A Maldives national flag flutters as pigeons fly past during the morning in Male February 8, 2012. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/file photo Acquire Licensing Rights
More than a quarter of a million people vote on Saturday for the next leader of the tropical Maldives in a closely contested election seen as a battle for influence in the high-end tourist destination between India and China.
President Ibrahim Solih, who is seeking a second five-year term in the Indian Ocean archipelago, has championed an “India-first” policy during his time in power. He appears to be slightly ahead in the polls.
The coalition backing his main rival, Mohamed Muizzu, has a record of being close to China and has launched an “India out” campaign, promising to remove a small Indian military presence of several surveillance aircraft and some 75 personnel.
Muizzu entered the fray after former President Abdulla Yameen was banned from contesting the election by the Supreme Court in August following a conviction for corruption and money laundering.
A poll of 384 people published last month by the Baani Center think tank found that 21% of respondents favoured Solih compared with 14% supporting Muizzu.
“August’s poll reveals a majority of voters, 53%, remain undecided just three weeks before the first round vote on 9 September. This month’s poll has seen the most ‘undecideds’ since Baani began its monthly poll in April,” the organisation said in a statement.
Sukhjinder is among hundreds of Indians who were duped by a gang of smugglers
Like millions of others in India, Sukhjinder always dreamt of migrating to the US in search of a better life.
Now he shudders at the very idea.
“I have chills down my spine when I hear someone talk about going abroad. That one decision ruined everything for me,” said the 35-year-old, who goes by only one name.
A resident of Tarn Taran, a small town in Punjab, Mr Sukhjinder is among at least 150 young men and women in the northern Indian state who were duped by a gang which extorted huge sums of money in exchange for false promises of getting them settled in the US.
Police said the gang, which is entirely made up of Indians, would fly out its victims to new destinations such as Bali in Indonesia and hold them hostage for days to extract a ransom from their families.
They said they suspected the gang chose countries like Indonesia or Singapore as their base because of cheap flights and the “visa on arrival” facility available to Indian citizens in these countries. Besides Punjab, men in three other states – Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh – were also targeted, they added.
Last year, police said they had arrested “the gang leader” Sunny Kumar’s wife and his father and recovered 15m rupees ($1.82m; £1.47m) from their home in Punjab. So far, 11 people have been arrested in connection with the scam, they added.
But Kumar and other gang leaders are still absconding, believed to be hiding in Indonesia. Police say they are in touch with the Indian federal government to get their whereabouts. Those under arrest have not made any statements. The BBC has contacted the Indonesian police for comment and the story will be updated when they respond.
The gang, which has been active for over two years, mostly targeted young, but not very educated, people in Punjab.
“The members approached their victims with the promise of taking them to the US via Mexico,” Gursher Singh Sandhu, police commissioner of Mohali city, told the BBC.
“They would fly their clients out of the country and then force them to call their family and lie that they had reached safely, and ask their family to pay the gang’s fee,” he said.
Some members of the gang, based in Punjab, would then go and collect the money from the victims’ families. After that, the gang would either abandon the victims or put them on a return flight to India, Mr Sandhu added.
Police say they have arrested the main accused’s wife and his father
Mr Sukhjinder said he first got in touch with Sunny Kumar in October after a relative told him he could help him reach US.
Kumar told Mr Sukhjinder he would get him there if he paid 4.5m rupees. The plan was that Mr Sukhjinder would first travel to Bali, from where Kumar and his men would chart a route for him to get to Mexico and then to the US. Mr Sukhjinder said he trusted the offer because Kumar sent him a ticket to Bali without him making any advance payment.
On October 29, he boarded a flight for Bali from Delhi. From here on, things took a sinister turn.
Mr Sukhjinder alleged he was held hostage at an unknown location for 23 days. “I was beaten so severely that I had no option but to agree to lie to my family.”
He said he was allowed to take a flight back to India after his family paid 4m rupees to the agents.
This is not the first time Indians have taken desperate steps to migrate to the US.
Thousands of Indians dream of moving to foreign countries, especially the US, in the hope of a better life. Some even fall victim to human smugglers in their desire to reach their goal.
US government data shows that 19,883 Indians were arrested while entering the country illegally in 2020. The numbers went up to 30,662 in 2021 and to 63,927 in 2022.
Although his Russia tour was the first visit by a Pakistani premier to Moscow in the past 23 years, Khan could not broker any deal that could give relief to the cash-strapped country.
Pakistan’s former PM Imran Khan and his Indian PM Narendra Modi.
Pakistan economic crisis: As Pakistan reeling under the worst-ever economic crisis, former Prime Minister Imran Khan lamented his country could also purchase Russian crude oil at a discounted rate that India enjoys despite the ongoing Ukraine war.
While addressing the countrymen in a video message, Khan claimed he had discussed the purchase of oil at a discounted rate when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin just days before the latter announced a full-fledged war against neighbouring Ukraine.
Although his Russia tour was the first visit by a Pakistani premier to Moscow in the past 23 years, Khan could not broker any deal that could give relief to the cash-strapped country.
“We wanted to get cheap Russian crude oil just like India but that could not happen. Unfortunately, my government fell due to a no-confidence motion just four weeks after I returned to Moscow,” Khan said. Notably, his claims were not confirmed by any of the Russian media outlets when he visited Moscow last year.
Khan has a habit of praising India
Interestingly, this was not the first time when Khan acknowledged India’s achievements in terms of growing its economy and purchasing Russian oil despite Western pressure.
“No other leader except Nawaz in the world has properties worth billions. Tell me about one country whose Premier or leader has billions worth of properties outside the country. Even in our neighbouring country, how many properties does PM Modi has outside India?” he had said at a public gathering in September.
Russian oil export nearly 22-fold
It is worth noting that India is the world’s third-largest oil-consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its crude oil needs. Ever since the war between Russia and its neighbouring nation started last year, the West and Europe imposed stringent sanctions on its energy. This resulted in Russia’s offering more discounts to its oldest ally, India.
Recently, a top Russian official claimed it supplied crude oil to India nearly 22-fold ever since the West imposed sanctions. According to multiple state news agencies, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister said that the maximum energy was diverted to “friendly nations” after the United States and the European Union imposed back-to-back sanctions on Russian energy.
PM Narendra Modi and visiting Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck reviewed bilateral cooperation Tuesday and discussed issues of national interests in a meeting, amid renewed efforts by Bhutan to demarcate parts of its boundary with China and uncertainty over the Doklam tri-junction.
While asserting the government was closely following all developments that had a bearing on India’s national interests, and would take all necessary measures to safeguard those, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra also said ties with Bhutan were based on shared values including mutual sensitivity to each other’s concerns. The government reiterated its earlier statements on Doklam that said tri-junctions had to be finalised in consultation with all concerned countries.
“I would say that India and Bhutan remain in close touch relating to our shared interests, including security. I would only reiterate earlier statements on this issue which very explicitly bring out our position on trijunction boundary points,” said Kwatra on the Doklam issue, while not denying that the boundary issue was discussed in the king’s meeting with Modi.
The visit by the king had been in the works for many weeks but it took place days after Bhutan PM Lotay Tshering raised eyebrows by saying that Bhutan would be able to demarcate parts of its boundaries with China in “a meeting or two’’ and that there was no major border problem with China. He also said that all 3 countries will have an equal say in resolving the Doklam trijunction dispute. Tshering had later said he hadn’t said anything new and that Bhutan’s position on Doklam remained the same as in the past.
India maintains that any attempt to determine the tri-junction must be in line with the 2012 agreement between India and China that the tri-junction boundary points between India, China and third countries “will be finalized in consultation with the concerned countries’’. India had accused Beijing of violating this agreement in 2017 when China started to construct a road in the Doklam area.
The meeting also saw Modi reiterating India’s continued and full support to the socio-economic development in Bhutan, said the foreign secretary.
