Budget 2018-19

  Modi and Putin emphasised the central role of the UN in Afghanistan India and Russia on Monday underlined that the Afghan soil should not be used for sheltering, training, planning or financing any terrorist groups including the ISIS, the Al-Qaeda and the  Lashkar-e-Taiba  (LeT), and decided to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people. In their summit talks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin also pitched for the formation of a truly inclusive government in Kabul and reiterated their strong support for a peaceful, secure and stable Afghanistan, according to a joint statement. The mentioning of LeT in the statement assumes significance as it reflects Russia’s understanding of India’s concerns over the possible risk that the Pakistan-based terror groups pose after the Taliban’s capture of power in Kabul. The statement said the leaders welcomed the close coordination between India and Russia on Afghanistan, including thr...

  The Taliban’s cruelties are horrendous, but withholding international support and maintaining blanket sanctions will only hurt the long-suffering Afghan people. Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation is spiraling into catastrophe. Millions of Afghans are now facing severe economic stress and food insecurity in the wake of the Taliban’s August takeover, set off by widespread lost income, cash shortages, and rising food costs. Officials with the UN and several foreign governments are warning of an economic collapse and risks of worsening acute malnutrition and outright famine. Surveys by the World Food Program (WFP) reveal over nine in ten Afghan families have insufficient food for daily consumption, half stating they have run out of food at least once in the last two weeks. One in three Afghans is already acutely hungry. Other United Nations reports warn that over 1 million more children could face acute malnutrition in the coming year. One main cause of the crisis is that governmen...

  Global food prices were up 33% in August from a year earlier with vegetable oil, grains and meat on the rise, data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization show Whether for bread, rice or tortillas, governments across the world know that rising food costs can come with a political price. The dilemma is whether they can do enough to prevent having to pay it. Global food prices were up 33% in August from a year earlier with vegetable oil, grains and meat on the rise, data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization show. And it’s not likely to get better as extreme weather, soaring freight and fertilizer costs, shipping bottlenecks and labor shortages compound the problem. Dwindling foreign currency reserves are also hampering the ability of some nations to import food. From Europe to Turkey and India, politicians are now handing out more aid, ordering sellers to cut prices and tinkering with trade rules to mitigate the impact on consumers. The issue ...

  Navalny fell violently ill on a flight in Russia last month and was airlifted to Berlin for treatment The nerve agent used to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detected on an empty water bottle from his hotel room in the Siberian city of Tomsk, suggesting he was poisoned there and not at the airport as first thought, his team said on Thursday. Navalny fell violently ill on a flight in Russia last month and was airlifted to Berlin for treatment. Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden have established he was poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent, a poison developed by the Soviet military, though Russia denies this and says it has seen no evidence. A video posted on Navalny’s Instagram account showed members of his team searching the room he had just left in the Xander Hotel in Tomsk on Aug. 20, an hour after they learned he had fallen sick in suspicious circumstances.”It was decided to gather up everything that could even hypothetically be useful and hand it to t...