Headlines:
Coup in Sudan
Bangladesh to Remove Islam from its Constitution
India Signs First Investment Deal in Kashmir with UAE

Coup in Sudan

Sudan’s ruling General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan reportedly told a visiting US official that the military may make a move the day before he launched a coup against Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s government. Burhan was speaking with Jeffrey Feltman, Washington’s Horn of Africa representative, in Khartoum, Axios reported. The military takeover occurred on Monday 25 October within hours of Feltman leaving the Sudanese capital. Feltman had been taking part in talks to ease tension between Sudan’s military and civilian leadership. An unnamed Zionist official told Israel Hayom that the latest coup in Sudan is good news for the normalization effort. The official said al-Burhan was more likely to strengthen ties with ‘Israel’ than Hamdock.

Bangladesh to Remove Islam from its Constitution

The Bangladeshi State Minister for Information, Murad Hassan, has said Islam is not the state religion and the country will soon go back to its original secular constitution of 1972 envisioned by founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. If the move comes into effect, Islam will no longer be the state religion of the Muslim majority country. The original secular constitution of Bangladesh was amended during the rule of General HM Ershad in the late 1980s and Islam was instituted as the state religion. A close ally of India and US, the ruling Awami League party enjoys an absolute majority in Parliament hence the passage of a fresh amendment may not be difficult. The move is likely to provoke opposition from the Islamist parties who have been campaigning for further Islamisation of the Country. The country is going through the worst phase of communal violence in years leaving several dead and hundreds injured.

India Signs First Investment Deal in Kashmir with UAE

The UAE has signed an accord to build infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir, at a time when the Himalayan region is seeing a resurgence in violence. The MoU covers real estate development, industrial parks, IT towers, multipurpose towers, logistics, medical colleges, super specialty hospitals and more. The deal was hailed “as a major success for India” by a former Pakistan high commissioner Dr Abdul Basit, while the pact triggered outrage in Pakistan. According to Dr Basit one aspect of India’s Kashmir strategy has been how to persuade some Muslim nations to open their missions or consulates in Kashmir and invest in the region to negate the influence of OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries). Commentators also noted that this is Dubai’s message to the world that Pakistan has no locus standi on Kashmir. The deal angered Pakistan since its claims on Kashmir and attempts to internationalise the Kashmir issue depends heavily on OIC support.