New Delhi, India – Months ahead of a crucial general election, India‘s government plans to reserve 10 percent of government jobs for the poor, including the country’s historically privileged upper castes.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on Tuesday moved a constitution amendment bill in the lower house of parliament, seeking an increase in the cap on reservation from 50 to 60 percent.

India’s system of reservation or quota – its version of affirmative action – guarantees the historically-disadvantaged lower castes and tribes “reserved” places in government jobs, educational institutions, and even seats in parliament and state assemblies.

The amendment bill must be be backed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Indian parliament.

The government does not have a majority in the upper house, although it is not immediately clear how rival political parties would vote on the bill.

The new reservation policy, if it comes into effect, would aid households with an annual income of less than $11,000, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. 

In 2017, India’s average income was $1,939, according to the World Bank.

In any case, this income bracket would include the Indian upper middle class, which makes the proposal doubly ridiculous.

Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy

‘Appeasement of upper castes’

Critics say steps like these are precursors to doing away with caste-based reservations, a system long detested by India’s upper castes, who say the programme deprives them of opportunities.

They want the government to revise existing affirmative action policies that favour low-caste Hindus and Other Backward Classes – a collective term covering socially and educationally deprived groups.

They are actually trying to dilute the concept of reservation itself, says senior journalist Dilip Mandal, who tracks caste politics in India.

“What the government is doing now is an appeasement of the upper castes, who are already over-represented in bureaucracy, judiciary, media and echelons of corporate power,” Mandal told Al Jazeera.

“This is not meant to be a poverty alleviation programme. For that, we have other relief measures in place. Reservations were meant to give representation to all social groups, especially those historically marginalised, in nation-making. Upper castes are not historically deprived,” he added.

Hindus are traditionally grouped into various castes and membership is determined by birth. In many Indian villages, lower castes like Dalits usually till land owned by higher castes but live separately, often forbidden to share the village’s well or cemetery.

India’s lower castes, especially the Dalits, face continued social discrimination and even untouchability, despite the parliament outlawing the practice in 1955.

Growing demand for quotas

A 1992 judgement of India’s Supreme Court held that “any reservation beyond 50 percent would liable to be struck down”.

“[The bill] would not withstand judicial scrutiny. Reservations can’t be a poverty alleviation programme. They exist to remedy historical discrimination on the basis of caste, for instance. In any case, this income bracket would include the Indian upper middle class, which makes the proposal doubly ridiculous,” Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy told Al Jazeera.

“This move is a mercenary tactic to divert anger from [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi and instead pit different groups against each other to fight afresh over reservations.”

In recent years, millions of members of other communities have rallied to demand changes to this policy that, they argue, unfairly favour groups at the lower end of India’s social order.

“There is need for a wider debate on whether economic criteria should also be included while reserving government jobs. Parliament needs to discuss this threadbare,” Desh Ratan Nigam, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent body of the ruling BJP, told Al Jazeera.

Poverty does not see caste.

Desh Ratan Nigam, RSS member

“There are sections in the other 50 percent which are poor. The government has decided that there should be a criteria totally focused on poverty and not caste, creed or religion. Poverty does not see caste.” 

Rising unemployment and rural distress are also spurring farming communities across India to redouble their calls for reservations in jobs and education.

Government jobs in India are highly sought after. India’s railway network recently received 19 million applications for 63,000 jobs as cleaners and track maintainers.

The move is also emblematic of the fortuitous arrangement of votes from different caste members and tactical alliances during an election season in India.

“Modi government’s 10 percent reservations for upper castes is a lollipop to appease voters,” tweeted Jignesh Mevani, an independent Dalit legislator from the western state of Gujarat.

Modi govt’s 10% reservation for upper castes is a lollipop to appease voters.#Reservation #UpperCasteQuota

Please watch my full interview – https://t.co/K1XXI1ZtVm

— Jignesh Mevani (@jigneshmevani80) January 8, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a recent interview that the ruling BJP is confident of doing well at this year’s general election despite the party’s recent losses in state polls.

Although Hindu nationalist Modi remains popular, the 2019 election is slated to be a tough battle, with some voters feeling let down by his inability to create jobs and battle rural distress.

With moves like changes in the reservations policy, the BJP party is seeking to propel Modi to a second term in next year’s general election, due to be held by May.

United Nations – The UN’s peace deal for Hodeidah, in war-ravaged Yemen, is unravelling because the text lacked specifics on how rebel forces should vacate the Red Sea port city, the British charity Oxfam says. 

Dina el-Mamoun, the aid group’s head of policy and advocacy in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, said the UN’s Stockholm Agreement agreed last month between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government was “too vague”.

“There is an issue with the actual agreement, which is actually quite vague,” Mamoun told Al Jazeera.

“The UN should have made clear these basic issues that go to the heart of the agreement: who needs to hand over what and to whom.”

Under the terms of the UN-brokered deal, the Houthis were expected to hand over control of the ports of Hodeidah, Saleef and Ras Isa, to “local security forces in accordance with Yemeni law”.

Vague agreement

However, both sides have disagreed over the meaning of the text. The government says it means the ports should be handed over to the officials who ran the facility before the Houthis seized Hodeidah city in late 2014.

The Houthis, meanwhile, insist the deal refers to the officials currently running the port, who are their allies.

“How can the UN expect a vague agreement to translate, in reality, to what is intended without making it clear?” asked Mamoun.

“An agreement that leads us to a state of confusion over what was agreed is not what we needed.”

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, met Houthi rebels and members of his monitoring team in the country over the weekend before heading for Saudi Arabia to ensure the peace deal is fully implemented.

Skirmishes continue in and around the Red Sea port city despite the looming 21-day redeployment deadline imposed under a UN Security Council resolution, which set a withdrawal target of Tuesday.

UN spokesman Farhan Haq did not directly answer Oxfam’s criticism, but said rebel and government leaders did not agree despite a “collective recognition of the urgency” of ending hostilities.

“Despite both parties consenting to the Stockholm Agreement, there is still a lack of common interpretation of the implementation and sequencing of the Hodaidah agreement,” Haq told Al Jazeera.

“This is of course driven by the lack of trust among the parties and their apprehension with respect to making operational concessions, outside of a comprehensive political solution to the conflict in Yemen.”

Haq urged both sides to respect the ceasefire and redeploy their forces in accordance with the deal.

“Anything short of that goal could derail the fragile progress being made to address the situation in Hodaidah,” he added.

Mutual violations

Both sides have been accused of violating the ceasefire agreement over Yemen’s port city Hodeidah, with the sound of missiles and automatic gunfire a near-daily occurrence for the thousands of civilians who still reside in the city.

The agreement, the first significant breakthrough in peace efforts in five years, was part of confidence-building measures intended to pave the way for a wider truce and a framework for political negotiations.

Under the deal, international monitors are to be deployed in Hodeidah and a Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) including both sides, chaired by Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, will oversee implementation.

Cammaert’s team will not be uniformed or armed, the UN has said, but it will provide support for the management of and inspections at the ports, and strengthen the UN presence in the city.

Yemen has been wracked by violence since 2014 when the Houthis stormed south from their stronghold of Saada and overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa where they toppled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government.

The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who accuse the Houthis of being Iranian proxies, launched a military coalition that began air attacks against Houthi positions in an attempt to reinstate Hadi.

Follow James Reinl on Twitter: @jamesreinl

Saiburi, Thailand – With his hands tucked in his jacket pockets, Anas Pongpraset slightly nods towards two collapsed buildings in front of him.

“That’s where the car bomb went off,” says the 35-year-old of an explosion that rocked the Chinatown district of the small town of Saiburi in Thailand‘s deep south in 2012.

“It killed both Buddhists and Muslims. There weren’t any clues that it would happen here in the Chinese community,” he adds, his gaze fixed at the charred structures.

Fighters have been waging an armed campaign for independence in Thailand’s deep south for decades, but the conflict escalated in 2004 after a series of well-planned attacks on police and government facilities. Explosions, gunfire and organised killings shook the region as the rest of the country watched in horror.

The violence has since kept Thailand’s military on edge, yet it has caused more than death and destruction. It’s also left broken communal ties throughout the southern region, a large and diverse area that’s home to various ethnic groups, including Chinese, Thai Buddhists, Pakistanis and Thai Muslims, who make up the majority of the population.

Saiburi has been particularly hit. It’s been designated as a “red zone”, indicating that the town is more prone to be struck by violence than others.

“I watched as my hometown erupted in violence on the television set,” says Anas, recalling the clashes that hit Saiburi some 15 years ago when he was a student in Thailand’s capital. “I would see the news from Bangkok and felt depressed that there was so much violence coming from the south,” he adds.

“When I got back, I couldn’t believe the amount of military that was everywhere. The first thing I noticed was that there were bunkers, roadblocks, troops – all on the roads. Everything felt so different.”

The filmmaker and photographer says he couldn’t just ignore the lingering remnants of violence and the continuous aggression by both the Thai military and the separatists for any longer.

Instead, he decided to act.

Joining forces with other like-minded people, Anas in 2012 founded Saiburi Looker, a collective of young artists working to rebuild communal relationships and promote peace in the south through art.

The group’s activism started with artist Waearong Waeno courageously painting elaborate drawings representing peace on public walls throughout Saiburi. In a way, his paintings were the first act of silent defiance aiming to soothe the tension that permeated through the town’s streets.

“There was one time when people were so into it [public paintings] that they joined and painted alongside us – even bringing their kids along,” Waearong says. “People got the chance to have real conversations. We found that these events relieve problematic relations between the villagers, especially Thai Buddhists and Muslims. We’ve had events where the military participated and talked with the community. I think that is impressive.”

Deadly conflict

Historians trace the origin of the conflict to around 1909, during Thailand’s annexation and takeover of the Malay Sultanate of Patani. They say it began when the northern states of Malaysia were cut into separate pieces by the occupying Thai forces.

After the annexation, forced assimilation procedures created resentment among the local populace. It didn’t take long before armed campaigns by separatist groups started appearing in the 1950s with tensions brewing over the following 50 years.

In 2004, groups such as the Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Patani (BRN) increased attacks against military, government officials and teachers.

The situation deteriorated around 2012 when fighters began purposely targeting civilians from differing minorities as well. They deliberately planned attacks that would cause communal tension creating a new sense of distrust and Islamophobia towards the majority Muslim population, according to Anas. He says that prior to 2004, the various communities in the area coexisted without any major problems, adding that it’s likely that those attacks were orchestrated to destabilise communal relationships.

“Nobody trusted each other. We didn’t know who could be listening to our conversations. Everyone was scared to express themselves and there was this general sadness and fear,” Anas says.

He knows all-too-well how distrust can tear communities and families apart.

Anas’s grandfather was a prominent Muslim leader both in the south of Thailand and in neighbouring Malaysia. But his grandfather’s brother was on a military list of “extremists”. Thailand’s security forces harassed and investigated his family often, disrupting their daily lives under false suspicions that they were connected to armed groups, Anas says. It is cases like this, he adds, that broaden the sense of distrust between local Muslims and the military.

‘Slow-burn insurgency to continue’

Violence between the fighters and the military has continued to grind over the years and persists to this day, with civilians often caught in the middle. Just this week, the BRN, which spearheads the fight for independence, released a statement renewing the group’s commitment to their cause of “freedom” while also calling for more people to join the movement.

Since 2004, the conflict has resulted in more than 6,000 deaths, with some 20,000 documented attacks. Deep South Watch, a monitoring group, reported 45 incidents of violence and 26 deaths from the conflict in their latest update released in November last year.

Zachary Abuza, a specialist on the ongoing conflict and professor at National War College, says one reason why the fighting continues today is due to a lack of meaningful dialogue or compromise between the military and the separatists.

According to Abuza, communication between the military and the BRN has gotten worse in recent years, especially after Thailand’s current military government took power in 2014. He says the government has made fewer concessions to the fighters, resisting any semblance of compromise that could perhaps help ease the violence.

“The government made clear that autonomy was not on the table, they refused to implement language reforms, they have refused to have general amnesties,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Basically, the junta’s view of peace is that the militants surrender, without any meaningful concessions being made to address their core grievances. That’s why the conflict drags on … The insurgents, who have very limited resources, can escalate the violence when they want to remind the government that there are costs to not taking them seriously and stalling,” Abuza says.

“As such, the slow-burn insurgency will continue.”

‘We’re the same’

Against this background, Saiburi Looker’s members have stepped up their efforts to promote peace using art as their weapon.

Their varied events include concerts in which local musicians are encouraged to come together and perform live – anything from blues and jazz to pop and local country music.

They have also staged poetry slam events, in which participants read aloud poems on how the conflict has affected them – a form of therapy for many of those presenting, according to organisers.

Saiburi Looker’s artists say one theme has continued to appear more than any other in their events. The idea that locals in the deep south were no different from any other Thais in the country and simply wanted the same thing as everyone else: a normal and peaceful life.

The group also takes an indirect approach to combatting violence. Anas says that both the military and the armed groups are not opposed to their events, stressing the importance of remaining independent in order to be inclusive of everyone.

“We don’t directly work with the militant groups or expect to have a strong effect,” Anas clarifies. “But, if members of these groups want to come to our events and see what we’re about, we’d be happy to build a relationship with them so we can understand each other better.”

“We want people to know that we’re the same as anyone else,” Anas says, with a sense of urgency.

“There’s a lot of Islamophobia in the country. Yes, we’re Muslim, we have beards and dress differently, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do all of the same things as other Thais. We all love music, writing and art in the same way any Thai does,” he adds.

“Just because our appearances are different, doesn’t mean that we’re not the same.”

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has praised Donald Trump‘s decision last month to pull the US troops out of Syria but said the withdrawal must be done carefully and with the “right partners”.

In an op-ed article for the New York Times on Monday, a day before a scheduled meeting between Turkish officials and US NSA John Bolton, Erdogan expressed Turkey’s commitment to defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group and “other terrorist groups” in Syria.

“President Trump made the right call to withdraw from Syria. The United States withdrawal, however, must be planned carefully and performed in cooperation with the right partners to protect the interests of the United States, the international community and the Syrian people,” Erdogan wrote.

“Turkey, which has NATO’s second largest standing army, is the only country with the power and commitment to perform that task.”

In a surprise declaration, Trump on December 19 said that ISIL had been defeated in Syria and announced the withdrawal of 2,000 troops from the country.

The move left many questions open and appeared to signal a rapid withdrawal from Syria, alarming some allies such as France and Britain who warned that ISIL had not been defeated. It also heightened expectations that Turkey could launch a military operation targeting the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has spearheaded the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIL.

In recent days, Trump administration officials have made it clear that the troop withdrawal from northeastern Syria will not happen quickly. 

And on Monday, Trump in an apparent reversal said the fight against ISIL was not over and that withdrawal would be done in a “prudent” manner.

“We will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

His statement followed a trip by NSA Bolton to Israel in which he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that withdrawal would not happen before “ISIS is defeated and not able to revive itself”.

Bolton also said the pullout would take place in a manner that “absolutely assured” the security of Israel and other regional allies.

On Monday, he arrived in Turkey from Israel in a bid to hammer out a deal for Washington’s Kurdish allies.

“We don’t think the Turks ought to undertake military action that’s not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States,” Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem on Sunday.

The US alliance with the YPG, which it has helped arm and train, has been one of the main stumbling blocks in relations with Ankara because of the group’s ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Since 1984, the PKK has waged a war against Turkey that has led to more than 40,000 deaths.

Ankara regards both Kurdish groups as “terrorist” organisations.

‘Direct channel to Trump’

Hillary Mann Leverett, a former US diplomat, said Erdogan in his op-ed is “speaking directly” to his US counterpart.

“He needs to do so because Bolton, who has been in Israel, is now going to Turkey and we know that Bolton has a very different view of Turkey, of Syria, of Israel than President Erdogan – and even President Trump,” she told Al Jazeera.

“So Erdogan is trying to continue building on his direct channel to President Trump through his phone calls, through an op-ed on the New York Times, a newspaper that Donald Trump reads. His audience is the one and only, President Trump.”

In his op-ed, Erdogan also warned that the international community should avoid making the same mistakes in Syria as in Iraq.

“The lesson of Iraq, where this terrorist group (ISIL) was born, is that premature declarations of victory and the reckless actions they tend to spur create more problems than they solve,” he wrote.

“The first step is to create a stabilisation force featuring fighters from all parts of Syrian society. Only a diverse body can serve all Syrian citizens and bring law and order to various parts of the country.”

Mann Leverett said Erdogan is trying to present Turkey “as the credible partner for the US in Syria” and the wider region.

“The US may have wanted to work more closely with Russia when Trump was first elected but the US policy towards Russia has all but collapsed under the weight of the domestic investigation [into alleged election meddling] here, and Trump cannot work with Iran because he’s boxed himself in so much with Iran, the other key player in Syria,” she said, referring to the two major backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“So really Turkey is the only player and Turkey under Erdogan is trying to present itself as a player that the US can work with, as a major NATO ally and an important country.”