One Year of Taliban 2.0

One Year of Taliban 2.0
Source : Indian Express
GS II : India and its neighbourhood- relations

What is discussed under One Year of Taliban 2.0?

A year after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul and American troop withdraws.

Started in northern Pakistan in the early 1990s as a result of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan with an Islamic fundamentalist political and military organisation.
In 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul for the first time and Afghanistan was in ruins, and a violent civil war had destroyed most of its infrastructure.
They have been in conflict with the Afghan government, which the United States supports, for about 20 years and they want to re-establish their conservative interpretation of Islam.

Extend of Threat by Taliban

11th September 2001, terrorist attacks in America killed nearly 3,000 people.
Pakistani Taliban attacks took place in October 2012, when schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot on her way home in the town of Mingora.

Came into power

By July 2021, the US claimed that it had withdrawn 90% of the troops and Taliban claimed that it had controlled over 85% of the Afghan Territory.
Taliban have been led for decades by a leadership council, called the Rahbari Shura. It is better known as the Quetta Shura
The international community has not yet recognised the regime formally, and sanctions, including travel bans on many Taliban, remain in place.

Many affluent individuals as well as middle-class individuals with resources and education, including governmental officials, have left the nation because they do not want to support the Taliban government.

Women’s Situation

In the weeks after the Taliban takeover, Taliban authorities announced a steady stream of policies and regulations rolling back women’s and girls’ rights.
These included laws that severely restricted the freedom to peaceful assembly as well as access to work and education.
High-profile women were also targeted by the Taliban and prohibited from leaving their houses.
Taliban have also dismissed almost all female government employees.

Freedom of Speech

Nearly 70% of Afghan media outlets shut down, while others operated under fear and with self-censorship.
Taliban subsequently banned protests that did not have prior approval from the Justice Ministry in Kabul.

Finances for the Regime

The Taliban government’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 is $2.6 billion.
Taliban primarily earned revenue through criminal activities, including opium poppy cultivation, drug trafficking, extortion of local businesses, and kidnapping, according to the UN monitoring group. However, in April 2022, the Taliban banned poppy cultivation.

Threat to Taliban’s power

The primary military threat to the Taliban has emerged as the terrorist organisation known as Islamic State in Khorasan, which has up to 4,000 members in Afghanistan.
A resistance movement of former officials, local militia members, and Afghan security forces who call themselves the National Resistance Front formed to oppose the Taliban’s rule.

For the first time since the Taliban takeover on 15 August 2021, India has sent an official delegation to Afghanistan.
India hasn’t recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
In June 2022, India re-opened its embassy in Kabul.
India has been sending food aid and medicines to the country since 2021.
Taliban want India to complete the infra projects that it had left unfinished in the country.
- One of the projects that was left incomplete was the Shahtoot Dam to provide drinking water to 2 mn residents of Kabul.

One Year of Taliban 2.0

Daily Current Affairs : Click Here

IAS Current Affairs