 A ceasefire deal has been reached in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh after a brief round of fighting. Why are tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the rise again? The Indian government has introduced a bill for a 33% quota for women in national and state legislatures. Now, this has been a long-time demand of women's movements, but what is the devil in the details? Finally, health workers, researchers and activists are gathering over the next few days to discuss capitalism, pandemics and public health. Why is this discussion important? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before you go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. A ceasefire has been announced in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh after fighting broke out on Tuesday. Azerbaijan had launched what it called anti-terrorism operations, claiming that neighboring Armenia's forces were gathering in the region in violation of an earlier ceasefire deal. Now Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, but it has a majority Armenian population. And the two countries have been in a conflict over this region for decades. We go to Abdul to understand the latest from the region. Abdul got a complicated situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. You have mentioned it in a couple of episodes in the past. It seems like something breaks out there every few months. So before going to the latest developments, could you just maybe give us a very brief history of why this region is so, you know, conflicted and what is the contest about it, so to speak? Well, it is primarily a dispute over the some ethnic right to self determination, which has been basically in a in focus primarily since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-91. After that, when the Azerbaijan and Armenia emerged as two independent republics, there were populations in Azerbaijan, Armenian population in Azerbaijan, which basically did not want to remain in Azerbaijan and declare independent republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Of course, the territory is not recognized as independent by the global community. It is recognized as a part of Azerbaijan. But the status quo was maintained due to the ceasefire agreement which was signed in 1994. And ever since this conflict has not been resolved, and from time to time Azerbaijan tries to assert sovereignty over the territory, claiming that Armenia is basically using Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh to basically incite a separatist movement there. So it has become a very complex issue despite the fact that there is a global dissident about resolving the issue of either through territorial exchange or the exchange of population. None of the countries in the region and at the global stage have been able to convince either of two countries to basically look for structural solutions. And that basically has led to the persistence of the crisis. So there has been three different level of wars, full-fledged war between both the countries, sometimes involving the regional players as well leading to the death of thousands of people. Since 1991 till 2020, there was a kind of again a ceasefire agreement after months of conflict, months of fighting, which basically led to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers. Around 2000 Russian peacekeepers were there, but despite the fact that there were Russian peacekeepers, the conflict between both the countries did not die down. And Azerbaijan has been claiming for a very long time that Armenia has basically trying to deploy troops there, has basically interfered in the region and so and so forth. And Armenians or the other have been complaining about Azerbaijan using quote unquote non-state actors to basically harass the Armenian population there. So the background has always been hostile and basically and that's what you can say is the reason behind the latest round of conflict also. Right, thankfully this round seems to have been resolved relatively quickly though because although they have been a number of deaths reported, so could you just take us through what happened in the past 24 hours as well? Well, on Tuesday, Azerbaijan started a kind of quote unquote military, local military campaign against what it claimed the terrorist element. The Azerbaijan government claimed that Azerbaijan has used the ceasefire agreement signed in 2000 to basically amass its troops in Armenia, in sorry, in Nagorno-Karabakh, which basically threatens the larger security of not only the Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani claims over Nagorno-Karabakh, but also threatens the Azerbaijani sovereignty. And that basically led to the intervention. Azerbaijan government also claimed that there was local elections held in Nagorno-Karabakh earlier this month and that local election it claimed was basically an attempt by the Armenians to undermine the Azeri sovereignty over the territory. So all these things led to basically that was the claim by the Azerbaijan government which basically quote unquote justified from their point of view the military intervention there. So the military intervention within 24 hours it got resolved, as there is a ceasefire agreement signed, but within these 24 hours there are of course different numbers around 7 to 28, there are numbers vary, people have been killed, reportedly killed and more than 200 people including the combatants reported to be injured. Russia, United Nations, other global parts basically intervened immediately and due to the multiple interventions one can say basically this ceasefire agreement was signed soon. But nevertheless the base of the conflict remains the same until the global players kind of take a decisive move and try to address the issue of the territory and the Armenian population there. This ceasefire again means nothing, this will continue in the future and we should, we will see much more conflict in the future as well. Prim Prognosis Abdul but also quickly you mentioned that this is also over time become a bit of a regional conflict also. So what are the stances taken by various regional players when it is all this issue? Well there are two major players when it comes to regional geo-strategy geopolitical calculations. One is Turkey which basically has overtly supported the Azeri attempts to regain control over Nagorno-Karabakh by force if possible and in 2020 in particular it was openly providing armaments and other diplomatic support to the Azeri move into the territory and Russians of course who basically have tried to play a much more mediated role to bring both the parties on the table and because this conflict in the region threatens Russia's stability in a larger region and that is not in the interest of Russia and Russia also thinks that this conflict is used by the US and other global powers to basically find a space to intervene and in the region and kind of threaten the overall stability of both the because there is also Georgia nearby which also has similar conflicts going on and if this conflict continues the way it is continuing it will basically provide a larger excuse for the interventions by the countries which is not desirable for the regional peace. So Russia has been trying to kind of play a role of a peace mediator between both the countries but it has not been very successful in that so far. Thanks so much Abdul for talking to us like I said like you said this is a conflict which keeps you know bubbling at various points of time and definitely it's been decades now like you said resolution still very elusive as of now thank you so much for talking to us. It's been a season of high political drama in India after a high-profile G20 summit the country's new parliament building was inaugurated with great pomp and fanfare in a special session of the legislature. Now the right wing Narendra Modi government also dropped a political bombshell by introducing a bill that will give women 33% reservation in parliament and state legislatures. This proposal has been pending approval for years even as women's organizations have been waging a consistent struggle for it. So the introduction of this bill should have been a cause for celebration throughout the political spectrum but there is a catch. This bill which is likely to be passed in the coming days will not be implemented now in fact it may take many years for its implementation. This has been widely criticized and many say this is a savvy publicity move by the government which faces elections in 2024. We go to Pragya Singh of Newsclick to understand more. Pragya thank you so much for joining us so quite a progressive bill it seems like on the face of it but there seems to be a bit of a catch when it comes to its implementation so before we go into the bit of a history of this bill could you maybe take us through what immediately people are saying as far as this bill's implementation is concerned. Right Prashant it is actually a very progressive idea but the problem with the bill that the government has introduced in the new parliament building as a sort of showcase of how concerned it is about women is basically it doesn't have a deadline the statement of objects and reasons of any bill contains a timeline of its implementation here the timeline is incumbent it's contingent on two other very significant developments first taking place which are in the government's hands which is to redraw the limits of the electoral constituencies across the country and that itself will be based on a fresh census operation which takes all of this will take at least a couple of years each so what it essentially and we do not know what are the other contingencies that will arise in the in the future so the criticism that is coming from the women's groups actually quite a large number of women have demanded reservation in the parliament and in the state assemblies for decades three decades and they say that whenever it comes to women's issues and women's rights it's contingent their conditions attached and that is what is being done again right so in this context also you mentioned it already but could you give us a brief history of why this proposal on the like you said the radical proposal is a very important proposal 33 percent of seats for women but why is it that it has been pending for so long exactly I mean that's where the intention comes in right now successive governments have tabled the bill in the parliament and the rules are such the rules of how the parliament functions are such that bills most bills tend to lapse unless they are cleared by both houses of parliament within an ongoing session so I'm just giving you the the picture in the broad strokes of it so at every point at which this bill has been introduced there have been objections sometimes it's about whether the women's quota or the women's reservation should include a sub quota or separate reservations within this reservation for people from disadvantaged communities the extent of reservation itself has been a matter of very hotly contested discussions and I think even this year women's groups have said that look I mean 33 percent was a bare minimum we demanded then back in the 80s when women were out on the streets agitating and demanding a fair share in representation and today when you have already got a certain number of women at the lowest level of representation at the rural level and at the at the town and city level then at this point we should be ready for 50 percent why not 50 percent reservation the other set of you know the problems with this bill also include the fact that you know there's an accusation that the ruling BJP is using it as an election manifesto meaning that it will be a promise which they're not really in a position to implement immediately not just that they're not giving you a timeline for when it will happen so it will seem like something great is happening but we don't really know whether it will and this has been a successive problem a consistent problem with this particular ruling party from the time it came to power in 2014 under the current dispensation the the other fundamental issue that women are raising is that this party owes itself its existence to a rather right-wing fundamentalist Hindu organization which has repeatedly made statements against women so the question is that is there a fundamental change in how they see women is there going to be a sort of push for representation of women who support their ideology how are they going to ensure against all these questions arise but the basic question Trishan is that this is not going to happen in time for the next national election 2024 we do not know when it is going to actually kick into action so it's a wait and watch game and this has played out repeatedly when it comes to women in in the sense it has angered women as much as it has given some of us hope that well this might actually see the end of day thank you Prager so much for that analysis and I think no wonder that many people are saying that this government has been in power since 2014 with a majority but it's nothing has happened on this on these lines so far thank you so much for talking to us thanks Trishan and finally the 19th International Association of Health Policy in Europe conference is set to begin on September 21st in Greece on the theme of capitalism pandemic and public health now the pandemic's impact continues to linger in various ways and if there was one thing it demonstrated it is that capitalism contributed to worsening the crisis from austerity policies and privatization to vaccine inequity the hand of capitalism was and continues to be visible everywhere and hence to get a sense of the discussions that will be held we go to Anna of the People's Health Movement Anna thank you so much for joining us we don't often discuss conferences on this show but the theme of this specific conference which is capitalism pandemic and public health is something that is very dear to us something we have covered a lot on this show so maybe first a very general question as when you're talking about we understand why pandemics and public health would be talked about in a conference of professionals and researchers on this subject but it's interesting that capitalism is also very central to this discussion so maybe could you take us through the gamut of issues or the larger picture why capitalism itself is so central to this debate when we're talking about pandemics and public health absolutely and I think it's a very well made point so essentially when we talk about the international association for health policy in Europe it's a very particular organization specifically because it tries to bring together the academic research but also the activist picture so it's a very specific conference in the context of Europe because it's not only about academics coming to discuss topics that we have you know talked on and on about and we have collected data on but they come to discuss it with activists who are actually living through what the data is showing and this kind of openness to different opinions and to different perspectives is something that makes the conference unique and I think that if we look back at so at the past editions of this conference this is the 19th if I'm not if I'm not mistaken it has shown that this kind of approach actually makes a more constructive it leads to more constructive outcomes because it essentially does what we should be doing in practice all the time so you know working together both on the theory and on the practice of things so in order to achieve the right to health as it was originally meant right and in this context of course also looking at the present situation in Europe we've talked about this in various episodes in the past I think we can definitely see what is more than a crisis in one country it's definitely a systemic crisis spurred by certain common factors so could you maybe also take us through some of those factors which are you know which are indicative of the crisis yeah and I think we're talking about many many crises in Europe at this time but essentially what the program of the conference is trying to do is trying to capture the main issues that have come up over the past few years so we'll hear discussions about academic freedom which is a key issue in several countries so of course not only in Europe but also in Palestine and in other countries and specifically because we have seen that the crackdown on progressive academics and specifically on progressive medical associations is becoming more difficult more difficult to handle so one of the speakers will be the president of the Turkish Medical Association who was jailed as we have spoken on the show also before because of the work of the good work that the Turkish Medical Association does we will also have the chance to hear from Shada Odeh who spent one year in an Israeli jail also because of the good work that was being done on the ground but in addition to these topics there will also be spaces to discuss different approaches to climate justice which we have seen is becoming a major topic in Europe but what is still unclear is you know how to make sure that the European response to the climate crisis is actually something that benefits the global south instead of being focused only on the global north this is something that will definitely be a prominent debate in the conference and then of course finally you know the whole issue of privatization the whole issue of how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled in Europe including the discussion on vaccines and on and including the discussion about Europe's responsibility towards ensuring that the world should have swift access to the vaccine and our responsibility that Europe failed majorly when in will be there to be discussed and so I mentioned some names so there will be quite prominent speakers present at at the conference including the conference organizers who are from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Alexis Benos and Elias Kondelis among others but there will also be plenty of space for younger researchers and young activists to present what they're working on and I think this is another dimension that the conference is really specific for because it essentially provides the space for people who are trying to investigate new things and who are trying to bring new perspectives into the overall discussion about health activism and health research it gives them the space to do so and to meet peers from from different parts of Europe. Absolutely right of course also another issue I suppose would also be the question of staffing and recruitment itself which is connected to privatization the question of austerity as well we've talked about in the past the issue of how you know the shortage of or the deficit of health professionals in Europe is trying to if the attempt is to meet it by recruiting from the global south as well which really makes matters in the global south much worse. Yeah yeah that's true and of course you know the I think that what we see at the conference is that there are a lot of health workers but not only health workers in the sense that they research healthcare but those health workers who are actually coming from the hospitals and they're coming from migrant backgrounds and they're essentially here at the conference to talk about what they experience and how the overall staffing shortage is impacting them in their everyday work so it's something quite important to keep in mind that you know the shortages that we keep talking about they have very particular impacts on the people who are actually doing healthcare work. Absolutely thank you so much Ana we'll probably track the conference in the coming days as well the pandemic is you know its impact definitely still very much lingering in all of our societies and I think very important to keep talking about it so thank you so much. That's all we have in this episode of Daily Deep Brief do tune in tomorrow for a fresh episode also visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and or check out all our social media platforms and if you're watching this on YouTube and haven't hit that subscribe button already please do see you tomorrow.