NEW DELHI: India plans to push back against “agenda-driven,” “neo-colonial” country rankings produced by global agencies on topics like governance and press freedom, a key advisor to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Modi’s Economic Advisory Council, said India has begun to raise this issue at global forums. He said the indices were being compiled by a “tiny group of think-tanks in the North Atlantic,” sponsored by three or four funding agencies that are “driving a real-world agenda.”
“It is not just narrative building in some diffused way. This has clear direct impact on trade, investment and other activities,” Sanyal said.
India ranked lower than Afghanistan and Pakistan in the new World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. It was below Pakistan and Bhutan in an academic freedom index by V-Dem Institute.
Over the past year, India has in various meetings pointed out the flaws in methods used to compile global indices used by institutions like the World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Sanyal said.
The “World Bank is involved in this discussion because it takes these opinions from these think-tanks and effectively sanctifies it by putting it into something called the world governance index,” Sanyal said.
The World Bank, WEF, Reporters Without Borders and V-DEM Institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment. UNDP said it would respond shortly.
Sanyal said the ratings also get hard-wired into decision-making through environmental, social and governance (ESG) norms and sovereign ratings. Multilateral development banks offer subsidized loans to ESG-compliant projects.
“The idea of having some ESG norms is not the problem in itself. The problem relates to how these norms are defined and who certifies or measures compliance to these norms,” he said. “As things are currently evolving, developing countries have been completely left out of the conversation.”
The matter is being taken up by the Cabinet Secretariat, which has held more than a dozen meetings on the issue this year, a government official said. The Cabinet Secretariat and finance ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
India has said it plans to be an advocate for developing countries under its G20 presidency. Sanyal did not say if India has flagged the issue of country rankings with the G20.
“There are other developing countries who are also concerned about this because effectively this is a form of neo-colonialism,” he said, adding that concerned ministries have been asked to establish benchmarks and engage continuously with ratings agencies.
Some of the upcoming indices being watched out by India are financial development index by International Monetary Fund, gender inequality and human development indices by UNDP, logistics performance and worldwide governance indicators by the World Bank, sources said.
India to push back against ‘agenda-driven’ global ranking firms — Modi advisor
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India to push back against ‘agenda-driven’ global ranking firms — Modi advisor
- India ranked lower than Afghanistan and Pakistan in a press freedom index released by Reporters Without Borders
- It also fell below Pakistan and Bhutan in an academic freedom index by an independent institute based in Sweden
Blast kills 11 during funeral of deputy governor in northern Afghanistan
- Daesh claimed responsibility for a car bomb on Tuesday that killed Badakhshan’s deputy governor
- Daesh claimed killing of governor of northern Balkh province in attack on his office in March
KABUL: An explosion took place inside a mosque in northern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least eleven people during the funeral of the Taliban’s provincial deputy governor who died in an attack earlier this week, officials said.
The Taliban-run Ministry of Interior said that over 30 people had also been injured in the blast in Badakhshan, a province in the far north of the country that shares borders with China and Tajikistan.
Daesh claimed responsibility for a car bomb on Tuesday that killed Badakhshan’s deputy governor.
The Taliban administration has been carrying out raids against members of Daesh, which had claimed several major attacks in urban centers.
The Daesh group has targeted Taliban administration officials, including claiming the killing of the governor of northern Balkh province in an attack on his office in March.
Before-and-after satellite images show profound toll of Ukraine dam collapse
- Before the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River broke, farm fields appear green and crossed by peaceful streets and farm roads and dotted with trees
- Afterward, only metal roofs and treetops poke above the murky water
KHERSON, Ukraine: Before-and-after images of the area downstream from a dam that collapsed Tuesday vividly show the extent of the devastation of a large, flooded swathe of southern Ukraine.
Before the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River broke, farm fields appear green and crossed by peaceful streets and farm roads and dotted with trees. Afterward, only metal roofs and treetops poke above the murky water. Greenhouses and homes are almost entirely submerged.
The pre-collapse satellite photos were taken in May and early June. Photos of the same area taken after the dam collapsed clearly show how much of it has become unlivable. Brown water as high as people covers much of the territory captured in the images.
Paired with exclusive drone footage of the Ukrainian dam and surrounding villages occupied by Russia, the before-and-after satellite images illustrate the profound changes wrought by the disaster.
Ukraine has warned since last October that the hydroelectric dam was mined by Russian forces, and accused them of touching off an explosion that has turned the downstream areas into a waterlogged wasteland. Russia said Ukraine hit the dam with a missile. But while the AP footage clearly shows the extent of the damage to the region, it offered a limited snapshot of the partially submerged dam, making it difficult to categorically rule out any scenario.
Experts have said the structure was in disrepair, which could also have led to its collapse.
WHO rushes supplies to Ukraine, readies to tackle disease in flood areas
- Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the bursting of the Soviet-era Kakhovka hydroelectric dam
- "The impact of the region's water supply sanitation systems and public health services cannot be underestimated," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press briefing
GENEVA: The World Health Organization has rushed emergency supplies to flood-hit parts of Ukraine and are preparing to respond to an array of health risks including trauma, drowning and waterborne diseases like cholera, officials said on Thursday.
Russia and Ukraine have traded blame for the bursting of the Soviet-era Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, which sent waters cascading across the war zone of southern Ukraine in the early hours of Tuesday, forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes.
“The impact of the region’s water supply sanitation systems and public health services cannot be underestimated,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press briefing.
“The WHO has rushed in to support the authorities and health care workers in preventive measures against waterborne diseases and to improve disease surveillance.”
Asked specifically about cholera, WHO technical officer Teresa Zakaria said that the risk of an outbreak was present since the pathogen exists in the environment. She said that the WHO was working with Ukraine’s health ministry to put mechanisms in place to ensure that vaccines can be imported if needed.
“We are trying to address quite a wide range of health risks actually associated with the floods, starting from trauma to drowning, to waterborne diseases but also all the way to the potential implications of disruption to chronic treatment,” she added.
The huge Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River separates Russian and Ukrainian forces and people have been affected on both sides of its banks. WHO’s Emergencies Director Mike Ryan said the WHO has offered assistance to Russian-controlled areas but that its operational presence was “primarily” on the Ukrainian side.
He said Russian authorities had given them assurances that people living in areas it occupies were being “well monitored, well cared for, well fed (and) well supported.”
“We will be delighted to be able to access those areas and be able to monitor health as we would in most situations wish to do,” he said, adding it would be for the Ukrainian and Russian authorities to agree how that could be achieved.
UK unveils new sanctions targeting Russia’s ally Belarus
- London said the new curbs would hit Belarus exports that have been funding the administration of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko
- The UK is now banning imports of gold, cement, wood and rubber from Belarus, and blocking exports of banknotes and machinery
LONDON: Britain announced Thursday new sanctions against Belarus, its latest punishment for the eastern European country’s support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and suppression of anti-government activists.
London said the new curbs would hit Belarus exports that have been funding the administration of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and “crack down on Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions.”
Western countries have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow, and its neighbor to the west Minsk, following the launch of the Russian war in Ukraine in February last year.
The UK is now banning imports of gold, cement, wood and rubber from Belarus, and blocking exports of banknotes and machinery, alongside goods, technologies and materials that could be used to produce chemical and biological weapons.
The measures also give Britain grounds to prevent designated Belarusian media organizations from spreading propaganda and disinformation in the UK, including over the Internet.
Social media companies and Internet service providers will be required to restrict access to the websites of sanctioned Belarusian media organizations, as occurs with sanctioned Russian outlets.
The new legislation also expands sanctions criteria, giving the UK government the basis to target a broader range of Belarusians, such as Lukashenko’s aides, advisers and ministers.
“This new package ratchets up the economic pressure on Lukashenko and his regime which actively facilitates the Russian war effort and ignores Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
“Our support for Ukraine will remain resolute for as long as it takes and the UK will not hesitate to introduce further measures against those who prop up Putin’s war.”
Belarus has been ruled by Lukashenko since 1994.
The UK was among a number of Western countries that imposed sanctions on Lukashenko’s government for its suppression of mass anti-government protests in 2020.
Western countries then imposed various new sanctions last year over its role in Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
Lukashenko has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory and airspace to conduct missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, as well as providing training and logistical support to Moscow’s forces.
US suspends food aid to Ethiopia, says it is not reaching needy
- The United States is by far the largest humanitarian donor to Ethiopia
- More than 20 million people need food aid, most of them due to drought and a recently-concluded war
NAIROBI: The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Thursday it was suspending food aid to Ethiopia because its donations were being diverted from people in need.
A spokesperson said in a statement that USAID had determined, in coordination with the Ethiopian government, that a “widespread and coordinated campaign is diverting food assistance from the people of Ethiopia.”
The statement did not say who was behind the campaign.
The United States is by far the largest humanitarian donor to Ethiopia, where more than 20 million people need food aid, most of them due to drought and a recently-concluded war in the northern Tigray region.
According to an internal briefing by a group of foreign donors to Ethiopia seen by Reuters, USAID believes the food has been diverted to Ethiopian military units.
“The scheme appears to be orchestrated by federal and regional government entities, with military units across the country benefiting from humanitarian assistance,” said the document from the Humanitarian and Resilience Donor Group (HRDG), which includes USAID.
Spokespeople for the Ethiopian government and military did not immediately respond to requests for comment. USAID declined to comment on the report.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the issue on Thursday with Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen on the margins of a conference in Saudi Arabia.
The State Department said afterwards that Blinken welcomed a commitment by Ethiopia’s government to work with the United States to conduct a full investigation.
The USAID spokesperson said the agency intended to resume food assistance as soon as it was confident in the integrity of the system.
USAID and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) had already suspended food aid to the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray last month in response to information that large amounts of aid there were being diverted.
A two-year war in Tigray between the federal government and forces led by the region’s dominant political party ended in a truce in November after killing tens of thousands of people and creating famine-like conditions for hundreds of thousands.
In the 2022 fiscal year, USAID disbursed nearly $1.5 billion in humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia, most of it food aid.
The HRDG briefing document, which was circulated among donors on Wednesday, recommended that Ethiopia’s government allow donors to deliver aid through “alternative modalities” like cash transfers.
It also urged donors to call on Ethiopia’s government to make a public statement condemning the diversion and demanding that aid workers not be harassed.
Ethiopia’s food crisis has deepened in recent years as a result of the war in Tigray and the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades.
WFP is also investigating “systemic” food diversion across Ethiopia, according to an email sent last week by the agency’s deputy director to staff in Ethiopia.
A WFP spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
