Hello everyone. Welcome back to this edition of Notes from South Asia. Today we will cover the deterioration of Indian railways under Modi government, changes after a new President came to power in Maldives including his plans for rising sea levels, and the trials that Pakistan’s ex Prime Ministers face.
But here you are.
It is a detailed story and you can see the case for yourself. There is mis-allocation and lack of funds of course. There is also corruption.
Take for example, the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh, a corpus fund dedicated to railway safety, set up in 2017-’18. The aim was to allocate Rs 20,000 crore annually to the fund for five years, of which Rs 15,000 crore would come as budgetary support from the government and Rs 5,000 crore from the internal resources of the railways – freight and passenger revenues. But the target could not be achieved as the Railways failed to provide its share. Between 2017-’18 and 2022-’23, the Railways provided only Rs 4,225 crore, shows data collated by PRS Legislative Research.
Moreover, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General report from 2022, the scrutiny of vouchers showed that Rs 48.21 crore from the fund was used to buy foot massagers, crockery, electrical appliances, furniture, winter jackets, computers and escalators, develop gardens, build toilets, pay salaries and bonuses and erect a flag.
Like the Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh, the Depreciation Reserve Fund used for replacement and renewal of assets has also borne the brunt of poor revenues. Between 2017-’18 and 2022-’23, the fund received Rs 3,440 crore from internal resources of the Railways, which is less than half of the Rs 7,900 crore allocated in 2013-’14 alone.
If the Scroll article is not satisfactory for you, check out the story in the image header from the Hindu Data point. Maitri Porecha has another story for the Hindu: Soaring train fares, shrinking sleeper coaches add to passenger woes. (Please use the scroll for the tweets.)
This was updated on November 24, 7:12 am Indian Standard Time.
In the mean time, the media have been running stories on the workers and some of their family members have been able to talk once with them.
Rising sea levels threaten to swamp the Maldives and the Indian Ocean archipelago is already out of drinking water, but the new President says he has scrapped plans to relocate citizens.
Instead, President Mohamed Muizzu promises the low-lying nation will beat back the waves through ambitious land reclamation and building islands higher — policies, however, that environmental and rights groups warn could even exacerbate flooding risks.
The upmarket holiday destination is famed for its white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons and vast coral reefs, but the chain of 1,192 tiny islands is on the frontlines of the climate crisis and battling for survival.
Former president Mohamed Nasheed began his administration 15 years ago warning citizens they might become the world's first environmental refugees needing relocation to another country.
He wanted the Maldives to start saving to buy land in neighbouring India, Sri Lanka or even far away in Australia.
In contrast, the new President thinks they should be self-sufficient. May be they have seen the rising anti-immigrant sentiments everywhere. And of course anti-Muslim sentiments too in India and Sri Lanka. Besides, how likely is Sri Lanka to remain untouched by rising sea levels. Not to mention the economic troubles the island nation faces.
But Mr. Muizzu, 45, while asking for $500 million in foreign funding to protect vulnerable coasts, said his citizens will not be leaving their homeland.
"If we need to increase the area for living or other economic activity, we can do that," Mr. Muizzu told AFP, speaking from the crowded capital Male, which is ringed with concrete sea walls.
"We are self-sufficient to look after ourselves".
The tiny nation of Tuvalu this month inked a deal to give citizens the right to live in Australia when their Pacific homeland is lost beneath the seas.
But Mr. Muizzu said the Maldives would not follow that route.
"I can categorically say that we definitely don't need to buy land or even lease land from any country," Mr. Muizzu said.
Sea walls will ensure risk areas can be "categorised as a safe island", he said.
Naturally, environmentalists say it is a very bad idea.
But 80% of the Maldives is less than a metre (three feet) above sea level.
And while fortress-like walls ringing tightly-packed settlements can keep the waves at bay, the fate of the beach islands the tourists come for are uncertain.
Tourism accounts for almost one-third of the economy, according to the World Bank.
Mr. Nasheed's predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was the first to ring the alarm of the possible "death of a nation", warning the United Nations in 1985 of the threat posed by rising sea levels linked to climate change.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in 2007 that rises of 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) would make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable by the end of the century.
The warning lights are already flashing red.
Plus, they also face drinking water scarcity.
Gayoom's fear of his country running out of drinking water has already come true, as rising salt levels seep into land, corrupting potable water.
"Every island in the Maldives has run out of fresh water," said Shauna Aminath, 38, the environment minister until last week, when Mr. Muizzu's government took power.
Almost all of the 187 inhabited islets in the archipelago depend on expensive desalination plants, she told AFP.
"Finding ways as to how we protect our islands has been a huge part of how we are trying to adapt to these changes", Ms. Aminath said.
The capital Male, where a third of the country's 380,000 citizens are squeezed onto a tiny island, is "one of the most densely populated pieces of land in the world" with 65,700 people per square kilometre, according to the environment ministry.
A giant sea wall already surrounds the city, but Mr. Muizzu said there is potential to expand elsewhere.
Environmentalists have sounded warnings against sea walls and reclamation projects.
Pakistan
Elections and Trials
You may remember that there has been charges brought against ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan and the PM before him Mr. Nawaz Sharif. Here are a couple of updates on that.
Zulqernair Tahir reports for the Dawn that PML-N’s election campaign hinges on Nawaz cases
LAHORE: While the Pakistan Peoples Party has already launched an aggressive election campaign by holding rallies in different parts of the country, its former ally the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has linked kicking off the drive to clearance of its supremo Nawaz Sharif in all the cases he is facing.
On the other hand, both parties’ rival Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is desperate to hold rallies in the run-up to Feb 8, 2024 elections but claims the authorities are not allowing it and are quick to pounce on its workers who dare to take part in any such activities.
“The PML-N will kick-start its election campaign once the legal procedure regarding the appeals of Nawaz Sharif is over. It is anticipated that the appeals will be decided in a week or so and then Mr Sharif will lead the party’s campaign across the country,” PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal told Dawn on Wednesday.
PML-N is Nawaz Sharif’s party. PTI Is Imran Khan’s party. Mr. Khan is in jail while Mr. Sharif is out on bail. PPP or Pakistan People’s Party is Benazir Bhutto’s party (who was assassinated in 2007). The current party chair person is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
The Islamabad High Court on Tuesday had decided to conduct a regular hearing of Mr Sharif’s appeals in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia Mills corruption references. The accountability court had handed down 10 and seven years jail terms to Mr Sharif in Avenfield and Al-Azizia, respectively.
In Avenfield case, the elder Sharif had secured bail, and in Al-Azizia he was serving the term at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail before leaving for London on medical grounds for ‘four weeks’.
Asked if Nawaz Sharif failed to get relief in these cases or they lingered on, what would be the party’s strategy regarding launching polls campaign, Ahsan Iqbal said: “We are hopeful that Nawaz Sharif will get clearance in these cases very soon and he will spearhead the drive.”
Islamabad High Court on the other hand has found Mr Khan’s jail trial illegal: by jail trail, they mean holding the trail in jail premises for security purposes. The dawn editorial on that.
WITH the Islamabad High Court finding former prime minister Imran Khan’s jail trial in the cipher case illegal, proceedings have gone back to square one. With neither Mr Khan, nor former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi indicted any longer, they have won themselves momentary respite. Mr Khan had challenged the decision by a single-member IHC bench approving a jail trial. Now the special court formed to try him and others accused will have to hold fresh proceedings. This is an opportunity for the justice system to ensure fairness and transparency in a trial over which much debate and speculation has ensued since Mr Khan and Mr Qureshi’s indictment on Oct 23.
Afghan Refugees
Zhaid Hussain writes for the Dawn about the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan.
THE arbitrariness of our policymaking process has been very evident in our latest decision to expel hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants. For decades, we hosted millions of refugees who were fleeing war and devastation. And now, suddenly, they are being told to leave. Many of them were born and grew up in this country and now have nowhere to go in their native land.
The draconian decision has already forced some 200,000 Afghans to leave, while many more are being kept in holding camps near the Afghan border for repatriation. Recent days have witnessed some harrowing scenes of Afghans being hauled up by the security agencies after the expiry of the deadline for undocumented Afghan nationals to leave voluntarily.
There are some 1.7m undocumented Afghans out of more than an estimated 3m living in this country. Many of them have been here for the past four decades. There has been a constant inflow of refugees since the 1980s following the Afghan war against the Soviet occupation. Porous borders allowed the influx of refugees.
The policy of, first, supporting the American-backed mujahideen war in the 1980s and then aiding Taliban who were fighting the American forces facilitated cross-border movement at the cost of the country’s own national security. Being the front-line state during the two Afghan wars in the past four decades made Pakistan the main destination of Afghans affected by the fighting.
Another influx of refugees came after the end of the 20-year-long US-led war in Afghanistan. Over half-a-million Afghans have crossed over to Pakistan after the return of Taliban rule in 2021. While most of them are economic migrants, there have been others fleeing the country to escape persecution by the conservative regime. They include women and human rights activists.
This would affect all of them but women and girls the most. And the decision was taken by caretaker government whose job typically is to hold the elections in a fair and impartial manner.
Pakistan’s arbitrary policy decision has led to a very serious humanitarian crisis. The forced repatriation of some 1.7m people to a food-insecure country where poor living conditions have been exacerbated by floods and earthquakes will make the lives of the returnees extremely perilous.
Women and young girls will be most affected by the Taliban regime’s restrictions on female education and work. They will have no future living under a harsh conservative regime.
In the past too, Pakistan has tried to repatriate undocumented Afghan refugees but never on this scale. Interestingly, such a critical decision affecting the country’s internal and external security has been taken by a caretaker government, which is not constitutionally mandated to take long-term policy decisions.
That is it for today. Have a good time until next Friday, everyone.
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