S Jaishankar, US Secretary Of State Discuss Security Issues In Afghanistan, Myanmar

NDTV

All IndiaPress 

Trust of India
April 20, 2021

Antony Blinken spoke with Mr Jaishankar to reaffirm the importance of the US-India relationship and cooperation on regional security issues, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to mutual support for restoration of democracy in Myanmar

Washington: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his American counterpart Tony Blinken on Monday discussed on phone bilateral and regional issues including Afghanistan, Myanmar, and climate change.

"Had a warm and productive conversation with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar to reaffirm the importance of the US-India relationship. We discussed regional security issues of mutual concern in Afghanistan and Burma and global challenges such as climate change," Mr Blinken said in a tweet.

India’s Adani Faces Scrutiny for Port Deal in Myanmar

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dieter Holger

April 19, 2021 

Adani Group says it halted transactions with a Myanmar military-linked company for a port project that it says doesn’t violate U.S. sanctions

An Adani Group building on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India.PHOTO: AMIT DAVE/REUTERS

A major index provider and some investors are distancing themselves from the marine-ports operator controlled by Indian conglomerate Adani Group over past business transactions with a company linked to the military regime in Myanmar.

Financial data firm S&P Global Inc. last week said it would remove Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. from its Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, which consists of various different regional indexes holding companies that rank highly on environmental and social affairs. Adani Ports was among around 100 indexed companies in the emerging markets category.

Refoulement, Rohingya and a Refugee Policy for India

THE WIRE

Devika Nair and Sangram Chinnappa

17/APR/2021

India may continue to take cover under the fact that it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention of the UN. But, at a time when it seeks to be a major global power, it cannot shy away from the humanitarian responsibility.

Representative image of Rohingya refugees. Photo: Reuters

On March 31, 2021, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued a statement calling all countries neighbouring Myanmar to offer refuge and protection to all those fleeing the country for their safety. This came in response to the escalation in violence towards protestors in Myanmar since the coup led by the Myanmar military overthrew the democratically elected government.

A Rohingya Girl Stuck Between Three Countries

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Rajeev Bhattacharya
April 15, 2021

The 14-year-old was about to be deported to Myanmar from India when authorities refused to admit her back. Meanwhile, she wants to be reunited with her parents in Bangladesh.

On April 1, Indian authorities were greeted with a surprise when their request to deport a Rohingya girl was turned down by Myanmar.

Immigration officials in Myanmar refused to accept the 14-year-old girl on the ground that the border gate between the two countries had been shut for the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation in their country was not suitable for the proceedings to take place.

Will Supreme Court Apply Rohingya Case Logic to CAA?

THE LEAFLET

MIHIR DESAI
APRIL 11, 2021

The Supreme Court has refused to stay the deportation of Rohingyas from Jammu, as it ‘cannot comment’ on events taking place in another country. Will the court refuse to decide whether Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Parsis fleeing Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan are persecuted minorities on the same ground? MIHIR DESAI writes in the context of the CAA, 2019.

What Is Keeping India on the Wrong Side of History With Myanmar?

THE WIRE
11 April 2021

India’s recent track record does not inspire confidence that democratic or humanitarian considerations will outweigh MEA’s perception of geo-strategic rationale and increasingly independent business interests.

Demonstrators are seen before a clash with security forces in Taze, Sagaing Region, Myanmar April 7, 2021, in this image obtained by Reuters. Photo obtained by Reuters

Why is India so defiantly indifferent to shaming to the point of attempting to deport a Rohingya girl child back to a Myanmar convulsed by violent turbulence?

And to compound that, the Supreme Court has legitimated Centre’s contentious directive of deporting the Rohingya refugees, holding inapplicable the legal principle of non-refoulement and turning its back on the genocide like situation in Myanmar.

What geo-economic and strategic compulsions are aligning democratic India on the wrong side of history with brutally repressive military dictators in Myanmar?

‘Supreme Court has signed our death warrant’: Rohingya in India

Aljazeera
Aakash Hassan
9 Apr 2021

Supreme Court refuses to stop deportation of about 170 Rohingya detained in the Indian-administered Kashmir region’s Jammu area last month.

India's Supreme Court also underlined government’s claim that Rohingya posed a 'threat to internal security of the country' [File: Altaf Qadri/AP]

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – India’s Supreme Court has refused to stop the deportation to Myanmar of about 170 Rohingya refugees detained in the Indian-administered Kashmir region’s Jammu area, with the members of the beleaguered community calling it a “death warrant” issued by the court.

“Possibly that is the fear that if they go back to Myanmar, they will be slaughtered. But we cannot control all that,” the top court said on Thursday, stating that the fundamental right to settle in India is available only to its citizens.

Seeking Refuge in India a Crime? The Rohingya Crimmigration Story

the quint

KARAN TRIPATHI
Published: 08 Apr 2021, 

India’s crimmigration policy dehumanises Rohingyas as security threats, subjecting them to detention & deportation.

Sound sleep has become folklore for Minra Begum. For the past two months, she just can’t put her running thoughts to rest, and rest her head without fear. She doesn’t want to lose sight of her three children, two girls and one boy, as they sleep quietly lying next to her. A moment of slumber, just a blink, she believes, might separate her from her children forever.

Minra Begum is haunted by the fate of her aunt Husseina, an 85-year old partially blind woman, who was picked up by the police on 21 January 2021. As Husseina was escorted to a police van by three officers, all men, the plea of her 26-year-old son fell on deaf ears. Minra was aware of her aunt’s destination; after all, that’s where they took her father 11 years ago. But, she still asked, with a quivering voice, “why are you taking her, she’s so old, she has a family... where are you taking her.”

Video: SC on Rohingya, SC on Anil Deshmukh’s plea

INDIA

LEGAL

April 8, 2021

Supreme Court refuses to release Rohingyas detained in Jammu, says they should be deported to Myanmar

Supreme Court dismisses Maharashtra govt, Anil Deshmukh challenge against CBI probe Make masks mandatory during poll campaigns, plea asks; Delhi HC seeks response from Centre and EC Kashi Vishwanath Mandir-Gyanvapi Masjid dispute: Varanasi court clears ASI survey of mosque

SC to hear PIL seeking release, protection of Rohingyas

BIG NEWS NETWORK

ANI

8th April 2021,

New Delhi [India], April 7 (ANI): The Supreme Court will pass its order on a petition seeking release and protection of over 150 Rohingya refugees in Jammu and Kashmir.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde will pronounce the order on the intervention application filed by Mohammad Salimullah, a Rohingya refugee, through advocate Prashant Bhushan.

Fire becomes new fear for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

DW
Author Arafatul Islam
07.04.2021

Several deadly fire incidents in overcrowded Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh over the past several weeks point to a "very worrying trend," say experts.

A Rohingya refugee stands among the remains of burnt materials after a fire broke out recently at a camp in Cox's Bazar

Three Rohingya men died after a fire gutted shops at a makeshift market near the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh's southeastern Cox's Bazar district on Friday.

Their bodies were found in one of 20 shops burned after the fire broke out before dawn at the market near the Kutupalong refugee camp.

Thousands of Rohingya Refugees in Northwest India Live in Fear of Deportation

VOA

VOA News

06 April 2021

 Thousands of Rohingya refugees live in temporary camps in India’s northwestern Jammu and Kashmir region, where they fear deportation back to Myanmar. VOA Urdu Service’s Zubair Dar visited a camp of people in Bathindi Narval who said they fled abuses and do not want to go back. Roshan Noorzai narrates the story. VOA Khmer's Leakhena Sreng narrates the story in Khmer. 

Link : Here

Desperate Burmese refugees flee to Thailand and India to escape crisis

The Guardian

Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi and Emma Graham-Harrison
Sat 3 Apr 2021 

Tensions rise on borders as thousands seek safe haven from military crackdown

Karen villagers being carried by refugees and Thai paramilitaries after crossing border at a Thai-Myanmar border in Mae Hong Son province. Photograph: Royal Thai Army Handout/EPA

Myanmar’s escalating crisis is spilling across its borders, as thousands of refugees seek safe haven in India and Thailand in the wake of the military coup and bloody crackdowns on anti-coup protesters.

Authorities in both countries have tried to block new arrivals, fearing that a steady flow may become a flood, if unrest spreading through Myanmar worsens. A top UN official warned last week that the country is “on the verge of spiralling into a failed state” if action is not taken soon to stem the bloodshed.

The catastrophic human costs of the regime’s brutal policies is visible in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees are living. Most fled after a military campaign that began in 2017, and have lived in limbo ever since.

India: Rising detentions spark panic among Rohingya

AA

Ahmad Adil 

NEW DELHI

01.04.2021

4 more Rohingya held by authorities in Indian capital, community says more than 12 detained over past week

At least four Rohingya refugees were detained in New Delhi on Wednesday for not having “proper documents,” giving rise to further apprehensions among community members living in India’s capital.

“There were four of them and they were sent to the Foreigner Regional Registration Office,” Rajendra Prasad Meena, a senior police officer, told Anadolu Agency, without sharing any further details.

Another cop, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also gave a short response, saying the Rohingya refugees were detained because they did not have “valid documents.”

'How Can a Human Being Be Illegal?': Lawyer for Rohingya Questions India's Deportation Plans

THE WIRE
Ismat Ara
01/APR/2021

A large number of Rohingya refugees have been detained over the last month and the threat of deportation looms over them.

Rohingya children playing in a camp in Delhi. Photo: Ismat Ara

New Delhi: Indian authorities are preparing to deport Rohingya refugees currently lodged in detention centres made for undocumented migrants. Close to 300 Rohingya were detained across India just in the month of March 2021.

In 2017, thousands of Rohingya people had fled Myanmar, either by foot or sea, after the Myanmar army’s targeted violence against the community. However, the Rohingya had been fleeing Myanmar to take shelter in neighbouring countries including India for years before that too.

Column by Mahfuz Anam: The trouble with our only other neighbour

The Daily Star
Mahfuz Anam
April 02, 2021

Global response focuses on the coup, ignoring the Rohingya problem

File photo of demonstrators protesting the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: Reuters/Stringer

Myanmar is our only other neighbour, with India being the overwhelming first. To the credit of our policymakers, we have tried our best to maintain good relations with Myanmar notwithstanding their treatment of Rohingyas, forcing nearly 300,000 of them upon us thirty years ago, in the early nineties.

We really wanted to have a cordial relation, if not a warm one, with them. We thought if the whole world could trade with them, why couldn't we (especially after the withdrawal of western sanctions)? Thus, we reacted to the Rohingya influx of the nineties very softly. The tactics appeared to work when more than 230,000 of the 250,000 refugees from the first influx were repatriated, with the UNHCR playing an active role in the process. With about 20,000 remaining, we heaved a sigh of relief hoping that the rest would also be repatriated in time.

Rohingya: Dhaka asks Delhi to play strong role in UNSC

Dhaka Tribune

UNB
March 28th, 2021

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina receiving her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at her office ahead of the Bangladesh-India bilateral talks on Saturday, March 27, 2021 PID

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation deal on November 23, 2017

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has requested that India, as a member of the United Nations Security Council, play a “strong role” in the early repatriation of the displaced Rohingyas to Myanmar.

Prime Minister Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi recently reiterated the importance of the safe, speedy, and sustainable return of Rohingyas to their homeland for the greater security of the region.

The secret network helping hundreds of Myanmar police flee to India

WHBL

Sheboygan, WI, USA / 1330 & 101.5 WHBL
By Devjyot Ghoshal
Syndicated Content
Mar 25, 2021

AIZAWL, India (Reuters) - Strung across remote mountain settlements, a secret network of activists and volunteers is helping spirit hundreds of defecting Myanmar policemen away from the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent and into relative safety in a small northeastern Indian state.

Their escape - by car, motorcycle and on foot through densely forested terrain - is often guided by volunteer-led groups on both sides of the border, according to accounts from at least 10 people who are involved in the loose-knit network or have used it to cross the border. Once in India, local activists and residents provide food and shelter in safe houses, the people said.

India Burma

India Burma by Bob Andrepont

Supreme Court to hear plea for release of detained Rohingya refugees on March 25

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

PTI
March 18 2021,

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would hear on March 25 a fresh plea seeking immediate release of detained Rohingya refugees in Jammu and restrain the Centre from implementing any order deporting them to Myanmar.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde, which initially observed that there was no urgency, took note of the submissions of lawyer Prashant Bhushan that the detained Rohingyas may be deported to Myanmar where the Army has taken over and violence is taking place.

"Ok, then we will hear the Rohingya matter on Thursday," said the bench which also comprised justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

On March 11, an interim plea was filed in a pending PIL seeking immediate release of detained Rohingya refugees in Jammu and restrain the Centre from deporting them.