INDIAN MILITARY AMASSES MORE MEN, MATERIEL AT BORDER WITH CHINANEW DELHI: The Indian military is amassing more men and materiel as a precautionary deployment along the 3,488-km-long disputed border with China. Sources said that the Indian Army has deployed three more divisions in the eastern Ladakh region to bolster its position on the Line of Actual Control. Apart from tanks and artillery, the Army has deployed their advanced very quick-reaction surface-to-air missile defence systems, including Akash mis-siles. Reserve forces have been moved to forward locations to match Chinese deployments. Asked whether it is a full deploy-ment, an Indian Army officer said: “It is a mirror deployment.”

INDIA’S COVID CASES’ TALLY CROSSES FIVE LAKHNEW DELHI: India on Saturday crossed the 5 lakh-mark with a record highest spike of 18,552 cases of coronavirus reported in the country in the past 24 hours. According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, this was the highest single-day spike of Covid positive cases. With 384 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the total deaths inched closer to the 16,000 mark. How-ever, the ministry said that the total number of recovered cases has fast outgrown the number of active Covid cases.

‘PM MODI SUPERSEDES TRUMP IN GLOBAL ROLE’WASHINGTON: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the leader of the global fight to decouple the Chinese Com-munist Party’s monopoly on manufacturing, assuming a role now mostly vacated by United States President Donald Trump, US-based Breitbart News has said in a report. India had already begun plans to usurp some of the manufacturing power prior to the face-off with the Chinese Army in Galwan Valley last week.

TOP OF SATURDAY

Psychological profiling of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers

done by Indian Army of-ficers—both officially and informally—paints a sad picture of China’s Army. These Indian Army officers were or are posted at India’s

eastern border, which it shares with China, includ-ing at Nathu La.

The Sunday Guardian spoke to serving and retired Army officers, on and off the record, who have spent a considerable time at the India-Chinese borders, to find out the reality of the PLA, which, thanks to its focus on psy-war and image

building, has created a larg-er than life image for itself in the virtual arena.

All these Indian officers had engaged in one-to-one confrontations with their Chinese counterparts mul-tiple times during their posting.

According to these veter-ans and serving officers, the PLA’s men, especially those

who are asked to serve at the India-China borders, are not very motivated be-cause of the physical hard-ship they have to endure and the low pay, which, in their view, does not justify the hardship that they have to face.

Indian Army officers have also learnt, while interact-ing with PLA officers, that

the PLA is an extremely cor-rupt force. This is also evi-dent from the punishment meted out to more than 100 PLA officers at or above the corps-level. These men in-cluded two former Central Military Commission vice chairmen who were inves-tigated and punished in the last few years by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The

PLA needs to rely on “fear” to push its men, especially its lower ranks, to keep them motivated in inhospi-table terrains like Nathu La, where action takes place at a height of more than 14,000 feet.

The PLA, as these Indian officers shared with the de-partment concerned in the South Block, lacked cohe-

siveness among its cadre, who have massive disre-spect for their superiors. The lack of fraternal feelings among the PLA men is eas-ily visible.

“Theirs is not a motivated Army. PLA relies on fear to extract performance, which does not work in a place like Nathu La. They are ex-tremely low paid. My coun-

terpart once told me that he gets one third of what I get. In PLA, there is no recog-nition of the fallen, as was evident from the recent 15 June standoff, unlike in our country where the fallen are treated like God and their names are engraved in memory for eternity,” a re-tired colonel, who was post-

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A boy wearing a protective face mask sits on a bucket outside a house, as the coronavirus pandemic rages in New Delhi, on Wednesday. REUTERS | ADNAN ABIDI

NOT SUPERIOR

NUMBERS MATTER

RAW DEALCPSE LAND COVID AFFECTED

How India can overtake China in economic growth

‘KASHMIRI PANDITS GETTING INADEQUATE RELIEF MATERIAL’

Aviation sector wants full capacity domestic operations

RAM MADHVANI OPENS UP ABOUT AARYA

‘PLA relies on fear to extract performance, which does not work in a place like Nathu La in Sikkim. They are extremely low paid. My counterpart once told me that he gets one third of what I get,’ said a retired Indian Army colonel, who was posted in Leh until recently.

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The Indian aviation sector, which is among the worst-hit sectors in the Covid-19 pandemic, is seeking to re-start domestic operations in full capacity from July. The aviation industry says that if domestic operations do not start in full capacity from next month, many of the airlines could see severe losses in the coming days as cost to these companies are increasing every month with minimal income over the last three months.

An aviation industry insid-er told The Sunday Guardian:

“The fear of that the infection will spread during a flight has proved to be negligible, with just 0.03% infection

rate amongst fliers in the last one month; it is now time that the entire domes-tic operations are allowed to function by the government. We are facing huge losses as even parked aircraft are a cost burden to us.”

According to sources in the aviation industry, many Indian airline companies are mulling to send back their planes which they had taken on lease, as many of these planes are parked at different airports across the country and are costing the companies huge amounts of money every month.

Domestic operations in In-dia were started on 25 May after the Ministry of Home Affairs allowed 33% opera-tions of scheduled airlines. Since then, more than 16,600

departures have taken place from several airports across the country in the last one month, carrying more than 15 lakh passengers.

Even with one-third of flight operations resuming, the DGCA in its report re-leased earlier this month had observed over a 45% decline in the load factor of the air-lines compared to the previ-ous year. This has amounted to a loss of millions of dollars to the aviation sector.

Officials from several In-dian carriers that this corre-spondent spoke to said that the high cost operations in India are putting a great burden on their airlines. “The operations cost for the aviation sector is very high in India and the Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) cost in

India is one of the highest in the world. This, coupled with high airport charges, parking charges, and the cost of human resources is becoming very expensive for airlines to survive in the post Covid world,” an official from a scheduled airline told this newspaper.

Another officer from a low cost Indian carrier told this correspondent that they were expecting a bailout package or some sort of fi-nancial assistance from the government, but with noth-ing of that sort and just one third of domestic operations resuming, it will be very dif-ficult for some of the airlines to stay afloat in the coming months.

The airlines are also wor-

SUBRAMANIAN SWAMYNEW DELHI

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ATIR KHANNEW DELHI

5ISI-BACKED GROUPS IN NEPAL INTENSIFY ANTI-INDIA ACTIVITIES

11CHINA IS JUST GETTING STARTED

6U.S. LAW FIRM PEDDLES MISINFORMATION FOR JAMAAT LINKED CHARITY

In reply to an RTI, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has provided infor-mation on Kashmiri Pandits and the relief and rehabili-tation packages being given to these internally displaced persons, which however, do not seem adequate. Reply-ing to an RTI application filed by civil rights activist Prafful Sarda on Kashmiri Pandits, the MHA has re-vealed that a total of 64,827 migrants left Jammu and Kashmir due to the onset of militancy in 1990s. The RTI sought specific information on the welfare of Kashmiri Pandits. As per the Gov-

At least for more than 750 years the Indian economy was larger and growing faster than China’s econ-omy; and it was ahead of China until 1750 AD.

China began to close the gap with India after the Islamic invasion of India began, which this writer would place as from 1192 AD, when Maharana Prith-viraj Chauhan was betrayed by his father-in-law Raja Jaichand, and thus lost to Mohammed Ghori who got crowned as Badshah in 1192 in Delhi.

There was a continuing loot of India thereafter: first

by the sporadic invaders who came after Ghori; then after 1526 by the Mughals who established a kingdom that lasted about three cen-turies in various parts of India. This enabled China (where was established the Ch’ing dynasty lasting till 1911), which was relatively free of invasions, to get ahead of India in terms of the size of the economy and in its growth of GDP.

The looting of India con-tinued after the defeat of the Peshwa Baji Rao II in 1815 by the English owned East India Company. India was thereafter more scientifi-cally exploited by the Brit-ish. In 1857, after the British compradors managed to

defeat us in what Veer Sa-varkar called our First War of Independence against the British, India was formally declared a British “colony” and the then Queen of Brit-ain was declared as the Empress of India. British India was looted methodi-cally post the 1857 imposed Zamindari system in agri-culture; and India’s indus-trialization was denied by blocking patriots like Jam-shedjee Tata and Tagore from setting up steel plants and railway systems: the two innovations that had ushered in the Industrial Revolution in Europe. India also was bled of resources which were taken to Brit-

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In a major step aimed at the post Covid-19 scenario, the government is planning to open up more than 5,000 acres of land for sale to cor-porate entities. The plots of land of several Central Public Sector Enterprises slated to be closed will soon be avail-able for private corporates.

In what could be described as a major fillip to the Atma Nirbhar Bharat mission, the government is planning to dispose of land owned by sev-eral CPSEs, including HMT Chinar Watches, Hindustan Organic Chemicals Ltd, Cen-tral Inland Water Transport Corporation Ltd, Hindustan Cables Ltd, Tungabhadra Steel Products, Hindustan

Organic Chemicals Ltd, An-daman & Nicobar Forest & Plantation Ltd.

Sources said that in a follow-up measure of the Cabinet decision of closing down 19 sick CPSEs, a Committee of Secretaries’ meeting was held recently under the chairman-ship of Cabinet Secretary R.K. Gauba. The meeting was also attended by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kanth and top bu-reaucrats of various govern-ment bodies.

In the meeting, it was dis-cussed that out of the total of 19, two CPSEs have already been closed, while in the case of 17 other CPSEs, they were mired in issues related to the disposal of land, contractual problems with the land man-aging authority, NoCs from

More than 5,000 acres of government land may go up for sale soon

India’s largest facility for Covid-19 patients, having 10,000 beds in the national capital, is ready with 2,000 of them being made opera-tional.The facility—Sardar Pa-tel Covid Care Centre—at Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Chhatarpur—is being devel-oped by the Central govern-ment in a bid to bolster the Covid-19 containment mea-sures in Delhi. Official sourc-es said the facility, with a 300 acre sprawling campus, will have two segments–a Covid Care Centre (CCC) where asymptomatic positive cases will be treated and a Dedicat-ed Covid Healthcare Centre (DCHC).

The entire operation of this Centre, including ensur-ing availability of requisite numbers of medical person-nel, has been entrusted to the Central Armed Police Forces, with the Indo-Tibetan Bor-der Police (ITBP) taking the lead in this process.

Delhi, which has overtaken Mumbai as the worst-affect-ed city in the country, has 73,000 plus infections so far and more than 2,400 died.

Additionally, a 1000-bed-ded new greenfield hospital constructed by Defence Re-search Development Organ-isation (DRDO) and manned by doctors and paramedical staff from the Army would start functioning next week from an area near Dhaula Kuan. This new field hospi-

tal would have a referral re-lationship with AIIMS. The hospital would be equipped with oxygen, ventilators as well as an ICU.

The Government of India has centrally procured and distributed 11.11 lakh N95 masks, 6.81 lakh PPE kits, 44.80 lakhs HCQ tablets in Delhi. Moreover, 425 ventila-tors have already been deliv-ered to various hospitals of the national capital.

This is to be noted that Del-hi has 34 dedicated Covid hospitals, 4 dedicated Covid health centres, 24 dedicated Covid centers to treat Co-vid-19 patients according to their severity. Thus, a total of 62 facilities in Delhi are engaged in treating the infec-tious disease. The number of these facilities is being in-creased on a daily basis. In yet another move, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, has started conducting a Serological Survey across Delhi from today (Saturday) which will continue till 10 July. Blood samples from 20,000 persons will be test-ed to ascertain the presence of antibodies. A diagnostic method, serological tests are used to identify antibodies, which are created by the im-mune system when someone is infected with the virus, and antigens in a person’s blood. The Central Government has extended substantial support to the Delhi government for containment and manage-ment of Covid-19. Indian

Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has till now supplied diagnostic material for car-rying out 4.7 lakh RT-PCR tests to the 12 functional labs in Delhi. It has also provided 1.57 lakh RNA extraction kits essential for carrying out the test and 2.84 lakh VTMs (Viral Transport Medium) and swabs for collection of Covid-19 samples.

Looking at the sudden surge of cases, the ICMR has approved antigen-based rap-id tests and supplied 50,000 such antigen rapid test kits to Delhi government for sup-porting containment efforts. ICMR has provided all these test kits free of cost to Delhi.

NCDC has supported the efforts of Delhi government through technical guidance on all aspects of Covid-19 surveillance and response strategy. Delhi government has been advised to conduct assessment in respect of ev-ery dead individual (from Covid-19) as regards how many days before death the person was brought to hospi-tal and from where. A special focus has to be given about whether the person was in home isolation and whether the person was brought to hospital at the right time or not. Every death has to be reported in a timely manner to the Government of In-dia. All hospitals have been given strict directions that there should be no delays in handing over the dead bodies to their next of kin and per-forming last rites of Covid-19 deceased patients.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Friday ordered the

Central government to ap-point two of its nominees to the governing body of Delhi Gymkhana Club as well as set-up a five-member com-mittee to look into the alleged “irregularities”. It also asked the committee to look into the utility of the land leased out by the state.

The NCLT further directed the general committee of the club that it shall not proceed with construction or further construction, shall not make any policy decisions, it shall not make any changes to the Memorandum of Association or Articles of Association and it shall not deal with the funds received for admission of Members and it shall not conduct balloting until fur-ther orders.

B.S.V. Prakash Kumar, the acting President of the Na-tional Company Law Tri-bunal, in his order, a copy of which is with The Sunday Guardian , said that the affairs of the club were being run in a manner prejudicial to the public interest while stating that even though after Inde-pendence, the caption “Impe-rial” was wiped off from the name of the Club, but “I doubt whether it has been wiped off from the mind-set of the club.”

The secretary of the club Ashish Khanna told The Sun-day Guardian, “I totally respect the judgement and efforts for transparency by the Hon’ble NCLT. Please contact Presi-dent or Chair Legal for com-ments.”

In the order, the NCLT stat-ed, “I have found a prima facie case demonstrating that the affairs of the Club are being conducted in a manner preju-dicial to the public interest. I hereby direct Union of India to appoint two of its nominees

of its choice as Members in the General Committee to monitor the affairs of the Club along with other GC Mem-bers and give suggestions to the GC. I direct the Union of India to constitute a Special Committee with five Members of its choice to enquire into the affairs of the Club, util-ity of the land leased out by the State. This Bench further directs the general committee that it shall not proceed with construction or further con-struction on the site, it shall not make any policy deci-sions, it shall not make any changes to the Memorandum of Association or Articles of Association, it shall not deal with the funds received for admission of Members and it shall not conduct balloting until further orders”. The or-der lists the matter for further hearing on 7 September.

The order has dwelled extensively on the colonial legacy of the club and that these “discriminatory” lega-cies were still being practised by the club. “Anybody can infer the club has come into existence for the then ICS of-ficers. That time it was mostly for English to chill out in the evenings. Obviously, it is their culture; therefore they cher-ished their culture wherever they ruled. That’s why bar and ball rooms have come up, of course Indian kings had it in a different way. Of course, King is King, whichever

country it is. After English left this country, this ruling elite culture has seeped into independent India through usage of this club, once get into, it is always relishing. It is hardly possible to come out of this kind of culture. It could be that this Club must have come into the hands of Indian Officers after English left this Country. After Independence, democracy governed by Con-stitution has set in. Since the democracy has become real-ity, this club should have left its doors ajar for many if not all, because not only has it bar and ball room and swim-ming pool with roof, but has wonderful library and many other sports facilities,” B.S.V. Prakash Kumar wrote in his order. Kumar also highlighted how the club, all throughout the hearing, focused on its “exclusive character”.

“... the right of forming asso-ciation cannot be extendable to say that it has right to use acres of land of the state for lazing around barbing the club so that let-in to others is next to impossible. The club all through its submissions, through its counsel keeps on reminding me it is privileged club, and it is a privilege se-lectively given to high level officers...eminent persons, business men. The shadow over the club is it is so obses-sive of its privilege. May be it is because the club is of the view that its privilege will remain

intact only if people of certain stature become members.”

“Privilege and privileged are misconceived notions and they are all nothing but reminiscence of earlier legacy, which is a vanity in a democratic society. Nobody is concerned with its privilege or elite society, had the premises owned by it,” he wrote. “It is on record that soon after in-dependence, the caption ‘Im-perial’ is wiped off from the name of the Club, but I doubt whether it has been wiped off from the mind-set of the club...knowingly or unknowingly, a class of people, in the name of privilege, have erected an unbuilt wall around the club not permitting the people to have that whiff which they have been having for about decades. Given the scenario, the reason for this undying urge to become members and remaining in wait list for decades, to my reason is, this unbuilt wall erected is mul-tiplying the urge to become members. It is like grass is al-ways greener on the other side of the fence. It is a psychologi-cal game making rounds and rounds around this Club,” the order further reads.

“So is it conscionable sitting over lands sprawling acres and acres just for recreation, when from one side people, citizens of our country, lan-guishing in utter poverty without any basics—horri-fying,” he adds.

“By seeing admission pro-cess, it appears only big peo-ple in essence those who are in top position in the govern-ment and outside the Govern-ment become members. As I said above, this club has been enjoying 27 acres of the land of the State which costs around thousands of crores. All this shows imperial behaviour and insensitiveness of the Club against the tenets of de-mocracy. The club is sitting on the monies of the public in the name of entrance fees

or registration fees, on the contrary 24x7 opening to the family members of per-manent members, generation to generation, besides all this, the club enjoying 27acres of land of the state in the prime area of Lutyen’s Delhi, now after all this is seen, can it be still said that how does the club affairs matter to the public. But public, no matter whether poor or rich, pay-ing tax on everything that is bought or sold. But resources of the country are unilaterally enjoyed by a few with differ-ent tags and captions.

“This is where public in-terest lies. It is coined by the petitioner as ‘parivar’ club. Especially public which has no voice, always looking at the State hoping it would take a lead for their grievance. May be it is about membership, maybe it is about the largess the Club enjoying in the prime area of Delhi just for lazing around,” the order reads.

“Running on Government owned land, is run by a coterie of people bringing in the chil-dren of permanent members and children’s children for us-ing facilities of the club despite several members remaining outside for decades together, when Government Officer re-tires taking him into private members quota, and using crores of rupees collected from waitlist members as its own money, and using public property of 27 acres of land in the Lutyen’s Delhi adjacent to Prime Minister residence worth of thousands of crores on minimal annual rent of Rs. 1000 annual rent for lazing around in the evening for drinking amounts to preju-dice to the public interest, all these are born out from the records, of course any inter-pretation could be given, but they cannot deny the fact that the club is basically for pas-times, in fact it is the case of the Respondent Club and its GC,” it states.

2 nation the sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020new delhi

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NAVTAN KUMARNEW DELHI

NAVTAN KUMARNEW DELHI

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ABHINANDAN MISHRANEW DELHI

‘IRREGULARITIES’

CONTRACT SIGNED

INFORMATION CAMPAIGN

SPRAWLING CAMPUS

Delhi Gymkhana Club.

The NCLT also asked the panel to look into the utility of the land leased out by the state.

The facility at Chhatarpur is ready with 2,000 of the 10,000 beds being made operational.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has its task cut out to ensure de-stigmatisation of the Covid-19 issue in India. Officials in the Ministry told The Sunday Guardian that they have been receiving a lot of complaints about stigma surrounding the Covid-19 infection amongthe general public across the country and that they are devising new plans to ensure that such a thing is stopped at the earli-est. “Despite it being months of the Covid-19 crisis in India, the general public has still not been able to de-stigmatise Covid-19. We are still getting complaints of how the doctors and other frontline workers, working with Covid-19 pa-tients, are being ostracised in their society;how the migrant workers who are going back or have gone back to their vil-lages are being kept outside their village, some even sleep-ing in the open for days. Many people are still not disclosing their symptoms fearing that their family members and neighbours would banish them from society. We are also still hearing about doc-tors and ASHA workers who are going for contact tracing being shooed away,” an offi-cial at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare told this newspaper.

A health worker from Delhi, while speaking to The Sun-day Guardian , narrated how

she is still facing difficulties in her society as people are looking at her with suspicion.

“Covid-19 is being looked at as a killer diseasein society. I am looked at with suspicion when I go to my society. They think that I am a carrier of coronavirus since I have to spend a lot of time with coro-na patients. Even ambulance drivers and ward boys who go to pick up and drop Covid patients to and from hospitals are often stopped. If this does not go away, we will not be able to win the war against corona,” the health worker from Delhi said.

Another Health ministry official told this correspon-dent how people are hid-ing their health conditions.The official narrated several incidents from across the country where despite hav-ing symptoms of Covid-19 the patients are fearful of going to the doctor or get-ting themselves checked as they feel that if they turn out to be positive, they will be thrown away by society and sometimes even by their own family members.

“We are also getting com-plaints and seeing media re-ports from across the country on how people are resisting to set up a quarantine centre in their locality. The quaran-tine centres are being looked at as some kind of a ghostly place,” the Health ministry of-ficial said. The official further said that such stigma about Covid-19 still exists in society because of a lot of misinfor-

mation and fear about the disease, and the lack of edu-cation and knowledge about the infection.

“There is a lot of fear mon-gering with respect to Cov-id-19 and many believe that it is like a death sentence, not realising the fact that more than 60% of the patients are recovering and the death rate is just 3-5%,” the health min-istry official said.

However, following several such complaints and feed-back from across the country, the Ministry is regularly edu-cating people through visual and print medium about the ill-effects of stigmatisation aroundthe Covid-19 issue.

The Ministry is releas-ing audio visual and print advertisements across the country, apart from making announcements at the block and taluka level in every dis-trict, educating people about Covid-19 and the ill effects of stigmatisation of the disease.

Ministry officials and doc-tors say that due to the stig-matisation, a lot of cases are not being reported or being only reported when the symptoms get complicated; this, in turn, is worsening the situation as these patients are potentially transmitting the disease to other people.

“We are regularly carrying out an information campaign on de-stigmatisation of Cov-id-19. We have also instructed all the state governments to ensure that such stigmatisa-tion is done away with ,” said an official.

An Italian firm–Italferr–has been appointed to design and supervise the develop-ment of the metro lines in Kanpur (32 km) and Agra (30 km). According to a company of-ficial, Italferr, which is the engineering arm of FS Ital-iane, in partnership with the Spanish firm Typsa, has been appointed to design and supervise the metro lines, which will have over 62 km of track, 57 stations and four depots.

The contract, signed with the Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC), has a five-year duration and a total value of over 43 mil-lion euro, with the Italferr share being over 19 million euro, and includes the plan-ning of four corridors (for a total length of over 62 km). The contract, signed with

the Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC), has a five-years’ duration and a total value of over 43 million euro, with the Ital-ferr share being over 19 mil-lion euro, and includes the planning of four corridors (for a total length of over 62 km). Aldo Isi, CEO of Ital-ferr, told The Sunday Guard-ian that the starting date (of the project) was under negotiation considering the lockdown, “but let us say it should be as early as Sep-tember 2020, for a period of 60 months”.

Ferrovie Dello Stato Ital-iane Group (FS Group) is a fully owned company of the Italian government working in the railway sector and is under the Ministry of Trea-sure, Italy.

The official said this is FS Italiane’s most important contract in India confirming its place in the high-speed sector, but also in the inter-

national metropolitan pub-lic transport panorama. The whole operation, worth 2.4 billion euro, is financed with funds from the Indian gov-ernment and the European Investment Bank.

Specifically, the new Kanpur metro line will be developed along two main corridors. The first is from Kanpur to Naubasta and the second from the Agri-cultural University, hav-ing an overall length over 32 kilometres, 30 stations and two depots. The Agra metro line will also include two corridors connecting Si-kandra to Taj East Gate and Agra Cantt to Kalindi Vihar respectively, for a total dis-tance of over 30 kilometres with 27 stations and two depots. FS Italiane has been operating in India for a few years, even having a branch with Italferr in New Delhi which will be transformed into a legal entity in the com-

ing months. FS Italiane, he said, is committed to realis-ing strategic works in India since 2016, including the design and supervision of the construction of the Anji Khad Bridge–the first cable-stayed bridge with the ut-most technical prestige–as well as project management consulting for the develop-ment of two new metro lines in Mumbai. As of 2017, Ital-ferr also took on the quality and safety inspection activi-ties for the Eastern Dedicat-ed Freight Corridor-Khurja-Dadri Section project, one of the peak freight corridors for the Indian Railways.

Stable growth in the In-dian subcontinent market continued throughout 2019, with the award of the de-sign of and support in the construction of the two lots for the railway line between Rishikesh and Karanprayag (at a length of 125 km) in Ut-tarakhand.

NCLT SAYS GYMKHANA MATTERS PREJUDICIAL TO PUBLIC INTEREST

Health ministry working to de-stigmatise Covid-19

India’s largest facility for Covid patients is ready

Italian firm to supervise Kanpur, Agra metro lines

CONTROL OPERATIONS UNDERWAY

3 LOCUST SWARMS ACTIVE IN DELHI-NCRNEW DELHI: Three locust swarms were spotted in the national capital and adjoining areas of Haryana and Ut-tar Pradesh on Saturday, following which local administrations issued advisory to deal with the menace. Locust swarms were seen in South and West Delhi along with Gurugram, Faridabad and Palwal, Rewari and Jhajjar in Haryana. Locusts eat up leaves and the tender tissues of plants, therefore, kharif crops are under threat, said an agricultural sci-entist. Locust swarm was noticed in Jhunjhunu (Ra-jasthan) on 26 June , 2020 and control teams were deployed to eliminate the locusts, said Union Agriculture Ministry in a statement.

RAHUL’S CWC OUTBURSTRahul Gandhi apparently got very upset during a Congress Working Committee meeting at a comment made by R.P.N. Singh regarding the Congress party’s criticism of the Prime Minister regarding the Chinese incursion. Considering that RPN is considered a key player of Team Rahul, there is a view that the entire script could have been choreographed, for it is after this interaction that Rahul pointed out that it was only he who was taking on the Prime Minister while no one else really spoke out. This apparently is the message that Rahul was keen to put across and whether choreographed or not, there is little scope of differences amongst the two for ever since Rahul’s days as UP in-charge, RPN has been a part of his team, and it was during Rahul’s presidentship that he was given Jharkhand to handle. But all these are a part of a larger game plan—to ensure Rahul is back as party chief. There is little doubt that the post is his, but can he take on Narendra Modi effectively this time round? That remains to be seen.

PRASAR BHARTI VS PTIThe buzz is that Prasar Bharti has written a letter to the PTI expressing its displeasure at the reporting done by the latter, even going to the extent of calling its reporting anti national. Sources claim that while the public broadcaster supports PTI, it doesn’t feel a reciprocal sense of support from the latter. Apparently, the trigger was PTI’s interview with Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidon. Apparently this is the deal breaker for a relationship that had already gone sour. Watch this page.

WHEN SWAMY GOT IT RIGHTDr Subramanian Swamy was one of the few BJP leaders to admit to a Chinese incursion. Also in his weekly interview show “Swamy Says” on NewsX he was the first to predict that the Chinese would move north to Depsang near the Karakoram Pass, which is apparently what they have done since then if the media reports are right.

MCA VERSUS GYMKHANA CLUBThe MCA has given its (reserved) order against the Gymkhana Club where it has suggested that the government should appoint a five-member committee to investigate the alleged wrongdoings as well as appointing two members on the Club’s Governing Committee for administrative purposes. However, what a majority of the club members are requesting is that one way to ensure a fair investigation would be to make sure that none of the current or former committee members become government nominees. That is one way of getting a fair probe.

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COOLBREEZE

Political strategist Prashant Kishor’s firm, India Political

Action Committee (IPAC), will not be assisting and strategizing for the Con-gress in the forthcoming Madhya Pradesh by-elec-tions that will be held for 24 seats. The date of the by-elections has still not been announced but they are

likely to be conducted by mid-September.

Last month, media re-ports, quoting close asso-ciates of former Congress Chief Minister Kamal Nath, had emerged stating that the former CM had engaged Kishor and his team to help the Congress in regaining power in Madhya Pradesh.

Out of these 24 seats, the Congress needs to win all the seats to reach the ma-jority mark of 116 members

in the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly. The

party presently has 92 MLAs. In contrast, the BJP just needs to win 9 seats to continue to be in power as it has 107 MLAs as of now.

Madhya Pradesh-based Congress sources said that things didn’t “work out” be-tween the party and IPAC because of reluctance from Kishor’s side. “We wanted his team to work for us, es-pecially when it comes to social media campaigning, but after the initial discus-

sions, he (Kishor) himself ‘backed’ out,” a Congress leader from Bhopal told The Sunday Guardian.

According to IPAC sources, the general consensus among those who takes decision in the organisation was that it was virtually impossible for the Congress to regain power in view of the numerical re-quirements (winning on 24 of the 24 seats that are going to polls) and hence there was no point in getting involved in a

losing cause. “We have a very good track record (of parties who have engaged IPAC, win-ning) and we knew that Con-gress was not going to win on all the 24 seats come what may; so we decided that there was no point in working in Madhya Pradesh for the by-polls. We are not working for them in Madhya Pradesh,” a senior employee who was a part of the Madhya Pradesh deliberations told The Sunday Guardian.

PRASHANT KISHOR WON’T WORK FOR CONGRESS IN MP ABHINANDAN MISHRANEW DELHI

BYPOLLS

‘It is virtually impossible for Congress to regain power by winning all 24 seats’.

West Bengal’s ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), which had so far stayed away from social media, has now started emulating BJP’s style of campaigning by aggres-sively launching their elec-tion campaign with the help of social media.

Highly placed sources with-in the TMC told this corre-spondent that the party, tak-ing a cue from the BJP MPs in Bengal, has instructed each of its MLAs to be active on social media and publicise the work that the Bengal government had been doing in the state for the last nine years. Sources in the TMC have also said that the party is getting each

of these MLA’s social media accounts verified on Twitter and Facebook.

A Kolkata-based TMC functionary told The Sunday Guardian, “All the social me-dia activities of the party are being operated from the office of Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee. Most of the MLAs have already made their accounts on Twitter and Facebook as instructed by the party leadership and as of now, 130 accounts of TMC MLAs are active in Ben-gal. All these new MLA ac-counts have the photograph of Mamata Banerjee having the tagline ‘Banglar Gorbo Mamata’. The social media account IDs and passwords of these MLAs are also with the office of Abhishek Banerjee

who monitors them and even writes posts on the MLAs’ be-half.” The TMC functionary said that the Prashant Kishor led IPAC (India Political Ac-tion Committee, a political consultancy firm), in coor-dination with Abhishek Ba-nerjee, is managing this social media campaign of the TMC.

“IPAC’s social media team is designing the content and campaign that needs to be run on social media. The party has also asked Prashant Kishor to bring up issues that connect Bengali sentiments on social media as they do not want to lose the perception battle, since the BJP is quite strong on social media. The team is also tasked with en-suring that the campaign is run on social media trends

on Twitter, an art which the BJP has mastered for years now,” a TMC functionary aware of the details told this correspondent.

An IPAC insider, with whom The Sunday Guardian spoke to, said that the social media team of IPAC which is working with the Trinamool Congress, is doing exactly what the BJP has been known to be doing on social media.

A source in IPAC said: “We are asked to trend an is-sue relevant in the state and we use accounts of MLAs to post numerous tweets from each of those social media ac-counts so that the issue trends on Twitter. The TMC decided to use this model after they realised they have to coun-ter the BJP on social media

given that elections are just less than a year away.”

However, several MLAs from the TMC have said that they were unaware of the fact that accounts on Twitter and Facebook have been made in their names and are being regularly updated.

A TMC MLA said, “I was not aware at all that I have a Twitter and a Facebook ac-count and that posts from that account are being made related to my constituency. A few days back, I got a call enquiring about whether some joining from BJP had happened in my constituency as they saw it on my Facebook account. This is totally false and I was not aware of any such post.” Another MLA, who claimed that his social

media account was created without his knowledge, said, “If you want to win an elec-tion through social media, then consider it lost. Tell me, how many people use Twitter in rural Bengal? This is not Delhi, so the people giving brains to didi to fight a war on social media needs to know Bengal first.”

However, sources in IPAC told The Sunday Guardian that the firm and Abhishek Banerjee’s office have ap-pointed points-men for each MLA whose account has been created and it is these points-men who are giving inputs from the constituency to the IPAC team and probably that is why the MLA may not be knowing what is being posted from their account.

With the crisis in the Con-gress showing no signs of abating, the question arises whether Rahul Gandhi will be able to muster up cour-age to do what his grand-mother Indira Gandhi had done. To recall, Indira Gan-dhi had gone to the extent of forming a new party Con-gress (I) with the help of just 54 MPs. With the formation of a new political outfit, she had managed to get into power as well.

Tongues are wagging be-cause Rahul Gandhi feels that leaders are not doing what he wants them to. He feels that most of them are afraid of Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi has made his anger public in front of these lead-ers on some occasions. He has also expressed his dis-pleasure over this attitude of the Congress leaders in CWC. Rahul Gandhi had even threatened to resign in a CWC meeting this week. The question is which are the leaders who aren’t obey-

ing Rahul Gandhi? If so is the case, then what alter-native does Rahul Gandhi have? He seems to have two ways to deal with such a situation. First, he kicks out the leaders who don’t obey him. Second, like his grandmother Indira Gan-dhi, Rahul Gandhi forms a new party.

But the million dollar question is whether Rahul Gandhi will be able to show the courage. It’s not easy. Rahul Gandhi wants to set-tle everything in the party before taking over the reins

of the Congress. How will he do is not easy to under-stand. Sources believe that Rahul Gandhi is already late. If he had taken over the responsibilities timely like Indira Gandhi, he could have done much better. He didn’t take any govern-ment responsibility when his party was in power for ten years. He couldn’t have courage to sit on the front bench of the party after the 2014 defeat. Somehow he took over the party’s control after three years in 2017; he couldn’t take bold decisions.

As a result, the organisa-tion got weakened at all levels. His own team terri-bly flopped. After another defeat in 2019, he left the president post making way for ageing Sonia Gandhi to be interim president. What will Rahul Gandhi be able to do new if he becomes president again? He is not the party boss, but leaders reach out to him only for his consent. All the deci-sions have his nod. Despite this, Rahul Gandhi thinks leaders aren’t obeying him. Barring a couple of lead-

ers, it’s Rahul Gandhi who is attacking Prime Minis-ter Modi. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Digvijay Singh are the two leaders who have been seen attacking PM Modi. Ran-deep Singh Surjewala and now marginalized Navjot Singh Sidhu are also not hesitant in attacking the PM. But the expected ag-gressiveness is missing. That’s why Rahul Gandhi got angry in CWC. Home Minister Amit Shah taunted him. What was surprising was that no leader except

Gehlot hit back at Shah. Some Congress leaders did raise voice against the gov-ernment over the China issue. All eyes are on what innovative steps Rahul Gan-dhi will take. He is already 50. When Indira Gandhi took over party’s reins after Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri, she was faced with immense chal-lenges. She accepted them and launched her new party in 1969. Thereafter, she won the battle against Pakistan in 1971 and established her-self as a strong leader. Then

came her decision to impose Emergency, resulting in In-dira Gandhi getting out of power. Several of her lieu-tenants left her. She formed Congress (I) in 1978 and re-turned to power within two years. But will Rahul Gan-dhi be able to do an Indira Gandhi? Sanjay Gandhi was firmly behind his mother Indira Gandhi. Similarly, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is firmly behind her brother Rahul Gandhi. Even, Pri-yanka Vadra’s children Re-han and Maria are also tak-ing interest in politics.

The speculated entry of strongman Rama Kishore Singh alias “Rama Singh” into the party has created a storm in the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), leading to resignation of heavyweight and vice-president Raghu-vansh Prasad Singh, also a former Union Rural De-velopment Minister in the Manmohan Singh govern-ment. Rama Singh is likely to join the RJD next week.

“Rama Singh”, known for his muscle power, has been a five-term MLA. He got elected to Lok Sabha from Vaishali constituency in 2014 on Ram Vilas Pas-

wan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) ticket, where he de-feated Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. That marked the beginning of the cold war between Raghuvansh and Rama Singh.

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, perceived to be an honest leader with a clean image, is said to be miffed with the idea of inducting Rama Singh into the party fold. Rama Singh comes from the same Rajput caste to which Raghuvansh Singh belongs. Moreover, he also comes from Vaishali con-stituency. That is the reason Raghuvansh Singh is upset with the leadership and has even stopped coming to the party office at Veerchand

Patel Marg. After the 2014 Lok Sab-

ha elections, Raghuvansh Singh filed a petition in the Patna High Court, seeking disqualification of Rama Singh from the Lok Sabha. It was alleged that Rama Singh had not given infor-

mation about the Jaichand Vaid kidnapping case of 2001 in his affidavit filed to the Election Commission.

In this case, Rama Singh had to serve a jail term also. According to sources, the LJP did not give a ticket to Rama Singh in the 2019 LS

elections. Instead, Veena Singh was fielded from Vaishali. Ever since then, it was being speculated that Rama Singh would join the RJD, something which made Raghuvansh Singh uncomfortable. But recently, Lalu reportedly gave his “green signal” to induct Rama Singh, which prompted Raghuvansh Singh to take the extreme step of resigning from the party. Raghuvansh is un-dergoing treatment at Patna AIIMS for Covid-19 infec-tion.

RJD insiders said that there are efforts to placate Raghuvansh. “As of now his resignation has not been accepted. He is an asset for

the party. He has been a right hand of Laluji. Singh babu has stood with him in all good and bad times. He is the one who represents the old guard. In Delhi’s political circle, he is con-sidered as RJD’s sober face. His Choora-Dahi party, thrown at his Ashoka Road residence on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, is still being remembered by many politicians and journalists of the national capital,” said a source.

Besides Raghuvansh’s resignation, the RJD also suffered another setback as five of its MLCs—Sanjay Prasad, Md Kamar Alam, Radha Charan Seth, Dilip Rai and Ranvijay Singh—

switched to Nitish Kumar’s JDU ahead of the Legislative Council polls in Bihar on 7 July.

The MLCs resigned as they were troubled due to the “dynastic politics” in the RJD and the leadership of Tejashwi Yadav, son of Lalu Prasad Yadav. Sources said RJD is facing a serious lead-ership crisis as Lalu Prasad Yadav is serving jail term in the multi-crore fodder scam.

Though Tejashwi is con-trolling the party affairs, a large number of RJD lead-ers, especially the old guard, are not happy with his style of functioning. Tejashwi’s authority within the party has also diminished fol-

lowing RJD’s dismal per-formance in the Lok Sabha elections last year, in which the party drew a blank.

“Moreover, in the absence of Lalu Yadav, infighting among his family members has come out in the open. The party is sharply divided in several factions—led by Tejashwi Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav and Misa Bharti. There is a strong lobby of old and senior leaders who are unhappy with Tejashwi as he is promoting new faces, ignoring their contri-butions. In this situation, RJD has become like a char-iot being pulled by many horses, running in different directions,” a party source said.

IN BENGAL

CRISIS IN PARTY

IN BIHAR

TMC launches BJP-style social media campaign

Can Rahul Gandhi do an Indira, resurrect the Congress?

Strongman Rama Singh’s possible entry creates storm in RJD

DIBYENDU MONDALNEW DELHI

AJIT MAINDOLANEW DELHI

NAVTAN KUMARNEW DELHI

Prashant Kishor

Rama Kishore Singh Raghuvansh Prasad Singh

Party tells its MLAs to be active on social media and publicise Bengal government’s work in the last nine years.

It has led to the resignation of party vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, also a former Union Rural Development Minister.

His grandmother Indira Gandhi had gone to the extent of forming a new party Congress (I) with the help of just 54 MPs.

4 nation the sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020new delhi

WWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

Return of migrant labourers to their workplaces in south-ern states of India is likely to take longer than the expected time of around September or October. The unabated spread of Covid-19 through growing number of positive cases is scaring the workers away from catching a return train to cit-ies like Chennai, Hyderabad or Bangalore.

Moreover, the increased allocation of funds for the MGN-REGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme) by Rs 40,000 crore, to a total of Rs 1,01,000 crore, which will mostly be spent in the northern states of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Rajasthan and Mad-hya Pradesh and Orissa, is another reason for the delayed return to their regular work in the south.

So is another recently launched revamped Pradhan Man-tri Garib Kalyan Yojana, primarily aimed at reverse migrat-ed workforce in the above mentioned northern states. But, we all know, these schemes will not be enough to meet the employment needs of our around 10 crore out of the total 14 crore workforce in the country. Sooner than later, they will be returning to their normal daily jobs.

When it happens, a lot will be different from the past when their exodus began early April and continued till late May. The question of migrant labour has assumed greater magni-tude than that of health challenges thrown by Covid-19. The fresh challenge thrown at us by the sudden Chinese aggres-sion that claimed as many as 20 lives of our soldiers, is in the form of finding substitute to imports from China.

Now let’s take a look at the big picture today. On the one hand, there is an urgent need to give enough work to the mi-grant labourers who are on less paid jobs, and, on the other hand,there is a growing demand for banning Chinese prod-ucts, especially the cheap ones from our markets, so that we can save our economy and deny profits to the companies from across the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

How to combine these two objectives and find a solution that benefits our country? This is a task uppermost on the agenda of the states, particularly those from the south. Of-ficials in the government say that there have been enquires from some labour groups on when and whether they can return to their work, which they had left three months ago.

Of course, flattening of the curve of Covid positive cases is a must for their return. That will happen when the country ramps up its health infrastructure coupled with induction of some approved drugs into the treatment protocol in the next two or three months. Meanwhile, efforts should be made to find ways to properly accommodate the returning migrant labourers.

There are a few PILs (Public Interest Litigation) before several courts, including one before the High Court of Telangana, seeking protection to the migrant workers and another one is before Supreme Court which is clubbed with the “One Nation, One Ration Card” (ONOR) plan. With subtle differences, these two cases pertain to improving the condition of migrant labour.

During the course of hearing of these two PILs, both the Centre and states have told the courts that they had till date no official data on the migrantworkerss.

The figures put out by the governments project the total number of migrants at around four to five crore, based on around 9,000 plus Shramik Rails and other forms of trans-port provided by them.

Non-governmental sources estimate that the number can be round 14 crore as most of the labourers had either walked back to their villages or found their own transport. Of this, at least 50% of the migrants are from the south, while the rest are from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. At least now, the states can maintain official reg-ister of labour.

The situation will definitely be not the same againwhen the migrants return to their work which pays them an average wage of around Rs 700 per day, as against around Rs 250 per day now they earn through various government-backed schemes. The factories and big infrastructure firms which faced severe shortage of labour in the last three months have gone for some degree of mechanization.

When the migrants return, they will have to learn to deal with these newly inducted machines. Some amount of skill-ing and learning is essential for them. States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will have to take up programmes to skill and re-skill the migrant la-bour. But, alas, there are no such plans as of now.

Hyderabad-based National Academy Construction (NAC),which trains construction workersthrough a joint collaboration between private contractors and the public works departments, is ready to provide such programmes, but there is no word from governments. “We have enough facilities and faculty to re-skill our migrant labour, what we need is a direction from the top,” said a functionary of the academy.

Upgrading skills of migrant labour can be used to step up quality of production in both private and public enterprises, thus manufacturing goods that can beat those from China. Import substitution from China can only be found through stepped up quality products in our country. Quality of la-bour, too, must go up along with it.

Prof P.L. Visveshwar Rao, who filed a PIL in Hyderabad HC, said: “90 per cent of our women labour, while working on sites, wear their men’s old shirts, they don’t even have proper clothing, leave alone uniforms.”

Skill upgrading of these migrants will not cost much, but the benefits would be 10 to 20 fold, according to some top executives of a private infrastructure giant L&T. But, will our governments listen?

EYE ON SOUTHRAMA KRISHNA SANGEM

How the South can welcome back migrants

‘COVID QUEEN’

KERALA LEFT TRIES TO CREATE AURA AROUND CM VIJAYANKerala PCC president

Mullappally Ram-achandran may have

scored a self-goal by making sarcastic comments against the state’s popular health minister K.K. Shailaja. But has state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan become a “saint” during this corona times is the question that is doing the rounds in politi-cal circles in Kerala. There is a conscious effort on the part of state CPM, the gov-ernment and Left leaning intellectuals to create an aura around the Chief Min-ister. The norm these days in Kerala is Pinarayi Vijay-an’s is the last word on any-thing and everything under the sun. It is beyond doubt that the Congress leader’s remarks were indeed con-demnable. At the same time, it was wrong on the part of the Chief Minister to forget his own utterances about certain rivals in the past which equally stands con-demnable even to this day.

To come to the point,

the PCC president call-ing Shailaja “Covid queen” and “Nipah princess” was not in good taste, at least the way he said it. But it can’t be termed something mysogynic. It was at best a statement coming out of pure jealousy. Ramachan-dran seemed to have been upset about Shailaja getting international attention and was referring to an article that appeared in the Lon-don Guardian praising the state health minister as a “rockstar”. Forget about Ramcahndran getting con-fused about the meaning of “rockstar”, the way he went on and on was a pathetic image of his own buffoon-ery. However, he managed to create enough political fodder for Kerala to discuss the next few days with even the author of the article in The Guardian Laura Spin-ney chipping in. “If Mul-lappally wishes to politicise the story, that is his pre-rogative,” she tweeted. She also added that Shailaja Teacher had already been called a “rockstar” and that she was just quoting others

in the article. Though Mul-lappally tried to justify his comments the next day by saying “I don’t know much about modern dance...but it The Guardian that has called her a ‘rock dancer’ of Kerala...”, it had exposed the political exasperation of the Congress party in Kerala. By systematically propagat-ing its work against corona virus or the deluge that had devastated the state in 2018, the Left Front government, and Pinarayi Vijayan in par-ticular, has been working for a political goal. Kerala is the last hope for whatever is Left of the CPM in the coun-try, having forfeited Tripura and West Bengal by its bla-tant misuse of power.

Nobody in Kerala will doubt that given the pres-ent circumstances, the Left Front could easily come back to power if things go like this. That is why Pina-rayi Vijayan was quick to pounce on the remark by Mullappally and cre-ate a political controversy out of those out of mind comments. “By attacking the Health Minister who is leading Kerala’s fight against Covid-19 day and night, the KPCC president is trying to weaken the state. Nobody should play politics with the lives of people,” Pinarayi said. Pinarayi defi-nitely knew what he was talking about while Mul-lappally continued to de-fend his faux pas. Many of his party colleagues were in disagreement with their chief, but preferred to keep quiet in the initial days. But realising how CPM is capitalising on the political windfall, leader of the oppo-sition Ramesh Chennithala and senior Congress leader and former chief minister Oommen Chandy came to the defence of Mullappally.

They tried to rally the party in support of Mullappally by saying that CPM would not be allowed to stifle Op-position by singling out KPCC president.

However, both tried not to directly comment on Mul-lappally’s remark. Chen-nithala shot back at Pinara-yi by saying he is “stooping to the level of CPM cyber goondas”. He also re-minded how Pinarayi had “abused” his opponents in the past. “Thamarassery Bishop was called a ‘despi-cable creature’, Kollam MP N.K. Premachandran was referred to as a “scoundrel” and slain dissident CPM leader T.P. Chndrashek-haran as a “renegade”.

Pinarayi did not even spare Mullappally’s late father Mullappally Gopa-lan, a respectable Gandhian from the Malabar region,” Chennithala said. How could such a man find fault with an innocent comment, questioned Chennithala. He went on to add that the Op-position’s role is to highlight the government’s lapses and they would continue to do

it. “There is a concerted ef-fort by the ruling front, in-cluding the chief minister, to defame the Congress and the UDF. It will not be toler-ated,” Chennithala said. The Congress has subsequently announced a slew of pro-tests against the Left Front, especially on its failures in providing easy passage to those Malayalis returning from the Gulf regions post Covid-19 outbreak. It will be advisable for the UDF to concentrate on people’s problems rather than in-dividually attacking CPM ministers who, the people by and large believe, are do-ing a “good job” in tackling the corona virus spread.

Mullappally Ramachan-dran, too, should realise that the Opposition’s job is not to indulge in personal attacks but to expose gov-ernment failures. But for the Opposition in Kerala, the Left Front would have got away with many shady deals, including the sale of data on virus victims, under the cover of Covid-19. That is the duty of a vigilant Op-position.

SANTOSH KUMARNEW DELHI

Pinarayi Vijayan

An alert has been sounded from Mahanada to Bagmati Basin in Bihar following meteorological depart-ment’s forecast of heavy rain lashing several parts of North Bihar and the catch-ment area of several rivers originating from Nepal.

Flood-fighting exercise has been initiated on a war-footing to buttress the em-bankments of all the major rivers. Nitish Kumar him-

self has been conducting re-view meetings to take stock of the situation.

The meteorological de-partment has predicted that there will be incessant rain in several parts of the state and also in several parts of Nepal which would cause the rivers originating from Nepal to swell.

The problem can get com-pounded by the fact that the Trough Ine has gradu-ally shifted from Bihar to the foothills in Nepal. That means the foothills in Nepal

would be witness to heavy rain.

The same feeds the dozens of big and small both peren-nial as well as seasonal riv-ers originating from Nepal and entering Bihar.

Major rivers like Gandak and even Kosi have already shown an upward trend. The discharge from Kosi barrage at the time of filing this report in Birpur in Ne-pal was approximately 1.67 lakh cusecs.

Gandak, however, showed a decreasing trend with

the discharge level gradu-ally coming down from 1.63 lakh cusecs to 86,000 ap-proximately at the time of filing this report.

Most of the rivers have already shown an upward trend in the month of June itself due to incessant rain that has been taking place ever since the onset of the monsoon.

Districts like Kishanganj, Araaria, Supaul, Madhu-bani, Muzaffarpur, Sheohar and Sitamarhi have already been put on high alert.

MET FORCAST

Alert in Bihar districts, fear of flood loomsSHIV PUJAN JHAMOTIHARI

Commuters wade through a waterlogged street after heavy rainfall, in Patna on Friday. ANI

Jammu and Srinagar are di-vided on the issue of the new media policy drafted by UT administration in the first week of June. “We are with the country. Any journal-ist encouraging separatism and anti-national sentiments should be booked under Public Safety Act (PSA),” a prominent Jammu editor told this reporter. He claimed that some Kashmir-based jour-nalists recently approached them for being part of any future response to this new policy and claimed that they have rejected such a move by Kashmiri journalists.

“Basically, Jammu is ready to oppose anything being done by the people of Kash-mir. Journalists of Jammu feel that Kashmir-based newspapers, especially a few prominent newspapers in Urdu and English, have been responsible for some unrests and violence,” said a Jammu working journal-ist, currently working with a national newspaper.

There is palpable fear among the media fraternity in Kashmir valley as the

new media policy recently announced by UT adminis-tration has given more teeth to bureaucrats and police to decide what is sedition and anti-national about reports from Kashmir.

“No joint meeting has been conducted so far both by working journalists and lo-cal editors as fear is creep-ing in, with police sending summons to many scribes for some previous stories,” said a local editor of aUrdu daily being published from Srinagar for more than 40 years now.

“To report from Kashmir is now dangerous. If people protest and demand action from police about any inci-dent and we report. it can be sedition for police and of-ficials,” said a local reporter working with a news chan-nel. He claimed that recently he was summoned by police for a story he has filed imme-diately after the clampdown of security forces in Srinagar after 5 August last year.

Recently the UT admin-istration framed anew me-dia policy and the official spokesman said that it has been drafted to create a sus-tained narrative on the func-

tioning of the government in the media. According to this new policy, the government has all the powers to decide what “anti-social and anti-national” news is.

Most of the people connect-ed with local newspapers and even the prominent reporters working for many national newspapers and channels have fears that they can be booked by authorities. “The new policy should be amend-ed by the government if they want the media to function freely in Kashmir valley,” said one of the reporters working for a newspaper that was re-cently booked and questioned by police.

According to different or-ganizations of local editors, they were not consulted by the UT administration before they announced the new me-dia policy. “We were not even informed. There was no con-sultation or discussion with editors and prominent jour-nalists working from Kash-mir. It will further shrink the space for journalism and forreporting in Kashmir,” Manzoor Anjum, editor of Urdu daily Uqab told to this newspaper.

Two prominent editors of

English dailies from Kash-mir valley said that the new media policy was not accept-able and they have come to the conclusion that it has been framed to “finish the local me-dia” and “bring all working journalists at the mercy of bureaucrats and police”.

What is most objectionable to local editors and journalists is the verification and investi-gation by police. The new me-dia policy announced on June 2, 2020, says that there would be a “background check” of newspaper owners, publish-ers and journalists “with the assistance of the relevant au-thorities” before a publication can be empanelled.

A senior government of-ficial said that already they were looking for such content in all the published material in Kashmir valley and they were working with many security agencies to address such issues. He admitted that some journalists were ques-tioned in the recent past for publishing “fake news”.

Told by this reporter that most media people in Kash-mir have fears about the new policy, he said, “It is not an ordinary place; we are fight-ing a proxy war in Kashmir.

We have to check all the possi-bilities of breach of peace and most of such activities in the recent past were being done by circulating fake news.”

The new media policy has clearly indicated that govern-ment advertisement support would be stopped to any pub-lication if the officials report that the publication was cir-culating any news deemed objectionable by them. Police are free to book editors and reporters under different provisions of law and even arrest them.

Hundreds of newspapers are being published from Kashmir valley and they have no financial support other than government ad-vertisements. Kashmir has no private sector and private advertisements are very rare in the local newspapers here. So, financial considerations also are forcing local edi-tors to tread cautiously and not to make the authorities, especially bureaucrats and police officials, angry.

“We are yet to hold a meet-ing on this issue and we will give the response in the com-ing times,” said Shuj-ul-Haq, President of Kashmir Press Club.

‘FREEDOM OF PRESS’

Opinions divided over new media policyNOOR-UL-QAMRAINSRINAGAR

TOP OF SATURDAYTEMPORARILY

CROSS-BORDER INDIA, PAK TRAVEL SUSPENDED NEW DELHI: Cross-border travel between India and Pakistan has been tempo-rarily suspended to contain the spread of coronavirus, according to sources. A source said: “It is to be noted that Pakistan is trying to create a mirage of goodwill by proposing to resume Kar-tarpur corridor on 29 June, at the short notice of 2 days, while bilateral agreement provides for information to be shared by India with Pakistan side at least 7 days before the date of travel. This would need India to open up the registration pro-cess well in advance.” This comes hours after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mah-mood Qureshi tweeted: “As places of worship open up across the world, Pakistan prepares to reopen the Kar-tarpur Corridor for all Sikh pilgrims, conveying to the Indian side our readiness to reopen the corridor on 29 June 2020.” ANI

China has encroached at least 28 hectares of Nepali land spread across four dis-tricts of Humla, Rasuwa, Sankhuwasabha and Sind-hupalchok. This has been revealed by reports prepared by Nepali agencies, which have been seen by The Sunday Guardian.

Since 1962, China has also taken over an entire village that falls in the world famous Gorkha district, but this fact has come to light only now after a local publication car-ried a story recently.

According to official sourcesin Nepal, in many places, the encroachment has been done simply by shifting border pillars.

Shiva Upreti, the Gorkha district correspondent of Nepalese newspaper An-napurna Post in a story done on 7 July, had revealed that China has occupied the en-tire Rui village that comes under Gorkha district.

Speaking to The Sunday

Guardian, a local journalist who is based in Gorkha dis-trict, said that the Chinese had occupied the Rui village in 1962 itself.

According to him, the Chinese had taken over the entire villageby simply shifting the pillars that de-marcate one side from the other. “Border marker num-bers 34,35,36,37,38hadbeen shifted at the border (that de-noted Nepal’s claim over the territory), which has led to Northern Gorkha’s Rui Vil-lage falling into China’s Tibet region. 170 households of Rui village of Gorkha district and 18 houses of Darchula are in Chinese territory de-spite being a part of Nepal,” he said.

According to him, it was only after this story was published in the Annapurna Post that the Opposition par-ties of Nepal took cognizance of the matter and brought a motion in the Parliament.

Other local Kathmandu-based journalists with whomThe Sunday Guard-ian spoke tosaid thatthe

residents of Rui village have lost monasteries and graz-ing land to the Chinese now. “The local government of-ficer went to this village in 2019 and this was the first time that a government of-ficer had visited this village since 1962. And this was when the locals told him about the Chinese encroach-ment,” a journalist said.

The Sunday Guardian also reached out to other jour-nalists based in Nepal, seek-ing to know whether any action has been taken by the K.P. Sharma Oli gov-ernment to “recover” the Chinese occupied territory followingthe publication

of the news in Annapurna Post. However, as per local journalists, there was no change on the ground and the village continued to be occupied by the Chinese de-spite the locals paying tax to the Nepalese government.

As per rules, the border talks between Nepal and China are to be held every 10 years, but it has not hap-pened for decades now.

It is pertinent to men-tion that earlier this week, Nepal’s opposition party, the Nepali Congress, had moved a motion in the Low-er House of Nepali Parlia-

ment, seeking the response of the K.P. Oli-led govern-ment on the issue of Nep-alese land encroached by China.

The motion was moved by Nepali Congress lawmakers Devendra Raj Kandel, Satya Narayan Sharma Khanal and Sanjaya Kumar Gau-tam. In their motion, which has been seen by The Sunday Guardian, the three law-makers have claimed that “64 hectares has been en-croached upon in Dolakha, Humla, Sindhupalchowk, Sankhuwasabha, Gorkha and Rasuwa districts of Ne-

pal by China”.As per the findings, re-

garding the encroachment of 28 hectares in the four districts of Humla, Rasu-wa, Sankhuwasabha and Sindhupalchok, China has taken over parts of river-sthat are on the Nepalese side including: 2 hectares in Bhagdare river in Hum-la district;one hectare in Samjen river; 3 hectares in Jawamu river;one hectare in Bhurjuga river;one hect-are in Lenche river in Ra-suwa district; 7 hectares in Kharane river; 4 hectares in Bhotekoshi; 3 hectares in Samjung river of Sindhu-palchok district, 2 hectares of land in Kamu river and 4 hectares in Arun river of Sankhuwasabha district.

On 5June, the Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs refuted reports that China has encroached on its ter-ritory while stating that boundary (border) mark-ers no. 37 and 38 had never been erected between the two countries owing to the natural conditions.

nationthe sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020

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As Nepal refuses to budge from its stand, a stretch of over 500 metres of embank-ment on the Lal Bakiya river in the Baluwa Guwabari area of East Champaran remains without repair and has now emerged as a flashpoint be-tween people of India and Nepal. For want of repair, the crumbling embankment might cause devastating floods as the rivers originat-ing from Nepal are already in spate.

Residents of Balwa Guawari panchayat on the Indian side are now daggers drawn with the people of Banjraha in Nepal. Reminiscent of the devastating floods in 2017 caused by the swelling waters of the Lal Bakiya river, resi-dents of the Balwa Guwabari panchayat want immediate flood fighting work to be ex-ecuted on the embankment. The same is being opposed by residents of Banjaraha in

Nepal and the Nepalese au-thorities.

Flood control work was started by the state govern-ment prior to the monsoon and most of the work is al-ready complete, but a stretch of 500 metres has been stopped from completion by Nepalese authorities.

Monsoon has already set in and the meteorological department has already predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall in the catch-ment area of most of the riv-ers originating from Nepal. It’s common knowledge that each year, Bihar is witness to devastating floods caused by swelling rivers coming from Nepal, and each year prior to the onset of the monsoon, the Bihar government under-takes flood control measures on a war-footing.

This is, however, for the first time that the Nepalese authorities have thrown a scanner in the works and are refusing to budge from their stand.

Nepal had recently stopped the flood fighting work on the embankment claiming it to be their land. The engineers were threatened and labour-ers forced to stop work as lo-cals from Banjraha village in Nepal accompanied by Nepal armed police and senior of-ficials stopped work on the embankment. The stalemate continues despite a distress call being made by the state government to the Centre to intervene into the matter and find a solution.

It’s significant to mention here that the western em-bankment falls well within Indian territory as the de-marcation pillars number-ing 347 to 346 fall at least 10 meters from the embankment towards Nepal side.

Dasrath Shah, an old and ailing resident of Balwa vil-lage which is located just at a stone’s throw distance of Banjraha village, recalled with horror, “2017 was very devastating for us. Even puc-ca houses got washed away

in the swelling waters of Lal Bakiya. We want the embank-ment work to be complete, but the people from Nepal and Nepal Police are not al-lowing the work, even when the embankment is within Indian territory.” The old man was quick to add that apparently Nepal has of late started flexing its muscles at the behest of China.

Another resident of Bal-uwa Nazeer Miyan said, “This is for the first time that we have seen the rela-tions turning sour between

the two countries. We can’t go to the other side of the border. The Nepalese police beat us. When we have to meet our relatives living on the other side of the border, we call them to meet on the border. Recently, they even forcibly dragged one of our SSB jawans and mercilessly beat him up. But luckily we could save him.”

Nepal has been flexing its muscles and eyeing In-dian territory even in other adjoining areas along the Indo-Nepal border. For de-

cades, it has been expand-ing its base in Susta area of Valmikinagar. Of late, it also ventured into Indian territory along Pantoka Vil-lage in Raxaul area of Bihar. A watch tower and eight small outposts housing 4-5 Nepal armed force jawans were set up along banks of Siriswan river. The river has been changing its course dramatically and over the decades, has moved deep in-side Indian territory. Right now, the river enters India near pillar number 393 and the Nepali authorities staked their claim on the land on the other side of the river and even set up posts there.

People of Pantoka village, on the other hand, claim that the land on the other side of the river is their an-cestral property, but they are forced to flee from the land. The demarcation pillars on the other hand have been systematically uprooted and whatever pillars exist in the area are evidence enough

of the fact that the Nepalese have encroached upon In-dian land.

When this report was ex-tensively aired on our sister channel India News, the In-dian authorities swung into action and the Nepali armed police force were forced to remove their posts which they had set up along the In-dian territory.

Tension has started build-ing slowly along the border and this has much to do with the attempted encroach-ments by Nepal on Indian land.

One the one hand, the movement of essential goods and commodities from India to Nepal continues unabat-ed; strict restrictions have been imposed on the move-ment of people from India to Nepal by the Nepal armed force. The relations between the two countries are per-haps at its lowest in centuries and this is reflecting on the people who live across bor-ders sharing blood relations.

RISING TENSIONS

River embankment turns flashpoint between people of India, NepalSHIV PUJAN JHAMOTIHARI

Sashastra Seema Bal personnel patrolling the embankment of the Lal Bakiya river.

A picture of the encroached region.

The sealed Nepal border in the region.

Terrorist modules backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intel-

ligence (ISI) have intensi-fied their activities in Nepal against India.

ISI has been using Nepal’s soil for terrorist activities against India for a long time. However, sources said this has been intensified in the wake of the ongoing border issue with China and Nepal. “In fact, Pakistan is using Nepal as one of its fronts against India. The ISI is mix-ing with the Nepalese Army in their efforts,” a source said.

Sources said the security

establishment has noticed an increase in the presence of these ISI-backed groups along India-Nepal borders. This is to be noted that under the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, citizens of both the countries enjoy free passage across the 1,850-km long unfenced bor-der through designated loca-tions.

Some time back, the Nepal Police had arrested several Pakistani nationals allegedly staying illegally in Nepal and having links with Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Many of them are found to be part of the counterfeit currency racket. Sources said there are four routes which are being used to sneak counterfeit In-

dian currency notes to India: Karachi-Doha-Kathmandu, Pakistan-Oman-Kathman-du, Bangkok-Kathmandu and Singapore-Kathmandu.

Nepal has for years been a haven for ISI operations. Radicals and jihadis from India have been escaping into Nepal.

On the other hand, ISI-sponsored terrorists have been sneaking into India via Nepal through the open bor-ders. Pakistan has also been misusing its diplomatic mis-sions in Nepal for pushing its anti-India agenda, including trafficking of fake currency notes.

Notably, about 97% of the Muslim community of Nepal live in the Terai region, while

the other 3% are located mainly in Kathmandu and the western hills. Accord-ing to a 2017 report, quot-ing Khorshid Alam, head of Nepal’s Islamic Society, some 100,000 Nepalese got converted to Islam over past 15 years and the number is expected to rise.

Even as Pakistan’s ISI has intensified its action against India, vested interests close to China, are working to cre-ate a divide between India and Nepal on several issues, including border. However, despite that, the bilateral trade between the countries is going on as usual. The bilateral trade is intact and in fact growing despite the “trouble” in the relations.

Ministry of External Af-fairs (MEA) Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the bilateral trade between the two countries in May sur-passed $300 million despite lockdown. The two coun-tries have extensive trade relations.

“Trade and supplies are going on without any hin-drance between the coun-tries, including at the Ka-karbhitta-Panitanki border. Despite the present challeng-ing times of Covid-19, India has facilitated continuous and smooth flow of trade and supply of essential goods to Nepal,” he added.

According to official fig-ures, India is the largest trading partner of Nepal. In

2018-19, the bilateral trade reached $8.27 billion. Ne-pal’s exports to India stood at $508 million that year, while India’s exports to Nepal were $7.76 billion.

Indian firms are among the largest investors in Nepal, accounting for more than 30% of the total approved foreign direct investments. There are about 150 Indian ventures operating in Nepal engaged in manufacturing, services (banking, insur-ance, dry port, education and telecom), power sec-tor and tourism industries. Some large Indian investors include ITC, Dabur India, Hindustan Unilever, State Bank of India, Manipal Group, Tata Power etc.

ISI-BACKED GROUPS IN NEPAL INTENSIFY ANTI-INDIA ACTIVITIESNAVTAN KUMARNEW DELHI

TERRORIST MODULES

ENCROACHMENT

How China salami-sliced an entire Nepal villageABHINANDAN MISHRANEW DELHI

One of the pillars that have been shifted by the Chinese.

LIFE AFFECTED

Dozens of nomads and shepherds are trying to get help of the administration to take their livestock for grazing into Kar-gil or into the Sonmarg area of Kashmir as army and troops deployed after the standoff with China are not allowing any civilian movement in the areas near the trouble points in east-ern Ladakh, many residents told this reporter from Leh.

All the local politicians of Ladakh, especially councillors of Ladakh Hill Development Council (LHDC), are not happy with the newly created UT administration of Ladakh and they feel that they have been left without any powers and bureau-crats posted were not responsive to the plight of the general public, especially after the growing cases of coronavirus and the standoff with the Chinese army.

People claimed that dozens of villages are without any com-munication lines from the past 20 days and the authorities are not responding even to the requests of Ladakh politicians and other people of influence, including the local leaders of BJP.

Shepherds of Chushul area of Ladakh have been trying to get the government to move out with their livestock from La-dakh as they are not being allowed to move into the pastures by the army. Namgial Dorjey, local Congress leader and for-mer councillor of the border sub-division of Durbuk, told the media recently that the government was doing nothing for the people trapped in his area.

According to the locals from Leh, thousands of people in the border sub-division of Durbuk and Chushul were having no mobile connectivity as the authorities had snapped all such means of communication as a precautionary measure in these areas due to growing tension with the Chinese army.

Urgain Chodon, BJP leader of Nyoma, recently told the me-dia that he has been writing and also communicating with the central leadership of BJP about the Chinese incursions since April this year, but claimed that there was no response from New Delhi. This reporter tried to contact Urgain Chodon, but she was not available for comments.

Recently on Facebook and also in July 2019, Chodon had urged the Central government to take note of Chinese incur-sions in Ladakh area. She had posted many pictures showing Chinese soldiers constructing roads in May last year.

It is in place to mention that recently councillors of Ladakh Hill Development Council had written a letter to Divisional Commissioner Ladakh asking for restoration of communica-tion lines and extending their support to the Indian Army and also mentioning about their hardships due to the lack of mobile phones amid growing pandemic. They asked Divi-sional Commissioner of Ladakh Saugat Biswas to ensure the supply of essential items to all the villages near the trouble spots and expressed their concern that the authorities were not responding to their requests.

Many villagers from Leh told this reporter that they were trying to bring their families to Leh town as the mobile phones were shut for the past 20 days in Changthang region of Ladakh. They said that areas like Chumoor, Nyoma, Nidar, Hemya and many more villages were facing communication blackout along with dozens of other villages in Tangste sub-division of Ladakh.

Councilor Nyma Thupstan Wangchuk recently told the me-dia on telephone that the authorities were not responding, especially L-G of UT Ladakh and Divisional Commissioner of Ladakh. He said that such attitude of the authorities towards the people of Ladakh is unfortunate as they have always sided with the army and were patriotic people.

Ladakhis seek govt help amid face-off with China

NOOR-UL-QAMRAINSRINAGAR

EVOLVE WITH TIME

TERROR TRAIL

6 covert the sunday guardian28 june– 04 july 2020new delhi

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Since re-vok-

i n g t h e special sta-tus of Jam-m u a n d Kashmir,

and the subsequent security measures taken to fight ji-hadi groups, India has been on the hot-seat. Members of Congress, prominent media outlets, and even senior State Department officials are suddenly tasked with trying to understand complicated situations with little or no background in the history or politics of South Asia, or the various forces at work in complex situations.

This is a situation ripe for abuse by unscrupulous ri-vals who would seek to use this dearth of information to manipulate policymakers through disinformation.

Last year, a US Congres-sional hearing on Kashmir went poorly for India. This is in significant part due to the fact that US franchises of Jamaat-e-Islami (re-cently banned in Kashmir for working with terrorist groups), mainly the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the new shad-owy group Stand With Kashmir, which celebrates jihadis and is closely aligned with many Islamist groups, sought from the outset to slant the discussion away from terrorist groups, and instead focus almost entirely on overreach by the Indian government.

Yet, this is not the only time South Asian connected Islamist groups have sought to bend the narrative against India and toward its rivals, it is only the most public and well known. But other Jamaat-e-Islami franchise groups have been damaging India by downplaying their affiliations with jihadis and seeking to help the Islamist cause. This includes up to and including hiring the high-powered law firm of Perkins Coie to misinform Congress concerning poten-tial terror finance flowing from the US to the Kashmir region.

Perkins Coie is perhaps most famous for represent-ing the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America in 2016, at which point it was responsible for the creation of the infamous “Steele Dossier,” consisting of wildly implausible accu-sations against then-pres-

idential candidate Donald Trump. One commenta-tor declared it “one of the most malignant documents in modern American his-tory.” Yet Perkins also made headlines in years past for defending various terror-linked suspects, such as Osa-ma Bin-Laden’s driver and bodyguard, Salim Hamdan.

More recently, Perkins Coie was hired by ICNA and its self-described “sister organi-zation,” the international aid organization Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD).

As reported by veteran Indian reporter Aarti Tikoo Singh and others stateside, ICNA and HHRD have enlisted a large umbrella group, InterAction, to assist in lobbying Congress. This lobbying was done in an at-tempt to push back against Congressional efforts to investigate HHRD’s affili-ations with various Kash-miri terrorist organizations, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

InterAction’s lobbying was used to distribute an impres-sive looking memo, authored by Perkins Coie. This memo responded to a letter spear-headed by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) and also signed by Reps. Chuck Fleishmann (R-TN) and Randy Weber (R-TX), which raised concerns about HHRD’s terrorist af-filiations. Specifically citing concerns about “The ongo-ing tension and violence in Kashmir,” the letter raised concerns about ICNA/HHRD, saying it is “(V)ital that the US do whatever it

can to stop the flow of any and all funds that that we can to terrorist organizations in the region.”

The letter states its reasons for concern methodically. First, citing Professor Vali Naser, a respected academic from Johns Hopkins Uni-versity, the letter says that ICNA/HHRD is a key com-ponent of Jamaat-e-Islami’s international network. Naser states in his book Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution, that there are eight Jamaat branches in the world, one of which is HHRD’s “sister organization” ICNA (Naser is hardly alone in this obvi-ous conclusion).

Second, HHRD has openly arranged conferences with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Third, HHRD and

ICNA are openly funding and collaborating with ex-tremist groups in Pakistan, such as Jamaat-e-Islami’s Al Khidmat Foundation—which, while not designated by the US, funds and sup-ports designated terrorist groups.

And finally, a former ICNA and HHRD associate, Fareed Khan, was recently convict-ed of lying to the FBI during a terror finance investiga-tion concerning a money laundering scheme to benefit terrorists in Kashmir.

The congressmen’s letter concludes that further in-vestigation is needed, and implores administration of-ficials to take action.

The Perkins memo shows that little has changed since the “Steele Dossier” days.

Instead of responding to the substance of the Congress-man’s complaints, it mud-dies the waters by attacking straw men, inventing hyper-technical distinctions and ig-noring demonstrable facts.

The memo claims it is “false” to claim that Jamaat and ICNA/HHRD have shared leadership. While the congressmen’s letter does not in fact claim “shared leadership,” several current and former leaders in ICNA/HHRD were indeed former officials in other Jamaat branches. HHRD Chairman Mohsin Ansari, for exam-ple, is an alumnus of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, the student wing of Jamaat’s branch in Pakistan. Former ICNA vice-president Ashrafuzza-man Khan is a convicted war

criminal in Bangladesh for his role in acts of genocide as a former leader of a Jamaat-e-Islami killing squad during Bangladesh’s 1971War for In-dependence.

The Perkins Coie memo goes on to decry a “false narrative” concerning the fact that HHRD organized a conference in Pakistan in 2017 with the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a US and UN designated charitable arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the terrorist movement responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people.

The Perkins memo explic-itly admits that HHRD was a “participating sponsor” of the event in question, and that FIF was part of the event. But it is claimed that HHRD was not the “orga-nizer” of the event, and con-veniently tries to blame local Pakistani officials for invit-ing FIF. It is further stressed that FIF had no speaking role at the conference.

Both of these contentions are implausible and are explicitly contradicted by Pakistani media reports, which state that the con-ference was “arranged” by HHRD and that FIF offi-cials “address[ed] the par-ticipants.” But even if the Perkins Coie’s claims are somehow true—that HHRD is sponsoring conferences in terror-saturated regions of the world and has no control over its cooperation with US designated terrorist groups, it should concern Congress a great deal. However, this is not even the first time

FIF has appeared alongside HHRD: in a 2009 report, HHRD openly mentions FIF as a fellow aid organization.

Moreover, the memo does not address the fact that the conference also featured the Milli Muslim League, LeT’s political wing, which was itself later designated by the US and UN. Perkins undoubtedly fears the full truth might make an already implausible claim look even less plausible.

Additionally, Perkins Coie also neglects to mention HHRD and ICNA’s work with the Al-Khidmat Foun-dation, Jamaat-e-Islami’s self-described welfare arm. HHRD brags on its own website about involvement in 214 different projects with Al-Khidmat, despite clear evidence that Al-Khidmat subsidizes terrorism. Ac-cording to the Indian BBC journalist Subir Bhaumik, Al-Khidmat “aids militancy and helps to support the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Ja-maat’s armed wing.” If that weren’t enough, in 2006, Jamaat-e- Islami itself an-nounced that Al-Khidmat had sent 6 million rupees ($100,000) to the Palestin-ian terrorist group Hamas for its “just jihad.” Of course, ICNA/HHRD could hardly be expected to protest Al-Khidmat’s donation: Sheikh Muhammad Siyam, a senior member of the Hamas mili-tary wing, once spoke at an ICNA convention.

Finally, as for the convic-tion last September of for-mer ICNA and HHRD asso-ciate Fareed Khan for lying

to the FBI, the memo goes to great lengths to highlight legal wrangling and to ig-nore the plain facts: Kahn was convicted of “(M)ak-ing a false statement during an interview with federal law enforcement.” Among those lies, according to the Department of Justice, was lying about his involvement with ICNA and about the contents of packages he sent to his brother in Pakistan, a Lashkar-e-Taiba supporter. His case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of In-vestigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and his arrest stemmed from an active ter-rorism investigation. Khan was indicted by a grand jury concerning false statements made “in a matter involving international terrorism.” These are documented facts, and irrefutable.

This is not the first time that ICNA has gotten tough questions about Congress concerning their activities and potential funding of ter-ror. But the fact that they are now hiring high-powered law firms in a misleading attempt to stupefy Congres-sional sleuthing shows they are scared. But it also shows that they think they can get away with it.

One of the most common refrains from political, pol-icy and economic thinkers is that, particularly in the af-termath of Covid-19, it is mu-tually beneficial for the US and India to have a closer re-lationship. This will happen much less easily if Congress falls prey to misinformation about Kashmir, terrorism, and Jamaat-e-Islami’s jihadi support network in South Asia.

No person who has lived and worked in D.C. for any length of time can be naïve about how business is often done. Mudslinging, inves-tigators digging up dirt to discredit opponents, and even defending criminality or terrorism, are relatively common practices. But the paucity of sophisticated un-derstanding of South Asia makes these underhanded tactics far more effective, if they go unchallenged.

India must not let this hap-pen.Cliff Smith, a lawyer and for-mer Congressional staffer, is director of the Middle East Forum’s Washington Project. You can follow him on Twitter at @CliffSmithZBRDZ, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CliffordVernon-Smith.

‘STEELE DOSSIER’ LAW FIRM PEDDLES MISINFORMATION FOR JAMAAT-LINKED CHARITYJamaat-e-Islami franchise groups have been damaging India by

Islamist cause. This includes up to and including hiring the high-

The bar-baric pre-meditated attacks perpe-trated by Chinese troops on

Indian Army personnel in the Galwan river valley area has nullified the painstak-ingly negotiated confidence building measures for peace along the LAC. Although there is a welcome consensus between the two countries for disengaging troops in Eastern Ladakh, withdraw-al from seized territory (that was not under Chinese oc-cupation earlier) to the April 2020 status quo ante is a long way off given the scant regard China has for protocols and agreements. Already, the Chinese side has begun to lay claims to new tracts of land. Clearly, relations between the two countries are now at an

inflection point.In response, first of all, In-

dia must exercise restraint and not react emotionally or impulsively. It must pause and rethink its policies on China at the bilateral, re-gional and global levels. It is not the time to fall prey to knee-jerk and jingoistic calls to “settle the score”.

The only feasible option is to radically change the domestic paradigm. It is time for Indian diplomacy, military, commerce and in-dustry, telecommunications and IT to re-evaluate their strategies vis-à-vis China. It is time to proceed firmly, and pragmatically and “selfishly” pursue our national interest in all fields. Following the ex-amples of many Asian tigers, India needs to be pragmatic and adopt flexible policies.

Key to this is emancipating ourselves from the shackles of outdated foreign policy formulations that may have served us well in the past 70

years. To this end, there is a serious need to jettison the term “strategic autonomy” and “non alignment” from our diplomatic lexicon and evolve a new concept of “strategic alignment”, which embodies the spirit of both terms. India’s future should be premised on a coalition of like-minded democratic countries who need to coun-ter a brazenly aggressive China.

As I argued in an earlier ar-ticle (Deconstructing Chinese strategies along LAC, 7 June), Chinese aggressive action, well beyond being only asser-tive, is planned to achieve its oft stated objective: to regain every inch of Chinese terri-tory and preserve its territo-rial integrity and sovereignty. The plan coincides with the nation’s two upcoming hun-dred-year anniversaries (the first of which comes up next year). The repetitive aggres-sive posturing against Tai-wan intruding into their Air

Defence Identification Zone, ongoing maritime threats to Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, and the re-newed threats to Japan over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea are indica-tive of a serious shift in Chi-nese behaviour. China has embarked on a dangerous venture to press its claims on all territories that it be-lieves historically belong to it. It has clearly put to rest Deng’s 24-character strat-egy, “observe calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership”. While the world is reeling from the Covid pan-demic, for Xi Jinping, this is the time to launch an unprec-edented all round offensive to achieve his China Dream.

To check China’s untram-melled belligerence and ruthless quest for global domination, India should, in alignment with power-ful international strategic

partners, redevelop the “Tibet Card,” be assertive in exposing and opposing Chi-nese repression in Xinjiang, support the preservation of democratic values and au-tonomy in Hong Kong, and work in concert with other maritime powers to ensure freedom of navigation in the open seas and skies in the Indo Pacific and East Asian regions. Joining the newly conceptualized Pacific De-fence Initiative (PDI) is also critical. This itself will bring access to foreign funds, thus freeing our own resources for economic development. In the changed global circum-stances when virtually the entire world’s sentiments are stoically against the Chinese, the benefit derived from a lit-tle “give” by the Indians can be negotiated to outweigh the exponentially high “take” for it. These windows of oppor-tunity do not come often!

Meanwhile, at the bilat-eral level, those who raise

concerns about Chinese prowess vis-à-vis India in terms of scale and econo-my, should remember how a much smaller Vietnam taught China a lesson in 1979. We should also be reminded that our armed forces are battle tested in high altitude warfare, and can thwart the Chinese from creating fur-ther trouble on the border. The time has come to oc-cupy some tactically advan-tageous disputed pockets in the region and then negotiate withdrawals from a position of strength. If this can be real-ized, it must be followed by a time bound demarcation and delineation of the LAC: an unfinished task at the time of signing the peace and tran-quility agreement. This can be one major step to pave the way towards an overall negotiated settlement of the boundary question, however intractable it is, and however long that may take.

On the economic front, bi-

lateral commerce and trade relations are inextricably linked with the livelihoods of many. Calls for boycott of Chinese products, ban on import of all items hav-ing Chinese components, stopping direct investment, restricting inflow of finance and other jingoistic reac-tions are impractical and un-implementable in the short term. However, imme-diate restrictions can be put on investments in security sensitive and critical areas of our economy. Telecommuni-cations is one such sector.

For the medium term, trade arrangements with South Asian countries under SAPTA, the ASEAN group, and bilateral pacts with Sin-gapore, Japan, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Vietnam must be reviewed with a focus to plug gaps that aid imports from China. Violations of rules of origin must also be closely examined.

For India, becoming self-

reliant and an alternative base for sustainable supply to a global value chain is a long-term strategy. This is due to the gestation period involved in developing in-frastructure, specialized skills, reform of labour, land laws and the judicial system, financial reforms and work ethos and culture. Therefore, the imperative is to radically reform the economy and concomitant supporting structures and value chains. In the interim, it must signif-icantly strengthen economic trade and technological co-operation with the advanced countries of the West, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Towards this end, India can benefit hugely with a re-configured foreign, internal and security policy based on a new, pragmatic concept of “strategic alignment.”Krishan Verma is a former Special Secretary to the Gov-ernment of India, Cabinet Sec-retariat.

From non alignment to strategic alignment: India’s way forward

Demonstrators pause to pray during a “Stand with Kashmir” protest outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, US, on 27 September 2019. REUTERS

CLIFF SMITH

KRISHAN VERMA

China’s re-cent incur-s i o n s i n Pangong Ts o a n d Galwan valley have proved the

futility of engaging or appeas-ing China, making it amply clear that as long as CCP con-tinues to exist, China will be revanchist, expansionist and India’s adversary number one. That said, it would be irrational for India to trust China in the future. Keep-ing borders vague helps China in bogging down In-dia as a continental power. Further, China needs roads in the border regions of the western sector to link them with BRI, Xi’s flagship for-eign policy initiative. India’s infrastructure development in the border regions acts as a significant hindrance.

Under Mao’s reincarnate Xi Jinping, CCP has long-term imperial ambitions of world domination. Hence, in the future, China’s expansionist encroachments are highly likely to escalate in number, frequency, and magnitude, unless India abandons Dalai Lama, accepts a completely subordinate status, and acts accordingly, willingly surren-ders Arunachal, Ladakh, and whatever new claims of sov-ereignty that will float from Beijing, as per their strategic interests. After all, a sub-con-tinental power in its backyard must accept its subordinate status and do as what they say—yes, that is what the CCP thinks. However, China

wants all that without a full-blown war, which it fears. There lies the weakness, intended to be compensated by creating smokescreens of aggression and threats of war. Also, because, in China’s understanding of India, the latter’s political leadership is likely to display nervous-ness in the face of an aggres-sive force posture, maybe be-cause of some fundamental problem with India’s strate-gic sub-conscious, China creates smokescreens of an impending war. Delhi must understand it is psychologi-cal and pay back in the same coin, i.e., by shaping China’s perceptions—making China believe that India is no more a “good boy” and willing to confront in a full-fledged war with international support. An assertive force posture, if not aggressive, if it’s too much to swallow for Delhi, on the diplomatic, military and eco-nomic front, avoiding escala-tion, is the road that India will have to tread on.

After the current crises, India-China relations are likely to be deteriorating further. China-Pakistan axis is likely to intensify its mis-sion and operations against India’s strategic interests in Kashmir and international diplomatic affairs, as the bonding between the two is much deeper, robust, and complex than what India’s strategic community be-lieves. That said, even while having a trade, economic, and technology-based exchanges with China, India needs to consider the Pakistan factor and underlying adversarial intent of the two. A strong force posture against Paki-

stan is undoubtedly going to challenge and unnerve China. This also includes keeping things “vibrant” in CPEC areas such as Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan, diplomati-cally, morally, and maybe in other useful ways. India has an advantage here. Pakistan is least likely to retaliate with a full-blown war if India initi-ates firm action against a Pak-sponsored terrorist attack. China is expected to protest, but not very likely to come in the forefront as it will involve other powers.

Hence, it is a great situation that can be used for signalling to China, put psychological pressure on China of being challenged and undermined, and manufacturing occasions for the western powers to be vocal against China in global forums and also act, in the event of China threatening escalation.

Secondly, India must give a befitting military reply to the current audacity of China. Importantly, it will also be a reply to Pakistan and is likely to put brakes in China’s global ambitions. Otherwise, the morale of the armed forces and Indians, in general, will take a plunge into a deep morass of depression. India has been through that post-1962, and indeed, would not like to go through the same experience again. India of 2020 is different from that of 1962, and the present government has shown steadfast determination and political will in the past on various matters of national interest. It must show that resolve, once again. In the current situation, there arises a possibility of a localized

sectoral war on the Eastern Front. However, Delhi has to ensure that Nehru’s blunders are not repeated, and the action follows a well-planned strategic and tactical thought-process.

Thirdly, at the policy level, it must be clear that China is India’s number one adversary, and India needs a well-thought-out multi-pronged strategy to counter China. The immediate and the most critical future-target of the government should be to bridge the power asymmetry with China. Further, given that China-led world order is detrimental to India’s interests, Delhi must ensure that it does not strengthen the institutions furthering the strategic interests of China. India’s appeasement of China by participating in SCO, AIIB serves no purpose except

strengthening China as a global power. Hence, India seriously needs to rethink the utility of participating in such bodies to its strategic interests. Even WTO, after Chinese dominance, makes no sense for India. Indian diplomats should also stop chasing the mirage of UNSC’s permanent membership. New Delhi’s desire to seek recognition and a birth in the power-club severely dented its confidence. The unrealistic dream led India always to follow “good behaviour” and stay away from forming military alliances, making an assertive force posture and aggressively pursuing infrastructure development in the border regions, in the hope of getting China’s support. The MEA must get it clear that it is a nation’s GDP and military-power that gets

permanent seats in UNSC with respect. Begging bowls fetch nothing.

India’s debunking of the “One China” policy has been a long overdue, and now it is time that India formally declares its disagreement with the “One China” policy. Despite decades of India’s silence over China’s imperial ambitions in Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, India could not make China support India even on one issue of Kashmir. Delhi must shed its inhibitions in closer engagement with the Tibetan government-in-exile, based in India. For India, Taiwan should be China, for all practical, social, and cultural purposes. Even if India does not give formal recognition, India can start closer ties with Taiwan. Indian students should go

to Taiwan instead of China. Strengthening of cooperation in defence supplies and intelligence sharing is a great option to explore. More people-to-people contacts should translate into more investments from Taiwan, academic exchanges, and Taiwan activists and leaders getting space and voice in Indian think-tanks, electronic media, and newspapers.

Further, India needs to recognise and extend moral and diplomatic and support to Hong Kong and take a firm stand against Chinese atrocities and human rights violations in Xinjiang. Economically, there is a strong need to develop internal capabilities in manufacturing and infrastructure and make the economic environment congenial for foreign investors. The strategic rivalry with China will be a long-lasting one and to counter an adversary like that India needs superior entrepreneurs, confident diplomats, advanced experts on China, and considerable investments in education and skills to turn its vast population into a productive labour force.

India’s “defensive wedge strategy”, so far practised by alternatively approaching China and Pakistan for peace with the idea of driving a wedge between the two revisionist powers of Asia, has failed. Hence, India must be ready for a twin-front war. On the diplomatic front, intense effort is needed in “external balancing” by vitalising the Indo-Pacific charter, outlined by India’s

prominent strategic expert Madhav Nalapat in many of his recent writings. The Quad has to come together to save the rules-based world order from the revanchist ambitions of the Middle-Kingdom. Muscle-flexing in the South China Sea with Americans and the other members of the Quad is highly likely to inject sanity in the minds of CCP’s anachronistic leadership. Further, the Quad must counter Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region and firm up its naval footprint.

Delhi must realise that China will respect and fear a powerful India. Even the vast military potential comes to naught if a country does not have confidence in its capability, clear consciousness of its power, and decisive leadership with vision and the skills to use national power.

India needs to transform its strategic thinking and make tough decisions. However, given the rot of opportunism and poor strategic vision that ails Indian bureaucracy, academia, and politics, it looks an extremely challenging task.Abhinav Pandya is the author of “Radicalization in India: An Exploration” (Pentagon Press, 2019). Currently, he is writing his second book, “Terror Financing in Jammu and Kashmir”. He did his BA from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and post graduation in Public Affairs from Cornell University, US. He has more than seven years of experience in public policy, counter-terrorism, electoral politics and the development sector in India and the US.

CHINA WILL FAIL

ENEMY COUNTRY

7covertthe sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020

new delhiWWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

ABHINAV PANDYA

Raisina Manual to deal with China’s rogue party-stateA China-led world order is detrimental to India’s interests and Delhi must ensure that it does not strengthen the institutions furthering the strategic interests of China.

The bravery and skill of the Bihar Regiment has trans-formed Indian mili-

tary, diplomatic and political relationship with China. The battle at Galwan on the night of 15 June, has accomplished what dozens of rounds of ne-gotiation and many political summit meetings could not.

In one night of primeval hand-to-hand combat, the sophistries and brute stone-walling of decades has been trashed. Our soldiers have unilaterally converted the Line of Actual Control (LAC), all 4,000 odd kilometres of it, into a hard border.

We now view the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC), not as a trading partner and sometime adversary, but a hostile neighbour. China’s malevolent intent cannot be ignored. Nothing more is ever going to be lost in translation.

India’s own global accep-tance is rising. It may also soon be part of an enhanced G-7, even as permanent membership in the UNSC may have to wait till China is expelled for breaches of the UN Charter on multiple counts. Recently announced Russian support for India’s permanent membership in the UNSC is welcome.

On its own, India has a long to-do list. It must drop sup-port for China’s One China

Policy, recognise Taiwan as an independent country and establish full diplomatic re-lations with it. India, like the US, should declare for the independence of Tibet. India needs to support democracy in Hong Kong that was actu-ally meant to be guaranteed for 50 years when Britain handed it over to China.

India must make com-mon cause against Chinese belligerence with a host of countries around the South China Sea, Australia, Japan and the US. It must assert that international waterways can-not be taken over in line with the ICJ ruling.

For the long haul, India is better placed to protect its hard border, now increas-ingly served by roads and necessary infrastructure. It is also close to populated areas. China has to haul all its personnel and equipment from far away because a lot of the area on its side is empty high altitude desert.

Russia’s professed neutral-ity between China and In-dia, despite a long standing defence pact with India, is disappointing. But as long as India buys Russian arms and enters into military joint ven-tures, we will have to live with it. Some of the collaboration, such as the joint development of the Brahmos missiles, has been highly advantageous.

But we need to move faster on new roads to alternate military joint venture and supply chains from countries such as South Korea, the US and France. This, even as we

develop our own armaments industry.

We must speed up overt, reciprocal and closer defence ties with the Quad in the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean. And offer closer defence co-operation bilaterally with the US. We cannot afford splen-did isolation in the prevailing situation.

However, we can proceed covertly in some instances and piecemeal in others, to deflect reactionary subver-sion from India’s fifth col-umn.

We are already, post 15 June, in the process of stopping and reversing all Chinese invest-ments in India. Imports are being restricted as we seek to develop either our own sources or alternative sup-ply chains.

The ambivalence is over. India will henceforth con-front China militarily with firepower when threatened, including use of the Indian Air Force. To underline its resolve, India is proceeding urgently with border roads, rail and infrastructure de-velopment for rapid deploy-ment. Chinese objections and protests are no longer a con-sideration. No future Chinese intrusion will go unpunished.

In all probability, a border clash in the Ladakh theatre could happen very soon and may even be desirable. China remains reluctant to with-draw as per the latest military disengagement talks post 15 June. China will have to dem-onstrate its fighting prowess. Can it, even now, be allowed

to retreat unscathed? Its im-mense treachery and the fu-ture threat militate against letting it go scot-free.

India will not seek to restore thousands of kilometres of stolen territory in the Lada-kh just yet. But it will reclaim PoK and Gilgit Baltistan at the first opportunity. This is necessary as a follow through and push back against the China-Pakistan axis. That China is active on a mission to addle most of India’s neigh-bours, is another good reason to deflate its ambitions.

Some long standing ideas can always be trundled out to serve. They can be included amongst reportage, analy-sis and commentary as the China-India-Pakistan war

cloud builds. Some, includ-ing interested international observers, are casting it in terms of a pathway of esca-lation towards a nuclear ho-locaust. Could it actually be a clandestine show of support for Chinese aggression? Or is it casting a racial slur on all the dramatis personae? It is true that the flames and mag-ma of Armageddon make for a terrifying image. But why the scaremongering when no one possesses a nuclear advantage?

A rich man does not court certain ruin. China is a nou-veau riche nation. It has crackling new notes and brand new guns it has hardly ever fired in battle. When it periodically took on the In-

dians after 1962, or the Viet-namese in 1979, it was always the Chinese who lost.

Deng Xiaoping, the chain-smoking architect of China’s great rise to prosperity, never forgot the virtues of humility and patience. But Xi Jinping, a born-again Mao Zedong, wants nothing less than world domination. Perhaps, before it is too late, he should remember Mao murdered 30 million of his own people.

Xi Jinping’s China is at the crossroads of prosperity and imperialism. The initial salvos were unequal treaties with weak, insolvent coun-tries, in return for territory when they could not pay for the infrastructure. Then it was expenditure on its own

military, ramped up in com-petition with America. This is what ruined the USSR, but history seems to be repeating itself.

Then it was trade imbal-ances hugely against the very hands that feed, such as America and Western Europe. An elderly Nixon wondered if he had not cre-ated a Frankenstein monster.

And now it appears to be time to buy up assets and companies when their prices are beaten down due to the Wuhan virus. The territo-rial push into India, Taiwan, Nepal, the South China Sea, the Japanese islands, are all attempts to strike while the virus rages. But everywhere, Xi Jinping’s China is meeting with resistance. So why has it chosen this moment to clamp down on democracy and civil liberties in Hong Kong?

China will probably fail even before it gets started on its military adventures. The PLA, peopled by only sons of China’s One Child Policy, apparently cannot fight. This despite all the armaments it possesses. India may have exposed this fatal weakness already.

Besides, China is im-mensely isolated, with only Pakistan to fight from its cor-ner. And Pakistan too has an army that has used terrorists to do its fighting and dying for it. Its officers stay well away from the front-lines, its pilots crash in panic, and its soldiers routinely abandon their posts.

Xi Jinping has mistaken

surreptitious land grabs over the years as conquest. And now after the thrashing his forces received at Galwan, he has jeopardised even this past thievery. China has brought focus on thousands of kilo-metres stolen in Akshai Chin, parts of the Siachen glacier, the Karakoram Pass, and what has become the Kara-koram Highway. Mao set the precedent by grabbing Tibet, nominally a Qing dynasty protectorate, that peacefully bordered India for centuries.

China, spoiling for a fight, has a lot of glass in its win-dows. It has built a great deal of impressive infrastructure that could vanish overnight.

The US, in all its military might, is ranged against President Xi Jinping’s un-warranted belligerence. Red China has territorial claims against 24 countries, even though it shares borders with just 14. It has defied America on trade matters to the point of collapse. Economic scores are being settled by other countries of the broad West-ern alliance as well. How long therefore before a military spark is lit?

Will Iran and Russia join in on China’s side? What will they gain by doing so? North Korea is already fighting shy.

Red China is teetering on the brink of the age old se-duction that has destroyed empires. A well gained peace and prosperity is pawned for a pointless lust for more terri-tory. Any power is soon over-extended doing this. Decline and fall is always the result.

Intensifying conflict with China is not WWIIIXi Jinping has mistaken surreptitious land grabs over the years as conquest. And now after the thrashing his forces received at Galwan, he has jeopardised even this past thievery.

GAUTAM MUKHERJEE

Indian Air Force aircraft carrying out sorties in Leh on Friday. The air activity has gone up in the region after the stand-off with China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) there. ANI

Army Chief General M.M. Naravane commended troops for their high morale, as he visited forward areas in Eastern Ladakh and reviewed the operational situation on the ground on Wednesday. ANI

Those born into the certainty of wealth will usually not un-

derstand what takes place in the human mind as a consequence of a prolonged period of joblessness and the resulting absence of income. As the months and in short order years pass without a job becoming a part of every-day life, an individual begins to look inwards for reasons why he or she has failed to enter the ranks of those with an adequately remunera-tive position. Comparisons, silent or ( more cruelly) vo-cal that get made with child-

hood companions who have managed to “crack the code” and secure a job, push the unemployed youngster into a mood of self-doubt. Per-haps he or she just does not have what it takes to assume a responsibility that carries a salary. The next stage is to shun company, except per-haps those of others similar placed (or misplaced). When guests visit, the jobless per-son waits inside his room to avoid hearing the inevitable question: Has he found a job yet? That will be met with a silent shrug, thereby giving the answer. In a desperate search for an identity that may convey some shards of respect (and a rebirth of self-respect), many gravitate to organisations that thrive on street protests, and on the creation of situations such that publicity becomes inevitable. Whether such coverage be favourable or condemnatory is hardly important. What counts is

that the individual within the group he has joined be-gins receiving public atten-tion and no longer needs to avoid the pitying eyes of visitors or the growing irri-tation in the faces of family members unhappy that their usually meagre finances are being depleted rather than increased by an individual who after all has a call on shelter, on food and the oc-casional dole of money. An identity has once again come into being, to replace that lost on account of prolonged job-lessness.

The 2011 Arab Spring was more an expression of in-creasing loss of hope at an end to the joblessness and poverty of certain countries than it was a movement formed to bring in democra-cy. Which is why the effect of the Arab Spring was almost non-existent in countries such as the UAE or Kuwait, where the state has provided its citizens with comfortable livelihoods. Or in Saudi Ara-bia, where most of the levers of activity are in the hands of expats, thereby severely limiting the ability of even disaffected sections of the local population to cause a political upheaval. Which is why a long-term downward trend in oil prices is likely to lead to considerable ten-

sions in the Middle East, given that the population of the region is even younger in composition than that of India. Unless educational systems are recreated in order to meet the needs of a modern society, the region is in serious trouble, which is not good news for countries such as South Korea, India, China and Japan that de-pend on it for much of their oil needs. It will, of course, be good news for the US and Russia in the race to pump out and sell as much oil as possible before the fuel be-comes obsolete. In Germany, it was unemployment and the privation of the middle class that led to the rise of Hitler. But for the Great Depression of the period, the Fuehrer may have re-tired to Austria in the 1950s

as a failed politician and the world spared genocide and world war. In China, where an entire generation has grown up without any memory of the poverty that was pervasive in the country before the close of the 1980s, a fall in employment and in-come levels within the new middle class is likely to have significant effects on the po-litical and governance struc-ture of the world’s other su-perpower. The same goes for India. Unless the monetary and fiscal tap is opened and money reaches hundreds of millions of pockets, the next two months are likely to wit-ness a steep fall in middle class income and employ-ment. Measures such as sky-high taxes on petrol and diesel do not help. By reducing economic activ-ity, they will in fact yield less than lower taxes would have over a 3-year horizon. Organisations that show-case one grievance or the other are likely to sprout up, especially in the urban centres. These will compete in the streets, both against themselves as well as against the government. The poli-cies of the 1970s are not go-ing to ensure a return to the growth witnessed till 2017, what is needed are policies that are designed for 2021-

23. Should such a reset of economic policy not happen, those who constantly cry out that India has become “fascist” will soon find out what real fascism and its at-tendant turmoil and fanati-cism is.

The approaching risk of an “India Spring”, this time in autumn, is why economic policies are needed that move away from the rigid nostrums and playbooks of North Block. Measures which focus only on FIIs and not on the population at large. Eventually, the reluc-tance to open the monetary and fiscal spigots sufficient-ly has led to both a reduction in ratings (by agencies that ought to be ignored rather than placed on the high pedestal of policy) as well as economic pain that has now spread to the middle classes. First incomes have declined and then jobs have disap-peared. India could replace China as the manufactory of the world, but for that the economy needs to remain on its feet rather than stag-ger downwards. The weeks ahead will show whether Modinomics has finally prevailed over Babunomics, or whether the 1930s of Eu-rope are in danger of making a fresh appearance, this time in India.

Approaching risk of an ‘India Spring’ in autumn is why economic policies are needed that move away from the rigid nostrums and playbooks of North Block.

Joblessness dangerous for all, not just the unemployed

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”Audre Lorde

HARD TIMES

In every nation’s history comes a watershed moment that decides the future course it will take—the way it will shape up as a nation, the place it will take in the comity of nations. It will not be an exaggeration to say that India is standing at one such moment—at an inflection point. The Galwan valley battle, which killed 20 of India’s brave soldiers—and probably more than double the number of Chinese PLA soldiers—was a wake-up call, if any wake-up call was needed about the real face of China. As India-China relations go into a deep freeze, the obvious question is: what next? What next so that China does not treat India as a pushover, a sub-regional power, to be scowled at and swatted away every time it suits its interest—a pushover whose territory is to be nibbled away at will? A military skirmish is always a possibility, as otherwise it looks un-likely that China will vacate the territory it has occupied in eastern Ladakh, with the obvious intention of eliminating Indian presence from, and securing the broader region through which the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes. Only time will tell if any possible conflict stays confined to this particular region or if its echoes are heard right up to the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and even the Sea of Japan. That is the strategic aspect of it. But no strategy can be drawn without taking the economic aspect into consideration. And it is here that India needs to take strong action against China in terms of cutting its dependence on a country which is clearly an enemy. Cancelling a project here and another there, holding up shipments from China for a few days is not enough action, when the danger is that China controls the global supply chain, and thus, by default, India’s too. It can turn off the tap at any moment, leaving India’s strategic goals in tatters. Take the example of telecom, a sector completely domi-nated by the Chinese. The whole telecom infrastructure of this country is full of Chinese equipment and that also from companies that are alleged to have strong links with the PLA. So India’s communication network is already compromised and is a sitting duck when a crisis befalls the country. Then medicines. India imports from China the bulk of its APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) and KSMs (key starting materials) that are needed for the manufacturing of bulk drugs. That supply chain will be anyway disrupted if a conflict breaks out. And these are just two examples. But it is in these areas where China has a chokehold on the Indian economy that China must be blocked—not just to send a message but also to ensure that India attains self sufficiency, if not now but in a few years, and even at the cost of some pain resulting from supply chain disorder. In fact, now that the 5G rollout is about to happen, it will be insane to allow Huawei to participate in the trials and then possibly win the bid, because of the low prices it will offer. It will be like handing on a platter to China 1/3 of humanity’s—a combined population of In-dia and China—metadata, which is needed for developing Artificial Intelligence and which will give China a huge advantage over its competitors. Is this what India wants? Then take Indian military’s dependence on Russian plat-forms—Russia, which is so closely allied with China that indications are that Moscow will side with China in case of a military conflict in Southeast Asia. But it is Moscow which is supplying India with the S400 missile system, which it has already supplied to China and the fear is that this system will leak like a sieve, with all information going to China in case of a conflict. This is a watershed moment because this is when India needs to choose where it wants to be. Whether it wants to be with the clearly developing axis of China, Russia and Pakistan, or if it wants to be with the “free” world which is being threatened by China. It is in choosing the right path that India’s future depends.

EDITORIALWATERSHED MOMENT

IT’S TIME TO CHOOSE

OPINION OF THE WEEK

PICK OF THE WEEK

At the edge of life

Swiss acrobat Ramon Kathriner performs Wheel Of The Death during the Airshow,

marking the reopening of facilities after the

coronavirus disease lockdown in Les

Diablerets, Switzerland, June 23, 2020.

REUTERS/DENIS BALIBOUSE

LAC TROUBLE

INDIA-CHINA FACE-OFF: A HARD LOOK INWARDSITBP is responsible for guarding India-China border. But Army has to underwrite the entire effort when things turn nasty.

LT GEN SATISH DUA (RETD)F10

TAME THE DRAGON

NEEDED, SURGICAL STRIKE AGAINST CHINESE ECONOMYWhile the Chinese economy may be four and a half times India’s, it is still a developing nation, and similar to most rapidly growing countries, remains fragile and vulnerable to shocks.

AJAY DUAF11

V08v

COMMENT&ANALYSISthe sunday guardian | 28 june – 04 july 2020 | new delhi WWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

roots of powerM.D. NALAPAT

reaches hundreds of

the next two months are likely to witness

class income and

Rinderpest is also more commonly known as the “foot

and mouth” disease and in the past, it has swept through the subcontinent with catastrophic results. In the last ten-odd days since the tragic loss of 20 Indian soldiers in the icy region of the Galwan Valley to Chi-nese machinations, one can only watch in mind-numb-ing amazement as many of our countrymen, some of whom have once donned the uniform and served, have suddenly taken leave of their senses.

Add to this the mush-rooming crop of self-styled defence experts and ana-lysts. Just as the Pakistanis at Longewala in 1971 were intercepted, radioing for help as IAF Hawker Hunt-ers decimated their tanks, “ek jata hai toh ek aata hai aur bees-bees minute ooper nachta hai” (as one goes, the other comes and dances around above us for 20 to 40 minutes) we watch equally helplessly as we evolve into a country of professional blabber mouths. From a channel even describing the intake of a certain type of fighter aircraft that had landed at Leh and speculat-ing on what sort of arma-ment it could carry, another was showing satellite maps and pointing out where our tanks were harboured. The presenter was in so much of a breathless hurry to spill even more beans that he was actually running from screen to screen.

In matters relating to na-tional security, the standard response across the globe is “we neither confirm nor deny”, and the media by and large self regulates and does not give out any information that can compromise the safety of your own troops, or your own larger interests. However, for Indian jour-nalists, schooled in the des-perate need to get “break-ing news” and blurting out whatever information they may have, the threat from the Chinese is today second-ary to ratings.

This then has been having a cascading effect, getting worse day by day. Soldiers on the ground watch in amazement as their front-lines and assets are being discussed by didactic an-chors sitting in far-away stu-dios. Unfortunately, these “reports” fuel a piranha-like frenzy, and more and more teams armed with cameras descend on the area. Those who cannot somehow get to where the action is, then

start putting out “human in-terest” stories, which more often than not, add to the confusion.

If only the same zeal of our reporters could be exported and applied to the Chinese or Pakistani side of the bor-der. Then not only would we know which troops, battal-ions, companies of the PLA were deployed when and where, we would even soon know the dietary prefer-ences of their previous com-manding officers. And since they are the aggressors here, we would have had their plans as soon as they were hatched—though it’s a dif-ferent matter that we may have still not acted on it. In this cacophony of opinions, it doesn’t take long for the pressure to start building on the entire system. And pres-sure situations, especially in a democracy like ours, invariably lead to the aban-donment of cold reasoning and logic. Statements once made, like the waters of the Galwan or any other river, cannot flow backwards.

Unlike Doklam, in all prob-ability, Galwan is not neces-sarily the critical point of conflict and may well have been a feint for consolidation in the Pangong Tso or maybe even the Depsang Valley. For that matter, the incidents in Ladakh may all together be an even bigger smokescreen for yet something else. Un-fortunately, the Chinese media has not as yet told us what President for Life Xi Jinping or his Communist buddies are thinking. Our intelligence agencies, most of them reporting directly to the highest office in this land, also obviously had no clue. That Military Intel-ligence had been defanged around 2012 is also one of the strange quirks that ails India, but therein lies another tale.

The Chinese have been intruding, pushing and probing for the last four years. That they are today in the Pangong Tso area, the Galwan River Valley and the Depsang Plains is not something new and these events in the past have been handled by the ITBP and sometimes by the Army. What is interesting this time, apart from the numbers, is the selective playing up of the intrusions by a certain journalist, whose informa-tion, though accurate on the ground, seemed aimed at stirring up a hornets’ nest. Given the fact that this per-son had served in the Army and was extremely well con-nected through marriages, it has been presumed he got his information from “high-ly placed inside sources”. Smokescreens are wonder-ful things—ask any tank man and he’ll tell you how well it works. With all the sophisticated equipment at NTRO’s disposal, it would indeed be interesting to know who his real sources were.

‘SIACHEN HAND OUT’It is not the fact that the intrusions were brought out that is bothering in this case—it is how and at what level it was done. The same person, this time around perhaps acting on behalf of himself or other puppeteers had ironically played a ma-jor role just eight years ago in what was then termed as the “Siachen Hand Out”. It is perhaps worth recounting briefly just what happened then.

The United States was fighting the Taliban in Af-ghanistan and at that time Pakistan needed sops to keep it honest. It was specu-lated that the highest office was offered a Nobel Peace Prize if indeed he could “dis-engage” the troops from the glacier and withdraw to the Shyok River. Talks between India and Pakistan had been going on for a while, but they were not making any headway. The Indian side in the natural flow of discussions, saw the talks falter. The Army, on its part, was extremely vocal about any disengagement, but had there been a settlement, they would have had no choice. Commanding 14 Corps in 2005, Lieutenant General Milan Naidu, bluntly told the Prime Minister that if or-dered to pull out so be it, but do not ask us ever again to recapture the area. General J.J. Singh, the COAS, had told the PM a withdrawal was “doable”. As DGMO he had even worked out a plan to “hold the heights”

After official talks had failed, as reported by M.D. Nalapat at the time, the PMO activated its Plan “B”. This involved a retired In-dian one-star general (yes,

the same one with the en-ergetic son) who was sent to Ottawa in Canada to work with a Pakistani brigadier on a “workable” plan for the “disengagement”. The blue-print having been pre-pared, it was fairly obvious that even though there was a pliable chief, others down the chain of command were not going to be as amiable. A carefully selected team was then put together under the umbrella of holding Track 2 discussions to build con-fidence building measures. The Indian side, consisting of 12 members, was headed by a former IAF chief, while the 12-member Pakistani delegation was led by their former army chief, General Mirza Beg, who after retire-ment was involved in all sorts of murky deals where millions of dollars from intelligence funds were in-volved.

The lowest ranking mem-ber in the Indian delegation was a well-connected-for-mer-Army-cum-journalist. In 2012, when the PM fi-nally decided that all the bases were covered and it was time to implement the “Siachen Sellout”, fortu-nately Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch, who had commanded the Siachen brigade, got wind of what was happening. However, the PMO, monitoring and shepherding the “deal” en-sured no television chan-nel or paper would expose what was going on. Katoch, by then joined by M.G. Devasahayam and me then briefed General V.K. Singh, who had just retired as the chief.

Time was fast running out and at that time we only had the broader picture. I had

written the story based on what we had pieced together and fortunately at that time, Anil Tyagi, the enterprising editor of G-Files, decided to cock a snook at the PMO and run the article. The Hin-di edition of Outlook then followed suit with a two-page write-up where I asked just one simple question—if we withdraw from Siachen, where will the new defen-sive line be? As expected there was no answer to that question.

At the time we had no idea that the journalist was the kingpin in the deal. Furious that the deal had been ex-posed and scuttled, he then wrote three e-mails in the space of two hours—first to Katoch, then Devasahayam and finally to me. Apart from the profanity and per-sonal attacks (he also called me fat), in the first mail to Katoch, like a petulant child who hadn’t got what he wanted, he wrote saying “you are jealous because you didn’t get the goodies”, which others on the Track 2 team got. In 2013, in a for-mal complaint to the Press Council and the Ministry of Home Affairs, General V.K. Singh had filed a complaint for treason against not just this person, but also an edi-tor of a daily who had made up and perpetuated the coup story. Needless to say nothing happened.

NO MORE LEAKSWith this background, let us return our attention to Ladakh while keeping an eye on the entire 3,500 km-long border extending up to Kibithu. The Chinese have declared their intent, and though we might en-gage them diplomatically or

otherwise, we have to make sure there are no more leaks in INS India. Taunting the PM saying “at least Nehru fought in 1962” and trying to whip up fear hysteria, clear-ly show what the person’s agenda was as the Galwan talks were on. India is in for a long haul—the Chinese haven’t built up in Ladakh to have a picnic—and it is im-perative that the command-ers on the ground have the country’s full trust and sup-port. Even in 1962 our men were rock solid, but they were ordered to withdraw, sometimes even from a posi-tion of strength. The bulk of our people were shot in the back by the PLA after the ceasefire—that is something we must never forget.

Government after govern-ment on our side of the Hi-malayas has been playing merry hell with our own security apparatus over the years. It wasn’t just Chacha Nehru who tampered with the structure and acted as if we didn’t need an Army. The similarities with what happened in the build-up to 1962 and many things that are happening now are all too obvious. With the dragon at the door, even now there is time to try and repair some of those hor-rendous cracks. For a start, the government should pass a whip saying no one, espe-cially retired service per-sonnel, should comment on the China situation. Like in the case of the Kargil War, keep the public informed through official briefings for a lack of information can also be extremely counter-productive.

China has played its hand and the fireworks have only just begun. Given our cen-tralized way of functioning, the fuse has to be in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s absolute control. He has to read the tea leaves carefully and take every decision far from the glare of publicity. Those advisors who have already failed him must go and more competent people brought in. Just remember, in War there is no place for the loser.Shiv Kunal Verma is the author of the highly acclaimed “1962: The War That Wasn’t” and “The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why”.

Forty-five summers ago, a state of Internal Emer-gency was declared by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. On Friday, random thoughts crossed my mind, pertaining to certain signifi-cant happenings that pre-ceded this controversial step. The month of June, perhaps, has changed the course of this

country’s destiny more than any other calendar-month: It was on 23 June 1953, when Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, passed away in Srinagar, leaving behind a political entity that was ideologically diametrically opposite to the Congress. The BJP is the new avatar of this political thesis.

It was again on 23 June 1980 when Sanjay Gandhi, who was being groomed to take over the reins of the government by his mother, died in a plane crash, changing the political trajectory. Then again, on 23 June 1985, Air India Jumbo, “Kanishka”, was blown into bits near the coast of Ireland by Sikh militants, who planted a bomb at its embarking point in Montreal, killing all passengers and the crew.

It was on 12 June 1975, when Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court, on a petition filed by socialist leader Raj Narain, delivered a historic judgement, unseating Indira Gandhi from Rae Bareli. It was a double-whammy for her since on the same day, her confidant, Durga Prasad Dhar, then posted as the Ambassador to the Soviet Union, prema-turely breathed his last.

Indira Gandhi, who, in the 1971 general elections, had suc-cessfully vanquished the Grand Alliance comprising the Jana Sangh, Swatantra Party, the Socialists and the Congress (O), midway during her term, found herself besieged by a well-orchestrated agitation. The Nav Nirman Andolan, which had a year earlier stepped foot in Gujarat, and Bihar too, was undergoing an unprecedented upheaval, due to the agitation led by veteran leader, Jai Prakash Narayan. The RSS cadres were supporting the two movements, and evidently things were getting way beyond control.

The Prime Minister wanted to tender her resignation fol-lowing the judgement, but Sanjay, and her supporters, im-plored her to explore the legal option, and go in for an appeal to the Apex Court against the High Court judgement, which to their mind, was aimed at removing her from office. Congress workers gathered in large numbers outside her residence at 1, Safdarjung Road, urging her to continue as PM. She was in the process of making up her mind, when Jai Prakash Na-rayan issued a clarion call to the uniformed forces to revolt and disobey the orders of the government. This set Indira in a panic-mode, with her ending up summoning West Bengal Chief Minister, Siddhartha Shankar Ray to seek legal advice.

Ray was a top constitutional expert, and suggested that an Internal Emergency could be announced, keeping in forefront the circumstances prevailing in the country. The notification was drafted by her principal secretary, P.N. Dhar, and after obtaining the consent of President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed on the night of 25-26 June, a state of Emergency was proclaimed. The order was ratified by the Cabinet on the morning of 26 June.

The declaration led to the arrest of top opposition leaders and was accompanied by severe curtailments on the freedom of press. Power supply was switched off in newspaper offices on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, and only the Hindustan Times and the Statesman, saw the light of day since their premises were located in the Connaught Place area.

I have several vivid memories of the first day—no one was able to comprehend what was going on. Fear abounded, though it was only the political class that was targeted. Special one-page supplements of HT and Statesman furnished basic details of the government action.

I visited the university campus, where DUSU president, Arun Jaitley, was arrested while protesting near the main coffee house. My university seniors, Deepak Malhotra and Prem Swarup Nayyar rushed to the AICC office, then located at 5, Rajendra Prasad Marg, to find the sole figure of P.V. Narasimha Rao. Rao, a general secretary, was under surveillance for his close association with Lakshmikant Amma, an Andhra leader, who was part of the “Young Turks” quartet led by Chandra Shekhar, with Mohan Dharia and Krishan Kant being its other members. A petrified Rao told both Deepak and Prem to ignore any rumours or voice any opinion regarding the Emergency, while oddly, repetitiously peering under his desk!

The Emergency also saw the emergence of Subramanian Swamy as the new maverick politician from the Jana Sangh stable. It was a bewildering fact that he surreptitiously entered Parliament, signed the register, going on to perform a vanishing act. His mentor, Nanaji Deshmukh and senior leader, Kedar Nath Sahani also went underground, seeking temporary refuge in the basement of a Kailash Colony mansion, owned by an industrialist, who subsequently became a business partner of Colonel T. S. Anand, Sanjay Gandhi’s father-in-law.

Kamal Nath was amongst the few friends of Sanjay, who saw the unfolding drama from the PM’s abode. Nath was, thereafter, instructed by Indira Gandhi to relay a message to Jyoti Basu to assure him that he would not be arrested. Basu was in hiding at Amal Datta’s house in Calcutta, where Kamal Nath conveyed the directive.

There were reports of excesses, tarnishing the image of the ruling dispensation, with the Emergency remaining the dark-est chapter of Indira Gandhi’s eventful tenure.

Her most notable insight was that the media should be al-lowed to perform its duty. Suppressing or throttling news, in the long run, can be counterproductive. Between us.

Recalling Emergency

45 YEARS AGO

between usPANKAJ VOHRA

Enemy at the gates, so don’t cry wolf

FOOT IN MOUTH

Learn to master the ancient Indian art of maunvrat.

opinionSHIV KUNAL VERMA

9comment & analysisthe sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020

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Well beyond the rain shadow, the high altitude terrains of Ladakh and Tibet are seeing a tense stand-off between the Indian Army and the PLA. PHOTO: Shiv Kunal Verma/KaleidoIndia.

In matters relating to national security, the standard response

by and large self regulates and does not give out any information that can compromise the safety of your own troops, or your own larger interests. However, for Indian journalists, schooled

out whatever information they may have, the threat from the Chinese is today secondary to ratings. Soldiers on the ground watch in amazement as their frontlines and assets are being discussed by didactic anchors sitting in far-away studios.

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India-China face-off: A hard look inwards

PM Imran will be history’s minor footnote

China’s border belligerence has made news around the world. It has land border disputes with India, Bhutan, Nepal (yes, Nepal too). On the eastern front, it has disputes with Taiwan, Vietnam, Phil-ippines, Malaysia and Brunei over the Spratly and Paracel Islands and separately with Japan in Senkaku Islands.

The India-China disputed part of the border called Line of Actual Control (LAC) is spread over 3,500 km. For several decades, China con-centrated on its economic development, while it con-tinued modernising and restructuring of its Armed Forces to achieve its stated aim of replacing the United States as the sole superpower by the middle of the century. In line with that goal, China has become more belligerent on all borders over the last decade or more. While India-China face-offs have been disentangled in the past due to a series of military and dip-lomatic mechanisms which were in place, this is the first time since 1979 that China has got a bloody nose, however tactical in nature and scale. The last such time was when China attacked Vietnam, and Vietnam’s Peoples’ Army gave the Chinese PLA a bloody

nose, despite one hand tied behind their back because of their army’s deployment in Cambodia to subdue the Khmer Rouge.

Indian soldiers not only stopped the transgression in Galwan, but also matched the Chinese soldiers in violence and operated in the sub-optimal zone of unarmed combat, which seems to be an anachronism in modern times. For all their denials, a quiet acceptance of Chi-nese casualties has started trickling in. It will never be an official release. For all its bluster and even some build-up in rear areas, the Chinese have agreed to disengage its troops in contact. Why?

China has opened too many fronts at the same time—South China Sea and Japan in the maritime zone in the east; it also has ongoing issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang; and if only to keep a count, Tibet and Outer Mongolia could also resurface. In view of these disputes, while fight-ing the corona pandemic at home and a trade war with the US, can China afford to have even a limited war with India? China will lose up-wards of $70 billion worth of trade from India; because India will be forced to snap trade in case shots are fired across the LAC. Can China take on all of this at the same time?

If not, this is the time for us to take advantage and streamline our responses. There are some measures that we must take in concert

with other countries having similar interests, and there are some measures that we must take within our country. We must get our geopolitical balancing right, create stra-tegic linkages with countries and groupings where there is convergence of interest. Our recent logistics agreements with Australia are a good step in that direction on the lines of similar arrangements with the US and other coun-tries. We must also employ all diplomatic and economic leverages that we can, in con-cert with other nations, given the world sentiment, post the outbreak of the corona crisis. Towards this thought, much has been heard and said in the national discourse over the last one month.

However, there also is an urgent need to look inwards at our responses on matters of national security. Increas-ingly, we are going to be dealing with sub-optimal responses from China and Pakistan across the LAC and LoC, respectively. These also include information warfare. We would do well to redesign our security mechanisms to meet these challenges.

Let us take a hard look at our border guarding and be ruthless about it. Border guarding at India-China borders is a responsibility di-vided. As per the “one border one force” dynamics, Indo-Ti-betan Border Police (ITBP) is responsible for guarding the India-China border. Is the arrangement adequate? The Army has to underwrite the entire effort when things turn nasty. The Army has been asking for operational con-trol over the ITBP. To make matters worse, both are un-der different ministries. Navy and Coast Guard are under the same ministry, that is Ministry of Defence, and yet have similar command and control coordination issues. A better parallel can be drawn

with the successful model at the LoC, where BSF is placed under the operational control of the Army.

Lines of authority and ac-countability should be clearly defined in a manner that se-curity is optimised. Account-ability for lapses has to be unforgiving, which can only happen when there is no ob-fuscation. Being effective on an unresolved border is the first important step that needs to be taken. Let the two min-istries and two forces—Army and ITBP put their heads together to decide a better model of integrated opera-tions. There is also the issue of intelligence gathering and information warfare, which involves intelligence agencies and more.

The next important step that enhances our operational potential is the road com-munication infrastructure in the border areas, as it as-sists military mobilisation. All other enablers of mobilisation must be enhanced, whether it is all-terrain vehicles, heli-copters or more. Employing sons of the soil in these bor-der areas should be increased. Ladakh Scouts was upgraded to a full-fledged regiment of Indian Army after the Kargil War. Even the ITBP could in-crease their share of recruit-ment from these areas. They can also buttress tactical level intelligence, a subject that needs serious consideration.

China’s assertiveness under its present leadership and context is here to stay. There-fore, we can expect more of the same, also for the strate-gic reasons that I discussed in this column a fortnight ago. It is time we prepare for this challenge in right earnest, starting from the tactics on the ground zero, the LAC.Lt General Satish Dua is a former Corps Commander in Kashmir, who retired as Chief of Integrated Defence Staff. Views expressed are personal.

Imran Khan was un-doubtedly one of the greatest cricketers of

all time. As Prime Minister of Pakistan he is likely to be a minor footnote in the history of his country. His two-year tenure as Prime Minster has been, to put it mildly, dismal, if not di-sastrous. He is a provincial level politician.

On Thursday, 25 June, in his speech at the National Assembly, speaking on for-eign policy, he called the bigoted, murderous Saudi Arabian monster, Osama Bin Laden a martyr. “The Americans came to Ab-bottabad and killed, mar-tyred Osama bin Laden. What happened after that? The entire world cursed us and spoke ill of us.” What else should have the world said? Congratulate Osama bin Laden for mastermind-ing 9/11, when nearly three thousand people lost their lives in the twin towers in New York?

However, the Prime Min-

ister rightly got a tongue lashing from opposition leaders. “Bin Laden brought terrorism to our lands and the PM calls him Shaheed.” The leader of the Pakistan People’s Party called Imran Khan “a national security threat”.

The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi made an outra-geous anti-India observa-tion the same day. He said, “after being beaten and em-barrassed” by China, India was trying to find excuses for an operation against Pakistan. He asserted that “India will receive a re-sponse in kind for whatever it does”. If I am not mistak-en, it was an 18th century European statesman who said, “a country gets the government it deserves.”

This futile India bait-

ing shows how little Mr Q knows about India. Does he not remember 1971?

*****Two days ago, two senior-most leaders from Rajast-han asked for the return of Rahul Gandhi as Congress president. Both Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot do not indulge in chamchagiri, but surely they know that Rahul Gandhi has, for the last several months, shown no interest in returning to the post, which now his mother occupies.

When Rahul Gandhi re-signed after the dismal per-formance of the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elec-tions he had publicly de-clared that no member of the Gandhi family would replace him. Regardless of this pronouncement, Sonia Gandhi became “interim president”. That “interim” period has now lasted more than a year. The Congress has neither been rejuve-nated, nor revitalized. It has seen no reform.

The party finds its self in a Catch-22 situation. The Gandhis are both an asset and a liability. It they were to announce their final deci-

sion to opt out and ask the Congress Working Commit-tee to elect a non-Gandhi, then the party would splin-ter. It they do not fade away then the sterile status quo will continue.

The result: the Narendra Modi government will have a free ride in Parliament. This will mean a virtual po-litical monopoly.

Suppose, Rahul Gandhi is persuaded to become party president, what miracle would he perform? Will he decide that the Congress Working Committee elect ten members and the presi-dent will appoint the other ten? The last time elections for the CWC were held was in 1992 at the Tirupati AICC session, i.e. 28 years ago. Will Rahul Gandhi do away with the pest called, “special invitees”? He should, if he wants the Congress to be a dynamic and forward look-ing political outfit.

Will he abandon his pen-chant for using unseemly language, keep calling the Prime Minister, “chor”, “afraid” and much else? His great grandfather, his grandmother, his father, his mother never used/uses unbridled vocabulary like Rahul. Will he refrain from speaking on unimportant matters every other day? Why is he throwing away his very exceptional legacy? He has everything going for him. Don’t blow it. Lastly, choose your advisers after mature consideration.

****I am half through John Bolton’s book, The Room Where it Happened. It is re-vealing, depressing, anti-Trump and hilarious. Bolton was fired as National Security Adviser after 19 months.

LAC TROUBLE PROVINCIAL POLITICIAN

His two-year tenure as Prime Minster has been, to put it mildly, dismal.

10 comment & analysis the sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020new delhi

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This first appeared on 25 June, 2017. The writer could not write this week due to unavoidable circumstances. His latest column will appear soon.

People Of The Sacred Books

The serene and blissful presence of a great master fills the heart with divine joy. Such souls have an energised field of divinity around them which can disarm even wild animals. Ramana Maharshi says, “ In the prox-imity of a great master, the vasanas cease to be active, the mind becomes still and samadhi results.” That’s why a disciple effortlessly imbibes true knowledge and right experience. His holy presence serves like a painkiller, but permanent treatment requires the building of spiritual stamina and a spiritual muscle with self-effort. The inner chattering of the mind must cease, then alone can one experience the ineffable, that which transcends speech. Chhandogya Upanishad says that only by the practice of silence can one really find the Atma. This pure silence can arise only from a perfectly still mind.

Lord Dakshinamurthy is depicted as immersed in supreme silence. The doubts of his disciples, the Sanat Kumars were dispelled in silence and they at-tained enlightenment. Once, a District Collector and a Deputy Collector came to Ramana. The collector first out poured the problems that he faced in his Sadhana, and admitted that he had gained no peace from it till now. Then the deputy collector gave a long-winded account of his failure to achieve any peace or joy in Sadhana. Ramana was silent. So the District Collector again described his unsuccessful efforts at spirituality. Ramana spoke not a word. Visibly disappointed the Collector complained, “Will you please tell us some-thing at least?” Shri Ramana then said,” All the while I have been speaking in my own language. What can I do when you won’t listen to it?” Stunned and totally overpowered with devotion they sat near Ramana who radiated bliss, and in silent meditation attained the peace they were searching.Prarthna Saran, President Delhi Chinmaya Mission .Email: prarthnasaran@gmail.com

According to religious traditions, God created the human being and settled him in Paradise. But after some time, man committed a grave error and was sent down to earth.

According to this story of creation, we lost our ini-tial advantage and since then only the second best has been available to us. This story shows us the right direction for our lives.

The human being is an idealistic creature by birth. Everyone tries to find his ideal goal, one that is the best for him.

But it is a fact that no one succeeds in doing so. If this is the case, what should we do? The only course open for all men and women is to accept the second best as the only available choice. This is the only way to have a tension-free life in this world.

If you are not ready to accept the second best and you would prefer to keep straining for the ideal, the result could well turn out to be disastrous.

The best principle to adopt in life is: Try, try by all means to achieve the very best, but when you feel that you can only get the second best then accept it gracefully.

The same applies to nations. This is a competitive world, and this could be a formidable obstacle to everyone getting the absolute best in life. In such a situation, the only safe option is to accept the second best. When you try to have the very best, then you are compelled to engage in continuous confronta-tion. The only risk-free option is to accept the sec-ond best. So be a realist. If you try to get the very best, it means your approach is unrealistic, but if you accept the second best, it means that you have opted for a realistic approach. And in this world of competition only a realistic approach can save you from disaster.www.cpsglobal.org

Jesus brings peace “through his sacrifice on the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity” (Eph. 2:16). The wayward life of humanity has created a situation of conflict, strife and war. And Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest only nurtures power struggles, pointing to sinfulness of human beings reflected in systemic sins of domination and exclusion.

Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwelt bodily, came into a world of conflict to bring harmony be-tween God and all of creation. He went about do-ing good, feeding the hungry, and challenging re-ligious traditions that deny freedom and equality, and empowering the dispossessed in particular, especially women.

Some talk about peace is degrading and cheapens it to trickery. Just close your eyes, say “all is well” and your stress will melt away and peace will ar-rive.

Think of migrant labourers who walked on foot and many who died, child abuse victims and shameless economic exploitation of the poor. To promote peace, as a trick of the mind, without any cost is always doomed to failure.

Others promote cutting down desire, because peace is inside us and can be managed through control of expectations.

We all will face death and judgment of God. The fear of the unknown future stresses us in the pres-ent as we wonder whether we will see light at the end of the tunnel of death. Are we prepared to meet our creator? Are we living our life fulfilling the desires of the flesh or manifesting the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gen-tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,” (Gal. 5:22–23) the very elements of the peace we seek? Peace through Jesus Christ is a gift of God’s grace. Have you received it?

HINDUISM ISLAM CHRISTIANITY

The silent discourse

The realistic approach

Jesus is our peace

By Prarthna Saran By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

By Rev. Dr. Richard Howell

as i pleaseK. NATWAR SINGH

The Guru Granth Sahib said:Whatever the Lord does, He does all by Himself. In an instant, He establishes, and destroys.

I asked my teacher how can this Universe be estab-lished, or destroyed in an instant, when it takes months to even build a single house.

My teacher said that time and its measurement has a different meaning for each piece of existence. For a planet, one lifetime has a different meaning than for a human being. And all human beings do not achieve equally within the same life period. The achievements of some stand head and shoulders above their col-leagues.

Even within the same person, time has a different meaning on different days. When children are play-ing, the same one hour is too short, but is never end-ing in school when faced with a subject they may not like. I could understand the examples, but I still could not grasp the concept my teacher was teaching me. He laughed, and asked me to come back tomorrow morning after I had a good sleep. When I returned in the morning, he was eagerly waiting for me. “Tell me about your dreams,” he said. I said I had a wonder-ful time with my friends. In my dream, they came to my house, and we went to the cinema. We watched a movie, and then, a friend took us to the airport. His father was with the air force, and he took us for a long flight, and I could see Mount Everest. I had felt very close to the stars, as we flew very high for many days.

“And all that in just one night? What happened to Time?” he smiled. Tapping my head, he said, “Your Universe is here. Master yourself, and make it the way you want.” Guru Granth Sahib says:Those who conquer their own mind, by Teacher’s Grace,They conquer the Universe.

SIKHISM

Master thyself to conquer universeBy Davinder P.S. Sandhu

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks at an international conference on the future of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, in Islamabad on 17 February. ANI

ITBP is responsible for guarding India-China border. But Army has to underwrite the entire effort when things turn nasty.

generally speaking

LT GEN SATISH DUA (RETD)

Under no circumstances should the Narendra Modi administration let the Chi-nese government get away with its recent pre-mediat-ed, bloody incursion into the Galwan Valley in East Ladakh. With its typical rank opportunism and sub-terfuge, the PLA marched into Indian territory. While the rest of the world, includ-ing India, was preoccupied with tackling the on-going pandemic—ironically one created due to China’s care-lessness of letting it out of its country—President Xi Jin-ping chose the current time

to pursue his widely known expansionary designs. What is painful is that once again, as in 1962, we have been lulled into believing both countries would follow the much talked about Wuhan and Mahabalipuram spirit of friendly neighbours to resolve matters amicably, including festering border disputes, a la the Doklam dispute of 2017.

Militarily and diplomati-cally, the Indian leadership and armed forces will weigh in all options and undoubt-edly do what the new de-velopments at the Line of Actual control call for. A 2019 Balakot type of aerial bombing over China would not be desirable since it will inevitably lead to serious conflict—an escalation. Chi-na has a bigger defence force and a much larger military budget and an all-out armed conflict may not be in India’s best interests. All other op-tions, however, must remain

on the table.While the Chinese econ-

omy may be four and a half times India’s, it is still a de-veloping nation, and simi-lar to most rapidly growing countries, remains fragile and vulnerable to shocks. But before initiating any overt economic action, we should prepare for a multi-tude of reprisals against us. That compels us to go after China gradually, in a graded manner and after teaming up with countries with in-terests aligned with ours.

Post Covid-19, except for a handful of countries like Pakistan and North Korea, the Chinese circle of com-mitted nations is fast deplet-ing. With the US now openly hostile to it, its foreign trade, capital flows, currency man-agement etc are no longer on solid bases. With a growing number of developed as well as emerging nations now in-creasingly sympathetic to In-dia, our carefully crafted in-terventions should be aimed at first identifying and then effectively targeting China where it hurts them most.

An area of potential focus could be the huge imports of minerals into China to sustain its rapid industrial growth, Despite being well endowed with many miner-als, China imports 67% of

its need of crude oil, 95% of chrome, 90% of cobalt, 79% of gold and 73% of copper. It also relies heavily on foreign iron ore, thermal coal, hard coke, nickel and lithium to develop both the exist-ing and emerging strategic industries, which include magnets and batteries for a variety of uses including electric vehicles, consumer electronics, mobile phones, aircraft engines and military hardware. To ensure their on-going supply and check the soaring import bill, it has been attempting to build a successful overseas mineral base.

While India acting alone may not be enough, con-certed and well planned actions by India, along with Japan, Australia, the United States and possibly South Korea and Indonesia, can exert enormous leverage on the mining-countries and prevent China’s unchecked international sourcing of minerals from them. Work-ing in sync with big buyers such as Japan, South Korea and the US, all these poor mineral bearing countries in Africa, South America and Asia would need to be offered comparable buy-ing—quantities, prices, ten-ures of contracts and better than the Chinese terms of ac-

quisition of mining assets. Of course, alongside, the much needed physical and social infrastructure would need to be funded in these poor nations.

In our bilateral trade with China, we have consider-able flexibility. China has not been able to convince WTO of being a market economy and last week, it had to with-draw its appeal against the decision to continue to treat it as a Non Market Economy (NME). This allows trading partners to question every export consignment from China and puts the onus on the exporter to establish that the quoted prices are not un-duly low and based on hid-den subsidies.

Steep customs duties on all cheap imports combined with high quality standards particularly those which “kill” Indian labour inten-sive industries and “non-essentials” like toys, agar-

battis, smart TVs, mobile phones, paints, varnishes and air-conditioners are to-tally warranted. So would be similar measures, though af-ter some preparations by In-dian importers, on auto and bicycle components, chemi-cals, APIs for pharmaceuti-cals, batteries, solar cells etc. Together, these can reduce our trade deficit by$8.4 bn or 17.3 %.

Prohibition of imports from China of strategic prod-ucts on security consider-ations, would cover electron-ics, semi-conductors and the machinery going into the rapidly expanding defence, telecommunications, infor-mation technology, power, railways and ports. Also ac-tion is needed to check the inflow of Chinese funds and trade finance by its banks and private equity funds into these sensitive segments.

China has been acting for some time against Indian

trade. It has imposed hun-dreds of tariff and non tariff barriers and recently “lured” our traditional friends Nepal and Bangladesh by granting zero duty status on 97% of items exported by them. It has alongside offered Kath-mandu four ports for sup-plies of goods to cut reliance on India. Earlier it granted deeper duty cuts to India’s other competitors including Pakistan, Asean, Austra-lia, South Korea and Peru. Under these circumstances there is no reason for us to stick to pro-liberalisation stance in foreign trade.

There should be no dilu-tion of our opposition to join-ing the regional trade pact RCEP. Acceptance of the criterion of 35% local content to determine the country of origin must be insisted upon. Otherwise a sizeable por-tion of Chinese exports to us would also come from Hong Kong and the Asean group.

In the government pro-curement business includ-ing their PSUs, restrictions are imperative. For domes-tic funded projects, outright bans on participation by Chinese companies is war-ranted—though to continue with the facilities extended by World Bank, ADB etc., some convincing would be required. There is clear evi-

dence to cite to them of the Chinese authorities insisting their IT hardware equip-ment-makers provide them access to stored data and telecom giants Huawei and ZTE taking several global missteps. India should fol-low the US and the EU na-tions and not let Chinese firms participate in its 5G trials and rollout. Instead, it be developed indigenously with minimum inputs from even non-China players.

There is little doubt that even such carefully thought-through measures, con-ceived and executed jointly with like-minded nations, are going to impose short term costs on the Indian gov-ernment, its businesses and its consumers. In fact, this might further contract the already shrinking economy. But in the longer run, such an “economic surgical strike” would be highly rewarding; geopolitically, for fair trade and for the economy’s move-ment towards benevolent self–reliance. To set these in motion, there is no bet-ter time than now when the mass of Indian citizenry, and many globally, have come out clearly in favour of boy-cotting China.Dr Ajay Dua, a development economist, is an ex Union Com-merce & Industry Secretary.

China’s savage 15 June 2020 attack against unarmed Indian

troops was a classic example of Chinese style warfare: us-ing the terrain to gain tacti-cal advantage; exploiting longstanding diplomacy and agreements to disarm the Indian side; deliberately shock through use of brutal weapons not excluded from the same agreements; claim-ing the now blood-soaked Indian territory to sustain tension and fear; and then a propaganda barrage blaming India for causing the attack.

Understandably from the Indian perspective, there would be a desire to prevent this incident from sparking a larger, far more damag-ing, conflict. The inclination would be to treat the Chinese attack as another border in-cident, relying on diplomacy and better local deterrence to prevent future Chinese aggression. Unfortunately, there is a profound reality to

China’s behaviour: to satisfy its hegemonic ambitions, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will require continu-ous concessions from India, diminishing its security, sov-ereignty and prosperity.

There is another hard re-ality. No matter what level of autonomy and non-align-ment India pursues, for the CCP, India is but another on a list of democracies to be destroyed, and neighbours and enemies to be subordi-nated, in the CCP’s pursuit of global hegemony. A hint of the potential brazenness of CCP ambitions was re-vealed in a 2013 unauthored article widely circulated on the Chinese internet titled, “Six Wars China Must Fight in the Next 50 Years”

. It was not removed by Chi-na’s internet censors and has held up well after seven years.* “The First War: Unifica-tion of Taiwan (2020 to 2015)” states that by 2020 “an ultimatum” must be given to Taiwan, peaceful or non-peaceful unification, but as Taiwan is expected to be “defiant…military action will be the only solution.” With-out United States’ “interven-tion,” Taiwan can be “under control” in three months.

Assessment: after 30 years of preparations, the People’s

Liberation Army (PLA) could invade Taiwan suc-cessfully today if the United States was deterred, distract-ed, or defeated. The PLA has access to thousands of large river barges and 3,000 West-ern-built airliners that could carry the invasion forces. Fol-lowing its conquest Taiwan will become a major base for PLA nuclear submarines, nuclear missiles, and global power projection forces.* The Second War: “Recon-quest” of the Spratly Islands (2025 to 2030) will be greatly assisted by China’s victory in the first, says the article. But South China Sea claimants who do not negotiate their ac-cess to resources with China will be attacked, starting with Vietnam. Consolidating con-trol will ensure “Chinese air-craft carrier[s] can have free access into the Pacific Ocean”.

Assessment: This war is more than half won. China could easily double re-claimed areas in the Spratly and Paracel Island groups and thus double forward de-ployed missile, naval, air and Marine forces. If Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia do not fold to CCP diktat, they could face punitive PLA Marine inva-sions. Control of South China Sea opens the Indian Ocean to PLA power projection.* The Third War: “Recon-quest” of Southern Tibet (2035 to 2040) cautions, “If China uses military force to conquer Southern Tibet, it has to bear some losses…the best strategy for China is to incite the disintegra-tion of India…[that] will have no power to cope with China.” But failing that, “at least try its best to incite

Assam province, and once conquered Sikkim, to gain independence.” It goes on, “The second best plan is to export advanced weapons to Pakistan, helping Pakistan to conquer Southern Kashmir region in 2035…while India and Pakistan are busy fight-ing each other, China should take a Blitz to conquer South-ern Tibet…India will not be able to fight a two front war, and is deemed to lose both.”

Assessment: Should China conquer Taiwan, that would free up about 50% of total PLA strength for potential deployment to the current Western Theater Command, facing India. So armed, a blitz to conquer Arunachal Pradesh could be a prelude to second punitive invasion blitz to Kolkata or even Delhi. Provided they are not de-stroyed preemptively, India would have little choice but to use nuclear weapons on its territory to halt such an inva-

sion. The “disintegrate India” option was mentioned again on 17 June 2020 on another popular Chinese web portal, Guancha.com.

Before having done so more recently for North Ko-rea, China long ago enabled Pakistan to become a nuclear missile state, complete with intermediate range, medium range, short range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. The China-Pakistan Eco-nomic Corridor will help ensure the survival of the unstable and hostile military-dominated regime in Islam-abad, as it will also ensure a future PLA naval and air base at Gwadar. So, if China is not able to dismember India, by the 2030s Beijing could have it strategically surrounded.* The Fourth War: “Recon-quest” of the Diaoyu Islands and Ryukyu Islands (2040 to 2045) notes, “The Japanese has robbed our wealth and

resources in the East China Sea and unlawfully occupied Diaoyu and Ryukyu Islands for many years…At that time, we can expect that the U.S. will be willing to intervene but has weakened; Europe will keep silent; Russia will sit and watch the fight…The war can end within half a year…”

Assessment: It is interest-ing that the authors assume the US-Japan alliance sur-vives the first three Chinese wars, but there is no indica-tion whether Japan has ob-tained nuclear weapons. But China’s ambitions to control the East China Sea are well established, and this would require control of the Ryukyu Island Chain and the depar-ture of US forces from Oki-nawa. It is likely that China has long helped to stoke an-ti-Japanese government and anti-US military sentiments in Okinawa.* Skipping the Fifth War:

Unification of Outer Mongo-lia, let’s get to the real battle, The Sixth War: Taking back the lands lost to Russia (2055 to 2060). The article states, “The current Sino-Russian relationship seems to be a good one…China never for-gets the lands lost to Russia. When the chance comes, China will take back the lands lost…Russia has oc-cupied…equivalent to one-sixth of the current domain of China. Russia is therefore the bitter enemy of China.” It calls for “nuclear power to strike Russia from the front stage to the end” of the war, meaning Russia will be dev-astated by a full-out Chinese nuclear offensive.

Assessment: Informal sources indicate that Russia understands it is on China’s martial menu, but Vladimir Putin remains committed to an economic and military entente with China. Today Russia is signalling that it will contribute to China’s wars against Taiwan and Japan. Russian accommo-dation of China may even extend to a war against India, all to lengthen the period in which Russia can prepare for its China war. Of course, this would be a cynical miscalcu-lation that could cost Russia most of Siberia. China will match Russian military tech-nology, vastly outproduce it, and is already on its way to building a nuclear arsenal that could soon exceed that of Russia or the United States.

The Chinese article does not mention how China will conquer the United States, but that project is also under-way. In 2019, China’s Defence Minister made clear that CCP leader Xi Jinping’s signature

Belt and Road Initiative of global infrastructure and influence building is direct-ly linked to China’s global military influence building. For most of the last 20 years, China has been building eco-nomic and political power in Latin America that could lead to military access. While President Donald Trump has made the most concerted at-tempt to mount a broad stra-tegic and economic pushback against China, it is not clear whether his objectives will be shared by his successors and required strategic invest-ments sustained.

However, there is a silver lining: India still has the time to make new strategic choices that can help prevent any of these wars from coming to pass. Short of a formal alli-ance with anyone, India can make common cause with all democracies that, like itself, are threatened by China.

For example, India can build sensor and intelligence sharing with Taiwan to help warn either of Chinese mili-tary movements that would threaten the other. Sensor sharing, military train-ing and coordination with Japan, Australia, and the United States could go far to contain China’s threats to the First Island Chain and into the Indian Ocean. Joining the US and Western efforts to build a new government-private sector presence on the Moon can help thwart Chinese designs to control the Earth-Moon System. Finally, India can join other states in lobbying Russia to end its entente with China.Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International As-sessment and Strategy Center.

CHINESE DREAMS

TAME THE DRAGON

11comment & analysisthe sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020

new delhiWWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

opinionRICHARD D. FISHER, JR.

opinionAJAY DUA

China is just getting startedShould China conquer Taiwan, that would free up about 50% of total PLA strength for potential deployment to the current Western Theater Command, facing India. So armed, a blitz to conquer Arunachal Pradesh could be a prelude to second punitive invasion blitz to Kolkata or even Delhi.

Needed, surgical strike against Chinese economyWhile the Chinese economy may be four and a half times India’s, it is still a developing nation, and similar to most rapidly growing countries, remains fragile and vulnerable to shocks.

Maxar WorldView-3 satellite image shows a PLA base in Kongka Pass near the Line of Actual Control on Monday. ANI

Members of Swadeshi Jagran Manch burn Chinese products while protesting in New Delhi on Saturday. ANI

IT’S POSSIBLE

legally speaking the sunday guardian28 june – 04 july 2020new delhi12

WWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

Forgotten in the clamour in India for restoration of status quo in Ladakh

in the Western Sector along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a curious fact—that despite having attained In-dependence in 1947, India has till date not managed to pin down China to delineate the boundary between India and China. China, firmly in occupation of substantial ter-ritory claimed by both coun-tries, is in no hurry to settle the boundary. After all, China stands to gain by having the boundary remain undemar-cated at least till it is in a posi-tion to hammer India into a hard bargain that coincides with Chinese territorial, po-litical and economic interests. That takes us to the question as to what should New Delhi do about it.

New Delhi claims Aksai Chin in terms of the British drawn “Johnson Line” of 1897, which placed Aksai Chin in the erstwhile princely state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). J&K, upon accession to India on 26 October 1947, be-came Indian territory. China acquiesced to Johnson Line by not raising any objection at the time of accession of J&K in 1947 or even at the time of commencement of the Indian Constitution in 1950.

Akshay Chavan recounts how China was nowhere in the picture for most of the history of Ladakh, Xinjiang and Tibet, and that it was the Communist Party of China that conquered Xinjiang from local warlords in 1949, annexed Tibet in 1950-51 and converted the ancient cara-van route between Xinjiang and Tibet, passing through Aksai Chin, into a modern motorable road in 1956—a road of which New Delhi learnt only in 1958 through Chinese maps. China then quietly occupied Aksai Chin in 1959 and retained it post the 1962 India-China war. China now asserts that Ak-sai Chin region forms part of its Xinjiang province, and further claims that it is India that is illegally in possession of its territory in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim on the Eastern Sector of the LAC.

Much has been written about China’s global effort to emerge as a superpower. Chi-na’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the cornerstone of its foreign policy today which

has already lulled more than 100 countries into its sphere of influence. While China has been visibly asserting itself, for instance, in the South China Sea, it is, however, the geo-strategic encirclement of India over the decades that is far more marked.

Let us start with Pakistan. Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri concedes in his book that since “both Pakistan and China continue to have unset-tled borders with India”, the “respective relationships of Pakistan and China towards India provided the strategic underpinnings to their rela-tionships with one another.” He describes this relationship as “higher than the Himala-yas, deeper than the oceans, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel”.

This relationship has trans-lated into Chinese support for Pakistan on the Kashmir is-sue (within the UN and out-side) and in extensive mili-tary, trade, commercial and barter ties. China negotiated the Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 2 March 1963 with Pakistan in terms of which it cheekily took from Pakistan a part of the north-ern frontier of the Pakistan Occupied J&K (PoJK). Fur-ther, Pakistan handed over de facto control of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of the PoJK to China, which in turn gave it strategic, logistical, dip-lomatic and political depth to vie for power in Central Asia. Beijing has made huge investments over the years to expand the Karakoram cor-ridor as a strategic pathway. The now China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which, according to Kasuri, “envisages a road, railway, fibre-optic communication, and pipeline linkages be-tween Gwadar in Pakistan and Xinjiang in Western China” will link “China di-rectly to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea”. The CPEC is a vital part of China’s BRI.

Beijing has been persuading India’s other neighbours to become a part of its BRI. The common pattern is that Chi-nese companies offer huge infrastructure development contracts (often with inflated rates), while China assures generous loans (with high interest) to the fund-starved countries to finance these projects. Should a country be unable to repay the loan, it falls in the BRI debt trap and is at times forced to compro-mise its sovereignty by hand-ing over the project itself to China. A good example is Sri Lanka, which joined the BRI, having enjoyed heavy investments since at least the 2000s. China extended loans for building the geostrategic Hambantota port by Chinese

contractors. When Colombo could not repay the loan, it was compelled in December 2017 to hand over the port to China on a 99-year lease in lieu of its BRI debt.

The strategically located Maldives, with its proximity to the major shipping routes, is also part of the BRI. The Chinese investments in infra-structure, construction and tourism are symbolized by the China-Maldives Friend-ship Bridge connecting Male with its international airport and the artificial island, Hul-humale. The BRI has already saddled Maldives with huge debts owed to China through inflated government con-tracts with Chinese entities backed by sovereign guar-antees.

China has been steadily investing in Myanmar, with focus on infrastructure, power, oil, gas and mining and tourism sectors. China has emerged as Myanmar’s largest trading partner. China used its UNSC seat to protect Myanmar from international rebuke over the Rohingya issue. Myanmar eventually joined the BRI and signed on deals for the “China-Myanmar Economic Cor-ridor” and rail and deep-sea port projects, which would, amongst other benefits, pro-vide Beijing greater access to the Indian Ocean and an alternative route for energy imports.

China improved its rela-tions with Bangladesh after having sided with Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh War and having even vetoed Ban-gladesh’s membership of the UN. China has become Ban-gladesh’s single largest in-vestor and trading partner as also supplier of weapons. Bangladesh joined the BRI in 2016. Chinese investments in Bangladesh are in infrastruc-ture, power, finance, culture, tourism, and technology. Sig-nificantly, China upgraded the Chittagong port and has been building an industrial park there, along with road and railway lines linking the port to Kunming in China’s Yunnan province.

China has reached out to Nepal, leading to the two countries agreeing to hasten the building of the Trans-Hi-malayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network. Such Network would include highways, railways, avia-tion, and communications. Kathmandu has introduced Mandarin in its schools and taken pains to reassure Bei-jing that it views Tibet as part of China. Consistent with its known propensity for nibbling away territory of its neighbours, China has annexed the Rui village in the Gorkha district of Nepal. Such is the dominance of China that Kathmandu did not even whimper at such an-nexation while belligerently accusing India of occupying three areas which it has now mapped as Nepalese territory.

China is persuading Bhutan to join the BRI by highlight-ing religious, cultural and sports ties and dangling nu-merous scholarships before

Bhutanese students. Over the years, China has become the third biggest exporter to Bhutan, not only of items like machinery, cement and toys but also tourists. It remains to be seen whether, or rather, when Bhutan will succumb to such friendly persuasion.

New Delhi must surely be aware of such encirclement, which would render India extremely vulnerable. More so, with the buffer offered by Indo-Tibetan border gone long back. The hit that the BRI projects have taken due to the Covid-19 pandemic might have slowed such encirclement. But Beijing is bound to move in for the kill at a time and place of its choosing. And when it does, it is certainly not likely to settle the boundary between India and China on Indian terms.

HOW INDIA CAN COUNTER CHINALet us now examine whether New Delhi can counter China. It is true that New Delhi has kept the Tibet issue some-what alive by extending its hospitality to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual Tibetan leader, and the Tibetan gov-ernment-in-exile. New Delhi has denounced the CPEC and boycotted the BRI. New Delhi’s recent flirtation with the US and its new found af-fection for Taiwan are surely messages that Beijing would rather not receive. Again, the new map of J&K published by New Delhi, which shows Ladakh as a Union Territory complete with Aksai Chin, would not have gone down well with Beijing.

However, none of these measures will compel China to sit with India to demarcate the Indo-China boundary. Nor would they persuade China to refrain from making the innumerable intrusions it has made for decades to gobble up, by perfecting the salami slicing technique, more and more Indian held territory along the LAC. It is, indeed, painful to wit-ness the audacious build-up of PLA troops in Indian ter-ritory, including Aksai Chin; the barbaric assaults on our brave soldiers by PLA troops from within such Indian ter-ritory and the fresh Chinese claims now being raised on more Indian territory, which are evidently calculated to build territorial “credits” to be used at the time of nego-tiations. We are left with de-pressing visuals of New Delhi cautiously asking Beijing to respect status quo, impotent protests calling for the boy-cott of Chinese goods, Chi-nese food and Chinese guests in hotels, and incessant media debates by hysterical anchors and newly minted defence ex-perts on how to handle China.

International relations are conventionally best left in the hands of the political estab-lishment and foreign service. While the government gives the political direction, the diplomats work behind the scenes to adeptly exploit the opponent’s fault lines and create circumstances to bring the opponent in line. We have

obviously failed to do so for decades now, thereby ruling out a political or diplomatic solution to the issue at hand. Given China’s economic clout and defence capabilities, New Delhi does not really have an economic or military solution either. In this scenario, what really are the options for New Delhi to protect India’s interests?

I believe that one way to restrain the Chinese effec-tively is by taking control of the CPEC running through the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan occupied Jammu &Kashmir (PoJK) so as to undermine their BRI. After all, CPEC is the single largest piece of the various interna-tional routes envisaged by the BRI. The only chink in China’s armour is the crucial fact that the Gilgit-Baltistan region of PoJK, through which the CPEC is conceived, is Indian territory.

China is asserting its claim, whether rightly or wrongly, to Aksai Chin. China admit-tedly has no claim to the Gil-git-Baltistan region of PoJK. In fact, even the taking of ter-ritory of PoJK by China under the Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement in 1963 has been made subject by Article 6 thereof to the settlement of the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. If India recovers the PoJK, including the Gilgit-Baltistan region, from Pakistan, it will be in a position to control the CPEC and use it to its advantage.

Now, how does India re-cover the PoJK? My book, Unravelling the Kashmir Knot, details New Delhi’s unbeliev-able approach since 1948 of not recovering PoJK.

The book documents from authoritative sources how the UNSC, seized with the Kash-mir issue, had been subverted in 1948 at the instance of the British and its allies to en-sure that Pakistan retained de facto control of PoJK, so that such territory could be made available to the British for its then ongoing Great Game with Soviet Russia. Scarred by such international politics, the then Government of India (GoI) took the easy way out—it decided that the UNSC had nothing to do with the Kashmir issue and that India would keep what it had and Pakistan could keep what it had. In other words, New Delhi simply disowned the PoJK and its unfortunate people, who remain citizens of India under the Indian

Constitution but live under foreign rule till date. This un-official policy of maintaining territorial status quo, which has been detailed in the book, was followed by New Delhi emphasizing the inviolability of the Line of Control (LoC) in the Simla Agreement of 1972 and reiterating the same in the Lahore Declaration of 1999. New Delhi has given mere lip service to Parlia-ment’s resolution of 22 Febru-ary 1994 requiring Pakistan to vacate PoJK. Instead, New Delhi has unofficially striven for the conversion of the LoC into the international border, as is clear from the low key protests at the formal annexa-tion by Pakistan of the Gilgit-Baltistan region or for the use of such Indian territory for the CPEC. It is another matter altogether that the policy of maintaining territorial status quo, or of the conversion of the LoC into the international border, is constitutionally im-permissible, for reasons given in the book.

One fallout of such policy has been to simply ignore Chinese presence in PoJK. By emphasizing that the Kashmir issue is a bilat-eral one, New Delhi has not only been giving Pakistan a standing other than as an aggressor but has also been blanking out China—the 1994 Parliamentary resolu-tion incomprehensibly makes no reference to China at all. It is one thing for New Delhi to seek to put a wedge between Pakistan and China and to deal with them separately or to deny China any stand-ing on the Kashmir issue. It is another matter to adopt an ostrich like approach in refusing to even see Chinese presence in PoJK.

New Delhi’s misdirected approach of simply giving up the endeavour to recover PoJK was perhaps dictated by the realization that it did not have any military, politi-cal, diplomatic or economic option to do so. The book suggests an entirely dif-ferent approach to recover PoJK, namely, the use of in-ternational law by New Delhi to vindicate its claim to the entire territory of J&K.

In this regard, the book relies on declassified British archives to narrate the British colonial politics that led to the British scripting the Partition of the Indian sub-continent. The purpose was to create a pliable “Pakistan” to serve British geo-strategic and de-

fence purposes for the Great Game. The political Parti-tion agreement was crystal-lized in British statutes—the Indian Independence Act of 1947, and the modified Government of India Act of 1935—statutes that created modern day India and Paki-stan. These British statutes were accepted by both India and Pakistan. Indeed, there is no doubt about the legiti-macy of the states of India and Pakistan created by such stat-utes, and that such statutes comprised the constitutional law governing both India and Pakistan.

According to these British statutes, the British para-mountcy over the 560 odd princely states, including J&K, was to lapse on 15 Au-gust 1947. The sovereign rul-ers of these states, including J&K, alone could decide to accede to India, Pakistan or remain independent.

The sovereign ruler of J&K unconditionally acceded to India on 26 October 1947 in the manner prescribed under this constitutional law. The then GoI was led by the Brit-ish, for reasons elaborated in the book, to view the ac-cession as being provisional and subject to the wishes of the people. By doing so, the then GoI overlooked that once a political decision (the Partition agreement) had been crystallized into law (i.e., the British statutes), the government created by that law cannot act contrary to the terms of that very law. It is well settled that an executive cannot, by making promises, clothe itself with authority which is inconsistent with the Constitution that gave it birth. The constitutional law creating modern day India mandated that it was only the sovereign ruler who could decide on the accession of his state to India. The then GoI had no power to lay down a contrary policy that the acces-sion would be decided by the wishes of the people. Further, Pakistan is not in a position to deny such constitutional law as then there would be no “Pakistan”. Since the ac-cession of J&K to India was in terms of the same consti-tutional law that also created Pakistan, it would be fair to say that the law that gave birth to Pakistan itself made J&K a part of India.

The UN, and every state “contracting” with India (in-cluding Pakistan) are held in international law to have had the knowledge that the then GoI exceeded its pow-ers under the said consti-tutional law by introducing wishes of the people to settle the question of accession of J&K to India, and, that too, in the absence of its sover-eign ruler. As a result, not only was pledge of the then GoI to hold the plebiscite in J&K unconstitutional and not binding on India, the UNSC resolutions for holding the plebiscite were themselves without jurisdiction and in violation of the UN Charter.

Be that as it may, it was the then GoI that had, in the first place, created doubts about

the unconditional nature of the accession of J&K to India, taken the Kashmir issue out-side India’s domestic jurisdic-tion by going to the UN, and conferred a disputed territory status on J&K. Therefore, it is New Delhi that needs, as a first step, to confirm, as it were, its title deeds to J&K so as to remove the disputed territory tag on J&K. The only body in existence whose pro-nouncement will be consid-ered as being authoritative and having legal effect on the international community is the principal judicial organ of the UN, namely, the ICJ. Since India is entitled in law to the entire territory of J&K, it lies in India’s interest to have the ICJ examine the Kash-mir issue, though of course confined to the eight legal propositions formulated in the book. Such examination is not precluded by the Simla Agreement or any other bilat-eral agreement between India and Pakistan.

Should the ICJ give a ver-dict in India’s favour, and it is likely to do so in view of the legal principles formulated in the book, the very presence of Pakistan (and China) in the territory of J&K would con-stitute “aggression” under international law, and the international community would be under an obligation to put an end to that illegal situation as illustrated by the 1971 ICJ decision in Namibia. The enforceability of such ICJ verdict and the spectre of international politics are matters that have also been considered in the book.

In the unlikely event that the ICJ decides against India by opining that the future of J&K will be decided by the wishes of the people, New Delhi can always fall back on its official stand that the peo-ple of J&K have endorsed the accession, as is evident from the resolution of 15 February 1954, of the elected Constitu-ent Assembly of J&K.

The consequence flow-ing from a favourable ICJ decision is that New Delhi stands to regain the PoJK, including Gilgit-Baltistan, and the parts occupied by China under the 1963 Boundary Agreement. The current anti-China senti-ment has provided an op-portune setting for India to move the ICJ, and to recover physical possession of the entire J&K. This is perhaps the only way by which New Delhi can control the CPEC. New Delhi’s grip on the CPEC could well lead to China becoming more flex-ible on Aksai Chin and, for that matter, the Eastern Sec-tor of the LAC. New Delhi can then at least hope for a just and timely demarcation of the boundary between India and China, complete with the benefit of saving the huge human, developmental and financial costs that go in mindlessly maintaining sta-tus quo along the LAC, and for that matter, the LoC.Dr Aman Hingorani, Advocate-on-Record & Mediator, Supreme Court of India, has authored Un-ravelling the Kashmir Knot.

How to checkmate China and Pakistan, the legal way The UN, and every state ‘contracting’ with India (including Pakistan) are held in international law to have had the knowledge that the then GoI exceeded its powers under the said constitutional law by introducing wishes of the people to settle the question of accession of J&K to India, and, that too, in the absence of its sovereign ruler.

opinionAMAN HINGORANI

Baloch political and human rights activists hold placards as they protest against Pakistan and China over human rights violations in Balochistan, in Toronto on Sunday. ANI

V13v

BUSINESSGUARDIAN the sunday guardian | 28 june – 04 july 2020 | new delhi WWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

The last few days have been very disturbing both in terms of the

newsflow, and our responses as a nation in very different ways.

The clash with the Chinese PLA at Point 14, Galwan val-ley, Ladakh, resulted in the loss of 20 of our armymen, and produced an outraged “stop buying Chinese prod-ucts” sentiment. Yet, the ash-es had barely cooled down when Amazon held a flash sale of the Chinese company “Xiomi” mobile handsets on the same night, and guess what: it was completely sold out in minutes.

These buyers were driven by greed and contempt for any national values, and were hoping that the ano-nymity of the internet would hide their being named and shamed, or worse, could not care less.

Yet, the same social en-vironment has bred and produced two outstanding examples of national duty above personal risk. The sol-diers of the Bihar and Pun-jab regiments who selflessly

took on the enemy and made the supreme sacrifice, and the frontline health work-ers and doctors handling the Covid-19pandemic, who overcome their own fears and the insecurity of their familiesto selflessly treat the infected with or without pro-tective clothing.

The dichotomy is that there are so many instances of these selfless workers being attacked by patients, being misbehaved with, or being shunned by their neighbours who fear getting infected, yet they go to work daily, saving lives and putting the nega-tives out of mind. It is also ironic that isolated retired army officers ostensibly now mercenaries on hire on be-half of vested interests, keep spouting anti-Army and anti-government sentiment. For men who probably wore their uniforms with honour, their best defence is immatu-rity, professional frustration and poor timing.

We are accustomed to see-ing our politicians baying for blood whenever a national tragedy happens, but it was heartening to see every po-litical party, excluding the Congress, speaking in one voice against China. Simi-larly, most TV anchors and editors very responsibly por-trayed the national perspec-tive when the Chinese were at the proverbial gate, some chose to opt for the enemies’ narrative by masquerading as “upholders of the truth”. They are anchors and edi-

tors because they are “ma-ture and experienced”,but do they pass the test of national interest?

The government has taken the decision to minimise eco-nomic relations with China after this conflict, and this has panicked Indian indus-try, perhaps showing how unprepared many are for long term supply chain dis-ruption. Every listed com-pany generates a risk matrix, and has backup options for every category of risk which the Board of Directors sign-off on. Slashing imports from China is not an act of god or force majeure risk, it is a com-mercial risk. Diversification of supply sources demands normal risk mitigation. Is it that manufacturing in many sectors in India has become largely an assembly shop and tangible domestic value addition is a pipe-dream? Super-profit by sourcing from a rogue nation which uses predatory pricing to acquire market share cannot be the justification to switch from being a manufacturer to a trader. Industry needs to engage government more publically to get them to agree to implement cost and productivity improvement measures and laws, instead of fearing short term harass-ment. Some of them do that successfully, it’s time for all to show the same spine.

We all understand and respect the fundamental rights enshrined in our Con-stitution, but they come with

due restraint. No one denies the dissenters of their right to speak and protest, but to endlessly stretch a Shaheen Bagh protest and subsequent orchestrated rioting, when President Trump was visit-ing New Delhi only dented the country’s image and hon-our. Did the protesters score a self-goal and now face even hardened positions with eroded public support?

The Covid-19 lockdowns generated a mass displace-ment of people, especially mi-grant labour, not seen since partition. It did not bother our collective conscience that the hungry need to be fed. The complete absence of empathy in us as people was appalling. We pointed fingers at Central and state govern-ments, saying planning was poor, communication weak, but did we look inwards, and act where we could and should, till they did. Select sections of civil society and religious institutions picked up the mantle, but in a nation as large as ours, however val-

iant and significant their con-tribution, in absolute it pales into insignificance. It begets the question that in urban centres where the migrant labour crisis occurred, if one in five households contribut-ed Rs100 per day for thirty days, the hunger crisis would not have lasted more than one to two days of logistics organising time. There was no shortage of volunteers willing to cook and facilities to do it in, and the police in every state did yeoman ser-vice in the distribution. Do we as citizens have a vested stake in those who are part of the ecosystem around us, and critically “do we care”?

Every time a braveheart in uniform dies, whether armed forces, police or para-military, do we pause and think that it’s us they were protecting. Our transient memories forget that for nearly a decade, bomb blasts in civilian areas in major urban cities were rampant. That we are able to erase that from our memory is a

tribute to those who guard us. Most of them are young, leave behind a spouse, chil-dren, often dependent par-ents. Do we as civil society owe a debt of honour to the departed to create a corpus for their families. Unfortu-nately, the culture of “receive only and not give” is perva-sive. Is it business as usual for us to say welfare bodies from these uniformed organisa-tions will do the needful. Do we ponder to think, why any youngster from our families would join the armed forces when we demonstrate such callous indifference? Can we as citizens galvanise at least one crore tax payers who collectively ask our elected representatives to bring an all-party bill to Parliament saying that we the taxpay-ers are happy to contribute Rs100 each per month for an independent fund that will in turn payout a sum of Rs1 crore to the family of each fallen brave? Surely, sacrific-ing a slice of pizza is a good balm for our conscience. All our religions teach us gratitude, but let us start by showing it to our fellow be-ings, and all Gods will bless us. Talking of the might of the Indian consumer is hol-low, when actions do not fol-low words. Character shows when we learn to walk the talk. If we want the Chinese to listen carefully, we must stop buying made in China products, whether from a Chinese company or one of their proxy fronts.

Why should government guidelines not make it man-datory for e-commerce sell-ers to state the country of origin of goods upfront, and let it be the buyer’s choice whether they will accept a particular nation’s manu-factured product? India’s consumer imports may not be significant to dent China’s aggregate exports, but it will make them panic when the rest of the world (150 coun-tries Covid affected) will find a thought leader who acts. In the world of instant connec-tivity, demonstrated opinion making counts.

No nation is respected if its citizens do not have pride in their national symbols, do not have work ethic, are easily corrupted financially or morally. These are oft-repeated lessons of history. Let’s wake up and smell the coffee. Can we forget the inane debate regarding whether to stand or not when the national anthem is played in cinema halls? Can we ever be confident that work once assigned will be of acceptable quality and de-livered on time if not super-vised? It is rare to find people taking pride in their work, not making habitual excuses for dis-respecting timelines, and an all-encompassing “chaltahai” attitude prevails. However, the mass spread of the disease called corruption continues to impact the daily lives of ordinary citizens. Corruption has a corollary in rejection of merit, no quality

orientation, a weaning away from doing an honest day’s work, and perpetuating the habit of cheating. Systemic changes by the use of tech-nology and software are im-proving things, but the task is monumental.

I often wonder why is it that we do not applaud successes, and adopt high achievers as role models. Why do we choose to look at the non-achieving facets of their lives and pull them down to level the playing field. Perhaps that explains why we do not have excellence in propor-tion to our population. We need to realise that no one is going to do this for us. We have to improve by ourselves and for ourselves. The world will evaluate as a make or buy decision point destina-tion.

Let us minimise the num-ber of reasons for which they can ignore us, and maximize those that we can feel good about ourselves too. As a nation, the world is looking at us to step up and fill the leadership oppor-tunities available. We have the opportunity to either maximize our demographic dividend, or face an unmiti-gated disaster. The days of only debating and scoring points are over, it’s time for demonstrated actions. We need a very high action ori-entation, and the path of such a culture creation must be expedited.Sanjit Paul Singh is Managing Partner, S&S Associates.

The Indian consumer must learn to walk the talkSANJIT PAUL SINGH

ANI/NEWSVOIRNEW DELHI

IANSNEW DELHI

‘NATIONAL CHARACTER’

UPWARD TRAJECTORY WORST OVER?

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has put real es-tate deals on hold across the world, but the sector is hopeful and poised for re-covery as early as the fourth quarter of 2020.

Real estate experts are an-ticipating that huge pent up demand created due to the ongoing lockdown will pro-pel prices and push com-mercial real estate towards an upward trajectory.

As per the recent industry reports, the commercial real estate is said to be the pre-eminent sector and also the least impacted with 90 per cent of rent collection dur-ing the lockdown period. It is believed that once the vaccine is invented in FY21, there could be the absorp-tion of 25-28 msf (meter square feet), with steady de-mand for rentals.

“The post-COVID-19 sce-nario will emerge as a criti-cal lifeline for India’s com-mercial real estate. Over the past few years, commercial

realty has defied the trend of a slowdown and yielded a fair amount of returns on investment. We foresee the continuity in this trend be-ing propelled by the growth of Business Process Out-sourcing (BPO) and IT/ITes segments. The COVID-19 crisis has also reinforced the support of the local com-munity. In the retail sector, this may reinvigorate the high-street retail concept and mixed-use realty,” said Ravish Kapoor, Managing Director, Elan Group.

“The high street retail has been able to adapt in response to changing con-sumer behaviour over the years. The focus on the omnichannel strategy and leveraging cutting-edge technology will further aid it in forging long-lasting en-gagement with consumers. The Indian government has announced a series of initia-tives to keep the economy afloat amidst the lockdown. These measures coupled with the demand pickup will set the path to recovery for commercial realty,” add-

ed Kapoor.The commercial real es-

tate sector is expected to see an upside post-COVID-19 as only 10 per cent of jobs are moving toward WFH resulting in the demand for more office space in the near future.

The sector may also con-tinue to attract Private Equi-ty investment. A recent re-port by Colliers had pointed out that commercial real es-tate will continue to attract PE investment and the In-dian economy will witness robust growth as compared to other economies despite the COVID-19 pandemic. However, much will hinge on how the pandemic pans out in India and the ability of the real estate developers to adapt to the crisis.

New business strategies can help to revive the in-vestors’ confidence in the segment. “The COVID-19 pandemic is indeed an unprecedented time. Nev-ertheless, the measures announced by the Indian government will put the economy on the path to re-

covery. The move to extend the deadline for projects registered under RERA will be a huge breather for the sector. Going forward, we can expect further consoli-dation in the sector. Howev-er, office spaces will contin-ue to be an attractive choice for investors due to its resil-ience,” Sandeep Agarwal, CFO, Pioneer Urban Land, and Infrastructure Ltd.

In the past few years, commercial real estate has bucked the trend of slow-down, offering a higher re-turn on investment of 6-10 per cent, as compared to 3-4 per cent for residential real estate. In the first three quarters of 2019 alone, the Indian retail sector at-tracted PE funds to the tune of USD 970 million with commercial real estate commanding the major-ity share. A JLL report has highlighted that office space continues to be a preferred asset class, recording in-vestment to the tune of USD 2.8 billion in FY 2019-20 as compared to USD 1.8 billion in FY 2018-19.

The worst phase for oil mar-keting companies may be over due to smart recovery in the sales of both petrol and diesel in May and June, with India gradually unlocking it-self from the lockdowns im-posed to contain COVID-19 spread.

According to a research re-port by ICICI Direct, though sales were down 45% in April due to the lockdown for almost all oil marketing companies, mainly the coun-try’s largest fuel retailer In-dian Oil Corporation (IOC), it recovered sharply in May and June. Petrol and diesel demand is currently at 85-89 per cent of the normal level.

With fuel prices revised upwards for the last three weeks starting June 7, and IOC having hiked retail prices by Rs 9-10/litre in June, the marketing situation of oil companies would once again get steadied.

But the brokerage has taken a cautious approach

over the fortune of IOC go-ing ahead as pressure points remain in terms of declining refining margins.

The gross refining margin (GRM) is the difference be-tween the value of petroleum products such as petrol and diesel when they leave the refinery and the value of the crude oil entering the refin-ery. The GRM for IOC has fallen off the cliff from a high of $8.5 per barrel in FY18 to an estimated $0.1 per barrel in FY20. Even going ahead, the recovery is expected to stabilise around $4 a barrel (less than half of FY18 levels) in FY21 and FY22, the bro-

kerage has said. “Benchmark Singapore GRMs are cur-rently very low with some recovery witnessed recent-ly. Improvement in petrol & diesel spreads will be impor-tant for stable GRMs. Going forward, we estimate GRMs at $4/bbl for both FY21E and FY22E,” ICICI Direct said in its report. IOC’s marketing sales degrew 4.5% YoY to 20.7 million tonnes on ac-count of lower diesel sales. Going forward, considering the extended lockdown in Q1FY21E, we expect mar-keting sales at 81.5 MT and 92 MT for FY21E and FY22E respectively, the report said.

Commercial realty will leap back to normal by Q4: Experts

Demand for petrol, diesel reach 89% of normal in May, June

People burn an effigy of Chinese President Xi Jinping as they stage a demonstration against China, in Kolkata on 18 June 2020. IANS

Sales were down 45% in April due to the lockdown for almost all oil marketing companies, mainly the country’s largest fuel retailer Indian Oil Corporation.

TOP OF SATURDAYMOUNTING LOSSES

THAI LOW-COST AIRLINE SHUTTING DOWN BANGKOK: Thailand’s low-cost carrier NokScoot has announced that it was shut-ting down due to mounting economic losses in recent years that became unsus-tainable after a complete halt in operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.NokScoot was established as a joint venture between Singaporean airline Scoot and Thailand’s Nok Air six years ago, reports Efe news.In a statement released on Friday, Scoot - which owns 49 per cent stake in NokScoot - announced that the low-cost airline’s board of directors had approved the company’s liquidation, although the decision has to be passed in a general meeting of shareholders within two weeks. The Singapore-based airline said that NokScoot had ac-cumulated losses ever since it was founded in 2014 due to intense competition in its sector and the situation had grown worse due to the global health crisis. IANS

Will there be an-other Israeli-Palestinian war

on Tuesday? Probably not. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could well be sowing the seeds of another war if on Tuesday he carries out his election promise to start the process of annexing parts of the West Bank, home to 2.7 million Pal-estinians squeezed into urban enclaves, all calling the area their rightful home.

After three deadlocked elec-tions and talks that dragged on for 500 days, Netanyahu finally formed a coalition government in May this year with his former rival, Benny Gantz. Part of the coalition agreement was that from 1 July 2020, steps will be initi-ated to formally annex the 132 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Arab/Israeli war. This explosive move would only be taken with the support of President Donald Trump, de-scribed by Netanyahu as “the greatest friend” that Israel has ever had in the White House.

If annexation of any terri-tory goes ahead, no matter how small, it will flagrantly breach international law and countless UN resolu-

tions. Annexation would also create an explosion of resentment among the Pal-estinian population, leading to revenge attacks on Israel and possibly even war.

Frequently called “the world’s most intractable and divisive conflict”, although Kashmir might contest that title, the idea of a “two-state solution”, two sovereign states for two peoples who inhabit the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordon river, whether they like it or not, has been the only solution in town. Seen from the point of view of the Palestinians, however, there has been a creeping and ac-celerating Israeli annexation of their territory, underway since the war of 1967.

Politics in both Israel and America has played a huge part in the gradual takeover of Palestinian territory by the Israelis. The split in Israel between the ultra-orthodox right wing parties, who play a disproportionate role in keep-ing Netanyahu in office, and the more moderate centrist parties who would prefer to live in peace with the Pales-tinians, has become almost permanent and irresolvable. The Israeli right-wing fanat-ics see the whole of Palestine as biblically theirs by right, and argue that all Palestinians should be subjugated into a Jewish State. The 1993 Oslo Peace Accord is dead, and the truth is that no one has a remotely workable strategy for achieving an alternative unitary state with equal rights for all.

Benjamin Netanyahu is in a race for time, before his spon-sor and friend in the White House is likely to be voted

out of office in November. He knows that Joe Biden, Trump’s rival, opposes an-nexation and if elected will reverse US policy. Donald Trump is extremely popular in Israel, particularly after recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and relocating America’s em-bassy there the following year. This move was long re-quested by both conservative Israeli-Americans and also the evangelical “End Time” Christians, who are ardent Trump supporters and who believe that Jesus Christ will appear on earth once Jewish people control the city. It was also hugely popular with the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group backed by mega-do-nor Sheldon Adelson, who in 2016 gave the Trump cam-paign $30 million, followed by a $124 million donation to the Republican Party for the 2018 mid-term elections. In America, money buys outra-geous influence.

President Trump has al-ready shown his willingness to help Netanyahu in recog-nising land annexed by Israel. In March 2019, through a presidential proclamation, the United States recognised the Golan Heights as part of Israel, even though seen by the rest of the world as Syr-ian territory under Israeli military occupation. In one of the most extraordinary statements by any US Presi-dent, he admitted that this spontaneous gift was de-signed to help Netanyahu in the forthcoming Israeli elec-tions. Speaking in Las Vegas on 6 April last year at the Re-publican Jewish Coalition, Trump harked back to the March meeting with the US

ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and his own Jew-ish son-in-law, Jared Kush-ner. “I said, ‘Fellas, do me a favour. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I’m working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie.” After the bite-size history lesson, Trump then continued: “How do you like the idea of me recognising ex-actly what we’re discussing?” Trump claimed that Fried-man, an arch supporter of Israel, was shocked and asked if he would actually do it. “I went—Bing!—it was done. We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions.” Typi-cally, Trump is unaware of the hypocrisy in recognising annexation of land by Israel and condemning the same of Russia when it annexed the Crimea in 2014. A govern-ment’s moral authority dis-appears with hypocrisy.

So now we know how American foreign policy is formulated today, from the mouth of the President him-self. This will not surprise you if you’ve read John Bolton’s new book, “The Room Where it Happened”, which paints the picture of a reckless and confused President, addicted to chaos, whose waking hours are dedicated solely to being re-elected for a second term.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s an-nexation plans were given a rocket-boost in January this year when President Trump announced in a ceremony in the East Room of the White

House his “deal of the centu-ry”. The two backslappingly beamed at each other as the guests from the entourages of the two leaders clapped and whooped. Trump claimed he had found a new way to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel would get the security it needed and the Palestinians would get the state they craved. So far so good. Except that the Trump plan gave Netanyahu all he wanted, and offered the Palestinians virtually noth-ing; a sort of state that will be truncated, without proper sovereignty, surrounded by Israel’s territory and threaded between Jewish settlements. It’s not surprising the Pales-tinians rejected the ridiculous “deal of the century” out of hand.

The curious thing about the “deal of the century” is that it isn’t a deal at all, at least not between the two protagonists, Israel and the Palestinians. In reality, it’s a deal between the US and Israel, whose two positions are now aligned. Perhaps that was the reason why no Palestinian was present at the ceremony, unlike former “deals” such as the Oslo Ac-cord. Then, a beaming Bill Clinton presided over a cer-emony on the White House lawn attended by Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s greatest war leader, and Yasser Arafat, the human embodiment of Pal-estinian hopes for freedom. The two bitter enemies even shook hands!

Throughout all the years of mediation in peace talks between Israel and the Pal-estinians, the top US priori-ties have always been Israel’s wishes, constraints and most

of all its security. But succes-sive US Presidents accepted that peace required a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, even if they were not prepared to allow it equal sovereignty. Israel argues that the Palestinians turned down a series of good offers. The Palestinian negotiators say they made huge conces-sions, not least in accepting Israel’s existence in occupy-ing around a whopping 78% of their historic homeland. It’s odd that the self-confessed “world’s greatest dealmak-er”, Donald Trump, seems to have forgotten that a “deal” requires agreement on both sides.

Outside of Israel, the “deal of the century” has few, if any supporters. Jordan’s King Abdullah has warned that the annexation plan would threaten regional stability, adding that it would lead to massive conflict. The EU has reminded Israel that the move would be contrary to international law and has threatened sanctions. On Wednesday, over 1,000 par-liamentarians across Europe signed a letter strongly op-posing the annexation plans. There has even been a chorus of disapproval from respect-ed former Israeli military, intelligence and diplomatic officials in denouncing any unilateral annexation as a grave risk to Israel’s security. Their views have been sup-ported by hundreds of Israe-lis, mostly the young, who protested in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square last week. Arab lead-ers have warned that annex-ation would threaten Israel’s progress in forging ties with their countries, in part over their common adversary in

Tehran, progress which Ne-tanyahu has brandished as proof of his statesmanship.

Along with a team of 50 experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Pales-tinian leadership insists that Netanyahu’s plan would formalise a system of “apart-heid” in the West Bank, simi-lar to that existing in South Africa years ago: two peoples ruled by one state with un-equal rights. They view Is-rael’s occupation “a source of profound human rights violations against the Pales-tinian people which would only intensify after annexa-tion”. Even Israeli opposition figures from Jewish major-ity parties view the plan as a nightmare, tarnishing Is-rael’s global image.

Despite all the opposition to his plans, Prime Minister Netanyahu says he is deter-mined to go ahead with the annexation, provided he re-tains the support of the White House. There are, however, some last minute signs that external pressure might per-suade him to postpone the move, using the cover of the coronavirus. He might even make do with an interim sym-bolic declaration of sovereign-ty over settlements around Je-rusalem. This would change little on the ground, but might be digestible by Israel’s Arab neighbours, allowing Benja-min Netanyahu, the son of a history professor, a place in Israeli history for himself.

If he does go ahead on Tuesday, however, expect fireworks!John Dobson is a former Brit-ish diplomat and worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s

The United States is keeping a close watch on China. The assertiveness and “arbitrary dominance” of Beijing over regional powers—Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia—in the South China Sea has pushed President Donald Trump’s administration to signal the world about its “war readiness” against the Dragon. The border clashes with India last week have only precipitated US’ anger against Beijing. In fact, it has given Washington DC an excuse to mobilize forces and get battle ready to “safe-guard India and Southeast Asia against ‘expansionist’ China”.

Thrice in the past week, US Secretary of State Mike Pom-peo has slammed China for its “aggressive expansionism” in the Indo-Pacific region. He has also talked about moving US troops from Europe to South-East Asia in the Pa-

cific waters to what he calls, “protecting regional allies and ‘friends’ against China.” Both President Trump and Secre-tary Pompeo have criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping for “trying to change the sta-tus quo unilaterally in East and South China Seas, on the India border and Hong Kong.” Think tank experts in DC are anticipating certain possible scenarios. Is the US heading for a full-blown war against China? Will India be involved? Will the Indo-Pa-cific waters be the new war theatre? Many in Washington DC still view Secretary Pom-peo’s “battle readiness” as a “political exigency and stra-tegic posturing” by President Trump, currently battling the heat of presidential elec-tions and corona handling criticism and “trying to over-whelm that with a stronger anti-China rant”.

But one thing is almost cer-tain that India should be pre-pared for more disturbances from the side of China as it is not going to de-escalate as pledged in diplomatic brief-ings in both sides. Michael Kugelman, Deputy Director of Woodrow Wilson Center, told The Sunday Guardian: “Beijing will try to push harder—either by refusing to remove all its forces on the Indian side of the LAC, or by staging new incursions.”

This may give the US even stronger reasons to march

ahead in the Indo-Pacific region as it had already pressed its three aircraft carriers there, much to the irritation of Beijing, already frustrated over the US sup-port to Taiwan and Hong Kong. Kugelman elaborates by saying, “I don’t think we should overlook by any mea-sure the fact that the US has sent aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. There is a lot of signalling going on here from Washington’s part, to project power and, perhaps, an implicit warning to China to ease up on its provocations there.”

On the possibility of a war, going by Secretary Pompeo’s mood, Kugelman added, “I wouldn’t go that far. As hos-tile as the US-China rela-tionship has become, I don’t expect a conflict. Neither side wants one, and neither side can afford one. Expect plenty of angry rhetoric—and espe-cially from both presidential candidates on the US election campaign trail—and more provocations from China in areas that are a key to US strategic interests.”

US’ strategic interests cur-rently include India, ASEAN nations, Taiwan and Hong Kong and the Quad alliance partners. The “virtual battle front—the Indo-Pacific re-gion” has many genuine reasons to be one in the near future. Satu P Limaye, Vice President and Director of

East West Center in Wash-ington, is an expert on the Indo-Pacific region. He says, China will persistently press reunification with Taiwan and territorial and maritime claims across the region. It has used force before and will continue to use a combination of force and grey zone tac-tics. The US appreciates the China challenges to Taiwan and territorial and maritime claims and is seeking to de-velop capabilities and to work with allies and partners on deterrence, dissuading and defending against China.

Hinting that the US-China rift is here to stay, Limaye said: “China sees Taiwan and Hong Kong as part of its reunification and territo-rial claims. I see no prospect of China backing down on these claims and efforts at reunification.”

Another Asia expert and Director in Hudson Institute, Aparna Pande explains the shift in US policy against Chi-na by saying, “For some years now, the US has changed its view about China’s long-term objectives. The US strategic community understands that China’s aim of global pre-eminence is harmful to American national interests. Secretary Pompeo, both in his tweets and in his speech, has addressed China’s latest moves, from Hong Kong to Senkaku islands to South China Sea and the India-

China border. The US views India as a strong strategic partner and will always sup-port a democracy against an autocracy.”

Will China see this as a threat or defy the US military challenge in the Indo-Pacific region? Kugelman says, “I think it’s a combination of many things. On the one hand this is China sending a message that it can stage these provocations just because it can. In effect, while much of the world-including the US is bogged down by Covid-19, China has sufficiently recov-ered and has the ability to demonstrate strength and clout. This is also a case of defiance. While the world has developed a consensus in opposition to China’s problematic initial response to Covid-19, Beijing is keen to show that it’s still a global player to be reckoned with.”

Limaye argues that he doesn’t see “China being arbitrarily assertive”, but he wants the US to work against the challenges posed by China. The EWC Direc-tor told this newspaper: “It has clear though expansive illegal claims and threatening actions and coercion.

In other words, China has national sovereignty am-bitions outside of interna-tional law and frightening to neighbours. The US should continue to work with allies and partners to refine and in-

crease deterrence, dissuasion and defence.”

Pande, however, echoes Ku-gelman. She added: “China has the ability to make multi-ple moves across various the-atres and it has done so tak-ing advantage of global focus on Covid-19. China has done so both for domestic reasons (to shore up legitimacy and show strength) and for inter-national reasons (change the global narrative that blamed China for Covid-19 and again demonstrate China’s military prowess).”

This is all part of a broader power game, with Beijing trying to push back against its bitter-and most powerful-rival, the US, says Kugelman adding: “One can draw a straight line between Chi-na’s increasingly muscular moves in the South China Sea, its worrisome rhetoric and moves with Hong Kong and Taiwan, and increasing US support for Hong Kong and Taiwan—even as the US-China relationship continues to plummet.”

The experts see a close relation between China’s growing anger and frustra-tion over its worsening ties with the US and the recent “bloody” border clashes with Indian forces on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Li-maye says, the causes of the most recent flare up of border clashes between China and India are the most serious in

decades. He said: “Precisely why is unclear. The basic problem of both countries un-demarcated LAC and ongoing efforts to reinforce capacity and infrastructure at the border appears to be the primary cause. I do think this is mostly a local issue rather than part of a grand strategy on the part of China.”

Pande, however, sees the India-China clashes as a product of many factors, but the key point is that China is a revisionist power that has never accepted the borders it inherited and has always sought to change them.

“The internal domestic le-gitimacy challenges faced by President Xi Jinping and de-sire to push back against any internal or external criticism are additional immediate rea-sons,” Pande said.

To Kugelman, China’s an-ger against India is a “com-bination of factors”. He says, “Unhappiness with Indian infrastructure building, op-position to India’s Article 370 repeal—which, let’s not for-get, affected Ladakh—and a strong desire to send defiant messages to Washington and New Delhi as their relation-ship grows, and to a broader international community that has hit out at China for its initial coronavirus re-sponses.”

Pande sees China “miscal-culating” in the recent border clashes with India. “If India

rises above these challenges and becomes the global player that countries like the US and others in Asia would like In-dia to become, then China will have truly made a mis-take with the border clashes,” Pande said.

Additionally, the growing Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region may alienate Beijing further from Washington’s diplomatic and economy channels. Added Kugelman: “If anything, China’s assertiveness will only cause the US to double down on its partnerships with its treaty allies—such as South Korea and Japan—that are directly impacted by Beijing’s South China Sea moves, and to accentuate the important role that Washing-ton envisions India playing in the US Indo-Pacific strategy.”

Not to miss some key play-ers, an expert in Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific, Li-maye feels that Sri Lanka and Myanmar are increas-ingly important in a contested Indo-Pacific region.

“The US reopened full rela-tions with Myanmar in 2012, but they are quite limited on the security front. Sri Lanka has received more attention. The US should continue to seek opportunities to work with both including through the maritime security initia-tive and with other allies and partners such as India and Japan,” Limaye concluded.

“THE GREATEST FRIEND”

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APARTHEID OR WAR? DANGEROUS TIMES IN THE LEVANTAnnexation would create an explosion of resentment among the Palestinian population, leading to revenge attacks on Israel and possibly even war.

JOHN DOBSONLONDON

MANEESH PANDEYA

CLOSE WATCH

India as key US partner will face more trouble from rogue China

TRAGIC

2 AFGHAN HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS KILLED IN KABUL BLASTKABUL: Two Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AI-HRC) staffers were killed on Saturday in a bomb blast in Kabul, police said.

The blast took place at around 7.45 am in the capital city’’s Botkhak when the two staffers were on the way to work. “The blast caused by a magnetic Improvised Explosive Device (IED) tar-geted” the car they were travelling in, Kabul police spokesperson Firdaws Faramarz told Efe news.

Muhammad Reza Jafari, an AIHRC spokesperson, told Efe news that the vic-tims comprised a female, but refused to reveal their identities. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the at-tack. The attack triggered widespread condemnation from rights and aid groups in the country. REUTERS

CRIME

KNIFEMAN STABS SIX BEFORE BEING SHOT BY POLICEGLASGOW: A man stabbed six people includ-ing a policeman in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Friday before he was shot dead by police. An eyewit-ness told Sky News she had seen several people covered in blood being treated by the emergency services after the incident at a city centre hotel. Police listed the attacker as the only fatality, despite earlier media reports that he had killed two other people. REUTERS

CORONAVIRUS

FRAGILE HEALTHCARE

‘SAFE LIST’

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NEW U.S. CASES HIT 45,242 IN BIGGEST ONE-DAY INCREASE

Hard-hit US states ‘surge’ hospital intensive care beds as ICU wards fill up

EU holds off decision on borders, Americans set to be excluded

The United States re-corded 45,242 new cases of COVID-19

on Friday, the largest single-day increase of the pandemic, according to a Reuters tally, bringing the total number of Americans who have tested positive to at least 2.48 mil-lion.

The new record for positive COVID-19 tests comes as sev-eral states at the center of a new surge in infections took steps back from efforts to ease restrictions on businesses. COVID-19 is the respiratory illness caused by the corona-virus.

Governor Greg Abbott ordered bars across Texas

to close by mid-day and re-quired restaurants to limit indoor seating capacity to 50%, while Florida state officials told bars to imme-diately stop serving alcohol on their premises. Abbot’s an-nouncement stunned Texas bar owners, who said the governor, a Republican in his second term, had given them little notice. Mark Martinez, owner of a Lubbock beer garden, learned only when friends texted him the news at around 8 a.m. “I spent thousands of dollars in in-ventory getting ready for this weekend. I could have really used that (money) for my rent, which is due next week,” said Martinez, 44. “We were just getting to where we could pay the bills,”

said Tish Keller, owner of the Triple J Chophouse and Brew Co. in downtown Lubbock. “Taking us back down to 50% capacity means we won’t have enough business to pay staff, let alone the bills.”

Keller said she didn’t know how long she could stay open and dreaded trying to save her business from ruin twice in one year.

CASES SURGE IN FLORIDAFlorida issued its new rules after recording a startling 8,942 new cases of COVID-19, eclipsing the state’s one-day record of 5,511 reached on 24 June. California Governor Gavin Newsom said Friday that Imperial County, south-east of Los Angeles, has be-

come so overwhelmed by the virus that he was recom-mending it issue a strict new stay-at-home order.

Imperial County health of-ficials later tweeted that its stay-at-home order imposed in March remained in place. The county board of super-visors scheduled a meeting for Friday night to consider further action.

Newsom has paused allow-ing counties to further reopen their economies in response to rising COVID-19 hospital-izations. In Alaska, Anchor-age Mayor Ethan Berkowitz issued an emergency order requiring residents to wear masks in public, indoor spaces after the state identi-fied 836 cases as of Friday, 387 of them in his city. Texas

had been at the forefront of states peeling away restric-tions designed to control the pandemic, allowing bars to reopen in May.

It has since witnessed some of the biggest spikes in new cases, reporting 5,996 on Thursday. The state has also seen record numbers of hos-pitalizations in the last two weeks.

Almost 125,000 Americans have died of COVID-19, the highest known death toll from the highly infections disease in the world. Despite the grim news from Texas, Florida and elsewhere, Presi-dent Donald Trump said on Friday the United States was coming back from the crisis, which has halted large parts of the economy and left mil-

lions jobless.“We have a little work to do,

and we’ll get it done. We’re having some very good num-bers coming out in terms of the comeback, the comeback of our nation, and I think it’s going very rapidly and it’s go-ing to be very good,” he said at an event in the White House.

Vice President Mike Pence said that in Texas and Florida “we’re seeing more and more young people, under the age of 35, who are testing positive. In many cases they have no symptoms.”

Also reporting record rises in cases this week were Ala-bama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Okla-homa, South Carolina, Ten-nessee and Wyoming.REUTERS

Some Texas hospitals are running out of intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients, turning to surge ca-pacity that they expect will let them handle rising virus cases for another couple of weeks.

Spikes of cases in several U.S. states including Texas, Arizona and Florida are rais-ing concerns that the United States is relaxing lockdowns too fast and that hospitals may run out of space. Hous-ton has considered turning part of a local stadium com-plex into excess hospital ca-pacity - but local officials say that’s not currently part of their immediate plans.

The Texas Medical Center system in Houston was ex-pected to fill its last ICU bed

on Thursday, but it has cre-ated a COVID “war room” and can handle a 66% surge in additional ICU patients with strategies including re-assigning staff, delaying elec-tive procedures, putting beds closer together and using regular beds for emergency use. They calculate they will run out of space on July 6 if the current increase in Texas severe cases continues.

The ICU at nearby Houston Methodist was also nearly full as of Thursday. They are preparing to surge, and said that their experience with coronavirus patients has helped them save beds in the hospital’s ward for the most severe cases.

“We’re not intubating as many patients, we have lots of drugs like convalescent plasma and remdesivir, and our process of proning pa-tients, (putting them on their

stomachs) is allowing us to manage a lot more patients on acute care floors then we were able to do in March and April,” said hospital ICU chief Dr. Faisal Masud.

In Arizona, adult intensive care beds were 88% occupied statewide as cases continued to surge. Arizona’s Governor Doug Ducey said on Thurs-day that his state has the hospital capacity to handle the influx of patients despite increasing numbers of occu-pied hospital beds, intensive care beds and ventilators being used. “Our hospitals are likely to hit surge capac-ity very soon,” Ducey said, adding that the state could handle the influx. “Where we are right now and what we expect is manageable.” he said. Arizona has the ability to reopen a shuttered hospi-tal and open field hospitals to help handle surges in ill pa-

tients. In Florida, COVID hos-pital patients at AdventHealth Systems also are younger than earlier in the pandemic and less likely to need criti-cal care, said Dr. Vincent Hsu, AdventHealth’s infection control officer for Florida. “We’re not seeing nearly as sick patients as we had in the first part (of the outbreak),” Hsu said at a news confer-ence. “The patients that are coming in tend to be a little bit younger. And as a result, they don’t tend to utilize the significant ICU resources or the ventilator resources.” Ed Jimenez, chief Execu-tive of University of Florida Health’s Shands hospital in Gainesville, said that he could cut the number of patients in his hospital by a third by stopping elective procedures. “So we have levers we can pull that slow down the inflow of patients,” Jimenez said.

European Union countries failed to settle on Friday on a final “safe list” of countries whose residents could travel to the bloc from July, with the United States, Brazil and Rus-sia set to be excluded.Ambassadors from the 27 EU members convened from Friday afternoon to establish criteria for granting quaran-tine-free access from next Wednesday.

A redrawn text of 10-20 countries was put to them, but many said they needed to consult first with their governments, diplomats said.

The list did not include the United States, Brazil or Rus-sia, one diplomat said. The countries are expected to give informal replies by Saturday evening.

The European Commission had advised that the bloc first lift internal border controls and then gradually open up to outsiders. However, the first step has not gone according to plan.

Greece is mandating COV-ID-19 tests for arrivals from a range of EU countries, including France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, with self-isolation until results are known. The Czech Republic has said it will not allow in tourists from Portugal, Swe-den and part of Poland.

There is broad agreement that the bloc should only open up to those with a similar or better epidemiological situa-tion, but there are questions about how to assess a coun-try’s handling of the epidemic and the reliability of data.

A number of countries, such as Tanzania, Turkmenistan

and Laos have no reported cases in the past two weeks, according to EU agency, the European Centre for Dis-ease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Based on ECDC data for the two weeks to Thursday, a range of countries are clearly in a worse situation than the European Union.

They include the United States, Mexico, Brazil and much of Latin America, Rus-sia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.

The Commission has sug-gested the western Balkans countries - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Mace-donia and Serbia - should be admitted. However, accord-ing to the ECDC data, the number of cases in Bosnia and North Macedonia could be too high. REUTERS

Florida issued its new rules after recording a startling 8,942 new cases of COVID-19, eclipsing the state’s one-day record of 5,511 reached on 24 June.

RESOLVE

MARTIN NAMED NEW IRISH PRIME MINISTER, VOWS TO TACKLE DEEP RECESSIONDUBLIN: Ireland’s parliament picked veteran op-position leader Micheál Martin as prime minister on Saturday to head the first ever coalition uniting the two parties that have battled each other for power since a civil war nearly a century ago. He pledged to rescue Ireland from the “the fastest-moving recession ever to hit”, brought on by the coronavirus crisis.

Martin’s Fianna Fail party was forced to join forces with its foes Fine Gael, after a surprise election surge for leftist Irish nationalists Sinn Fein left neither of the traditional centrist parties with enough support to govern on its own.

They and are joined in coalition by the environmen-talist Greens. Under a novel agreement, Martin is expected to step aside half way through the five-year term to allow Fine Gael’s leader, outgoing Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, to return to the post. “There is no question what our most urgent work is.

There is no community, no part of our country which has escaped untouched” by coronavirus), Martin told a special sitting of lawmakers, held in Dublin’s large Convention Centre as the houses of parliament are too small for social distancing. To overcome the recession “we must act with urgency and ambition,” said Martin, close to tears as he thanked his family who were unable to travel from his native Cork due to coronavirus restrictions due to be eased on Monday. He was elected by 93 votes to 63 after also securing support from some independent members of parlia-ment.

The appointment represented a turnaround for Fianna Fail and Martin, who was a member of the government that signed up to an EU/IMF bailout a de-cade ago and led to an unprecedented 2011 electoral collapse just after he took over as leader. REUTERS

PRUDENT?

‘NO QUARANTINE FOR ARRIVALS FROM LOW RISK COUNTRIES’LONDON: Britain will ditch a 14-day quarantine period for people arriving from countries it deems to be lower risk for COVID-19 , the government said on Friday. Official travel advice against all but essential travel outside Britain will also be eased for some countries and regions. Taken together, these changes will make it easier for Britons to travel abroad for summer holidays. The relaxations are the latest taken by the government to unwind emergency measures put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19, as ministers look to limit the economic damage caused by the virus. An expert panel will put nations into three categories: green, amber and red. Passengers arriving from green and amber countries will no longer have to quarantine themselves for 14 days after their arrival. “Our new risk-assessment system will enable us to carefully open a number of safe travel routes around the world,” a government spokeswoman said. “But we will not hesitate to put on the brakes if any risks re-emerge.” The rules for red-category countries will not change. The quarantine policy, intro-duced on June 8, has been heavily criticised by airlines, airports and the hospitality sector who say it deters international travel at a time when they had been hoping for it to recover

CASES SURGE

ARGENTINA TIGHTENS BUENOS AIRES LOCKDOWN

BUENOS AIRES: Argen-tina will extend and tighten a lockdown in and around Buenos Aires following a sharp rise in cases of the novel coronavirus in recent weeks, President Alberto Fernandez said on Friday.The South American coun-try has done better than regional neighbors Brazil, Chile and Peru in control-ling the pandemic overall. But it has seen a worrying recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the densely popu-lated Argentine capital and surrounding Buenos Aires province. Overall cases in the country have risen five-fold since late May, hitting over 50,000 on Thursday when there were 2,606 new confirmed daily cases. The death toll stands at over 1,150.

BRAD BROOKSLUBBOCK

MICHAEL ERMAN & ROBIN RESPAUTUSA

PHILIP BLENKINSOPBRUSSELS

PLA TROOPS ARE AN ANXIOUS GROUP, RECALL INDIAN OFFICERS

NOT SUPERIOR

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ed at Leh until recently, told The Sunday Guardian.

In his interaction with his fellow officers of the PLA, the colonel learnt that the PLA officers compensate their low pay through au-thorised perks like free rations, liquor, cigarettes, domestic help, children’s school and college fees, ve-hicles etc.

“Basically, the officer cadre depends on these perks for survival, which is withdrawn very quickly on slightest suspicion. The majority of PLA officers are highly insecure about their career. The CCP (Commu-nist Party of China) con-trols the lifestyle of their individuals very closely. In a second incident, both my counterpart and I were alone (in a ceremony loosely called “private tea” by the Chinese). Both of us decided that once we join the tea party we will identify, from each other’s contingent, people who are not from the regular Army. I took about 5 minutes to do that with 100% accuracy; he took about 10 minutes—basically political commis-sars (political officers of the CCP) from their side and intelligence guys from our side. I could see the hate my counterpart had for the political commissars. I did not find the PLA a cohe-sive force like our infantry units,” the officer said.

An Indian officer was once told by his Chinese counterparts that most of them were on a four-year conscription that allowed them free further education if they served in the PLA.

“I discovered this once while standing at Nathu La when there were a lot of celebrations on their side. I called their compa-ny commander and asked him why his men were cel-ebrating. He told me that they were celebrating their ‘freedom’ as they were be-ing ‘released’ that day to pursue their studies. At that point, I wondered how many of them would die for their country voluntarily,” Colonel (Retd) Bhupinder Shahi recalled.

According to him, the PLA men were also known for showing aggression

when there was a camera or a video around.

“They were more inter-ested in capturing their ag-gression on camera, most probably to show it to their superiors. They would also take snaps of their GPS coordinates, to prove that they were exactly where they were ordered to be. In fact, I would offer them water, tea and pakoras once the aggression photo session was over. They even asked for water and tea after showing initial aggression on camera. Their psychological profil-ing will conclusively prove that should push come to shove, we will certainly get better of them in a localised environment,” said Shahi, who spent eight years in the Ladakh region in his 27-year-career and com-manded the Nathu La bri-gade.

Explaining the inhospita-ble terrain, Shahi said that it was one of the most in-hospitable terrains because of heights that start from 14,000 feet and go beyond 18,000 feet. “To explain it to you in layman’s terms, when we used to play cricket and when there was a possibility of taking two runs, we would take one as every step required massive efforts. Having a fistfight there is the most difficult task. Only those who have massive stamina and accli-matization built by staying in these areas for years can throw forceful punches be-yond two punches,” the of-ficer recalled.

Another serving officer who has been posted there recalled that until 2010-11, the infrastructure in the Ladakh region bordering China was very “inad-equate”. “Till 2010-2011, Jonga jeeps, Tata 407 pick-ups, Maruti Gypsies and horses were airdropped once every few months to patrol the area. Now, we are able to move heavy artillery in the same area with ease because of our roads that have come up which have irked the Chinese. Earlier, we had very weak boats and they would topple us as we patrolled our part of the Pangong Lake. Now we have Tampa boats and it is an equal fight now,” he said.

Colonel (Retired) L.P. Singh, who has consider-able experience of the LAC, said that it would be wrong to think that the Chinese were invincible.

“We are better trained, better led and better battle-hardened/inoculated than them at the tactical level for sure. There are many examples that many of our officers can offer you to substantiate what I am say-ing,” Singh said.

Singh recalled an inci-dent of August 2003 when he was posted in Ladakh Scouts and was deployed as Sub-Sector Commander at Track Junction, a point which is just short of the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) post. He was supported by two more companies from ITBP, overlooking the Dep-sang Plateau in the East.

“Daulat Beg Oldi, Gapsan and KK Pass were in my area of responsibility. KK Pass lies approximately 8 km from DBO and 12 km from Track Junction. The LAC is on the east of the posts. Regular patrolling to various points and loca-tions including KK Pass was carried out by both of us. Every time we went to KK Pass and other patrol-ling points we would find tell-tale signs left behind by the Chinese patrols to say that the territory be-longed to them. We would replace them with our boo-ties to convey the same to them. The varying percep-tion of LAC delineation on ground has been the major reason for calling every transgression of the adver-sary’s patrol as LAC viola-tion. Our patrols would also traverse up to the line of our perception. So, it was very much possible that two patrolling parties of the adversaries could come face to face at some point of time. But then there was SOP laid down to deal with such situations. I am sure it exists even today. In the event of face-to-face con-frontation, the two sides would follow the SOP and eventually return to bases without getting into physi-cal fight,” Singh told The Sunday Guardian.

“However, on one fine morning in the month of August 2003 around 8 am, the Chinese decided

to cross even their own perceived LAC and come right into our territory. Our OP (Observation Post) was reporting the move-ment continuously right from sighting the Chinese patrolling party from the time when they were well inside their territory to the crossing of our perceived LAC to the crossing of their perceived LAC. The situ-ation drastically changed when their truck didn’t stop at their perceived LAC and continued to move to-wards our Tactical HQ. We swung into action. I quick-ly moved with my section Quick Reaction Team to confront the erring Chi-nese and we blocked them approximately 600 meters from our tactical HQ. As a drill, I issued warning orders to the ITBP Com-pany commander and the DBO Post Commander to mobilise. They were 10 and so were we. Both sides dismounted from their re-spective vehicles and got deployed,” he recalled.

“Were we without weap-ons? No sir, we were with our personal weapons with on-weapon ammunition. While the troops were de-ployed on ground to limit the other side from getting out-manoeuvred, I, with my operator in tow, was trying to communicate with the Chinese patrol leader as per the SOP ask-ing them to go back. The Chinese responded back by saying ‘No English’. The clever Chinese officer had come prepared. He had his second section of men as reserve waiting in the depth. This became clear to us when I was try-ing to communicate with the Chinese. We were out-numbered by twice the strength. We remained encircled for 45 minutes. However, I had made my orders very clear to the rest of us that if they got physi-cal, we would fire. Then the first reinforcement of our men arrived and in another 30 minutes, two more platoons from DBO arrived. Now, the game had changed drastically. We were overwhelmingly six times superior in number to them,” Singh said.

“The arrogance of the Chinese officer and his

troops had vanished. All this time I was in constant touch with my Battalion HQ located at Partapur and the Divisional HQ at Karu. I had asked all my troops to take tactical po-sitions on the ground and had made my orders clear to the respective Platoon Commanders that they were free to fire if I became a casualty. At that time, I with my operator and three more, were the only ones exposed,” Singh recalled.

“Taking film shots from our newly acquired digital camera and handycam was important. Finally, the re-sistance in the Chinese of-ficer gave way to reasona-bleness. He lifted both his hands and started walking towards me along with an-other soldier. I asked him to halt 2 metres away from me. His name plate was in English, read Tashi and was a Lieutenant. He had to be a Tibetan. He told me in ‘English’ that they want-ed to go back. The circum-stances had changed 180 degrees from asking us to go back to requesting us to let them go back. Finally, at approximately 1600 hours, I was asked to let them go back. During this inter-vening period, we made them sit on the ground. We give them tea, biscuits and shakkarparas. Some of them took it, others didn’t. Then we did the ‘repatria-tion’ our way. I conveyed to Lt Tashi that they could go back, but they would have to remove the maga-zine from their weapons, keep all the weapons in one truck, magazines and ammunition in the second truck, troops distributed in the two vehicles, but with-out weapons on the body. They complied surpris-ingly. I in my Gypsy and four section escorts in four 2.5 tonnes (with the rest deployed on ground giving us cover) led them further 1 km across our perceived LAC. They went back and we returned to Tac HQ. The Chinese didn’t show up in that area again in my balance two months there,” Singh said.

All such incidents were shared by these officers with their higher-ups, as per the rules, as and when they had taken place.

ernment of Jammu and Kashmir, 44,837 registered mi-

grants are settled in Jammu, 19,338 registered migrants are in Delhi-NCR and a total of 1,995 registered mi-grants are settled in a few other states and union ter-ritories.

On the steps being taken to provide relief and reha-bilitation to the Kashmir Pandits, the reply says, “At present, monthly cash relief of Rs 3,250 per head with the ceiling of Rs 13,000 per family and monthly dry ra-tion of 9 kg of rice, 2 kg ata per head and 1 kg sugar per family are provided to the Kashmiri migrants.” The RTI reply further reveals that under the Prime Min-ister’s relief package 2008, approval was given to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir for creation 3,000 state government jobs to

Kashmiri migrants, out of which 2,905 posts have been filled. Prime Minis-

ter’s development package 2015 also had given an ap-proval for creation of 3,000

additional jobs to Kashmir migrants at a cost of Rs 1,080 crore and for con-

struction of 6,000 transit accommodation in Kash-mir Valley for the migrants

who were provided jobs un-der both PMRP-2008 and PMDP-2015.

Prafful Sarda said: “On the one hand terrorists are killing these Kashmiri Pan-dits and, on the other, they are having to survive on inadequate relief material—is this enough? How can a family of four survive with just 1 kg sugar and 2 kg atta? How do they expect people to live and survive like this? Nothing has changed for these people.”

Sarda also claims that there is a difference in the information regarding the number of migrants who left, when the same was sought in 2017. The re-sponse to Sarda’s 2017 RTI stated, “Due to onset of mili-tancy in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s, most of the Kash-miri Pandit families along with some Sikh and Mus-lim families migrated from Kashmir valley to Jammu, Delhi and other parts of the country. More than 40,000

registered migrant Kash-miri families are residing in Jammu, about 19,000 registered Kashmiri fami-lies are living in Delhi and remaining 2,000 families are settled in other states.” The 2017 RTI reveals a fig-ure of a total of 61,000 fami-lies which is different from the February 2020 RTI that states that 64,827 families have migrated.

Sarda said: “More effec-tive steps and better reha-bilitation policy should be implemented for the sur-vival of these Kashmiri Pan-dits. No political party made any real efforts to take care of our very own Kashmiri Pandits. It’s been more than 30 years and our own peo-ple are treated as refugees in our country. Hope the abolition of Article 370 will get them some justice in all forms—in education, jobs, safety, security and house instead of transit camps.”

RAW DEAL

‘Kashmiri Pandits getting inadequate relief material’

state governments, forest clearances, encroachment

issues and complications arising out of adhering to requirements of the Company’s Law.

Some bureaucrats who attended the meeting proposed changes in the guidelines for disposal of the land. They suggested that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Committee of Secretaries should consider modifications in the Company’s Law for reserving land assets for attracting in-vestments in the post Covid-19 situation.

It is learnt that Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant proposed that the leasehold land without any precondition should be treated as Central gov-ernment assets rather than returning it to the state governments. He suggested that a sepa-rate vertical within NBCC should be formed to manage and hold the land on behalf of the Government of India rather than the land being transferred back to the Administrative Minis-try/Department.

It was also suggested that NBCC may be a suit-able organisation to hold and manage the land assets. Some bureaucrats said that the prospec-tive entrepreneurs are being pursued by state governments and private industry associations. It was suggested that the lease holding land may be returned to the state governments.

A view was expressed that land is a state sub-ject and for setting up new industries, it has to be made available by the state governments. It was also proposed that the land could be transferred to the state governments at circle rate. And that a case-by-case review of land transfer needs to be undertaken after duly consulting the minor-ity stakeholders.

Some officials were also of the view that if the land is transferred back to the administra-tive department or the ministry concerned, the extant rules of GFR would be applicable. A suggestion was made that the land may be transferred to an intermediary agency like National Building Construction Corpora-tion. However, NBCC officials present in the meeting said they would not have the requisite financial capability to purchase all the land on offer from the CPSEs.

In order to expedite the closure of the sick CPSEs, it was decided that the Department of Public Enterprise may move an amendment in their guidelines regarding transfer of land of sick/negative net worth companies to the administrative ministries, at book value. Such transferred land could be used in priority sec-tors of the government, including inter alia, investments in key economic sectors and af-

fordable housing.It was proposed through the existing inter-

ministerial group of DIPAM under the asset monetisation framework, DPE may coordinate to identify the appropriate use of such lands and work out the modalities for further transfer/disposal to the ministry/entity concerned.

Relevant ministries and organisations like DPIIT, MOHUA and others may be made part of the Inter Ministerial Group as may be required. NBCC or any other entity as decided by the IMG may manage/handle the land, for being utilised in the identified priority sectors of the government.

The leasehold lands, those without any pre-conditions, may also be treated in a similar way. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs could issue necessary orders/clarifications for the expedi-tious closure of sick CPSEs as soon as possible.

Several changes in the existing guidelines for disposal of land were also discussed in the meeting. Proposals were given that the existing criteria of circle rate of the area or average price of the similar sized land assets in nearby areas in last three years may be replaced with only circle rate of the area as reserve price. The earlier system of land management agency of CPSE such as NBCC, EPIL which manage, maintain and assist in disposal of land, may be changed.

As per the new proposal, land management agency powers may be given to the administrative ministry, CPSE, wherever it is already engaged in the disposal of land. For disposal through open bidding, the administrative ministry may appoint a transaction advisor from the empanelled agen-cies of DIPAM.

At present, 10 CPSEs under closure have 5369.267 acres of land. The government is of the view that since the area is already developed and has proper infrastructure, it could be gain-fully used for setting up a production base for new companies.

The idea of selling land belonging to redun-dant sick CPSEs is in line with the government’s mission of Atma Nirbhar Bharat. Acquisition of land has been a major hurdle in Foreign Direct Investment and foreign corporates setting up their production hubs in India.

It appears to be a good policy, provided the government comes up with a single hassle-free window system for land acquisition, so that at least one of the major hurdles in setting up manufacturing units in India is taken care of. Sources added that the recommendations made in the meeting have been sent to Dr P.K. Mishra, Principal Secretary and P.K. Sinha, Principal Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Officer.

ried about the muted demand in the aviation sec-tor despite partly

opening up air travel. Many believe this is due to the fear of infection and lack of proper information with the general masses about the safety and security of air travel. “Many are also avoiding trav-

el because of strict quarantine rules in many states. We are seeing a drop in demand com-pared to the same period last year. We are doing everything possible to instil confidence amongst our flyers,” the of-ficer from the low-cost carrier quoted earlier said.

Some from the aviation industry also want interna-

tional operations to restart in a controlled manner so as to increase their share of revenue. They say that since the spread of infection while flying is minimal and with strict regulations in place in almost every country across the world, the industry could well look into re-starting in-ternational operations.

CPSE LAND

COVID AFFECTED

More than 5,000 acres of government land may go up for sale soon

AVIATION SECTOR WANTS FULL CAPACITY DOMESTIC OPERATIONS

the big storythe sunday guardian28 june–04 july 2020

new delhi 17WWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

Amid threats from China at the borders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi

has sought realistic ideas from his Council of Ministers to transform the country into a global manu-facturing hub.

The Prime Minister has asked Ministers to come up with origi-

nal and realistic ideas that can be transformed into a policy to promote industrial growth and create jobs.

At the 165-minute virtual in-teraction that started at 5 p.m. on June 20, the Prime Minister asked the Ministers to put the economy on a growth trajectory.

The interaction was about Chi-na and manufacturing challenges before India. The virtual platform

was set up by the National Infor-matics Centre.

A few Ministers, including the Defence Minister and the Exter-nal Affairs Minister, were not present at the interaction.

On June 19, the Ministers were informed about the agenda of the interaction. When the Prime Minister asked them to make their presentations of imple-mentable suggestions, except one,

all were “caught unprepared”.The Prime Minister “pulled

up” a few Ministers for not do-ing much, sources said. He said Ministers were not kings and queens or belonged to royalties. He said all (the Ministers) had “struggled from the ground” over years to reach this position and yet no innovative ideas were coming out, said several sources who confirmed about the meet-

ing to IANS.A furious Prime Minister said

he didn’t want ideas from the de-partments, the ministries or the bureaucrats and asked Ministers to come up with their “own origi-nal and realistic ideas that can be implemented”.

He also said how the bureau-crats were reluctant to new thoughts or ideas of governance during his first tenure and asked

the Ministers not to take bureau-crats’ words as final.

Pointing out that the key driv-er of India’s current economic growth is the services sector, the Prime Minister asked them to concentrate on how to make the country a global manufacturing hub.

Later on June 25, a few Minis-ters went to the Prime Minister’s residence and presented between

11 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. their sugges-tions and thoughts how India could become a manufacturing hub.

There is a growing distrust against China and the govern-ment is looking to reduce the trade dependence. The Prime Minister has decided to make In-dia self-dependent and push to make the country a manufactur-ing hub. IANS

SAGE ADVICE

a i n . I n my recent book Reset [published by Rupa in Sep-

tember 2019], I have placed an estimate of this loot si-phoned off to Britain at $71 trillion [our GDP in 2018-18 was $2.5 trillion].

The purpose of this review of our past is to emphasise that India, having at one time been the most devel-oped nation, should not de-spair today when faced with the huge crisis caused by a conjunction of two decades of mismanaged economy, a coronavirus pandemic that has paralysed us for four months running, and a looming cross border war with China.

India has always prevailed in the end no matter what crisis or holocaust is im-posed on us. The Islamic invasion and brutal rule of six centuries, followed by 150 years of extracting India’s resources and the brain washing of the In-dian mindset by the British (which served to create a Stockholm Syndrome) was ultimately defeated without our getting converted to the Islamic faith. Nation after nation capitulated when Is-lamic or Christian led forces imposed conversion to their religion. Iran, Mesopota-mia, Babylon, Egypt are examples of almost 100% of the population convert-ing to Islam. So too Europe converted to Christianity, 100%. But not India—de-spite 600 years of Islamic rule followed by 150 years of Christian-favouring British rule. Today, despite amputa-tion of its territories, India is still 82.5% Hindu.

After 1947, India has stum-bled on an unsuitable eco-nomic ideology of socialism

and crony capitalism, faced a famine like situation (1965-68) and a crippling foreign exchange crisis (1990-91).

Especially abroad, dire predictions were made of the imminent collapse of the Indian economy; and yet not only did India come through but it got onto a new higher path of growth termed as “green revolu-tion” and “great libera-tion”. Left wing economists sneered at India as a “beg-gar” or predicted that India was condemned to live with the “Hindu rate of growth” of 3% per year in GDP. But not only did India become self-sufficient in food grains, but it also achieved an 8% growth per year in GDP till 2016. The world over it was discussed as to when India would overtake China.

But since 2016, because of the lack of a deep under-standing of how economies can be made to grow, India’s growth rate declined steadi-ly. In the financial year 2019-20, that is the pre-coronavi-rus pandemic onset, India’s GDP growth rate had de-clined to 4%. For a projected estimate for 2020-21 it is estimated to be less than minus 5%. Is it credible any-more that India can catch up with China, leave alone overtake that country?

How wide is the China-India gap today, measured in four dimensions of eco-nomic progress: (1) Growth factors; (2) Globalisation; (3) Financial structure; (4) Hu-man Development Index.

GROWTH FACTORS: Be-tween 1980 and 2004, the GDP growth rate of China was maintained at a much faster pace that made for a widening gap with India’s growth rate. During this period, typically the Chi-

nese average growth rate was 75% higher than the In-dian rate of growth. The per capita income (which was almost the same in 1980 for both countries) diverged sharply in the two decades that followed—to China’s advantage.

Evaluated in purchasing parity terms (PPP), the gap was 86% in favour of China, not only because of a higher growth rate of GDP but also because of a lower growth rate of population.

In 1952, China’s popula-tion was 57% higher than India’s. In the 1990s, it was just 28% higher. At present, China’s population is grow-ing at less than 1.0% per year while India’s popula-tion is expanding at 1.7% per year.

At these rates, India will overtake China’s popula-tion by 2025 AD. Earlier China had an ambitious plan to reach zero popula-tion growth by 2020 to level at 1.5 billion people. If that were so, then India would have overtaken China in population size by 2016.

But since 2005 China has realised that the drastic one child per family was aging its population (to be judged by the average age of the population). Thus, the one child per family target has been abandoned. At present the average age of the In-dian population is 27 years, while for China it is 35 years. India’s population projected to 2019 is about 1.28 billion while China is 1.36 billion.

China has a higher growth rate of GDP than India ever since 1980. However, it should be noted that the gap has narrowed partly due to the slowdown of China’s growth rate since 2005, and partly because India’s

growth rate rose during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure as Prime Minister from less than 4% average during the 1980s to 8% in 1995-96.

China’s higher growth rate was made possible by a much higher rate of growth of gross domestic invest-ment (as a ratio of GDI)—which was about 70% more than India’s. The rate of growth of GDP was double the rate in India.

One can therefore con-clude that the wide gap be-tween India and China in per capita incomes (which gap was about zero in 1980) was partly due to a lower population growth, but primarily due to a much great investment ef-fort in China.

India cannot close this per capita income gap by 2025, without a much faster GDP growth rate (e.g. 10% per year); and for this, there will have to be made an even greater effort to raise the level of investment. This is easier said than done.

Since 1997, the GDI as a ra-tio of GDP has been falling, albeit erratically due to con-sumerism and low interest rates on fixed deposits and savings. Hence, a dynamic policy design for such an ac-celerated effort will have to be resolutely implemented to raise the level of saving.

However judging by indi-cator of productivity, China is not that far ahead of India. The proportion of irrigated land in agriculture is only 16% higher in China. Gross cropped area under good crops was however 30% lower, although yield was 2.87 times higher.

Agriculture value added per agricultural worker is just 17% more in China. Surprisingly, while in India

commercial energy use per capita (in kg) of oil equiva-lent is almost double that in China, the efficiency in its use measured by its ratio to GDP is higher in India. This obtains despite China having 2.35 times more scientists and engineers in R&D activities than India. It is clear if productivity in agriculture is systematically raised in India, then India can overtake China. At the Chinese yield per hectare level, India can produce 579 million tonnes of food grains as compared to less than half that amount in India, at today’s technology and ground reality.

In information technol-ogy, China has completely out-stripped India in hard-ware items of technology, even if it is behind India in software. High technology exports in China as a per-centage of manufacturing exports are almost double that in India.

The availability of com-puters per 1,000 persons in China is four times that in India. Even in number of in-ternet hosts, despite China being a controlled society, the per 10,000 people ratio is only slightly higher than in India.

China has 10 times more mobile phones per capita than India, almost three times more telephone main lines, and four times more TV sets per capita.

China had 6.2 times more patent applications filed by foreigners. Chinese resi-dents filed 7.1 times more such applications than In-dians in their own country. Indians need not therefore be too smug in the thought that India is ahead of China in software because Indian computer engineers are

already beginning to get outpriced by huge salaries being paid by Fortune 500 companies in outsourcing.

Thus, Chinese, Russians and Irish engineers can, some time in the future, be lower cost alternatives to Indians, and Fortune 500 companies would not hesi-tate to give up sourcing from Indian then. Therefore, in information technology, In-dia has to move from being servers to being design and domain specialists.

Thus at present there is without doubt an unambig-uous and large gap in lead of China over India in overall globalization.

Surprisingly, therefore, an open democratic mar-ket economy—India—has to make special efforts to catch up with a controlled communist “social market” economy—China—and that too ironically in the area of globalization.

In growth terms then, the China-India gap can be closed if India designs its fiscal architecture in such a way that the rate of invest-ment rises to above 36% of GDP from the present 29%, while it reduces the incre-mental capital-output ra-tio—which measures the ef-ficiency or productivity [the larger the ratio, the higher is the inefficiency] —from 4.0 to 3.0.

China has not only man-aged a high rate of invest-ment, but has kept the prime lending rate (PLR) at a relatively low 8%; the in-terest rate spread between lending and deposit rates was confined to 2.6%. In India, the PLR is 12%, while the interest rate spread is at 3.4%.

Clearly, China’s configura-tions are more conducive for

high domestic investment. Even though Indian stock markets were established much before China’s, nev-ertheless in market capitali-zation, China is ahead 2.20 times that of India. Chinese banks extend credit, meas-ured as a ratio of GDP, at rate two and a half times that in India. In China, mar-ginal tax rates on corporate incomes is at a maximum of 30%, while in India it is 40%. Even in fiscal de-centralization, the Chinese Central government trans-fers 51.4% of the tax revenue to the provinces, while in India the equivalent trans-fer is 36.1%.

However, despite China being ahead of India in vari-ous financial factors, these gaps are not unbridgeable. A sincere and determined effort at financial restruc-turing by India can close the China-India gap in financial factors within a decade.

HUMAN DEVELOP-MENT FACTORS: Accord-ing to the Human Develop-ment Report of the United Nations, China had a higher ranking in human develop-ment index than India. The index for China was 1.29 times India’s.

Public expenditure on health in China as ratio of GDP was three times more. Surprisingly, the Gini Index of Income inequality was also higher in China than India, because the urban average income as ratio of rural per capita income was much higher in India. This is no surprise because China’s modernization and foreign investment is urban focused. Economic reforms in China had caused a sharp increase in urban incomes in the eastern sea board are-as, and this caused the ratio

to rise, since the rural and western provinces lagged behind.

To put it simply, India can overtake China if the Indian households and corporate sector are encouraged by abolition of income tax, re-ducing corporate taxes and raising fixed deposit rate of return to encourage savings, to save more for national in-vestment; and if interest rate for loans is lowered, the na-tion will have a boom in sav-ings which can be converted to investment.

If production can become more efficient by making the processes more effi-cient—e.g. by introducing innovations or computer-izing routine procedures to lower the capital output ratio—the growth rate will rise without more invest-ment. For example, if the rate of investment as a ratio of GDP is 36% and if the incremental capital ratio (which at present in India is 4.0), is reduced to 3.6 (by re-ducing waste and cost), then 36 divided by 3.6 is equal to 10.0% growth rate. So to overtake China, India has to grow at 10.0% per year for 12 years continuously. This task can be simplified in two sentences:

(1) Raise total investment as a ratio GDP to 36% from present 29%.

(2) Then, improve effi-ciency in the use of capital by lowering incremental capital ratio from present 4.0 to 3.6.

And if we can keep going thus for 12 years, India will then overtake China.Dr Subramanian Swamy is an MP nominated by the President for his eminence as an econo-mist. He is a former Union Cabinet Minister for Commerce and Law.

NUMBERS MATTER

NUMBERS MATTER

How India can overtake China in economic growth

PM ASKS MINISTERS FOR IDEAS TO MAKE INDIA A MANUFACTURING HUB SUMIT KUMAR SINGH NEW DELHI

Swarms of locusts were reported in several parts of Gurugram district on Saturday. Residents used mikes and loudspeakers to keep the locusts away from their homes. The Gurugram district administration is assessing the damage due to the locusts’ attack. IANS

SATARA (MAHARASH-TRA): Taking a swipe at Con-gress leader Rahul Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar on Saturday urged him not to politicise matters of national security, and remember that after the 1962 India-China war, 45,000 square km of Indian territory were occu-pied by the Chinese.

“Let’s not forget what hap-pened in 1962 when China occupied 45,000 square km of India’s territory. While levelling such allegations, one must also consider what happened in the past,” said the former Defence Minister.

Pawar was responding to questions about Gandhi’s accusations that Prime Min-

ister Narendra Modi had sur-rendered Indian territory to China in the recent border skirmishes in Galwan Val-ley of Ladakh.

He reiterated that such matters of national security should not be politicised, re-ferring to the disputed Aksai Chin area under China’s con-trol but claimed by India.

Giving a breather to the Centre, Pawar said it cannot be blamed for the develop-ments in Galwan Valley since Indian soldiers tried to push back the Chinese soldiers when they tried to encroach on our territory.

“If our army had not been alert, we would not have known about the Chinese actions... The scuffle means

we were vigilant or we would have been caught unawares. To term it as a failure of the Defence Minister or anyone else is not correct, and it is un-fair to make such allegations,” said Pawar. The NCP chief also referred to the India-China agreement in which both nations decided not to carry firearms at the LAC.

On June 15, 20 soldiers of the Bihar Regiment, includ-ing its commander, were killed after clashes with Chi-nese soldiers at the Galwan Valley, sparking off a major political fracas. The NCP is a component of the 3-party alliance comprising the Shiv Sena and the Congress in the Maha Vikas Aghadi govern-ment in Maharashtra. IANS

Don’t politicise national security issues: Pawar chides Rahul

28 JUNE-04 JULY 2020

Filmmaker Ram Madh-vani’s dream of bring-ing some projects to

reality seems to come post long intervals. The idea for the series ‘Aarya’ came to him nine years ago when he and his wife, Amita, saw the Dutch series ‘Penoza’ but it didn’t materialise till 2020.

With the resounding success of the Sushmita Sen-starrer on Disney+Hotstar, the di-rector can’t stop smiling.

Ask him how he felt when ‘Aarya’ finally came to frui-tion, Ram says, “When Am-ita and I saw ‘Penoza’ then and wanted to adapt it, we didn’t realise that it would take so long. But the good thing is the story stayed with

us. Around seven years ago, I was travelling by train and saw these opium fields and realised how I could make the show culturally rooted in India. Nine years later, I was like wow I’m standing in an opium field actually shoot-ing it! From the reactions we have got to the show, I think we have adapted it well.”

Bringing actor Sushmita Sen out of her hiatus—a

five year break—was no mean feat and Ram seems to have to pulled it off. He had worked with her on an ad many years ago and felt he must approach her to play the protagonist. “When you meet Sushmita Sen, there’s an aura, an energy and she’s the true definition of a star. A star changes the energy of a room and Sushmita’s pres-

ence can do just that. I had a conversation with her about the show and thankfully, she had seen ‘Neerja’ and loved it. Sushmita is incredibly sincere, diligent, disciplined and she takes notes! You may not expect this from her but she’s extremely organised. I didn’t know most of this when I met her. She said yes to Aarya with such child-like enthusiasm but I didn’t

believe it. Actors say yes and then often the manager or lawyer will get back and say she loves you and wants to do it but, etc. But Sush-mita was genuine about it and working with her was delightful. The universe blessed us!” gushes Ram.

Unlike the Dutch series, ‘Aarya’ is focussed more on the relationship between

a mother and her kids and driven by the family dy-namics. “I was interested in a family and what they go through in terms of grief, teenage angst, etc. When it comes to relationships, we have invested a lot in that. In India, we are not solo people - I don’t think we get the Western concept of inde-pendence once you’re 16 and meet your family once a year.

I love the idea that we’re all together though families are fraught,” explains Ram.

‘Neerja’ won Ram a lot of praise and adulation and now with ‘Aarya’ the film-maker has established him-self as the king of emotions. With his strong advertising background, Ram believes that he is in the business of emotions and feelings, and that is what he was driven

by in the Sushmita Sen-se-ries as well. “At the end of a show or ad, I’m always look-ing at what the expression or feeling should be. I’m in the mood alteration business and ‘predicting the feelings’ business. I’m also in some ways the ‘thali’ business - offer a little bit of thrill, ro-mance, drama, emotion, etc, in one show. We are a culture that is relationship-oriented

and we enjoy diverse dishes in a meal!” he says, referenc-ing our eating habits.

The director’s style of filmmaking was also new to Sushmita and the others on set. “I take a 360 degree approach,” explains Ram who uses multiple cameras to capture the scene at once and often with no cuts or close-ups. But Ram says that his close association

and friendship with his co-directors Sandeep Modi and Vinod Rawat had them all on the same wavelength and it was an easy work-ing process. Co-created by Ram and Sandeep Modi, the character-driven series has a talented array of other ac-tors including Chandrachur Singh, Namit Das, Manish Choudhary, Ankur Bhatia and Sikander Kher.

LATHA SRINIVASAN

RAM MADHVANI OPENS UP ABOUT ‘AARYA’

Every child in India grows up listening to stories from their grandparents or par-ents and often these are folk-tales that include mythology, fantasy and even supernatu-ral stories. Come 24 June, we’ll be transported to a vil-lage in early 20th century Bengal where a child-bride grows up to discover herself and also the haunting legend of a ‘chudail’ (witch) thanks to Netflix film ‘Bulbbul’.

Close on the heels of the resounding success of se-ries ‘Paatal Lok’, comes the film ‘Bulbbul’ from actor-producer Anushka Sharma and her brother Karnesh Ssharma. This film marks the directorial debut of An-vita Dutt and stars Rahul Bose, Tripti Dimri, Avinash Tiwary, Parambrata Chat-topadhyay and Paola Dam.D I R E C TO R W H O LO V E S FOLKLORESDirector Anvita Dutt is a well-known lyricist-screen-writer, and in fact, has writ-ten Anushka Sharma’s fan-tasy comedy ‘Phillauri’ that was also produced by the ac-tor. Ask the director why she chose a supernatural thriller as her first film and she says, “Fables and folklores are what I enjoy personally. I

love these kinds of stories. When I wrote this story just for the joy of it, I decided that I really want to direct it.”

Interestingly, ‘Bulbbul’ has no songs in it but features a strong and haunting back-ground score from music director Amit Trivedi. “My lyricist friends tease me that I’m directing a film and there’s no song! I get ragged a lot because I had promised them that the entire album would feature all my lyricist friends! I did what I felt was right for the story - there was no place for a song but the

score plays a very important role and I got a talented and dear friend, Amit Trivedi, to do the score,” reveals Anvita.

As with any film, a strong cast is key to the success of the director’s vision. While the casting agency helped bring on board Tripti and Avinash, Anvita roped in talented actor Rahul Bose on the advice of her friend Ans-hai Lal, director of ‘Phillauri’ and creative producer of ‘Bulbbul’. “I wasn’t sure he’d say yes to the film but it was wonderful the way Rahul responded - he was so kind

with his words. Now when I look at it, I don’t think any-body else could have played each of those roles. I was re-ally fortunate,” says Anvita about the cast of ‘Bulbbul’.STRONG VISION ABOVE ALLTalented actor Rahul Bose is known for seeking variety in his scripts and playing Bade Thakur in ‘Bulbbul’ seems to have offered him just that. “I loved everything about An-vita’s script - I love the stance it takes, the way it was writ-ten, the world that was cre-ated,” says Rahul. “I saw in what was offered to me stuff

that was between the lines, stuff that was unsaid. As an actor, I’ve always searched for what was unsaid, what was between the lines. This film was perfect material.”

Rahul has worked with many first-time directors and believes that a person with a strong vision will deliver a wonderful film. “They need to have a solid idea of how they’re going to make the film; they can be stubborn about it as long as they’re open. Something has to ring true about that person. Anvita is absolutely

wonderful; her sense of em-pathy, her sense of joy in our performances is fantastic,” he explains.

But he clearly states that one can’t act in a vacuum and having to play his char-acter alongside Tripti, Paoli, Avinash and Parambrata, was a great experience. As in some of his other films, like ‘Chameli’, ‘Mr and Mrs Iyer’, ‘Kucch Luv Jaisaa’, the

woman has the stronger, central role in ‘Bulbbul’. “If you’re an actor, you have to be excited about what you’re doing. Many actors may have said no to this film, that I’ve said yes to, because they’re playing second fiddle. I’ve never had that problem and it is partially true that actors like me, can’t afford to have that problem. For me, it’s the film that finally matters. If

I’m going to be remembered for the role I played really well, I’m fine. More power to the female leads!,” Rahul emphasises.BEING EMPOWERED“I was under pressure post ‘Laila Majnu’ and was wait-ing for the right opportunity when ‘Bulbbul’ came my way. This was a film you can’t say no to. It’s a story that’ll take you back to your childhood,” says Tripti Dimri, who re-veals that the role of Bulb-bul was challenging due to the intense character graph. “I always felt closer to the innocent girl than the trans-formed, empowered woman and I had to work hard on it.”

The young actor smiles and says that initially she was scared of working with a seasoned and talented ac-tor like Rahul Bose. “But when I got to know him, I found him really funny and fun to work with. I had some difficult scenes with him in the film and he made me feel so comfortable. Without his help and contribution, it wouldn’t have been possible. I’m really thankful to him,” gushes Tripti.

Signing off, director Anvita Dutt, Rahul and Tripti say they were eagerly waiting for the world to watch their film ‘Bulbbul’ on 24 June on Netflix.

‘Bulbbul’ is a bingeworthy flick for lovers of folklore LATHA SRINIVASAN 

Aarya Penoza

A still from ‘Aarya’.

Anvita Dutt

Guardian 20 19T H E S U N DAY G U A R D I A N 20: SUPPLEMENT TO THE SUNDAY GUARDIAN | 28 J U N E-04 J U LY 2020 2020 | NEW DELHI

Rise of the OTT culture is transforming the industry

For more years than I care to remember, I have heard so many people using this word on a daily basis, often many times over in the course of the day, bleating away

how absolutely ‘depressed’ they were. Traffic taking a toll, the maid not turning up on time, an insufficient work ward-robe, too many guests popping in, unannounced on a Sunday (even if they cradled along a handi of biryani for a joint-lunch, the carry-over making its way into the following day’s tiffin, which would be relished, besides providing the relief of not having to sweat over the stove). Of course, here it has to be touched upon that this genre of whining was during the pre-Covid-19 era; and the truth is, that life as it was, as we have known it, seems to be of a bygone age. Nowadays the moaning that reaches you telephonically or via WhatsApp, Twitter or howsoever one Socialises on, are: ‘I am so depressed — no maid!’ ‘Have not been able to drive around for ages, has kicked in massive depression.’ ‘Watching all the Netflix series, I had wanted to before this wretched lockdown set in, is re-eally depressing’. ‘I did not experience post-partum depression after the birth of my twins, but being with them 24/7 so de-pressing.’ Should one not pause to think what depression actually is?! (The above are only expressions of discontent, dissatisfaction, disgruntlement!) Hippocrates called it Mel-ancholia. It is a medical condition where one might just not want to drag oneself out of the bed to face the day, where one may just burst into tears for no rhyme or reason, where one would, perhaps, want to put an end to one’s life spending in-somniac hours planning the best way to execute the plot. And then yes, actually double-bolt one’s room, strip the sheet that had many nights been moist with tears from the bed, make a noose of it, lassoing it over the fan to dangle to death from it. And depression is not a state, an ailment reserved for those of a certain economic background, with each day being a daily grind or for those being physically handicapped, as having only one arm or leg... People living a life marked by relentless gyming for whichever kind of custom-made body they aspire for, followed by a persistent series of hyper-personalised sa-lon visits, the day ending on a pubbing or partying note, might be suffering from the same. In other words, breathing the rarified air of the River Rhine does not keep this malady at bay. And it’s necessarily not about a frothy, light-weight or to put it bluntly, superficial lifestyle but about some who might be working like a slave to live like a king, racing by to work in a gleaming Lamborghini Uris after having clocked in hours of work, logging in only a couple of hours of sleep, having to prep themselves for the day ahead. This category, may not be leading fizzy champagne and caviar lives… they might have thoughts to think, mountains to climb despite having scaled the summit, a wish-bucket which possibly involves helping the multitudes of hungry, homeless, penniless countrymen and also, like a child holding close to heart, the dream of fulfill-ing the prayers of a hundred mothers for them to never have a tear roll down their cheek. The latter as soft as the fluffy fall of a snowflake. This one from Sushant Singh Rajput’s wish-list, who lost his mother when he was just 16-years old… A few years back had seen the film, ‘M.S.Dhoni: The Untold Sto-

ry’ and many a time had to blow into a tissue for backtracking the tears, in an attempt to battle the emotional quotient over the straight-thinking one. Two Sundays back, this 34-year old ‘Rising Star’ with no back-up, leave alone anyone to show him which door to knock to gain entry, a foothold in tinsel town, made it sin-gle-handedly on his own steam, and in little time. Soon he had the luxury cars he desired, acquired an apartment in upscale

Bandra and was lauded for his talent; his remarkable ability to seamlessly become the character he was playing, yanking a slumping yawning drowsy viewer sit up — straight as an ar-row — wide-eyed to feel his sizzling presence. Conventionally speaking, he could not be said to be one of the handsomest tools in the shed but… but nor is Shahrukh and a gaggle of younger actors. Sushant had a charming allure: his feet being on the ground as opposed to having his head in the clouds. One wonders, whatever would make this young man, with a dance in his sparkling eyes, decide to do away with himself?! He had a passion for astronomy — his terrace homed a spe-cial telescope for him to star-gaze attempting to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Sushant did not fall in the bracket of his co-stars; not to pass judgment, but the flippant, flighty manner they behave in ‘Koffee with Karan’ with their ditzy light-minded jokes, comments, and flighty, laying-it-on-thick body language indicative of, for the most, this ̀ lot’ having not much between the ears. He was studying to be a mechanical engineer when, midway, he abandoned the course to try his luck in Hindi cinema. However, he did not cast aside his interest in physics, very much carrying it with him to Mumbai. (I say so, at the cost of having egg on my face, he had a mind that was curious, that was full of ideas, unlike most of the airheaded, vainglorious tinsel towners.) It was of little surprise that the painter he gravi-tated towards was Van Gogh… I believe he had a print of ‘Starry Night’, with its cypress tree denoting life after death. Van Gogh, had cut off his ear to shut out the cacophony, finally committing suicide. It is said Sushant was suffering from depression, was on anti-depressants… did the fact that the dynastic born ‘n’ bred Bollywood natives would not let go of the label, ‘Patna Boy’ con-tributing to furthering his fragile state of mind, to remain the Outsider, despite his Stardom?! No, he was not given an inch to be a ‘Bandra Boy’. The nauseating hypocritical twist to the story, as the curtains came down, was how the entire “philmi duniya” trooped out in swarms to pay gooey sweet tributes to Sushant Singh Rajput—the Resident Outsider.Dr Renée Ranchan writes on socio-psychological issues, quasi-polit-ical matters and concerns that touch us all.

This Outsider: The Chosen One?

LATHA SRINIVASAN

MURTAZA ALI KHAN

The rise of Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms in India like Netflix,

Amazon Prime Video, Zee5, Hotstar Disney, Voot, MX-Player and ALT Balaji, has allowed the audience to view not just diverse content from around the world but also ex-perience new genres. Unlike the silver screen, where the market, actor’s value, invest-ment needed, and producers determine the genre of films that eventually get made, OTT platforms allow for a lot more experimentation because of their format and lower investments. However, unlike the variety of inter-national content one finds on these platforms, most of the Indian original content getting greenlit seems to be based around the crime, thriller and horror genres. So are directors, producers and OTT platforms in India playing it safe?

Ask writer and co-director of the film ‘House Arrest’, Samit Basu, this and he says, “Yes, most platforms are playing it entirely safe. With the threat of censor-ship both formal and inter-nal constantly looming, and audiences usually reward-ing play-safe entertainment,

I don’t really think it’s likely that we are going to see much experimentation. It’s likely that within a few years OTT content will be very similar to mainstream TV and theatre fare within a few years. There aren’t really any platforms to experiment any more.”

Most of the series which are highly raved about on social media or written about all fall under the horror, crime or thriller genres. The success of series like ‘Sacred Games’, ‘Paatal Lok’, ‘Mirzapur’, ‘Breathe, ‘The Family Man’, ‘Special Ops, ‘Asur’, ‘Delhi Crime’ and ‘Criminal Justice’, proves this. As do the success of series like ‘Betaal’, ‘Ghost Stories’, ‘Typewriter’, ‘Ghoul’ and ‘Brahm’. When asked

about this trend, Aparna Acharekar, Programming Head, ZEE5 India, says, “Ac-cording to research, insights and trends - crime, thriller, horror genres are popular and hence, you will see many such shows across video streaming platforms. The digital viewer who is mainly in the age group of 18-34 yrs has become used to the ‘binge-watch’ format which helps explore these genres in-depth through multiple episodes.”

Unlike commercial cinema, creating OTT content - irre-spective of genre - is a much more collaborative process often employing multiple writers and directors to work on a series or film. This al-

lows for more perspectives and talent to come together for a particular show or film and create a more engaging and enriching experience for the audience. While film-makers feel that this is a great method to generate quality content, they opine that OTT platforms often dictate what content they are keen on thereby limiting the variety that comes onto the platform.

Kannada director Pawan Kumar was one of the di-rectors for the series ‘Leila’ along with Deepa Mehta and Shanker Raman. He says, “When I have been approached by OTT plat-forms, it is to make thrill-ers thanks to ‘U-Turn’ but I would rather make a drama.

Generally, the OTT platforms tell you what content they are interested in based on what the algorithms tell them as to what the audiences are watching online. Due to al-gorithms, crime thriller and horror genre recommenda-tions keep showing up on the audience’s screen and they keep watching it. It’s a cycle. I’ve always thought the recommendations that show up on the screen, when you log into a platform, should be random so the audience can watch something differ-ent. I don’t think filmmakers are playing it safe but those who make crime thrillers and horrors get deals with these platforms more often.”

The audience also seems to

want to move out of its com-fort zone and explore new genres as seen by the suc-cess of shows and films like ‘Made In Heaven’, ‘Ghoom-ketu’, ‘Chintu Ka Birthday’, ‘Little Things’ and ‘Push-pavalli’. Comedies, dramas and romances also appeal to viewers provided it is qual-ity content that offers them a fresh or new perspective than what they see on television. Such shows, unfortunately, are few and far between.

‘Betaal’ from Red Chillies Entertainment, was the first zombie horror series in India and it became the top viewed show as soon as it dropped online. Nikhil Mahajan, the co-director of ‘Betaal’, says, “I don’t feel that filmmakers and studios are restricting to particular genres. There is a lot of cross genre stuff like YA (Little Things), Romances (Taj Mahal 1989), and many others as well. I feel the per-ception is such because the shows in the crime genre get more widely recognised as audiences seem to lap these up more. We are new to the space of long form limited series as a country, so it will take some time for us to fig-ure out what works/what doesn’t work. It’s a matter of time before we see more radical content coming out of India.”

Unlike commercial cinema, creating OTT content—irrespective of genre—is a much more collaborative process often employing

A SHARED SLICE RENÉE RANCHAN

The nauseating hypocritical twist to the story, as the curtains came down, was how the entire ‘philmi duniya’ trooped out in swarms to pay gooey sweet tributes to Sushant Singh Rajput — the Resident Outsider.

Created by: Rod SerlingDeveloped by: Simon Kinberg and Jordan Peele“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and

shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the di-mension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.” These are the famous words of the Ameri-can screenwriter, play-wright, television producer, and narrator Rod Serling which have become syn-onymous with his greatest creation known to the world as “The Twilight Zone”—an anthology series dealing with often disturbing or un-usual events invariably end-ing with an unexpected twist and a moral that revolution-ized television during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The original series, which ran for five seasons from 1959 to 1964, featured well over 100 episodes in vari-ous genres such as fantasy, science fiction, suspense, horror, and psychologi-cal thriller. Since then the iconic series has witnessed a few revivals. It was revived for the third time last year by the team of Simon Kinberg, Jordan Peele, and Marco

Ramirez for CBS Television Studios. It was renewed for a second season soon after the season premiere. All the ten episodes of the second season are now streaming on Voot Select.

Serling’s narration in the original series is so epic that it can never be replaced in the minds of “The Twilight

Zone” enthusiasts. But the makers of the new series took a calculative gamble by having the series co-de-veloper Jordon Peele as the narrator. And it has proven to be a masterstroke of sorts. It has perhaps worked be-cause Peele is both honest enough to understand that he or anyone else can never replace Serling and smart enough to ensure that the audience sees him as Ser-ling’s successor for the new age. When original series premiered back in 1959, there wasn’t much competi-tion in the space it operated. But today we already have shows like Black Mirror and Electric Dreams and so what does one do? Well, the key is to stick to Serling’s vision and yet at the same time not be too rigid. In other words, try and find a middle ground. And that’s precisely what the new series tries to achieve, and more so the second season. Through its highly ambitious albeit relatable scenarios, it en-deavors to comment on the strangeness of the modern world.

SHOULD YOU ENTER THE TWILIGHT ZONE?

BEAR SIZED WOMBATSWASHINGTON: A power-fully built relative of modern wombats that was the size of a black bear roamed Australia’s woodlands about 25 mil-lion years ago, possessing shovel-shaped hands and strong forelimbs indicating it was an adept digger, scientists said on Thursday.

The plant-eating mam-mal called Mukupirna nambensis, known from the fossil of a partial skull and much of the skeleton unearthed at Lake Pinpa in northeastern South Australia state, is one of the earliest-known large-bodied Australian marsupials, they said.

Mukupirna, meaning “big bones” in the local Aboriginal language, provides insight into the evolution of a marsu-pial group called vom-batiforms that includes koalas and wombats. It was a cousin of wombats - distinctive muscular and short-legged animals - and boasts skeletal traits showing the beginnings of wombat features such as adaptations for digging, though probably was un-able to burrow.

20 the week the sunday guardian28 june– 04 july 2020new delhi

THE NEW NORMAL SOARING SHARES

JAPANESE STARTUP CREATES ‘CONNECTED’ FACE MASK TOKYO: As face coverings become the norm amid the coronavirus pandemic, Japanese startup Donut Robotics has developed an internet-connected “smart mask” that can transmit messages and translate from Japanese into eight other languages. The white plastic “c-mask” fits over standard face masks and connects via Bluetooth to a smart-phone and tablet application that can transcribe speech into text messages, make calls, or amplify the mask wearer’s voice.

Donut Robotics’ engineers came up with the idea for the mask as they searched for a product to help the company survive the pandemic. When the coronavirus struck, it had just secured a contract to supply robot guides and trans-lators to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, a product that faces an uncertain future after the collapse of air travel. Donut Robot-ics’ first 5,000 c-masks will be shipped to buyers in Japan starting in September, with Ono looking to sell in China, the United States and Europe too. There has been strong inter-est, he said.

At about $40 per mask, Donut Robotics is aiming at a mass market that did not exist until a few months ago. One aim, he said, is to generate revenue from subscriber services offered via an app that users will download.

GAP AND KANYE WEST SIGN 10-YEAR DEAL NEW YORK: Gap Inc has entered into a 10-year deal with rapper and fashion designer Kanye West to create a Yeezy line of clothing, both parties said on Friday, sending shares of the apparel retailer soaring 42%.

Aimed at young shoppers, the Yeezy-Gap line, which will offer items such as hoodies, basics, T-shirts and joggers, is expected to appear in Gap stores and on Gap.com in 2021, the two parties said. West will keep sole ownership of the Yeezy brand. Financial details were not disclosed, but Gap said Yeezy would receive royalties and potential equity based on sales results. Yeezy said the brand is valued at $2.9 bil-lion. German sportswear company Adidas also partners with West, selling Yeezy footwear designed by West.

As a teen, West, 43, worked at a Gap store in the Chicago area. “We are excited to welcome Kanye back to the Gap family,” said Mark Breitbard, the Gap brand global head, describing West as “a creative visionary, building on the aes-thetic and success of his Yeezy brand” with the new Gap line.

A Gap spokeswoman said the deal “is an example of lever-aging the brand power that Gap has and thinking in a new way about how we can introduce the brand to new custom-ers, new audiences,” she said. The news of the collabora-tion, announced through the rapper’s Twitter account, got the brands trending on the social media platform and sent shares of Gap to its highest since early March before the pandemic battered the industry.

BIEBER FILES $20MN LAWSUITLOS ANGELES: Justin Bieber has filed a $20 million defamation lawsuit against two women who accused him of sexual misconduct. The Canadian pop star filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday after saying on Twitter earlier this week that a claim that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2014 was “factu-ally impossible.”

The woman, who identi-fied herself as Danielle but said she was posting anonymously, said in a Twitter posting that has since been deleted that she was sexually assaulted by the singer at a hotel in Austin, Texas, on March 9, 2014. The other woman, who identified herself as Kadi, said on Twitter that she was sexually assaulted by Bieber in a New York hotel room in May 2015.

The lawsuit said the accusations by the two women were “outrageous, fabricated lies” and seeks a jury trial and $20 million in damages.

Neither of the women could be reached for com-ment on Friday. Bieber’s representatives on Friday did not respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said the two women were “trying to capitalize on the climate of fear permeating the entertainment industry, Hollywood and corporate America, whereby it is open season for anyone to make any claim (no matter how vile, unsupported, and provably false) about any-one without consequence.”

25 MILLION YEARS AGO

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT

Life in a bubble

People participate in an outdoor yoga class by LMNTS Outdoor Studio, in a dome to facilitate social distancing and proper protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, last Sunday, International Yoga Day. REUTERS

DEAD DOLPHINS WASH UP ON FRANCE’S SHORES CANCALE: Dead dolphins are washing up on France’s Atlantic coast in such high numbers that local populations of the mammals are at risk, marine biologists say. The over-whelming majority drowned in the nets of fishing trawlers. Post mortems often show fractures, broken tails and flip-pers and deep incisions cut into their skin by the nets. Some have been mutilated as fishermen release their bodies.

“We’re reaching mortality rates that threaten the survival of the dolphin population in the Bay of Gascony,” said Mor-gane Perri, a marine biologist in Brittany, western France.

“For the last three years, we’ve seen more than 1,000 deaths (dolphins and porpoises) over a four-month pe-riod each winter.” Common dolphins are the hardest hit. Scientists believe those found on beaches represent a small fraction of the total number dying in fishing nets off the coast of France. The real number is likely to be five to 10 times higher, they estimate. Dolphins have for decades been caught in fishing nets in the Atlantic waters off western Europe. But marine scientists say the spike in numbers in recent years is a result of shifting fishing practices.

IN RECORD NUMBERS

EXTRATERRESTRIAL

BELGIAN POP SINGER TAKES OFFICE JOB AS COVID WRECKS DEBUTBRUSSELS: Just before the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, Belgian pop singer Dana Rexx was hopeful of breaking through with her first single release in April and a tour of Asia planned. Instead she found herself working an office job to make ends meet. The coronavirus has put millions of artists around the world out of work and caused huge financial loss, particularly as some, like Rexx, are not eligible for emergency state help for the self-employed because of a lack of formal contracts.

“Four months ago we were negotiating a tour in Asia and the release of my debut album,” Rexx, which is a stage name, told Reuters. The single was not released and the tour never got off the ground. She now works from home as a freelance assistant to a managing director of a firm in Brussels. Everything, including studio recording in Britain, is on hold, said Rexx, who declined to give her real name.

“I have had to find other ways to make money to pay my bills,” she said while answering corporate emails on a computer screen.

Still dressed in black and with purple hair, Rexx has returned to office work she sought to leave behind in 2014 when she tried for a career as a singer, inspired by her youth, when she sung on Belgian television aged 10.

Her desk is far from the drama of her promotional videos where, with feathers in her hair and sparkling eye make-up, she sings both on horseback and in chains in a castle.

TO MAKE ENDS MEETSEARCH FOR LIFE BEYONDWASHINGTON: Up to three planets - potentially rocky like Earth - have been spotted around a star located relatively near our solar system - a planetary system offering astronomers intriguing possibilities in the search for signs of extraterres-trial life.

The planets orbit Gliese 887, a so-called red dwarf star half the sun’s mass located 11 light years from Earth - right in our back-yard in cosmic terms, re-searchers said on Friday. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). Two planets have been definitively identified, one orbiting Gliese 887 every nine days and the other every 21 days.

FREEZEFRAME

WWW.SUNDAYGUARDIANLIVE.COM

DISNEY PUSHES MULAN TO AUGUSTLOS ANGELES: Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) postponed the debut of live-action movie “Mulan” until 21 Aug, the company said in a statement on Friday, a blow to theater operators who want blockbuster movies to draw audiences from their homes in the middle of a pandemic.

“Mulan” was scheduled to debut in March but was post-poned until 24 July when the coronavirus outbreak forced theaters around the world to close. “While the pandemic has changed our release plans for ‘Mulan’ and we will continue to be flexible as conditions require, it has not changed our belief in the power of this film and its message of hope and perseverance,” Alan Horn and Alan Bergman, co-chairmen of Walt Disney Studios, said in a statement.

“Mulan” is a $200-million live-action remake of Disney’s animated classic that stars Yifei Liu in the title role. Movie theater owners had been hoping to offer “Mulan” and direc-tor Christopher Nolan’s thriller “Tenet” in July to help lure audiences back to cinemas. Both films are now pushed into August, with “Tenet,” from AT&T Inc’s (T.N) Warner Bros., scheduled for 12 Aug.

The theater business has been devastated by the corona-virus shutdowns that began in mid-March, laying off tens of thousands of employees and borrowing funds to stay afloat. Roughly 780 indoor theaters currently are open in the United States, according to research firm Comscore. The industry is hoping for mass openings in July.

MARGOT ROBBIE IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEANLOS ANGELES: The “Pirates of the Caribbean” are getting ready to set sail in a whole new direction, with Australian actress Margot Robbie starring in a new version of one of Disney’s (DIS.N) biggest film franchises.

Robbie, the star of “Suicide Squad” and “I, Tonya,” is to head a female-driven “Pirates” movie which is in the early stages of development, a source with knowledge of the project said on Friday.

It marks the latest bid by Hollywood to re-imagine classic movies by casting women in the lead roles, including the 2016 reboot of “Ghostbusters” starring Melissa McCarthy and 2018 comedy heist “Ocean’s 8” that starred Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett.

No plot details were available but the story is being written by Britain’s “Birds of Prey” screenwriter Christina Hod-son and produced by longtime “Pirates” filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer, the source said. The Hollywood Reporter said the movie was a separate project from a new “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie that was announced as in development last year, Based on a ride at the Disney’s theme parks, the five “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, starring Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, have taken some $4.5 billion at the global box office since 2003.