Category World News

Authorities in the troubled Muslim-majority region of India have since banned 25 books from booksellers in the region, saying that works like those by Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy propagate “false narratives” and “secessionism.”

Police said they conducted additional searches of roadside book vendors and other businesses in the main city of Srinagar and other locations in the area to seize the prohibited literature in accordance with the order. Officials didn’t, however, specify whether they had seized any of the above.

In a social media statement, police said that the operation targeted materials that promoted secessionist ideologies or glorified terrorism. To advance peace and integrity, “public cooperation is sought.”

The government launched the raids after the authors were accused of spreading “false narratives” about Kashmir, “while also playing a crucial role in misdirecting the youth” against the Indian state.

Following a similar directive in February, authorities on Thursday also seize Islamic literature from bookshops and homes.

Since 1947, when India and Pakistan have dissolved their country, Kashmir has been divided. Both parties fully claim the Himalayan region.

Since 1989, rebel groups have fought for Kashmir’s independence or its fusion with Pakistan.

Indian authorities have increasingly criminalized dissent and shown no tolerance for any claims that raise questions of Kashmir’s sovereignty.

The Home Department of the region issued the order banning the books on Tuesday, marking the six-year anniversary of New Delhi’s introduction of direct rule, but it took some time to get the ban across.

The ban places sanctions on people who, among other things, sell or own works by constitutional expert AG Noorani and renowned academics and historians like Sumantra Bose, Christopher Snedden, and Victoria Schofield.

The 25 books were effectively prohibited from circulation, possession, and access within the Himalayan region because of the order’s new criminal code of 2023, which declares the 25 books “forfeit.”

According to the Press Trust of India news agency, Bose, a political scientist and author whose book Kashmir at the Crossroads was one of the banned works, “any and all defamatory slurs” were being rejected on his work.

Since 1993, I have worked on Kashmir, among other subjects, including many. My top priority has always been to find peaceful ways for the people of the conflict region, India as a whole, and the subcontinent to enjoy a stable future free of fear and war.

He declared, “I am a committed and principled advocate of peaceful solutions and armed conflict resolutions, whether in Kashmir or elsewhere in the world.”

The ban also included Roy’s 2020 book of essays Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction.

Although Roy, 63, is one of India’s most well-known living authors, is notorious for her writing and activism, including her incisive criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.

Siddiq Wahid, a historian, claimed that the edict, which “allows the freedoms of speech and expression,” is in violation of the constitution.

Many of the books listed on the list of prohibited books are those that are written and published by individuals and organizations whose reputations depend on the availability of proof, logic, and arguments for the conclusions they draw, Wahid told the AFP news agency. Does anything still be taken into account for that?

In its first election since New Delhi’s direct control of the region’s assembly, voters in India-administered Kashmir elected a new government in September and October.

However, the territory is still governed by a New Delhi-appointed administrator despite having a limited amount of authority within the local government.

The ban, according to chief cleric and separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, “only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding of those behind such authoritarian actions.”

On the social media platform X, Farooq stated that “bannning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts and the collection of lived memories of Kashmiris.”

Historical facts and the collection of Kashmiri people’s lived memories will not be erased by the ban on books written by scholars and reputed historians. It only exposes the contradiction in proudly…

Three people in Southeast Asia who are aware of the situation said that it is anticipated that tougher US trade sanctions on goods that come from one country and are re-shipped from another will not immediately follow new US tariffs, which eases a major source of concern.

Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam and Thailand, have been specifically targeted by White House officials because of their alleged involvement in facilitating the so-called transshipment of Chinese goods into the US, which would incur higher tariffs if they were shipped directly from China.

From Thursday through to the end of an executive order, US President Donald Trump’s administration will impose tariffs on goods from dozens of nations, causing additional duties of 40% on products deemed to have been illegally rerouted to conceal their country of origin. However, it did not provide a definition for transshipment.

About 19% of the largest economies in Southeast Asia’s are now subject to tariffs, many of which have significantly decreased from the previously threatened rates, on imports from the US.

Even if the components are entirely imported from another country, such as China, according to current US customs guidance, goods from those nations that have not signed free trade agreements with Washington can be labelled as being made there.

Some officials in Southeast Asia have informed exporters that the current regulations still apply because there are no updated US guidelines on origin or definitions of what transshipment means.

That effectively limits transshipment&nbsp cases to illegal activities, such as the use of forged export certificates or documents obtained defrauded.

Because there aren’t any regulations in place for transshipment yet, the Thai Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Foreign Trade, Arada Fuangtong, told Reuters on Thursday. “All exported goods] from Thailand are currently subject to a 19 percent rate.”

According to a person with knowledge of the conversation, US officials in Vietnam also stated that businessmen would be subject to a 20% tariff on Vietnamese goods even if they were entirely made with Chinese components and only assembled there.

Before the new wave of US tariffs, trade consultants advised clients to export at least 40% of local content to the US, despite the fact that the rules are vague. One of them said that meant to be on the safe side.

A request for comment was not immediately addressed by the US embassy in Vietnam. A request for comment outside of US working hours was not immediately addressed by the US Trade Representative.

A consultant from Vietnam said that “goods that are defined by US customs as transshipped are subject to 40 percent duties, but that is only applicable to old definitions” .

In order to speak more freely, both people declined to be named.

China’s dependence

Repackaging typically doesn’t lead to a “substantial transformation,” but assembly may, depending on how complex the operations are.

If other nations can follow this lenient interpretation of transshipment, it’s not clear if it will.

The economic ministries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore did not respond to requests for comment on the situation right away.

Southeast Asian manufacturers, which rely heavily on Chinese components, have been unsure of what transshipment would mean in Washington for months.

Even when goods are legitimately transformed in Southeast Asian countries, there are still questions about whether that would include goods with a sizable, but undefined, share of components or raw materials.

Multiple investment consultants warned that a strict definition of transshipment and &nbsp might come later.

According to an executive order signed by Trump last week, the US will “publish a list of nations and specific facilities used in circumvention schemes every six months.”

That will “inform commercial due diligence, national security reviews, and public procurement,” it said.

Dezan Shira and Associates, an investment consultancy, said Marco Forster, director for Southeast Asia, “the message from Washington is deterrence.”

United States President Donald Trump is preparing to sign an order that would require universities to disclose to the federal government data about their student admissions.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the news in a post on the social media platform X, reposting an article from the right-wing publication The Daily Caller.

Trump has long sought to exert greater control over the country’s higher education system, which he and other prominent Republicans consider ideologically skewed.

At the same time, Trump has also sought to dismantle initiatives to promote diversity, equity and inclusion — goals known collectively by the acronym DEI — on the basis that such efforts are inherently discriminatory.

Rolling back DEI

This was such a priority for Trump that, on January 20, during the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing”.

That order repealed a previous directive, issued under President Joe Biden, to advance “racial equity” and better support “underserved communities”.

It also called diversity initiatives “illegal and immoral” and ordered the termination of any such programmes run by the federal government.

“Federal employment practices, including Federal employee performance reviews, shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI,” the order explained.

Trump has sought to extend his campaign against DEI beyond the auspices of the federal government, including to private enterprises.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, major US companies like the retailer Target and the carmaker Ford have reframed or dialled back their DEI programming, in an apparent response to the president’s platform.

But critics have questioned whether Trump may be exceeding his constitutionally mandated powers.

Some have argued that an embrace of diversity practices falls well within a private enterprise’s free speech rights under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

They also point out that, without proactively supporting diversity in companies and universities, those institutions are likely to maintain imbalances in race, gender and ability that do not reflect the wider public.

That, in turn, keeps certain groups out of positions of power, perpetuating a history of segregation and bias in the US.

Peeling back affirmative action

But Trump and his allies have long argued that diversity-promoting practices use race, gender and other factors to discriminate against qualified candidates who may belong to over-represented groups.

In a subsequent executive order on January 21, Trump pledged to restore “merit-based opportunity” in the US.

“Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex,” the executive order said.

Under Trump, the Department of Education has taken steps to roll back diversity initiatives and other “divisive ideology” in schools, including by freezing federal funds to institutions that do not comply.

That has put it at loggerheads with academic freedom advocates, who fear the independence of US schools is being trampled in favour of advancing a political agenda.

Opponents of diversity initiatives, however, have won significant victories, most recently in 2023.

That year, the US Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action — the practice of considering race and other diversity factors in school admissions — violated the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which asserts the right to equal protection under the law.

That decision, delivered by the court’s conservative supermajority, overturned decades of precedent and barred schools from using race as a factor for choosing students.

Some conservative groups, however, have continued to question whether there is a bias in school admissions against white, male and Asian students.

Trump versus the Ivy League

The US president has been among the sceptics clamouring for more information about university admissions and hiring practices, and he has made that demand a pillar in his fights with various top schools.

Trump has yanked billions in federal contracts, grants and other funds from schools, including Columbia University in New York, Harvard University in Massachusetts and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which reported this week a pause on $584m in grants.

To restore those suspended funds, Trump has called on university leaders to agree to his demands, including oversight over admissions.

Columbia was the first major campus to do so. As part of its deal with the Trump administration, Columbia agreed to review its admissions practices and establish an advisory group to “analyze recent trends in enrollment”.

The advisory group will then “report to the President”, according to the deal.

The Trump administration has also launched federal investigations into universities, alleging violations of civil rights law. Some universities have submitted to Trump’s demands in part to bring those probes to a close.

On July 30, for instance, another Ivy League school, Brown University in Rhode Island, announced it had struck a deal in exchange for the continuation of its federal funding and a “permanent closure” to the “open reviews and investigations” the Trump administration had launched.

As part of the deal, however, Brown agreed to spend $50m on workforce development programmes and maintain “merit-based admissions policies”.

“No proxy for racial admission will be tolerated,” the deal reads. “Brown may not use personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity as a means to introduce or justify discrimination.”

Still, some schools have resisted Trump’s demands, most notably Harvard, the nation’s oldest university.

In April, Harvard President Alan Garber rejected an agreement proposed by the Trump administration, which would have required a “comprehensive audit” of the school’s hiring and admissions practices.

That data would have then been shared with the federal government.

Mehdi Hasan debates ex-FM Diana Mondino on Milei’s fitness to lead and his radical ‘ chainsaw ‘ economics.