Renowned Bangladeshi musicologist Sanjeeda Khatun and Lt Col (retd) Quazi Sajjad Ali Zaheer have been named by India for this year’s Padma awards.
Indian Home Ministry made the announcement on Monday night.
Padma, the fourth-highest civilian award in India, is conferred in three categories – Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. ‘Padma Vibhushan’ is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service; ‘Padma Bhushan’ for distinguished service of high order and ‘Padma Shri’ for distinguished service in any field.
These awards, recognising outstanding contributions of individuals in various fields, are announced every year on the eve of India’s Republic Day and conferred by the President in
Sanjeeda Khatun, 87, a musicologist, was one of the founders of Bangladesh Mukti Sangrami Shilpi Sangstha during the Liberation War in 1971 and Chhayyanaut in the early 1960s.
Lt Col Quazi is a veteran of the Bangladesh Liberation War. He joined the Liberation War in September 1971. He organised the 2nd Artillery Force under Sector 4 in the Sylhet region.
Bangladesh government honoured him with the prestigious ‘Bir Protik’ title for his gallantry. In 2013, he was awarded the ‘Swadhinata Padak’, the highest civilian award in Bangladesh, for his contribution to the Liberation War.
A top US diplomat's upcoming trip to Taiwan as Washington ends decades-old curbs on contacts with Taipei has again escalated Sino-American tensions.
Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to the UN, is due to arrive in Taipei on Wednesday for a three-day visit.
Her last-minute trip - days before Donald Trump's presidency ends - has incensed China.
Self-governing Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory, has hailed the shift in diplomatic relations.
Ambassador Craft's visit comes after a year of mounting hostility between Washington and Beijing.
The democratic island of Taiwan has been a major thorn in the deteriorating relationship. Under President Trump the US has established closer ties with Taipei - ramping up arms sales and sending senior officials to the territory despite fierce warnings from China.
Most recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US would end the "self-imposed restrictions" on contacts between US and Taiwan officials that were introduced decades ago to "appease" the mainland Chinese government, which lays claim to the island.
At the same time the US has bitterly clashed with Beijing on multiple fronts including trade, human rights and the coronavirus pandemic.
Why is this trip happening now?
The high-profile visit was only announced late last week by Mr Pompeo.
At the end of a statement condemning the mass arrests of democracy advocates in Hong Kong, he also added that Ambassador Craft would visit Taiwan.
It will make her the third senior American official sent to the island since August on a trip that begins just a week before the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president and the end of Mr Trump's term.
Taiwan was "a reliable partner and vibrant democracy that has flourished despite CCP [Communist Chinese Party] efforts", Mr Pompeo said in characteristically direct language, adding: "Taiwan shows what a free China could achieve".
Evan Resnick, an assistant professor at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, called it a "provocative" last-minute move by Mr Trump's administration.
It appears designed to "fling mud in China's eye" and make things "harder for the incoming Biden administration", he told the BBC.
Such "chaotic, imprudent" steps have been "customary" under Mr Trump, Dr Resnick added, saying the trip would likely bring "even more instability" to Sino-American relations at a time the US should be cooperating with China on issues such as the pandemic and climate crisis.
How will this bode for Biden?
The trip has already triggered an angry response from China, further damaging its relationship with the US as Mr Biden prepares to take over.
"The United States will pay a heavy price for its wrong action," the Chinese mission to the UN said in a statement last week in response to Ambassador Craft's planned trip.
"China strongly urges the United States to stop its crazy provocation, stop creating new difficulties for China-US relations... and stop going further on the wrong path," it said.
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP/GETTY IMAGES
image captionSome Taiwanese vocally support formal independence but most favour the middle ground
Beijing reiterated its sharp warning to the US a few days later, when Mr Pompeo announced that America would scrap the long-time restrictions on its interactions with Taiwanese officials.
"Any actions which harm China's core interests will be met with a firm counter-attack and will not succeed," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao told reporters on Monday.
The substance of the new US administration's policies on China and Taiwan remains to be seen but Dr Resnick believes a "much more coherent" strategy will be deployed.
"It's going to want to repudiate so many of Trump's polices," he said, adding that Beijing may just be waiting to see what the incoming administration does and "whether it starts to cool temperatures a bit".
What is the China-Taiwan divide about?
China and Taiwan have had separate governments since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
Beijing has consistently tried to limit Taiwan's international activities and both have vied for influence in the Pacific region.
It's why Ambassador Craft's trip is highly symbolic, as Taiwan is not a member of the UN or most global institutions due to Beijing's objections.
The US has no official diplomatic ties with Taipei - like most nations - though it is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
So the ending of long-time restrictions governing official contacts announced by Mr Pompeo over the weekend marked a major shift in relations. Taipei immediately hailed the move as ending "decades of discrimination".
media captionPresident Tsai Ing-wen tells China to “face reality” and show Taiwan respect
Tensions between China and Taiwan have intensified in recent years and Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to take the island back.
In the face of these growing threats, Taiwan's government has not held back in asserting itself.
On her re-election for a second term last year President Tsai Ing-wen told the BBC that the sovereignty of Taiwan was not up for negotiation.
"We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China (Taiwan)," she said.
It said that there were "intense concerns arising from the absence of the efficacy data" as well a lack of transparency that would "raise more questions than answers and likely will not reinforce faith in our scientific decision making bodies".
The statement came after India's Drugs Controller General, VG Somani, insisted Covaxin was "safe and provides a robust immune response".
He added the vaccines had been approved for restricted use in "public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains".
"The vaccines are 100% safe," he said, adding that side effects such as "mild fever, pain and allergy are common for every vaccine".
The All India Drug Action Network, however, said it was "baffled to understand the scientific logic" to approve "an incompletely studied vaccine".
One of India's most eminent medical experts, Dr Gagandeep Kang, told the Times of India newspaper that she had "not seen anything like this before". She added that "there is absolutely no efficacy data that has been presented or published".
Even social media users were quick to point out that approving the vaccine before trials were complete was a matter of concern irrespective of how safe or effective the vaccine eventually turned out to be.
The US Senate's Republican leader has rejected calls from an unlikely alliance of President Donald Trump, congressional Democrats and some Republicans to boost coronavirus aid.
Mitch McConnell said hiking aid cheques from $600 (£440) to $2,000 would be "another fire hose of borrowed money".
The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives had voted to increase the payments to Americans.
The outgoing president's intervention has divided his fellow Republicans.
Congress agreed the smaller $600 payments in a Covid relief and government funding bill that Mr Trump sent back to Capitol Hill before Christmas, with the president seeking higher stimulus payments.
On Monday, congressional Democrats - usually sworn political foes of Mr Trump - passed the measure for $2,000 cheques that he requested.
Dozens of House Republicans, reluctant to defy Mr Trump, sided with Democrats to approve the package.
Mr Trump begrudgingly signed the original bill with the lower payments into law on Sunday, but has continued to demand more money.
"Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2,000 payments ASAP," he tweeted on Tuesday.
What did McConnell say?
The Kentucky senator rejected Senate Democrats' calls for the upper chamber to vote on the $2,000 cheques package passed by their counterparts in the House.
"The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats' rich friends who don't need the help," Mr McConnell said on the chamber floor.
Instead he offered to roll the proposal for $2,000 cheques into another bill to include other measures that have been requested by Mr Trump but raised objections from Democratic leaders.
One would end legal protection for tech companies, known as Section 230. The other would set up a bipartisan commission to investigate Mr Trump's unsubstantiated claims of systemic electoral fraud.
Democrats said Mr McConnell's proposal was merely a legislative poison pill designed to kill higher stimulus payments.
How are Democrats reacting?
Liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, said on the Senate floor: "All we are asking for is a vote. What is the problem?
"If you want to vote against $2,000 checks for your state, vote against it."
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: "What we're seeing right now is leader McConnell trying to kill the cheques - the $2,000 cheques desperately needed by so many American families."
And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: "These Republicans in the Senate seem to have an endless tolerance for other people's sadness."
How do other Republicans see it?
The party usually professes an opposition to government spending as an article of faith, but some of its top conservative senators have rallied behind Mr Trump's call for $2,000 cheques.
They include Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both considered possible presidential contenders in 2024.
So have Georgia's Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are fighting for their political lives in a 5 January election against two Democratic challengers. The vote will decide which party controls the Senate next year.
media caption“No end in sight”: One day inside a rural North Dakota hospital's Covid fight
But other Republicans have argued the relief bill already provides a wider safety net once its jobless benefits, rental assistance and loans to small businesses to keep workers on their payroll are taken into account.
Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said he opposed "blindly borrowing" billions of dollars to send cheques to "millions of people who haven't lost any
