Taliban to Host First Public Victory Day Reception in India

The Taliban is set to host its first public "Victory Day" reception in India on August 17, marking five years since their return to power in Afghanistan.

Noor Ahmed Noor, the Taliban's chargé d’affaires at the Afghan embassy in New Delhi, will host the event, with diplomats, prominent society members, Afghan diaspora, and media representatives expected to attend. The Indian government is also anticipated to be represented. This reception signals growing engagement between New Delhi and the Taliban regime. Noor, the first Taliban-appointed official in New Delhi, arrived in January and has interacted with India's Ministry of External Affairs.

The Taliban's five-year anniversary in power, on August 15, 2021, comes as Afghanistan faces challenges, particularly regarding women's rights. U.N. Women reported that half of Afghan women now leave their homes only once or twice a month due to Taliban-imposed restrictions on freedom of movement and public life. Afghanistan remains the only country globally to ban girls from secondary education and women from attending university.

The Taliban authorities have issued over 100 decrees targeting women and girls, institutionalizing discrimination. Saif-ul-Islam Khyber, spokesperson for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, asserts that women have access to all their rights and that reports of women not feeling safe are false. Human Rights Watch reported that six staff members of the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation were forcibly disappeared in July, and two Afghan employees of the U.N. mission were detained in Herat on Sunday.