A three-coloured draft list is apparently floating about in the US State Department mentioning the 43 countries that may be on President Donald Trump's ban list, according to The New York Times. Red list: Countries whose citizens are totally banned. Orange list: Visas sharply restricted. The yellow list has countries given 60 days to address the US's concerns.
The red list has a few surprising names. The most startling is the peaceful Buddhist country of Bhutan. This has come as a shock to its citizens. The only reason that could be ascribed for Bhutan citizens' ban, according to The Bhutanese, is because of a 2023 immigration scam that involved Nepalese citizens attempting to migrate to the US by calling themselves Bhutanese refugees.
The red list contains quite a few expected inclusions like North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya. Afghanistan, however, is a new entry. There are also some slightly odd omissions: Iraq is not on it.
Cuba and Venezuela in Central America and South America are on the red list.
Another of India's neighbour, Pakistan figures on the orange list, which will be a jolt to the Pakistani diaspora in the US.
Russia finds a place in the orange club. So does its ally Belarus. Though Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy received shoddy treatment at the White House it does not make the list, though the country of Trump's friend and 'genius' Vladimir Putin, with whom he has 'a very good relationship', does.
From Asia in the orange list are Laos and Myanmar.
Central Asian nation Turkmenistan too features on the orange list.
The yellow list comprises several countries whose inclusion is puzzling, like a number of Caribbean countries -- St Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica (where an Indian student has gone missing and is being tracked down with the help of the FBI).
The pretty little two-island nation, famous for having hosted a few cricket World Cup matches (in 2007), is there too on the yellow list.
Cambodia, the land of the majestic Angkor Wat, has been given a spot on the yellow list. So has a nation from Oceania, strangely: Vanuatu, where the architect of the IPL, Lalit Modi, had planned to migrate after trying for its citizenship.
And a clutch of African nations, some 16 in all, are marked yellow, the notable ones being: Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Eritrea, Liberia, Malawi, Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo and Mali.
India's Most Polluted Places
13 Tallest Temples Of India