Although the Solomon Islands and China denied the establishment of a military base, the businessman behind this agreement had once tried to buy an entire island for China.

“Some three years ago Xu Changyu, on behalf of State company China Sam Enterprise, which produces weapons, tried to broker a deal to lease the island of Tulagi for 75 years, securing exclusive development rights,” said Fabbri.

According to the writer, the deal shocked the residents and sent alarm bells ringing, claiming that it is hard to believe that Chinese lease the whole island without turning it into a military base.

Fabbri highlighted how China has been slammed for establishing economic colonies with easy loans and huge investments in infrastructure and trade on the condition of severing ties with Taiwan.

Experts say that this dual-use investment is often used for both civilian and military infrastructure.

It has also been alleged that China is influencing local elections by buying-off politicians with bribes, thus making way for what is termed as debt-trap diplomacy.

Further, Fabbri pointed out that China’s role is relevant not only in the infrastructure and construction sector in these islands, but also in key service sectors such as telecommunication and seaport projects.

“Under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China is constructing and has completed a number of infrastructural projects, including seaports, roads and railways in Mongolia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with the further goal of providing telecommunication services and transport logistics as well as establish factories along the route,” he said.

Moreover, Beijing is also heavily investing in private industries and diverting operations for developing military technology. “The Solomon-Islands situation is only the last case in point of the aforementioned policy,” emphasized Fabbri. (ANI)

Longest surviving Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) commander Ashraf Molvi was killed along with two other terrorists at Srichand Top (forest area) in Pahalgam of Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district, said police on Friday.

“Ashraf Molvi (one of oldest surviving terrorists of HM terror outfit) along with two other terrorists killed. Successful operation on the yatra route is a major success for us,” Kashmir Zone Police said in a tweet while quoting IGP Kashmir.
Ashraf Molvi hailing from Tengpawa Kokernag had joined Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in 2013 and soon became one of the most wanted terrorists in the valley.

Earlier on Thursday, an active terrorist of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was arrested along with arms and ammunition in the Kokernag area of Anantnag district. (ANI)

Narrating the plight of her helplessness during the assault on Nagaraju, the man who was attacked with an iron rod that resulted in his demise, wife Ashrin Sulthana on Friday said that she begged her brother to spare her husband’s life, however, he did not listen and killed him.

Her brother Syed Mobin Ahmed is accused in the matter along with Mohammed Masood Ahmed.
Speaking to ANI, Sulthana said, “My brother was against my marriage. My husband told my brother earlier that he will become Muslim and will marry me. But my brother didn’t approve. Even before the marriage, my brother had beaten me because I wanted to marry him.”

Elaborating on the time of the incident, Ashrin Sulthana said that she initially did not know her brother was one of the attackers until she saw his face.

“We were going home when my brother along with another person come on a motorcycle and pushed my husband (Nagaraju) & started beating him. In the beginning, I didn’t know it was my brother who was attacking him. They kept on beating him on his head, he was bleeding a lot. I sought help from people around me, but nobody came forward to help. I saw the face of my brother. I begged him to leave my husband and stop beating him, but he did not listen to me. Nagaraju was wearing his helmet, but due to the assault, it was damaged and so was his head,” she said.

Expressing her discontent with the people who did not come forward to extend help when her husband was being beaten, Sulthana said that “if they wanted, they could have helped but nobody did”.

“I begged the people around for help while my husband was being beaten, however, none of the passers-by came forward to help,” she said.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad’s Saroornagar police arrested two relatives of Ashrin Sulthana alias Pallavi for their involvement in the murder of Billipuram Nagaraju on Thursday.

The accused have been identified as Syed Mobin Ahmed, brother of Ashrin Sulthana and Mohammed Masood Ahmed.

The ACP LB Nagar along with his team apprehended Syed Mobin and Masood Ahmed within hours and seized the centering iron rod and knife used in the crime. (ANI)

The Asian Games 2022, which were supposed to be held in China’s Hangzhou City, have been postponed.

No reason was given for the delay, but according to reports from Chinese state media, it has happened due to the latest COVID-19 outbreak.
The 19th edition of the Asian Games was scheduled to be held in Hangzhou from September 10 to September 25.

The host city Hangzhou is close to Shanghai which has been under several weeks of lockdown. The restrictions remain in force across large parts of the city with its 25 million residents being ordered to stay home.

According to reports in Chinese media, the Olympic Council of Asia had announced that the 19th Asian Games, originally scheduled to be held in Hangzhou from September 10 to 25, would be postponed, and a new date will be announced soon. (ANI)

Actor Amber Heard broke down in tears on the witness stand on Thursday while testifying in the defamation trial against ex-husband Johnny Depp claiming that he had sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle during a fight in Australia, shortly after the pair got married.

Recounting the ordeal, the “Aquaman” actress said that the fight in Australia — during filming of the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film in March 2015 — was prompted by Depp’s jealousy and her concern about his drug use, Variety reported.

She said Depp had repeatedly hit her, threw bottles at her and choked her against a refrigerator, before finally getting her on top of a countertop and penetrating her with a bottle.

“I remember just not wanting to move,” she said. She said she remembered thinking, “Please, God, I hope it’s not broken.”

Heard is defending herself in a $50 million defamation trial in Fairfax, Virginia. Depp has sued his ex-wife Heard for writing an op-ed piece for the Washington Post in which she claimed that she was a victim of domestic abuse.

Depp has even argued that she has levelled allegations against him to advance her career.

His lawsuit alleges that he lost out on the sixth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film and other movie roles after Heard referred to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse” in a December 2018 op-ed, the Variety reported.

Heard began her testimony on Wednesday afternoon, recounting how she first met Depp and fell in love with him. But she said she also discovered that Depp could become extremely jealous — especially when drunk or high — and fly into rages.

She told the jury about a flight on a private jet in May 2014, when she alleges that Depp slapped her and then kicked her to the floor. She also told the jury of other violent episodes, in Tokyo, and on Depp’s private island in the Bahamas. She said Depp could be verbally cruel, calling her a “whore,” a “slut” and a “fat ass,” Variety reported.

Depp has denied ever assaulting Heard. He already told the jury his own version of events surrounding the Australia fight, alleging that she severed his fingertip when she threw a bottle at him.

Heard has previously testified about these incidents during a trial in the United Kingdom, but the details of the alleged sexual assault were kept confidential in that proceeding.

In her testimony on Thursday, Heard also said she ended up with cuts on her arms and feet from the broken glass. She said, at one point, Depp had held a broken bottle to her jaw, and threatened to “carve up my face,”it added.

The couple met on the ‘Rum Diary’ set in 2011 and got married in 2015. However, the marriage was short-lived. They split in May 2016, and Heard accused the actor of sexual abuse. Depp denied the claims, and they settled their divorce in August 2016. (ANI)

The report of the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) revealed that the total fertility rate of India has declined from 2.2 to 2.0 indicating the significant progress of population control measures.

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) which is measured as the average number of children per woman, has come down from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level between NFHS-4 and 5.

There are only five states in India, which are above the replacement level of fertility of 2.1. including Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), and Jharkhand (2.26) Manipur (2.17).

The NFHS-5 survey work was conducted in around 6.37 lakh sample households from 707 districts (as on March, 2017) of the country from 28 States and 8 UTs, covering 7,24,115 women and 1,01,839 men to provide disaggregated estimates up to district level.

The Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54 per cent to 67 per cent in the country.

“Use of modern methods of contraceptives has also increased in almost all States/UTs. Unmet needs for family planning have witnessed a significant decline from 13 per cent to 9 per cent. The unmet need for spacing, which remained a major issue in India in the past has come down to less than 10 per cent,” said an official statement.

The NHFS-5 also mentioned that institutional births have increased substantially from 79 per cent to 89 per cent in India. Even in rural areas around 87 per cent births are delivered in institutions and the same is 94 per cent in urban areas.

Institutional births increased by a maximum of 27 percentage points in Arunachal Pradesh, followed by over 10 percentage points in Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Over 91 per cent of districts have more than 70 per cent of births in the last 5 years that took place in health facilities.

As per the survey, the level of stunting among children under 5 years has marginally declined from 38 to 36 per cent for India in the last four years.

Stunting is higher among children in rural areas (37 per cent) than in urban areas (30 per cent) in 2019-21. Variation in stunting ranges from the lowest in Puducherry (20 per cent) and highest in Meghalaya (47 per cent).

A notable decrease in stunting was observed in Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim (7 percentage points each), Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh and Manipur (6 percentage points each), and Chandigarh and Bihar (5 percentage points each).

Compared with NFHS-4, the prevalence of overweight or obesity has increased in most States/UTs in NFHS-5. At the national level, it increases from 21 per cent to 24 per cent among women and 19 per cent to 23 per cent among men. More than a third of women in Kerala, A&N Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Manipur, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Punjab, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep (34-46 per cent) are overweight or obese.

In NFHS-5, more than three-fourths (77 per cent) of children aged 12-23 months were fully immunized, compared with 62 per cent in NFHS-4 as the full vaccination coverage among children ranges from 57 per cent in Nagaland to 95 per cent in DNH and DD. Odisha (91 per cent), Tamil Nadu (89 per cent), and West Bengal (88 per cent) also have shown relatively higher immunization coverage.

Interestingly, NFHS-5 data showed an overall improvement in SDG indicators in all States/UTs. The extent to which married women usually participate in three household decisions (about health care for themselves; making major household purchases; visiting their family or relatives) indicates that their participation in decision making is high, ranging from 80 per cent in Ladakh to 99 per cent in Nagaland and Mizoram. Rural (77 per cent) and urban (81 per cent) differences are found to be marginal.

The prevalence of women having bank or savings accounts that they use has increased from 53 to 79 per cent in the last 4 years.

NFHS-5 also mentions an increase in usage of clean cooking fuel (44 per cent to 59 per cent) and improved sanitation facilities (49 per cent to 70 per cent), including a hand-washing facility with soap and water (60 per cent to 78 per cent) have improved considerably.

There has been a substantial increase in the proportion of households using improved sanitation facilities, which could be attributed to the Swatch Bharat Mission programme. (ANI)

A petition has been filed before the Bombay High Court seeking directions to the Maharashtra government and Mumbai police to register an FIR against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray under the charges of sedition and creating nuisance in connection with his May 1 Aurangabad rally.

The petition was filed by a Pune-based activist, Hemant Patil and is likely to be mentioned for an urgent hearing today.

In his petition, Patil who also heads an NGO said that Thackeray organised a rally on May 1 in Aurangabad in which he spoke against NCP chief Sharad Pawar which may cause unrest among the party workers leading to disruption of peace in the state. He sought the registration of a case of sedition against the MNS chief.

Notably, Thackeray, during his rally on May 1, had charged the NCP chief of “dividing Maharashtra in caste politics” and also added that Pawar is an atheist.

Following his speech, the Aurangabad police registered an FIR against the MNS chief after seeing the viral videos of his rally.

Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray had reiterated his ultimatum to remove the loudspeakers from mosques by May 3, failing which they would play Hanuman Chalisa with double volume compared to Azaan from May 4.

“Today is the first day of Maharashtra (Maharashtra Day). I will not listen from the fourth day from now. Wherever we will see a loudspeaker, we will also chant Hanuman Chalisa in front of the loudspeaker in double volume,” Thackeray had said while addressing a gathering at Sanskrutik Mandal Maidan in Aurangabad.

Mumbai Police seized loudspeakers from the MNS office and detain the party’s Chandivali unit chief Mahendra Bhanushali and others on Tuesday.

The loudspeakers row started when the MNS chief on April 12, when gave an ultimatum to the Maharashtra government seeking the removal of loudspeakers from mosques within May 3, failing which, he warned, MNS workers will play Hanuman Chalisa on loudspeakers. (ANI)

As the doors of the Kedarnath Temple opened on Friday morning, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami along with his wife Geeta Dhami offered prayers.

On the occasion of the opening of the doors of Kedarnath Dham, one of the country’s 12 Jyotirlingas, thousands of devotees were present. The doors of the temple opened following years old traditional ritual of Vedic chanting. The temple has been decked with 15 quintals of flowers. The portals of the temple closed for winter for six months on November 6 last year.

Located on the bank of the Mandakini river, Kedarnath Temple is the of the four ancient pilgrimage sites referred to as ‘Char Dham’ which also include Yamunotri, Gangotri and Badrinath. Built in the eighth century AD by Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya, Kedarnath Temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva.

The annual Chardham Yatra began on May 3 on the auspicious occasion of Akshaya Tritiya with the opening of the portals of Gangotri and Yamunotri temples in the Uttarkashi district. Portals of Badrinath Temple will open on May 8.

Earlier this month, the state government capped the number of pilgrims visiting the Char Dhams. A total of 15,000 pilgrims will be allowed daily at Badrinath, 12,000 at Kedarnath, 7,000 at Gangotri and 4,000 at Yamunotri. This arrangement has been made for 45 days.

This year, it is not mandatory for pilgrims to carry a negative COVID-19 test report or vaccination certificate.

Char Dhams draw lakhs of tourists and devotees every year from across the country and abroad. (ANI)

India reported 3,545 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours with a daily case positivity rate of 0.76 per cent, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.

Due to the recovery of 3,549 COVID patients during this period, the active cases in the country declined from 19,719 on Thursday to 19,688 today which accounts for 0.05 per cent of the total number of cases.
The total number of recoveries since the beginning of the pandemic rose to 4,25,51,248. The recovery rate is 98.74 per cent.

As many as 27 patients lost their lives in the last 24 hours taking the death toll in the country to 5,24,002.

The weekly positivity rate currently stands at 0.79 per cent.

India conducted 83.98 crore COVID tests in the last 24 hours. A total of 4,65,918 COVID samples have been tested in the country so far.

As far as the vaccination is concerned, 16,59,843 fresh COVID vaccines were jabbed during this period. The total number of vaccine doses administered under the nationwide vaccination drive rises to 1,89,81,52,695. (ANI)