Opposition PNC leader s disorderly conduct trial set for Sunday
The charges against Abdul Raheem were in light of his behavior at a protest held to oppose the charges raised against him in the GA. Vodamulaa chapter of the MMPRC scandal
Aishath Hanaan Hussain Rasheed
Abdul Raheem Abdulla at an opposition protest
RaajjeMV
The first hearing of the trial against President of the People s National Congress and acting leader of the opposition coalition Abdul Raheem Abdulla is set to begin on Sunday, where he will be presented with charges for disorderly conduct under Section 615 of the Penal Code of the Maldives.
Sohini Nayak
The sixth meeting of the India-Nepal Joint Commission, co-chaired by Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his Nepalese counterpart Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, was held on 15 January 2021 in New Delhi. As the Nepalese delegation, comprising the Foreign Minister, Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal and other senior officials visited India, the world kept a keen eye on the probable developments, after the cold demeanour of the recent past over the border row.
As mentioned by the spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Anurag Arivastava, the primary vision of this meeting lay in having constructive discussions on the bilateral relationship between the two countries, that has indeed been taking the test of time and implement constructive measures for the future.
In a significant presidential initiative on the domestic political front, incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih met allies of his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), with party president and Parliament Speaker Mohammed Nasheed too participating in it. The meeting assumes significance in the light of the nation-wide local council polls, likely to be held on 3 April, as per the tentative schedule indicated by the Election Commission (EC).
The polls were due by March last year, but they were postponed owing to the Covid pandemic. Even without it, the MDP was considering extending the term from three years to five, against anticipation about victory, but the pandemic eased the party’s apprehensions.
Sohini Nayak
The economy of the small and landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is predominantly based on agriculture, accounting for 60 percent of employment, along with cottage industries, tourism, hydroelectricity and local manufacturing. However, following the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy has more or less crumbled with a 3.5 percent contraction in real GDP (2020). While the World Bank suggests an annual GDP growth rate of 1.8 percent in 2021, the various ways of achieving the figure still remains unclea, with the structural framework for execution too remaining rudimentary.
The structural weaknesses in the nation’s economic institutions are now a part of this developmental emergency, requiring some serious rebooting of the financial system. Even though economic stimulus package and recovery plans from the current pandemic-induced economic crisis have been rolled out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the creation of an international community that can co
South Asia: The road ahead in 2021 Feature by South Asia Center
By Irfan Nooruddin
At long last, the year that seemed like it might never end is in the history books. While the record-breaking development of multiple safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines is grounds for optimism that 2021 will be better admittedly a very low bar after the year just completed the shadow of 2020 is likely to loom large over the coming year for South Asia, which faces unprecedented economic challenges, deterioration of democratic norms and institutions, and the existential threat of climate change. Those challenges are hardly new, of course, but the last year starkly revealed just how unprepared and unable South Asia’s governments were to tackle them, causing tremendous suffering and distress for its almost two billion residents. Across South Asia’s capitals, intense scrutiny will be trained on Washington,