LOOKEAST REPORT | West Bengal is “slightly friendly” to the Rohingyas and has set up special camps for about 70 such families, BSF Director General K K Sharma told reporters in Delhi, asserting he has got an inquiry conducted to ascertain their numbers. The chief of the border guarding force, which guards the 4,096–km–long India–Bangladesh…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | A nationwide poll of Bangladeshis released by the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Center for Insights in Survey Research reveals that a majority think the country is headed in the right direction, but wish to see a more inclusive government. “The optimism reflected in this survey presents the government with a great opportunity…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | The Indian Army, on Tuesday, contracted an unspecified number of Israeli SpyLite mini surveillance drones for its infantry units deployed along the high altitude range of the India–China border. Infantry units had demanded mini–drones that could be operated from Ladakh and across from Aksai Chin to keep an eye on the movement of Chinese forces. The SpyLite mini–drone will be provided by Cyient…
Read moreSAI WANSAI | The national peace negotiation process in Myanmar is not working, and it is currently facing stagnation. The national peace negotiation process in Myanmar is not working, and it is currently facing stagnation. After a 14–month delay, a third “Union Peace Conference—21st Century Panglong” (UPC–21CP) took place in Nay Pyi Taw in mid–July…
Read moreMYO MYO / JAMES HOOKWAY in Yangon and Bangkok | A Myanmar court sentenced two Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo to seven years with hard labour in prison on for obtaining state secrets. Defendants Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were entrapped by police officers who planted classified documents on them to…
Read moreKATHMANDU | India and Nepal Friday exchanged an MoU to build a strategic railway line connecting Bihar’s Raxaul city to Kathmandu after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks on all aspects of the bilateral ties with his Nepalese counterpart K. P. Sharma Oli. This was the third meeting between Modi and Oli this year. They…
Read moreSAJEEB WAZED | Overwhelmed by grief when a bus struck and killed two high schoolers, students took the streets in Bangladesh’s capital of Dhaka last month to demand improved road safety. The government heard the students and responded with a resounding “yes.” It promised to bolster enforcement of traffic laws and increase the penalty for…
Read moreGERARD DU CANN | THE country is accused of leveraging massive loans it holds over small states worldwide to snatch assets and increase its military footprint. Developing countries from Pakistan to Djibouti, the Maldives to Fiji, all owe huge amounts to China. Already there are examples of defaulters being pressured into surrendering control of assets or…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | THERE is huge potential for entrepreneurship in solar energy but businesspersons in eastern India are not yet waking up to the opportunity, says top solar expert and Green Oscar recipient Shantipada Ganchaudhury. Delivering the keynote address at a seminar on solar business opportunities at Jadavpur University’s Institute of Business Management, he said rooftop…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | BNP plans to start a massive public agitation from mid–September to back its demand for ‘free and fair polls under a neutral dispensation ‘. But unlike the party’s previous violent agitation that targeted public transport to cause large scale panic, the BNP and its radical allies in the over–ground and the underground…
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