New Delhi: Global media has been highlighting the fact that Kashmir is set to hold its first elections in a decade, but The Guardian points to another change in the valley—a new wave of militancy has stunned the Indian forces and contradicted the central government’s claims of peace in Kashmir.
This new wave of attacks is “more concerning and technologically advanced” than ever before, and has “left the military and intelligence agencies scrambling to bring it under control,” The Guardian reports.
The BJP’s manifesto promised to transform Kashmir from a “terrorist hotspot to a tourist hotspot.” Things aren’t exactly going to plan, according to The Guardian.
The report quotes five officers from the Indian military, local police and intelligence—all anonymous—who say that a fresh batch of militants have taken over operations in Kashmir. They’re “highly trained to military standards and were coming over the border from Pakistan, equipped with hi-tech equipment, including drones, and were using virtually untraceable Chinese applications to communicate,” the report said, before quoting an army official as being “stunned” at the level of guerrilla warfare training.
The report places the number of active militants in the region at 150. Their playbook has changed—militants are no longer getting into suicide attacks and gunfights. Instead, they lie in wait and carry out targeted strikes. They’re also using drones to ensure a supply of both weapons and cash, sourced as far as 9 miles within the Indian border.
The Guardian also highlights that militancy has increased in Jammu specifically.
“However, after new networks were established, Jammu has now emerged as one of the focal points of ambushes against the Indian military. Experts believe it is part of a well-thought-out strategy to target places where Indian forces have been pulled out and deployed in other troubled border areas, particularly along the India-China border,” the Guardian reports.
Dawn highlights another fallout of sour India-Pakistan relations: it ran an editorial on how both countries need to pay attention to the Indus River basin.
“With a staggering 23.3pc reduction in snow cover and a 16pc loss in glaciers over the past five years, the threat to the basin—which supports nearly 300m people in Pakistan and India—is dire,” the editorial states. This could not only threaten water supply to the area, but also impact food security across South Asia.
The editorial concedes that political hostilities often overshadow pressing issues like climate change. But they shouldn’t, especially since both nations are water-stressed and heavily dependent on the agricultural sector.
“This lack of cooperation means that both countries are sleepwalking into what scientists have forecast as ‘cascading disasters’. The impacts of glacial melt are not confined to national borders,” Dawn writes.
South Asian leaders must learn to swallow their pride and relegate political hostilities to the backseat. Future climate disasters will wait for no one and will affect everyone, says Dawn.
In far more optimistic news for the South Asian neighbourhood, Bloomberg reports on more manageable developments for India: apparently the government is ready to offer the Maldives emergency financial support.
Indian officials confirmed to Bloomberg that the Maldives can tap into $400 million immediately, which is available under the RBI’s currency swap programme—and can also seek long-term loans under a $800 million line of credit established in 2019.
The Maldives is staring at the face of its first sukuk default—it has to pay $25 million of its roughly $500 million outstanding sukuk debt by October.
“India’s willingness to help Maldives comes despite Muizzu coming to power last year on an anti-India platform and a pledge to foster stronger ties with China, the biggest lender to the Maldives. Both India and China are vying for influence in the region,” Bloomberg observes. There was also an awkward diplomatic spat which prompted Indian holiday-goers to boycott the country, which affected tourism income briefly.
It’s still unclear if the Maldives has officially asked for India’s help. But President Mohamed Muizzu is due to visit India soon—the matter is sure to come up then.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports on how something else is affecting India—the disappearance of vultures.
Calling it a “devastating wildlife disaster,” the story looks at how the decline of vultures in India since the 1990s has affected the country. It led to a public health emergency: vultures would clean up the millions of livestock carcasses, and without them, the animal bodies began to pile up.
A subsequent study found that after the vultures disappeared, an additional 10,000 Indians died per year for at least five years. These deaths were because of increased instances of diseases like rabies, and because the water quality was affected by carcasses.
“In addition to the loss of life and health, the vulture crash was costing India billions. The cleanup that vultures had done for free now had to be accomplished with human crews and vehicles, and expensive new facilities like rendering plants,” the piece says. “The collapse of vultures is also a cultural loss in India, where the birds are significant in several minority religious traditions.”
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