KYIV, 11 June 2022, (TON): Ukraine’s president appealed for his country not to be left in a grey zone with its EU membership bid, ahead of a summit set to decide on its candidacy.

Volodymyr Zelensky said “the first thing is to finally remove this grey zone, addressing the 2022 Copenhagen Democracy Summit by video-link.”

He added “in the coming weeks, the European Union could take a historic step that will prove that the words on the membership of the Ukrainian people in the European family are not in vain.”

The European Commission is expected to give its opinion on the issue in the coming days, before EU leaders decide whether to grant Ukraine official candidate status at a European Council summit on June 23-24.

LONDON, 11 June 2022, (TON): Britain’s defense ministry said “Ukraine’s southern city of Mariupol is at risk of a major cholera outbreak as medical services are likely already near collapse.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a Twitter update “there is likely also a critical shortage of medicines in Kherson.”

It added “Russia is struggling to provide basic public services to the population in Russian-occupied territories.”

KYIV, 11 June 2022, (TON): Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said “Russia is looking for weak points in Ukrainian defenses near the Siverskyi Donets River in eastern Ukraine.”

He told “Russian forces had not abandoned attempts to launch storming operations in the area.”

If Russia captures the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk on the Siverskyi Donets, it will hold all of Luhansk, one of two provinces in the Donbas region that Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.

Motuzyanyk said “Russia’s strategic goal is the complete destruction of Ukraine, they won’t let us live in peace.”

“The Russian Federation wants to completely destroy Ukrainian statehood and install a government it can control here.”

MANILA, 11 June 2022, (TON): The incoming national security adviser said “the administration of President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will continue to oppose Beijing’s presence in the Philippine part of the South China Sea.”

The South China Sea is a strategic and resource-rich waterway claimed by China almost in its entirety, but other countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei, also have overlapping claims.

The Philippines has filed hundreds of diplomatic protests against Chinese activity in the South China Sea in the past few years, after an international tribunal in The Hague dismissed Beijing’s sweeping claims to the region in 2016.

DHAKA, 11 June 2022, (TON): The Asian Development Bank approved a $250 million policy-based loan to support social protection reforms in Bangladesh designed to protect vulnerable population against socioeconomic challenges.

The loan will finance subprogramme 2 of the Strengthening Social Resilience Programme and build on the first subprogramme which implemented institutional and policy reforms that strengthened the inclusiveness and responsiveness of social protection in Bangladesh.

ADB principal social sector specialist for South Asia Hiroko Uchimura-Shiroishi said “the Covid pandemic highlighted the need to strengthen social protection systems to help people cope and manage disasters and crises.”

This subprogramme continues ADB’s support to improve the coverage and efficiency of social protection programmes in Bangladesh, build resilience of the disadvantaged, and support an inclusive recovery.

KABUL, 11 June 2022, (TON): Mohammed bin Ahmed al-Misnad, Qatar's National Security Advisor, and his accompanying delegation during a meeting with Abdul Ghani Baradar, Deputy PM, pledged “Doha would continue its cooperation in the political, economic and social spheres in Afghanistan.”

He said "now that security has been restored in Afghanistan, employment for the people has been created, it is time to show the world the actual picture of Afghanistan.”

Qatar's delegation met with Abdul Ghani Baradar, Deputy PM, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Minister of Interior, Amir Khan Muttaqi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Mullah Khairullah Khairkhah, Minister of Information and Culture during their visit to Kabul.

The First Deputy Prime Minister further stated that all commercial and investment facilities have been provided in Afghanistan, and that Qatar can invest in infrastructure projects in the country.

DHAKA, 11 June 2022, (TON): UN secretary general António Guterres has appointed Bangladesh permanent representative to the UN Rabab Fatima as high representative for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states.

According to the press release in Dhaka “through the appointment made, a female diplomat from the Bangladesh Foreign Service, for the first time, has been made UN under secretary general.”

It added “Fatima will also be the highest ranking person in the UN as a Bangladeshi citizen.”

Bangladesh mission in the UN said “her appointment is a reflection of Bangladesh’s close participation in the international arena and the acceptance of Bangladeshi professional diplomats.”

DHAKA, 11 June 2022, (TON): The Bangladesh embassy in Turkey has launched the three-day ‘Economic Diplomacy Symposium’ at the Bijoy 71 Auditorium.

 Earlier, Bangladesh ambassador Mosud Mannan inaugurated a photography exhibition on Bangladesh’s development activities, highlighting the mega projects at the Bijoy 71 Foyer.

During the inauguration, D-8 secretary general ambassador Isiaka Abdulqadir Imam and members of the Bangladesh community were present.

At the beginning of the symposium, minister and deputy chief of mission Shahnaz Gazi welcomed the guests.

DHAKA, 11 June 2022, (TON): A sudden rise in the water level of the Teesta River after India opened all 54 floodgates at the Gajoldoba barrage afternoon led to the inundation of 63 villages in chars of five northern districts, affecting over 100,000 people.

Muhammad Amirul Haq Bhuiya, who heads the operations of the Water Development Board “a huge flow of water hit Bangladesh after India opened its floodgates at Gajoldobar barrage at 5:40 pm in the northern region.

The sudden release of water from upstream put the Teesta barrage inside Bangladesh at risk, prompting the Bangladesh authorities to open all 44 floodgates at the barrage.

The Teesta River flowed 50cm below the danger mark at Dalia and 71cm below the danger mark at Kaunia points, showed Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre data available online.

By TON Research Desk

In the recent development India is carrying out infrastructure development including plans to construct Lipulekh to Manas Khand road to link Mansarovar, a claimed Hindu pilgrimage site in Tibet.When India announced its new political map in 2019, after the revocation of Article 370, it included territories not only belonging to Pakistan but also Nepal. At that time the government in Kathmandu mere contested officially  and publicly condemned it. Subsequently, after the publication of map by India, youths and students of the ruling Nepal Communist Party and the opposition Nepali Congress came on the streets. The Nepal government described India’s decision as “unilateral” and claimed that it will “defend its international border”.

In line with democratization and competitive nationalism, Nepal parliament unanimously passed a bill and redraw the country’s map in 2020, including the demarcation of Lipulekh mountain pass, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura the areas of Nepal which illegally occupied by India. India objected to Nepal’s move to the inclusion of Lipulekh mountain pass, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura in its territory and warned the Nepal for doing so. The Nepalese government claimed that India has made intrusions into the disputed region by building the Darchula-Lipulekh link road despite repeated objections and India media always showed the distorted facts in this regard.

India inaugurated a new 80 km-long road in the Himalayas, connecting to the border with China, at the Lipulekh pass. The Nepali government protested immediately, contending that the road crosses in its territory that it claims and accused India of changing the status quo unilaterally.  Since then, Nepal deployed police forces to the region, summoned the Indian ambassador in Kathmandu, and made constitutional amendment to formalize and extend its territorial claims over 372 sq. km.

Over the time, the bilateral crisis seems to be stalemate, a worrisome trend in otherwise friendly India-Nepal relations, the crisis, the factors that escalated the dispute, the geostrategic context, and ways to de-escalate grim issue. Nepal has one of the world’s youngest populations and, especially after India’s implicit support for the 2015 blockade on the landlocked country, anti-Indian sentiments have been running high.

This is one of the reasons that why Nepal chose not to attend a multilateral BIMSTEC counter-terrorism exercise hosted by India, in 2018. Delhi had then expressed its disappointment, especially about the Nepali government caving in to popular reservations about BIMSTEC as an anti-China military alliance driven by India.

Nepal’s foreign policy establishment has embraced an ambitious and forward-looking agenda of external balancing and diversification in recent years, especially under the leadership of its Foreign Minister participation in the Fourth Indian Ocean Conference, held in the Maldives in 2019, reflects Kathmandu’s widening geostrategic horizons, seeking to place Nepal as a critical connectivity hub between China, South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. The border dispute between India and Nepal was brewing for years, so it is unreasonable to blame China for creating the crisis.

India alleged that Nepal may be bringing up the issue “at the behest” of a third party, referring to China.  All this does not mean that Beijing has not supported or further instigated Kathmandu to take on a more assertive position, especially against the backdrop of the China-India military standoff in Ladakh. This could have contributed to the severity of the India-Nepal crisis.

Nepal and several other Indian neighbors are young democracies, developing new institutions in a political transition that can be unstable, as Indian interference is growing and may hinder further democratization, undermining the rule of law, or curtail critical media and academic independence.

As China’s political influence grows in Nepal and playing the China balancing card as a last resort, Nepali leaders hope to get Delhi to pay attention to festering problems that Indian diplomacy neglects or forgets about in the past. This is a risky game because it raises alarm bells in Delhi, especially in the security and strategic establishments, which are quick resort to coercive tools that can further, escalate the dispute. It is also risky because it assumes China is willing to extend indefinite support to Nepal at the cost of its relations with India.

The dispute has roots going back to the 1950s and there is also a second dispute with India in the Susta river border region. Moreover, there is also a possible issue at the Indian state of Sikkim. Nepal alleges that it tried twice to convene such talks since then, and received no positive response from Delhi and India is brushing the issue under the carpet.

On the one hand, in Nepal’s maximalist perspective cover all territories it claims, now also including Limpyadhura. The thinking in Kathmandu goes that if India conveys its own territorial claims in official maps, does it have any legitimacy to pressure Nepal not to come up with its own? On the other hand, in India’s minimalist perspective reflecting why it delayed dialogue. The current crisis has exposed the real facets of Indian largest democracy.

Currently, India can no longer afford to continue its past Cold War policies of right of first refusal. As Nepal is no longer an Indian sphere of influence. Nepal has been embracing a policy of strategic diversification to decrease its dependence on India and enhance its non-aligned self-sufficiency.

The influence of China has grown then before across the Himalayas, especially after the BRI project Nepal which win the hearts of young Nepalese. India still look at twenty-first century Nepal through a nineteenth century colonial prism as a buffer state with limited sovereignty, where India’s resources should be focused on political engineering and cultivate assets to topple the Nepalese governments at its whims and wishes. So both the governments are at loggerheads due to these territorial problems which have no solution at the sight. By stifling and not sparing even its tiny and small neighbor like Nepal, it is simplistic to assume that this crisis reflects a failure of India’s regional strategy and approach as a whole. Now the matter has been put on the back burner but may spark any time as Indian is carrying out infrastructure development in the Nepalese territory.