In some ways, the cycle is the vehicle of the lockdown. There are countless tales of stranded migrant workers cycling hundreds of kilometres back home in the absence of public transport. It’s everyone’s favourite way of getting fit. And for those who can’t afford a car or a motorcycle, it is a great way to get around a city that still doesn’t see as much traffic as it used to.
Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) has dominated the jihadist landscape of Afghanistan for the past several years while sharing turf with the powerful Taliban. It has suffered several significant setbacks in recent months, including a leadership crisis and territorial losses in its former provincial strongholds of Nangarhar and Kunar. Both Afghan government forces and the Taliban claimed to have accosted and defeated IS-K in 2019. The perceived downfall coincided with Islamic State’s (IS) crumbling caliphate in the Middle East and the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
While the COVID-19 has devastated health, economy and social sectors across the world with the death of millions of people, its impact is mixed in the low-intensity conflict regions. In case of India, more than one lakh people have been affected (at the time of finalising this report), and more than three thousand people have succumbed to the pandemic despite a nationwide lockdown imposed since March 23.
"It may be a sheer coincidence that such major reforms have been announced during pandemic times. But such efforts by the state actually transcend regimes, boundaries, difficulties or even emergency situations."
Following the death of al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent’s (AQIS) founding leader Asim Umar and several of his associates in September 2019 in Afghanistan, it was believed that the youngest franchise of the international terrorist organization would be in disarray. However, the jihadist franchise seems to have grown in strength, at least in its virtual jihad and dawa (proselytizing) campaigns. In the months following Umar’s death, the long-serving scholar spokesman, Ustadh Usama Mahmoud (a.k.a. Osama Mahmood), has risen to prominence in AQIS.
The pharma and other biotechnology agencies in the United States researching Covid-19 are under cyber espionage. As of date, the US authorities do not have any direct evidence to prove this fact but possibly based on the circumstantial evidence the US is making this claim. Besides, there are murmurs that Iran also could be involved in some form of cyber espionage. For the last few months, Chinese hackers, possibly more at the individual level, are found to be targeting some universities, pharmaceutical and other health-care businesses in the US.
Pandemics brings immense human suffering, disrupts the socio-economic fabrics of society and impedes development across the affected geographical region. As Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 reaches over 200 countries infecting millions of people and killing scores of them, it is imperative to examine the threat not just from health or medical point of view but from a larger perspective of national security. It is important that the nations wake up to this reality and any failure to restrict and mitigate the challenge at this stage will have a long term impact on international peace, stability and security. The paper attempts to examine the emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (ERIDs), and their enormous security challenges to national security which would remain a central theme of any future security discourse hereafter.
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