Shamsher mobin chowdhury

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR: Developing-country governments are being wrongly advised to use its modest fiscal resources to pay down accumulated debt instead of strengthening pandemic relief and recovery. Thus, debt phobia risks deepening and extending coronavirus recessions by prioritizing buybacks. Nearly half (44 percent) of low-income countries were already debt-distressed or at high risk even before the coronavirus pandemic was declared in March 2020. Limited fiscal space has constrained developing countries’ relief and recovery measures, making them far more modest than those of developed countries. Nevertheless, their government debt ratios rose faster in 2020. Many developing countries have taken on more debt, typically on non-concessional terms—from private lenders and non-Paris Club members. Public debt in emerging markets has thus surged to levels not seen in over half a century. Pandemic debt mounting Debt burdens limit fiscal resources and the policy space needed to ... » Learn More about Prioritize pandemic relief, recovery: No time for debt buybacks

DHAKA: Authorities in Bangladesh on Friday sent the first group of more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees to an isolated island despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process. The 1,642 refugees boarded seven Bangladeshi naval vessels in the port of Chittagong for the trip to Bhashan Char, according to an official who could not be named in accordance with local practice. After about a three-hour trip they arrived at the island, which was once regularly submerged by monsoon rains but now has flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals and mosques built at a cost of more than $112 million by the Bangladesh navy. Located 34 kilometers from the mainland, the island surfaced only 20 years ago and was never inhabited. Saleh Noman, a Bangladeshi journalist who traveled with the refugees, said by phone from the island that the refugees were given rice, eggs and chickens for lunch after their body temperatures were measured by health workers as a coronavirus precaution. ... » Learn More about 1,642 Rohingya refugees arrive in Bangladesh

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Voting began in Assam and West Bengal on Saturday in state elections that will show how support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding up following a coronavirus-stricken year, and months of protests by farmers against his agricultural reforms. Re-elected for a second five-year term in 2019, Modi's grip on power is under no threat, but the elections in the two eastern states are the first since the farmers launched protests that have been mainly in the north, around the capital Delhi. It was the first phase of voting in both states, and the results won't be known for months. For all the concerns over the coronavirus, politicians out on the campaign trail often showed scant regard for social distancing, but as people waited in long queues outside polling centres in West Bengal on Saturday, security personnel and election workers handed out masks, sanitizers and gloves. Modi and his home minister Amit Shah campaigned aggressively for ... » Learn More about India begins voting in two eastern states in key test for Modi