Category: Nation India

Amidst Deadly Pandemic, Work At Delhi’s Rajpath As Central Vista Redevelopment Project Takes Shape

Staff ReporterNation India 0

Over the past several weeks, New Delhi’s iconic Rajpath stretch that has India Gate as the backdrop has witnessed drastic changes as the ambitious Central Vista redevelopment project takes shape. Trenches dug on the sides of the road and red road blockers have replaced the iconic chain link fence and lamp posts. The path leading up to the Rashtrapati Bhavan too is fenced with yellow boards set up by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), which read: ‘Development/ Redevelopment of Central Vista Avenue’.

Officials from HCP Design, Planning and Management, the architectural consultant of the Central Vista project, have said the original design elements of the area will be kept intact to a large extent after work is complete.

Media reports say, barring a few construction workers, Rajpath wore a deserted look. Officials from the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) said they are trying to meet the initial deadlines despite fewer workers showing up in the past few days.

Against the backdrop of a Covid-induced lockdown, workers said they have been issued e-passes and are being paid daily wages since the lockdown. Sanjay (27), a contractual worker with MTNL, said he has been coming every day so that he has some savings in case they are barred from working in the near future. The men travel to work and back home in a rented two-wheeler.

“Earlier, there were eight of us. But now only four of us can come to work in a vehicle. When the others tried to come, we were issued a challan so they don’t come any more,” said Sanjay, who lives in Bhatti Mines with his family of five. He said they will have to sustain on the meagre amount his wife earns from tailoring work, in case his work stops.

The four men dug a trench to bury existing underground wires further underground, saying this was being done since sewerage work will begin soon and some public amenities might be underground. According to a CPWD official, digging of an underground passageway is about to begin.

The redevelopment at Rajpath, under Phase I of the project, is aimed at making the area pedestrian friendly and providing better amenities for visitors and tourists. This includes refurbishing the lawns, creating underpasses at Janpath and C Hexagon crossing with Rajpath, building wide walkways or footpaths parallel to the avenue, and constructing low-level bridges at 12 selected locations.

Other amenities include toilets, drinking water facilities, vending areas, parking spaces, signages, lighting and CCTV cameras.

More trees will also line the lawn, with the plan envisaging increasing green cover from 3,50,000 sq mts to 3,90,000 sq mts. Also under Phase 1, a sewerage treatment plant will be set up for recycling of waste water along with rainwater harvesting systems and water supply systems.

Book, “India And Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present” By Shivshankar Menon Shows Light At Modern India’s Role In Asia’s And The Broader World

Staff ReporterEducation, Nation India 0

One of India’s most distinguished foreign policy thinkers addresses the many questions facing India as it seeks to find its way in the increasingly complex world of Asian geopolitics. A former Indian foreign secretary and national security adviser, Shivshankar Menon traces India’s approach to the shifting regional landscape since its independence in 1947. From its leading role in the “nonaligned” movement during the cold war to its current status as a perceived counterweight to China, India often has been an after-thought for global leaders—until they realize how much they needed it.

Examining India’s own policy choices throughout its history, Menon focuses in particular on India’s responses to the rise of China, as well as other regional powers. Menon also looks to the future and analyzes how India’s policies are likely to evolve in response to current and new challenges.

As India grows economically and gains new stature across the globe, both its domestic preoccupations and international choices become more significant. India itself will become more affected by what happens in the world around it. Menon makes a powerful geopolitical case for an India increasingly and positively engaged in Asia and the broader world in pursuit of a pluralistic, open, and inclusive world order.

Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University. His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy, disarmament policy, and India’s relations with its neighbours and major global powers. Menon served as national security advisor to the Indian Prime Minister from January 2010 to May 2014. He currently serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. He was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He is the author of “Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy” published by the Brookings Press and Penguin Random House in 2016. His new book, “India and Asian Geopolitics; The Past, Present” is likely to be out in 2021.

Menon has previously served as foreign secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009 and as ambassador and high commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). From 2008 to 2014, he was also a member of India’s Atomic Energy Commission. A career diplomat, he also served in India’s missions to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva and the United Nations in New York.

As high commissioner of India to Pakistan, Menon restored high commissioner level relations after a gap of a year and a half and initiated what is so far the best period in the two countries’ relationship. He also served as India’s ambassador to China, restoring relations following the India nuclear weapons tests of 1998. During his work as high commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, he was responsible for the free trade agreement with Sri Lanka. Menon was the second Indian ambassador to Israel and oversaw the beginning of the now flourishing India-Israel defence and intelligence relationship.

During his service in the Ministry of External Affairs from 1992 to 1995, Menon negotiated the first boundary related agreement between the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China, the root of the subsequent series of agreements that have maintained peace on the border despite ongoing boundary disputes. He also served as special representative of the prime minister of India on the boundary issue from 2010 to 2014, and has dealt with the India-China boundary and India-China relations since 1974.

Menon has been a Richard Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies at MIT and Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University. In 2010, he was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” He attended the Scindia School, Gwalior and St. Stephens College of the University of Delhi, where he studied ancient Indian history and Chinese. He speaks Chinese and some German.

Praise of India and Asian Geopolitics

“In this brilliant examination of India’s recent past as an Asian power, the distinguished Indian diplomat Shivshankar Menon gives us much to consider about its future as well. His evocation of India as central to Asia’s geopolitics and yet also set apart from it is a major contribution to our understanding of this great, rising power in this Asian century.”
—Nicholas Burns, former U.S. under secretary of state; professor, Harvard University

“This book is a tour de force by one of today’s most perceptive strategic thinkers. Menon deftly surveys how India has navigated its geopolitical environment in the past, while illuminating the international landscape and challenges it faces today. Anyone interested in Asia’s future should read this book.”
—M. Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, and director, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“An important work that restores India into the Asian story, and a timely reminder that active engagement with Asia and the world will not just be a choice, but also a necessity for New Delhi.”
—Tanvi Madan, senior fellow and director of the India Project, the Brookings Institution

“Shivshankar Menon is one of the most distinguished diplomats in the world. In his latest book, he has brilliantly laid out the stages of India from independence to the rise of Modi. When he looks to history, he focuses on Asian geopolitics. But when he turns to the future, he opens the aperture to the global trend of illiberality. He believes India, with no existential outside threat and a vast diversity in its populace, can afford expansive rights of all its citizens.”
—Strobe Talbott, distinguished fellow, the Brookings Institution; U.S. deputy secretary of state (1994–2001)

“India and Asian Geopolitics: The past, present by Shivshankar Menon (Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2021) may, at first glance, appear to be primarily on India. But it is about Asia as a whole, its past, present and future in the context of global developments.”
—Eurasia Review

Modi-Led BJP Trounced In 3 Key Indian State Polls. Mamata Emerges As Contender On National Political Stage

Staff ReporterNation India 0

In the state Assembly elections held last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP has been defeated by regional parties, in spite of major efforts by Modi and leaders from the Hindutva party that is in power in India for the past 7 years.

In the state Assembly elections held last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP had sought to expand its footprint in the country’s east and south, where it has struggled to gain traction. The long awaited elections results in the five states that went to the polls have come as a huge shock to Modi and his Hindutva ideology-led party that is governing India for the past seven years.

India held its biggest democratic exercise in two years over the past month, with 175 million people eligible to vote in five regional elections. But the marathon polls involved huge rallies where many attendees were maskless, and a record-breaking coronavirus spike coincided with the final phases of voting.

In West Bengal, incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress won around 72% of 292 seats up for grabs, while Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party took 77, according to results posted on the Election Commission of India. Last month, the prime minister predicted his party would win more than 200 seats in the state, which held voting over eight phases starting on March 27.

Modi’s opponents won in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while his party kept power in the northeastern state of Assam and gained the federally-controlled territory of Puducherry, where it contested in alliance with a regional party.

In Puducherry, a small former French colony previously known as Pondicherry, the BJP was expected to come to power through an alliance amid efforts to increase its presence in the country’s south, where it has been traditionally weak.

In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, M.K. Stalin returned his DMK party to power after a decade by defeating an incumbent coalition that has the BJP as its national partner.

In Kerala in the south, where the BJP until now has played only a bit part, a justify-wing alliance retained power with a comfortable victory over a Congress-led coalition. It was the first time a government in the state had been re-elected since 1977.

The Congress party, which was expected to win at least two states but could not do, failing to wrest Assam from the BJP and Kerala from the justify, still insists that it is the only option to BJP.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said: “Congress is the sole national party which is alternative to the BJP as it is fighting BJP in all the states.”

But the messages from the leaders of regional parties indicate that Banerjee, whose Trinamool which was once part of the UPA, has shown her mettle by single-handedly defeating the BJP and in a convincing manner.

In a victory speech later Sunday, 66-year-old Banerjee said West Bengal’s “immediate challenge is to combat the Covid-19 and we are confident that we will win This victory has saved the humanity, the people of India. It’s the victory of India,” Banerjee, a fierce critic of Modi, added.

After winning a bitterly-fought battle with the BJP to record her third successive victory in the West Bengal Assembly elections, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee seems to have emerged as a formidable challenge to the Centre’s ruling party.

With almost all the results counted, the Trinamool Congress party (TMC) led by the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has won more than 200 seats in the 294-seat assembly. The results are set to make Ms Banerjee the leader of West Bengal for a third time. She is also India’s only female chief minister.

With leaders of different regional parties, including NCP chief Sharad Pawar, sending her congratulatory massages, the message from the Assembly election is clear that Banerjee is capable of taking the challenge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, and combating it successfully.

The BJP targeted West Bengal heavily during campaigning but the state was comfortably held by the incumbent, Mamata Banerjee, a fierce Modi critic.  Her win came as a surprise to political observers, who noted how much time and money the BJP invested in the state.

The poll results show that people of West Bengal have rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party’s attempt to polarise the elections. The BJP, which had justify no stone unturned to dislodge the Banerjee government, could not cross three-digit figure despite its claims of getting 200-plus seats out of the state’s 294.

The reason behind Banerjee’s masterful performance was admitted by a BJP leader, who said that their leadership “failed to understand the pulse of Bengal and its culture”. “And that is the reason despite leading in 121 Assembly constituencies in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, we are facing difficulties in winning over 100 seats in less than a two-year period.”

“People rejected politics of polarization or communal politics. Muslim votes polarized in favor of the Trinamool while the Bengali Hindu also rejected communal politics and voted for the Trinamool,” the BJP leader said.

The alleged gross failures of Modi’s administrative management of the second wave of Covid were reflected in the West Bengal mandate. The BJP could win only 24 of the 114 seats that went to the polls in the last three phases, when the pandemic had turned traumatic.

With thousands of Modi critics campaigning for his resignation, and the BJP’s electoral debacle adding fuel to their demands, the pro-Hindu party is indeed at a crossroads in its history. “The BJP has met its match and lost,” says Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor, praising the success of Mamata Banerjee, the leader of Trinamool (Grassroots) Congress, a party based in West Bengal.

Here lay the folly. This aggrandizement — a characteristic of Modi’s politics — epitomized the sloppiness and errors in electoral strategy. The BJP underestimated the influence of Banerjee in the state and ignored the Minorities, who are known for voting against Modi’s party.

“As three strongly anti-BJP regional leaders have emerged victorious, they are likely to be the nucleus of the opposition challenge to Modi in the months ahead as he battles the backlash to his mismanagement of the Covid crisis,” said Arati Jerath, a New Delhi-based author and political analyst who has written about Indian politics for nearly three decades. The results weaken the government and indicate there are “huge political and constitutional challenges ahead for Modi.”

India Pursued Assertive Foreign Policy In 2020, Says US Defense Intelligence Agency

Staff ReporterGlobal, Nation India 0

India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pursued an assertive foreign policy in 2020 aimed at demonstrating the country’s strength and its perception as a net provider of security in the strategically vital Indian Ocean Region, a top American intelligence agency has said.

The Defense Intelligence Agency also told lawmakers adding that New Delhi also hardened its approach towards an aggressive China. “Throughout 2020, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi’s government pursued an assertive foreign policy aimed at demonstrating India’s strength and its perception as a net provider of security in the Indian Ocean Region,” Scott Berrier, Gen Director of Defense Intelligence Agency told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a Congressional hearing on worldwide threats.

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, New Delhi played a leading role in delivering medical equipment to countries throughout South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, facilitating the evacuation of Indians and other South Asians from virus hotspots, he said on Friday.

“India hardened its approach towards China following a deterioration in bilateral relations that followed Chinese efforts to take Indian-claimed territory along the disputed Line of Actual Control border beginning in the summer of 2020,” Berrier said.

In response to the June clash between Indian and Chinese troops, and the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers, New Delhi responded by deploying an additional 40,000 troops, artillery, tanks, and aircraft to the disputed border, occupying strategic mountain passes in disputed territory, and sending Indian Navy ships to shadow Chinese ships in the Gulf of Aden, it said.

India also implemented economic measures meant to signal its resolve against China, including banning Chinese mobile phone apps and taking steps to use trustworthy vendors of telecommunications, he told the lawmakers.

According to Berrier, India also maintained an assertive approach on its border with Pakistan, refusing to engage in diplomatic dialogue in the absence of Pakistani action to end support to anti-Indian militant groups.

Tensions remain high in the aftermath of the 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack and subsequent military reactions, and the Modi government’s August 2019 action ‘to curtail Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy by revising the Indian Constitution’.

The Indian Army units along the Line of Control border periodically conducted artillery strikes targeting suspected militant camps and Pakistan Army positions throughout the year.

India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire agreement in late February 2021, but any high-profile militant attacks by suspected Pakistan-based groups will likely elicit an Indian military response that could escalate to military confrontation, he said.

“New Delhi is continuing to pursue a wide-ranging military modernisation effort encompassing air, ground, naval, and strategic nuclear forces with an emphasis on domestic defence production.

‘It will continue its longstanding defence relationship with Russia because of the large amount of Russian-origin equipment in India’s inventory and Moscow’s willingness to assist New Delhi in strengthening its domestic defence industry,” Berrier said.

India continued to develop its own hypersonic, ballistic, cruise, and air defence missile capabilities, conducting approximately a dozen tests since September.

India has a growing number of satellites in orbit and is expanding its use of space assets, likely pursuing offensive space capabilities to boost the role space assets play in its military strategy.

It conducted a successful ASAT (anti-satellite) missile test in March 2019, and has since announced plans to define further the role of ASAT weapons in its National Security Strategy.

New Delhi also seeks to build space expertise with the formation of its Defence Space Agency and through space warfare exercises, such as IndSpaceEx held in July 2019.

Berrier also told lawmakers that the Pakistan military continues to execute counterterrorism operations against militant groups that pose a threat to it. These efforts have been successful in reducing violence from some anti-Pakistan militant, terrorist, and sectarian groups in Pakistan.

“However, we assess these groups remain capable of conducting mostly small-scale attacks and occasional high-profile attacks. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan—an anti-Pakistan militant group—was weakened by leadership losses, but recently announced its reunification with two splinter groups to bolster its capabilities,” he said.

“While Pakistani intelligence continues to provide material support and safe haven to the Taliban, Islamabad continues to support Afghan peace efforts, encouraging the Taliban to engage in dialogue with the Afghan Government,” he added.

Berrier said that Pakistan’s relations with India continue to remain tense since New Delhi’s August 2019 revocation of Kashmir’s semiautonomous status.

During the year, tensions with India probably will remain elevated, and concerted efforts by both sides to fully implement the February 25, 2021 ceasefire will be necessary to reduce tension along the Line of Control.

Pakistan perceives nuclear weapons as key to its national survival, specifically to counter the threat from India’s growing conventional force superiority, and likely will increase its nuclear stockpile in 2021.

To that end, Pakistan continues to modernise and expand its nuclear capabilities by conducting training with its deployed weapons and testing developmental missiles.  (Courtesy: The Council for Strategic Affairs)

Politics of Pandemic in India

Prakash WaghmareHealth, Nation India, News 0

Current Covid-19 (Corona) situation in India is quite grave. There is no denying that the mistakes were made on multiple fronts which resulted into Corona taking awful tolls across the country. The central government’s errors were compounded by the State governments (govt). During the first corona-wave when the central-govt took over all the precautionary elements into its own hand, the State-govts cried out loud labeling it as ‘authoritarian’ or ‘dictatorial’. The central-govt ultimately gave in to their demands in the last quarter of 2020 and provided them instead, enough funds to fight this beastly virus. The money was supposed to be used for PPT kits, essential medicines, setting up bed-facilities and to procure Oxygen-equipment but nothing of that sort happened. The States showed complete laxity to take any proactive step, the moment they felt that Corona was receding. No one knows what the States did with their money. Maharashtra Govt in particular, which had 1/3 of cases and 1/4 of deaths started shutting down the bed facilities. When India was basking in the praise of the western world as the ‘role model’ for the containment of Corona, the Central and the State govts should have collectively started preparations for the impending second wave of the pandemic. This did not happen. Although in democracy, the elections are inevitable come what may, there should have been complete clamp down on rallies, however unrealistic this may sound. The central-govt should not have permitted any religious gatherings (including ‘Kumbh-Mela’ – April 2021), processions to take place, although Corona had started taking enormous tolls weeks before (February-March 2021) such gatherings. The collective lapses sent wrong signals to the public. Nevertheless, the fatal expansion of Corona squarely rests with ‘the public at large’. People not only disregarded the severity of Corona by not following mandated safety precautions, but also, started all their routine activities and celebrations, as if it did not exist. This had deadly consequences.

Covid-19 is a global phenomenon but in India it is being tossed around like a political football whose ultimate goal is, not only to project how the country is on the brink of ‘Armageddon’, but also, to emphasize how inept and insensitive the current administration is. The major players in this game are the opposition political parties and their surrogates. Scores of leading opposition political leaders who are now clamoring for vaccines, had earlier not only mocked the idea of vaccination, but also, had floated vigorous anti-vaccine campaign. The current shortage of ‘oxygen’ has everything to do with the lethargy of the State-govts. The Central-govt had sectioned 162 oxygen generating PSA plants for strategic areas across India but the States collectively set only 33 plants and blamed the Central-govt for their own ineptitude. Make no mistake, in this game, some national and international Medias are also involved. Instead of reporting positive inspiring stories, they mass-marketed unflattering, exaggerated or sometimes even fake stories. The international Media has converged on India’s plight as if it is the biggest calamity the world has ever witnessed. When China, the birthplace of Covid-19 and the global capital of misinformation, recently planted a mischievous tweet on the social-media, it was summarily condemned by a major news organization in U.S. We all know how a leading New York tabloid, couple of weeks back, used a picture of a roadside dead body from some gas leakage somewhere, to support their claim, ‘how the people in India are dying on the streets’. This is not an isolated incidence. Scandal-sniffing notorious British press isn’t less offensive either. The international media-cartel has never publicized the complicity of their own govts in the current crisis. As per WHO, 87% of vaccines have been cornered by high-income countries and only 0.2% of vaccines have gone to poor countries. The Indian ‘netizens’ who also now include numerous private TV channels, have proved themselves equal to so-called ‘yellow journalism’ by exposing all the falsification and putting it against rock-solid proofs. When, opposition parties are harping on the sorry conditions in the country, it is worth noting that none of their cadre or party-workers are seen anywhere helping out the masses. In their stark absence, the people have taken things into their own hands. At this moment, lot of caregiving is being done by numerous social or religious local organizations. All these organizations are collectively providing hundreds of thousands of meals to the needy people; setting up thousands of beds and acquiring necessary equipment & medications, where possible. Spearheading these efforts, nationwide, are RSS, VHP volunteers.

It is true that the healthcare system in India is simply overwhelmed at this moment by Corona cases. At the same time, it is very essential to analyze whether the current tragic phase is as ‘cataclysmic’ as the Media, think-tanks, and the govt-bashing pseudo-secular activists have made it out to be. When the western media is so eager to call the situation in India as ‘genocide’ or ‘criminal act’ without any regards to journalistic decency, where were they with the same verbalism when 3,500-4,000 people were dying each day in U.S. amid hundreds of thousands of covid cases? Let’s take a break and have comparative study with hard numbers. As of now, populations of India, USA, U.K. and ‘European Union (EU)’ are respectively 1,391 Million, 332.60 Million, 68.18 Million and 447 Million. As of May 1,2021, the Corona cases they have are 19.60 Million, 32.80 Million, 4.4 Million and 30.29 Million. The death tolls are respectively 216,000, 576,700, 151,200 and 679,000. In short, statistically, although U.S. population is less than 1/4 of India, it had 11 TIMES more deaths and 7 TIMES more corona cases. In U.K., although the population is measly 4.77% of India, it had 14.32 TIMES more deaths and 4.54 TIMES more Corona cases and though ‘EU’ population is less than 1/3 of India, it has 9.68 TIMES more deaths and 4.77 TIMES more Corona cases. Although the pandemic numbers of the highly developed countries look shocking in comparison to India, they are in no way comforting to what is unfolding in India, now. Each life is precious. The whole objective of this numerical exercise is only to put Indian pandemic in global perspective. It’s not just India, even developed nations like Canada, England and so many European countries are currently struggling with the acute shortage of vaccines and medical facilities. (My nephew is ER-Chief in a Toronto Hospital and one of my closest friends is overseeing a Hospital in London). Needless to say, the question that pops up in one’s mind is – ‘why then, the western world is finding Indian pandemic so monstrous when they themselves have fared so badly’ in reality? The reason being – India’s formidable stature as a rising world power under the leadership of PM N. Modi. This is their way of pointing out India’s vulnerability. Dr. Gautam Sen of ‘London School of Economics’ says, (as per the report that is available) – ”a professional international campaign has been launched in the context of Covid crisis in India in the hope of delegitimizing the Modi Govt and weaken it fatally … the goal is to instigate rejection of BJP in the forthcoming elections.”

India produces 70% of the world’s vaccine and a major chunk of generic drugs that U.S. needs. Even before under Trump administration, United States (U.S.) relations with China had started deteriorating, the American consumer-giants had already started eyeing India as the alternative manufacturing hub for their goods. By this time India had established itself as one of the biggest consumer markets in the world. When the new U.S. President Joe Biden bought 600 million dosages to play vaccine-diplomacy, his administration wasn’t fully aware of how much U.S. depended on India. During Trump administration, when U.S. badly needed millions of ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ dosages, it was India who had come to U.S. rescue.  When President Biden prematurely arrested raw material supply for Vaccine production in India, it took his administration some time to realize what a blunder he had made. As numerous countries started coming to India’s aid, it not only reflected badly on U.S. as a selfish, isolationist country, but also, presented a Public-Relation nightmare for the U.S. giants doing business with India. There is no doubt that PM Modi and his team charmed the new President and smoothen out diplomatic wrinkles but that wasn’t the only reason why Biden administration reversed its earlier decision. The tripping point that delivered the goods in India’s favor came in the third week of April. during an emergency meeting of U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken with 135 CEOs of major U.S. conglomerates. The CEOs reportedly convinced the new Administration that if the U.S. didn’t reciprocate India’s earlier goodwill gesture, it would have disastrous economic repercussions, especially when nationalistic fervor running so high in India. Moreover, lately PM Modi’s new motto of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant, self-sufficient, with self-esteem – India) had become worrisome to them. Nevertheless, the pandemic situation in India is definitely a matter of great concern which needs global efforts. Afterall one-fifth of the humanity and the world’s largest consumer clientele is at stake. In U.S., Indian diaspora is raising lot of funds through various organizations to fight Corona in India. Organizations, like ‘Sewa International’, ‘VHP of America’, ‘BAPS’, ‘Ekal V. Foundation’, ‘Share & Care’, ‘AAPI’ have collectively raised millions of dollars. Various American groups and organizations are also busy raising quite bit of money for India. It is very comforting to know that the people around the world are motivated to help India. One World! One Humanity! One Objective!

Report Finds Additional Evidence In Case Against Indian Activists Accused Of Terrorism, Was Planted

Staff ReporterMedia, Nation India 0

An unknown hacker planted more than 30 documents that investigators deemed incriminating on a laptop belonging to an Indian activist accused of terrorism, a new forensic analysis finds, indicating a more extensive use of malicious software than previously revealed, Niha Masih and Joanna Slater at The Washington Post wrote last week.

The WP says, these findings will heighten concerns about the controversial prosecution of a group of government critics under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm, examined an electronic copy of the laptop at the request of defense lawyers. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of the report.

A previous analysis by Arsenal, which The Washington Post reported in February, found that 10 letters had been deposited on the laptop, including one that discussed an alleged plot to assassinate Modi. The latest report by Arsenal finds that 22 additional documents were also delivered to the computer by the same attacker.

The documents – now totaling 32 – have been cited by law enforcement as evidence against a group of activists accused of working with a banned Maoist militant group that has waged a decades-old insurgency against the Indian state.

Known as the Bhima Koregaon case, the prosecution is considered a bellwether for the rule of law in India. Human rights groups and legal experts view the case as an effort by the government to clamp down on critics.

The space for dissent has diminished in Modi’s India, where journalists, activists and members of nongovernmental organizations have faced arrest and harassment.

The activists accused in the case deny the charges against them. They include a prominent academic, a labor lawyer, a justifyist poet, a Jesuit priest and two singers. All are advocates for the rights of the country’s most disadvantaged communities and vocal opponents of the ruling party. Many of them have been jailed for nearly three years as they await trial.

The two reports by Arsenal focus on a laptop belonging to Rona Wilson, a Delhi-based activist. In February, lawyers for Wilson submitted the first report to a court in Mumbai and urged the judges to dismiss the charges against their client. The court is expected to hold a hearing on the petition.

Jaya Roy, a spokeswoman for the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the anti-terrorism authority overseeing the case against the activists, said an analysis by a government forensic laboratory did not indicate that the laptop had been compromised by malware. She did not provide details on how the laboratory reached that conclusion.

“Our investigation is complete,” Roy said. The NIA cannot revisit “any evidence based on a private lab’s report.” The Washington Post asked three experts on malware and digital forensics in North America to review Arsenal’s initial report, and they found its findings valid. A fourth expert reviewed both reports and said the conclusions were sound.

In its latest report, Arsenal includes data it recovered from the laptop showing the attacker typing commands to deliver documents to a hidden folder. It’s the equivalent of a “videotape of someone committing the crime,” said Mark Spencer, Arsenal’s president.

Arsenal has so far conducted its work on the reports on a pro bono basis, Spencer said. Founded in 2009, Arsenal performs computer forensic analysis for companies, law firms and government agencies, and it has provided expert testimony in cases such as the Boston Marathon bombing.

In the Indian case, an attacker used NetWire, a commercially available form of malware, to compromise Wilson’s laptop for nearly two years starting in 2016, Arsenal said.

The latest report shows that 22 additional documents were placed in a hidden folder on Wilson’s computer. They include details of purported meetings of Maoist militants, alleged correspondence with Maoist leaders and details of funds received by the banned group.

Two other files were stored in a folder on the Windows drive of the laptop. Unlike the other 22 files, Arsenal could not confirm they were delivered specifically by NetWire. But it found no evidence of any legitimate interaction with the documents and called their location in an unrelated application folder “suspicious.”

Arsenal’s “step-by-step” explanation of how the 22 documents were delivered is very clear and experts in the field “would draw all the same conclusions” based on that data, said Kevin Ripa, president of the Grayson Group of Companies and an expert in digital forensics.

The compromising of Wilson’s computer was just one element of a larger malware campaign. The same attacker also targeted his co-defendants, Arsenal said. Eight people seeking to help the activists, too, received emails with malicious links that deployed NetWire, according to a report from Amnesty International.

Several of the same domain names and internet protocol addresses were used to target both the activists and their associates.

Most of the IP addresses are assigned to HostSailor, a web-hosting and virtual private server company whose website indicates it is based in the United Arab Emirates. HostSailor declined to respond to requests for comment on whether it was aware of the reports or had taken any action in response to them.

The case against the activists has its origins in a clash that unfolded on Jan. 1, 2018, in a village known as Bhima Koregaon following a memorial event celebrated by Dalits, who occupy the lowest rung in India’s caste hierarchy. The investigation into the violence, which justify one dead, rapidly expanded into a wider probe of conspiracy against the Indian state.

The authorities alleged that the clash was linked to the Communist Party of India (Maoist), a banned militant group based primarily in the forests of central India. Earlier this month, 22 security personnel were killed in an apparent ambush by militants, the worst such incident in nearly four years.

The most recent activist to be jailed in the Bhima Koregaon case is an 83-year-old Jesuit priest named Stan Swamy. He is the oldest person in India to be arrested on terrorism charges. Swamy suffers from Parkinson’s disease and requires help to bathe and write letters, said Joseph Xavier, a priest and close friend. Swamy has spent more than six months in jail during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rev. Swamy lived in Jharkhand, one of the poorest states in India, where he worked for the rights of Indigenous tribal communities. He has spearheaded campaigns challenging the acquisition of tribal land and the detentions of tribal youths on flimsy or no evidence. In a video recorded before he was arrested, Swamy said he and other activists were being targeted because they had “expressed their dissent or raised questions” about India’s ruling party.

On a recent phone call from jail, Swamy’s chief concern was the well-being of his colleagues and the organization he ran, Xavier said. Even in moments of hardship or pain, Swamy “will not complain,” his friend said. “That is the kind of person he is.”

US Lifts Ban On Exports Of Key Ingredients To Manufacture Covid Vaccine To India

Staff ReporterHealth, Nation India, Nation USA 0

With the Covid-19 surge crippling the healthcare system in India, the US, which had earlier said its primacy was for its citizens, changed its stance and has lifted export controls on raw materials for vaccines that were put in place in February.

With the Covid-19 surge crippling the healthcare system, hectic diplomacy is on with major countries for urgent supply of vaccines, oxygen-related equipment such as tankers, ventilators and other critical life-saving devices. The US, which had earlier said its primacy was for its citizens, changed its stance on lifting export controls on raw materials for vaccines that were put in place in February, following repeated requests from Indian officials and the Serum Institute of India.

A lethal, fast-paced second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has brought India’s health care systems to the verge of collapse and is putting millions of lives and livelihoods at risk, wrote Ramanan Laxminarayan, an economist and epidemiologist, in The New York Times. According to The Wall Street Journal, hospitals in New Delhi and other hard-hit cities have been turning away patients and running low on oxygen, beds, and other medical supplies.

After declining, the Biden-Harris administration has finally agreed to provide it raw materials for vaccines that had previously been under export controls, as well as other key material. A White House statement said that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke by phone on Sunday with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, and expressed “deep sympathy for the people of India following the recent spike in Covid-19 cases”, and affirmed America’s solidarity with India.

“Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need. To this end, the United States is working around the clock to deploy available resources and supplies, it said.

“The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will immediately be made available for India. To help treat Covid-19 patients and protect front-line health workers in India, the United States has identified supplies of therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that will immediately be made available for India,” it read.

Many in Washington DC’s political and business elite are in favor of helping India, sources said. On Saturday, the US Chamber of Commerce made a vocal pitch, calling on the White House to release “the millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses in storage” — apart from life-saving equipment — to India, Brazil, and other nations hit hard by the pandemic.

Several US lawmakers have expressed concern over the sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in India and have urged the Biden administration to provide all necessary help to the country. “We have the resources to help, and other people need it; that makes it our moral obligation to do so,” Democratic Senator Edward Markey said in a tweet.

Congressman Gregory Meeks, Chairman of House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was concerned about the situation in India. “Sending my thoughts and support to our friends in India fighting this terrible second wave of the COVID19 pandemic,” he said Congresswoman Haley Stevens said that her thoughts are with the people of India during this devastating COVID-19 surge.

Indian American Congressman Ro Khanna, while sharing a tweet from eminent public health expert Ashish K Jha, said, “India is in the throes of a horrendous COVID surge.
Horrendous. They are struggling to get more people vaccinated. We are sitting on 35-40 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine Americans will never use. Can we please give or lend them to India? Like, maybe now? It’ll help. A lot,” Jha had said.

On Friday, US Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted, “Heartbreaking scenes from India… We stand ready to help fight this awful virus.” Top medical advisor to the US President Dr Anthony Fauci also said the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) was in talks with Indian counterparts for technical assistance, adding, “we’re trying to help in any way we can”. “Obviously they need to get their people vaccinated because that’s the only way we’re going to turn that around,” Dr Fauci said.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the US is “working closely with Indian officials at political and experts’ level for ways to help address the crisis”. For a month now, vaccine manufacturers and upstream suppliers have been reporting shortage of raw and packaging materials, critical consumables and equipment. Over time, such shortages can lead to shortage of vaccines and impact delivery commitments, as well as delay regulatory clearances for some products, experts said.

UK to Send Raw Materials to India

The UK will be sending more than 600 pieces of vital medical equipment to India to support it in fight against Covid-19, the UK government announced. The assistance package, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, includes ventilators and oxygen concentrators from surplus stocks. The Department of Health and Social Care have worked closely with the NHS, as well as suppliers and manufacturers in the UK to identify reserve life-saving equipment that can be sent to India.

Recently, India has been reporting high number of Covid-19 cases and deaths while several reports of shortage of oxygen are also coming. The first shipment of equipment has already justify the UK and it will be arriving to India in the early hours of Tuesday. Further shipments are due to follow later this week.

In total, nine airline container loads of supplies, including 495 oxygen concentrators, 120 non-invasive ventilators and 20 manual ventilators, will be sent to the country this week. This equipment will be crucial in helping to save the lives of the most vulnerable in India. The oxygen concentrators, for example, can extract oxygen from the air in the atmosphere so that it can be provided to patients, taking the strain off hospital oxygen systems and allowing oxygen to be provided in situations where hospital oxygen supplies have run out.

Indian American Groups Offer Help to India

Several Indian-American groups have started raising funds to urgently airlift medical supplies including oxygen to help India in its fight against coronavirus.

“In the past week, we have been receiving nothing but mind numbing news from many countries around the world, particularly in India, the land of our birth,” stated Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalgadda, President of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (APPI) the largest ethnic medical organization in the country. Pointing to the fact that the statistics are chilling,

Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalagadda, while referring to the several proactive steps in educating their members and the general public about the disease, the preventive steps that needs to be taken at this time and most importantly, they are using all their contacts and resources at the hospital administrative and government levels to facilitate treatment protocols to be in place at the various hospitals in the US and in India, urged AAPI members and the general public to step up and donate generously as India, our motherland is facing one of the most serious health crisis in decades. “This is the time for immediate AAPI action. As doctors, we all share a visceral urge to do something about it,” he added.

“This is truly a humanitarian crisis of apocalyptic proportions which needs an immediate response,” wrote Indian-American Mike Sikand, chairman Oceanport Democratic Committee in New Jersey to Senator Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Another step that you could take is to help increase hospital bed capacity in India by providing equipment and financial assistance to set up makeshift hospitals or even sending USS Mercy to help India deal with this crisis,” Sikand said in the letter to Menendez.

GOPIO Thanks President Biden and Appeals to Release AstraZeneca Vaccines to India

Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) thanked US President Joe Biden for his announcement of USA sending raw materials for COVID-19 vaccines, medical equipment and protective gear to help India respond to a massive surge in coronavirus infections.  India is going through a grim situation now in Covid Pandemic infection and deaths. The latest report says that the new infections are about 350,000 and deaths about 3,000 per day.

GOPIO Chairman Dr. Thomas Abraham said that in the last three months, India acted as a global leader in sending vaccines to many countries. However, with the sudden unexpected Covid-19 outbreak, India needs an enormous quantity of vaccines for its 1.3 billion population. As a close ally of India, our country must help India in this grave situation.

“We appeal to you to send AstraZeneca vaccines which are stored by US manufacturers in their warehouses since the US is yet to authorize its use here while it has been used in India,” Dr. Abraham appealed in his letter to President Biden. GOPIO also requested President Biden to facilitate manufacturing of other vaccines in India so that the global demand can be met sooner.

As Covid Strikes India Hard, Narendra Modi’s Image Sinks

Ajay GhoshCommunity, Health, Nation India 0

The pandemic is killing thousands daily, crushing India’s modest health system, causing crippling shortages of doctors, nurses, medicines, even oxygen. If last week witnessed Narendra Modi government’s biggest crisis, it’s only become bigger since.

The second wave of Covid-19, with the spiraling cases and deaths across cities and towns, making India currently the world’s worst pandemic-affected country, have now dented India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image in India and around the world for the poor vision, poor planning, and mismanagement of the most deadly virus in over a century.

The pandemic is killing thousands daily, crushing India’s modest health system, causing crippling shortages of doctors, nurses, medicines, even oxygen. If last week witnessed Narendra Modi government’s biggest crisis, it’s only become bigger since. It threatens to grow bigger over the next several weeks, healthcare experts say.

With over 350,000 new coronavirus cases daily and more than 2,000 people dying every 24 hours, the situation has become too tumultuous for Modi, the leader of Hindutva or Hindu nationhood. The daily increase in cases has forced many Indians to raise their eyebrows about the governance efficiency of Modi, hitherto considered the superhero and a catalyst of good governance.

Modi’s government has faced criticism that it let its guard down, allowed big religious and political gatherings to take place when India’s cases plummeted to below 10,000 a day and did not plan on building up the healthcare systems. Hospitals and doctors have put out urgent notices that they were unable to cope with the rush of patients.

India’s total tally of infections stands at 16.96 million and deaths 192,311 after 2,767 more died overnight, health ministry data showed. In the last month alone, daily cases have gone up eight times and deaths by 10 times. Health experts say the death count is probably far higher.

India’s surge is expected to peak in mid-May with the daily count of infections reaching half a million, the Indian Express said citing an internal government assessment. V.K. Paul, a COVID-task force leader, made the presentation during a meeting with Modi and state chief ministers and said that the health infrastructure in heavily populated states is not adequate enough to cope, according to the media reports.

The Guardian, a popular Western publication wrote in an editorial this week: “At the beginning of March, the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi claimed the country was in Covid-19’s “endgame”. India is now in a living hell. A new “double mutant” variant, named B.1.617, has emerged in a devastating coronavirus second wave which has seen hospitals run out of beds and oxygen. Mortuaries are so full that bodies are justify to decompose at home. Charities warn that the dead risk being justify on the streets.”

The second wave of cases has been made more deadly by oxygen shortages in hospitals. An investigation by Indian news website Scroll.in revealed that the country’s government waited until October 2020, eight months after the pandemic began, to invite bids for a $27 million contract to place oxygen generation systems inside more than 150 district hospitals. Six months later, most still aren’t up and running. Several states across the nation have expressed despair as most hospitals have run short of Oxygen.

“India is in the ICU and those who put her there now spend their time trying to shift the blame. The change from ‘victory’ over Covid to gasping for oxygen began in the last week of January this year when the Prime Minister proudly declared that India had not only defeated the pandemic but had been an inspiration for other countries. He then proceeded to personally oversee vaccine exports to needy countries and his Minister of External Affairs boasted about it. After this ‘victory’, the Prime Minister and Home Minister spent their time organizing a blitzkrieg of election rallies in West Bengal and Assam without wearing masks and while exhorting large crowds to gather,” wrote columnist Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express.

If you’ve been tempted to think the pandemic is over, journalist Rana Ayyub’s reporting from India will prove you sorely mistaken. “If the apocalypse had an image,” she writes for TIME, “it would be the hospitals of India.” India’s sheer volume of cases is contributing to that unimaginable death toll, but there are extenuating factors, too. Oxygen supplies are running out across the country, in part because the Indian government waited until October 2020 to seek contracts for installing oxygen generation systems in many hospitals, Ayyub reports. Some are still not working today, leaving critically ill patients without the thing they need most as their lungs fail.

A recent story in TIME magazine titled, “’This Is Hell.’ Prime Minister Modi’s Failure to Lead Is Deepening India’s COVID-19 Crisis” pointed out how India has mismanaged and sent misleading messages. “The Uttarakhand chief minister declared on March 20, “nobody will be stopped in the name of COVID-19 as we are sure the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.” It wasn’t until mid-April that Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that participation in the pilgrimage should be kept “symbolic” to combat the pandemic. Is it any wonder that the festival has become a super-spreader event?”

But the statement by Modi came too late. Mega political rallies in poll bound states, led by Modi himself and his party leaders in several states has been stated to be instrumental in spiking the covid cases across India. Hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees showed up each day for a dip in the Ganges as part of the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage in Haridwar, Uttarakhand. Millions of worshippers have participated in the weeks-long festival since the first day of bathing on March 11, despite clear evidence that thousands are testing positive for the virus after attending. In the space of just a few days in mid-April, more than 1,600 cases were confirmed among devotees. In March, when the second wave was already underway, state leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) published full-page ads in national newspapers telling worshippers it was “clean” and “safe” to attend.

Last week, as India reported the highest number of daily cases of anywhere in the world, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party tweeted a video of one of Modi’s political rallies. Alongside Modi was his close confidante and home minister, Amit Shah. In theory, Shah should have been in the capital, coordinating with various state governments on how to deal with the devastating spike in COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks. Instead, Shah has been holding roadshows with thousands of joyous crowds on the streets of West Bengal which is in the midst of elections to the state Assembly. “Since January, Modi has organized mass political rallies in various states and has allowed religious events like the Kumbh Mela to go ahead, while his party continued with its dog-whistle campaigns against Indian minorities,” TIME reported.

The Guardian wrote: “Like Donald Trump, Mr Modi would not give up campaigning while the pandemic raged. India went ahead with five state elections in April, and an unmasked Mr Modi held huge rallies. Mr Modi’s brand of Indian exceptionalism bred complacency. A presumption of national greatness has led to a lack of preparedness, most notably in vaccine production.”

“The country has been too complacent and relaxed for too long. Now we are paying the price for that negligence,” Archbishop Prakash Mallavarapu, chairman of the Healthcare Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), told the Register.  “There has been certainly a big lapse from the complacent government and the general public, paying scant regard for the social-distance norms while the state machinery ignored enforcing norms,” said Archbishop Mallavarapu, whose Visakhapatnam Archdiocese in located in the state of Andhra on the east coast of India.

TIME criticized states that are attempting to hide the death rate. “In the state of Uttar Pradesh workers were pictured covering the crematorium with tin sheets. Priyanka Gandhi, of the opposition Congress party, accused local authorities of hiding the truth.” In Gujarat, the Prime Minister’s home state, crematoriums are burning day and night, while the state refuses to acknowledge the high number of deaths. The Gujarat high court has demanded the state government reveal the accurate count of COVID-19 patients and deaths,” TIME pointed out.

Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash, an internationally known social activist based in Modi’s home state of Gujarat, was much more unsparing is his choice of words, when asked for his reaction to the calamity that has gripped the nation. “Absolutely abominable,” Father Prakash described the situation on the ground in Gujarat. Among over two dozen Christians who have died of COVID in Gujarat were five of his Jesuit confreres, who died on April 17 alone. A week earlier, another eminent Jesuit, Father Varghese Paul, former president of the Indian Catholic Press Association and mentor of dozens of writers in Gujarat, also died of COVID at the age of 78.

“The government is blatantly lying on official figures of the grim reality,” said Father Prakash, endorsing the media reports that exposed the underreporting of deaths in Gujarat and several other Indian states. “They play down deaths and the number of infected by the pandemic.” While the Gujarat government acknowledged only 78 deaths on April 16, national daily The Hindu reported cremation of 689 bodies in seven cities alone under COVID protocol in the state, in an article titled, “COVID-19 Deaths in Gujarat Far Exceed Government Figures.”

“The situation is miserable here. Many are dying. I know an entire Christian family that has been wiped out. One of our young bishops is also in hospital with COVID,” Bishop Chacko Thottumarickal of Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state in central India, told the Register.  “The media reports here routinely challenge the government death figures, with some networks challenging the actual figures to be several times higher,” said Bishop Thottumarickal, the former chairman of the Office for Communication of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

After The Wire news portal published an article titled, “Varanasi: Cremation, Burial Grounds Show About 50% of COVID-19 Deaths Aren’t Officially Recorded,” Prime Minister Modi called a meeting of top officials of Varanasi, as he personally represents the Hindu holy city in the Indian Parliament.

In the race to produce and secure vaccines for the 1.4 Billion Indians, Modi regime failed miserably. India invested too little in vaccine against Covid production. While epidemiologists, specialists and opposition leaders have long urged Modi to give approvals for foreign vaccines, the decision to give emergency use license to the Russian manufactured Sputnik V vaccine was only taken in the second week of April. Against the skepticism for vaccines by a vast majority of Indian, Modi government has done too little to reinforce public health messaging. In West Bengal, where Modi himself has been campaigning, the BJP Chief has advocated drinking cow urine to treat COVID-19.

The net result of all these is: People are dying in their hundreds in India because of a lack of medical oxygen and other supplies in the country’s overloaded hospitals. The healthcare system is collapsing as India records more than 350,000 new coronavirus cases each day and thousands lose their lives daily.

“The Indian prime minister suffers from overconfidence in his own instincts and pooh-poohs expert advice,” The Guardian wrote. “His ministers turned on a former Congress prime minister for daring to offer them counsel just before he was admitted to hospital with Covid this week.” Guardian was referring to the recommendations suggested by Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister of India.

As this COVID-19 “tsunami” floods across the nation, a chorus of protest has erupted from opposition parties, social-action networks and the media, challenging the government’s lack of foresight. One of the most prominent is a report by The Times that accuses the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “floundering” in the face of the giant surge in cases. Another media account accuses the Indian government of indulging in “vaccine diplomacy” by exporting more than 60 million COVID vaccines to 84 countries at the cost of Indian citizens while the country’s own vaccination centers are crippled by vaccine shortages.

 “This is the first time Modi has been on the receiving end and he may have to pay a political price. It is also the first time that India has experienced a catastrophe of such magnitude,” a political analysts wrote recently. “Thus, it may not be wrong to suggest that it would be far from easy for Modi to remake and reshape the politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), say some skeptics. And the skepticism has come not without good reason.”

His critics are already predicting doomsday. Many have gone vocal demanding the prime minister’s resignation. On social media and in general discussions, the refrain is that the limit of good governance under Modi has been reached. At this critical juncture in its history, Indians have been justify to fend for themselves.

Modi Announces US-India Partnership To Fight Climate Change

Staff ReporterEnvironment, Nation India 0

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a global initiative in cooperation with the US to mobilize investments for the greening of the world and promote collaboration to fight global warming.

Warning that the Covid-19 pandemic is a grim reminder of the dangers of climate change, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a global initiative in cooperation with the US to mobilize investments for the greening of the world and promote collaboration to fight global warming.

“Humanity is battling a global pandemic right now and this event is a timely reminder that the grave threat of climate change has not disappeared,” he said at the Leaders Summit on Climate Change convened by President Joe Biden.

“President Biden and I are launching the India-US Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership. Together we will help mobilise investments, demonstrate clean technology and enable green collaboration.”

Leaders of 40 countries are participating in the summit. They include Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, with whom Biden has an increasingly hostile relationship, but they have put aside their difference in the climate cause.

Biden said: “The signs are unmistakable (of climate change dangers). The science is undeniable. The cost of inaction keeps mounting. The United States isn’t waiting. We are resolving to take action.” Biden said that the US would cut its greenhouse emissions from the 2005 level by half by 2030.

He announced the first US Climate Finance Plan to promote public sector “to increase the quality and quantity of climate financing” and spur the private sector to contribute to developing countries’ programs. He said that the global goal was mobilising $100 billion per year for developing countries to meet the climate challenge.

To help meet this goal, he said that the US will double by 2024 “our annual public climate development finance to developing countries compared to what we were providing during the second half of Obama-Biden administration”.

The US will also “triple our financing for climate application for developing countries by 2024”. Calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies, he said he said that it was important to “help developing countries leapfrog to the clean technologies of tomorrow”.

In a subtle dig at the hypocrisy of Western leaders, media and activists who paint India as the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter and demand it cut down emissions, Modi pointed out that each Indian’s greenhouse gas footprint is 60 per cent lower than the world average.

“It is because of our lifestyle is still rooted in sustainable, traditional practices,” he said. “Today I want to emphasize the importance of lifestyle change in climate action, sustainable lifestyle changes and guiding philosophy of back to basics,” he added.

Modi said that India was doing its part to fight climate change. “Our ambitious renewable energy target of 450 gigawatts by 2030 shows our commitment. Despite our development challenges we have taken many bold steps on clean energy, energy efficiency, afforestation and biodiversity.”

“That is why we are among the few countries whose NDCs (nationally determined contributions to the Paris Climate Agreement goals) are 2 degrees Celsius compatible,” Modi said. “Climate change is a lived reality for millions around the world. Their lives, their livelihoods are already facing its adverse consequences,” he said.

India has encouraged global initiatives like the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, Modi added. “As climate resposnsible developing country, India welcomes partners to create templates of sustainable development in India. This can also help other development countries who need affordable acess to green finance and clean technology,” he said.

Modi was the second non-US leader to speak after Xi at the virtual conference. Xi said that China was making extraordinary efforts like ending coal power generation in order to reach its cimate change goals. (IANS)

Address by Prime Minister at the Leaders’ Summit on Climate 2021

April 22, 2021

Your Excellency President Biden,
Distinguished colleagues,
My fellow Citizens of this Planet,

Namaskar!

I would like to thank President Biden for taking this initiative.Humanity is battling a global pandemic right now.And, this event is a timely reminder that the grave threat of Climate Change has not disappeared.

In fact, Climate Change is a lived reality for millions around the world.Their lives and livelihoods are already facing its adverse consequences.

Friends,

For humanity to combat Climate Change, concrete action is needed.We need such action at a high speed, on a large scale, and with a global scope.We, in India, are doing our part.Our ambitious renewable energy target of 450 Gigawatts by 2030 shows our commitment.

Despite our development challenges, we have taken many bold steps on clean energy, energy efficiency, afforestation and bio-diversity.That is why we are among the few countries whose NDCs are 2-degree-Celsius compatible.

We have also encouraged global initiatives like International Solar Alliance, LeadIT, and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

Friends,

As a climate-responsible developing country, India welcomes partners to create templates of sustainable development in India.These can also help other developing countries, who need affordable access to green finance and clean technologies.

That is why, President Biden and I are launching the “India-US climate and clean energy Agenda 2030 partnership”. Together, we will help mobilise investments, demonstrate clean technologies, and enable green collaborations.

Friends,

Today, as we discuss global climate action, I want to leave one thought with you.India’s per capita carbon footprint is 60% lower than the global average.It is because our lifestyle is still rooted in sustainable traditional practices.

So today, I want to emphasise the importance of lifestyle change in climate action.Sustainable lifestyles and a guiding philosophy of “Back to Basics” must be an important pillar of our economic strategy for the post-Covid era.

Friends,

I recall the words of the great Indian monk Swami Vivekananda.He called on us to “Arise, awake and stop not until the goal is reached”.Let us make this a Decade of Action against climate change.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

***

India’s Second Wave Of Covid-19 Crisis Is Catastrophic

Staff ReporterCommunity, Health, Nation India 0

India reported 273,810 new Covid-19 infections and 1,619 deaths—both highest single-day spikes. That takes the active Covid-19 caseload tally up to nearly 2 million.

India, which was reporting less than 15,000 cases a day just last month, has been seeing over 200,000 Covid-19 infections a day since April 15. On April 19th alone, India reported 273,810 new Covid-19 infections and 1,619 deaths—both highest single-day spikes. That takes the active Covid-19 caseload tally up to nearly 2 million.

The current wave started in the western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat and has now engulfed almost the entire country. Delhi, for instance, had only around 2,800 new infections on April 1, and active infections stood at 10,498. Yesterday, it recorded 25,462 infections and an active caseload of 74,941. That amounts to a 900% increase in new infections and a 700% increase in active cases in just 18 days.

India has now recorded more than 15 million infections and more than 178,000 deaths. Experts agree that even these figures are likely undercounts. New Delhi imposed a weeklong lockdown Monday night to prevent the collapse of the Indian capital’s health system, which authorities said had been pushed to its limit amid an explosive surge in coronavirus cases.

In scenes familiar from surges elsewhere, ambulances catapulted from one hospital to another, trying to find an empty bed over the weekend, while patients lined up outside of medical facilities waiting to be let in. Ambulances also idled outside of crematoriums, carrying half a dozen dead bodies each. In an effort to combat crisis, India announced that it would soon expand its vaccination campaign to all adults. “People keep arriving, in an almost collapsing situation,” said Dr. Suresh Kumar, who heads Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, one of New Delhi’s largest hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, election campaigns are continuing in West Bengal state in eastern India, amid an alarming increase there as well, and experts fear that crowded rallies could fuel the spread of the virus. Top leaders of the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have campaigned heavily to win polls in the region.

By contrast, in New Delhi, officials have begun to impose stringent measures again. The Indian capital was shut down over the weekend, but now authorities are extending that for a week: All shops and factories will close, except for those that provide essential services, like grocery stores. People are not supposed to leave their homes, except for a handful of reasons, like seeking medical care. They will be allowed to travel to airports or train stations — a difference from the last lockdown when thousands of migrant workers were forced to walk to their home villages.

That harsh lockdown last year, which lasted months, justify deep scars. Politicians have since been reticent to even mention the word. When similar measures were imposed in Mahrashtra state, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, in recent days, officials refused to call it a lockdown. Those restrictions are to last 15 days.

India is not alone. Several places in the world are seeing deepening crises, including Brazil and France, spurred in part by new variants. More than a year into the pandemic, deaths are on the rise again worldwide, running at nearly 12,000 per day on average, and new cases are climbing, too. Over the weekend, the global death toll passed a staggering 3 million people.

Jaishankar, Blinken Work Together Enhancing India-US Collaboration

Staff ReporterNation India, Nation USA 0

In a growing sign of increased cooperation, S Jaishankar and Antony Blinken discuss developments in the region and health cooperation.

India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and his US counterpart Antony Blinken discussed developments in the region and health cooperation against the backdrop of the planned withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the Covid-19 crisis.

“Spoke to my US counterpart Secretary of State @SecBlinken this evening. Conversation covered recent developments in India’s immediate and extended neighbourhood. Exchanged views on the UNSC agenda. Also discussed issues pertaining to our health cooperation,” Jaishankar said in a tweet without giving details.

There was no official word from both countries on the conversation. People familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity that the situation in Afghanistan and the US embargo on exports of raw materials needed for Covid-19 vaccines had figured in the discussions.

The Biden administration invoked the US Defence Production Act in February to curb the export of raw materials for vaccine production. The Serum Institute of India’s (SII) ability to make some 160 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine a month could be hit in the coming weeks if the US doesn’t lift the embargo on supplies of 37 critical items, reports have said. On April 16, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla raised the issue in a tweet addressed to US President Joe Biden.

Foreign secretary Harsh Shringla said last month that the issue had been officially raised with the US through the Indian ambassador in Washington.

Participating in an online discussion on Monday, Jaishankar referred to the matter indirectly when he said he was “pushing other countries, particularly some big countries, [to] please keep the raw materials flowing for vaccines to be made in India”.

Responding to a question on criticism of India’s exports of Covid-19 vaccines amid growing domestic demand, Jaishankar noted that the vaccine being produced in India in the largest quantity – the AstraZeneca jab made by SII – is a “co-creation” and an international product. “Can I, on one hand, go round the world and say, guys, keep your supply chain flowing towards me, and by the way… I am asking you for raw material but I am not going to give you the vaccine?” he asked

He added, “As things got tough we spoke to the world very honestly and said look, we have done our best to live up to commitments – contractual commitments of producers, COVAX commitments – but right now please understand that I have this very serious situation at home and I think most countries understand that.”

On the US exit from Afghanistan, Jaishankar said India has always played an active role in that country. “Afghanistan is a doorstep away. So how can we not have a role, influence, presence [and] activity out there?” he said.

India’s Second Covid-19 Wave Is Much Worse Than The First

Staff ReporterHealth, Nation India 0

India records one of the highest new infections as Covid-19 last week. Vaccinations, a mammoth task in such a large nation, are dangerously behind schedule. Hospital beds are running short.

When the coronavirus first struck India last year, the country enforced one of the world’s strictest national lockdowns. The warning was clear: A fast spread in a population of 1.3 billion would be devastating. The new wave will hurt global efforts and vaccine supplies, experts say. Researchers are scrambling to assess whether new coronavirus variants are playing a role in India.

 India on Saturday reported a daily record of 145,384 new infections as Covid-19 raced out of control. Deaths, while still relatively low, are rising. Vaccinations, a mammoth task in such a large nation, are dangerously behind schedule. Hospital beds are running short.

This second wave is much, much worse than the first one, so it is not just cities like Mumbai and Delhi that have started imposing curfews and lockdowns. Smaller cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Raipur are enforcing curbs as well, and these will, as they did last time, serve mostly to hurt the economy and not control the pandemic. Already migrant workers are beginning to flee because their jobs have gone. It was one of these fleeing migrants who had the best comment to make on what is happening.

Parts of the country are reinforcing lockdowns. Scientists are rushing to track new strains, including the more hazardous variants found in Britain and South Africa, that may be hastening the spread. But the authorities have declared contact tracing in some places to be simply impossible.

India cannot afford to fall behind in the vaccination race because the whole world now knows that the only way to defeat Covid-19 is by vaccinating as many people as possible, as soon as possible. So, when high officials in the Government of India declare that only those who ‘need’ vaccinations should be given them, they seem either to be covering up for the serious shortage of vaccines or to be totally removed from reality. Every government in the world today is centering its fight against the pandemic on massive vaccination programs so that there can be some sort of return to normal times by the middle of this year. Only in India do we seem to continue believing that the way forward is to scale up testing.

Something has gone very wrong. And it could be because the Prime Minister and his advisors continue to invest their faith in centrally planning the vaccination strategy. Why are state governments not allowed to procure as many vaccines as they want from whoever they want? Why are they not being allowed to decide the price of these vaccines so that Indians who can afford to pay a full price should be allowed to? Why is the Government of India not distributing among state governments the Rs 35,000 crore set aside for vaccinations in this year’s national Budget? Why are private hospitals not being allowed to play a much bigger role than they have so far? Why is the Serum Institute not already being given the

The truth is that things have clearly gone very, very wrong with our vaccination strategy and nobody in the Government of India seems ready to acknowledge this. Gimmicks like a ‘Vaccination Utsav’ will not work. What is needed urgently is a comprehensive review and a whole new strategy, but who is going to do this when the two men who make the big decisions for India are both totally immersed in the campaign for West Bengal. Winning Bengal or any other state will mean nothing if the war against the pandemic is lost.

The double mutant variant of the coronavirus first identified in India has been classified officially as B.1.617, The Hindu reports, separating it from the UK (B.1.1.7) and South Africa variants (B.1.351).  B.1.617 has two specific mutations that have not been seen together in other variants, namely E484Q and L452R.

The variant has been found in circulation in Maharashtra, which is in the throes of a second wave of the Covid-19. It has since been found in California, US.  India’s health officials had previously said there is no proof yet that the variant is causing the resurgence in cases in the country.

The mutations E484Q and L452R, found on the receptor-binding domain of the virus, possess traits that are worrying.  L452R, also found in the California variant, has been shown to make the virus more transmissible.  E484Q is closely related to the E484K mutation, which has been found in the South African (B.1.351) and Brazilian (P.1 and P.2) variants and is less susceptible to neutralizing antibodies. The Indian variant has these two mutations at the same time.

“What we don’t know is how those [two mutations] will behave when they’re put in the same virus,” Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Stanford University, tells the LA Times. “There’s a reasonable amount of information about those [two mutations] individually. But will it be worse if they’re together? We don’t really know how they’re going to interact.”

India Is an Essential Counterweight to China

Staff ReporterGlobal, Nation India, Nation USA 0

As America seeks to counter a rising China, no nation is more important than India, with its vast size, abundance of highly skilled technical professionals, and strong political and cultural ties with US.

As America seeks to counter a rising China, no nation is more important than India, with its vast size, abundance of highly skilled technical professionals, and strong political and cultural ties with the United States. But the parallels between America’s dependency on China for manufacturing and its dependency on India for IT services are striking, according to a study published by The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).
A leading think tank for science and technology policy has said as Washington seeks to counter a rising China, no nation is more important than India with its abundance of highly skilled technical professionals and strong political and cultural ties with the United States.
It however cautioned that ‘overreliance’ on India as an IT services provider could become a strategic problem if major disagreements emerge between the two nations on issues such as intellectual property, data governance, tariffs, taxation, local content requirements or individual privacy.
While America and India are both rightly keen to move more manufacturing operations from China to India, significant shifts will take time, as China still has many advantages. Most large U.S. companies now rely heavily on India-based IT services—whether from India-headquartered IT service providers, U.S.-headquartered IT services companies with large India-based operations, or their own India-based capability centers.
The United States risks becoming overly reliant on India as an IT services provider if major disagreements emerge over issues such as intellectual property, data governance, tariffs, taxation, local content requirements, or individual privacy.

Leading U.S. tech companies are well positioned in India’s booming Internet and e commerce marketplaces, but strong local competitors are emerging.

India is moving up the value chain into R&D, innovation centers, machine learning, analytics, product design and testing, and other areas, especially in IT and life sciences.

Outside of IT, U.S. companies operating in India typically face stiff competition from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and of course, Indian firms—and doing business in India is still often difficult.
While geopolitical forces are drawing America and India closer together, long-term alignment with the United States and the West is by no means assured and will require successful policymaking by both India and the United States.

There are many complex dynamics that will affect the degree to which the U.S./India relationship can help offset today’s increasingly powerful China. The authors of the study David Moschella and Robert D. Atkinson offer the following pessimistic and optimistic scenarios:
Scenario 1: Tensions between India and China are reduced, and the many business synergies between these two neighboring nations come to the fore. The combination of China’s manufacturing might and India’s software and service prowess provides across-the-board value-chain capabilities. The United States remains heavily reliant on both nations, whose market sizes dwarf that of America, giving Chinese and Indian companies colossal economies of scale and leading to large bilateral trade deficits for the United States with both nations. These dynamics ultimately result in world-leading Chinese and Indian universities, companies, and research institutions. Given its relatively small size and many dependencies, there is little the United States can do, as the heart of the global economy shifts to the East, and as democratic nations and norms are increasingly seen as failing to keep pace with China’s rapid societal progress.

Scenario 2: The interests of India and the United States become increasingly aligned, as the economic, military, and international relations challenges from China grow. Rapidly growing Indian manufacturing, much of it from plants moving out of China, helps reduce U.S. dependencies on China while slowing China’s growth. At the same time, Indian students continue to flock to the United States, with many staying and making essential contributions to America’s technological capabilities.

The Indian diaspora creates even more-powerful bonds between India and the United States, generating a great many business, political, and cultural leaders. Rising U.S. company dependence on India-based technology services proves to have more benefits than drawbacks and is largely offset by the success of U.S. tech giants in India and by ever-improving cloud services that make extensive customized IT services less necessary. As a result, Indian exports to the United States are broadly matched by U.S. business within India, and both nations grow. The combined military prowess of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia (and eventually South Korea and Taiwan) proves sufficient to prevent China’s hegemony within the Pacific region. Democratic norms prevail across most of the developed world, with many developing nations looking to the “Delhi model” rather than the “Beijing model.”

Clearly, there is a vast middle ground between these two extremes. But by 2030, one scenario will likely prove closer to reality than the other. Which will it be? When we argue that there is now no more important bilateral relationship for the United States than India, this is what we mean. America’s technology dependencies on India in the 2020s seem certain to rise. But will the United States be dependent on a strategic partner with strong mutual interests, or on an increasingly neutral rival? Much will depend on the strategic choices the Biden and Indian administrations make. The economic and geopolitical stakes could not be much higher.

Modi Addresses Inaugural Session Of Raisina Dialogue

Staff ReporterGlobal, Nation India 0

PM Modi said the pandemic has presented opportunity to reshape the world order and reorient our thinking. He was delivering the inaugural address virtually at the sixth edition of the Raisina Dialogue on Tuesday, April 13th.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, India has tried to walk the talk “in our own humble way and within our own limited resources” to tackle the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which has affected and killed millions across the world. PM Modi said the pandemic has presented opportunity to reshape the world order and reorient our thinking. He was delivering the inaugural address virtually at the sixth edition of the Raisina Dialogue on Tuesday, April 13th.

He was joined by Chief Guests H.E. Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda and H.E. Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark during the annual event. The 6th Edition of the prestigious Raisina Dialogue, jointly organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation,will be held virtually from 13-16 April, 2021.The theme for the 2021 Edition is “#ViralWorld: Outbreaks, Outliers and Out of Control”. “This edition of Raisina Dialogue takes a place at a watershed moment in human history.

A global pandemic has been ravaging the world for over a year. The last such global pandemic was a century ago,” PM Modi said during his addresses at the inaugural session of Raisina Dialogue. “During this pandemic, in our own humble way and within our own limited resources, we in India have tried to walk the talk.

We have tried to protect our own 1.3 billion citizens from the pandemic. At the same time, we have also tried to support pandemic response efforts of others,” he added. “We understand fully that mankind will not defeat the pandemic unless all of us, everywhere, regardless of the color of our passports, come out of it. That is why, this year, despite many constraints, we have supplied vaccines to over 80 countries,” the Prime Minister said.

The Indian Premier emphasized that global systems should adapt themselves, in order to address the underlying causes and not just the symptoms. Modi called for keeping humanity at the center of our thoughts and action, and creating systems that address the problems of today and the challenges of tomorrow. The leader of the largest democracy elaborated upon India’s pandemic response efforts, both domestically as well as in form of assistance to other countries. He called for joint efforts to meet the varied challenges posed by the pandemic and reiterated that India would share its strengths for global good.

India Surprised As US Announces Freedom Of Navigation Operation In Indian Waters

Staff ReporterNation India, Nation USA 0

Days after the first summit of the Quadrilateral grouping and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin’s visit to New Delhi, the US Seventh Fleet announced that one of its warships, USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53), had carried out a Freedom of Navigation operation west of Lakshadweep Islands, “inside India’s exclusive economic zone, without requesting India’s prior consent, consistent with international law”.

Responding to this public announcement by the US Navy which raised eyebrows given the growing ties between the armed forces of the two countries, especially their navies, New Delhi said: “We have conveyed our concerns regarding this passage through our EEZ to the Government of USA through diplomatic channels.”

The US Navy statement said: “On April 7, 2021, the USS John Paul Jones asserted navigational rights and freedoms approximately 130 nautical miles west of the Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s EEZ, without requesting India’s prior consent, consistent with international law.“India requires prior consent for military exercises or manoeuvers in its exclusive economic zone or continental shelf, a claim inconsistent with international law.” The statement further said the FONOP upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging India’s excessive maritime claims.

US forces operate in the Indo-Pacific region on a daily basis. All operations are designed in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the US will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, the statement said.“We conduct routine and regular FONOP), as we have done in the past and will continue to in the future. FONOPs are not about one country, nor are they about making political statements.” Indian government officials said it’s unusual for such a statement to be released.

Any activity within 200 km nautical miles, which falls under EEZ or Indian waters needs prior permission as per Indian laws. Chinese vessels on the pretext of carrying out research activities in Indian waters have been tracked and sent back in the past.“The Government of India’s stated position on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is that the Convention does not authorise other States to carry out in the Exclusive Economic Zone and on the continental shelf, military exercises or manoeuvres, in particular those involving the use of weapons or explosives, without the consent of the coastal state,” it said.

Under Indian law — The Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976 — “all foreign ships (other than warships including submarines and other underwater vehicles) shall enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters” and a passage is innocent “so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of India”.

“Foreign warships including submarines and other underwater vehicles may enter or pass through the territorial waters after giving prior notice to the Central Government,” the law states. The US Navy’s Freedom of Navigation operation near Lakshadweep is not unprecedented. The US Department of Defence publishes an annual Freedom of Navigation report and India found mention in the 2019 report along with 21 other countries that included China, Russia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives and Saudi Arabia. India was mentioned in the 2017, 2016 and 2015 reports as well.

Rahul Gandhi Describes How Assassination Of His Father Changed Him

Staff ReporterNation India, News, Profile 0

As a leader, Rahul Gandhi has always been the strongest proponent of politics of purpose. Over the years, he has lent his voice to a number of issues but has always remained focused on propagating non-violence, equality and justice.

 

Through his life, Rahul Gandhi has always been the strongest proponent of politics of purpose. Over the years, he has lent his voice to a number of issues but has always remained focused on propagating non-violence, equality and justice. He has imbibed these virtues through a lifelong tryst with Indian politics and history and has developed a keen understanding of the Indian social fabric. Having experienced the pain of losing both his father and grandmother to acts of violence and hatred, Rahul Gandhi has always been a champion of Gandhian philosophies of ahimsa and truth.

Rahul Gandhi has said that the assassination of his father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 changed him. Also noting that he had always been accustomed to an “environment” of public service, he said that he was brought up with the idea that you cannot tolerate injustice.

Rahul Gandhi made the remarks during an online interaction with Nicholas Burns, the Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a former US Under Secretary of State.

To a question by Burns about his family’s engagement in public service and if he had always assumed, when young, that some form of public service would be his life’s work, Rahul Gandhi, a Lok Sabha MP from Kerala’s Wayanad, said: “First of all, families are unique in a way. So, I guess I don’t see it (my family) as a unique family, I just see it as a family that just happens to go through certain things.” He said that he grew up in the environment of public service.

“When I was small, there was this underlined thing of a sense of trying to understand India, what is going on, what are the forces it plays and some of these things on how it works. In this sense I was embedded in it and I saw it from the beginning,” he said.

Discussing the assassination of his father in Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the 1991 general elections, he said: “Of course, there were certain events that sort of pushed me… in a way, my father’s assassination was one of them that developed that sense that I felt that my father was fighting some particular forces and he was wronged. And so as a son, that of course, had an effect.”

“And also I was brought up when I was small and young with the idea that you cannot tolerate injustice. And that’s something what I have been trained from beginning. If I see this up, it rattles me up and I get agitated and it doesn’t matter to whom the injustice is being done. And if that injustice is going with somebody whom I am not very fond of, that gets me going. So those are the type of things,” he said.

In interviews and speeches, Rahul Gandhi has often spoken of his traumatic childhood during which he saw his father and grandmother assassinated. These statements are often dismissed as ploys to gain sympathy. Yet he makes the point so often and so forcefully, it may be useful to consider the possibility that his grief is genuine, and that it has defined his politics in ways that makes it impractical for him to lead the Congress party.

Rahul’s personal agony is reflected in his ambivalence towards politics, his distrust of the system in which he must operate, and his fleeting attempts at redefining the idea of power and its pursuit. His psychological makeup seems to explain why he is out of sync with his party, unable to become an inspiration to it.

Rahul won his first election with an overwhelming margin of 2,90,853 votes — a testament to the faith placed by the people of his constituency in him. From the beginning, it was apparent that Rahul believed that our nation’s future lies with her people. Through the ebbs and flows of a decade-long political career, Rahul has held true to the very principles that won him the hearts of the people in his very first election.

In 2013, Rahul Gandhi was elected as the Vice-President of the Congress Party. Within the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi played the key role of channeling the party along the lines of Congress’ core principles. He tirelessly worked to democratise the student wing and youth wing of the Congress party and ensured a breath of fresh air entered the grand old party by encouraging young leaders to take up leadership positions. His pivotal role in shaping the party along Congress’ core values over his political career earned him the post of President of the Congress Party in 2017. Under Rahul Gandhi’s guidance, the Congress Party has once again emerged as the voice of the nation.

While he was President of the Opposition party, Rahul Gandhi played a key role in raising the demands of various stakeholders of the country. He championed the rights of the poor & the marginalised. He led the battle against the ruling government on poorly implemented policies such as Demonetisation, Aadhar, GST and more.

The vision of Rahul Gandhi and his strategy to fight the democratic battle with love and unity is what makes the Congress Party the true representative of a united India. Going forward, he aims to put these principles into action by creating systems that provide India’s citizens with the tools and opportunities they need to reach their full potential.

In his current role as a Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha, he represents the constituency of Wayanad in Kerala. After leaving his position as President of the Congress party, he has put all his focus & energy in representing the people of Wayanad & taking on the government on a number of issues, like the undemocratic abrogation of Article 370 & the violation of human rights by the government in Kashmir. He remains steadfast in his quest for truth, peace & harmony for the people of India.

Indian Americans Welcome US State Department’s Concerns About Deteriorating Human Rights Violations Under Modi Regime

Staff ReporterNation India 0

Leading Indian American civil rights organizations have welcomed the US Department of State’s Annual Report on Human Rights in India that has detailed the massive violations of civil liberties by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and its failure to prevent such violations and hold the perpetrators to account.

The Department of State’s report, released March 30, was a scathing account of the ground situation in India, where millions of social and religious minorities, including Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and Adivasis, as well as the 8 million residents of Kashmir, are facing ongoing brutal State repression, the organizations said on Sunday.

The organizations that released the statement include Hindus for Human Rights, Dalit Solidarity Forum, International Christian Concern, Indian American Muslim Council, India Civil Watch International, Students Against Hindutva Ideology, and Federation of Indian Christian Organizations of North America.

The 68-page report, released by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, observed that a “lack of accountability for official misconduct persisted at all levels of government, contributing to widespread impunity” in India during the year 2020.

The Department of State’s report on India documents unlawful and arbitrary killings; torture, arbitrary arrest and detention; impunity for police, paramilitary, and military violence; persecution of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, and Christians; attacks on the news media and the internet and site blocking; criminalizing free speech and restricting freedom of expression; excessive curbs on NGOs; and restrictions on academic freedom.

The report also highlights the brutal police crackdown on the “legitimate and peaceful protests” by students at Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Milia Islamia, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, which the government “portrayed as terrorist activities.” The Delhi police also “selectively pursued cases against Muslims and anti-CAA protesters.”

“The Modi government’s discriminatory citizenship law, the persecution of Muslims and other minorities, the pogrom against Muslims in Delhi and the manufacturing of criminal cases against Muslims for the violence, and the judiciary’s failure to provide justice all clearly indicate an alarming decline in civil liberties,” IAMC Executive Director Rasheed Ahmed said.

Raju Rajagopal, co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, said the State Department report was especially significant as it was the first such report under President Biden’s Administration. “We expect that President Biden will act on this report and raise the issues of human rights abuses with the Indian government,” Mr. Rajagopal said.

Feroz Mehdi, Secretary-Treasurer at India Civil Watch International, said, “The most disturbing facet of the human rights situation in India is the systematic muzzling of all kinds of dissent. The Indian state has arrested renowned activists, artists, and scholars who speak up for the underprivileged, has turned the media from watchdog to lapdog, and used procedural attacks to shut down civil society organizations, notably Amnesty International. Indian democracy is facing an existential crisis: it cannot survive if these checks and balances are destroyed.”

“India’s religious freedom has been on a steady decline for years, and the manifestations of this deterioration is now more clear than before,” Matias Perttula, Advocacy Director with International Christian Concern (ICC), said. “Christians are a constant target of persecution and discrimination within India. One of the greatest culprits of this injustice comes powered by laws known as the anti-forced conversion laws as well as the blasphemy laws that only serve as a source of courage for Hindutva radicals to attack and persecute Christians. More needs to be done to hold India accountable for their ongoing human rights violations.”

The report said societal violence based on religion and caste and by religiously associated groups continued to be a serious concern. Muslims and lower-caste Dalit groups continued to be the most vulnerable. Dalits, Tribals and Muslims led the list of those killed in police custody.

The report also quoted the high court in Telangana state that held the police to account for arresting a “disproportionately high number of Muslims” for violating COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. The court noted police often used excessive force when enforcing the lockdown rules. A Muslim volunteer arrested while distributing food to migrants required 35 stitches on his face due to police brutality, the report said.

In its annual report on global political rights and liberties, US-based non-profit Freedom House downgraded India from a free democracy to a “partially free democracy.” The Sweden-based V-Dem Institute in its latest report on democracy said India had become an “electoral autocracy.” And last month, India, described as a “flawed democracy,” slipped two places to 53rd position in the latest Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Kamala Harris Steps Into Role As A Voice For Asian Americans

David NakamuraNation India, Women 0

Vice President Kamala Harris was in Atlanta to meet with community leaders in the wake of the mass shooting two weeks ago when she summoned top aides to discuss what she would say.Her speechwriter had called in from Washington. Others were seated in front of her in a semicircle. The attacker had killed eight, including six women of Asian descent, and a draft of Harris’s speech had focused on the need for everyone to feel safe.

“That’s true, but it’s more than that,” she told the aides, according to one person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting. “It’s about being seen as American and not as the other.”A short time later, after emerging from the meeting with local Asian American leaders, Harris told reporters: “Sadly, it’s not new. Racism is real in America, and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America, and it always has been. Sexism, too.” With President Joe Biden standing behind her, she ticked through laws discriminating against Chinese immigrants in the 1860s, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and attacks against Muslim Americans after 9/11.

“Ultimately, this is about who we are as a nation,” Harris said. Asians “have the right to be recognized as American – not as the ‘other,’ not as ‘them,’ but as ‘us.’ ”For Harris, the use of the collective pronoun was poignant. Though her late mother was an immigrant from India, Harris, 56, whose father is from Jamaica, was raised to identify as Black – a reflection of her mother’s recognition that a young biracial woman would be viewed that way in a society whose racial dialogue was defined principally through a lens of Black and White.Now, amid accounts of rising violence targeting Asian Americans, it is her South Asian heritage that has put Harris in a unique position to give voice to the pain and anger that inspired a nascent political movement.

People who have worked with her said that Harris – although she seldom talks publicly about her Indian background – has an authentic understanding of the trepidation felt by many Asian Americans and shares their sense of urgency. The question, they said, is how far she is willing or able to go to embrace the role of forceful advocate and how much pressure she will face from the Asian American community to act as an influence on Biden to follow through on his pledges to prioritize their concerns.

“Kamala’s speech in Atlanta was very well done. It was clear and to the point. She spoke from a position no other vice president could,” said Shekar Narasimhan, the Indian American chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund, a SuperPAC focused on bolstering political activism among the nation’s 23 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.Though Harris did not offer a personal reflection, “her lived experience is translating on the world stage into that authenticity,” Narasimhan added. “I’m not worried about her representing us or advocating for the right causes. The only thing I preach about her to others is: ‘Be patient.’ She has to have time to find her footing. When she finds her legs, she will be the person we want her to be, to be advocating for us and for communities of color.”

Among Asian American leaders, Harris is widely regarded as a source of pride and as an ally of their causes. Yet they cautioned that her ability to advocate for them could be compromised by her multiple responsibilities as Biden’s deputy. Last week, for example, the president put Harris in charge of managing an influx of unauthorized migrants, mostly from Central America.For months, starting during the campaign and continuing through the transition, Democrats in Congress and community leaders have expressed frustration that Biden has not named more Asian Americans to his senior ranks.

Biden assembled the most racially diverse leadership team of any administration, with people of color making up half of his nominees and appointees.But none of his nominees for the 15 statutory Cabinet positions is an Asian American, breaking two decades of precedent from Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

The impatience boiled over last week during a private call between Democratic lawmakers and Biden aides, during which Jen O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, reportedly pointed to Harris in the discussion over Asian representation in the Cabinet.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who is of Chinese Thai descent, later called the remarks “insulting” and announced – along with Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a Japanese American – that they would oppose all of Biden’s nominees other than those who are racial minorities or LGBTQ. The senators withdrew their threat after the White House hastily agreed to appoint a senior official to focus on Asian American issues, a new position whose duties have yet to be defined.

Duckworth told reporters that White House aides had pointed at Harris “multiple times” over the past year in response to lawmakers’ pressure. She questioned whether the White House would dare tell the Congressional Black Caucus: “Well you have Kamala, so we’re not going to put any more African Americans in the Cabinet.”Biden administration officials said they are working to address lawmakers’ concerns. They noted that the president has been at the forefront of the efforts to address the violence, signing an executive action in January that barred the government from using racist or xenophobic language to describe the pandemic and that instructed the Justice Department to improve hate-crime tracking and prosecutions.

The senators emphasized that their anger was not aimed at Harris, with whom they had collaborated closely when she served on the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus as a senator from California.In May, Harris introduced a Senate resolution condemning Trump’s use of “Wuhan virus” to blame China for the coronavirus pandemic, and she joined her former CAPAC colleagues for a celebratory event after the election. She has spoken out numerous times over the anti-Asian hate incidents, including on social media and in an op-ed in the California-based Asian Journal in May in which she accused Trump of “race-baiting.”Yet Asian American leaders have made clear to the White House that Harris, alone, is not enough.

“We need more than the vice president. This is a national issue that deserves the highest level of coordination and a whole-of -government approach,” said Russell Jeung, an Asian American studies professor at San Francisco State University. He is a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group that has tallied 3,800 incidents of bias and hate directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders over the past year.

Biden aides responded to the criticism by noting that 15 percent of his Senate-confirmed nominees are Asian American, including U.S. Trade Ambassador Katherine Tai and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, plus two Cabinet deputies and the directors of the Office of Property Management and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Neera Tanden, an Indian American, failed last month to win Senate confirmation to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

The absence of Asian Americans at the White House has been noticeable. Last month, White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice and senior adviser Cedric Richmond, both of whom are Black, led a videoconference with Asian American community groups.
Rohini Kosoglu, a Sri Lankan American who serves as Harris’s domestic policy adviser, was the highest-ranking Asian American official in attendance, participants said.

“They got themselves into an unfortunate situation, and they are beginning to understand the problem, but it’s not easy to fix,” said a former Obama administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.This person called the new senior official position a “consolation prize” and said the political blowback over the Cabinet “was entirely predictable and having a voice in the White House would have foreseen it.”

In some ways, Harris’s position underscores the complexities of the term “Asian American,” which was coined by activists during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to demonstrate political solidarity in the fight against racism. Experts said the label was purposely broad, loosely tying together a broad and diverse swath of immigrants from East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia who do not share a common language, religion or immigration history.

“The concept was a political marker and a political commitment – a commitment to act in solidarity with other Third World people, in the U.S. and abroad,” said Daryl Maeda, an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “In the broadest sense, Asian America is a coalition – a highly diverse coalition filled with people of different aims, backgrounds, histories, priorities.”Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan – who raised her two daughters after divorcing Donald Harris when Kamala was 7 years old – was active in the civil rights movement. She recognized early on that Americans would largely view her children as Black and, though she steeped them in elements of Indian culture at home and took them on trips to India to meet relatives and learn about their heritage, she raised them to be aware of that reality.

The family worshiped at an African American church, and Kamala and her sister, Maya, were bused with other Black kids to an elementary school in a wealthier White neighborhood. Harris attended Howard University, a historically Black institution in Washington, D.C., and former classmates have said that they did not learn of her Indian heritage until years after they had graduated and she became a public figure.

In that sense, advocates said, it is through political solidarity, perhaps more so than through cultural affinity, that Harris and the Asian American community have begun to demonstrate their mutual kinship.“When she ran for president, some criticized her for not emphasizing her Indian heritage enough,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside and co-founder of AAPI Data, a polling and research organization. “She generally had not done much to put herself out there, in terms of not talking much about her identity, but that changed under the glare of the presidential race. What you did see once she was tapped to be vice president was an outpouring of enthusiasm among South Asians and among Asian Americans more broadly.”

They also rallied to her defense in the fall after then-Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., mocked the pronunciation of Harris’s first name at a Trump campaign rally – a reminder that despite her pedigree, Harris is subject to the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype so often aimed at Asian Americans. The incident prompted a wave of support from actors Kal Penn, Kumail Nanjiani and Daniel Dae Kim, Olympian Michelle Kwan, and comedian Ken Jeong, who led a social media campaign titled #MyNameIs aimed at mobilizing Georgia voters.
Biden and Harris won the state in November, the first time Democrats carried it since 1992, and Perdue was defeated by Democrat Jon Ossoff in his re-election bid.

Asian American identity “is a complex thing,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. “It’s not a true identity that many in the first generation or the second or the third identify with. It’s so broad. It’s a political identity as much as a cultural identity. I didn’t grow up eating dumplings or sushi or using chopsticks, but that doesn’t make me any less or more Asian.”

India Is An Important Partner In Rapidly Shifting International Dynamics, Says US Defense Secretary After Talks With Indian Officials

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India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said India has reaffirmed its resolve to maintain a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific, which is in line with the Narendra Modi government’s ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) policy.

The United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, following his meeting with Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh last week, said India is an important ally in the rapidly shifting international dynamics and his visit to New Delhi conveys the Joe Biden administration’s “strong commitment towards their partners in the region”.

“India, in particular, is an increasingly important partner amid today’s rapidly shifting international dynamics. And I reaffirmed our commitment to a comprehensive and forward-looking defence partnership with India as a central pillar of our approach to the region. As the world faces a global pandemic and growing challenges to an open and stable international system, the US-India relationship is a stronghold of a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” Austin added.

The US Defence Secretary had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and conveyed Washington’s “strong desire” to further enhance the strategic partnership for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

“India stands for freedom of navigation and overflight, unimpeded lawful commerce, and adherence to international law. This is a resounding affirmation of our shared vision for regional security in the Indo-Pacific. And it’s clear that the importance of this partnership, and its impact to the international rules-based order will only grow in the years ahead. Our work today is grounded in our shared values and converging strategic interests. We discussed opportunities to elevate the US-India Major Defense Partnership, which is a priority of the Biden-Harris administration… through regional security cooperation, military-to-military interactions, and defence trade. In addition, we are continuing to advance new areas of collaboration, including information-sharing, logistics cooperation, artificial intelligence, and cooperation in new domains such as space and cyber sectors,” Austin said.

Giving out details regarding the meeting, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in his statement, said a range of issues was discussed with a focus on “enhancing defence information sharing, cooperation in emerging domains of defence, mutual logistics support, and expanding military to military engagements across services.

“We are determined to expand India-US cooperation from bilateral and multilateral exercises to developing closer bilateral linkages. We intend to pursue enhanced cooperation between the Indian military and US Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command and Africa Command. We also plan to optimize the LEMOA, COMCASA and BECA Agreements and achieve their full potential to contribute to our security and prosperity,” Rajnath added.

With China looking to expand its influence over the region, both Austin and Rajnath said they will be engaging with “like-minded partners”.

The meet comes barely a week after the first Quad summit that was attended by Prime Minister Modi, US President Biden, Japense Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian PM Scott Morrison.

Elaborating on this, Austin said, “We discussed engagement with like-minded partners through multilateral groupings such as the Quad and ASEAN. As the Indo-Pacific region faces acute transnational challenges, such as climate change, and challenges to a free and open regional order, cooperation among like-minded countries is imperative to securing our shared vision for the future. Despite today’s challenging security environment, the partnership between the United States and India, the world’s two largest democracies, remains resilient and strong.”

Rajnath, too, while speaking about the Quad, said, “The summit has emphasized our resolve to maintain a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. Today, we reaffirmed that closer India-US cooperation in partnership with countries keen to uphold rules-based order, can promote security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. This is also in line with India’s ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) policy.”

Rajnath also appreciated the participation of the US in Aero India 2021 and expressed hope that “American manufacturers will take advantage of India’s liberalized foreign direct investment policies in the defense sector”.

It Is Dangerous To Speak Up In India Today.’ What the Resignations of 2 Academics Show About Freedom of Expression Under Modi Regime

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Two prominent academics stepped down from their positions at one of India’s most respected universities this week, shining a spotlight on the state of academic freedom and a widening crackdown on dissent under the Hindu nationalist ruling party.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta resigned from his position as a professor of political science at Ashoka University near Delhi on Monday. In his letter of resignation, reproduced online Thursday, Mehta suggested that he had been forced to step down because of indirect pressure by the Indian government. In newspaper columns and academic work, Mehta had been critical of the majoritarianism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Arvind Subramanian, an economics professor at Ashoka who once served as chief economic adviser to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also resigned from his position on Thursday in solidarity with Mehta, calling his treatment an affront to “academic expression and freedom.”

The resignations are the latest example of what observers say is a tightening of academic freedoms, and dissent more broadly, driven by the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP. In 2020, the U.S. NGO Freedom House down-ranked India’s academic freedom score from three to two out of a possible four, “due to rising intimidation in recent years that is aimed at controlling academic discussion of politically sensitive topics.”

Police have also increasingly used sedition and anti-terror legislation to intimidate academics, journalists and activists, says Harsh Mander, a prominent academic who has been on the receiving end of government intimidation. “The government feels now that its only opposition is some voices in academia and civil society, and they are the only barriers to recasting India into a Hindu supremacist nation,” says Mander, who was charged with incitement to violence for a speech he made at a peaceful anti-government protest in 2019. “They have used many tactics to create fear.”

In his resignation letter, Mehta suggested that he had been forced to step down because of indirect pressure on Ashoka University from the Indian government. “After a meeting with [the university’s] Founders it has become abundantly clear to me that my association with the university may be considered a political liability,” he wrote. “My public writing in support of a politics that tries to honor constitutional values of freedom and equal respect for all citizens, is perceived to carry risks for the university. In the interests of the university I resign.”

The founders of Ashoka, a privately-funded university established in 2014 as India’s answer to the Ivy League, had told Mehta in a meeting that his criticism of the Indian government was threatening the planned expansion of the university, according to an Ashoka employee with knowledge of the conversation, who requested anonymity out of concern for their job.

Neither Ashoka University nor the Indian government responded to TIME’s requests for comment. But in response to a similar allegation reported by the Edict, Ashoka’s student newspaper, a co-founder of the university said the Edict’s article was “factually inaccurate.” Mehta did not respond to a request for comment.

Mehta was formerly the university’s vice-chancellor, its highest academic post, until he stepped down in 2019. At the time, he cited personal reasons, but many have speculated that there was political pressure then, too. “That step sat uneasily for many of us, because it appeared that this was part of an escalating strategy where public intellectuals, civil society advocates, and human rights defenders who are progressive, liberal, with a certain idea of the free university and freedom of speech in a democratic society, were being identified, discouraged, and targeted,” says Angana Chatterji of the Center for Race and Gender at the University of California, Berkeley. “The government wants to send a message that it’s not just state institutions, [but] any institution that takes a position critical of the government [that] will be viewed and treated as unacceptable.”

Subramanian, the other academic who resigned from Ashoka on Thursday, cited the alleged pressure on Mehta as a reason for stepping down. “That someone of such integrity and eminence, who embodied the vision underlying Ashoka, felt compelled to leave is troubling,” wrote the prominent professor of economics. “That even Ashoka—with its private status and backing by private capital—can no longer provide a space for academic expression and freedom is ominously disturbing.” Subramanian has been a critic of the government’s economic policies since stepping down from his role as an economic adviser in 2018. He did not respond to a request for comment.

For Chatterji, an Indian academic based in California whose work has focused on the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, the experience of intimidation is personal. In 2008, police attempted to charge her with inciting violence against the state, citing an article she had authored that investigated unmarked graves in Kashmir, where the Indian government has been blamed for human rights abuses in its decades-long counterinsurgency campaign. That was before the BJP came to power in 2014 — but since the party was elected, Chatterji says, she has often found it difficult to return home to India from the U.S. because of threats from individuals associated with Hindu nationalist organizations.

Other areas of civil society are also facing censure in India. In 2020, the government forced the Indian branch of Amnesty International to cease its work in the country, after it publicly criticized the government’s human rights record. “In a myriad of ways, people are being harassed, subdued, subjugated in India today,” Chatterji says. “It is dangerous to speak up in India today.”

Ambani security scare: NIA to take over probe into death of Mansukh Hiren

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The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had been probing the case and had registered a case of murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence against an unknown person in connection with Hiran’s death.

The National Investigation of Agency (NIA) will take over the investigation into the death of Mansukh Hiren, the owner of the vehicle found outside the residence of Mukesh Ambani with gelatin sticks and a threat letter.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had been probing the case and had registered a case of murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence against an unknown person in connection with Hiren’s death. Now, the case has been handed over to the NIA.

The NIA is already investigating the Antilia bomb scare case and role of Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Waze.

Hiren’s body was found in a creek near Mumbra, after which an accidental death report was filed at Mumbra police station in Thane.

Hiren’s wife has accused Waze of involvement in her husband’s suspicious death.

On Friday night, NIA took Waze to the spot where the explosives-laden Scorpio was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence, and recreated the crime scene as part of its probe.

recorded at the spot on the day of the incident was Waze, although it is being confirmed.

U.S. Senator Asks Lloyd Austin To Raise Concerns About Eroding Democratic Values During Visit To India

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In a letter, Bob Menendez asks the Secretary of Defence to raise India’s planned purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system.

Saying the Indian government is moving away from democratic values, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez has written to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asking him to raise concerns about democracy and India’s purchase of the S-400 Russian missile defence system during his visit to New Delhi. Mr. Austin is expected to meet Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and senior national security officials between March 19 and 21 when he is in New Delhi.

“I would like to see the U.S.-India partnership grow, but we must acknowledge that the partnership is strongest when based on shared democratic values and the Indian government has been trending away from those values,” Mr. Menendez says in the letter dated March 17.

“I also expect that you will raise the administration’s opposition to India’s reportedly planned purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system,” he writes.

Among his concerns, Mr. Menendez cites a crackdown on journalists and critics of the government, its handling of the farmer protests and the use of sedition laws and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

‘Deteriorating democracy’

“The Indian government’s ongoing crackdown on farmers peacefully protesting new farming laws and corresponding intimidation of journalists and government critics only underscores the deteriorating situation of democracy,” Mr. Menendez says.

 “Moreover, in recent years, rising anti-Muslim sentiment and related government actions like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the suppression of political dialogue and arrest of political opponents following the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, and the use of sedition laws to persecute political opponents have resulted in the U.S. human rights group Freedom House stripping India of its ‘Free’ status in its yearly global survey,” he says.

India’s purchase of S-400 for just under $5.5 billion could attract sanctions under a 2017 law: the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The Trump administration’s repeated message was that sanction waivers are not automatic and decided on a case by case basis. Congress forced the Trump administration’s hand in December last year by requiring it to sanction Turkey for purchasing the S-400. In 2018, China was sanctioned for purchase of Russian equipment.

Sanctions on the cards

While India is not a treaty ally of the U.S. and is increasing its purchase of U.S. arms — mitigating circumstances as per U.S. law — the Menendez letter suggests that sanctions are still — at least in theory — an option as India is expected to take delivery of the S-400 later this year.

It reads: “India’s planned purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system is also a matter of concern. I recognize that India is not a U.S. treaty ally and has historical ties with the Soviet and Russian militaries. However, if India chooses to go forward with its purchase of the S-400, that act will clearly constitute a significant, and therefore sanctionable, transaction with the Russian defense sector under Section 231 of CAATSA.”

Mr. Menendez says the U.S. should seek to partner India on issues such as climate change and China but while doing so, it cannot let its “democratic values fall away”.

He also asks Mr. Austin to “make clear” to New Delhi that all areas of India-U.S. cooperation are contingent on India’s adherence to democratic values.

(Courtesy: The Hindu)

Dr. S.S. Lal, The First NRI Candidate in Kerala, Promising To Lead the State to Progress, Peace and Unity

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Dr. S.S. Lal, a UDF candidate and a world renowned healthcare expert, is contesting the Assembly elections from Kazhakkoottam Constituency, Thiruvananthapuram, in the ensuing Kerala Assembly elections.

Dr. SS Lal, has been nominated as a UDF candidate to contest at the upcoming Assembly elections from Kazhakkoottam Constituency, Thiruvananthapuram, in the ensuing Kerala Assembly elections. As an internationally well known medical professional and public health specialist, who worked in international organizations such as WHO, as a social activist, educationist, and writer, Dr. Lal embodies the great values and leadership of the state of Kerala and India needs at this critical time in India’s history.

The electorate of this southern Indian constituency in the state of Kerala is around 2 lakhs. CPM has a very large following among the poor and the fisher folk. Kadakapall Surendran of CPM  is the current MLA and Minister. BJP also has a large following.  Surendran, BJP President contested from here last time and cornered around 40,000 votes. The educated and professionals in techno park, University, medical establishments may not go by political affiliations. One lakh votes could be an ideal target i.e. around 50 % of the electorate. House to house campaigning especially among the poor and institutional campaigning would be required. This constituency represents almost all major communities, including Christians, Moslems, and Hindus who are equally strong here.

Although Dr. S. S. Lal has been away from India on international assignments, he is not an “imported candidate” as he has been always connected with Thiruvananthapuram District. Since his childhood, he has left behind his own historical imprints wherever he stepped in. He completed his primary education at Government School, Pettah, Thiruvananthapuram, and at St. Joseph’s School. He holds an MBBS from the Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, and a Master’s (M.P.H.) degree in Public Health from the Sree Chitra National Institute. He has achieved Ph.D. from the world-renowned Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has been a regular winner of state-level literary competitions since his school days. He has published two novels and several short stories in later periodicals. The story continues.

Leadership is an individual’s ability to lead, inspire, and guide to transform other individuals, groups, organizations, or society for a good cause. These qualities are immensely embedded in an uncorrupted doctor-cum-politician, Dr. S.S. Lal. Undoubtedly, we have the proud moment that an American NRI gets a prominent political party seat in the Kerala assembly elections. For Dr.S.S.Lal moves wherever his ideologies are politically correct, as he is a dedicated politician hidden inside a health expert.

Dr. Lal has been active in leadership and social work, and  was elected Chairman of the University College and Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram. He has also been a member of the Senate of the University of Kerala. He was the Secretary of the Kerala Medicos Association and the President of the Kerala House Surgeons Association. He was the Founding President of the Kerala Junior Doctors Association and the Founding Chairman of the Confederation of Medicos and Junior Doctors. Worked in leadership at the state and national levels of the I.M.A. Lal is the founder of the I.M.A.’s State Level Doctors Club and the I.M.A. Women’s Wing (WIMA). He is the Founding Secretary of the Kerala Doctors Trust and the Doctors Village.

His initiatives on  several health projects like The ‘Act Force,’ which trained taxi-autorickshaw drivers to provide first aid to road accident victims,  has helped thousands of people affected by road accidents. This pattern was later successfully repeated in various parts of the country. Many villages and old age homes were adopted with the help of doctors’ organizations. The village of Kallar, which rescued several other students on the day of several medical students’ death in a landslide, was thus adopted.

Dr: S.S. Lal is an internationally known public health expert. He has served as a senior official of the World Health Organization and some other international organizations in various countries, including India, and held position as  Professor and Head of the Department of Public Health at the Global Institute of Public Health, Thiruvananthapuram;  Vice-Chairman of a Global Committee of the World Health Organization and a member of several other committees.

His International work in Geneva and the United States has primarily led to suppressing tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria in various countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America.

His first job at the World Health Organization was in 1999. He became an official in the system set up by the World Health Organization to provide technical assistance to the TB program in the country. He later served as New York’s Health Commissioner. Dr. Lal was selected to the first sixteen-member team of CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden. Dr.Lal was initially responsible for the team for Kerala, southern Tamil Nadu, and Lakshadweep.

Lal is a visiting Faculty Member at several international research institutes and universities, including the International Tuberculosis Research Institute in Tokyo; and Adjunct Professor at the Global Institute of Public Health, Thiruvananthapuram. He is a reviewer of scientific publications such as the World Health Organization’s Bulletin and the British Medical Journal.

Lal was the first doctor to present a series of health programs on Indian television. The weekly health program, ‘Pulse,’ which aired on the Asianet channel since its inception, quickly attracted a lot of attention. Launched in 1993, Lal aired over 500 episodes in a row till 2003. He was also a regular guest on All India Radio. He has been a columnist since the first issue of Mathrubhumi Health Magazine in 1997. He was a long-time columnist for the Delhi edition of Manorama newspaper from 2004.. For a long time, he was the editor and columnist of the health magazine ‘Our Health’. ‘He manages the ‘Rounds’ column in the Kerala Kaumudi newspaper. He continues to write in medical journals and other periodicals. He has published over four hundred scientific articles.

Dr. Lal is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards:  like the National Award in 1995 for his outstanding performance in implementing health schemes in the country. In 2005,  IMA’s most prestigious ‘Ranbaxy – IMA Award, and  the IMA’s own ‘Dr. Menda Memorial Award’, Best Television Health Program Presenter,  Rotary Award in 1998 for her work in the field of polio eradication. He has visited more than eighty countries as part of his international career in the field of health.

Until last year, he was the Director of the Infectious Diseases Unit in charge of the Tuberculosis Division at Family Health International, an American international health organization based in the U.S. capital, Washington, DC. From 2013 to 2018, he was the Global Director of the Tuberculosis Unit of the international organization Path in the United States. Dr. Lal has published several short stories and two novels. Lal is a blogger and photographer who is constantly interacting on Facebook through writing.

At present Dr. Lal is the President of All India Professional Congress at Kerala, and vibrant in the media and with his personal participation in channel discussions and active in social issues.

His eminent leadership as the President of Indo American Press Club is continuously uplifting the organization in its various activities in USA and Canada.

Abundantly enriched with his characteristics of honesty, integrity and confidence, Dr.Lal  is an ideal candidate who deserves to win so that he can fight for the common man, cleanse current politics, work towards providing a clean and corruption-free administration, and spearhead exponential socio-economic and technological development of Kerala and India, sure enough to make us proud with an exceptional international impact.

Dr. Lal may be a UDF candidate. However, irrespective of political affiliations, he is an ideal candidate who deserves to win in order to represent the interests of the common man, who can cleanse the current politics, work towards providing a clean and corruption-free administration, and spearhead exponential socio-economic and technological development of Kerala and India, making an international impact. In this post-COVID scenario his candidature becomes all the more relevant. As an expatriate Keralite and Indian, he is aware of the problems of the NRIs and NRKs and he will fight for their just causes. But above all he will use their  expertise and resources for Kerala’s and India’s development.

India Joins Quad Leaders, Committing To Free, Open, Secure And Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region

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Quad Leaders from Australia, India, Japan and the US “a group of democratic nations dedicated to delivering results through practical cooperation”  coordinated rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to people in need.

“To strengthen our quest for a region that is open and free, we have agreed to partner to address the challenges presented by new technologies and collaborate to set the norms and standards that govern the innovations of the future,” the leaders of the four-nation Quad said in a statement here on Friday, March 12th. The Quad leaders in the summit on Friday vowed to strive for a “free, open and inclusive” region unconstrained by “coercion”.

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post after holding the first Leaders’ Summit of Quadrilateral alliance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Australian PM Scott Morrison and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga asserted that all countries should be able to make their own political choices, free from coercion.

Australia, India, Japan and the US “a group of democratic nations dedicated to delivering results through practical cooperation”  coordinated rapid humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to people in need, they wrote. “Now, in this new age of interconnection and opportunity throughout the Indo-Pacific, we are again summoned to act together in support of a region in need,” they said.

Reaffirming that they are striving to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is accessible, dynamic and governed by international law and bedrock principles such as freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes, and free from coercion, sending a clear message to China which is flexing its muscles in the region and beyond. They said the governments of India, Japan, US and Australia have worked closely for years, and now for the first time in “Quad” history, they convened as leaders to advance meaningful cooperation at the highest level.

The virtual Quad summit took place as China and India are involved in a military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh since May last year. China is also engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. In the East China Sea, Japan has maritime disputes with China.

The leaders of the 4 nations said the cooperation, known as “the Quad,” was born in crisis. It became a diplomatic dialogue in 2007 and was reborn in 2017. “In December 2004, the continental shelf off the coast of Indonesia shifted two meters, creating one of the largest tidal waves in modern history and a nearly unprecedented humanitarian crisis around the Indian Ocean. With millions displaced and hundreds of thousands killed, the Indo-Pacific region sounded a clarion call for help. Together, our four countries answered it,” they wrote.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the quadrilateral grouping of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia has “come of age” as he attended the first Quad leaders’ summit virtually. The grouping is being seen as a united front to counter China’s imperialistic aggression and expansion through trade and military occupation. Modi started his speech by declaring, “It is good to be among friends.” The four countries, he said, “are united by our democratic values and our commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.”

The agenda of the summit — covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies — makes the Quad a force for global good, he said. Describing Quad as a positive vision, the prime minister said that it is an extension of India’s ancient philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,’which regards the world as one family. “We will work together closer than ever before for advancing our shared values and promoting a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Modi said.

Quad, he added, “is an important pillar of stability in the region.” Modi’s statement was welcomed by a lot of India watchers in the U.S. Former U.S. diplomat and Harvard academic Nicholas Burns praised the move, tweeting, “Today’s first-ever Quad leaders meeting – of the US, India, Japan and Australia – is a big deal. Led by the President of the United States Joe Biden, these four can lead on vaccine distribution, strengthen democracies in the region and limit China’s assertiveness.”

There are reports that India will produce Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid vaccine shot as part of the first Quad initiative. The project will be financed by Japan and the U.S., while Australia will use its logistics capability to ship the vaccines to Southeast Asia and Pacific countries.

“Against this backdrop, we are recommitting to a shared vision for an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, resilient and inclusive. We are striving to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is accessible and dynamic, governed by international law and bedrock principles such as freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes, and that all countries are able to make their own political choices, free from coercion,” they wrote.

COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout By India Has ‘Rescued The World’ From Pandemic

Seema Hakhu KachruHealth, Nation India 0

India is called the pharmacy of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines by India in collaboration with leading global institutions has ‘rescued the world’ from the deadly coronavirus.

 

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines by India in collaboration with leading global institutions has ‘rescued the world’ from the deadly coronavirus and the contributions by the country must not be underestimated, a top American scientist has said.

India is called the pharmacy of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic with its vast experience and deep knowledge in medicine. The country is one of the world’s biggest drug-makers and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring coronavirus vaccines.

Dr Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston during a recent webinar said that the two mRNA vaccines may not impact the world’s low and middle income countries, but India’s vaccines, made in collaboration with universities across the world such as BCM and the Oxford University, have “rescued the world” and its contributions must not be underestimated.

During the webinar, “COVID-19: Vaccination and Potential Return to Normalcy – If and When”, Dr Hotez, an internationally-recognised physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development, said that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is ‘India’s gift’ to the world in combating the virus.

India’s drugs regulator gave emergency use authorization to Covishield, produced by Pune-based Serum Institute of India after securing license from British pharma company AstraZeneca, and Covaxin, indigenously developed jointly by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and Indian Council of Medical Research scientists. The webinar was organized by Indo American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston (IACCGH).

“This is something very special and I see it myself because I’m on weekly teleconferences with our colleagues in India, you make a recommendation, and within days it’s done and not only done, but it’s done well and with incredible rigor and thought and creativity,’ Dr Hotez said, stressing that he felt compelled to make this statement because ‘India’s huge efforts in combating global pandemic is a story that’s not really getting out in the world.’ Dr Hotez, considered as the authority on vaccinations, is working on an affordable coronavirus vaccine in collaboration with Indian pharmaceutical companies.

There is increasing evidence that vaccines not only “interrupt symptomatic illness and keep you out of the hospital” but halts asymptomatic transmission as well. However, the troubling news is that the vaccines work well against the UK B.1.1.7 variant, which is now accelerating across the US, but doesn’t work quite as well against the variant coming out of South Africa.

It is likely that all the vaccines will require a booster for two reasons: the durability of protection for the vaccines is unknown and to create an added immune response that’s better tailored towards the South African variant.

Consul General of India in Houston, Aseem Mahajan, along with a distinguished panel of doctors participated in this webinar, that tracked the possibilities of a return to some semblance of normality due to the accelerated roll out of vaccines across the country.

Appreciating Dr. Hotez for commending India’s efforts in getting vaccines to the world, Consul General Mahajan, said, “in keeping with “our tradition of sharing with the world,” India has exported vaccines to many countries across the world.

India has provided 56 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccines under grants assistance to a number of countries. The vaccines were sent to Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles.

There has also been a boost in the collaborative medical partnerships emerging between the US and India during this pandemic. In addition, India is one of the fourth largest destinations in Asia for medical devices manufacturing and many US companies have expressed interest in collaborating on this front,’ Mahajan said.

IACCGH Founding Secretary/Executive Director Jagdip Ahluwalia said that “India’s response to the COVID crisis, as acknowledged by Dr Hotez, falls in line with Chamber’s vision. Since its inception, 21 years ago, India would be a future global player in key areas like technology, medicine, manufacturing and international trade. This belief has been proved time and again particularly in the last decade.’ Chamber President Tarush Anand expressed pride that India has risen to this global challenge by leveraging the brilliance of its scientific community and extensive manufacturing capabilities in the most efficient manner to help the world recover from a deadly pandemic.

Describing vaccines as “one of the highest expressions of science in pursuit of humanitarian goals,” Chief Radiation Oncology Officer and moderator Dr Vivek Kavadi noted that over 28 million people had contracted the virus in the US and more than half a million Americans had tragically died. Lives and businesses had been upended but the breakthrough on the vaccine front has been one reason for cautious optimism.

More than 73 million vaccine doses have been administered to date, 15 per cent of the population has received 1 dose while 7 per cent have received both doses, Dr Kavadi said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s Visit to India to Further Strengthen Defense Cooperation

Staff ReporterNation India, Nation USA 0

U.S. Secretary of Defense Gen. Lloyd J. Austin is scheduled to visit India from March 19 to March 21 to further strengthen bilateral defense cooperation. It will be the first high-level visit by someone from the U.S. after Joe Biden took over as the president on Jan. 20.

During his visit, Austin is expected to meet Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and other senior dignitaries in the government. The visit will take place a week after the first ever Indo-Pacific Quad summit on March 12, which will be attended virtually by the heads of states of India, the U.S., Australia and Japan. The U.S. defense secretary will also visit Japan and South Korea.

“Both sides are expected to discuss ways to further strengthen bilateral defense cooperation and exchange views on regional security challenges and common interests in maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

Discussions regarding defense cooperation would also focus on how both countries could consolidate military-to-military cooperation and defense trade and industry cooperation.

Austin’s visit to India as part of his first overseas travel emphasizes the strength of the India-U.S. strategic partnership.

India has inked defense deals worth $18 billion with the U.S. since 2007. In the near future, a deal worth $3 billion for 30 armed drones from the U.S. to be used by all the three forces is likely to be signed. As per plans, India will be acquiring 30 MQ-9 Reaper – 10 each for the three services.

The procurement is being done as India is facing a war-like situation on two fronts – Pakistan and China. These MQ-9B Predator drones are manufactured by San Diego, Calif.-based General Atomics. The MQ-9B has an endurance of 48 hours and a range of over 6,000 nautical miles.

It comes with nine hard-points, capable of carrying sensors and laser-guided bombs besides air-to-ground missiles. During the Aero India show in Bengaluru last month, the U.S. Defense Attache in India, Rear Admiral Eileen Laubacher, had stated that the U.S. is looking forward to enhancing bilateral relations with India and also to work together to tackle evolving space threats.

She had said: “As we build out our own space force, re-establish the space command, we look forward to wide-ranging cooperation with India and the defense space agency. It is imperative that we both work together in this emerging domain as space threats evolve.”

Referring to the growing Chinese assertiveness and emerging threats for the Indo-Pacific region, Laubacher had said: “Today we are seeing an increasingly provocative set of behavior throughout the Indo-Pacific, from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea, to India’s borders high in the Himalayas. These actions threaten the norms of international conduct, the norms which India and the U.S. uphold resolutely.”

US Secretary Of State To Look Into Case Of 83-Yr-Old Fr. Stan Swamy, Held In Custody

Staff ReporterNation India, Religion 0

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he would look into the case of an 83-year-old Catholic priest, Stan Swamy, held in custody in India on allegations he was linked to Maoists. Responding to a request from a member of the House of Representatives while he was testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Blinken asked for more information and said: “We’ll look into it.”

Juan Vargas, who is the vice chair of the House International Economic Policy and Migration Subcommittee, told Blinken while questioning him that it was “incredible injustice” that Swamy, who was arrested by the National Investigation Agency, has been in jail for over 130 days.

Swamy belongs to the Jesuit order of priests and Vargas said that he had himself been a member of that society. He was arrested in Ranchi and taken to Maharashtra and detained in a Pune jail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on allegations that he participated in the activities of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist.

The case relates to a celebration by Dalits on January 1, 2018, in Koregaon-Bhima near Pune, which was followed by violence that left one person dead. Swamy has been an activist for tribal and Dalit rights.

Earlier in his testimony to the Committee on President Joe Biden’s Priorities for US Foreign Policy, Blinken said that in furtherance of its aims, “we held the first ministerial meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between us, Japan, Australia, and India, and we will hold a leader-level summit this week on Friday”.

China was the dominant theme during the hearing with Blinken declaring, “Our relationship with China, the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century”. Repeatedly questioned about Biden’s comment when asked on a CNN programme about Beijing treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority that “culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow”, Blinken reiterated that he considers there was a “genocide” of the Uighurs and the US would continue to speak out forcefully against it.

An Indian Citizen’s Musings

Julius Rebeiro,Editorial/Opinion, Nation India 0

As a citizen of the country I felt it has to be conveyed to them. Modi ji, there is no point in shouting standing in a stage and asking question that what is achieved in 60 years. Dont think that the citizen of our country are fools. You are a Prime Minister of a country which was under British rule for more than 200 years. The people were living just like slaves. Congress came to power in 1947 after independence started with zero. There was nothing in this country except the garbages left out by the British.

India didn’t even had the resourse to produce even a pin since Britishers left India. The electricity was available only for 20 villages across the country. Telephone facility was available only for 20 rulers (kings) in this country. There was no drinking water supply. There was only 10 small dams. No hospitals, no educational institutions. No fertiliser, no feeds, no water supply for cultivation. There was no job & only starvation in the country. There was many infant death. Very few military staff in the border. Only 4 planes, 20 tankers & fully open borders on all 4 sides of the country. Very minimum roads & bridges. Empty exchequer. Nehru came power in these circumstances.

What is India after 60 years?

World’s largest army. Thousands of war planes, tankers. Lakhs of industrial institutions. Electricity in all villages. Hundreds of electic power stations. Lakhs kilometre of national highways & over bridges. New railway projects, Stadiums, super speciality hospitals, most of the Indian households with television, telephone for all the countrymen. All infrastructure to work in and outside the country, Banks, Universities, AIMS, IITS, IIMS, Nuclear weapons, sub-marines, nuclear stations, ISRO, Navarathna Public sector units.

Indian Army barging till Lahore years back? Split Pakistan into 2 pieces ? 1 lakh of military & commanders surrendered to Indian army? India started exporting minerals & food items ? Bank nationalization by Mrs. Indira Gandhi? Computer introduces to India & many job opportunities in India and outside the country? You have become PM using information technology?

When you took over as the PM, India was the top 10 economies in the world? Apart from this, GSLV, Mangalyan, Monorail, Metro rail, International airports, Prithvi, Agni, Naag, Nuclear submarines….all these were achieved before you became PM.

Please do not come to people asking what The Congress Party has achieved in 60 years.

Please tell people what you have achieved in the last 6 ½ years except changing names, doing statue and cow politics, failed demonetisation, poorly executed GST, and making people stand in long queues. Hypocrite BJPians opposed FDI like anything and now BJP is supporting FDI shamelessly.. BJP is selling India to Ambani and Rafale deal to Anil Ambani’s 2-month old company over HAL owned by government of India is a prime example of it.. BJP made petrol, diesel, and LPG price go up by putting more tax, while the price of crude oil became cheaper.. Modi government through SBI in the form of fine collected whopping Rs 1771 crore for not able to maintain minimum balance from the poor people of India. Vikas is happening for Amit Shah’s son, Amit Shah, Shaurya Doval, Ambanis, Adani, baba Ramdev’s Patanjali group, and the people who sponsors BJP.. 3000 crores have been spent by BJP to clean river Ganga, this corruption each and everyone can find out by taking a dip in river Ganga..

(PS This is not an advertisement for the congress campaign. I’m not a congress supporter. I’m just an informed voter who feels it is an insult to his intelligence each time the current government says our country has been no good over the last 60 years!)

India’s Degraded And Downgraded Democracy

Staff ReporterNation India 0

“The offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of the governments,” declared the judge while ordering bail for the 22-year-old climate change activist Disha Ravi, who was arrested recently, accused of working with the activist Greta Thunberg to undermine the Indian government — an outrageous fiction. Their only “crime” was expressing support for the farmers’ protest.

But the decision in Ravi’s case has much wider implications. It was a rare but welcome instance of the judiciary standing up to the Indian government’s increasingly authoritarian tactics.

The judge came down heavily against the use of sedition charges against activists and journalists. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sedition charges have been deployed as a clear tool of intimidation. A report by the organization Article 14 shows that 96 percent of sedition cases filed against 405 Indians for criticizing politicians and government officials were registered after 2014, when Modi assumed power.

So it didn’t really come as a surprise when the latest Freedom House democracy report degraded India from “free” to “partly free.” The report noted that the government and “its state-level allies continued to crack down on critics during the year, and their response to covid-19 included a ham-fisted lockdown that resulted in the dangerous and unplanned displacement of millions of internal migrant workers. The ruling Hindu nationalist movement also encouraged the scapegoating of Muslims, who were disproportionately blamed for the spread of the virus and faced attacks by vigilante mobs.”

The report’s conclusion is a scathing indictment. “Rather than serving as a champion of democratic practice and a counterweight to authoritarian influence from countries such as China, Modi and his party are tragically driving India itself toward authoritarianism,” the report says.

Of course the Indian government — which has now dismissed criticism from the United Nations and Amnesty International, which was forced to shut down in the country — rushed to attack the report as “misleading, incorrect and misplaced.”

But the government offered few specifics in its rebuttal. That’s because the steady decline of Indian democracy is impossible to deny, and emphasizing PR-friendly stories of economic growth won’t mark that reality anymore. The V-Dem Institute, based in Sweden, also downgraded India’s classification from “world’s largest democracy” to “electoral autocracy” in its latest report.

The same day Freedom House released its report, tax officials raided the home of the filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and the actress Taapsee Pannu. Both have been fiercely critical of the arrests of students and activists and have also expressed support for the farmers’ protest. The duo stands out for deciding to raise their voices for social justice, defying the comfortable silence and denial prevailing among most Bollywood stars.

Indian movie stars and athletes are often deployed to promote government policies and amplify propaganda. It helps cement their popularity. So when Thunberg, along with celebrities such as Rihanna and Meena Harris, tweeted in solidarity with the farmers’ protest, the entire powerful ecosystem of government supporters started attacking them for wanting to “destabilize” India.

But many of those high-profile supporters have been silent about the Freedom House downgrade. It’s more convenient to pick fights with celebrities than actually contend with the fact-based reality that India’s vibrant democracy is descending into totalitarianism. A top Indian movie star who enjoys cult status told me early in the year that his blood boils seeing activists and students being thrown behind bars, but that he feared that expressing support would bring retaliation from the government, such as the launching of fictitious investigations against him. His fears are not without merit. The raid on Kashyap and Pannu was a clear message. It’s not just the film industry that has been neutralized and co-opted — critics in the Indian media are also being identified and monitored.

The Indian news magazine Caravan just published an investigation about how Indian ministers actively discussed ways of neutralizing “negative influencers” critical of the government. “Some negative influencers give false narratives and discredit the Government. These need to be constantly tracked so that proper and timely response can be given,” the report reads.

The Freedom House report highlighted what Indian activists and independent journalists have known for a long time. What the citizens of Kashmir, who are vilified in their own land, have known for a long time. What students and dissidents fighting each day to uphold India’s democratic traditions have known for a long time. What Muslims who feel orphaned in a country their forefathers helped built with their blood and sweat have known for a long time.

My hopes for this country, as a journalist and as a Muslim, are being crushed each day. But like many Indians who have cherished the dream of this inclusive plural nation, I see the Freedom House report as an important historical document. I hope it provides solace to the young and the restless and the disillusioned, even while our own people, our media, our popular figures decide to ignore the truth. Some seem to be reveling in the criticism like a badge of honor.

But the world is indeed watching.

Freedom House Report Declaring India Only A “Partly Free” Democracy A Recognition Of Reality Say Indian Americans

Staff ReporterCommunity, Nation India 0

Indian American Muslim Council (www.iamc.com) an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos today expressed its concurrence with the annual report of Freedom House, the Washington-based pro-democracy think tank which designated India as only a “partly free,” democracy. Freedom House is a preeminent think tank in the US with significant influence on the discourse around American foreign policy.

The report on the global political rights and liberties, downgraded India, numerically the world’s largest democracy, from “Free” to “Partly Free” while highlighting a steady erosion of democracy increasingly manifested through pressure on human rights groups, the intimidation and harassment of journalists and academics, policies that target and harm religious minorities, particularly Muslims, and the politicization of the Indian judiciary.

“Under Modi, India appears to have abandoned its potential to serve as a global democratic leader, elevating narrow Hindu nationalist interests at the expense of its founding values of inclusion and equal rights for all,” said the Freedom House report titled “Democracy under Siege.”

The report reflects the worst four year decline in India’s Freedom House ranking- in 2018 it was 77th, the next year it was 75, in 2020 71 and in 2021 it is 67. The report referred in detail to atrocities against Muslims highlighting the fact that “the ruling Hindu nationalist movement also encouraged the scapegoating of Muslims, who were disproportionately blamed for the spread of the virus and faced attacks by vigilante mobs.”

“Last year, the government intensified its crackdown on protesters opposed to a discriminatory citizenship law and arrested dozens of journalists who aired criticism of the official pandemic response. Judicial independence has also come under strain; in one case, a judge was transferred immediately after reprimanding the police for taking no action during riots in New Delhi that left over 50 people, mostly Muslims, dead,” said the Freedom House report.

In December, Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, approved a law that prohibits forced religious conversion through interfaith marriage, which critics fear will effectively restrict interfaith marriage in general; authorities have already arrested a number of Muslim men accusing them of “forcing” Hindu women to convert to Islam.

The report situates India’s status as part of a global shift in the balance between democracy and authoritarianism. It warns that India’s “fall from the upper ranks of free nations” could have damaging consequences for the prospect of world’s democratic standards.

“Rather than serving as a champion of democratic practice and a counterweight to authoritarian influence from countries such as China, Modi and his party are tragically driving India itself toward authoritarianism,” it said.

“The alarming report of the Freedom House is not surprising given the rapidly escalating situation in India that has gotten alarm bells ringing across the United States and other Western European democracies,” said Ahsan Khan, President of IAMC.

Various American newspapers and magazines have questioned if India could still be called a democracy given Mr. Modi’s persecution of free speech and dissent and targeting of its minorities. The Editorial Board of the Washington Post in February called into question India’s status as a democracy, highlighting the clampdown on dissent, especially in reference to the arrest of a 22-year-old climate and animal rights activist Disha Ravi. Similarly, the NYT and the Economist in the past questioned Mr. Modi’s pretense of a democratic government.

“Arresting those who have expressed dissent, on false and fabricated charges is pervasive. Merely giving a speech or protesting, legitimate rights of citizens under the Constitution, can land people in jail,” said Mr. Khan while highlighting the situation of student leader Umar Khalid and anti-CAA protester Gulfisha, both of whom are in jail on fabricated charges.

“Many experts in the United States have raised concerns that India’s rapid transformation into a fascist state is following a genocidal trajectory, against Muslims, minorities as well as Hindus opposed to the Hindutva movement,” added Mr. Khan.

IAMC is dedicated to promoting the common values of pluralism, tolerance, and respect for human rights that form the basis of the world’s two largest secular democracies – the United States and India.

New Face Of Great Indian Economy: An Exclusive Interview with DR. Swati V Kulkarni Consulate General Of India at Atlanta

Dr. Mathew Joys, Las VegasCommunity, Nation India, Women 0

Meticulously rebuilding and reshaping a great democratic nation need the dedicated efforts of politicians and diplomats who reflect the characteristics and features of the progress of their motherland on international platforms, and weaving vibrant relationships globally.

 

Indian Consulate General at Atlanta USA, Dr. Swati Vijay Kulkarni, with her exciting initiatives, demonstrates her dedication to uplift the greatness of India and bestow unparalleled benefits to the Indian community.

 

Dr. Swati Vijay Kulkarni is a career diplomat who holds an M.B.B.S. (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) degree from the prestigious Government Medical College, Nagpur, India. She joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1995.

 

In a recent interview with her, she revealed how much she is ambitious, energetic, and looking for ways to help people.Her achievements, background, and personality can be evident from the concrete answers provided for the questions of national importance, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic hit a developing nation like India, and how successful the Indian government is able to combat and control the disaster.

 

Q : How far Indian diplomacy is successful in expediting the Covid vaccination programs in India and other foreign countries in distress?

On January 16, we launched the world’s largest vaccination drive. The vaccination drive has been planned in a phased manner. The Phase 1 work is in progress. As of date, i.e., February 17, 2021, we have vaccinated over 9.42 million people, mostly frontline and health workers. The 2nd Phase is starting shortly. It will give priority to people over 50 years and those with co-morbidities. Both the phases will vaccinate about 300 million people, almost the entire America minus 32 million or so. This will fast-track our economic recovery.

The launch of ‘Vaccine Maitri’ in January has been a landmark in our diplomacy. In accordance with the Honorable Prime Minister’s commitment to deploy vaccine production and delivery capacity for the benefit of all humanity, vaccines have been delivered to 25 countries as of February 17, 2021. So far, we have delivered about 16.5 million doses. A limited quantity of vaccines has initially been supplied as grant assistance/as a gift as our commitment to neighborhood first policy and our commitment to special relationships. Rest supplied on a commercial basis. Our exports have taken place to Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, and other countries like Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Canada, and others. Forty-nine more countries will be supplied shortly. By doing this, we reinforced our image of brand India as the ‘pharmacy of the world.’ We demonstrated in practical terms our intent of being good international citizens and responsible stakeholders in global healthcare supply chains. Our COVID response needs to be seen in the context of

‘ Aatmanirbhar Bharat’- where we have come out with not one but two made in India corona vaccines to protect humanity. You may recall that we earlier supplied made in India Hydroxychloroquine, Paracetamol, PPE, RT-PCR test kits, etc., to our international friends. Our Hon’ble PM says: “Wherever India has capabilities, the benefits have reached the entire world.”

 

 

 Q: How far the last few years of the Government machinery pushed the economy of India to higher levels, and how positive is the latest Union Budget?

As far as our economic fundamentals are concerned, our economy is forecasted to contract by 7.7 % in 2020-2021. It will witness a sharp recovery of 10-12 % in 2021-2022. So, we will witness a V-shaped recovery. During early COVID, we saw interim measures such as liquidity infusion and direct cash transfers. We gave free cooking gas to over 80 million families, free food grains to about 800 million. Then we saw the launch of structural reforms – Aatmanirbhar Bharat 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 – i.e., reforms in growth sectors in agriculture, power, defense, civil aviation, mining, etc., reforms are introduced in the MSME sector with the focus on manufacturing, fast Track Investment Clearance through Empowered Group of Secretaries, New Education Policy, Tax Policy- Transparent Taxation- Honoring The Honest including Product Linked Incentive Scheme in over ten sectors. So, it was a crisis period for us, but an opportunity was taken to usher in five-mini budgets to bring in essential reforms that have been long overdue.

In fact, during the pandemic, we have seen certain positive developments. India’s foreign exchange reserves rose to an all-time high of more than US$ 586 billion, and external debt decreased by US$ 2 billion -we are expected to see a current account surplus after a gap of 17 years. FDI inflows were nearly US $ 50 billion in the last financial year as compared to US$ 44 billion in the year 2019. We added a record number of 12 start-ups to the Unicorn list the previous year with a valuation of over US $ 1 billion. Most significantly, India, for the first time, entered the top 50 innovative economies.

Our recent historic budget needs to be seen against this backdrop. Union Budget itself carries forward this process of reforms and other initiatives. It focuses on healthcare and wellness, universal water supply, voluntary vehicle scrapping, infrastructure, skilling, education, innovation – basically on holistic, inclusive development and a mantra of Minimum Government and Maximum governance.

 

Q: What is the impact of the  Farmers protest in India, and how distressing it is  to the overall growth- in-progress?

As you are aware, the Parliament of India, after a full debate and discussion, passed reformist legislation relating to the agricultural sector as our Government is committed to the socio-economic empowerment of the farmers. These reforms give expanded market access and provide greater flexibility to farmers. They also pave the way for economically and ecologically sustainable farming. A tiny section of farmers in parts of India has some reservations about these reforms. Union Ministers have been part of the negotiations, and eleven rounds of talks have already been held. The Government has even offered to keep the laws on hold and offer iterated by no less than India’s prime minister. It is miserable to see vested interest groups trying to enforce their agenda on the farmers’ protests and derail them. The vandalization of the Red Fort on Republic Day was a deplorable and anti-national act. Some of these vested interest groups have also tried to mobilize international support against India. Instigated by such fringe elements, Mahatma Gandhi statues have been desecrated in parts of the world. This is extremely disturbing for India and civilized society everywhere. Indian police forces have handled these protests with utmost restraint and have taken all these violent incidents seriously. It may be noted that hundreds of men and women serving in the police have been physically attacked and stabbed, and seriously wounded in some cases.

We want to emphasize that Government is committed to resolving the impasse within our democratic ethos and polity framework.

Motivated campaigns shall not succeed. We have self-confidence today to hold on to our own. This India will push back any propaganda.

 

Q In view of the new US administration, what are our priorities?

India’s global partnership with the US continues to deepen across the extraordinary breadth. There are many dimensions to our relationship, and it has assumed new significance in the changing world. Our co-operation is expanding at all fronts. Trade is growing. With the new administration in Washington, both sides will carry forward this momentum, especially in post-pandemic recovery. Our countries’ leadership had a telephone conversation on two occasions – one in November 2020 and another at the beginning of this month. Both the leaders have agreed to work closely to advance our comprehensive partnership built on shared values and common interests. The dialogue at the Ministerial and official level too continues for enhanced diplomatic consultation and coordination.

The priority area is to work on Healthcare and wellness front to contain the pandemic and promote access to vaccines on a fast-track basis. Other significant areas of India-US collaboration are digital, innovation, IT & start-Up; Education & Knowledge partnerships, clean energy including LNG & Solar and defense & related sectors.

 

Q How far India is supportive to Paris Climate Accord and what are the strategies in action?

India remains committed to the goals of the Paris Climate Accord. We know that climate change requires an integrated and comprehensive approach. India, therefore, has included climate action strategies in its national and developmental agenda. India has also demonstrated leadership by creating the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. Our solar energy production will reach 450 GW by 2030 as we expect to cross 220 GW in the next two years. Our National Clean Air Program aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20-30% in the next four years. Several other initiatives like safe drinking water for all by 2024, planting more trees, using LED lamps, promoting electric vehicles, creating Smart cities and green transport networks will help us to reduce the impact of climate change.

 

No doubt Dr. Swati Kulkarni has offered deep insights into her perspective on important topics through the analysis of their crisp responses. Best wishes to her all endeavors that make India Great again.

Government Of India Is Now Requiring Overseas Citizens Of India To Have Special Permit For Journalism & Research

Staff ReporterCommunity, Media, Nation India 0

In a stunning development for Overseas Citizens of India, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification on March 4 dramatically altering the compact between OCIs and the Indian state. This notification, which is issued under Section 7B of the Citizenship Act, 1955, supersedes three earlier notifications issued on April 11, 2005, January 5, 2007, and January 5, 2009, which laid down the rights of the OCIs.

In addition to classifying OCIs as “foreign nationals”, the new notification introduces a series of new restrictions that dramatically curtails the rights and liberties of OCIs in India. These restrictions include a requirement for OCIs to secure a special permit to undertake “any research”, to undertake any “missionary” or “Tablighi” or “journalistic activities” or to visit any area in India notified as “protected”, “restricted” or “prohibited”.

In addition, the notification now equates OCIs to “foreign nationals” in respect of “all other economic, financial and educational fields” for the purposes of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 2003 although past circulars by the Reserve Bank of India under FEMA will hold ground. This reverses the position that has held for the last 16 years wherein OCIs were equated to Non-Resident Indians rather than “foreign nationals” for the purposes of their economic, financial and educational rights.

OCIs can however continue to purchase land (other than agricultural land), pursue the profession of medicine, law, architecture and accountancy and seek parity with Indian citizens with regard to airfares and entry fee to monuments and parks. OCIs can also continue to seek enrolment in Indian educational institutions on par with NRIs but not for seats reserved exclusively for Indian citizens.

OCIs have been pushing for implementation of rights on par with Indian citizens, especially in claiming seats in educational institutions through competitive exams. “There are multiple cases pending in courts in Karnataka, where OCIs have laid claim to seats reserved for Indian citizens. So things had to be clarified further,” a Home Ministry official said. The notification in the Gazette last week granted OCIs the right of multiple entry lifelong visa to India for any purpose; exemption from registration with the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) for any length of stay in India; and parity with Indian nationals in the matter of domestic air fares, entry fees to monuments and public places.

It also said that OCI cardholders will enjoy parity with Non Resident Indians (NRIs) in adoption of children, appearing in competitive exams, purchase or sale of immovable property barring agricultural land and farmhouses, and pursuing professions such as doctors, lawyers, architects, and chartered accountants.

However, many of these rights have been subjected to certain restrictions. The notifications says that the right of multiple entry lifelong visa for “any purpose” can be enjoyed provided the OCI obtains a special permission from “the competent authority” or the FRRO “to undertake research; to undertake any Missionary or Tabligh or Mountaineering or Journalistic activities; to undertake internship in any foreign Diplomatic Missions or foreign Government organizations in India or to take up employment in any foreign Diplomatic Missions in India; to visit any place which falls within the Protected or Restricted or prohibited areas as notified by the Central Government or competent authority”.

The restrictions on missionary and Tablighi activities on foreigners and OCIs have existed since the 90s when the latter were known as Persons of Indian Origin (PIO). In February 2018, the government published broad guidelines for Indian visa wherein it mentioned the restrictions on foreigners and OCIs from engaging in Tablighi activity.

The “OCI cardholder shall not be eligible for admission against any seat reserved exclusively for Indian citizens” In respect of all other economic, financial and educational fields not specified in this notification or the rights and privileges not covered by the notifications made by the Reserve Bank of India under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (42 of 1999), the OCI cardholder shall have the same rights and privileges as a foreigner,” the notification said.

  • The central ministry of home affairs has notified new rules that require Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) to take special permission from the government if they want to be involvedin journalistic, missionary or “Tabligh” activities in the country.
  • India provides OCI statues to certain Indian-origin foreign nationals. They have parity with Non-Resident Indians in purchase or sale of immovable properties other than agricultural land, in appearing for the entrance tests such as National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, and in inter-country adoption of Indian children, among others.
  • The ministry, in its notification issued on Thursday, said the OCI cardholders are entitled to get multiple entry lifelong visa for visiting India for any purpose but “required to obtain a special permission or a special permit from the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer or the Indian Mission to undertake research and to undertake any missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities”. News agency PTIquotes a home ministry official as saying that these rules were part of the ‘brochure’ published in 2019 but were recently consolidated and notified.
  • In 2019, the central government had revoked the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card of author and journalist Aatish Taseer, days after Time magazine published a critical story, headlined “India’s Divider in Chief”, on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the general election.
  • The home ministry then said he had “concealed the fact that his late father was of Pakistani origin”. Aatish, a UK national, is the son of assassinated Pakistan politician Salman Taseer and Indian journalist Tavleen Singh.

Judicial defeats

Most of these new restrictions have likely been inspired by the defeats suffered by the government in various cases filed by OCIs before the judiciary. Take for example, the new requirement for OCIs to apply for a special permit to undertake any missionary activities. This restriction has been introduced to undercut a judgment by Justice Vibhu Bakru of the Delhi High Court wherein he came down heavily on the Ministry of Home Affairs for cancelling the OCI card of an American-Indian doctor on the grounds that he was engaged in “evangelical and subversive activities” while offering free medical services to the needy and the poor in Bihar.  In that judgment, Justice Bakru made it clear that there was no restriction preventing OCIs from engaging in religious activities.

Similarly, the restrictions on OCIs competing for seats reserved for Indian citizens is meant to undercut a judgment of the Karnataka High Court by Justices BV Nagarathna and NS Sanjay Gowda declaring that OCI students will be treated as Indian citizens for the purposes of admission to professional courses.

Lastly, the Ministry of Home Affair’s assertion that OCIs are foreign nationals and not Indian citizens is most likely inspired by ongoing litigation before the Delhi High Court wherein an OCI has sought a declaration from the court that OCIs enjoy fundamental rights just like Indian citizens.

The requirement for OCIs to take a special permit to engage in journalistic activities has likely been motivated by right-wing ideologues like Subramaniam Swamy who has been targeting journalists like The Wire’s Siddharth Vardarajan because of their foreign citizenship. There are several other next generation OCIs who work as journalists in India and whose future will now be under a cloud if the Ministry of Home Affairs decides to deny them the required permit to continue working as journalists in India.

This notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs is not surprising. For some time now, the Ministry of Home Affairs has dedicated its efforts to reduce the concept of OCIs to a glorified long-term visa programmer rather than implement it as a dual citizenship program, as was the intent of Parliament when then Home Minister LK Advani piloted the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, through Parliament.

The “Statement of Objects & Reasons” accompanying this Bill, which lays down the intent of the government at the time of introducing a bill in Parliament and which can legitimately be used by the judiciary to discern the legislative intent, stated the following:

“Subsequently, the High Level Committee on Indian Diaspora constituted by the Central Government, inter alia, recommended the amendment of this Act to provide for the grant of dual citizenship to persons of Indian origin belonging to certain specified countries. The Central Government has accordingly decided to make provisions for the grant of dual citizenship.”

Advani in his introductory speech had clarified once again that the entire purpose of the Bill was to introduce dual citizenship for the Indian diaspora. It is therefore disingenuous for the Ministry of Home Affairs to now claim through a recent notification the claim that OCIs are foreign nationals. This argument is all the more absurd when viewed in light of the fact that the phrase OCI literally has the phrase “Indian citizen” in its title.

Lastly, it bears noting that the entire concept of OCIs was brought through the Citizenship Act, 1955, which is a legislation specifically meant to regulate the concept of Indian citizenship. There are separate laws like the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 2003, which deal exclusively with foreigners and their rights in India.

The fact that Parliament sought to locate OCIs in the Citizenship Act and not the Foreigners Act or FEMA is sufficient proof that Parliament wanted OCIs to be Indian citizens.

Editors Guild Of India Is Concerned About New Media Ethics Code, Says, ‘It Undermines Media Freedom’

Staff ReporterMedia, Nation India 0

Nearly a week after the Centre’s notification of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Editors Guild of India (EGI) has said these regulations will “fundamentally alter” and put “unreasonable restrictions” over digital media and therefore urged the government to take back these rules.

In the name of controlling an “unfettered social media,” the EGI said that the government cannot “overwhelm India’s constitutional safeguards for free media.” The new rules, “fundamentally alter how publishers of news operate over the Internet and have the potential to seriously undermine media freedom in India,” it added.

The guild also expressed concerns over the overwhelming power that the reforms grant the government. “They empower the Union Government to block, delete, or modify published news anywhere in the country without any judicial oversight and mandate all publishers to establish a grievance redressal mechanism,” the EGI statement read.

In creating the new reforms, the EGI said, the government did not consult stakeholders and therefore it must “put the rules in abeyance and conduct meaningful consultation with all stakeholders.” The Centre on February 25 notified new guidelines for intermediaries in “soft touch oversight” rules, saying these were needed to hold social media and other companies accountable for “misuse and abuse”.

The rules called for a three-tier regulation mechanism for OTT platforms like Netflix, YouTube, etc and required them to self-classify their content into five categories based on age suitability. The Centre’s announcement came amid a debate in the country to regulate digital platforms after Amazon Prime’s series “Tandav” stirred a controversy for allegedly insulting Hindu deities.

Biden Issues High Alert On China; Vows To Deepen India Partnership With India

ARUL LOUISNation India, Nation USA 0

Issuing a high alert about the growing dangers to the international system from China, President Joe Biden has called for building alliances with like-minded countries and said the US will deepen its ties with India.

The Interim National Security Guidance he released on Wednesday singled out China as the only “competitor” capable of mounting a sustained challenge with its multifarious capabilities to the international order.

He said in the document that the US will support China’s neighbours and declared, “We will deepen our partnership with India.”

Introducing the document, he said it would “convey my vision for how America will engage with the world” and guide his administration while Washington begins work on a new National Security Strategy.

He sketched a vision of a cooperative of democracies to face China, which “has rapidly become more assertive”.

He called Beijing “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system”.

To counter this as well as the challenge from Russia, the US will have to “promote a favorable distribution of power to deter and prevent adversaries from directly threatening the United States and our allies, inhibiting access to the global commons, or dominating key regions”, he said.

“We can do none of this work alone. For that reason, we will reinvigorate and modernise our alliances and partnerships around the world,” he said.

“Our democratic alliances enable us to present a common front, produce a unified vision, and pool our strength to promote high standards, establish effective international rules, and hold countries like China to account,” he said.

Envisaging the framework for the alliance of democracies to face the China challenge, he said, “Beyond our core alliances, we will also double down on building partnerships throughout the world, because our strength is multiplied when we combine efforts to address common challenges, share costs, and widen the circle of cooperation.”

Biden drew attention to the risk from China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative that seeks to bring countries around the world, especially developing nations, under its economic dominance.

To counter this Chinese programme, he said, “We will support China’s neighbours and commercial partners in defending their rights to make independent political choices free of coercion or undue foreign influence. We will promote locally-led development to combat the manipulation of local priorities.”

China has set debt traps by making loans to countries for infrastructure projects that they cannot pay back in the long term and then has sought to take control of them.

Biden also said, “Terrorism and violent extremism, both domestic and international, remain significant threats.”

At its core, though, the guidance is his own version of a kinder, gentler America First that seeks to strengthen the US the unparalleled world leader.

“America is back. Diplomacy is back. Alliances are back. But we are not looking back,” he said.

“The United States must lead by the power of our example, and that will require hard work at home — to fortify the founding pillars of our democracy, to truly address systemic racism, and to live up to our promise as a nation of immigrants,” he said.

“Our success will be a beacon to other democracies, whose freedom is intertwined with our own security, prosperity, and way of life.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined the Biden administration’s foreign policy emphasizing “that American leadership and engagement matter”.

In his address on “Foreign Policy for the American People”, he said, “Whether we like it or not, the world does not organize itself. When the US pulls back, one of two things is likely to happen: either another country tries to take our place, but not in a way that advances our interests and values; or, maybe just as bad, no one steps up, and then we get chaos and all the dangers it creates. Either way, that’s not good for America.”

On the economic front, Blinken echoed one of former President Donald Trump’s constant refrains: “We will fight for every American job and for the rights, protections, and interests of all American workers.” He also portrayed China as the main challenge to the US and world and stressed building alliances to meet it. (IANS)

100 Days of Rage and Resistance! 248 Lives Lost!

Staff ReporterMedia, Nation India 0

The historic and globally recognized farmers’ movement, which entered into an electrifying phase with the ‘Delhi Chalo’ Call on 26th Nov, completes 100 days today. The movement continues to challenge the notorious ‘Three Farm Acts’ that would herald unprecedented levels of corporate control over agriculture, nullifying the mandi system, diminishing the significance of the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) and opening up the possibility of alienation of farmlands to big corporations. Landowning farmers, marginal farmers and agricultural workers, in particular women across all categories, stand to lose by these laws. In addition, this will lead to a general increase of dominance of big corporates such as the Adanis and Ambanis over rural governance and agriculture, enhancing the already existing “Company Raj”.

For more than 7 months, the entire nation witnessed farmers across the country on the streets, raising their voice against these laws that would permanently jeopardize their already precarious situation and also eventually disband the public distribution system (PDS). Diverse sections of civil society and concerned citizens extended support at many places. The farmers and farm workers of Punjab, a state which not only thrives on agriculture but also one that has a long history of farmer unionism have been leading since Day 1.

Under the leadership of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, consisting of over five hundred farmers’ organizations across the country, along with the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee (AIKSCC), the farmers arrived at the borders of Delhi in late November, with thousands of tractors from Punjab. They staged historic sit-ins at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur throughout the cold winter months. The farmers have also staged roadblocks and rail blockades, peacefully and democratically to communicate their points to the largely unresponsive government and the middle-class power holders in India’s cities.

However, the Govt., continuing its anti-people and authoritarian approach, refused to listen to the farmers who complained that they were never consulted in the process of enactment of these laws, despite being the primary stakeholders. The Govt, its right-wing affiliates and lapdog media houses made multiple attempts to vilify the farmers’ movement, spread fake narratives, clamp down on the protest, inflict injury, undertake arrests etc. The Centre even imposed a de facto economic and transportation blockage of Punjab. However, none of these modes of repression worked in the face of the tremendous resistance of the farming-toiling class.

With their increased participation and leadership, the women farmers and elderly farmers also gave a befitting reply to the disparaging and misogynist comments by that CJI, asking why they were ‘kept’ in the protest. The central role played by women farmers in keeping the movement alive at the borders of Delhi, in the villages of Punjab and elsewhere is awe-inspiring.

Over the months, the movement snowballed across the length and breadth of the country, intensifying the demand for a complete repeal of the three Farm Acts and the Electricity Bill, calling for a legally guaranteed MSP for all crops, for slashing of diesel prices and the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report (in particular C2+50). The government’s refusal to accept the farmers’ demands, despite repeated meetings, eventually strengthened the struggle and over the last two months, the movement took wings throughout Western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Rajasthan. Multiple maha-panchayats and rallies have been convened, in which lakhs of people participated, with the inspiring presence of women in some of them. Today, the protestors have blocked major roads leading to Delhi and resolved to continue their struggle till the demands are met.

As we extend our solidarity, we deeply appreciate the historic achievements of the movement so far. Within Punjab, it has been able to galvanize the non-farming sections and create a region-wide political churning against centralized pro-corporate Hindutva rule. The movement has brought back the “farmer” at the heart of the political discourse, as a category of people pitted against corporate rule. This is an important achievement in times when we stand in real danger of Hindutva-corporate rule being normalized.

Unsurprisingly, and significantly, such a political process has promised to heal the religious polarization in Western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had engineered through communal riots in 2013, from which it had reaped massive electoral benefits. The Govt was also forced to enter into multiple rounds of consultations with the farm unions, although it was never sincere in its commitment to understand and address the core issues. The pressure from the movement made the Govt announce shelving of the Electricity Amendment Bill and the Ordinance to ‘Check Air Quality Deterioration in NCR’, which sought to impose heavy fines on the farmers. Even the Supreme Court had to take cognizance of the protests and stayed away from interfering with the farmers’ right to agitate peacefully.

Recently, the movement has been able to enlist the support of several non-BJP political parties and the central trade unions – by extending solidarity to the latter’s stance against the Labour Codes – and joined the No Vote to BJP Campaign that has been going on in election-bound Bengal. In other words, the farmers’ movement has moved towards building a cross section social movement and weaved alliances with social movements, trade unions and political parties, in order to throw up a potent political opposition to the BJP’s anti-federal, Hindutva/corporate rule.

NAPM salutes all the farmers of the country and in particular those camping at Delhi for 100 days, braving the biting cold and the cold-hearted government.  We respectfully remember each of the 248 farmers whose lives were lost in the past few months, only because of this callous regime. We firmly believe that it is high time the entire nation stood resolutely by the farmers who are fighting a crucial battle for the present and the future generations.

(The above statement was issued by National Alliance of People’s Movements)

India Claims At UNHRC, It Showed Utmost Respect To Protesting Farmers, Engaged In Dialogue

Staff ReporterCommunity, Nation India 0

India’s Ambassador Indra Mani Pandey, Permanent Representative of India, said that the India has set a goal of doubling the income of farmers by 2024.  Farmers raise slogans during a protest against the new farm laws, at the Delhi-Ghazipur border in New Delhi on Thursday. (ANI Photo)

The government has shown the utmost respect for protests by farmers and has remained engaged in dialogue with them to address their concerns pertaining to the farm laws, said India on Friday.

Speaking at the General Debate on Oral Update of the High Commissioner at the 46th Session of Human Rights Council, Ambassador Indra Mani Pandey, Permanent Representative of India, said that the India has set a goal of doubling the income of farmers by 2024. The purpose of enacting three Farm Acts is to enable farmers to realise better price for their produce and enhance their income.

“The Government of India has set a goal of doubling the income of farmers by 2024. The purpose of enacting three Farm Acts is to enable farmers to realise better price for their produce and enhance their income. It will particularly benefit small farmers and offer more choices to those farmers who opt for them. The Government has shown utmost respect for protests by farmers and has remained engaged in dialogue with them to address their concerns,” Pandey said.

Renaming World’s Largest Cricket Stadium After PM Modi, Elicits Criticism

Staff ReporterNation India, Sports 0

India renamed the world’s largest cricket stadium after Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday last week, a move that drew criticism from many. The name change to the Narendra Modi Stadium was unveiled at the 132,000-seat venue formerly known as Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, where India are playing England in the third match of a four-game test series.

The site on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Modi’s political home town in the state of Gujarat, was recently rebuilt as the world’s largest cricket venue with capacity for 110,000 spectators. Modi has sought to use a slate of signature projects — such as building the world’s tallest statue and remaking India’s parliament — to project himself as the country’s most transformative and powerful prime minister in decades.

“It’s quite stunning,” said Ronojoy Sen, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore and author of a book on the history of sport in India. He argued that “the symbolism — the largest, the biggest, the best — being built in Ahmedabad” was central to Modi’s political brand. “This is the first time in my memory at least that a living Indian [prime minister] has named a stadium after themselves,” he added. The stadium was previously named after Sardar Patel, a leading figure in the independence movement and one of Modi’s political heroes.

“World’s largest stadium dedicated to the world’s largest personality!,” Priti Gandhi, a BJP spokeswoman, said in a tweet. Others said the decision reflected a cult of personality surrounding Modi. “The people of Gujarat will not bear this insult to Sardar Patel,” said Hardik Patel, president of the opposition Congress party in the state.

Sardar Patel was India’s first interior minister, long revered for his tough approach on national issues. Authorities have named the larger complex surrounding the stadium after him. Dedicating sports stadiums to former prime ministers is common in India, but renaming such a high-profile venue for a sitting leader is rare.

Many of India’s public institutions and projects have been named after members of the Congress’ Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that governed India for decades and which Modi’s party long criticized as the dominance of one family.

“Both the BJP and Congress are busy perpetuating political branding,” Sanjay Jha, a former Congress official and political commentator, said. Archit Khare, a 29-year-old student at the game, said: “I don’t know why it has been changed. Sardar Patel is more iconic. Sardar Patel was the iron man of India, it should have remained.”

Gaurav Pandhi, who runs social media for the opposition Congress party, called it the “heights of narcissism . . . Megalomaniac!” Modi served as chief minister of Gujarat before his ascent to the premiership in 2014. The newly rebuilt stadium hosted Donald Trump when he visited India last year, but its debut as a cricket venue was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The name change was revealed only a couple of hours before the start of the third test match on England’s tour of India. The ground was at half capacity on Wednesday, hosting about 50,000 fans, thanks to a precipitous nationwide drop in Covid-19 infections.

India ‘Critical Partner’ For US In Meeting Indo-Pacific Challenge: Pentagon

ARUL LOUISNation India, Nation USA 0

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin considers India “a critical partner” for meeting the challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and gives priority to ties with it, according to Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby.

 

“The secretary is prioritising this relationship, wants to see it continue to grow and develop and to get stronger,” Kirby said on Wednesday at a news briefing in Washington.

 

“He looks very much looking forward to working on initiatives to do just that,” Kirby said in reply to a reporter’s question about Austin’s views on relations with India.

Austin considers India “a critical partner, especially when you consider all the challenges in the Indo-Pacific region,” he added.

 

Austin spoke last month with India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and “emphasised the Department’s commitment to the US-India Major Defence Partnership, observing that it is built upon shared values and a common interest in ensuring the Indo-Pacific region remains free and open”, the Pentagon said.

 

President Joe Biden announced the formation of the new strategy task force so that “we can chart a strong path forward on China-related matters” during a visit to the Pentagon last week.

 

“We need to meet the growing challenges posed by China to keep the peace and defend our interests in the Indo-Pacific and globally,” he said. (IANS)

Indian Jesuit’s Fears Over Planted Evidence Gain Ground

Staff ReporterNation India 0

An elderly Indian Jesuit priest languishing in jail on a treason charge has sought a copy of his laptop hard drive after a US-based digital laboratory reported that a hacker had planted incriminating evidence in the computer of another accused in the same case.

Father Stan Swamy, 84, is among 16 people accused of collaborating with a banned Maoist group to organize violence in the Bhima Koregaon area of Maharashtra after a clash there killed one person and injured several on Jan. 1, 2018.

 

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), a federal anti-terror combat agency, arrested Father Swamy on Oct. 8 and remanded him in custody in a jail in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. His bail applications have been repeatedly rejected.

“Father Swamy has sought a cloned copy of his laptop and hard drive, which the NIA should have given him following his arrest, but to no avail,” Father A. Santhanam, who is closely following the case, told UCA News on Feb. 14.

 

Father Swamy’s counsel presented a detailed argument before the NIA court on Feb. 12 for his demand for a cloned copy of the laptop and hard drive. The court directed the lawyer to approach the NIA office.

The court also heard another bail application of the priest but the NIA, which continues to investigate the case, sought time until Feb. 16 to submit the case diary to help the court decide on bail.

 

Father Santhanam, a Jesuit lawyer practicing in southern India, regretted that the NIA was obstructing the bail demand of Father Swamy, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease among other age-related health issues.

 

Before his arrest, Father Swamy had expressed concern that investigators could manipulate his computer, which they confiscated from him, to plant proof of his collaboration with Maoists and other allegations against him.

 

His fears gained ground as Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensic laboratory, said on Feb. 11 that a hacker had planted incriminating evidence in the computer of Rona Wilson, among the accused in the case.

 

The US firm analyzed an electronic copy of Wilson’s laptop and concluded that an attacker used malware to infiltrate the laptop and plant documents on it.

The attacker created a hidden folder and at least 10 incriminating letters were delivered into it without the knowledge of Wilson, who is also languishing in jail like Father Swamy.

 

The NIA arrested Wilson and accused him of colluding with Maoist rebels in conspiring to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, mostly based on the incriminating documents.

 

The unidentified attacker, the report said, used malware to control and spy on the laptop. Subsequently, Wilson received emails that appeared to be from a fellow activist urging him to click on a link to download an innocuous statement from a civil liberties group. But this link deployed the malicious software that allowed a hacker to access Wilson’s computer.

 

The report shows how the attacker had retained access to Wilson’s computer for over 22 months, starting June 13, 2016, and used a remote access facility for planting the incriminating letters while conducting the surveillance on his activities without Wilson getting a hint of it.

 

The forensic lab also found that the malware logged Wilson’s keystrokes, passwords and browsing activity, raising doubts about the credibility of the NIA evidence against those arrested.

 

Rights groups say all the 16 arrested are rights workers who at some point criticized or opposed policies of the federal government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).

 

Two top academies to Govt: new webinar rules could halt all scientific discussion

A recent order, issued on January 15 asks all government entities, including publicly funded educational institutions and universities, to “seek approval” of the respective “administrative Secretary” for organizing any “online/virtual international conferences/seminars/training etc”.

 

India’s two largest and oldest science academies have written to the Ministry of Education — and the third is considering joining in — to say that its recent order mandating institutions to seek Government clearance for all webinars could “lead to a complete halt of all topical scientific discussions” and “impede” the interest of science among the young.

 

The Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, India, together include more than 2,500 of India’s top scientists. The first two have sent separate letters to Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal seeking withdrawal of these “blanket restrictions.” Sources said the third is considering supporting this petition.

 

The order, issued on January 15 — in the wake of new procedure notified by the Ministry of External Affairs last November — asks all government entities, including publicly funded educational institutions and universities, to “seek approval” of the respective “administrative Secretary” for organizing any “online/virtual international conferences/seminars/training etc”.

 

It also says that the Ministry, while granting permission to hold such events, must ensure that the subject matter of the event did not relate to the “security of the State, border, northeast states, UT (union territory) of J&K, Ladakh, or any other issues which are clearly/purely related to India’s internal matters”.

 

Earlier, organisers needed political clearance for foreign guest speakers at (non-virtual) seminars to come to India but no prior approval was needed for the subject on which they were speaking. There was also no specific category banned as “India’s internal matters.”

In his letter to Pokhriyal, Partha Majumder, president of Indian Academy of Sciences, said: “The Academy strongly believes that security of our nation needs to be protected. However, imposing a blanket requirement for obtaining prior permission to organize virtual scientific meetings or training programmes ‘which are clearly/purely related to India’s internal matters’ – without defining what is meant by ‘India’s internal matters’ – is too constraining for the progress of science in India.”

 

Majumder, one of India’s most distinguished bio-statisticians and the founding director of Kalyani-based National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, said the order did not even define “India’s internal matters” or make it clear what was meant by “international” in the context of online events.

 

“Even if all speakers and trainers are scientists of Indian institutions, it is possible for scientists from institutions outside of India to listen to a lecture delivered online, ask questions and participate in discussions. It is unclear to the Academy, whether such events will be considered an ‘international’ (one), and prior clearance needs to be sought. If so, it is tantamount to obtaining clearance for all collective scientific events, which will lead to a complete halt on all topical scientific discussions within India, since a large number of applications would be waiting for approval at any point of time and timely clearance of applications will not be obtained,” Majumder wrote.

 

His letter also points out that the order is applicable only to government institutions. “This imposes a severe constraint on scientific pursuits in public, but not in private institutions. The Academy considers this inappropriate,” he wrote.

 

Speaking to the media, Majumder said webinars and online events had opened new horizons for the country’s scientists, especially the younger ones and students. “It used to be extremely difficult to invite a Nobel laureate, for example, for your event. For the webinars, however, even smaller and lesser known institutes can invite and listen to the most renowned subject experts.”

 

But the new rules, he wrote, “will impede the growth of educational opportunities and interest in science for the younger generation in India.”

 

Chandrima Shaha, a biologist at the Delhi-based National Institute of Immunology who is president of the Indian National Science Academy, told The Indian Express: “On behalf of Indian National Science Academy, I have also sent a letter to the Education Minister, supporting the ideas expressed in Majumder’s letter.” Majumder said he would not seek government approval for the upcoming events that he was organizing.

 

“We are doing a series of events on Gandhian science. These do not involve any discussion on internal matters, as I understand it, or any other thing mentioned in the government order. So, there is no need to seek prior approval,” he said.

 

Majumder’s letter was copied to K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for Education. The Indian Express contacted the offices of Raghavan and Pokhriyal but they were unavailable for comment.

Reimagining Diplomacy in the Post-COVID World An Indian Perspective | Opinion

Jaishankar SEditorial/Opinion, Global, Nation India 0

We enter 2021, hoping to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us. While each society has dealt with it uniquely, global diplomacy will nevertheless focus on common concerns and shared lessons. Much of that revolves around the nature of globalization.

Our generation has been conditioned to think of that largely in economic terms. The general sense is one of trade, finance, services, communication, technology and mobility. This expresses the interdependence and interpenetration of our era. What COVID, however, brought out was the deeper indivisibility of our existence. Real globalization is more about pandemics, climate change and terrorism. They must constitute the core of diplomatic deliberations. As we saw in 2020, overlooking such challenges comes at a huge cost.

Despite its many benefits, the world has also seen strong reactions to globalization. Much of that arises from unequal benefits, between and within societies. Regimes and dispensations that are oblivious to such happenings are therefore being challenged. We must ensure that this is not about winners and losers, but about nurturing sustainable communities everywhere.

COVID-19 has also redefined our understanding of security. Until now, nations thought largely in military, intelligence, economic, and perhaps, cultural terms. Today, they will not only assign greater weight to health security but increasingly worry about trusted and resilient supply chains. The stresses of the COVID-19 era brought out the fragility of our current situation. Additional engines of growth are needed to de-risk the global economy, as indeed is more transparency and market-viability.

Multilateral institutions have not come out well from this experience. Quite apart from controversies surrounding them, there was not even a pretense of a collective response to the most serious global crisis since 1945. This is cause for serious introspection. Reforming multilateralism is essential to creating effective solutions.

Fashioning a robust response to the COVID-19 challenge is set to dominate global diplomacy in 2021. In its own way, India has set an example. That it has done by defying prophets of doom and creating the health wherewithal to minimize its fatality rate and maximize its recovery rate. An international comparison of these numbers tells its own story. Not just that, India also stepped forward as the pharmacy of the world, supplying medicines to more than 150 countries, many as grants.

As our nation embarks on a mass vaccination effort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s assurance that it would help make vaccines accessible and affordable to the world is already being implemented. The first consignments of Made in India vaccines have reached not only our neighbors like Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sri Lanka but partners far beyond like Brazil and Morocco.

Other key global challenges today deserve similar attention. As a central participant in reaching the Paris agreement, India has stood firm with regard to combating climate change. Its renewable energy targets have multiplied, its forest cover has grown, its bio-diversity has expanded and its focus on water utilization has increased. Practices honed at home are now applied to its development partnerships in Africa and elsewhere. By example and energy, Indian diplomacy is leading the way, including through the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure initiatives.

The challenge of countering terrorism and radicalization is also a formidable one. As a society, long subjected to cross-border terrorist attacks, India has been active in enhancing global awareness and encouraging coordinated action. It will be a major focus in India’s diplomacy as a non-permanent member of the Security Council and in forums like FATF and G20.

Among the takeaways from the COVID-19 experience has been the power of the digital domain. Whether it was contact tracing or the provision of financial and food support, India’s digital focus after 2014 has yielded impressive results. The “work from anywhere” practice was as strongly enhanced by COVID-19 as the “study from home” one. All these will help expand the toolkit of India’s development programs abroad and assist the recovery of many partners.

2020 also saw the largest repatriation exercise in history–the return home of more than 4 million Indians. This alone brings out the importance of mobility in contemporary times. As smart manufacturing and the knowledge economy take deeper root, the need for trusted talent will surely grow. Facilitating its movement through diplomacy is in the global interest.

A return to normalcy in 2021 will mean safer travel, better health, economic revival and digitally driven services. They will be expressed in new conversations and fresh understandings. The world after COVID-19 will be more multi-polar, pluralistic and rebalanced. And India, with its experiences, will help make a difference.

(Dr. S. Jaishankar is the minister of external affairs of India and author of “The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World.” The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.)

 

Moving Beyond Paris, India Steps Up Its Climate Ambitions

Harsh V. ShringlaEntertainment, Nation India 0

Five years after the Paris Agreement, India is among the few developing countries that are not only meeting their “green” targets but are aspiring to more ambitious climate goals.

At the recent Climate Ambition Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated the Indian approach. He said that we must set our sights “even higher”, even as we do not lose sight of the past. He added that India would not only achieve its Paris Agreement targets, but would exceed them.

At the U.N. Climate Action Summit in 2019, Modi said that an ounce of practice is worth more than a ton of preaching. We are taking practical steps across all areas, including energy, industry, transport, agriculture and protection of green spaces, in our whole-of-society journey to become a leader in climate action and climate ambition.

India recognizes that climate change cannot be fought in silos. It requires an integrated, comprehensive and holistic approach. It requires innovation and adoption of new and sustainable technologies. Conscious of these imperatives, India has mainstreamed climate in its national developmental and industrial strategies.

Energy is at the center of all climate strategies. We believe India has become a clean energy powerhouse and is a leader in energy transition from carbon dioxide-producing sources to renewables and non-fossil-fuel sources.

We intend to keep harnessing India’s renewable energy potential. Our renewable energy capacity is the fourth largest in the world and the capacity expansion being undertaken is also one of the largest in the world. The bulk of this will come from the cleanest energy source, the sun.

We are seeing progress already. We initially committed to 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. We have gone further and expect to cross 220 GW in the next two years. We have an even more ambitious target of 450 GW by 2030.

We are working to ensure that 40% of electric power in India is from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. This clean energy push goes hand-in-hand with a parallel effort to reduce the emissions intensity of our economy by 33-35% (from 2005 levels) by 2030.

The Ujala scheme – a national drive to use LED lamps – is reducing CO2 emissions by 38.5 million tonnes every year. The Ujjwala scheme, under which over 80 million households have been provided access to clean cooking gas, is one of of the largest clean energy initiatives in the world.

Climate action and sustainability is being brought into government schemes across multiple sectors. Our Smart Cities Mission is working with 100 cities to help them become more sustainable and adaptable to the challenges of climate change. The National Clean Air Programme aims to reduce air pollution (PM2.5 and PM10) by 20-30% in the next four years.

The Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India, has a strong sustainability focus.

More trees are being planted and degraded land is being reclaimed to create a carbon “sink” that can absorb 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO2.

We are also working rapidly to create a green transport network, to offset a sector known for its polluting emissions particularly in our big cities.

India is building next-generation infrastructure such as mass transit systems, green highways and waterways. A national electric mobility plan is creating an e-mobility ecosystem with the aim to have over 30% of all vehicles on India’s roads to be electric.

These initiatives are for our own good as India is among the countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

We recognise there is still a long way to go but these efforts are already paying dividends. India’s emission intensity has reduced by 21% over the period 2005-2014. Over the next decade, we are expecting even greater reductions.

India intends to be a responsible global citizen in the climate space. We are not only going beyond our Paris Agreement commitments. We are adopting innovative instruments to further international cooperation in climate action.

We have created international organisations like the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure that are working on creating global low-carbon pathways. More than 80 countries have joined the International Solar Alliance, making it one of the fastest-growing international bodies.

This combination of national action and responsible international citizenship makes India unique amongst developing countries and is placing it on the path to realise its ambitions to be a leader in thought and action on climate.

(Harsh Vardhan Shringla is Foreign Secretary of India. Views expressed are personal. Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of the publication).

How Do Indian Americans View India?

SUMITRA BADRINATHAN,  DEVESH KAPUR,  MILAN VAISHNAVCommunity, Nation India 0

Indian Americans are now the second-largest immigrant group in the United States. Their growing political influence and the role the diaspora plays in Indian foreign policy therefore raises important questions—about how Indian Americans view India, the political changes underway there, and the course of U.S.-India relations.

Since coming to power in 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made outreach to the far-flung Indian diaspora a signature element of his government’s foreign policy. Modi’s courtship of the diaspora has been especially notable in the United States, where the Indian American population has swelled to more than 4 million and has become the second-largest immigrant group in the United States.1

In two separate, large rallies on U.S. soil—in 2014 and 2019—Modi sought to highlight the achievements of the diaspora, outlining the many ways in which they can support India’s interests from afar while underscoring their increasingly substantial economic, political, and social influence in the United States.

These high-octane gatherings, however, naturally lead to a series of questions: How do Indians in America regard India, and how do they remain connected to developments there? What are their attitudes toward Indian politics and changes underway in their ancestral homeland? And what role, if any, do they envision for the United States in engaging with India?

Despite the growing media attention showered on the Indian diaspora and the Indian government’s enhanced outreach, many of these questions remain unanswered. This study seeks to remedy this gap. The analysis is based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,200 Indian American adult residents—the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS)—conducted between September 1 and September 20, 2020, in partnership with the research and analytics firm YouGov. The survey has an overall margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent.

The data show that Indians, by and large, remain deeply connected to their homeland. But the intensity of this connection and the precise channels through which it operates vary greatly across the Indian American population. Indian Americans hold mixed opinions on the present trajectory of Indian democracy. While a bare majority appear largely supportive of Modi and his government, a significant minority is not. While Indian Americans tend to have more conservative opinions on policy issues in India than on those in the United States, they are less pro-Modi compared to Indians living in India and less conservative in their views.

On foreign policy, Indian Americans endorse efforts to deepen ties between Washington and New Delhi and share broadly negative views of China. However, they are more split on how far the two countries should go in confronting China.

This study is the second in a series on the social, political, and foreign policy attitudes of Indian Americans. The major findings are briefly summarized below.

  • Indians who are not U.S. citizens overwhelmingly welcome the prospect of citizenship. Twenty-three percent of IAAS respondents reside in the United States but are not U.S. citizens. However, 80 percent of them indicate that they would like to become naturalized U.S. citizens if afforded the opportunity.
  • Indian Americans enjoy diverse connections to India.One in two Indian Americans feels personally connected to India. This connection—strongest among members of the community born outside of the United States—manifests itself through personal, cultural, and political links.
  • Indian Americans are divided about India’s current trajectory. Respondents are nearly evenly split as to whether India is currently on the right track or headed down the wrong track. Indian Americans are especially concerned about the challenges government corruption and slowing economic growth pose to India’s future.
  • The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the most popular political party among Indian Americans. One-third of respondents favor the ruling BJP while just 12 percent identify with the Congress Party. However, two in five Indian Americans do not identify with an Indian political party—suggesting an arms-length relationship to everyday politics in India.
  • Indian Americans hold broadly favorable views of Modi. Nearly half of all Indian Americans approve of Modi’s performance as prime minister. This support is greatest among Republicans, Hindus, people in the engineering profession, those not born in the United States, and those who hail from North and West India.
  • Indian Americans’ policy views are more liberal on issues affecting the United States and more conservative on issues affecting India. Regarding contentious issues such as the equal protection of religious minorities, immigration, and affirmative action, Indian Americans hold relatively more conservative views of Indian policies than of U.S. policies.
  • Indian Americans heavily rely on online sources for news about India.Fifty-four percent of respondents report using online sources to follow news about India. YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp are among their most popular social media platforms. Although Indian Americans heavily rely on social media, they do not view it as particularly trustworthy relative to traditional news sources.
  • Indian Americans are broadly supportive of the U.S.-India relationship. A plurality of Indian Americans believes that current levels of U.S. support for India are adequate, while a large majority hold unfavorable opinions of China. However, Indian Americans are divided about U.S. efforts to strengthen India’s military as a check against China. Foreign-born Indian Americans and those who identify as Republicans are more supportive of U.S. efforts to support India militarily than their U.S.-born and Democratic counterparts.

Freedom Of Expression Under Stress In World’s Largest Democracy

Nirendra DevMedia, Nation India 0

Indian politics, as elsewhere, is truly a mixture of positives and negatives. The discussion now is about whether the negatives outweigh the positives in India.

The talk about Indian farmers’ struggle against three contentious agrarian laws has already entered the realm of politics. The fear of being unpopular has forced the government to put checks on social media, provoking debates about tolerance and freedom of expression.

These are not the issues. The real issue is India’s negative international image because of a chaotic, nasty, sectarian turn the country is taking against the backdrop of the continuing farmers’ struggle.

What began a few years back as a cry of religious minorities, including Christians, Muslims and deprived Dalits, is now global anguish, covert and overt, against the suppression of freedom of expression in the world’s largest democracy.

Those who admire India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who does not hide his pro-Hindu preferences, claim that everyone seems to love seeing Modi as a punchbag. He is not only responsible for bringing his party to power but his government is also blamed for setting the Hindu-majority nation on a path of sectarian despotism.

The criticism of the Modi government is now universal. Many progressive and conservative people, from the US government to Barbadian pope star Rihanna Fenty, have taken to social media to criticize the government over the farmers’ struggle, which the government insists is India’s internal matter.

But some of those tweets and remarks came from surprising quarters. They included international celebrities and lawmakers from countries like Canada and the United Kingdom. Even Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has had her say.

Meena Harris, a niece of US Vice President Kamala Harris, tweeted: “We all should be outraged by India’s internet shutdown and paramilitary violence against farmer protesters.”

India’s Foreign Ministry responded that, before people rush to comment on such matters, “we would urge that the facts be ascertained and a proper understanding of the issues at hand be undertaken.”

It added: “The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible.”

The government statement also said that “some of these vested interest groups” have also tried to “mobilize international support against India.”

But is it justified to make so much hype about a few tweets? Modi and his supporters are known for turning criticism against their party and government into anti-national activities. The government, often accused of pushing Hindu hegemony, did precisely the same this time too.

Twitter was served with a notice for “unilaterally unblocking” some 100 handles that the federal government wanted to be blocked for spreading violence and hatred in the country.

What does this bring us to? Socialist leader Ram Gopal Yadav says the strong impression is that the government of the day is against dissent.

There are other issues at hand. The attempt to choke dissent also raises questions about the government’s idea of democracy, freedom of expression, justice, development and commitment to work for the Indian poor.

Government spokesman Anurag Srivastava told a virtual media briefing that India and the United States are vibrant democracies with shared values.

He then referred to the vandalism at the Red Fort on Jan. 26, India’s republic day, during a rally of protesting farmers. It evoked “similar sentiments and reactions in India as did the incidents on the Capitol Hill” on Jan. 6. Both countries are addressing the violence according to their laws, he said.

This statement has significance, and the message is simple. If Americans are so touchy over the Capitol Hill misadventure, how could the Western world make such a fuss about India handling the agitation in Delhi with a firm hand?

Protesting farmers say the Jan. 26 violence in Delhi was engendered by Modi’s political party — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — to weaken their struggle.

The farmers are continuing their protest even after the government agreed to suspend the three controversial farm laws for 18 months. But farmers want the government to repeal the laws, saying they are meant to help big corporate houses at the expense of small and medium-level farmers.

The government was nervous, but once violence happened, triggered by whosoever, the government got back its rhythm. The idea is perhaps to impose some gag order on the flow of information.

In the process, the BJP claims a conspiracy that even international celebrities want to corner Modi. But such talk has very few takers.

However, the prime minister’s critics feel India’s image has taken a beating, especially after the government allegedly tried to corner those who often attack the government.

Modi will do well to realize that his ambitions of emerging as a global leader, or at least an Asian leader, will take a beating if he is dubbed as anti-democratic and, worse, someone who wants to gag social media.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.

 

Is India Moving Towards A Four-Day Work Week?

Staff ReporterEconomy, Nation India 0

The proposed new labor codes could provide companies with the flexibility of four working days in a week, even as the working hours limit of 48 hours for a week will remain “sacrosanct”, Labor and Employment Secretary Apurva Chandra said

As the government finalizes the rules for the new labour codes, the Labour Ministry is now considering giving flexibility to companies to have four working days instead of five or six.

The proposal: The proposed new labor codes could provide companies with the flexibility of four working days in a week, even as the working hours limit of 48 hours for a week will remain “sacrosanct”, Labour and Employment Secretary Apurva Chandra said on Monday.

This implies that there will be longer working hours if the working days are reduced. For instance, a four working day week will have to meet the 48-hour weekly work hours, resulting in daily shifts of 12 hours, which will correspondingly reduce if there is five-day or six-day working week.

When and how will this be rolled out: The Ministry of Labour and Employment is likely to complete the process to finalise the rules for four labour codes soon. The provision of flexibility to have reduced working days of four days in the labour code rules will mean that companies will not require prior government nod to enact it.

The Labor Secretary, however, clarified that having a reduced number of working days does not mean a cut in paid holidays. Therefore, when the new rules will provide flexibility of four working days, it would imply three paid holidays.

“It (working days) could come down below five. If it is four, then you have to provide three paid holidays…so if it has to be a seven day week, then it has to be divided into 4, 5 or 6 working days,” Chandra said.

The rulemaking process is already underway and likely to be completed in the coming week. “All stakeholders are also consulted in framing of rules. This ministry would soon be in a position to bring into force the four Codes, viz., Code on Wages, Industrial Relations, Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) and Social Security Codes,” Chandra had said.

The labour ministry had envisaged implementing the four labour codes from April 1 this year in one go. The ministry is in the final leg of amalgamating 44 central labour laws into four broad codes on wages, industrial relations, social security and OSH. The ministry wants to implement all four codes in one go.

 

Writer Ramachandra Guha Says, India Is In The Grip Of Dictatorship

Staff ReporterCommunity, Media, Nation India 0

Several activists, including noted writer Ramachandra Guha, took part in a protest in front of Mysuru Bank circle in Bengaluru on Monday condemning the Delhi police arresting 22-year-old city based Climate change activist, Disha Ravi.

While participating in the protest against, Guha said: “Now I can say that the country is in the grip of dictatorship. I condemn this arrest.”

He added that those young boys and girls who have taken activism seriously are afraid of coming out. “Such a scenario existed when I was in my college days, during Emergency time,” he said.

He wondered if the young girl who is standing with farmers rights and environmental rights is arrested simply because she is opposed to the state.

“With her arrest, this government is sending a loud and a clear signal to youngsters of this country that you cannot have a mind of your own, unless that is in sync with the government’s policies,” he charged.

Quoting former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Guha said the Union government could have first spoken with the activist instead of simply arresting her. “Vajpayee once said, those who speak with their pen, must be first spoken to. But this government is not following him at all. By this standard, I can safely say, if (Balagangadhar) Tilak and (Subhas Chandra) Bose, (Chandrashekhar) Azad were to be alive today, they too would be behind bars and facing sedition charges. This is worse than the colonial regime,” he said.

He added that by arresting her the union government has shown how vindictive it can be. “Only paranoid rulers have behaved in such a manner in the past,” he said and warned youngsters those who are silent should come out in the open to oppose such repressive actions of government.

“You (youngsters) might be thinking that keeping quiet is an option, let me tell you it is not. They must oppose such repression. As today it might be a case Disha or other activists, but there is no guarantee that it can not happen to others,” he said

He added that the country seems to be heading for personification of a cult person, one of conformism and obedience. “This won’t do good for the country. We need vibrant democracy youths, who should learn to question the government and leaders,” he said. (IANS)

 

Is India’s social justice paradigm under threat?

George AbrahamNation India, Profile 0

In a letter written by Fr. Stan Swamy SJ, from the prison, said, “Dear friends: Peace! Though I do not have many details, from what I have heard, I am grateful to all of you for expressing your solidarity support. I am in a cell approximately 13 feet x 8 feet, along with two more inmates. It has a small bathroom and a toilet with an Indian commode. Fortunately, I am given a western commode chair. Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, and Arun Ferreira are in another cell. During the day, when cells and barracks are opened, we meet with each other. From 5.30 pm to 06.00 am and 12 noon to 03.00 pm, I am locked up in my cell with two inmates. Arun assists me to have my breakfast and lunch. Vernon helps me with bath. My two inmates help during supper in washing my clothes and give massage to my knee joints. They are from very poor families. Please remember my inmates and my colleagues in your prayers. Despite all odds, humanity is bubbling in Taloja prison.”

One may genuinely wonder why this 83-year-old Jesuit Priest afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, who has dedicated his entire life for the upliftment of the poor, is languishing in jail! What horrific deed has he committed to warrant such a treatment from the authorities?  It says a lot more about today’s political climate in India than the fate of one single old frail man who had to approach the Bombay special court for permission to use a straw and sipper cup because of his disability. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which arrested Mr. Fr. Stan, has sought 20 days’ time from the court to respond!

There is truly little doubt that his arrest is a political witch hunt. He is known for his staunch defense on behalf of the indigenous tribal people across the tribal belt and advocated fiercely for their land rights. His work in terms of educating people about their rights and helping to pass laws to protect the land rights of the tribal population is quite phenomenal. Article 13 (3) (a) of the Indian constitution empowers the tribal people to assert their traditional self-rule in those areas inhabited by them. These constitutional provisions are remarkably like the treaties governing Indian reservations in the United States.

For long, the Modi Government has wanted to diminish these rights in favor of corporates or other vested interests. In May 2016, the BJP Government passed two legislations that enabled the transfer of tribal land to commercial interests.  That legislation set in motion a struggle (Pathalgadi movement) between the tribal people and the government, resulting in a brutal crackdown by the authorities. Moreover, the movement was branded as anti-national, and hundreds of people were arrested and charged under the sedition laws.

The government went another step further and linked the movement to ‘Maoists,’ which is labeled as anti-national and dedicated to the overthrow of the elected governments. Fr. Stan, who has been a vocal critic of the government policies and defender of the tribal rights over these lands, was also charged with plotting the government’s violent overthrow.  To bolster their case, NIA, in their charge sheet, accused Fr. Stan as responsible for the violence in Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra in 2017. He was not present in the rally celebrating British and Dalit forces’ victory over Brahmin Peshwas.

Historically, the BJP/RSS strategy resisted real enlightenment for the oppressed people. The feudalistic and casteist mindset under which they operate detests any individual or group that educates and inspires people from those impoverished conditions of their rights and privileges. Their anti-conversion campaign is often seen as camouflage to prevent the Tribal population like this one in Chhattisgarh ever learning of their true worth as human beings but condemning them forever in a subservient role to the upper echelons of society. What Fr. Stan has done was to help this vulnerable population demand equal justice and freedom from servitude.

Unfortunately, it is a Jesuit priest, and any person in India, whether journalists, writers, artists, religious leaders, students, or even politicians, can be branded as anti-nationals or terrorists if they dare to speak out against Prime Minister Modi or the BJP government’s crony capitalist policies.  A common tactic is to brand all peace activists as a front inspired by ‘Maoists’ or Christian missionaries. By arresting Fr. Stan, they are also conveying a message that even a Church can be branded as anti-national to the great delight of the Sangh Parivar organizations.

This branding is quite expansive now as we learn that 13th February 2021 marks the civil rights lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj’s 900 days in detention. She took cases that many other attorneys refused to touch and represented workers wrongfully dismissed by companies, illegally evicted villagers from their land, and women who alleged sexual assault by security forces.

According to a Washington Post report, Police raided her house and took computers and phones, and demanded passwords for email accounts. Then they arrested Bharadwaj under an anti-terrorism statute accusing her of a plot to commit violent actions. Since 2018, Sudha and 15 other activists, writers, and lawyers have been arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and accused them of having links with the ‘Maoist’ group.  In a charge filed remarkably similar to Fr. Stan’s, it has been alleged that she and other human rights defenders conspired to incite Dalits in Bhima Koregaon village in Pune, Maharashtra. It fits a pattern now where many people across the country are getting arrested who are either critics of the government policies or outspoken advocates for India’s most disadvantaged, whether they are indigenous tribal peoples or Dalits.

Born in Boston to a distinguished economist, she went to IIT Kanpur to study Mathematics. Later, she moved to an iron mining ore town in Chhattisgarh and supported worker’s rights and safety while challenging land acquisition by major corporations and seeking justice for extrajudicial killings by police officers.  Bharadwaj has denied the charges and said it was “totally concocted’. Obviously, these arrests appear to be an affront to the rule of law and infringing of the citizen’s constitutional rights.  It has been said that a right without a remedy is no right at all.

According to press reports, Sudha’s health situation continues to deteriorate in prison. The 59-year-old suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, making her susceptible to Covid-19 in the cramped prison. Her bail plea is being rejected, and she has been denied books and Newspapers in jail. Her father passed away during her time in jail. In January, the UN Human Rights office expressed serious concern about the human rights defenders’ detention and urged the Indian authorities to immediately release the detainees. According to Michele Bachelet, the UNHCHR commissioner expressed concern over using ‘vaguely defined laws’ to silence activists and government critics.

These two cases illustrate that India’s social justice paradigm is in danger. The regressive forces are busy staging a counter-revolution to destroy the social justice pillars: Freedom, Equality, Justice, and fraternity. Fr. Stan Swamy and Sudha Bharadwaj represent that social justice paradigm created and nurtured by modern India’s founding fathers.  To those NRIs who demonstrated in the Streets in the U.S fighting for the release of Arnab Goswamy, an arrogant exclusionist, may I say that your silence on the detention of Stan Swamy and Sudha Bharadwaj is quite deafening!

(Writer is a former Chief Technology officer of the United Nations. The views expressed here are that of the author)

Indian Jesuit’s Fears Over Planted Evidence Gain Ground

Staff ReporterMedia, Nation India 0

An elderly Indian Jesuit priest languishing in jail on a treason charge has sought a copy of his laptop hard drive after a US-based digital laboratory reported that a hacker had planted incriminating evidence in the computer of another accused in the same case.

Father Stan Swamy, 84, is among 16 people accused of collaborating with a banned Maoist group to organize violence in the Bhima Koregaon area of Maharashtra after a clash there killed one person and injured several on Jan. 1, 2018.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), a federal anti-terror combat agency, arrested Father Swamy on Oct. 8 and remanded him in custody in a jail in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. His bail applications have been repeatedly rejected.

“Father Swamy has sought a cloned copy of his laptop and hard drive, which the NIA should have given him following his arrest, but to no avail,” Father A. Santhanam, who is closely following the case, told UCA News on Feb. 14.

Father Swamy’s counsel presented a detailed argument before the NIA court on Feb. 12 for his demand for a cloned copy of the laptop and hard drive. The court directed the lawyer to approach the NIA office.

The court also heard another bail application of the priest but the NIA, which continues to investigate the case, sought time until Feb. 16 to submit the case diary to help the court decide on bail.

Father Santhanam, a Jesuit lawyer practicing in southern India, regretted that the NIA was obstructing the bail demand of Father Swamy, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease among other age-related health issues.

Before his arrest, Father Swamy had expressed concern that investigators could manipulate his computer, which they confiscated from him, to plant proof of his collaboration with Maoists and other allegations against him.

His fears gained ground as Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensic laboratory, said on Feb. 11 that a hacker had planted incriminating evidence in the computer of Rona Wilson, among the accused in the case.

The US firm analyzed an electronic copy of Wilson’s laptop and concluded that an attacker used malware to infiltrate the laptop and plant documents on it.

The attacker created a hidden folder and at least 10 incriminating letters were delivered into it without the knowledge of Wilson, who is also languishing in jail like Father Swamy.

The NIA arrested Wilson and accused him of colluding with Maoist rebels in conspiring to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, mostly based on the incriminating documents.

The unidentified attacker, the report said, used malware to control and spy on the laptop. Subsequently, Wilson received emails that appeared to be from a fellow activist urging him to click on a link to download an innocuous statement from a civil liberties group. But this link deployed the malicious software that allowed a hacker to access Wilson’s computer.

The report shows how the attacker had retained access to Wilson’s computer for over 22 months, starting June 13, 2016, and used a remote access facility for planting the incriminating letters while conducting the surveillance on his activities without Wilson getting a hint of it.

The forensic lab also found that the malware logged Wilson’s keystrokes, passwords and browsing activity, raising doubts about the credibility of the NIA evidence against those arrested.

Rights groups say all the 16 arrested are rights workers who at some point criticized or opposed policies of the federal government run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).

Uttarakhand Glacier Bursts, Disrupts Life, Many Die, Dozens Missing

Staff ReporterEnvironment, Nation India 0

A glacial break reported in the Tapovan-Reni area of Chamoli District of Uttarakhand in India has likely led to massive flooding in Rishiganga river on Sunday, damaging houses and the nearby Rishiganga hydro project. Close to 150 people were reported missing with seven bodies recovered by rescue teams, and over 35 people were trapped in a tunnel blocked by debris at an NTPC project.

Uttarakhand glacier burst Live Updates: In the aftermath of the Uttarakhand glacier burst, 19 bodies have been recovered till now, Uttarakhand DGP Ashok Kumar said on Monday. As of this morning, 32 people from the first tunnel and 121 people from the second were missing and rescue operations to recover people still trapped in the tunnels are underway.

A multi-agency rescue operation including — Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) — is in full swing to release people still stuck in the tunnels. The forces have cleared 90 meter stretch of debris in the big tunnel at Tapovan till now, with about 100 meters of clearing still left to do.

At least 18 people are dead and 200 missing after a piece of a Himalayan glacier fell into a river and triggered a huge flood in northern India.

The floodwaters burst open a dam and a deluge of water poured through a valley in the state of Uttarakhand. Most of the missing are believed to be workers from two hydro power plants in the area.

Hundreds of troops, paramilitaries and military helicopters have been sent to the region to help with rescue efforts.  Experts are investigating – it is not yet clear what caused the glacial burst.

To take stock of the situation, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat Monday visited Chamoli district and said that saving lives was their first priority. Speaking to media persons, Rawat said that they would be successful in clearing the entire debris stretch by today evening. Yesterday, Rawat  announced Rs 4 lakh financial assistance each for the families of those killed in the mishap.

The glacier burst took place at the Rishiganga power project  after a portion of Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Tapovan area of Joshimath in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Sunday morning and damaged the Rishiganga dam on Alaknanda river.

Speaking to news agency ANI, CM Rawat informed that a joint team of NDRF, SDRF and the Army is conducting a rescue operation. Briefing on the rescue work being carried out, he said the team has reached the 130-metre mark in Tapovan tunnel and it may take 2-3 hours to reach the T-point. Rawat added that efforts are underway to safely rescue those stuck in the tunnel.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in constant touch with the state government since the tragedy struck and has assured all possible help for Uttarakhand, said Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Monday, while adding that he himself is monitoring the relief work. Speaking to PTI, he said the Centre as well as many states have offered help.

Ration kits are being being provided by the Uttarakhand government to those displaced from their homes, the CM informed. Asserting that priority is to save lives and rehabilitate displaced people, he said economic loss as a result of the tragedy will be ascertained in due course.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat informed that preliminary estimates show around 200 people missing, while bodies of around 11 people have been found. Speaking to PTI, he said comprehensive analysis is being undertaken to find reasons of incident and build plan to avert future tragedy. He said breaking of glacier seems to have caused the Chamoli tragedy and added that experts from DRDO, ISRO and other agencies being roped in.

Govt. of India Wants Restraint On Farmers Issue by Foreigners

Staff ReporterNation, Nation India 0

Here is a Press Statement on recent comments by foreign individuals and entities on the farmers’ protests February 03, 2021, issued by the Consulate of India in New York:

“The Parliament of India, after a full debate and discussion, passed reformist legislation relating to the agricultural sector. These reforms give expanded market access and provided greater flexibility to farmers. They also pave the way for economically and ecologically sustainable farming. A very small section of farmers in parts of India have some reservations about these reforms.

“Respecting the sentiments of the protestors, the Government of India has initiated a series of talks with their representatives. Union Ministers have been part of the negotiations, and eleven rounds of talks have already been held.

“The Government has even offered to keep the laws on hold, an offer iterated by no less than the Prime Minister of India. Yet, it is unfortunate to see vested interest groups trying to enforce their agenda on these protests, and derail them. This was egregiously witnessed on January 26, India’s Republic Day.

“A cherished national commemoration, the anniversary of the inauguration of the Constitution of India, was besmirched, and violence and vandalism took place in the Indian capital. Some of these vested interest groups have also tried to mobilise international support against India.

“Instigated by such fringe elements, Mahatma Gandhi statues have been desecrated in parts of the world. This is extremely disturbing for India and for civilised society everywhere. Indian police forces have handled these protests with utmost restraint.

“It may be noted that hundreds of men and women serving in the police have been physically attacked, and in some cases stabbed and seriously wounded. We would like to emphasise that these protests must be seen in the context of India’s democratic ethos and polity, and the efforts of the Government and the concerned farmer groups to resolve the impasse. Before rushing to comment on such matters, we would urge that the facts be ascertained, and a proper understanding of the issues at hand be undertaken. The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible.” #IndiaTogether #IndiaAgainstPropaganda New Delhi February 03, 2021.

(Picture: Indian Express)

Ensure Democracy Norms: US Congress Members Tell India

Staff ReporterNation, Nation India, Nation USA 0

For the first time since the farmers’ protests began late last year, top US Congress members in the India Caucus have asked the Indian government to ensure that norms of democracy are maintained and the protesters are allowed to demonstrate peacefully with access to the Internet.

US Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus, said that he convened a meeting with his Republican Co-Chair, Congressman Steve Chabot, and Vice-Chair Congressman Ro Khanna to speak with India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, regarding farmers’ demonstrations in India.

This was the first meeting of the India Caucus, the largest country-specific caucus in the US House of Representatives, on the issue. “I urged the Indian government to make sure that the norms of democracy are maintained and that protesters are allowed to protest peaceably and to have access to the Internet, and to journalists. All friends of India hope that the parties can reach an agreement,” Sherman said.

Sandhu tweeted, “Detailed discussions on varied issues with the leadership of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans for the 117th Congress. Look forward to working closely with them to further strengthening India-US ties.” Sources told the media that the US Congress members had discussed a “range of issues”, including the farmers’ issues.

On internet restrictions at the protest sites, the US administration had said on February 4 that it recognises that “unhindered access to information, including the Internet, is fundamental to the freedom of expression and a hallmark of a thriving democracy”.

Washington’s remarks about internet restrictions is not new to India. The previous administration under Trump had raised the issue of internet shutdowns in the context of Jammu and Kashmir after the revocation of Art 370. While Sandhu has met many US Congressmen and women in the last few months, this is his first interaction with a group of Congress members on the farmers’ protests.

Earlier, US Congressman Steve Cohen had said that India is the largest democracy in the world and free speech is one of the finest hallmarks of democracy. “I am closely watching the #FarmersProtests with concern about potential attacks on freedom of speech including cuts to internet service and state-sponsored violence,” he tweeted.

Another Congressman, Eric Swalwell of the Democratic Party, had tweeted, “The USA and India were built by small farmers, diversity, and democracy. We cannot stray from our shared values… India must commit to peace, negotiate with small farmers, restore internet access, and reject discrimination.”

Earlier, the Ministry of External Affairs had, in a statement issued on February 3 slamming “celebrities and others” for their comments in support of farmer protests, said that any protests must be seen in the context of India’s democratic ethos and polity, and the ongoing efforts of the government and the farmer groups concerned to resolve the impasse. On internet access, the statement said, “The temporary measures with regard to internet access in certain parts of the NCR region were …understandably undertaken to prevent further violence.”

In December 2019, Democratic Congressmen and women had been critical of India’s positions on J&K and the CAA-NRC. That had led to an unusual step that had raised a few eyebrows in Washington, when Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar cancelled his scheduled meeting in December last year with the influential Congressional committee on foreign affairs because it had Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who introduced the resolution urging India to lift all restrictions imposed in J&K after revoking Article 370. This had prompted Kamala Harris, who is now Vice President, to also support Jayapal.

(Picture: Business Standard)

India Slips To 53rd Spot In EIU’s Democracy Index

Staff ReporterNation, Nation India 0

India has slipped two places below to 53rd position in the 2020 Democracy Index’s global ranking, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit, which said the “democratic backsliding” by authorities and “crackdowns” on civil liberties has led to a further decline in the country’s ranking.

Norway topped the report titled “Democracy in sickness and in health?”, with Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada making up the top five. India’s overall score fell from 6.9 in 2019 to 6.61 in the Index that provides a snapshot of the current state of democracy worldwide for 167 countries.(PTI)

However, India is ranked higher than most of its neighbouring countries. India’s overall score fell from 6.9 in 2019 to 6.61 in the Index that provides a snapshot of the current state of democracy worldwide for 167 countries. “With mounting pressure on India’s democratic norms, India’s score fell from a peak of 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020 and its global ranking slipped from 27th (in 2014) to 53rd as a result of democratic backsliding” under the current regime, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said.

Out of 167 countries, the Democracy Index classifies 23 countries as full democracies, 52 as flawed democracies, 35 as hybrid regimes and 57 as authoritarian regimes. India has been classified as a ‘flawed democracy’ along with countries such as the US, France, Belgium and Brazil.

The EIU report said that in India and Thailand, “democratic backsliding by the authorities and crackdowns on civil liberties led to a further decline in their global rankings”. It further alleged that the Narendra Modi-led government has “introduced a religious element to the conceptualization of Indian citizenship, a step that many critics see as undermining the secular basis of the Indian state.”

‘The authorities’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic led to a further erosion of civil liberties in 2020,’ the report said. Among India’s neighbours, while Sri Lanka, at 68th rank, is classified as a flawed democracy, Bangladesh (76), Bhutan (84) and Pakistan (105) are classified in the ‘hybrid regime’ category. Afghanistan is ranked 139th and classified as an ‘authoritarian regime’ in the index.

“In India, the image of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, resonates with an aspiring middle class, and Mr Modi has also maintained the support of business. But Mr Modi is not unassailable; a lack of attention to the rural economy has fuelled anti-government protests by farmers. In his term, moreover, job growth has been poor, institutional reforms have been slow to come, and those that have been passed have been poorly implemented. So far, Mr Modi has managed to deflect criticism, but his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—the largest in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition—will be contesting the 2019 elections on a weak footing at state level. Having also lost the support of many small regional parties, the coalition could fail to gain a clear majority in parliament,” the report stated in the year 2019, when India ranked as 49th.

“In India, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition has struggled to maintain its dominance in state elections. To some extent, this is in fact a reflection of the strength of the country’s democratic institutions, which has yielded upsets for the government, despite various coercive tactics used by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to consolidate power,” it had said in the previous report.

The Asia and Australasia region includes top-scoring New Zealand, which retained its fourth position in the global ranking (out of 167 countries), and persistent laggard North Korea at the bottom of the global ranking in 167th place, the EIU said in a statement.

The region’s overall score fell in 2020, but it now has five “full democracies” with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan moving up the rankings compared with 2019. Australia retains its “full democracy” status and high ranking (9th). Japan and South Korea both returned to the “full democracy” fold for the first time since 2014. Taiwan attained “full democracy” status for the first time following a spectacular jump up the rankings.

Despite these upgrades, Asia’s average regional score deteriorated to its lowest level since 2013 as official measures taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic led to some of the most severe constraints on individual freedoms and civil liberties in the world, the EIU said. China, Singapore and others went much further than the rest of the world in tracking and policing their citizens and locking them down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.

Modi And Joe Biden To Strengthen Peace & Security In Indo-Pacific Region, India Has High Hopes Ties with U.S. Will Deepen Under Biden

Staff ReporterNation, Nation India, Nation USA 0
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden. It was the first conversation between the two leaders since Mr. Biden took office on January 20.  “We discussed regional issues and our shared priorities. We also agreed to further our co-operation against climate change. President Biden and I are committed to a rules based international order. We look forward to consolidating our strategic partnership to further peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” said Mr. Modi in a message after the call.

The reference to the “rules based international order” is consistent with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s telephonic talk with Yang Jiechi, his counterpart in Beijing. Mr. Blinken said during the weekend that the U.S. will “stand up” for democratic values and “hold Beijing accountable for its abuses of the international system”.

The conversation between the Indian PM and the U.S. President was held in the backdrop of a series of messages from American celebrities in support of the ongoing protest by the Indian farmers against the new farm laws. Following the crackdown against the farmers, the U.S. State Department had come out on February 4 in support of the right to peaceful protests by the farmers.

This was followed by the comment from Congressman Brad Sherman, co-chair of the India Caucus, in the U.S. House of Representatives who urged the Indian government to ensure “norms of democracy” are maintained while the farmers are allowed to protest peacefully. He also supported the farmers’ right to access the Internet.

India has high hopes its ties with the United States will deepen under President Joe Biden, who was a key proponent of the 2008 civil nuclear deal between the countries and whose new administration includes several Indian Americans.

Key officials in Biden’s administration have already begun dialing their Indian counterparts. Last week, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, reiterating their commitment to their strategic partnership, and India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to new U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The 2008 nuclear accord paved the way for the supply of U.S. hi-tech equipment which India wanted along with the technology and ended India’s isolation after it conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. The United States is also supporting India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a move that has been blocked by China.

With an American of Indian descent in Vice President Kamala Harris and more than 20 Indian Americans in key roles in the Biden administration, India is hoping to maintain a significant economic, security and defense bilateral partnership.

Despite an unpredictable foreign policy, the Trump administration had consistently supported India’s emergence as a leading global power and a partner in maritime security and intelligence to counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

In diplomatic parlance, the bilateral relations between the world’s two largest democracies are a rare bipartisan success. A strong political affinity and a tactical convergence of interests to counter China drive the relationship, experts say.

India sits at the center of the strategic architecture the U.S. envisions for the Indo-Pacific region, the new theater of power play between Washington and Beijing. “I think the Trump administration has carried that forward, including the concept of an Indo-Pacific, and to make sure that we were working with India so that no country in the region, including China, could challenge its sovereignty, and also working on concerns that we share about terrorism,” Blinken said during his confirmation hearings.

India’s immediate worry is a 9-months-long military standoff with China along their disputed border in eastern Ladakh. Tens of thousands of soldiers are facing each other at friction points in the region in sub-zero temperatures. “China is the big elephant in the room,” said Gurcharan Das, a writer.

The 2+2 dialogue between the defense and foreign ministers and the Quad grouping comprising the U.S., Japan, Australia and India have enabled a greater strategic consultation and cooperation.

As the Biden administration unfolds its foreign policy agenda, India will be watching for and assessing any changes. “That Indian and U.S. interests coincide regarding the need to contain Chinese aggression is obvious, but there are uncertainties about the precise direction that the incoming Biden administration will adopt vis-à-vis China,” said Vivek Katju, a former diplomat.

“There is a compelling need for the Modi government to have an honest interaction with the Biden administration on China, though ultimately, India has to rely on its own capabilities to meet the Chinese threat,” he said.

With a more hard-nosed foreign policy and the world’s seventh-biggest economy with nearly 1.4 billion people, the Modi government has worked to elevate India’s stature.

Even as it ramps up its military ties with the U.S., India is trying to navigate its defense relationship with Russia and an energy relationship with Iran despite the threat of U.S. sanctions.

During the Trump presidency, the U.S. and India concluded defense deals worth over $3 billion and bilateral defense trade increased from near zero in 2008 to $15 billion in 2019.

(Picture: Tribune India)

A Devious Conspiracy to Destabilize India

Prakash WaghmareCommunity, Nation, Nation India 0

The despicable act of aggression on the world famous ‘Laal Kilaa’ (‘Red Fort’) in Delhi on the auspicious January 26 ‘Republic Day’ is as deplorable as the attack on the U.S. ‘Capitol’ building in Washington D.C. This was an assault on India’s consciousness as a union. It was obvious that the anti-national separatist elements had taken inspiration from ‘Trump & his henchmen’ for their criminal modus operandi. The offensive incidence had nothing to do, whatsoever, with the new ‘Farm Bill’ introduced by the government nor it had the face of the farming community. It was all the part of the devious conspiracy, not only to give bad name to the Sikhs community who formed the chunk of the protesting farmers, but also, to alienate them from Indian diaspora and then realize the twisted dream of separatist ‘Khalistan’ that no one wants to be part of in reality. It is worth noting that some of the notorious media-outlets who are perennially opposed to everything that Modi-government does, stroked, aided and abated false news items with vengeance, to keep the farming-bill impasse unresolved. 

Overall, although the separatist conspirators did not succeed in their objective, this day will remain in infamy in the history of India. This is bound to overshadow Sikh’s legacy as gallant, nationalistic, enterprising community whom the rest of India held in high esteem. There is no denying that what happened on Jan.26 at ‘Laal Kilaa’ seemed to be the failure of the Government to safeguard this symbol of Indian Democracy, in spite of overwhelming advance knowledge. Was the ‘intelligence bureau’ naïve enough to believe farmer leader’s false assurances of peaceful demonstration? Were security forces hands were administratively tied to take any actions against the impending danger? Nobody knows. 

The Farmer’s protest was hijacked by the antinational and the separatist element long before it even began in Delhi. From the beginning, the video-clips of how lavishly the so-called ‘poor farmers’ were being nurtured and cared for, had started making rounds on the ‘social-media’. It confirmed people’s suspicion of well-financed lobby of the enemies of the state that went beyond the borders of the country. They included not only Pakistan, ‘Khalistan-separatists’, but also, the opposition political parties and Kashmiri-separatists. All along they were bent upon denying and destroying all the good things that were happening in the country. Everyone on social-media has seen video-clips of people coming out of the mosques and immediately donning Sikh turbans to join the protesters. Here we cannot discount the role played by Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau whose cabinet picks include three Sikh Ministers with alleged ties to separatist ‘Khalistanis’. Prestigious ‘The Economist’ recently had an article that said, “PM N. Modi’s farm reforms could turn India into food export Power-House”. This is definitely not in the best interests of farming economy of Canada whose majority part is the Sikh community. Trudeau, to his political ends, has not only pampered the separatists Sikhs in Canada who are rich, but also, confirmed his unwarranted support to the hardliners. Reportedly, there were rallies by ‘Khalistan’ elements on Jan.26 in some of the major cities of the world, including in NYC. It is no secret that ‘Shaheenbaug’ protest for CAA was, in large part, financed by ISI of Pakistan. The farmer’s protest was no different. In this case there was infusion of political agendas of the notorious ‘troika’ – separatist-Khalistan, opposition-parties & Pakistan’s ISI. Many ordinary farmers were too gullible to get sucked into the devious designs of this ‘troika’ before they realized what was happening. By that time, the protesters had lost all the credibility for the issues affecting them. ‘Troika’ needed some drastic act to resurrect themselves in the eyes of the farmers.  

The conspirators expected Modi government to react with bullets but that is where they went wrong. Nothing of that sort, happened. The rest of the India charitably separated the extremist ‘troika’ from the rest Sikh community with restrained understanding. If the government and the people had reacted otherwise as it happened in 1984, it would have been very divisive. Modi-Government, smart as it is, did not take the bait. It not only let the whole anarchist coalition exposed themselves to the world, but also, to let the Sikh community introspectively soul search what their ‘identity’ should be. Lot of Sikhs have now realized that their identity as peaceful, pious and socially generous has been, once again misappropriated by the external and internal wasted interests. Since the war on terrorism, Sikhs have been the victims of the westerner’s misguided glare to look at them with suspicion. The ‘Laal Kilaa’ incidence is not going to be helpful unless, the Sikh community with all the help they can get from other communities completely discard extremist elements from within and rebuild and reacquires their noble status. Although the majority in India have been hurt, they are, nevertheless, anxious to willingly embrace them as their ‘Brethren”. As one of the Sikh philosophers once said, “Without Hinduism, Sikhism has no roots and without Sikhism Hinduism has no fruits”

Farmers Back At Protest Camp Outside New Delhi After Deep Challenge To PM Modi

Staff ReporterCommunity, Nation, Nation India 0

Tens of thousands of farmers who stormed the historic Red Fort on India’s Republic Day are again camped outside the capital after the most volatile day of their two-month standoff left one protester dead and more than 300 police officers injured. 

 The protests demanding the repeal of new agricultural laws have grown into a rebellion that is rattling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, reports Ashok Sharma from New Delhi.

 

Their brief takeover of the 17th-century fort, which was the palace of Mughal emperors, played out live on Indian news channels. The farmers, some carrying ceremonial swords, ropes and sticks, overwhelmed police. In a profoundly symbolic challenge to Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, the protesters who stormed Red Fort hoisted a Sikh religious flag.

UN Expects India’s Economy To Recover By 7.3% This Calendar Year

Staff ReporterFinance/Economy, Nation, Nation India 0

The United Nations sees the Indian economy recovering by 7.3 per cent this calendar year after a coronavirus-driven fall of 9.6 per cent last year. The UN’s World Economic Situation and Prospects 2021 report released on Monday said that “despite drastic fiscal and monetary stimulus” India’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell because of lockdowns and other containment efforts that “slashed domestic consumption without halting the spread of the disease.”

India’s GDP growth was forecast to dip in 2022 calendar year to 5.9 per cent, according to the report.

China, where the Covid-19 pandemic started and spread bring the rest of the world to its knees, was the only major economy to have grown last year, registering a 2.4 per cent increase last and is forecast to grow by 7.2 per cent this year and by 5.8 per cent next year, according to the report.

The global economy shrank by 4.3 per cent last year and is forecast to grow by 4.7 per cent this year and 5.9 per cent the next.

UN’s Chief Economist Elliot Harris said, “The depth and severity of the unprecedented crisis foreshadows a slow and painful recovery.”

He warned against the temptation to impose excessive fiscal austerity while the world recovers from the pandemic.

“As we step into a long recovery phase with the roll out of the vaccines against Covid-19, we need to start boosting longer-term investments that chart the path toward a more resilient recovery,” he said.

He said that the world now needed “a redefined debt sustainability framework, universal social protection schemes, and an accelerated transition to the green economy.”

The World Bank earlier this month forecast India’s economy to fall by 9.6 per cent during the current financial year but recover by 5.4 per cent next financial year if there is wide vaccination against the disease and it is contained.

Compared to this, according to the UN estimates made on a fiscal basis for India, its economy was estimated to fall by only 5.7 per cent in 2020-21 and increase by 7 per cent in 2021-22 and 5.6 per cent in 2022-23. The International Monetary Fund is set to release on Tuesday its report on the economic scenario with growth forecasts. (IANS)

(Pictuire: Jhalak.com)

India Uses Muscle Power To Silence Voices of Journalists

Staff ReporterCommunity, Media, Nation, Nation India 0

India continues to use “force” to silence the media across the nation. Journalists around the nation are being silenced when they write/report about policies nof the government that are not democratic and not in the interests of the larger public. 

The FIRs were filed across three BJP-ruled states against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, India Today journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, National Herald’s senior consulting editor Mrinal Pande, Qaumi Awaz editor Zafar Agha, The Caravan magazine’s editor and founder Paresh Nath, its editor Anant Nath and executive editor Vinod K. Jose, and one unnamed person. On Saturday night, the Delhi police also filed a similar case.

The Uttar Pradesh Police has registered an FIR against journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, the founding editor of The Wire, for “provocative” tweets over the death of a Rampur farmer during the tractor rally in Delhi on Republic Day. The FIR, registered by the Rampur police, invoked Sections 153-B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and 505(2) (inciting for violence) of the Indian Penal Code, Varadarajan said in a tweet. 

The tweet referred to the FIR had quoted the grandfather of the deceased farmer alleging that one of the doctors who conducted the autopsy told him that the man died of a bullet injury, along with a link to the full story. The Wire article included statements by the police and doctors rejecting the claims. Varadarajan described the FIR as “malicious prosecution”.

The development follows FIRs against television journalist Rajdeep Sardesai; National Herald’s senior consulting editor Mrinal Pande; Caravan’s editor and founder Paresh Nath, its editor Anant Nath and executive editor Vinod K Jose; and Qaumi Awaz’s editor Zafar Agha for ‘misleading’ tweets on the death of the farmer. 

 “This is a clear case of overreach by the police and administration of the state governments which allowed the registration of the FIRs. If sedition charges are going to be invoked at the drop of the hat, where will we head to?” T.K. Rajalakshmi of the IWPC told The Wire.

The sedition cases that have been slapped on journalists for sharing “unverified” news during the farmers’ tractor rally in Delhi on January 26 reeks of a conspiracy, observed a host of media and journalists’ bodies at a press conference on Saturday.

The joint press meeting was organized by the Press Club of India (PCI), the Editors’ Guild of India, the Press Association, the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC), the Delhi Union of Journalists and the Indian Journalists Union, which was packed with the country’s best known journalists.

The FIRs have been filed in relation to the reporting of the farmers’ tractor rally, held on January 26 in Delhi, in which some early reports had suggested that a young farmer had died from a police bullet. Later, it was claimed that he died because his tractor overturned.

The PCI has expressed shock over criminal charges being pressed against journalists even as a reliable post mortem report in the case has not yet come out. “This is a pathetic excuse on the part of the concerned state governments. In a moving story, things change on a regular basis. Accordingly, the reporting reflects the circumstances, when large crowds are involved and the air is thick with suppositions, suspicions, and hypotheses, there can sometimes be a divergence between earlier and later reports. It is criminal to ascribe this to motivated reporting, as is sought to have been done,” the PCI said in a statement.

There are writers and media personnel, human rights defenders and activists, academics and others, from every corner of the country, who despite all odds, face fascists fearlessly. They are the ones genuinely concerned about what is happening in the country today, writes Cedric Prakash in “Facing Fascists Fearlessly. 

The Editors Guild of India had termed the FIRs an “attempt to intimidate, harass, browbeat, and stifle the media”, and demanded their immediate withdrawal.

India’s Human Rights Situation Is Very Serious Says UN Special Rapporteur

Staff ReporterNation, Nation India 0

The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy organization dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos, today launched a report titled, “Crushing Dissent: 2021 Status Report on Human Rights in India,” detailing human rights abuses in India. At the launch of this report, UN Special Rapporteur Ms. Mary Lawlor called upon the Indian government to immediately release 16 human rights defenders who have been imprisoned on charges of terrorism in the ‘Bhima-Koregaon Case’.  

 

“These people should not be in jail. They are our modern-day heroes and we should all be looking to them and supporting them and demanding their release,” Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, said on Thursday.

 

Along with Father Stan Swamy, the octogenarian Jesuit priest against whose “arbitrary detention” in this case she has already written to the Indian Government, Ms. Lawlor said 15 others jailed in the same case must also be released.

 

Ms. Lawlor while read out the names of the imprisoned rights activists who have worked to uphold the rights of the others should be acknowledged and they are Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Fereria; Supreme Court lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj; authors Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde; poet Varvara Rao; academicians Hany Babu and Shoma Sen; and theater artistes Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap.

 

The so-called Bhima-Koregaon case refers to violence at a public meeting called three years ago by low-caste Hindus at a village known as Bhima-Koregaon in Maharashtra state. Several civil rights investigations have established that upper caste Hindus allied with India’s ruling party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, carried out the violence. Police have, however, targeted human rights defenders, who deny their involvement.  

 

Ms. Lawlor, whose three-year term as UN Special Rapporteur began last May, also called out the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), under which the Bhima-Koregaon accused have been charged, as among the “several prominent pieces of legislation that would appear on paper and in practice to undermine rights contained in the covenant and the work of human rights defenders.”

 

Amendments to the UAPA made in 2019, which granted “greater powers” to designate individuals as terrorists “despite the definition of a terrorist act not being precise or concrete,” failed to “comply with the principles of legal certainty,” Ms. Lawlor said.

 

“This has opened up the Act, which was already being used to target human rights defenders, to greater abuse. In 2020, it continued to be applied against human rights defenders with the extremely damaging effect of conflating the defense of human rights with terrorist activities,” Ms. Lawlor said, adding, there was “a very concerning deterioration of the environment for defending human rights” in India.

 

Saying that India’s human rights “situation is very serious,” Ms. Lawlor said she sent “six communications” to the Indian Government since May to “convey our concerns on human rights issues”. India had responded to just one. In June she wrote to the Indian Government raising concerns over the arrest of 11 human rights defenders for protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. “However, this communication has gone unanswered.”

She added: “Defending human rights is not terrorism. We need to get that message out over and over again.” Noted human rights defender Teesta Setalvad said “among human rights defenders who are today incarcerated, besides those mentioned by Mr. Lawlor, we have a list of almost 23 very young and dynamic human rights defenders incarcerated in post February 2020 anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi. Among the 23, almost 19 happened to be young Muslims activists, who actually came into the forefront of leadership to resist the draconian citizenship Amendment Act. These young activists were deliberately targeted by the state because of their clarity, courage and determination.

“The lower caste (the untouchables) have been singularly targeted for thousands of years and subjected to othering and discrimination by the dominant caste. Then, it is the Muslim community who is facing discrimination and marginalization for the last 40 years. And since the 1990s, Indian Christian community has also been subject to this kind of othering. added Teesta. 

The Indian Government had arrested Father Stan Swamy only because he had worked for four decades for the uplift of the poor tribal people in Jharkhand state, Father Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest and a human rights defender, said. Fr. Swamy became an obstacle for successive governments who, “in collusion with vested interest, especially those who deplete the forests of the precious resources, like the mining mafia, the timber merchants,” wanted to wrest control of the forests from the tribal people.

“Fr. Swamy was fighting for the release of more than 3000 tribal youth, struggling for their rights, accompanying them in their legal battles, and so on.” Former Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon said “the notion that India is a great secular democracy has become a cloak to conceal the extent of the injustice.” The foundation on which is India’s judiciary, parliamentary and education systems have been “extensively eroded” as Mr. Modi’s government’s “passing discriminatory laws, neutralizing judges and cultivating a BJP controlled police force is at an advanced stage.”

 IAMC National General Secretary Mohammad Jawad said “This exhaustive report’s coverage of all the aspects — from the sedition laws and hate speech, to national security legislation and the criminalization of dissent, from the questions on the independence of the judiciary to the dilution of labor laws and the universal health policies — demonstrates how the Modi government is set to undo decades of positive and progressive work in India.” IAMC will share the 2021 Human Rights report, “Crushing Dissent”, with members of US Congress, the White House, the Department of State, the National Security Council, think-tanks, the US academia and research community and the civil rights activists and NGOs, he added. 

(Picture: Telegraph India)

US To Operationalize India As Major Defense Partner: Austin

Staff ReporterNation, Nation India, Nation USA 0

US Secretary of Defense nominee, Lt Gen Lloyd Austin (retd) has said that he would further operationalize India’s major “Major Defense Partner” status.

During his confirmation hearing in Congress, the former US Central Command chief was asked on how he would enhance the overall defense relationship between the US and India and what priorities would he establish.

Austin said: “If confirmed, my overarching objective for our defence relationship with India would be to continue elevating the partnership. I would further operationalise India’s ‘Major Defence Partner’ status and continue to build upon existing strong defence cooperation to ensure the US and Indian militaries can collaborate to address shared interests.”

“I would also seek to deepen and broaden our defence cooperation through the Quad security dialogue and other regional multilateral engagements,” he added.

On Pakistan, Austin said: “I understand Pakistan has taken constructive steps to meet US requests in support of the Afghanistan peace process.”

Austin said that Pakistan has also taken steps against anti-Indian groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, although this progress is incomplete.

“Many factors in addition to the security assistance suspension may impact Pakistan’s cooperation, including Afghanistan negotiations and the dangerous escalation following the Pulwama terrorist attack,” he said.

On the Afghanistan issue, Austin said that Pakistan is an essential partner in any peace process in Afghanistan. “If confirmed, I will encourage a regional approach that garners support from neighbours like Pakistan, while also deterring regional actors, from serving as spoilers to the Afghanistan peace process,” he added.

Austin said Pakistan will play an important role in any political settlement in Afghanistan. “We also need to work with Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and to enhance regional stability,” he said.

Austin said he will press Pakistan to prevent its territory from being used for terrorist purposes. “If confirmed, I will press Pakistan to prevent its territory from being used as a sanctuary for militants and violent extremist organisations.”

Continuing to build relationships with Pakistan’s military will provide openings for the United States and Pakistan to cooperate on key issues, Austin said. (IANS)

(Picture: POLITICO)

Indian Farmers, We Need Not Fail!

Dr.Mathew JoysEditorial/Opinion, Nation, Nation India 0

The government and the farmers remain unchanged in their positions. For the eighth time, the farmers ordinance were discussed with the leaders of the farmers’ organizations. But the Central government washed their hands by saying that they let the Supreme Court decide on the issue.The panel, which will be nominated by the Supreme Court, will hold further deliberations. 

 

Supreme Court orders non-implementation of agricultural law The Supreme Court also directed the formation of an expert committee on agricultural law. The Center has asked for one day to decide the members of the expert committee. The Chief Justice also directed that the venue where the farmers are currently protesting should be changed. The court also directed that adults, women, and children withdraw from the strike. The court had earlier told the central government that it did not want to spill farmers’ blood. The court also said it was responsible for preventing the bloodshed. The apex court said it knew how to decide the matter

 

Representatives of the farmers’ strike ask if the discussions with the government could not yield any solution, what is the solution if it is discussed with the Supreme Court Committee? Farmers’ organizations are also confirming that the struggle is not over until the rules are upheld, and they have not stopped the protest.

 

On the other hand, supporting the farmers over the three farm laws, the Congress on Saturday said the Prime Minister should resign if he can’t repeal the laws and depend on the Supreme Court to break the deadlock with farmers. Incidentally, with the next round of deliberations among the representatives of both sides on January 15th, the opposition party Congress has decided to conduct Kisan Adhir Diwas [Farmer’s Rights Day] holding protest marches, dharnas, and petition Governors to annul the farm laws.

 

“The Constitution has not given the responsibility of framing the laws to the Supreme Court but to the Parliament of India. If this government is incapacitated to discharge this responsibility, then the Modi government has no moral authority to remain in power even for a minute,” Congress communication chief Randeep Surjewala added.

 

The central government is misleading the farmers declaring that the new laws are good for farmers.”Our stand is unequivocal — we want a legal guarantee for minimum support prices (MSPs) for farm produce, besides revoking all the three farm laws. If our demands are not fulfilled, we will continue with our agitation indefinitely,” Mr. Singh said.

 

The Sikh people are fighting to defeat the new agrarian laws that are not farmer-friendly, not wanted by the farmers, and implemented only for the corporates. All Indians, and all future generations, will have to pay bribes to corporates and work for them, of course.

 

Farmers are gearing up to intensify their strike after the eighth failed talks with the central government. The farmers’ decision is to block the Palwal Manesar highways. The farmers said that the tractor would march to the four borders of Delhi, and the Desh Jagran campaign will continue for two weeks. The question arises as to what is next as the farmers are not ready to accept the conditions put forward by the government or the government is not ready to accept the demands of the farmers. But the farmers are adamant that they will not back down from their stand. 

 

Joginder Singh, president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), one of the largest outfits in Punjab, alleged that The government has been trying to justify the laws by saying that several farmers’ unions are supporting them, but this is only an attempt to weaken the ongoing movement and divert attention. “The government intends to establish a parallel platform to weaken the ongoing agitation.”

 

Punjabi actor Gurpreet Ghuggi at Singhu meeting protesting farmers, said, “This fight is of the ‘zameerdar’ (one with a conscience) the farmers have rejected the three farm laws, so you (Centre) should also reject it now.”

 

It is also alleged that some middlemen, commission agents & political leaders with vested interests are running this movement. The farm laws are meant to favor the farmers, but eventually, the new reforms are likely to hurt the peasants and be controlled by few corporates.

 

Despite the cold and rain, many are arriving at the border. The farmers have decided to hold a tractor rally led by women. With elections looming in four states and one union territory, the central government will try to end the peasant agitation as soon as possible.

 

Under a Blanket Challenge, AIYF youngsters at Thrissur, Kerala could collect 5000 new blankets they are sending to the Farmers on strike in the shivering cold weather in New Delhi.

 

Recently, Indo American Press Club hosted two Zoom Conferences with Ambassador Pradeep Kapur’s active participation, Mr. Khanderao Kand (Director of FIIDS USA, Yogesh Andlay, Co-founder of Polaris and Nucleus, Dr. Nishit Choksy, Berkeley, MI and another one with the leadership of Mr. N.K.Premachansran MP, Mr. P.C. Cyriac IAS, Dr. Ejaz Ghani ( Lead Economist at World Bank), Prof. M.D. Nalappat (Vice-Chair Manipal Advanced Research Group) analyzed the damaging Farmers Ordinance’s various features and how the laws are destroying the traditional agricultural system in India.

 

Media projection is more important on the Farmers’ agitation in India. As a responsible media club, Indo American Press Club is prompted to impact the mainstream western media for global narrative,” Ambassador Pradeep Kumar Kapoor said while presiding over the Zoom Meeting hosted by Indo-American Press Club (IAPC) on “What’s the truth behind the Indian Farmers Protest?”

 

Mr. Vimal Goyal, CPA, and industrialist from Long Island, NY, expressed a different perspective on economic considerations. He affirmed that the latest one is the most comprehensive farmers bill, as the farmers were left behind with no recognitions so far. He believed that this bill is going to promote the abundance of rice and wheat. He also mentioned that the poor farmers do not have resources for e-commerce or transporting facilities, and hence they have to resort to the greedy private middlemen.

 

For every grain produced by the peasantry, the leading share goes to the corporates without making a fair profit to the toiling masses. Today there is no Mahatmaji, no Nehru to lead a second freedom struggle. If the opponents were foreigners then, today the enemies are inside the democratic republic. It is not easy to fight and win against them.

 

If farmers fail today, in future we may to have to pay the price for the air we breathe, by leasing the entire atmosphere above India to the monopolies. If we fail today, we will have to lease out all the rivers flowing through the nation to the monopolies and even pay for the water we drink. It’s time to respond.

(Picture Courtesy” Gulf Today)

India To Chair 3 Key Subsidiary Bodies Of UNSC

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Beginning its eighth term, India, as a non-permanent member of the UNSC on Monday with the stated objective of raising its voice against terrorism, speaking for the developing world and bringing human-centric inclusive solutions to matters of global peace and security, will Chair three important Committees of the United Nations Security Council.

“Happy to announce that Flag of India #India will be chairing 3 key subsidiary bodies of @UN #SecurityCouncil during #IndiainUNSC (2021-22): Taliban sanctions committee, #CounterTerrorism committee (for 2022), #Libya sanctions committee,” TS Tirumurti, Inbdia’s Envoy to the UN tweeted.

Tirumurti said the Taliban Sanctions Committee has always been a high priority for India. “The Taliban Sanctions Committee, also called the 1988 Sanctions Committee, has always been a high priority for India. Chairing this Committee at this juncture will help keep the focus on the presence of terrorists and their sponsors, threatening the peace process in Afghanistan,” Tirumurti said a video message attached with the tweet.

The Libya Sanctions Committee is a very important subsidiary body of the council, which implements the sanctions regime, including a two-way arms embargo on Libya, an assets freeze, a travel ban, measures on illicit export of petroleum. “We will be assuming the Chair of this Committee at a critical juncture when there is an international focus on Libya and on their peace process,” Tirumurti said in a video message.

India will also chair the Counterterrorism Committee in 2022, which coincides with the 75th Anniversary of India’s Independence. It was formed in September 2001 soon after the tragic terrorist attack of 9/11 in New York. India had chaired this committee in the Security Council in 2011-12. “The chairing of this Committee has a special resonance for India, which has not only been at the forefront of fighting terrorism, especially cross-border terrorism but has also been one of its biggest victims,” said Tirumurti.

India won the eighth term in an election last June securing 184 of the 192 votes cast. It was last on the council in a two-year term ending 2012. Its previous terms were 1950-1951, 1967-1968, 1972-1973, 1977-1978, 1984-1985 and 1991-1992.

(Picture Courtesy: Indian Mission at UN)

PravasiBharatiyaSamman Awards-2021 Given to 30 Luminaries

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Suriname President ChandrikapersadSantokhi, Curacao Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath and New Zealand minister PriyancaRadhakrishnan were among 30 NRIs, and Indian-origin people and organizations who were conferred the PravasiBharatiyaSamman Award on Saturday, January 9th.

President Ram NathKovind, who delivered the valedictory address on the third and final day of the 16th PravasiBharatiya Divas celebrations, presented the awards at a virtual event.

The PravasiBharatiyaSamman Award (PBSA) is the highest honour conferred on overseas Indians. PBSA is conferred by the Hon’ble President of India as part of the PravasiBharatiya Divas Convention on Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin or an organization/institution established and run by the Non-Resident Indians or Persons of Indian Origin in recognition of their outstanding achievements both in India and abroad.

The 16th edition of the PravasiBharatiya Divas (PBD) Convention was held virtually on 9th January 2021. A Jury-cum-Awards Committee with Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu as the chairman and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar as the vice chair and other distinguished members from various walks of life considered the nominations for the PravasiBharatiyaSamman Awards, 2021, and unanimously selected the awardees, the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.”The awardees represent the vibrant excellence achieved by our diaspora in various fields. Several countries have been represented for the first time among the awardees,” it said.

MukheshAghi, president and CEO of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, was also among the awardees.In an acceptance speech on behalf of all awardees, MrAghi said this award represents the very best of India from all over the world linking our ‘janambhumi’ (homeland) with our ‘karambhumi’ (the country where one works).”The Indian diaspora is changing the world in a gentle way. From Sciences to Academia, Arts, Politics, Philanthropy and even Hollywood, the range of contribution for the diaspora community has been immense.

The awardees also included Dr. Rajani Chandra D’Mello (Azerbaijan), BaburajanVavaKalluparambilGopalan (Bahrain), Jamal Ahmad (Botswana), JanakiramanRavikumar (Cameroon), Debashish Chaudhuri (Czech Republic), Mohammed HuseinHasanaliSardharwala (Ethiopia), BalasubramanianRamani (Germany), Lal LokumalChellaram (Hong Kong), Dr. (Prof.) MuralidharMiryala (Japan), Rajib Shaw (Japan), SalilPanigrahi (Maldives), Ravi Prakash Singh (Mexico), Mohan Thomas Lazarus Pakalomattom (Qatar), Arvind Phukan (US), Nilu Gupta (US) and SudhakarJonnalagadda (US).

Four organizations — NGO Cultural Diversity for Peaceful Future in Armenia, Sai Prema Foundation in Fiji, Indian Cultural Association in Nigeria, Federation of Indian Associations of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — were also awarded for community service and their work for promoting cultural ties.

FIA-Tristate Honored With ParavasiBharatiyaSamman Award

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The Federation of Indian Associations of New York, New Jersey & Connecticut (FIA-Tristate), was conferred with the prestigious recognition of the PravasiBhartiyaSamman on the 16th PravasiBhartiya Divas (PBD) held on Jan.9,t, 2021 for its outstanding community service. The 16th edition of the PravasiBharatiya Divas was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Jan. 9 in New Delhi. The theme of the convention, aimed at encouraging Indian diaspora to be part of socio-economic development in India, was “Contributing to Aatmanirbhar Bharat.”

 

 

The PravasiBharatiyaSamman Award is the highest honor conferred on a non-resident Indian, Person of Indian Origin; or an organization or institution established and run by non-resident Indians or Persons of Indian Origin, who have made significant contribution in better understanding of India abroad, support India’s causes and concerns in a tangible way, community work abroad, welfare of local Indian community, philanthropic and charitable work, etc. During the PBD convention, select eminent Indian diaspora members are awarded the PravasiBharatiyaSamman Awards in the presence of Hon’ble President of India, Shri Ram NathKovind.

 

“We are very proud, humbled and thankful to be the recipient of the PravasiBhartiyaSamman,” President Anil Bansal said.  “It is the recognition of hard and selfless work of so many people in the FIA family. This award is for the exceptional and meritorious contribution to India, the Indians for social and humanitarian causes.  We at FIA have been totally dedicated to serving the interest of India and Indian diaspora in the USA. I have no doubt that under the new leadership of Ankur Vaidya, we will expand our footprint and activities immensely in future. This award certainly gives us the encouragement and incentive to reach for the stars. Thanks India, our motherland and Jai Hind,” a statement issued by FIA stated here.

“It is truly a moment of pride for FIA and for me to witness this prestigious recognition bestowed upon FIA,” Chairman Ankur Vaidya said. “I take this opportunity to thank the founders and patriarchs, some of them are on our board who dedicated a lifetime in serving the community through the organization and when told of the news had tears of joy. The timing has a cryptic hint in it having lost Ramesh Patel to COVID when we had already rolled our sleeves to prepare for the golden jubilee grandeur celebration, we still continued and faced the worst times in history, we managed with the motivated team and Ramesh Patel’s spirit and soul to show us light and inspiration, the magic worked.  I know he would be ecstatic. A big thank you to Rohit Korat, Srujal Parikh, and Alok Kumar for their contribution to make this FIA dream a reality.  Anil Bansal’s presidency has created history and full credit to him, his executive team and a big thank you and salute to the diplomatic community who took the message of our work back to the motherland.  This is only the beginning and bigger and better things are coming, stay tuned… God bless the USA and Bharat Mata ki Jai!”

 

The Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) of the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut is one of the largest esteemed umbrella organizations in the Indian community. It represents over one million strong and vibrant Asian-Indians who provide significant grass root support and assistance. Established in the year 1970, the FIA has blossomed into a commendable organization that has become an effective mouthpiece and mobilizer for the community.

 

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, over 11 events, including Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu’s reception, events surrounding FIA’s flagship India Day Parade, women empowerment celebration, Long Island Diwali Gala, visa assistance camps, among other events had to be called off.

 

While facing the dire impact of the pandemic, including on its fundraising activities, FIA has continued with the challenges faced, to serve and uplift the community in these unprecedented times. Among the unique initiatives introduced during the challenging year were assistance to first responders which included serving meals in local hospitals and to NYPD, including front line heroes, hot meals in the International Diwali Soup Kitchen Drive in the U.S.and India, Bi-Weekly Diaspora newsletter which will complete one year in January 2021; historic flag hoisting ceremony at Times Square on India’s Independence Day, accommodation assistance in partnership with the Consulate General of India in New York to find accommodations for the students from India who were stranded in the U.S. due to COVID-19 travel ban;  OCI & visa Town Hall; and several other events on the hybrid as well as exclusively virtual platforms. For its work during the pandemic, the FIA, along with its core members, was recognized as COVID Heroes by Brooklyn Borough President, Hon. Eric Adams.

The Truth Behind The Indian Farmers Protests: Experts Weigh In At Webinar By IAPC

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“Media projection is more important on the Farmers’ agitation in India; and as a responsible media club, Indo American Press Club is prompted to impact the mainstream western media for global narrative,” Ambassador Pradeep Kumar Kapoor said while presiding over the Zoom Meeting hosted by Indo-American Press Club (IAPC) on “ What’s the truth behind the Indian Farmers Protest?” on Saturday 26th December 2020.
Since 26 November, farmers have been protesting outside Delhi’s borders, demanding the Farm Bills’ repeal. Indo American Press Club hosted several Zoom Meetings on this complex current issues facing the nation, with vibrant participation by diplomats and political analysts from different parts of the world.
Dr. Joseph Chalil, Chairman of Indo American Press Club introduced and welcomed the invited guest speakers. In his introductory remarks, Dr. Chalil shared with the audience about some of the initiatives under the new leadership, including the series of discussions by world renowned experts from around the world on several current topics including Indo-US Relationship under Biden-Harris administration.
Ambassador Pradeep Kapur, a Best Selling Author of Beyond Covid 19 Pandemic and former Ambassador of India to Chile and to Cambodia, and Secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, was the chair leading the discussions. In his initial observations, he said that the struggle of the Indian farmers has gained much global attention, but remain uncompromised. Instead of holding on the ‘no discussions, until repealing all the bill’ both the farmers and the government need direct discussion for an amicable settlement.
Mr. Yogesh Andley; Director, WHEELS Charitable Foundation, Co-founder of Nucleus Software, explained the background of APMC and the evolution of Mandis nearly 50 years ago. He educated the audience as to how the rice and wheat procured at Rs.18 or Rs.19 reaches at Rs.35 at retail level, but distributed at Rs.2 or Rs.3 providing food security to millions of Indians. He also expressed the fear of the farmers that the private sector may buy at higher prices in the beginning, but lower down the prices dangerously.
Mr. Khanderao Kand, Director of the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS), a Washington DC-based think tank working on India and Indian-related studies on socioeconomic, political and international security matters, elaborated about how the Indian situation has changed from a poor country to an exporter of food products like rice and wheat. He condensed the view that the Indian government is not closing the ‘Mandis’, but encouraging to open more local markets in each village. He stated that the farmers are afraid that the new laws will lead to contract farming and losing their farmlands to few corporates eventually.
Mr. Vimal Goyal; CPA and also industrialist from Long Island, NY expressed a different perspective on economic considerations. He affirmed the view that the latest one is the most comprehensive farmers bill, as the farmers were left behind with no recognitions so far. He was of the opinion that this bill is going to promote the abundance of rice and wheat. He also mentioned that the poor farmers do not have resources of e-commerce or transporting facilities, and hence they have to resort on the greedy private middlemen, most often.
Dr. Nishit Choksi; a world renowned Interventional Cardiologist from Michigan raised the question who is actually leading the protest- the poor farmers or the greedy middlemen or dalaals?. He narrated the history that no development happened in Punjab or Haryana during the last 30 years, even though many rivers and dams are provided years back. According to him, these laws are nothing new, but good for the nation: the government should properly educate the farmers.
Mr. Narender Kapoor expressed his views to escalate the importance of the situations rather than concentrating on academic discussions. He alerted that the movement and agitation shall not be vulnerable to hijacking.
Dr. Shyam Klvekar from London urged that we need more communication with end-users. Many of the participants raised different questions and were answered by the learned panelists. Ambassador Pradeep Kumar Kapoor summarized the salient features of the diplomatic and analytical discussions.
Dr. Renee Mehrra, a tenacious broadcaster with a burning passion and one of the most prominent broadcast journalists in the tri-state area was the moderator of the event balancing the various issues and views expressed by the participants. The zoom meeting was concluded with the vote of thanks expressed by Ajay Ghosh, Founder President and Present Director of IAPC.

Trump Honours Modi With Legion of Merit Award

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Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi was presented with the highest degree Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit on Monday, December 21st in Washington, DC. The award is given only to the Head of State or Government. Modi was given the award in recognition of his steadfast leadership and vision that has accelerated India’s emergence as a global power.
US President Donald Trump on Monday presented the prestigious Legion of Merit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his leadership in elevating strategic partnership of the two countries and emergence of India as a global power.

India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, accepted the award on behalf of the prime minister from the US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien at the White House.
President Trump “presented the Legion of Merit to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his leadership in elevating the US-India strategic partnership,” O’Brien said in a tweet. Modi was presented with the highest degree Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit which is given only to the Head of State or Government.

He was given the award in recognition of his steadfast leadership and vision that has accelerated India’s emergence as a global power and elevated the strategic partnership between the United States and India to address global challenges.

O’Brien in another tweet said that Trump also presented the Legion of Merit to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The awards were received by their respective ambassadors in Washington DC.

President Trump “awarded the Legion of Merit to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his leadership and vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said.

Trump awarded the Legion of Merit to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for his leadership in addressing global challenges and promoting collective security, O’Brien tweeted.
The United States is the latest country to confer its highest award to the Indian prime minister. Other awards include Order of Abdulaziz Al Saud by Saudi Arabia in 2016, State Order of Ghazi Amir Amanullah Khan (2016), Grand Collar of the State of Palestine Award (2018), Order of Zayed Award by United Arab Emirates (2019), Order of St Andrew by Russia (2019), Order of the Distinguished Rule of Nishan Izzuddin by Maldives (2019.

IOC USA Revamps And Inducts New Faces TO BOOST THE ORGANIZATION

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In a bold move to boost the Indian Overseas Congress, USA, six new Secretaries and a new Chapter President were appointed to strengthen the organization.   IOC, USA has been continuously taking various steps to re enforce and augment the organization to meet its obligations and responsibilities, particularly to its membership and the Indo-American community in the USA.

Even during the lockdown brought about the Covid 19 pandemic, with the advent and popularity of the Zoom platform, IOC, USA has had numerous meetings with its membership and with invited dignitaries from India who not only spearheaded the meetings as guest speakers but also gave valuable insight and advice of the developments at the AICC.   IOC, USA

has sprung ahead significantly under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Sam Pitroda. The six Secretaries who received letters of appointment were: Mr. Nikhil Thagadur, Mr. Rajan Padavathil, Mr. Hirenkumar M. Patel, Mr. Rajdeep Singh Sandhu, Mr. Gurinderpal Singh, and Mr. Anurag Gawande. Mr. Amey Duduskar was appointed new Chapter President of Maharashtra Chapter.

Each of the appointees had demonstrated their keen interest in serving IOC, USA, and had individually recruited dozens of new members to augment the organization’s strength. Their prior experience and involvement with the party’s policies and goals make these appointees valuable members whose support and contribution could provide significant strength and impetus further to invigorate the forward thrust of the organizational initiatives.

Congratulating the appointees, the Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress Department of AICC, Dr. Sam Pitroda, wished them success in their new undertakings and advised them tovisualize and seek solutions to problems and obstacles in using modern technology while bearing in mind the new needs of the post Covid 19 world.   Secretary-in-charge, Indian Overseas Congress of AICC, Mr. Himanshu Vyas wished the appointees well and was very encouraged by their interest to serve IOC, USA. He believed that the new team possessed a great deal of potential and expected to receive strong support from them. The vice-Chairman, Mr. George Abraham, felicitated the appointees and emphasized the importance of their IT knowledge and experience and impressed upon them to use it to its maximum. President Mr. Mohinder Singh Gilzian, who was delighted at the prospects of the appointees’ added strength, said that he was very hopeful of the value of the contribution that they are capable of making and looked forward to working with them closely.   Secretary-General, Mr. Harbachan Singh, who played an important role in the appointment process, was encouraged by their enthusiasm. He congratulated the appointees and advised them to work in unison as part of the team.

Felicitations and expressions of good wishes poured in from various senior officials of IOC, USA. They included Senior Vice President, Mr. Phuman Singh Ibrahimpur, Senior Vice President Mr. Ravi Chopra, General Secretary, Mr. Rajendar Dichpally, General Secretary R. Jayachandran , General Secretary Narinder Singh Mundar, General Secretary Sophia Sharma, Vice President Ms. Malini Shah, Vice President Pradeep Samala, Vice-President Jose George, Vice President Harpal Singh Tanda, Vice-President Paul Karukappally and various Chapter Presidents and Committee Chairs.

(By Harbachan Singh, Secretary-General, IOCUSA 917-749-8769)

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