Author: Purshottama Chakarvati

Last night, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at an extraordinary telephonic session, passed the Decision on amending and supplementing the decision on approving funds from the current reserve of the Budget of the Institutions of BiH and International Obligations of BiH for the year 2023 to finance the costs of sending protection and rescue teams from BiH for the purpose of providing international aid To the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in remediating the consequences of floods. The amendments to the Decision approve the extension of the mission of two protection and rescue teams from Bosnia…

The new arrangement will definitely benefit India. But its benefits for Bangladesh are questionable, experts say. Early last month, Bangladesh and India rolled out bilateral trade in Indian rupees, which was billed by the two countries’ governments as a “landmark” settlement. They said it would not only boost their trade volume with each other, but also help them skirt the global dominance of the US dollar. With a bilateral trade volume worth $16bn, India is Bangladesh’s second-largest trading partner after China. Through this deal, Bangladesh will be able to perform rupee transactions to the tune of $2bn — the amount…

Subway sandwiches in India will no longer come with the option of a free cheese slice following revisions to its menu that analysts say are more about cost-cutting than just a matter of taste. American chain Subway is one of the largest restaurant franchisers in India, with around 800 outlets. They now charge 30 rupees ($0.40) extra for the cheese slice in most sandwiches, but are offering a free “cheezy” sauce instead. Rising prices for ingredients, including dairy products, have put global fast food chains in India under pressure to trim costs while keeping customers satisfied. Domino’ (DMPZF)s promotion price for its…

The German legend played friendly matches against Indian clubs for Bayern Munich II. Thomas Muller will probably go down in history as one of the more underrated players in German football history. Despite not having the ultimate spotlight on himself, the Bayern Munich star has achieved a lot of success across the domestic and international scene. Indeed, Muller has won 12 Bundesliga titles with the Bavarians in his career as well as multiple Champions League titles too. He’s a FIFA World Cup winner with Germany and among the highest-scoring players in World Cup history – having participated in three World Cup editions in his career. What some might not…

Brussels (12/7 – 30.77) International investigators interviewing survivors of a mountain massacre that occurred in May 2022 in Tajikistan have collected evidence that government security services carried out a planned massacre of peaceful protestors as part of a larger ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the peaceful Pamiri indigenous people of the mountainous eastern region of the country. Numerous witnesses described how heavily armed troops from both the Ministry of Internal Affairs (VKD) and the intelligence service (GKNB) gunned down Pamiri demonstrators in the town of Vamar/Rushon on 18 May 2022. The non-violent protests had erupted in various cities of the Gorno-Badakhshan…

North China’s Hebei Province has launched a new multimodal route to Central Asia that relies on railways and highways to transport goods to Central Asian countries, Xinhua news agency reported from Shijiazhuang. Up north in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the country’s largest land port has reported a 46.1% jump in first-half 2023 import and export cargo throughput, Xinhua also reported. A train carrying more than 1,000 tons of goods departed Langfang City in Hebei on July 4 headed for Kashgar City in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where the goods will be transported overland on cross-border highways. The goods…

Brussels, Frankfurt (16/6 – 33) The European Union declared late last year that it intended to investigate how Russia acquired so-called “kamikaze drones” from the Islamic Republic of Iran, for battlefield deployment. While the production of these game-changing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was not reported until after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, numerous media claim the Russian military is deploying Iranian-made Geran-2 drones on the battlefield. This was confirmed through analysis of fragments from Russian Geran-2 drones shot down by Ukrainian forces; experts conclude that these UAVs are identical to the Shahed-136 kamikaze drones produced by Iran. While the West…

There is an enough number of currency notes in the Indian economy for the general public to exchange their bank notes of 2,000 denomination which will be withdrawn after Sept. 30, a senior Indian bank official said on Monday. In response to whether there was any possibility of re-issuing the currency notes of 1,000 denomination, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Shaktikanta Das said it’s a mere speculation. Currency notes of 500 and 1,000 denominations were withdrawn from circulation in November 2016, and instead the 2,000 denomination bank notes were introduced. “We have more than an adequate quantity of…

The war in the Ukraine created two main opposing camps of countries. An Alliance of Democracies on one side and a Group of Authoritarian. The escalation of geopolitical tensions linked to the Ukrainian crisis has highlighted two main opposing camps of countries — an Alliance of Democracies on one side and a Group of Authoritarian Regimes on the other. A number of countries have resisted choosing sides, however, as they strive to balance their national interests with international developments while simultaneously advocating the need to maintain peaceful diplomacy and global connections. While the number of these so-called “in-between” countries abound…

A fire broke out in a commercial building in Sion area of Mumbai on Friday evening, an official said. According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the incident of a blaze in a commercial building in Sion area was reported at around 6 pm on Friday. Following the information of fire in the building, the Mumbai Fire Brigade immediately rushed to the spot and began its fire fighting operations. The civic body said, the Mumbai Fire Brigade termed the blaze as a Level-1 fire. The fire was confined to the office on the 11th floor of the Ground plus 11 floor building identified…