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Afghanistan has complained to the United Nations about violations of its territory by Pakistan’s military, including shelling of Afghan territory, violation of its airspace by military aircraft and construction of military posts and barriers on its soil. The complaint was made in a letter sent by Afghanistan’s deputy permanent representative at the world body, Nazifullah Salarzai, to the president of the UN Security Council on February 22. The latest letter said the Pakistan military’s violation of Afghan territory dated back to 2012 though the “scope and frequency of these unlawful and unjustifiable acts have increased dramatically since 2017”. These actions, including shelling of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, have led to the “death and maiming of scores of innocent Afghan civilians...and destruction of public and private properties” and amount to a “grave breach of the UN Charter (and) international humanitarian law”. The Afghan letter said concerns about the violations ha

The Trump administration’s plan to sell nuclear technologies to the Saudi Arabian regime is a case study in the decay of American imperial power, the essential corruption of the Trump White House and the self-serving and reckless character of the military-industrial complex. After two years of this administration, it is shocking, if unsurprising, that President Trump shows flagrant disregard for the law, is hypocritical with regard to his claimed desire to ‘drain the swamp’ of big money lobbying and is enabling the intensified militarisation of great power geopolitical rivalries. In so doing, Trump has accelerated longer-term trends begun under successive previous presidents since the end of Second World War. He has declared the return of great power global rivalries, with China and Russia as the biggest threats to US power. But Trump is not alone in this drive to further destabilisation: the Saudis have also shortlisted Russia, China, France and South Korea to bid for nuclea

The news of early morning action in the skies above Pakistan was broken, almost in real time, by the Pakistani side at 5:12 am IST with a tweet by its military spokesperson, Maj General Asif Ghafoor. What he said was brief and cryptic but the dramatic import was hard to miss. Though India had used limited airpower during the Kargil war, not since the 1971 war have Indian and Pakistani air force planes squared off against each other over Pakistani territory – so it was clear that something major had just happened. Exactly what, though, is a matter of confusion and dispute. His next tweet, at 7:06 am, said the intrusion occurred in the “Muzaffarabad sector”. He identified “Balakot” as the place where the IAF jets dropped their “payload”, i.e. bombs, when they were met with “a timely and effective response” from the Pakistani air force. Finally, after posting pictures of damage by ordnance in an undefined wooded area, Maj Gen Ghafoor tweeted at 9:59 am that the intru

When protests erupted on Arab streets in late 2010 and in 2011, felling deeply entrenched dictators such as Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, it was certain that the changes in government would alter the regional dynamics as well. Many thought the old order rooted in “stability” (read: the decades-long unperturbed rule of single families or dictators) would be swept away by emerging democracies. Eight years later, it is evident that the Arab world has changed, but not in the way many had predicted. The structures of the old Arab world have been either destroyed or shaken, but without fundamentally altering the domestic politics in Arab countries. The backdrop of history There have been multiple power centres in the Arab region, at least since the second half of the 19th century when the Ottoman Sultans shifted their focus from the East to the West. The waning influence of the Ottomans in the Arab region created a vacuum which was filled by emerging

CONTINUING its crackdown on the separatist leadership in the Kashmir Valley, teams of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids spread over nine hours at the homes of top leaders, including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, across Srinagar early Tuesday morning. The raids were part of a search operation linked to the agency’s investigation in the alleged terror-funding case. They triggered calls for a two-day shutdown in the Valley by the separatist leadership. The raids came barely a few hours after Indian fighter jets conducted a strike at a Jaish-e-Mohammed facility across the border, and three days after the government launched a massive crackdown against separatists leaders. The entire leadership of Jamat-e-Islami and several other top separatist leaders had earlier been detained. The other homes that were raided included those of detained JKLF chief Yasin Malik; Naseem Geelani, the younger son of Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani; Geelani’s confidante Mohammad Ashr

Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) on Tuesday announced the launch of its zero-balance current account facility. This move is aimed at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who do not have access to free current accounts. With this move, PBBL becomes the first payments bank to offer current account facility to businesses. These current accounts will be available to individuals, sole proprietors, SMEs, and large corporates, who can also deposit money an unlimited number of times without incurring any charges. This feature is helpful to shop owners who receive a majority of payments in cash on a daily basis. However, there is no restriction on depositing any amount and conducting transactions during the day. Customers can redeem these swept-out balances on demand at any time. Large corporates also benefit from the current account facility through its interactive net banking panel. The bulk payment mechanisms enable corporates to transfer funds to employees’ bank accounts