AIR World Service English

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposal to hold a video conference of SAARC leaders to jointly devise methods to combat COVID 19, declared as a pandemic by WHO, was unique. It engaged the immediate attention of the South Asian region. Since all the countries of the region are extremely populous, the danger of the spread of the virus is real. To combat the spread is equally arduous. It needs to be noted that the virus that originated in China has resulted in more than 7000 deaths worldwide. The novel coronavirus has impacted with many countries; cancelling flights, shutting down public places and urging citizens to stay indoors. India has evacuated its citizens from the worst affected regions like China, Italy and Iran along with citizens of Bangladesh and Maldives following its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. India has been following stringent checking at its airports and quarantining suspected virus infected patients at various facilities that has been opened for the purpose.  ...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call to the leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries to join hands to pool resources and chart out a common strategy to effectively combat the spread of the deadly COVID 19 virus in the region has found immediate acceptance by the leaders of the all the SAARC nations including Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. This statesmanlike initiative of Prime Minister Modi is being hailed world over. It also enkindles hope that this coming together for fighting one of the major adversities of our times may eventually lead to resuscitating SAARC which had almost gone comatose since 2014. Experts on South Asian and Sub-continental affairs are still not willing to rush to such a conclusion. Nevertheless thawing of the frozen relationship and collaboration between the two main constituents of SAARC- India and Pakistan albeit for a limited purpose like this on a multilateral platform could eventually ease the air for g...

The process for the US Presidential elections, in which the 46th US President will be elected in November 2020, has begun in earnest. For the Republican Party (Grand Old Party or GoP), President Donald Trump has won 1099 delegates in the various state primaries and caucuses. He needs a total of 1276 delegates to win the Presidential nomination from the Republican Party. For the Democratic Party, the contest has narrowed down to former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, with Mr. Biden taking lead after winning some important states in the “Super Tuesday” primaries. Fourteen states and American Samoa held presidential primaries on Super Tuesday. The contests will award 1,344 national pledged delegates, more than a third of the total available in the 2020 Democratic race. The candidate that wins the majority of the delegates will be nominated to represent the Democratic Party in the Presidential elections. Before the elections, most candidates for President...

The oil price war has begun with Saudi Arabia reducing ‘Brent’ crude oil prices by more than 30 per cent. The reduction in prices to this extent is the first time ever since the 1991 Gulf crisis. This was due to a split between Saudi Arabia and Russia over the decision to reduce oil production. Saudi Arabia led-oil cartel OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) wanted to curtail oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day to counter the slowdown in demand due to the Corona virus outbreak. However, as Russia has not agreed to reduce its oil production, the oil company Brent of Saudi Arabia, has declared a price war by announcing the lowest price in this century. The Coronavirus outbreak has started striking the financial markets and the real sector, especially investment in the energy sector. No country can produce oil as cheaply as Saudi Arabia. The “fiscal break-even” oil prices are not the same for all players. The fiscal break-even price gives an indication ...

North Korea fired at least three unidentified projectiles early this week, the second such move by the Kim Jong-un regime in two weeks. This came two days after Pyongyang’s threat to take “momentous” action in protest at condemnation over its earlier live-fire exercises. South Korea's Defence Ministry said it detected different types of short-range projectiles fired from North Korea's east coast into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The projectiles had a maximum flight distance of 200 kms. and maximum altitude of 50 kms. South Korea said that it’s military while being fully prepared was monitoring related movement in case of an additional launch. It added that the launches violated agreements reached with North Korea in 2018 intended to ease military tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korean state media said it carried out military exercises that began on February 28, on the one-year anniversary of Kim’s Summit in Hanoi with US President Donald ...

Pakistan government’s duplicity in dealing with terror groups operating from its soil is well known. However, it once again exposed itself when it utterly lied before the plenary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris about the global terrorist Masood Azhar. The terror master-mind is in hiding in Pakistan under official protection. Islamabad is ostensibly trying to show to the whole world that it is taking action against terror groups; but, in reality it is not prosecuting or effectively penalising the most wanted terrorists such as Masood Azhar, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Zakir Ur Rehman Lakhvi and many others who are responsible for terror attacks globally. Masood Azhar is the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) which claimed responsibility for Pulwama terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir on 14th February 2019 in which India’s 40 Central Reserve Police Force, CRPF personnel were killed. India destroyed the Balakot headquarters and training centre of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakis...

Afghanistan has seen momentous developments during early March. After the US–Taliban agreement was signed on 29th February, for facilitating intra afghan dialogue for restoring much desired peace in the war torn country; the Afghan democratic government was expected to unitedly lead the peace loving Afghan people for a dialogue with the Taliban, who represents the extremist elements of the Afghan society. However the deep divisions are visible now, after the results of the Afghan Presidential elections have been announced. This has created despondency not only among the Afghan people but the external powers also who are looking for an early peaceful settlement of the political tussle currently reigning in Kabul. The Afghan election Commission announced serving President Ashraf Ghani as the winner in the Presidential election conducted late last year. However, the official declaration of Ashraf Ghani as the President was contested by another powerful faction of the governmen...