Kathmandu: A Nepali man has been named the world’s shortest teenager.
Dor Bahadur Khapangi, 18, who measures just 2ft 5in (73.43cm) has received the title from the Guinness World Records in Kathmandu.
Chief Executive Officer of the Nepal Tourism Board Dhananjay Regmi handed Khapangi the framed certificate at a ceremony organized by Guinness World Records.
The official certificate names Khapangi as the ‘shortest teenager living (male)’ on March 23.
DHAKA — In its bid to boost shrinking forex reserves, the central bank of Bangladesh has relaxed rules to woo more remittances from millions of Bangladeshis living and working abroad.
The Bangladesh Bank Monday issued a circular, saying non-resident Bangladeshis will not require presenting documents while sending over 5,000 U.S. dollars in remittance in order to qualify for the 2.5 percent cash incentive given by the government.
This relaxation will remain in effect until further notice, the circular added.
The Bangladeshi government in January increased the cash incentive on the remittance exchange rate to 2.5 percent from the previous 2 percent to encourage migrants to use proper channels to send money home.
The government’s latest decision on incentive came as the remittance inflows have been falling in the recent months.
In the current fiscal year 2021-22 (July 2021-June 2022), Bangladesh has reportedly received 18.62 billion dollars in remittances, compared to 24.77 billion dollars in remittances in the previous financial year (July 2020-June 2021).
Remittances from over 10 million Bangladeshis living and working abroad, along with garment exports income, are significant sources of foreign exchange reserves for Bangladesh.
In order to boost shrinking forex reserves, the Bangladeshi government last week restricted foreign trips of its officials under operating and development budgets.
The country’s Ministry of Finance said in notification that all types of foreign trips, including exposure visits, study tours, workshops and seminars for all government officials will be stopped until further notice in a bid to reduce the pressure on the country’s forex reserve.
The move came a day after the central bank of Bangladesh toughened its rules for luxury and non-essential imports like sports utility vehicles, washing machines, air conditioners and refrigerators.
All the latest moves are expected to support Bangladesh’s foreign currency reserves, which recently have come down to less than 42 billion dollars, still enough to cover the country’s five-month import bills.
For a growing economy like Bangladesh, forex reserves equivalent to six months’ import bills are considered adequate.
Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves crossed the 48-billion-dollar mark in August last year, the highest ever in the history of Bangladesh, due to a slowdown in imports and rising remittance and export earnings during the pandemic. (Xinhua)
Colombo: Sri Lanka increased fuel and transport prices on Tuesday, a long-flagged move to fight its economic crisis, but the hikes are bound to exacerbate galloping inflation, at least in the short-term.
Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera wrote on Twitter that petrol prices would increase by 20%-24% while diesel prices would rise by 35%-38% with immediate effect.
Monkeypox can be contained in countries outside of Africa where the virus is not usually detected, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
More than 100 cases of the virus – which causes a rash and a fever – have been confirmed in Europe, the Americas and Australia.
That number is expected to rise still, but experts say the overall risk to the broader population is very low.
The virus is most common in remote parts of Central and West Africa.
“This is a containable situation,” the WHO’s emerging disease lead Maria Van Kerkhove said at a news conference on Monday.
“We want to stop human-to-human transmission. We can do this in the non-endemic countries,” she added – referring to recent cases in Europe and North America.
Kathmandu: On Sunday, Uzra Zeya, the US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, met with Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. The two talked about a variety of topics of mutual interest, including measures to strengthen bilateral ties.
Deuba and Zeya met at the PM’s house in Baluwatar, where Zeya is also the US Undersecretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
Nepal-US bilateral ties and various areas of mutual interest were discussed. Nepal will receive $659 million from the United States. “Happy to celebrate the new @USAID-Nepal assistance agreement with @USAmbNepal & @USEmbassyNepal, which will give $659 million to promote our shared vision for a democratic and prosperous future,” she tweeted.
She had already met Bhumika Shrestha and Muskan Khatun, both recipients of the International Women of Courage Award.
By
Associate Professor of Sociology, Bridgewater State University
Assistant Professor of Economics, California State University, San Bernardino
The California State University system, America’s largest public higher education system, recently added caste, a birth-based social hierarchy system, to its anti-discrimination policy, allowing students, staff and faculty across its 23 campuses to report caste bias and discrimination.
CSU’s move has drawn a sharp response from some in the Indian diaspora: About 80 faculty members of Indian heritage, as well as the Hindu American Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, have opposed the decision, claiming that it is potentially stigmatizing for persons of Hindu or Indian heritage. They have also threatened a lawsuit against CSU if this decision is not revoked.
The caste system is often conflated in Western media with Hindu religion and India alone. However, as social scientists specializing in South Asian Studies, we know that the caste system is neither exclusive to Hindu religion nor is it endemic to India.
Caste in South Asia
While the caste system originated in Hindu scriptures, it crystallized during British colonial rule and has stratified society in every South Asian religious community. In addition to India, it is present in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bhutan.
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Social, economic and political status in this pernicious system is tied to traditional occupations fixed by birth. Brahmins, for example, who are assigned priestly work, are at the top, and Dalits, relegated to the bottom, are forced into occupations that are considered abject in South Asia, such as cleaning streets and toilets, or working in the tanning industry. Caste-based rules of marriage maintain these boundaries firmly.
Caste organizes social life not only among Hindus but also in Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist communities in the region. It is an intergenerational system based on birth into a caste group. Caste identities stay even generations after someone converts out of Hinduism and into any of these faiths.
Among South Asian Christians, Anglo-Indians are at the top of the hierarchy. This small community includes individuals of mixed descent from Indian and British parents. Those who converted to Christianity, even generations ago, from middle level Hindu castes come next, followed by those from Indigenous backgrounds. Those who converted to Christianity from Dalit castes are placed at the bottom.
Muslims across the region are organized with the minority Ashraf communities at the top. The Ashraf community claims noble status as the “original” Muslims in South Asia, due to their descent from Central Asian, Iranian and Arab ethnic groups. The middle in this social hierarchy is comprised of Ajlaf, considered to be “low-born” communities that converted from Hindu artisanal castes. The group at the bottom includes converts from Dalit communities who are identified with the demeaning term Arzal, which means vile or vulgar.
In the Sikh community, the powerful land-owning caste, Jat-Sikhs, are at the top, followed by converts from Hindu trading communities in the middle and converts from lower caste Hindu communities, Mazhabi Sikhs, at the bottom.
Sikh men wearing colorful turbans and women with their heads covered gathered together in New Delhi, India.
Dalit Sikhs gather for a protest in New Delhi. AP Photo/ R S Iyer
While Buddhism in India is close to being casteless, its dominant versions in Sri Lanka and Nepal have caste-based hierarchies.
Caste carries over after conversion
While many of the so-called lower caste groups converted to escape their persecution in Hinduism, their new religions did not treat them as fully equal.
South Asian Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists with Dalit family histories continue to face prejudice from their new co-religionists. They are excluded from or experience segregation at shared places of worship and sites of burial or cremation across all these regions.
Social scientists have shown that strict caste-based rules continue to regulate social organization and everyday interactions. Intercaste marriages are rare: In India alone, they have remained at about 5% of all marriages over the past several decades. When they take place, the couples risk violence.
While urbanization and education have normalized everyday interactions across caste groups in shared urban spaces, entertaining lower caste individuals in upper caste households is still taboo in many families. A 2014 survey found one in every four Indians to be practicing untouchability, a dehumanizing practice in which people from Dalit castes are not to be touched or allowed to come in contact with upper caste individuals. Untouchability was prohibited in India in 1950 when its egalitarian constitution came into force. However, home ownership is segregated by caste, and religion and caste discrimination is pervasive in the rental market where residential associations use flimsy procedural excuses for keeping lower caste individuals out.
Lower castes are expected to defer to the higher status of upper castes, refrain from expressing themselves in shared spaces and avoid displaying material affluence. They risk being punished by socioeconomic boycotts, which could include ostracizing the Dalits or keeping them out of employment. It may even include assault or murder. In Pakistan, anti-blasphemy laws are used as a pretext for caste violence against Dalits, many of whom have converted to Christianity.
Caste and life outcomes
Studies show that caste-based identity is a major determinant of overall success in South Asia. Upper caste individuals have better literacy and greater representation in higher education. They are wealthier and dominate private sector employment, as well as entrepreneurship.
While affirmative action programs initiated by the British and continued in independent India have made improvements in the educational levels of lower caste groups, employment opportunities for them have been limited.
Studies also demonstrate how caste identity affects nutrition and health through purchasing power and access to health services.
Most socioeconomic elites in South Asia, regardless of religion, are affiliated with upper caste groups, and the vast majority of the poor come from lower caste groups.
Caste in the diaspora
Scholars have documented similar discriminatory practices in the diaspora in the U.K., Australia, Canada and the African continent.
Caste has started getting recognition as a discriminatory category, especially in the U.S., in recent years. A 2016 survey, “Caste in the USA”, the first formal documentation of caste discrimination within the U.S. diaspora, found that caste discrimination was pervasive across workplaces, educational institutions, places of worship and even in romantic partnerships.
In 2020, the state of California sued Cisco Systems, a technology company in the Silicon Valley, on a complaint against caste-based discrimination. Harvard University, Colby College, UC Davis and Brandeis University have recognized caste as a protected status and have included it in their nondiscrimination policies.
These developments in the U.S. have put the spotlight again on this centuries-old system that denies equality to large populations on the basis of an oppressive and rigid hierarchical system. It is up to the American diaspora how they commit to engage with it, as they themselves strive for equality and fairness in their new multicultural society.
( From The Conversation )
BEIJING– Reeling under the mismanagement of Xi Jinping’s Zero-Covid Policy, parts of Beijing have again come under a lockdown on Sunday, as the pandemic outbreak continues to spread in more and more cities in China.
The authorities have imposed a lockdown in the Haidian district along with Chaoyang, Fengtai, Shunyi, and Fangshan districts, China’s Global Times reported citing a statement of the city government’s spokesperson, Xu in Hejian.
As per the Chinese media reports, except for restaurants offering delivery services and pharmacies, all indoor entertainment venues, gyms, training institutes, and shopping malls have been closed from today.
All graded scenic points in the capital city will be suspended, and at the same time, all parks should cap visits to 30 percent of capacity, Global Times reported citing Xu Hejian’s statement.
The residents across five districts in Beijing have been asked to work from home until May 28 as the domestically-transmitted COVID-19 situation remains uncertain.
While explaining the reasons for the rise in sporadic cases, Xu said that the COVID-19 situation has been complicated by the highly-contagious Omicron with most patients only presenting mild symptoms. He also said that the negligence of the people towards the Covid-19 precautionary norms has also contributed to the clustered outbreak which intensifies the transmission risk of the infection, Global Times reported.
According to the National Health Commission report today, China on Saturday reported 157 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which Beijing reported 52 new confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 9 local asymptomatic cases.
China’s much-publicized ‘zero-covid’ strategy that the government credited for bringing the country out of the pandemic till recently is falling apart as the rapidly mounting cases are again forcing mass lockdowns like those seen in 2020. (ANI)
Sri Lanka: A shortage of medicine caused by an economic crisis in Sri Lanka could soon cause deaths, doctors say, as hospitals are forced to postpone life-saving procedures for their patients because they do not have the necessary drugs.
Sri Lanka imports more than 80 percent of its medical supplies but with foreign currency reserves running out because of the crisis, essential medications are disappearing from shelves and the healthcare system is close to collapse.
Sri Lanka is grappling with its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, brought about by COVID-19 battering the tourism-reliant economy, rising oil prices, populist tax cuts and a ban on the import of chemical fertilisers, which devastated agriculture. (Al Jazeera)
Kyiv: A court in Ukraine has sentenced a Russian tank commander for life in charge of killing a civilian at the first war crimes trial since the invasion.
Captured soldier Sgt Vadim Shishimarin was convicted of killing Oleksandr Shelipov, 62, in the north-eastern village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
He admitted shooting Mr Shelipov but said he had been acting on orders and asked forgiveness of his widow.
Multiple other alleged war crimes are under investigation in Ukraine.
New Delhi: As Sri Lanka reels under a severe economic and energy crisis, India has supplied another 40,000 MT consignment of diesel to Sri Lanka to help ease the fuel shortage in the country.
The High Commission of India in Sri Lanka informed about the current consignment on Twitter. “Pumping diesel into #SriLanka!!! Another 40,000 MT consignment of diesel under the credit line from #India reached #Colombo today,” tweeted India High Commission in Sri Lanka.
Further, another consignment carrying rice, milk powder, and medicines worth more than SLR 2 billion from India is scheduled to reach Colombo on Sunday.
The consignment was flagged off from Chennai by Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin. Indian High Commission also tweeted: “People of #India, standing by their bretheren in #SriLanka. Rice, milk powder and medicines worth more than SLR 2 billion is scheduled to reach #Colombo on Sunday. The consignment was flagged off from #Chennai by CM of Tamil Nadu @mkstalin on Wednesday.”
Moreover, India has promised to provide over $3 billion to the debt-ridden island country in loans, credit swaps, and also credit lines since the beginning of the year. Sri Lanka is going through the worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.
A crippling shortage of foreign reserves has led to long queues for fuel, cooking gas and other essentials while power cuts and soaring food prices heaped misery on the people.
The economic crisis has also triggered a political unrest in Sri Lanka and a demand for the resignation of the powerful Rajapaksas. In keeping with neighbourhood First policy, India has pledged nearly USD 3 billion to cash-strapped Colombo through currency swaps, credit lines for essential goods and repayment of loans since January 2022 to help Sri Lanka. Read at livemint
Amid tough global sanctions over the Ukraine war, Russia has published an updated “stop list”, permanently banning 963 Americans – including US president Joe Biden, vice president Kamala Harris, and secretary of state Antony Blinken – from entering the country. Hollywood celebrities – including Morgan Freeman and actor-filmmaker Rob Reiner – also make the list, American news network CNN has reported.
Moscow said the list includes people who “incite Russophobia and those who serve them” and not the common Americans “who have always been respected by us”.
According to a Washington post report, Biden’s name figured in the March list too but this updated version has his deputy Harris’s name too.
Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions stranded and at least 57 dead, officials say.
In Bangladesh, about 2 million people have been marooned by the worst floods in the country’s north-east for nearly two decades.
At least 100 villages at Zakiganj were inundated after floodwater rushing from India’s north-east breached a major embankment on the Barak River, said Mosharraf Hossain, the chief government administrator of the Sylhet region.
“Some two million people have been stranded by floods so far,” he said on Saturday.
Many parts of Bangladesh and neighbouring regions in India are prone to flooding, and experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events around the world.
Dozens of people were killed in India during the week in days of flooding, landslides and thunderstorms, according to local disaster management authorities. (AFP)
NEW DELHI: Amid SOS over food scarcity from countries such as Egypt, India has said that World Trade Organization (WTO) members should not resort to “naming and shaming” it for the wheat export controls and argued that that there was no shortage of grain in the global market.
Following the imposition of strict export restrictions, India has been under attack, finding an unusual ally in China. Ahead of a meeting of WTO ministers next month, the issue came up in Geneva during talks for a package on public stock-holding, a key concern for India as it has breached the limit and is seeking a permanent solution as it wants adequate flexibility to continue with the procurement programme. Read more at Times of India.
UK: More than 80 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in at least 12 countries.
The World Health Organization has said another 50 suspected cases are being investigated – without naming any countries – and warned that more cases are likely to be reported.
Infections have been confirmed in nine European countries, as well as the US, Canada and Australia.
Monkeypox is most common in remote parts of Central and West Africa.
It is a rare viral infection which is usually mild and from which most people recover in a few weeks, according to the UK’s National Health Service.
HELSINKI: Russia halted gas exports to neighboring Finland on Saturday, a highly symbolic move that came just days after the Nordic country announced it wanted to join NATO and marked a likely end to Finland’s nearly 50 years of importing natural gas from Russia.
The measure taken by the Russian energy giant Gazprom was in line with an earlier announcement following Helsinki’s refusal to pay for the gas in rubles as Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded European countries do since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The Finnish state-owned gas company Gasum said that “natural gas supplies to Finland under Gasum’s supply contract have been cut off” by Russia on Saturday morning at 7 a.m. local time (0400 GMT).
The announcement follows Moscow’s decision to cut off electricity exports to Finland earlier this month and an earlier decision by the Finnish state-controlled oil company Neste to replace imports of Russian crude oil with crude oil from elsewhere.
After decades of energy cooperation that was seen as beneficial for both Helsinki — particularly in the case of inexpensive Russian crude oil — and Moscow, Finland’s energy ties with Russia are now all but gone. Such a break was easier for Finland than it will be for other European Union nations. Natural gas accounts for just some 5% of total energy consumption in Finland, a country of 5.5 million.
Almost all of that gas comes from Russia, and is used mainly by industrial and other companies with only an estimated 4,000 households relying on gas heating. Read more at Associated Press.
Kathmandu: Nepal confirmed its first-ever outbreak of African swine fever on Thursday, with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reporting that the disease had killed almost a thousand pigs in the Kathmandu valley.
The authorities had confirmed the epidemic and provided the facts to the OIE, according to Chandra Dhakal, the spokesperson for Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development’s Department of Livestock Services.
The OIE, based in Paris, announced on Thursday that the disease had killed 934 pigs in six farms in the Kathmandu Valley.
According to a report prepared by experts from Nepal’s Tribhuvan University and published in the Swiss journal Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute in 2021, the pig farming business in Nepal has grown dramatically in recent years, with a porcine population of 1.4 million last year.
“The virus’s ability to withstand extreme weather conditions, along with the traditional swill feeding strategy for raising pigs, might cause havoc in the Nepalese pork industry,” the report said.
The African swine fever is fatal to pigs and wild boars, with a fatality rate of up to 100%, according to the OIE, although it is not harmful to people or other animals.
Within two to ten days of transmission, the extremely contagious hemorrhagic sickness can kill you.
There are now no vaccinations or cures available for the virus, which has been documented in 73 countries across Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Pacific (except Africa).
After China’s first epidemic in August 2018, the disease expanded across the region, with South Korea reporting the first case in September 2019 and India reporting the first cases in 2020. The disease was discovered for the first time in Thailand in January 2022.
