GUSAU: Hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted last week from a boarding school in the northwestern Zamfara state have been released, the state’s governor said Tuesday.
Zamfara state governor Bello Matawalle announced that 279 girls have been freed.
Gunmen abducted the girls from the Government Girls Junior Secondary School in Jangebe town on Friday, in the latest in a series of mass kidnappings of students in the West African nation.
An Associated Press reporter saw hundreds of girls dressed in light blue hijabs and barefoot sitting at the state Government House office in Gusau.
After the meeting, the girls were escorted outside by officials and taken away in vans. They appeared calm and ranged in ages from 10 and up.
“Alhamdulillah! (God be praised!) It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe from captivity. This follows the scaling of several hurdles laid against our efforts. I enjoin all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe,” Matawalle said in a post on Twitter early Tuesday.
At the time of the attack, one resident told AP that the gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the mass abduction at the school.
Police and the military had since been carrying out joint operations to rescue the girls, whose abduction caused international outrage.
Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years. On Saturday, 24 students, six staff and eight relatives were released after being abducted on February 17 from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger state. In December, more than 300 schoolboys from a secondary school in Kankara, in northwestern Nigeria, were taken and later released. The government has said no ransom was paid for the students’ release.
The most notorious kidnapping was in April 2014, when 276 girls were abducted by the jihadist rebels of Boko Haram from the secondary school in Chibok in Borno state. More than 100 of those girls are still missing. Boko Haram is opposed to western education and its fighters often target schools.
Other organized armed groups, locally called bandits, often abduct students for money. The government says large groups of armed men in Zamfara state are known to kidnap for money and to press for the release of their members held in jail.
Experts say if the kidnappings continue to go unpunished, they may continue.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said last week the government would not “succumb to blackmail by bandits and criminals who target innocent school students in expectation of huge ransom payments.” He called on state governments to review their policy of making payments, in money or vehicles, to bandits, saying such a policy has the potential to backfire.
All abducted Nigerian schoolgirls get released by kidnappers, says state governor
https://arab.news/p5fn8
All abducted Nigerian schoolgirls get released by kidnappers, says state governor
- Attackers abducted girls in northwestern Zamfara state
- Kidnappings for ransom are common in parts of Nigeria
India’s new budget bets on AI, data centers to sustain growth
- Budget features new Bharat‑VISTAAR AI‑powered platform for agriculture sector
- It also includes tax holiday until 2047 for foreign companies using Indian data centers
NEW DELHI: India’s latest budget has emerged as one of its most technology-focused, with new measures to utilize artificial intelligence, semiconductor manufacturing, and expand digital infrastructure aimed at offsetting the impact of global tariff wars.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the 2026-27 budget in parliament on Sunday, saying it would “accelerate and sustain economic growth by enhancing productivity and competitiveness” at a time when India was facing “an external environment in which trade and multilateralism are imperiled and access to resources and supply chains are disrupted.”
New Delhi has yet to secure a trade deal with its largest trading partner, the US, which last year hit it with punitive tariffs of up to 50 percent over India’s purchases of Russian oil. To mitigate their impact, India has been looking for alternative agreements, including last week’s agreement with the EU, cutting duty on 99.5 percent of Indian exports to the bloc.
The new budget prioritizes infrastructure and domestic manufacturing, with a total expenditure estimated at $583 billion.
It offers tariff concessions for products from the marine, leather, and textile industries — all of which have been affected by US tariffs — and provides duty exemptions on materials and goods used to process rare-earth minerals, make lithium ion batteries, solar glass, and components for electric vehicles.
The finance minister also announced doubled spending for semiconductor manufacturing to $4.8 billion and a tax holiday until 2047 for foreign companies providing cloud services using Indian data centers.
The budget also features Bharat‑VISTAAR (Virtually Integrated System to Access Agricultural Resources), a multilingual AI‑powered platform for the agriculture sector to give farmers customized, real‑time advisory on crop management, weather, soil conditions and government schemes in different Indian languages.
“There is a lot of focus on AI and technology. It is to achieve the ambitious target India has already declared — Viksit Bharat 2047. It is very clear that without technology, it would be difficult to achieve that target,” Prof. Pardeep S. Chauhan, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Arab News, referring to the government’s plan to transform the nation into a fully developed country by 2047 — the 100th anniversary of its independence.
“That was the need of the hour, and the government has taken care of it, focusing on semiconductors, AI, and rare-earth minerals.”
The technology focus also comes against the backdrop of China’s dominance in the global critical minerals supply chains, and last year’s restrictions imposed by Beijing in the wake of escalating trade tensions with the US.
“India lags far behind the US and China, particularly China,” Chauhan said. “India has taken this move to maybe after five, 10, 15 years ... compete up to some extent. Without technology, nobody can think of establishing (their) leadership — whether it’s in the economy, defense or financial infrastructure architecture. Everywhere you need technology.”
