Dharwad: Lashing out at the Congress in poll-bound Karnataka on Friday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the former would put the state into “reverse gear”, depriving it of the benefits of “double-engine sarkar”.
Addressing a rally at the Navalgund Assembly constituency on Friday, Shah said, “One hand, there is the Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and on the other, is the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. This (Karnataka Assembly) election is an opportunity for you to decide if you want a double engine sarkar led by PM Modi, which will take Karnataka forward, or the Congress’s reverse gear sarkar, which will take Karnataka backwards.”/
Earlier, on Friday, the BJP’s star campaigner addressed a gathering at Shirahatti where he said each vote to the BJP will go to protecting the state from the banned outfit Popular Front of India (PFI).
“Each vote counts. So ensure that it goes to the right leadership. When you cast a vote in favour of lotus (the BJP’s symbol), you will not vote to elect an MLA or a minister or Chief Minister. Your vote will further strengthen PM Modi’s hands in creating a ‘Mahan Karnataka’. Your vote will protect Karnataka from the PFI.”
Further hitting out at the Congress over its national president Mallikarjun Kharge’s “poisonous snake” barb at PM Modi, the Union Home Minister said, “The whole world admires Modi-ji. But see the level that the Congress and its leadership has stooped to.
The remarks made by their leaders about Modi-ji are utterly shameful. Kharge-ji called Modi-ji a ‘venomous snake’. Can you vote for such a party?” he said.
The polls for the 224-seat assembly will take place on May 10 and the counting of votes will be held on May 13
Washington: Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha is a “deep betrayal” of Gandhian philosophy, an influential Indian-origin Congressman said on Friday.
Gandhi, the former Congress president, was on Friday disqualified from the Lok Sabha, nearly 24 hours after a court in Surat in the state of Gujarat convicted him in a defamation case.
“The expulsion of Rahul Gandhi from parliament is a deep betrayal of Gandhian philosophy and India’s deepest values,” Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna said in a tweet.
“This is not what my grandfather sacrificed years in jail for,” Khanna said. Khanna represents Silicon Valley in the US House of Representatives.
The expulsion of Rahul Gandhi from parliament is a deep betrayal of Gandhian philosophy and India’s deepest values. This is not what my grandfather sacrificed years in jail for. @narendramodi you have the power to reverse this decision for the the sake of Indian democracy. https://t.co/h85qlYMn1J
Khanna, who is the Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian- Americans, has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention on this issue.
“You have the power to reverse this decision for the sake of Indian democracy,” Khanna said in another tweet.
The disqualification will bar 52-year-old Gandhi, a four-time MP, from contesting polls for eight years unless a higher court stays his conviction and sentence.
Meanwhile, George Abraham, vice-chair of the Indian Overseas Congress, USA, termed Gandhi’s disqualification as a sad day for democracy in India.
“It is a sad day for democracy in India. By disqualifying Rahul Gandhi, Modi sarkar is ringing the death knell for the right to free speech and freedom of Indians everywhere,” Abraham said.
“Bringing a frivolous court case against a remark in the heat of a political campaign is shameful and not on par with the spirit of the Constitution regarding freedom of expression,” he added.
And one of the state’s senators is even seizing on the politics surrounding abortion and LGBTQ issues, arguing that sending the command from a blue state to a red one takes away the rights of service members.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) “has raised the issue of reproductive health care access in his conversations about the Space Command basing decision,” said one congressional aide, who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations between Bennet and the Pentagon.
The senator, the aide added, “has serious concerns about the impact that abortion ban laws have on readiness and our national security.”
It’s the latest turn in a saga that’s dragged on for three years after Trump personally directed the Air Force to choose Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, as the command’s permanent headquarters. Alabama and Colorado were the two finalists in the Air Force’s search.
The decision, if given the final signoff by the Biden administration, would uproot the fledgling command from its current location at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs. Since the original decision, members of Colorado’s delegation in both parties have decried the move to a Trump-friendly state as political favoritism that will delay the organization from achieving full operating status.
“I haven’t found any Democratic senator who thinks it’s a good idea to allow a precedent to stand that encourages politics to overrule the judgment of our military command,” Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper said in an interview.
The Biden White House vowed to reassess the choice after lawmakers blasted the basing decision. The Air Force secretary must still determine whether to follow through with Trump’s decision or keep the command in Colorado.
The Air Force was expected to announce a final decision at the end of 2022, but the deadline passed with no ruling.
“We don’t have anything new on the decision timeline,” the service said in a statement. The service declined to say why a choice has not been made.
Lawmakers on both sides of the argument say they’re in the dark on when the Air Force might finally make a call, but both states’ delegations have said they believe they will prevail.
“I do think the delay is, in my view, a positive thing,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.). “My read of that is that the administration is taking a harder look and a fresh look at it and revisiting certain elements of the decision. That’s what I hope they’re doing.”
The commander, Gen. James Dickinson, has said Space Command won’t be fully operational until the final basing decision is made.
Pros and cons
U.S. Space Command was restarted by the Trump administration in 2019 as it sought to emphasize the importance of the military’s space mission, coinciding with the creation of the Space Force. Space Command, which oversees the operations of military space assets and defending satellites, had been its own outfit since the 1980s, but was folded into U.S. Strategic Command following the creation of Northern Command in 2002.
Colorado Springs and Huntsville were two of six finalists selected by the Air Force in late 2020 for the permanent headquarters. The list included military installations in Florida, Nebraska, Texas and New Mexico.
Colorado lawmakers contend permanently keeping Space Command in its temporary home is more efficient and will ultimately prove better for national security because it will be near Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.
With a large military space presence already in the state, Colorado’s leaders argue that politics alone was the deciding factor in the Trump administration selecting Alabama.
They point to comments Trump made after leaving office boasting that he made the call to move Space Command.
“I hope you know that. [They] said they were looking for a home and I single-handedly said ‘let’s go to Alabama.’ They wanted it. I said ‘let’s go to Alabama. I love Alabama.’” Trump said on an Alabama-based radio show in August 2021.
Alabama’s almost entirely GOP delegation says Huntsville — dubbed Rocket City because of the large aerospace industry presence there — checks all the boxes for the new command.
The Pentagon visited each of the six prospective headquarters sites between Dec. 8, 2020, and Jan. 7, 2021, where experts gathered data and refined cost estimates. Those cost estimates were not released publicly, according to the Defense Department’s inspector general.
“Democrats said it was political, but the best place to put it is in Huntsville,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said in an interview.
“The only reason you would leave it in Colorado is because that’s where it’s at right now,” Tuberville said. “But we need to make sure it’s in the right spot. We have the missile defense. We have Redstone Arsenal, NASA. You name it, we got it.”
Since a headquarters decision was announced in January 2021, both the Defense Department IG and the Government Accountability Office released reports that questioned whether the selection process was adequate.
DoD IG found the Air Force base analysis that was conducted under the Trump administration’s direction “complied with law and policy” when selecting Alabama as the headquarters location, while the GAO asserted the service’s base location analysis had “significant shortfalls in its transparency and credibility.”
Neither report determined whether Trump meddled in the decision.
Both oversight groups agree a resolution was reached during a White House meeting with high-ranking officials on Jan. 11, 2021.
Meeting attendees included the former president and top Pentagon leaders who have since left — the acting defense secretary, the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs, the Air Force secretary and the assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and energy.
Days before the meeting, the Pentagon received new information that if Colorado was selected the military could renovate a building instead of having to construct a new one to house the new headquarters.
But the Space Force did not deliver an updated estimate to Air Force officials ahead of the White House meeting, according to GAO.
The Pentagon is keeping the cost estimates private and are not included in the GAO report because the information is designated as “sensitive and privileged.”
Opting for renovation instead of new construction would allow for the command to reach full operational much sooner than the estimated six years.
In interviews with the GAO, the head of Space Command, the top Space Force general, and the former vice Joint Chiefs chair, all said they conveyed in the meeting that the headquarters should remain in Colorado because that was the best way to reach full operational capability as quickly as possible.
Bennet echoed the same concerns during a speech on the Senate floor this month.
It is important the Biden administration not ratify “a political decision that was made in the last few days of the Trump administration,” Bennet said, referring to the former president dismissing the counsel of Pentagon officials who recommended the headquarters remain in Colorado.
Bennet underscored it is not only expected to be cheaper and faster to keep Space Command in Colorado, but the military would not have to worry over the number of civilian workers who won’t opt to move to Alabama. Roughly 60 percent of the Space Command workforce are civilians, he said.
“Decisions of this importance shouldn’t be made this way. It should be in the interest of our national security. And the Biden administration has the opportunity to restore the integrity of this process,” Bennet said.
Renewed fight
The Colorado delegation fought the move when it was initially announced, but had gone quiet in the following months. They rekindled their efforts last month when Hickenlooper and Bennet were the only Democrats to join Republicans in opposition to the confirmation of Brendan Owens, the nominee to oversee facilities and energy programs at the Pentagon. The pair said they opposed him because the Pentagon had brushed off their efforts to meet with Austin to discuss Space Command.
Owens was still confirmed despite most Republicans also opposing him.
Bennet also threatened to hold up other nominees to secure a meeting with Austin. Hickenlooper and Bennet met with Austin to discuss the decision on Jan. 26, though no resolution was reached.
“He’s got a lot on his plate, so he wasn’t versed in the details of the issue,” Hickenlooper said. “But he listened very thoughtfully and I think he took it very seriously.”
But Bennet continued to press the issue. A spokesperson said Bennet placed a hold on Ravi Chaudhary, Biden’s nominee to oversee Air Force installations. He dropped the hold this month after meeting separately with Chaudhary and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall where he “reiterated his longstanding concerns” with the basing decision. The behind-the-scenes maneuvering has not been previously reported.
Some opponents are also highlighting how the climate in the U.S. has changed since an initial decision was made in January 2021. Many Democrats are unsettled by moving service members from a blue to a red state after the Supreme Court dealt a blow to abortion rights last year.
With the end of nationwide federal protections for abortion, many Democrats have raised the impacts on troops stationed in states where the procedure is now banned or significantly limited. Bennet has publicly raised similar concerns in the proposed Space Command move.
“I’m deeply concerned about how the Dobbs decision and state abortion bans will affect Space Command’s workforce and readiness if the command leaves Colorado,” Bennet said in a statement to Military.com in August.
Another driver for the Biden administration to keep the headquarters in Colorado and not move to a conservative state are rights for LGBTQ people.
“It’s hard not to think about the dramatically more hostile environment in Alabama when it comes to reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights,” said one Democratic aide. “It’ll mean many of the civilians who work for Space Command may not move with it. And service members will be forced to move somewhere where they’ll lose those rights.”
Though both Tuberville and Hickenlooper downplayed the role the Supreme Court decision would play in the basing move, the impact on troops has been in focus after the reversal of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade.
Even Austin, who is usually not outspoken on political issues, moved to shore up troops’ access for abortion. He issued a memo in October directing the Pentagon to pay for service members to travel costs for abortions, though not for the procedure itself, arguing the “practical effects of recent changes” in laws will hurt military readiness.
Formal policies issued this month cover travel costs for obtaining abortions as well as administrative leave, as many troops are stationed in states where the procedure is now illegal.
Tuberville was among the GOP lawmakers who slammed the move. He vowed to hold up civilian Pentagon nominations as well as top military promotions over the new policy.
The issue, however, isn’t purely about red states vs. blue states. If Space Command doesn’t move to Alabama, the headquarters will remain in reliably conservative Colorado Springs. The area and its military assets are represented by Republican Doug Lamborn, who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee. Lamborn has also criticized the move as one of political favoritism over national security needs.
The state’s other two Republican House members, Reps. Ken Buck and Lauren Boebert, have also protested the decision and signed several letters with Democrats arguing to keep the command in Colorado.
Yet if the Biden administration decides to reverse the earlier decision, it could open itself up to criticism that it’s making a political call, just like the Trump White House. A reversal also would draw pushback from Alabama’s delegation, including Rep. Mike Rogers, who has new tools at his disposal as the House Armed Services Committee chair.
In the meantime, Alabama lawmakers are confident the Trump administration’s decision will be upheld.
“Nobody’s saying, but they’ve done several more reviews on it in the last two years,” Tuberville said of the final decision. “And we’ve pretty much passed all the tests.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Rihanna has explained her decision to perform at this year’s Super Bowl half-time show in Glendale, Arizona, after initially turning down the opportunity in 2019.
Speaking to British Vogue, the 34-year-old performer said that while “there’s a lot of mending to be done”, she felt it was “powerful to break down those doors and have representation at such a high, high level.”
“Two Super Bowls back-to-back, you know, representing the urban community, globally. It is powerful. It sends a really strong message,” she said, referring to the 2022 half-time show featuring Dr Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J Blige, Snoop Dogg and Eminem. The recent birth of her son was also a factor: “Raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life. You’re like, ‘What am I leaving my kids to? This is the planet they’re gonna be living on?’ All of those things really start to hit differently.”
The announcement of Rihanna’s performance in September 2022 had been met with surprise from fans. She had previously declined the opportunity in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, who alleged that he had been blackballed by the NFL due to his protests against racial injustice.
Unpacking her decision to stand in solidarity with Kaepernick in 2019, Rihanna explained that she “couldn’t be a sellout,” saying: “I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organisation that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Rihanna discussed her plans for new music, saying that she’d like to release a new album this year – her six-years-in-the-making follow-up to 2017’s Anti. “I have my ideas in my head, but I can’t say them out loud yet,” she said. “It’d be ridiculous if it’s not this year. But I just want to have fun. I just want to make music and make videos.”
Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance was widely praised, with the Guardian’s Adrian Horton describing the show as “a reminder of just how many immediately recognisable, still banging songs Rihanna delivered between the years 2007 and 2016.” Morwenna Ferrier, writing on the musician’s surprise pregnancy reveal, said that Rihanna was “past making a fashion statement. She took ownership of her body, and she did it in real time.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
On most mornings, Mylène Ebrard hops on a waterbus from her home in Giudecca, a neighbourhood of Venice with a village-like feel, and across the canal to her favourite bar, where over a hot chocolate she works from her mobile phone. The ritual has become sacred to the rhythm of her day in Venice, where the French communications specialist has lived since October as part of a project aimed at attracting remote workers to help repopulate the lagoon city.
“I was just working on social media for one of my clients. They don’t see the difference if I’m here or in Paris,” said Ebrard, 38. “I love this bar during the day as you get the sun on the terrace. It’s impossible to say it’s ugly in Venice, even when it’s raining.”
In a trend that is showing little sign of abating, the population on Venice’s main island dipped below 50,000 for the first time last summer. Myriad issues have driven more than 120,000 away since the 1950s, although the overriding reason has been the city’s heavy focus on mass tourism, with thousands of visitors crowding its squares, bridges and narrow walkways each day.
Keen to help reverse the decline, a team at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University and the Fondazione di Venezia, a cultural heritage group, created Venywhere, a project aimed at enticing those who can work from anywhere to move to the city.
Mylène Ebrard says she likes to soak up the art and culture. Photograph: Angela Giuffrida/The Observer
“There has been a strong population decline, but the other aspect is the age of those left – there is a big gap in the 25 to 35-year-old demographic,” said Massimo Warglien, a professor at Ca’ Foscari. “The objective is to attract new, qualified citizens to help change the demographic dynamic and skills of the city while at the same time imagining Venice as a laboratory to explore new ways of working.”
Ebrard didn’t need much persuading. Browsing her phone last June, she came across a story about the initiative in a French newspaper. Dealing with a break-up with her husband and sensing the time away could be beneficial, she swiftly applied.
“My grandmother was Italian and it was my dream to move to Italy,” she said. “I started to learn Italian during the coronavirus pandemic and then thought ‘I have nothing and nobody stopping me, so why not’?”
The application process is hardly onerous: you simply need to prove you can work remotely and be willing to live in Venice for at least three months. In return for a small one-off fee, the project team provides services such as assistance with finding an apartment and dealing with visa requirements as well as organising events to help the newcomers integrate.
The scheme attracted hundreds of applicants and since it began last March, it has welcomed dozens of digital nomads, including a group of 16 employees from the technology company Cisco, which is collaborating with Venywhere in its study of hybrid working.
Ebrard is among the 35 from all over the world currently living in Venice and will be there until June. She rents an apartment with a view over the Giudecca canal and has made friends with her Venetian neighbours. “I feel safe here, I can walk everywhere, I can soak up the art and culture, and the people have been very kind,” Ebrard said. “I have more time for people, more time for me and more time to figure out what I want in the future. It is as if life has sprinkled some magic on me.”
Alan Bruton, an American professor of architecture, has been teaching online since moving to the city in the autumn and has had such a good experience that he decided to stay and focus full-time on his new venture: designing a board game inspired by Venice.
“I aim to produce and become a productive member of the city,” said the 59-year-old, who has an Irish passport that enables him to stay in Europe. “It’s the perfect place for me to be located.”
Jonathan Wehlte, a software engineer from Germany, has also decided to stay longer-term. “Venice is very different from any other city I have lived in,” said Wehlte, 35. “There are no cars, you can walk everywhere… and there is so much beauty it inspires you to get out of your habitual thoughts. You start to get new ideas, and think about how society could be in the future.”
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Venice has experienced other mass exoduses over its history, such as after the fall of its powerful maritime republic which impoverished the city economically.
Tourists crowd the Rialto Bridge – a downside for digital nomads. Photograph: Jumping Rocks/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
“Before the fall of the Republic in 1797 the population was around 150,000 and in 1838 it was almost 40% less,” said Warglien. “It took decades to get back to the original population size and most of the recovery was due to a positive migratory balance.”
Venice has been creative in attracting new inhabitants in the past, he added. “During the Republic there were two levels of citizenship – for Venetians and non-Venetians, who were typically merchants. We need to think about different forms of citizenship.”
Much as they can’t dispute the uniqueness of the city, newcomers acknowledge the challenges experienced by Venetians, such as the struggle to find affordable housing or jobs that are not related to tourism. One specific downside for the digital nomads is the scarcity of co-working space.
Of course, there is the issue of living among hordes of visitors. “The true challenge is not imagining that mass tourism will magically finish – that would be difficult – but creating an alternative,” said Warglien. “We need to create a model that maintains a normal urban life and is not only dependent on tourism.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
JAMMU: A prominent political activist, Sanny Sangral along with dozens of youth has joined Apni Party in presence of the President of the Party, Syed Mohammed Altaf Bukhari sahab.
The joining programme was organized at the Apni Party Office in Gandhi Nagar which was chaired by Apni Party President Altaf Bukhari.
Bukhari Sahab welcomed Sunny Sangral into the party fold along with dozens of youth and hoped that their joining would strengthen the party.
In his speech, he said that Apni Party has gained popularity among the youth in Jammu and Kashmir and the joining of Sunny Sangral has boosted the morale of the party’s youth wing.
He referred to various issues being confronted by the people of Jammu and Kashmir especially increasing unemployment, public concern regarding the anti-encroachment drive, unscheduled power cuts, slow pace of developmental activities, poor infrastructure in the health and education sector, etc.
“Our fight is against the elements who want to create division in the name of region and religion will continue. Apni Party is committed to bringing stability, peace, and prosperity,” he said.
He said that “We want to give you your own Govt which can provide equitable development to both the regions. In fact, the people of both regions are facing similar problems and the solutions to their issues are also the same.”
Expressing concern over the continuous anti-encroachment drive, he said that ‘This Govt has no other option but to regularise the unauthorized colonies. Even the Govt in Delhi has regularised such colonies from time to time, but it seems they do not understand the issues of the poor people,’
He further said that ‘The elected Govt will take a decision regarding unauthorized colonies. The administration has no right to displace people from their land. If we form the next Govt, we will reverse anti-people decisions of the administration like stopping of the darbar move practice and anti-encroachment drives, etc.’
He assured that ‘We will not allow the non-locals to settle in Jammu and Kashmir. The land in J&K belongs to the people of the erstwhile state of J&K.’
He criticized some elements who want to disturb peace in J&K on communal, and regional lines and erase the emotions of the people with the anti-encroachment drive.
He, however, appealed to the people to maintain peace and criticized the civil administration for its anti-encroachment drive.
Meanwhile, the Provincial President, of Jammu, S. Manjit Singh also spoke on the occasion and welcomed Sunny Sangral who joined Apni Party from the Samba district with his supporters.
Kabul: A high-level UN delegation led by the Deputy Secretary-General called on the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan to reverse the course on recent decrees limiting women’s and girls’ rights, saying Afghans must not be abandoned.
On behalf of the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Executive Director of UN Women Sima Bahous, and the Assistant Secretary-General of the Department of Political, Peacebuilding Affairs, and Peace Operations, Khaled Khiari, completed a four-day visit to Afghanistan to appraise the situation, engage de facto authorities and underscore UN solidarity with the Afghan people.
In meetings with the Taliban in both Kabul and Kandahar, the delegation directly conveyed the alarm over the recent decree banning women from working for national and international NGOs, a move that undermines the work of numerous organizations helping millions of vulnerable Afghans.
The Taliban recently moved to close universities to female students across the country until further notice, and have also barred girls from attending secondary school; restricted women and girls’ freedom of movement; excluded women from most areas of the workforce; and banned women from using parks, gyms, and public bath houses.
“My message was very clear: while we recognize the important exemptions made, these restrictions present Afghan women and girls with a future that confines them in their own homes, violating their rights and depriving the communities of their services,” Mohammed said.
“Our collective ambition is for a prosperous Afghanistan that is at peace with itself and its neighbors, and on a path to sustainable development. But right now, Afghanistan is isolating itself, in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis and one of the most vulnerable nations on earth to climate change,” she said.
“We must do everything we can to bridge this gap.”
During their mission, Mohammed and Bahous met with affected communities, humanitarian workers, civil society, and other key actors, in Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat.
“We have witnessed extraordinary resilience. Afghan women left us no doubt of their courage and refusal to be erased from public life. They will continue to advocate and fight for their rights, and we are duty-bound to support them in doing so,” Bahous said.
“What is happening in Afghanistan is a grave women’s rights crisis and a wake-up call for the international community. It shows how quickly decades of progress on women’s rights can be reversed in a matter of days. UN Women stands with all Afghan women and girls and will continue to amplify their voices to regain all their rights.”
The US and its partners, including national and international NGOs, are helping more than 25 million Afghans who depend on humanitarian aid to survive, and remain committed to staying and delivering.
The most recent decrees issued by the Taliban banning women from working for NGOs have forced many partners to pause operations that can no longer be safely and meaningfully delivered.
While the recent exemptions to the ban introduced by the de facto authorities are opening spaces for humanitarians to continue, and in some cases, resume, operations, these remain limited to a few sectors and activities.
“The effective delivery of humanitarian assistance is predicated on principles that require full, safe, and unhindered access for all aid workers, including women”, Mohammed said.
The visit followed a series of high-level consultations on Afghanistan across the Gulf and Asia.
The delegation met the leadership of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Islamic Development Bank, groups of Afghan women in Ankara and Islamabad, and a group of Ambassadors and Special Envoys to Afghanistan based in Doha.
It convened with government leaders from the region and religious leaders to advocate for the crucial role and full participation of women and rally support for the Afghan people.
Throughout the visits, countries and partners recognized the critical role of the UN in building bridges to finding lasting solutions, as well as the urgency to deliver lifesaving support and maintain effective engagement, led by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
They asked that efforts be intensified to reflect the urgency of the situation and stressed the importance of a unified response by the international community.
The need for a revitalised and realistic political pathway was consistently highlighted and all remained firm on the fundamental principles, including women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and public life in Afghanistan.
There was broad consensus that the region and the OIC’s leadership on these issues was critical.
The proposal of an international conference on women and girls in the Muslim World during the month of March was also considered and agreed in principle.
