Sri Lanka has proposed to hold the BIMSTEC summit in early December this year. This will be the 5th such summit of the grouping. Sri Lanka is the chair of the grouping and had earlier proposed holding the summit in the month of August.
The last summit took place in Kathmandu in 2018, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other regional leaders attending the meet.
BIMSTEC or Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation has 7 members- India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. The grouping was formed in the year 1997.
On April 1, 2021, the BIMSTEC foreign minister meeting took place virtually. During the meet, the agenda for the leaders meet was discussed.
Role of private sector in economic growth highlighted
July 26, 2021
LAHORE: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation-Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SAARC-CCI) President Iftikhar Ali Malik said on Sunday that a stronger private sector could help Pakistan in realising its economic potential.
He stated this while talking to a 20-member business delegation led by Zafar Bakhtawari, Secretary General of United Business Group (UBG), here in his office. Malik said that private sector could play an effective role in economic growth; generating job opportunities; promoting domestic industry especially the SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and boosting the overall exports.
He said Pakistan had tremendous untapped economic potential that needed to be fully exploited through viable policies, which would definitely help create new market opportunities, mobilise private investments to create more jobs and also help vanish the negative impact of Covid-19 on the economy.
BSF, police, court turn Bangladeshi woman victim of slavery into accused in crime
Counterview Desk
Civil rights leader Kirity Roy has strongly objected to the manner in which the Border Security Force (BSF) , the police and the judiciary in West Bengal have treated a 35 years old Bangladeshi woman victim of human trafficking, who was subjected to sexual exploitation for 15 long years, has been declared guilty of violating the Foreigners Act, violating all human rights norms.
Roy, who is Secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), and National Convenor, Programme Against Custodial Torture & Impunity (PACTI), Hooghly, West Bengal, said the woman, now aged 35, is not the only such victim at the hands of state machinery. In a letter to the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), he said, between January and June 2021, where trafficked 106 Bangladeshi women Bangladeshi and 30 children who were charged with criminal offences by the BSF/police.
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Counteview Desk
A civil rights group, Peoples Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), has floated an online petition titled Governments of South Asia: Time for the Establishment of a South Asian Human Rights Mechanism , stating that South Asian states should work towards the establishment of a regional mechanism for human rights at the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) SAARC level in order to create better conditions for peace in South Asia.
Such a mechanism, says the petition, should act as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of masculinity driven militarist traditions as a weapon of war and conflict. Such regional mechanisms are important in order to minimise the potential risks of armed conflict , it insists.