Sri Lankan Ministers resign enmasse, new ministry likely
New Delhi
All 26 Sri Lankan Ministers resigned enmasse with immediate effect late on Sunday night.
A new cabinet is expected to be sworn in on Monday. Education Minister and Leader of the House, Dinesh Gunawardena, said the Cabinet Ministers, including the Sports Minister and the President’s nephew, Namal Rajapaksa, handed over their resignations to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Reports said, over 600 people were arrested in Sri Lanka’s Western Province on Sunday for violating the curfew and trying to stage an anti-government rally.
The protestors raised slogans against the government for country’s worst economic crisis and unprecedented
inflation.
The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has questioned the declaration of a countrywide State of Emergency in response to a planned protest campaign against the failure on the part of the government to address the continuing shortage of essential items, including food, medicine and fuel, said a reportin 'Island' newspaper.
Widespread public protests were seen throughout the evening on Sunday in spite of the imposition of curfew.
The enraged public has been demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The government declared a state of emergency.
Notably, Sri Lanka's political power is concentrated in the Rajapaksa family. In addition to brothers being president and prime minister, two other brothers are ministers of finance and irrigation.
President’s nephew, Namal Rajapaksa, was also a minister.
A caretaker cabinet may be appointed to pull the country out of the crisis.
The resignation of the cabinet is seen as an effort to pacify the people, who are protesting countrywide to hold the president and the entire Rajapaksa family responsible for the economic meltdown in Sri Lanka.
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Imran Khan's 2022 image: Of failure but why ?
New Delhi
It may be stated unhesitatingly that very few Pakistani politicians were as fortunate asImran Khan.He was solidly backed by the army from around 2011 - much before it actually came to power.
The Imran Khan-led regime "took its eye off the ball of governance and started chasing the wrong targets. It never could recover from this misjudgement and therefore could never really get its governance act — or narrative — together". This has been argued eloquently by Pakistani political commentator Fahd Hussain.
"PTI’s (Imran's political party) path to power was red-carpeted by the establishment without much care for nuance or subtlety. Imran Khan began his stint as the prime minister with one hundred per cent support from the establishment, a luxury few leaders had enjoyed before," he says.
But he also hastens to add in his article that - "yet, event by event, issue by issue, and policy by policy, the PTI leadership began to rack up completely avoidable irritants with the establishment that finally exploded into the open with the controversy over the appointment of the DG ISI".
The appointment order for new ISI chief Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum in Oct 2021 came after nearly three weeks of standoff between the military and the PMO in Islamabad over the appointment of Pakistan's new
spymaster.
The army had announced on Oct 6 that the former ISI chief, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, had been made
the Peshawar corps commander, while Lt Gen Anjum was appointed in his place.
But the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had not since issued an official notification.
The PMO notification is mandatory for the appointment of ISI chief. Lt Gen Anjum is also
described by colleagues as "a man with a glacier brain".
In between, Pak Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had said that the authority to appoint
the ISI chief lay with the Prime Minister.
Among other factors it is stated that there was a virtual 'refusal' on the part of the ruling side to build a working relationship with the opposition.
"The PTI’s ingrained divisiveness in its worldview worked well when the party was in the opposition. In government, however, the party needed to change gears," it is said.
Hussain also said that - "The PTI’s cabinet team was probably the weakest in living memory....What made matters worse was their focus on combating the opposition instead of their focus on their ministries.
"When you combine arrogance and hubris with the power that a government wields, you get a deadly combination. The PTI has hurt itself and its image badly by sporting such an attitude. It may want to review it as it prepares itself for an ignominious ouster from power," says the article.
It goes without saying that Pak army is more than just being influential and powerful.
Since 1947, it has staged three military coups toppling the elected Prime Ministers.
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Exports cross 418 bn dollar mark: India to fill wheat granaries depleted by Ukraine war
New Delhi
Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has termed it an important milestone in the journey towards 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and maintained that the country’s goods exports have now crossed 418 billion US dollar mark.
On achieving historic export figures for the financial year 2021-22, Mr Goyal said, it is an important milestone in the journey towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat and perhaps more importantly every sector of the economy, farmer, entrepreneur, MSME, and state governments worked together to achieve this goal.
The Minister said, the export of wheat in 2019-20 which was only two lakh tonnes, has increased to 21.55 lakh tonnes in 2020-21. Goyal said India will continue to export wheat in a big way to meet the needs of countries that are not getting supplies from conflict areas.
Russia and Ukraine account for about 25 percent of the world's wheat exports. However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has impacted the global market.
Notably, India is the second largest wheat producer after China and is now looking for increased exports to cash in on the higher price of wheat in the international market.
The Minister also said that exports have exceeded 40 billion dollars in March alone, which has created the history of highest exports in a month.
Goyal said that India had truly gone from local to global in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call.
He expressed confidence that India's economy is poised to break a number of records.
Mr Goyal said, Government is now working on rolling out the District Export Hub Initiative to strengthen the export infrastructure,
He further said India’s diversified export portfolio in 2021-22 show India’s manufacturing abilities as well as growth in hi-tech goods, electronics and agricultural products.
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