The Express Tribune Editorial 14 October 2019

A never-ending sentence

It has been over two months now since the people of Indian-Occupied Kashmir were incarcerated in their own native land by Narendra Modi’s government. More than two months since they last made contact with friends and family not in their immediate vicinity.

And yet, their plight shows no signs of subsiding any time soon. With world leaders turning a blind eye despite immense negative coverage in global media, Modi and his government seem more emboldened than ever in their repression of Kashmiris.

Shamelessly, they continue to peddle the patronising narrative that the lockdown in Occupied Kashmir is for the ‘Kashmiris’ own good’. Before the world and its own people, the Modi regime keeps on insisting that the repeal of articles 370 and 35-A – the last vestiges of protection the people of Occupied Kashmir had – were essential to ‘fully integrate’ the region into India.

So brazen is Modi in the face of muted reaction to his increasingly totalitarian bent that he has dared his own opposition to try and restore the two articles. At his first rally to drum up support for his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the October 21 Maharashtra assembly elections, he challenged other parties in India to put that very thing in their manifestos. In the same speech, Modi insisted that Occupied Kashmir is not just a ‘piece of land’ for him and his government. Likening the Himalayan territory to a ‘crown’, the Indian prime minister announced it would take at least four months for ‘things to return to normal’ in Occupied Kashmir. One wonders whether Modi realises the irony in his comments. How Kashmiris view what is ‘normal’ is vastly different from what he and his BJP ilk see. For the last 30 years, all that has been normal for Kashmiris is a state of near total repression. As for Modi’s insistence that Occupied Kashmir is more than a piece of real estate to him and his government, all evidence points to the contrary.

Iran vs Saudi Arabia

An Iranian oil tanker was attacked by two suspected rockets off the coast of Saudi Arabia last week. The incident, not so new to the global audience, is the latest in a series of similar attacks involving oil vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf region. While Saudi Arabia claims it had nothing to do with the attack, there is a significant chance that Iran might end up blaming the oil-rich gulf kingdom for disrupting its supply activity in the Red Sea corridor. After all, depending on which side is affected, the suspect is always predictable in this perennial conflict between the two rivals. And going by the rule of the game, Riyadh blamed Tehran for carrying out similar attacks on oil vessels in the Gulf of Oman. In addition to that, Saudi Arabia, which is locked in several proxy wars with arch-rival Iran, has also blamed Tehran for attacks on key oil installations, disrupting global supplies.

Tehran denied the charge, but by briefly turning off the oil taps, Riyadh made a very convincing case against its opponent’s support for the Houthi rebels it is fighting in Yemen. So far, attacks attributed to Iran haven’t resulted in a military confrontation. But the long proxy war between the two adversaries has always been one miscalculation away from a major conflict, and such incidents have the potential of triggering one. In a region rattled by tit-for-tat attacks on tankers and oil installations, both sides need to calculate the global and regional impact of every action they plan to take to subdue the other side.

The region and the world can not afford another war, which most definitely will have far-reaching consequences. So countries in the Gulf must collectively work for lasting peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran because that is the only solution to prevent the two sides from clashing openly at a time when the region already has a myriad of existential problems to address.

Economy on the mend

There have been distinct indicators that, slowly but surely, the economy is on the mend. Despite some persistent troubles, such as low growth in exports, the twin monsters of trade and fiscal deficit appear to have been largely reined in. According to a quarterly review of how the nation’s economy fared, the two indicators have shown improvement by approximately 35%. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh told a press conference on Saturday that the trade deficit shrank 35% while the budget deficit shrivelled 36% during the first quarter of the current fiscal year (July-September) when compared to the corresponding period of last year. The ‘difficult decisions’ taken by the government have started showing positive results, he enthused, although he chose to conveniently gloss over the issue of inflation that has harried the people no end, and the constant decline in foreign direct investment (FDI).

The federal budget deficit that had been recorded at Rs738 billion or 1.9% of GDP in the first quarter of the last fiscal year, was brought down to Rs476 billion or 1.1% of GDP, said the finance adviser. As a result, the government has also met the International Monetary Fund (IMF) condition on the primary deficit. The IMF’s condition was that the primary deficit can be Rs102 billion in the first quarter, we actually have showed primary surplus of about Rs200 billion, beamed Finance Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch.

The fiscal deficit narrowed down due to increase in revenues and reduction in expenditures, as the finance ministry did not issue any supplementary grant in the first quarter aimed at ensuring fiscal discipline, said Shaikh. The de facto finance minister went on to extol the surge in non-tax revenue as ‘one thing that we have really improved on’. He revealed that Rs406 billion had been collected in non-tax revenue which was a 140% increase over the previous year. He also told reporters that the exchange rate had been brought to a stable level over the past three months, as also the foreign exchange reserves.