Oil set for 20% drop in 2020 as lockdowns weigh, market eyes more stimulus

SINGAPORE: Global crude oil markets have lost about a fifth of their value in 2020 as strict coronavirus lockdowns paralysed much of the global economy, but prices have rebounded strongly from their lows as governments rolled out stimulus.

On Thursday, the last trading day of 2020, Brent was trading down 25 cents, or 0.5%, at $51.38 a barrel, as of 0246 GMT and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) lost 0.2%, or 11 cents, to $48.29 a barrel.

“It is kind of year-end quiet but a weaker dollar is helping keep a floor under markets,” said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at Axi.

Brent and WTI have more than doubled from decade-lows seen in April, putting past a year which marked the first negative prices for WTI that shocked investors globally.

Asian shares are set to end a tumultuous 2020 by hovering near record highs on Thursday while riskier currencies cruised near 2-1/2-year peaks, buoyed by hopes that COVID-19 vaccine rollouts will help the world beat the pandemic.

The dollar was ending 2020 in a downward spiral on Thursday with investors wagering a global economic recovery will suck money into riskier assets even as the yawning U.S. twin deficits argue for an ever cheaper currency.

In the short-term, concerns over coronavirus lockdowns are likely to cap gains.

A new variant of the virus in the United Kingdom has led to the reimposition of movement restrictions, hitting near-term demand and weighing on prices, while hospitalizations and infections have surged in parts of Europe and Africa.

On the supply front, U.S. energy firms this week added 3 oil and natural gas rigs to the best quarter for boosting the rig count since the second quarter of 2017, according to data from Baker Hughes.

A Jan. 4 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, is set to boost output by 500,000 barrels per day in January.

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2,475 new cases, 58 deaths reported within 24 hours: NCOC

ISLAMABAD: The statistics of National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has shown that the coronavirus pandemic claims 58 more lives, whereas, 2,475 new infections were reported during the last 24 hours, ARY News reported on Thursday.

In the past 24 hours, 58 more people succumbed to the disease, taking the death toll to 10,105. 4,960 patients have recovered from the virus in a day and 2,206 patients are in critical condition.

The total count of active cases is 34,537.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), with fresh inclusion of the infections in the country the national tally of cases now currently stands at 479,715.

A total of 39,695 tests were conducted across the country during this period. Overall 435,073 people have recovered from the deadly disease so far while 6,696,068 samples have been tested thus far.

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Dissecting the actions of PTI’s online brigade

In 2019, while the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz was speaking at a huge rally in Mandi Bahauddin, a party stronghold, a Twitter trend, “#رنڈی_اِن_منڈی” (Prostitute in Mandi) was becoming viral. The disgusting trend was thoroughly misogynistic and was being propagated by none other than some ‘educated’ supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Disgusted, I took to Facebook to express my outrage. One of my cousins, another PTI supporter, while ‘condemning’ such behaviour, commented that “What goes around comes around because Nawaz had done the same to Benazir Bhutto. Allah kee lathi beawaz hoti hai. (God’s retribution is silent). It’s a punishment for Nawaz from Allah”. He was referring to an alleged incident in the late 1980s when photo-shopped nude pictures of Benazir Bhutto had allegedly been air dropped over several cities in Sindh. At that point I realised that perhaps my cousin was even worse than the propagators of the aforementioned trend. Instead of condemning them he was actually rationalising their behaviour and framing it as some kind of retribution from God. It escaped his otherwise rich imagination that the supporters of PTI were behind the trend and that they were in no way trying to ‘avenge’ Benazir Bhutto but simply targeting Maryam Nawaz for being an opponent of their leader. I found it funny that Benazir Bhutto herself eventually had become very close to Nawaz Sharif and had no qualms in signing the famous “Charter of Democracy”, yet somehow the PTI trolls, who hate the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with an equal intensity, were avenging what Nawaz Sharif had allegedly done. The PPP’s own supporters however were fine. In fact, they were cheering Maryam Nawaz on.   The trend and subsequent justification by some perfectly demonstrates the collective mind-set of some supporters of the PTI: abusive and reeking of self-righteousness – a combination which precludes any introspection.   That was more than a year ago. A few days ago, during the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) rally in Multan, there was another trending hash tag, #رائیونڈ_کی_رنڈی (Prostitute of Raiwind), once again targeting Maryam Nawaz. Apart from her, another favourite target of such vile behaviour is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is constantly called a transgender by individuals who claim allegiance to the PTI. One can dismiss this attitude by just brushing it aside as ‘typical’ of Pakistani politics and argue that it is not fair to single out PTI. After all, abusive behaviour and misogyny are rampant in all parties. This is true to a certain extent, but some parties appear to be guiltier of indulging in such behaviour than others. According to statistics compiled by “The Coalition for Women Journalists”, social media accounts relating to PTI supporters are behind 42% of the incidents of online abuse aimed at female journalists. In contrast, PML-N – PTI’s foremost rival in the political realm – accounts for merely 3% of such online behaviour, and PPP for less than 1%. Moreover, PTI trolls not only target critics but often abuse their family members also. For example, I still remember when the anchor-person Mansoor Ali Khan’s daughters and wife were abused in the comments section of his Twitter account. Likewise, Mohammad Hanif, while writing for the BBC, shared an incident when PTI trolls posted a pic of his wife in his Twitter comments section and called her a traitor. In a similar incident, journalist Hasan Zaidi was forced to lodge a formal complaint to Bank Alfalah when one of its employees, a PTI supporter, abused his mother on social media. The said employee was fired by the bank, prompting another abusive online campaign against Zaidi by angry PTI supporters. Even Malala Yousafzai, who has never said a word against PTI, is regularly targeted by the PTI trolls. But such behaviour becomes even more of an anomaly given the fact that many of these PTI supporters belong to the white collar, urban middle class and might be more ‘educated’ than supporters of other parties. Perhaps there are multiple reasons behind this phenomenon.   Firstly, such behaviour is actively encouraged by the PTI leadership, including Imran Khan who has constantly indulged in the usage of derogatory language against his opponents and has also gone to the extent of deliberately addressing Bilawal as “sahiba” (madam). Moreover, PTI has deliberately appointed foulmouthed individuals such as Shahbaz Gill, Faisal Vawda, Fayaz Chohan, Fawad Chaudhry and Firdous Ashiq Awan as its spokespersons. These individuals regularly indulge in crude rhetoric against PTI’s political opponents. Additionally, on social media, PTI has a large footprint and its social media cell often indulges in coordinated attacks against its critics. Since the encouragement is coming from the party leadership as well as its social media cell, ordinary supporters of PTI have no hesitation whatsoever in indulging in abusive behaviour. Secondly, the primary factor behind this is the cult of personality model which PTI has adopted. This model glorifies Imran Khan extravagantly by projecting him as the only ‘true’ leader and Pakistan’s ‘last hope’ while demonising his opponents by labelling them as corrupt and disloyal to Pakistan. This lopsided glorification coupled with the scathing vilification of PTI’s political opponents encourages PTI supporters to abuse Imran Khan’s opponents and critics. In fact, it does something worse. It gives them an instinctive comfort in their vitriolic behaviour as they feel that Imran Khan’s opponents ‘deserve’ all the abuse because they are corrupt traitors. Lastly, a major reason behind this is the general polarised political atmosphere in Pakistan. As the PDM surges and battle lines are being drawn and re-drawn, the political polarisation has also increased; which in turn has made many PTI supporters even more intense in their support of the party and therefore even more abusive. For many of them, PDM is merely a union of the old corrupt elite to save their looted wealth. This perception only further encourages them to abuse all the opponents and critics of PTI.

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How to ensure teacher professional development in Pakistan

As an Aga Khan University Institute of Educational Development (AKU-IED) Master of Education (M.Ed.) course participant, it was an illuminating experience to participate in the ‘Effective Management Practices’ (EMP) course, which was undoubtedly a journey of transformational learning and deep insights. This course allowed me to reflect on my previous practices as a head teacher, enabled me to question and unlearn the different key aspects of my traditional practices and motivated me to learn new and innovative practices in the field of educational leadership and management. The following text portrays my understanding gained from the EMP course on Teacher Professional Development, which is just one key and insightful aspect of the EMP course offerings; and pray that these ideas enlighten heads, teachers and education providing systems on the need, significance and ways of initiating PD in schools. Professional development of staff broadly refers to providing enabling conditions to staff to enhance their productivity in the various dimensions of their day-to-day responsibilities including those related to their technical and personal spheres of profession. The professional development of teachers could be defined as teachers’ learning: i.e., how they learn to learn, how they reflect on and make meaning from their learning, and how they apply their knowledge to support pupils’ learning (Postholm, 2012). Hence, teacher’s professional development has deep roots in and integrally linked with students’ learning outcomes and their overall achievements and wellbeing. In educational settings teachers play an important role in achieving the goals of teaching and learning processes. However, it is due largely to knowledge growth at an unprecedented speed in the contemporary world that it becomes increasingly difficult for teachers to keep themselves updated on the evolving and rapidly growing knowledge in education. Needless to say, that in their profession teachers have to continuously aspire to grow on an ongoing basis, otherwise, they run the risk of redundancy and decline in their professionalism. Hence, the need for them to grow professionally which could be through engaging in the reflective practices, through self-directed learning, especially increasing their theoretical understanding of the day-to-day issues and trying to put their theories into practice, and/or through availing from time-to-time the formal (i.e. tailor-made) professional development opportunities to ensure their continuous growth and renewal. It is important to bear in mind that teacher professional development is not an event, it is, instead, an ongoing process that needs quality time, conducive environment, necessary resources, ongoing efforts, and critical reflection to gain pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) needed to improve student learning outcomes. Professional development in the school context Learning is an enigmatic process; therefore, it is important to consider how people learn and how the school-based as well as the external conditions shape, influence and determine their learning (Belanger, 2011). What we clearly know today is that learning is guided by our own philosophies of learning such as behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and social constructivism. These theories/philosophies elaborate how knowledge is perceived, constructed and approached. Teacher professional development primarily involves the task of enabling teachers to challenge their existing beliefs and approaches about the ‘what,’ ‘how,’ ‘why,’ and ‘when’ aspects of their learning processes. What we also know from our experiences of work in AKESP, a prestigious education providing institution of AKDN, is that schools define and deliver professional development based on the analysis of their current needs. So, the needs analysis becomes the first step in determining the goals of teacher professional development. In fact, the Annual School Improvement Plan (ASIP) is used as a tool to identify and define the needs. Generally, the outcomes of the Training Need Analysis (TNA) relate to enhancing teachers content knowledge, upgrading teachers’ pedagogical skills, improving their problem-solving techniques, managing conflicts, engaging teachers in reflective practice, relating student home tasks with their conceptual learning, strengthening teachers’ assessment techniques, helping teachers understand the twenty-first century leaning skills, and augmenting their leadership skills. Role of the Head Teacher in managing staff professional development School leadership has the pivotal role, of course, after classroom teaching, in influencing and shaping student learning. In fact, it helps improve teaching and learning processes indirectly and through their influence on staff motivation, commitment and working conditions (Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins, 2008).  Therefore, the school leadership role becomes more significant in professional development of staff. Literature identifies four areas where head teachers have substantial impact on teachers learning, these include: head teacher as instructional leader and learner; the creation of learning environment; direct involvement in design, delivery, and content of professional development; and the assessment of professional development outcomes (Bredeson, 2000). Other forms of professional development include motivation from head teacher to improve teachers academic and professional qualifications through distant learning degree programs. This will result in new learnings for staff and help create knowledge societies within the school through sharing of knowledge with colleagues. Also, head teacher could play her/his role in encouraging teachers to develop reading habits and share their knowledge from the literature with colleagues and students. In addition, opportunities for discussions and reflecting on classroom practices in informal sessions also leads to professional development and knowledge creation. Also, in institutions like AKESP head teachers and teachers are also encouraged to design and implement action research projects to improve small yet important learning aspects related to students. Such innovations from head teachers always benefit the teachers, which then helps the organisation to become a learning organisation. In-house professional development programme Head teachers are not indispensable agents and gatekeepers of teacher learning, but they as leaders and learners become role models, coaches, facilitators, and guides to move teachers towards greater and higher levels of independence and professional autonomy (Bredeson, 2000). The traditional, i.e., authoritarian, approach to school leadership style has numerous undesirable consequences including poor results, dwindling teacher motivation, misappropriation of financial resources and expanding the gulf between school and parents. Hence, the need for head teachers to become sources of inspiration and encouragement for their teachers, students and parents. When it comes to providing teachers in-house professional development opportunities, head teachers need to make the best use of pedagogical content knowledge expertise available in their schools to conduct in-house professional development sessions. This requires head teachers to identify the diverse talents their staff possess. In order to share a practical example from my own practices as a head teacher in an AKESP school, I identified that majority of my staff members were not good at using ‘prepositions’ and ‘adjectives’ while speaking and writing English. I discussed this matter with the language teacher at my school who was strong in his content knowledge. In close collaboration with this teacher we planned and conducted a professional development session for my schoolteachers. This sessionwas received very well and appreciated by teachers. Encouraged by this initiative, we did the same for improvement of math skills (i.e., average, percentage, and ratio) for all teachers, which was again a success. Followed by these professional development initiatives were other in-house sessions on computer literacy, communication skills, pedagogical skills, subject specific and assessment techniques. The topics of these sessions, in fact, were suggested by our teachers, which clearly showed their intrinsic motivation to attend these in-house professional development sessions. Therefore, it is important for head teachers to practice a leadership style that transforms the school into a community of learners. Being the most important person in the school, head teachers are required to earn respect of her/his staff (as well as from his school community) through humility, possessing strong mentoring skills and promoting leadership in all the staff members by delegating them different roles and responsibilities to play in the school improvement processes. Staff encouragement for self-driven PD activities Pedagogical leadership is a powerful approach and an effective alternative to improve schools as it invests in capacity building by developing students social and academic capital and strengthening teachers intellectual and professional capital (Sergiovanni, 1998). Here, the role of head teacher is to create an environment where teachers learn from each other by reflecting on each other’s practices. Along with creating a learning-conducive environment, staff also need encouragement for what they do. This brings motivation to teachers and has direct impact on teacher productivity. As our experience shows that some teachers are money-motivated while others find recognition, appreciation, and rewards as sources of motivation (Ganta, 2014). The encouragement factor helps teachers to be motivated intrinsically and this results in better performance and innovation in their work. There is consensus amongst the researchers today that use of incentives including ‘encouragement’ and ‘recognition’ work as engines driving teachers job satisfaction and motivation, which, in turn, prepare them to work in collaboration with their other peers and colleagues in and outside schools. The intrinsically motivated staff not only develop themselves professionally but also create an environment where they make academic alliances, discuss, and reflect on each other’s practices, go for team teaching, mentoring, and observe classrooms practices and provide feedbacks on each other’s work. Hence, they form a community of learners promoting their intellectual and professional capital, which meets a basic condition needed to create the knowledge society. An appeal to the Head Teachers and teachers on professional development In sum, contrary to the popular notion of always demanding for and relying on the financial resources to initiate professional development of staff in schools, it is primarily head teachers personal desire and commitment to make a difference in the lives of teachers, students and school community, and their vision and motivation to steer their schools to become the “schools-of-choice,” that makes all the difference in achieving the goal of staff professional development. This brief article concludes at offering the following menu of ideas which might help and guide head teachers in initiating and promoting the culture of professional development in schools: Since ‘reading’ is a miraculous process that facilitates and transforms our professional growth, it is important for heads and teachers to become role models for their students in ‘reading,’ and use their ‘example’ to inspire their students (and their parents) to become avid readers; Students of the twenty-first century are good at using technology and they enjoy learning if technology is incorporated in the lessons they are taught.  Hence, there is a dire need to make teachers informed about technological advancements and encourage them to use technology and learning applications through teacher trainings, which should lead to improve students’ learning achievements. In order to develop the school-based professional development culture, head teachers must encourage senior teachers to mentor novice teachers to enhance their pedagogical skills. What is convincingly evident in schools is that the novice teachers are stronger in content knowledge but in most cases lack pedagogical skills. Reflection on actions is the key to learning, therefore, head teachers must make an endeavor to promote a culture of reflective practice in their schools by engaging teachers, students and staff to critically discuss and analyse factors facilitating and/or hindering school improvement processes. Creating leadership opportunities and assigning teachers (students and staff) leadership roles could bring more intrinsic motivation, sense of ownership and a deep sense of joy for being part of the school. Head teachers could form different school-based committees and delegate roles to teachers to perform in these committees. Our experiences have repeatedly shown that this initiative effectively leads to teacher leadership development in schools. Teaching is a dynamic profession, it needs heads and teachers to be proactive planners, strategic thinkers, and agile risk-takers. Head teachers must encourage teachers to bring innovation in their teaching strategies on an ongoing basis by introducing team-teaching, micro-teaching, and cooperative learning techniques. One of the hallmarks of the best performing schools is that they have a culture of compassion, care and growth for all school stakeholders. The head teachers will be required to review and assess the quality of their endeavors to promote such an environment in schools. It is always this culture where the notion of staff professional development blossoms and achieves its noble goals. It is also noteworthy that the culture of compassion cannot be promoted overnight, in fact, it takes constant effort and time to nurture and safeguard it from sliding back to the conventional school milieu. References Belanger, P. (2011). Theories in adult learning and education. Verlag Barbara Budrich. Bredeson, P. V. (2000). The school principal's role in teacher professional development. Journal of In-Service Education, 26(2), 385-401. doi:10.1080/13674580000200114 Ganta, V. C. (2014). Motivation in the work place to improve the employee performance. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, 2(6), 221-230. Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2008). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership. School Leadership and Management, 28(1), 27-42. doi:10.1080/13632430701800060 Postholm, M. B. (2012). Teachers' professional development: a theoratical review. Educational Research, 54(4), 405-429. doi:10.1080/00131881.2012.734725 Sergiovanni, T. J. (1998). Leadership as pedagogy, capital development and school effectiveness. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1(1), 37-46. doi:10.1080/1360312980010104

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Russia’s unofficial response to India did everything right

Andrey Kortunov, the Director General of the prestigious Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), published what can be interpreted as Russia’s unofficial response to India as an Op-Ed for China’s Global Times. The title of his article gets straight to the point by observing that “Russia moves East, India West, straining ties”. Unlike his two Indian counterparts, Observer Research Foundation expert Harsh V. Pant and former Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal, Mr. Kortunov is objective, mature, and respectful. Nothing that he wrote could reasonably be interpreted as offensive to the Indian side. I analysed those two Indians’ unofficial responses to Russia in my recent articles for The Express Tribune about how “India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust” and asking “Why are former Indian diplomats really unhappy with Russia?” The first one even accurately concluded that “Moscow will likely do all that it can to mitigate the consequences” of India’s unofficial responses exacerbating growing distrust between them, as evidenced by Mr. Kortunov’s article. Both pieces should be reviewed by the reader if they’re unfamiliar with them in order to better appreciate the style and substance of the Russian expert’s op-ed. He starts off by sharing some unfortunate but undeniable facts about Russian-Indian relations. These include his observations that “bilateral trade is negligible” (especially in comparison to Russian-Chinese trade), the “many complications and even setbacks” in military-technical cooperation “due to the growing Western presence in the Indian defense market and with the current Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ industrial strategy”, and “significant areas of disagreement between the two countries on many international matters including QUAD, Afghanistan, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and others.” While praising their history of productive cooperation over the decades, Mr. Kortunov warns both sides against becoming complacent. He also points out that “overall trends in global politics” are just as responsible for provoking “a thoughtful reassessment of the Russian-Indian partnership” as “red tape, bureaucratic inertia, communication failures, personal ambitions, or situational omissions” are. Once again, these are objective facts that cannot be denied, nor should they cause any offence to the Indian side since some of New Delhi’s own experts have openly talked about their negative role before. Mr. Kortunov’s most important point, however, concerns his ominous prediction of their future relations. He fears that “the two friendly countries might ultimately find themselves in the opposite geopolitical and economic blocks, and the Eurasian space will split into two pieces”, if “Moscow [continues] moving east, enhancing its ties with China” while “New Delhi [continues] moving west, building stronger links to the US”. I’ve consistently warned about this scenario for the past several years yet my words went unheeded by both expert communities, perhaps because this was too “politically incorrect/sensitive” to openly discuss at the time. Nevertheless, the taboo has finally been broken by both sides after prominent experts from each one – Mr. Pant and Ambassador Sibal from New Delhi and Mr. Kortunov from Moscow – released what can be interpreted as their countries’ unofficial responses to the other after the sudden worsening of relations brought about by the publication of influential BJP ideologue Subramanian Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article last month. While the Indian side blamed Russia for this unexpected downturn in relations and even insulted it by implying that Moscow was submitting to China, Mr. Kortunov is careful not to do the same to India vis-a-vis the US. Instead, he wrote that “The future of Eurasia at the end of the day depends largely on the future of the China-India relationship. No outside players, Russia including, can ‘fix’ this relationship for Beijing and New Delhi. However, outside players, Russia included, can assist in turning this relationship around by offering positive incentives for both sides to work together in trilateral or other multilateral formats.” This is true, but what remains unsaid is that outside players like the US can worsen this relationship, though he likely declined to write as much because he didn’t want to deign to his Indian counterparts’ level by laying blame on third parties. Mr. Kortunov also didn’t want to offend India since Russian experts have a very proud tradition of being polite with others even during the tensest moments like when interacting with their American counterparts. No comparable tension exists in Russian-Indian relations, and Moscow will do its utmost to ensure that their disagreements never get to such a point either. Instead of aimlessly criticising India like the Indian experts did with Russia, he proposed the constructive solution of Russia “offer[ing] India and Beijing new opportunities for trilateral development projects in the Arctic region, in Central Asia or even in the Russian Far East.” Just as importantly, he concluded his article by advising that “decision-makers in Moscow should not regard China and India as two parallel foreign policy priorities that Russia has to choose between and/or keep separate from each other.” This is partially a reaffirmation of what Russian diplomats in India said last week about how their countries’ ties with China and Pakistan are independent of their ones with India. Mr. Kortunov went a step further though by advising that Moscow “should rather approach Beijing and New Delhi as partners, which will become more valuable for Russia if they find ways to work more actively with each other.” This is precisely the basis of Russia’s Eurasian “balancing” act whereby Moscow independently pursues relations with the dozens of countries across the supercontinent with the grand strategic intent of eventually bringing them all closer to one another through its Greater Eurasian Partnership. Just like Russia hopes that it can leverage its strategic relations with China and India in order to bridge the differences between them, so too might it one day hope of doing the same vis-a-vis its rapid rapprochement with Pakistan and historical relations with India. Of course, as the saying goes, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, so everything might not work out perfectly in practice when it comes to Russia’s ultimate plan to bring China and Pakistan closer to India through its relations with all three. In any case, Russia’s unofficial response to India as manifested by Mr. Kortunov’s op-ed for China’s Global Times did everything right because he very clearly and calmly articulated his country’s stance from a position of authority considering the high regard in which he’s held at home. It can only be hoped that his Indian counterparts will learn from his example and follow suit to defuse the situation.

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Why are former Indian diplomats really unhappy with Russia?

The unprecedented surprise postponement of the annual Russia-India Summit for the first time since this yearly tradition began two decades ago has elicited very strong reactions from current and former Indian diplomats that threaten to worsen relations between these two strategic partners. Popular Indian media outlet ThePrint published an article about this on Wednesday titled “India-Russia annual summit postponed for 1st time in two decades amid Moscow’s unease with Quad” which quotes some unnamed sources, former diplomat Ashok Sajjanhar who was posted in Russia in the early 2000s, and former Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal. The first of those three stated that “There is indeed some discontent over Russia’s repeated comments on India and casting aspersions over New Delhi’s decision to join the Quad”, while other unnamed sources are reported to have said that “while a virtual summit was planned around September-October this year, the plans did not fructify even as Russia tried to play the role of a mediator, mediating peace between India and China over the border standoff.” As for Mr. Sajjanhar, he said that “This is indeed a matter of concern that the two countries who share a deep relationship could not even hold the summit virtually.” In addition, that diplomat remarked that “Russia’s attempt at mediation between India and China may have created some degree of discontent in South Block and the fact that their Foreign Minister is repeatedly slamming Indo-Pacific and Quad shows that it is saying this only to appease the audiences in China and Pakistan.” This correlates with the false information warfare narrative that I debunked last week in an earlier piece for The Express Tribune about how “India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust” regarding Observer Research Foundation expert Harsh V. Pant’s innuendo that Russia has submitted to China. I also cited former Ambassador Sibal’s prior criticisms of Russia’s growing relations with China and Pakistan from a joint research paper that he published in 2017 with the prestigious Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) think tank to prove that India has always tried to force Russia into making a false either-or zero-sum choice between Moscow’s relations with New Delhi on one side and Beijing and Islamabad on the other. Coincidentally or not, Ambassador Sibal also chimed in to share his thoughts about this topic with ThePrint, and what he said confirmed exactly what I wrote just a week ago about India’s true stance towards Russia. According to him, “At a time when the Chinese are threatening us and are sitting at the border, Lavrov should have not made such comments. This is not the opportune time for him to keep stating the same thing again and again knowing all too well that the China threat is staring at us. But wittingly or unwittingly, the Russians are overlooking the threat.” Just like Mr. Sajjanhar before him, Ambassador Sibal reiterated the false information warfare narrative that Russia has submitted to China at the expense of its strategic partnership with India even though my earlier cited analysis conclusively debunks that warped interpretation of reality. The timing of these two diplomats’ very harsh anti-Russian statements comes just two weeks after Russia agreed to join Pakistan’s AMAN-2021 multilateral naval exercises next February and a week after Bloomberg reported that Russia will start construction of the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline – its flagship megaproject in South Asia – a few months later in July. I analysed both of these developments for The Express Tribune earlier this month in my analysis titled “Why is Russia participating in the AMAN-2021 naval drills?” and “The Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline raises Russia’s stakes in South Asia”, respectively. More significantly, however, is the fact that those former officials publicly cast aspersions on Russia’s regional balancing strategy just two days after the Russian Ambassador to India and his deputy envoy tried to reassure India that Moscow’s rapidly expanding ties with Islamabad aren’t aimed against its interests. ThePrint reported on their remarks in their article titled “Moscow’s relationship with China, Pakistan independent of its ties with India – Russian envoy”, in which those Russian diplomats are quoted as reaffirming their nation’s right to practice an independent regional policy. Considering the causticity of Mr. Sajjanhar and Ambassador Sibal’s remarks, however, it’s clear that Indian officials didn’t appreciate this gesture and appear to be mistaking Russia’s kindness for weakness or worse. That’s why the former so strongly implied that Russia has submitted to both China and Pakistan while the latter hinted that Moscow might be “wittingly overlooking the threat” that New Delhi regards Beijing as posing, thus implying some degree of tacit coordination with China to subvert Indian interests. This echoes the false claims made by influential BJP ideologue Subramanian Swamy in his hateful anti-Russian article last month. Sensing the immense damage that his piece could inflict on the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership, I immediately responded to him in an analysis about how “Extreme Pro-US BJP Ideologues Mustn’t Be Allowed To Sabotage Russian-Indian Relations”. I observed that this was a rude awakening for Russia about the extent of American influence over India and ominously warned that “Eurasia is on the brink of a major divide-and-rule destabilisation if either Great Power, let alone both of them at the same time, makes the wrong move”. Regrettably, India has already made two wrong moves in a row with its unofficial responses to Russia. Russia, for its part, has done all that it can to convince India of its benign strategic intentions vis-a-vis China and Pakistan but to no avail. American influence is so powerful over India nowadays that its diplomats won’t want to listen to Moscow’s words. They’re fiercely against its regional balancing strategy despite wanting Russia to endorse India’s own policy of so-called “multi-alignment” despite it always having been nothing more than an unconvincing cover for its pro-American pivot. What India wants from Russia is total strategic submission of the same sort that it demands from the South Asian states that it aspires to exercise hegemony over. India is losing patience with Russia’s increasingly independent reassertion of its regional interests, especially vis-a-vis its newfound military and economic relations with Pakistan (to say nothing of its existing strategic partnership with China), and it can no longer hide its frustration. India’s undiplomatic series of informal responses to Russia over the past week were intended to publicly pressure it into reversing its rapid rapprochement with Pakistan and following in New Delhi’s footsteps by “decoupling” itself from China. These unfriendly signals exposed India’s ulterior motives of exploiting its partnership with Russia against those two. Russia, however, will not be pressured by anyone – let alone surprisingly enough one of its chief strategic partners anywhere in the world in its millennium-long history – into doing anything, especially not if it concerns an implied zero-sum ultimatum forcing it to take one side at the other’s expense. Still, Moscow will do its utmost to ensure that this unprecedentedly difficult period in bilateral relations with New Delhi doesn’t lead to a diplomatic crisis and will hopefully be overcome soon, but it can only do so much since the ultimate outcome depends on India’s receptiveness to Russia’s repeated reassurances about its peaceful regional intentions. In order to improve bilateral relations and rescue them from the sudden nadir that they’ve found themselves in as a result of India’s arrogant attitude in trying to treat Russia as its “junior partner”, New Delhi must stop indirectly sending unfriendly messages to Moscow through its former diplomats’ hostile statements to the press. Russia hasn’t submitted to China like those Indian figures are dishonestly implying, nor is it stabbing India in the back in secret partnership with China like Ambassador Sibal suspects. Unless India stops its latest information warfare campaign, Russia will likely distrust it more with each passing provocation.

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Accountability court approves transit remand of Khawaja Asif

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Islamabad has approved one-day transit remand of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Khawaja Muhammad Asif in assets beyond income case, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

The officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have produced PML-N’s central leader Khawaja Asif before the accountability court. Judge Muhammad Bashir conducted the hearing.

The anti-corruption watchdog sought transit remand of the politician which was approved by the court besides directing to produce him before the concerned court tomorrow. The judge directed concerned authorities to transfer the accused to Lahore today or tomorrow.

Read: Release Asif or regret consequences, Maryam Nawaz threatens govt

During the hearing, Asif’s counsel opposed the NAB’s plea seeking his transit remand and demanded the accountability court to order the immediate release of his client. However, the court rejected the plea of Asif’s counsel.

Later, NAB Lahore’s team took away Khawaja Asif from the courtroom. He will be produced before an accountability court in Lahore on Thursday (tomorrow) where the prosecution will seek physical remand of the accused.

Before appearing before the court, the PML-N lawmaker interacted with journalists and claimed that NAB has not yet initiated interrogation from him. Asif said that he was given a charge sheet by the anti-graft watchdog for possessing assets beyond income.

He alleged that the government is attempting to weaken the stance of Nawaz Sharif and trying to split the political party into different factions.

Yesterday, Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Khawaja Muhammad Asif had been arrested Tuesday by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials for allegedly having inordinate wealth compared to the sources of income.

Asif was reportedly present at another PML-N lawmaker Ahsan Iqbal’s residence for a huddle that was scheduled shortly following Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) session.

Read: NAB summons PML-N leader Khawaja Asif in Iqama case

The accountability watchdog had claimed that Asif could not furnish a satisfactory response on his possession of assets amounting to Rs260 million.

Asif had been arrested as soon as he left Iqbal’s place following a party leadership huddle which was attended by Maryam Nawaz Sharif as well, sources told ARY sources.

Khawaja Asif had been kept at NAB Rawalpindi’s office after he underwent a medical examination.

NAB officials had confirmed that the arrest was sanctioned by Chairman NAB Justice retd Javed Iqbal himself after he could not convince the three-member committee of NAB investigation on how he made assets that do not conform to his means of earning.

The post Accountability court approves transit remand of Khawaja Asif appeared first on ARY NEWS.

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