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Nine out of 10 Ukrainians could face poverty and extreme economic vulnerability if the war drags on over the next year, wiping out two decades of economic gains, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, said that his agency was working with the Kyiv government to avoid a worst case scenario of the economy collapsing. It aimed to provide cash transfers to families to buy food to survive and keep them from fleeing while propping up basic services.

“If the conflict is a protracted one, if it were to continue, we are going to see poverty rates escalate very significantly,” Steiner told Reuters.

“Clearly the extreme end of the scenario is an implosion of the economy as a whole. And that could ultimately lead to up to 90% of people either being below the poverty line or being at high risk of (poverty),” he said in a video interview from New York.

The poverty line is generally defined as purchasing power of $5.50 to $13 per person per day, he added in a video interview from New York. Before Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24, an estimated 2% of Ukrainians lived below the $5.50 line, he said.

Ukraine’s top government economic adviser Oleg Ustenko said last Thursday that invading Russian forces have so far destroyed at least $100 billion worth of infrastructure and that 50% of Ukrainian businesses had shut down completely, according to Reuters.

“We estimate that up to 18 years of development gains of Ukraine could be simply be wiped out in a matter of 12 to 18 months,” Steiner said.

UNDP is looking at “tried and tested” programmes that it has used in other conflict situations, he said.

“Cash transfers programmes particularly in a country such as Ukraine where the financial system and architecture is still functional, where ATMs are available, a critical way in which to reach people quickly is with cash transfers or a temporary basic income,” he said.

The logistical challenges were significant but “not insurmountable”, he said.

“Clearly some of the recent announcements by World Bank and International Monetary Fund in terms of credit lines and funding that is being made available will obviously assist Ukrainian authorities to be able to deploy such a programme,” he said.

The UNDP report said that an emergency cash transfer operation, costing about $250 million per month, would cover partial income losses for 2.6 million people expected to fall into poverty. A more ambitious temporary basic income programme to provide $5.50 per day per person would cost $430 million a month, Reuters reported.

Ukraine’s economy is expected to contract by 10% in 2022 as a result of Russia’s invasion, but the outlook could worsen sharply if the conflict lasts longer, the IMF said in a staff report released on Monday.

The World Bank on Monday approved nearly $200 million in additional and reprogrammed financing to bolster Ukraine’s support of vulnerable people. The funding comes on top of $723 million approved last week and is part of a $3 billion package of support that the World Bank is racing to get to Ukraine and its people in coming weeks, according to Reuters.

In the most recent assembly elections, India’s ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) consolidated its hold in five states including in the most populous Uttar Pradesh. This has increased BJP’s prospects of winning national elections for a third consecutive time in 2024. With the exception of Punjab, the BJP also gained in Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand.

This suggests the BJP has wooed the masses with its ‘Hindu nationalist’ agenda. Over the past 70 years, Uttar Pradesh has had 21 chief ministers but none could do what Yogi Adityanath has: return to power for a second time after completing a full five-year term.

Adityanath is emerging as a powerful BJP leader, and a section of the party projects him as a future prime minister. As he leads a populous 204m-strong state that shares a border with Nepal, Nepali politicians and experts are also gauging his victory’s possible implications for Nepal.

Adityanath is a vocal supporter for the reinstatement of Nepal’s Hindu state. Sharat Pradhan and Atul Chandra document his remarks on secularism in Nepal in their recent book, ‘Yogi Adityanath: Religion, Politics, and Power, The Untold Story’. 

“That secularism is not his cup of tea has been expressed quite explicitly by Adityanath in his article penned under the headline, ‘Antar-raashtreey saazishon ke jaal me phansta Himalayee Rashtra Nepal’ (“The Himalayan state of Nepal has been caught in international conspiracies”).

Describing 18 May 2006 as a ‘Black Day’, when the country’s kangaroo parliament passed an ‘unfortunate and unexpected ‘resolution declaring Nepal a secular state, Adityanath blames Maoists, Islamic militants, and Christians for the ‘unconstitutional’ decision,” the article says.

Asmita Bhandari, Acting President, World Hindu Federation International Committee, for her part says Adityanath’s emergence is good news for Nepal. “He has a special relationship with Nepal. He is not only the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh but also the head priest of Gorakhnath temple,” Bhandari says. “He wants to see Nepal as a Hindu state.”

In meetings with Nepali politicians, BJP leaders are becoming more vocal on the Hindu agenda. Dhananjay Tripathi, assistant professor, department of international relations, South Asian University, says the BJP won’t directly support the Hindu-state agenda but some Hindu front organizations could lend their support to their pro-Hindu counterparts in Nepal.

“As Hindu forces become influential in India, they will try to push and prod like-minded forces in Nepal,” says Tripathi. He, however, does not believe the agenda will much influence Nepali voters. “The kind of appeal the BJP has in India is hard to replicate for any of Nepal’s political parties,” he says.

The two countries have distinct domestic politics, Tripathi says. Unlike in India, there are no entrenched religious divisions or polarized debates among Hindus, Muslims and those of other faiths. Over the past couple of decades, communist parties have become dominant in Nepal, adds Tripathi, which also distinguishes the country from India.

Tripathi argues that political debates here are centered more on monarchy, democracy and republic than on religion. In Nepal, there are strong Hindu sentiments in major parties but their top leaderships remain committed to the secular state.

Civil society member Hari Sharma says the BJP’s victory in India could encourage Nepal’s anti-secularists and influence its liberal forces. “Take Nepali Congress. Last September, a Congress delegation under Prakash Sharan Mahat visited India. They did not hold fraternity talks with other political parties there, except with the BJP,” says Sharma. “Instead, after New Delhi, they went straight to Uttar Pradesh and met Yogi Aditayanath.”

He speaks of the need to maintain good rapport with all of India’s important political parties. As Hinduism is a populist agenda, Sharma adds, Nepali parties may be thinking it could increase their votes too. “They may also want to appease Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But appeasing Modi would not serve our national interest,” he says.

In line with what Sharma says, a group in the ruling Nepali Congress, with Central Working Committee member Shankar Bhandari at its lead, is pressing party leadership to stand in favor of the Hindu state.

Bhandari says he takes India’s recent electoral outcomes in a positive light but he thinks the Nepali campaign for Hindu state won’t be much influenced by the BJP.

“We want to declare Nepal a Hindu state as the majority of Nepalis are in its favor. Our politicians have betrayed people by embracing secularism, an agenda pushed by foreign powers,” Bhandari says. He says Nepali parties cannot entirely shun the Hindu agenda; nor can they fully support it.

Inside CPN-UML, the main opposition party, there is no organized group in favor of the Hindu state. But in recent times its Chairman KP Sharma Oli has been trying to appeal to the Hindu constituency. Most recently, Oli renewed his statement about Lord Ram being born in Nepal.

Political analyst Lokraj Baral does not think Oli will achieve much by invoking Ram, as he does not speak based on facts. “But he may nonetheless get some public support for his pro-Hindu line,” Baral says.

The backers of Hindu state are buoyed by India’s recent electoral outcome.

Dhawal Shumsher Rana, General Secretary of Rastriya Prajatantra Party, a pro-Hindu party, says BJP’s victory will have “some but not significant impact on Nepal. Till date, our party has had no formal collaboration with the BJP. But we also can’t rule it out,” he says. 

Baral says BJP’s emergence in India has not brought a significant Hindu wave in Nepal. Even though Nepali politics is tough to predict, “it is hard to believe that the BJP wave in India will significantly affect Nepal. It has been nearly a decade since the BJP came to power in India and Hindutwa’s impact on Nepal has been minimal.”

Asmita Bhandari says big political parties can learn from India that the Hindu religion as a political issue has some appeal. “You may now find that our major parties are ready to take up the Hindu state agenda,” she says. 

The Supreme Court on Wednesday scrapped all the writs filed against the Citizenship Bill.

A meeting of the constitutional bench held this afternoon scrapped all the six writs filed against the ordinance related to the amendment of Citizenship Act brought the then KP Sharma Oli-led government.

The then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli brought the Citizenship Bill by dissolving the House for the second time to incorporate then Mahantha Thakur group of Janata Samajbadi Party.

Saying that it is unconstitutional to bring an ordinance by ignoring the Citizenship Bill which is under consideration in the Party, senior advocate Borna Bahadur Karki, advocate Bir Bhandra Joshi, advocate Ram Bahadur Shahi, advocate Kul Bahadur Bigota and deputy general secretary on behalf of Maulik Jarakilo Party Laxman Pokharel filed the writs against the Bill.

Prime Minister Deuba's office and President Bidya Devi Bhandari were made the defendants.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Deepak Kumar Karki, Justices Mira Khadka, Hari Krishna Karki, Ishwor Prasad Khatiwada and Ananda Mohan Bhattarai scrapped the writs today.

Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security Krishna Kumar Shrestha and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister for Human Resource Abdulrahaman Al Awar held a meeting on Tuesday. 

During the meeting held at Abudhabi, matters related to bilateral interests and welfare of Nepali workers in UAE were discussed, the Labour Ministry informed. 

On the occasion, Labour Minister Shrestha lauded the UAE government noting that the recent labour law was in favour of immigrant workforce. 

The two ministers agreed to work in tandem to resolve the problems of stranded Nepali who came to UAE on visit visa on temptation of employment and bring the guilty to book. 

As informed, the UAE government will help book the guilty and institutions who brought people to UAE on visit visa with false promise of employment. 

Also on the occasion, Minister Awar expressed his commitment to establish skill development training centre and help produce competent human resource by investing on capacity building. 

According to Minister Shrestha's Secretariat, the UAE Minister also pledged to provide support in Nepal's bid for the establishment of laborers’ hospital.

The two ministers also discussed the issues related to social security, workforce safety, health and insurance and increment of remuneration of Nepali workers in UAE. RSS