Domestic Politics
The Supreme Court of India declined to suspend the implementation of the new citizenship law despite 144 petitions challenging its constitutionality. Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde headed a three-bench panel and gave the government four weeks to explain its stance, and decided that a constitutional bench of five judges will hear the matter. [Reuters]
International Relations
On Monday, the U.S. Bombardier E-11A military aircraft crashed in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. The Taliban refutes claims that they were the ones to bring it down. The U.S. recovered the remains of two personnel, the flight data recorder, and destroyed remnants of the plane. [Reuters]
According to the new figures released by the US central command, US warplanes dropped 7,423 bombs and other munitions on Afghanistan in 2019. This is an eightfold increase from 2015. As per the UN data, the US is directly or indirectly responsible for half of the 1,149 civilian deaths during the first three-quarters of 2019, which have been attributed to pro-government forces. The Taliban and other insurgent groups were responsible for 1,207 civilian deaths. [The Guardian]
Economy
The Central Bank of Pakistan held its main policy rate at 13.25% on Tuesday. The bank has also announced measures such as increasing credit limits to support exporters. In December, the inflation rate rose to 12.6%, just below a nine-year high of 12.7%. This is due to the rising food costs, and increased oil and power prices, which has burdened both consumers and businesses. [Reuters]
India further reduced the amount of debt bidders for Air India Limited to $3.3 billion. The Indian government was unable to find a single bidder in 2018. The company is saddled with more than $8 billion of debt. [Al Jazeera]
Society
Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen, a 28-year-old civil rights activist and the leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) has been arrested in Pakistan. Pashteen was arrested in the north-western city of Peshawar at 2 am on Monday on five charges, including criminal conspiracy and sedition. He defends the rights of Pakistan’s largest ethnic minority, the Pashtuns. [The Guardian]
Gender
According to a study conducted by Amnesty International India on the rising online violence against women globally, 95 female politicians received nearly 1 million hateful mentions on Twitter between March and May 2019. One in five mentions was sexist or misogynistic, including rape and death threats. [South China Morning Post]
Health
Pakistan has alerted hospitals and clinics across the country after the outbreak of the coronavirus. Pakistan fears that the thousands of Chinese workers, who in various Pakistani cities as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and regularly travel between the two counties, could spread the disease. By 2018, there were 60,000 Chinese expatriates were living in Pakistan due to the economic corridor project. [South China Morning Post]
Image Source: NBC News