Indian Army to go to Pakistan for counter terrorism exercise - PABBI 2021

Hii everyone.

Indian Army will go to Pakistan for participating in counter terrorism exercise. Pabbi-Anti-Terror 2021 to be held by India, Pakistan and China. This would maybe the first time when Indian Army would join China and Pakistan for Anti terror exercises on the land of Pakistan. There is no official confirmation from Indian side for this exercise.

This exercise is to be held under SCO i.e. Shanghai cooperation organisation. India had already boycotted the KavKaz exercise but the condition  is different now. Firing on the border has stopped , Pakistan is offering talks with India. This may lead Indian Army doing exercise on Pakistani land.

SCO - Shanghai Corporation Corporation has 8 main members that are CHINA, INDIA, KAZAKHSTAN, KYRGYZSTAN, PAKISTAN, RUSSIA, TAJIKISTAN, UZBEKISTAN and 4 observer states that include AFGHANISTAN, BELARUS, IRAN, MONGOLIA.

This is ironic that Pakistan is conducting anti-terrorist exercise as Pakistan is in the grey list of FATF and there are many US designated terrorists who are roaming openly in Pakistan. 

This exercise is to be held in Pabbi Tehsil of Nowshera District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located on both side of Grand Trunk (GT) around 20-km from Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province. Pabbi is the base of its National Counter Terror Center. It is two and a half  hours from Abbottabad where Osama Bin Laden was killed by US forces in 2011.

The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, is a permanent organ of the SCO which serves to promote cooperation of member states against the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism.

The Head of RATS is elected to a three-year term. Each member state also sends a permanent representatives to RATS.

The official working languages of the Shanghai Corporation Organisation are Chinese and Russian.

Will India participate in this exercise???

Well, maybe as there are many positive developments between India and Pakistan like India opened its airspace for Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's visit to Sri Lanka.

Then the two countries also agred to observe a ceasefire at the Line of Control (LOC) from February 25. Last week Gen Qamar Bajwa, Paksitan's army chief, spoke of "burying the past and moving on", sparking hopes of a new beginning. Over the weekend, Prime Minister narendra Modi wished Khan, who has contracted Covid-19, speedy recovery.

There are various issues which India is facing -

1. Increasing engagement with SCO will dent India's inclusion in the QUAD group.

2. Chinese state media has already called India a negative influence in SCO and BRICS.

What you all think should India participate in PABBI-2021. Please comment.

Thank you.

Saudi Arabia ban on marrying women from Pakistan and three other countries___ Why?

Hi everyone.

Recently the news says that Saudi Arabia bars men from marrying women from Pakistan, Bangladesh and two other nations.The two other nations are Myanmar and Chad.

The Saudi government had made heavy documentation compulsory for the men of its country if he marries a women of any of the four barred nations. Most probably in future it would be impossible for men of Saudi Arabia to marry women form these four nations.

Although there are four countries in the list but primary target is Pakistan. There is no geopolitical angle in this decision but Saudi Arabia is genuinely concerned that lakhs of Pakistan women as wives are damaging the family structure of Saudi Arabia.

To understand this let us see the population and sex ratio of both countries.

Saudi Arabia - 3.43 crores

Pakistan - 22 crores.

This clearly shows that Pakistan is much more populated that Saudi Arabia and the sex ratio is bad in Pakistan.

According to the census, there are five million more men than women in Pakistan. Men are 51 percent of the population while women are 49 percent. The sex ratio - 105 men for every 100 women.

In comparison to Pakistan, Saudi has better sex ratio. Almost the number of men and number of women are equal.

In Saudi Arabia there is a trend from long time that a wealthy person marries 2/3 times and go to Pakistan and some other countries and marry women from there. This leads to the feeling of discrimination in Arab women and increase in family differences.

To avoid this Saudi government had taken many steps. The Saudi government has put in place strict regulations making it mandatory for men in the middle eastern nation to submit valid documents to the government, before marrying women from the aforementioned nations.

If the applicant is already married, he should attach a report from  a hospital proving that his wife is either disabled, suffering from a chronic disease or is sterile.

Earlier in 2018, the Saudi government had placed age restriction for both men and women if they want to marry a foreigner. Under the amended rules, a Saudi men has to be between 40 and 65 years old to be able to marry a non-Saudi women, and a Saudi women has to be between 30 and 50 if she wants to take a non-Saudi husband.

This will lead to demographic changes in Saudi Arabia. According to unofficial figures, there are about 5,00,000 women from these four countries residing in the kingdom and majority of them are Pakistani women who are staying as 2nd or 3rd wive of a Saudi man. 

This is good decision for Saudi as well as for Pakistan because already there is a large difference in sex ratio in Pakistan and if lakhs of women goes to Saudi Arabia, this will impact the sex ratio even more.

Also Saudi Arabia had announced changes to Kafala system. This system is related to slave labor.

This is a positive development and hope the better comes tomorrow.

Thank you|||

Made in India trains to Mozambique

Made in Uttar pradesh locomotive has been sent to Mozambique. The tweet says "Made In India - Made for the world. Export of first batch of 02- 3000 Hp Cape Gauge Locomotives out of total order of 06 locomotives and 90 stainless steel passenger Coaches to Mozambique. This will enhance Indo African Relationship and boost Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan." - Ministry of Railways.

This locomotive is designed and developed by Indian Railway's Banaras Locomotive Works in a record time of just 14 months.

Mozambique is an African country with a population of around 3 crores. Capital of Mozambique is Maputo.This is a poor country with Human Development Index (HDI) Ranking of 181. They want development and two countries are there to help i.e. India and China. The Export-Import Bank of China have made soft loans to Mozambique for infrastructure construction, for example providing US$60 million in 2006, and have twice cancelled large proportions of country's debt to China, forgiving US$22 million in 2001 and US$30 million in 2007.

This shows that Mozambique has fallen in the Debt trap of China. But the Chinese Ambassador to Mozambique refuses these statements on 11 Nov 2020. Many experts around the world says that if Mozambique didn't get an alternative they will completely get dependent on China. 

Here comes the role of India. India extends $250 Million line of credit to Mozambique. Under this credit India offers that Mozambique can buy anything from India. Mozambique immediately responds within a week and asks for locomotives as they are impressed by the Indian Railways network.

India made 3000 Hp Cape Gauge Trains for Mozambique. Cape Gauge is also known as 3 ft 6 inch gauge and it became widespread in the British Empire and is adopted as the standard gauge for the Cape Government Railways. It was adopted as a standard in Japan and Taiwan.

Cape Gauge is used in Japan, Jersey, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand Nicaragua.

The locomotive has been developed in Banaras Locomotive Works and is exported by Rail India Technical Economic Service (RITES) Limited.

This is not the first railway export. Earlier in 2017-18 India had exported MG Diesel Locomotive to Myanmar. In 2018-20 BG diesel locomotives were exported to Sri Lanka.

India has helped Mozambique also by giving COVID vaccines to Mozambique under the operation SAGAR. 

What India gets from this? How do it benefit India?

The answer is that yes it do benefit India.

• Indian Navy has berthing rights in Mozambique.
• Mozambique votes in favour of India in UN. 

Hope that India-Mozambique relations grows even better in future.