COUNTRY REVIEWS

South Asia

Bangladesh

• PM proposes an all-party polls-time government by mid-November; Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka along with his Bangladeshi counterpart in India met Prime Minister Hasina; US, Japan, Canada and China express their concern at the violence arising from political turmoil in Bangladesh; President visits London to attend the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum

Maldives

• Elections Commission of Maldives has rejected a joint proposal by all three presidential candidates to conduct election on November 2; Inflation rate of the Maldives rose by 3.4 percent between September 2012 and September 2013; President has denied the allegations made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; High Commissioner of India to the Maldives’s vehicle attacked

CENTRAL ASIA & RUSSIA

Russia

• Foreign Ministers of Russian and UK discuss developments in Syria; Russia and Italy discuss the Syria situation; Russia to hand over S-300 air defence units to Belarus; Russia and Belarus are developing a programme for improving military infrastructure; Russia and Greece strengthen their bilateral ties; Russia and Nicaragua sign a memorandum of international security cooperation; Russia and China discuss military-technical cooperation; Ecuadorian President pays a visit to Russia; Ukraine to settle its natural gas debt with Russia; Russia and Japan hold ministerial level talks in Tokyo

DEFENCE REVIEW

National

• Air Marshal Arup Raha to be the next Chief of the Air Staff; A large scale annual operational exercise of the Western Naval Command of the Indian Navy held off the littorals of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

International

• Russia delivers 12 Mi-17 V-5 military transport helicopters to the United States for the Afghan National Army.