Why India needs to go to Kashmir VALLEY

Why India needs to go to Kashmir Daily Pioneer.com A question that intermittently itches my mind is whether India's presence in Kashmir is strong enough to counter the separatists. And this question haunts me because of my long association with the Valley — I have visited remote corners of the Valley as I used to enjoy the hospitality of many of my family friends there. My reactions to Kashmir's problems have a great deal to do with my job as a police officer though I was never posted there. My observations on Kashmir are based on a nationalistic feeling which finds a strong place in my mind due to my handling of Left Wing extremism problems in Maoist-dominated districts in Odisha. After the death of Burhan Wani, we saw the oasis of peace witnessing Pakistan-centric honorifics resulting in violence. After Masrat Alam's chanting rancor against India, we saw the ethno-nationalist aspiration rearing its ugly head again. Masrat's ‘Meri Jaan Pakistan' slogan had numbed the country and now the Wani factor is adding numbers to Pakistan-sponsored rabble-rousers. Here I begin my argument with why India needs to go to Kashmir. The Article 370 of the Constitution has made the Valley gasp for ‘Indianised breath'. India must recognise the hard reality as to why feeling of one-India was waning gradually in Valley thus giving elements ample platforms to leave Kashmir amidst detritus of insurgency. A plethora of debate has come to the fore pertaining to dilution of Article 370. Invoking this has cocooned the valley. Infrastructure growth as it has been seen in other parts of the country has taken a back seat due to Article 370. Private hospitals, malls and industries cannot come up there if the Article 370 is not diluted. The local Government has taken a firm stance after the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir extolling the Centre and saying “Abhi nahi toh kabhi nahi”. We have a strong Government at the Centre and the optimism shown by the Jammu & Kashmir Government is enough to infer that separatist elements will soon be shown the door. The State has three parts: Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Kashmir Valley has 95 per cent Muslims and four per cent Hindus, while Jammu has 60 per cent Hindus and 40 per cent Muslims, and Ladakh has around 50 per cent Muslims and same Buddhists and others. So, the State has got a predominant Muslim population. Kashmir region is strategically located, and India can not afford to lose the grip on this region since on one side, the hills of Kashmir extend up to Pakistan and China and on other side, they slope into crucial region of Punjab. The region carries the Indus water that is extremely crucial for both northern India and Pakistan. Historically, Kashmir was part of the Harappan civilization and then Mauryan Empire. It was the Emperor Ashoka who founded Srinagar. It was part of Kanishka's Empire and it was during 12 century AD Muslim incursion started in Kashmir. It became part of Mughal Empire and in 1846 AD, the British restored Hindu rule in India. At the time of partition, in Jammu and Kashmir, there were 50 per cent Hindu and 50 per cent Muslim. In 1957, the Article 370 came in vogue. During this time valley of Kashmir changed completely and now there are more than 95 per cent Muslims and a minuscule numbers of Hindus. However, India continued to grapple with the problem because its continued reliance on Article 370, which should not have been a permanent feature. The ground reality, it seems, that the unrest in the Valley is contributed by frustrated Kashmiri youths, who get swayed by separatists only because there is an absence of alternative to re-direct these youths to use their spunk and mettle for positive causes. Are they some groups earning sustenance on sustained hate campaigns? Or are they a separate group, which neither likes separatists nor India? These people are unemployed youths, who, from the beginning, are brought up in anti-India milieu. Most of the people who have become doctors, engineers, and bankers in the valley are living an alienated life, who do not participate in stone-pelting but at the same time they don't exercise their franchise just to show their indifference and antipathy towards the Indian system. During election, whatever voting takes place in the valley, it is exercised mostly by most of unemployed youths, party workers who go for voting under some or other enticements. This is the uniqueness of the valley. Education doesn't help increase the voting percentage in family nor does it reduce anti-pathy towards India in any way. The reason for it is that while Jagmohan was the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, he banned all those Jamaat schools which were feeding the anti-India sentiments in the valley. But the subsequent Governments employed these teachers in Government schools only and these teachers continued to feed that feeling. However, I strongly believe that there are still ample possibilities that instead of letting a stone pelting boy grow into Burhan Wani, he can be nurtured with care and transformed into a civilian who can think of an Indian mainstream life. And this is possible when India goes to Kashmir. We have been taking short-term measures by boosting the local police by supplying the latest crowd controlling equipments, supporting the Mehbooba Mufti government in its attempt to curb the crisis, taking support of local media and building the international opinion against Pakistan. All these attempts have not given the desired results. Now I think all that we need is getting tough with Hurriyat leaders. We should try to expose Hurriyat leaders on how they splurge on luxury living. Media should be doing the job of exposing the nefarious activities of separatists rather than becoming an activist and glorifying the militancy. Working on the unemployment of youths in Kashmir by recruiting more Kashmiri youth in para military armed forces and enhanced reservation of Kashmiris in different colleges of India can help in building a permanent solution. There should be a continuous dialogue between Centre and State. The governments should take frequent attempts to dole out "Package" to Kashmir which is generally pillaged by the same anti-Indian elements. We should try to establish mega institutions in Kashmir like IIT, IIM and AIIMS. There should be focus upon establishing big apple food processing industries. An attempt should be made to establish big factories there. There should be attempt to build mega tourist hubs. Corporate giants should be encouraged to establish big hospitals. Initially, this industrialisation may be a difficult job to do in the core of the valley. But, this drive may be started from Jammu, Poonch and Rajouri region and Ladakh area and may be forwarded to the core of the valley gradually. Simultaneously, however, it is also significant that lumpen elements such as the Masrat Alams, the Engineer Rasheeds and the SA Geelanis who incense anti-India feelings be reined in. People who are engaged in anti-national activities should be made to face the music. We hear that Geelani is still able to get his people into jobs through his letters to government officers. This is tendentious and it should be curbed. We have to understand at the end that we can no more live with the tenebrous fact that Kashmir can't change. I have a firm belief that simultaneously, Central and State Government have to work in tandem for dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution without making much delay as it is for one of the rarest times now that the nationalistic fervour of the Centre is also percolating to the State Government of the valley and also due to the fact that it is just five per cent of Kashmir which wants ‘azadi’. I also strongly believe, chanting of Meri Jaan Hindustan will rent Valley if we are able to envision setting up of many mini-Indias there. (The writer is Additional Director General of UIDAI)

he aged socialists who surfaced on the day of the Bharat Bandh charged Narendra Modi with things that he has not yet done. -TAVLEENSINGH

The aged socialists who surfaced on the day of the Bharat Bandh charged Narendra Modi with things that he has not yet done. Last week’s Bharat Bandh encouraged a small army of aged socialists to appear on national television to speak out against the alleged ‘anti-poor’ policies of Narendra Modi’s government. It was like watching a very old movie from another era. But since these gentlemen control powerful trade unions, they managed to cause some amount of disruption in major cities. Not anywhere close to shutting India down completely, as they had hoped, but enough to remain in the headlines for a whole day. We must hope that this does not make the Prime Minister even more timid about economic reforms than he has already been. We must also hope that he understands quickly that the only way to defeat these leftovers of our socialist past is to prove them wrong. It is a war of economic ideas that they have already lost, but it is not a loss that they have graciously accepted. The aged socialists who surfaced on the day of the Bharat Bandh charged Narendra Modi with things that he has not yet done. They accused him of changing labour laws and privatising public sector companies, neither of which he has even begun to do. So he may as well go full speed ahead. If hiring and firing workers became easier, it will lead to more jobs being created, not less. And if huge unprofitable government enterprises end up being sold, there will be lots more money to spend on public services so appalling that they shame India daily. Of these, the image of Dana Majhi carrying his dead wife home from hospital was so haunting and so horrible that it appeared in newspapers and on television screens across the world. In an excellent story on its front page, this newspaper pointed out that Majhi was so desperately poor that he should have benefited from more than a dozen welfare schemes. But they failed to reach him as they fail to reach millions of desperately poor Indians, because they usually end up ‘alleviating’ only the poverty of officials. The Prime Minister himself spoke out against MGNREGA once but then proceeded to continue funding it, despite knowing that it provides dole and not real jobs, and despite knowing that it has long been a source of gigantic corruption. It is true that if Modi had dared dismantle MGNREGA, there would have been even more socialist hysteria about his ‘anti-poor’ policies, but since he is being charged with this anyway, he should take courage and go ahead. It has been my experience from travelling in rural parts of our poorest states that centralised welfare schemes almost never reach those they are meant for The aged socialists who appeared on national television know this, but they support such schemes anyway because they believe them to be socialist in nature. Many of these socialist leaders are so old that they have lived through times of great change in the socialist world. They would have seen the Soviet Union disappear, and they would have seen socialist countries in Eastern Europe swap socialism for free markets. They would have seen China invite foreign investors to invest in its economy while dumping Marxist economic ideas in the garbage bin, but they have continued to pretend that none of these things happened. Closer to home they would have seen West Bengal wallow deeper and deeper into the horrible morass of extreme poverty despite three decades of Marxist rule. These are things that they have never discussed publicly. So what is the Prime Minister afraid of? Why does he not go full steam ahead with doing the things he is already being accused of? I understand that the NITI Aayog has prepared a list of public sector companies that need to be sold before they become even more unprofitable. Why is this list not being acted on? The Government of India owns not just unprofitable companies but vast tracts of unprofitable land in the most expensive parts of our cities. If commercial use were made of this land, there would be enough money to fund all the Prime Minister’s dreams of ‘smart’ cities and model villages. For Swachh Bharat to become more than just a promise, massive investment is needed in urban waste management and rural sanitation. This has not even begun to happen yet and the problem seems to be a shortage of funds. So why do we see so little attempt to make commercial use of the assets that government owns? Even socialists cannot object to this since it does not violate any of their stated principles. Senior ministers regularly pat themselves on the back for India being acknowledged today as the fastest growing economy in the world. They would do well to stop doing this, because as Dana Majhi reminded us so painfully, India still has a long, long way to go

If Dalai Lama could get political asylum in India, why not Baloch leader Brahumdagh Bugti? September 3, 2016, 9:44 am - Aditya Raj Kaul

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech sparking a debate on atrocities in Balochistan by Islamabad has now taken a new turn with top Baloch leader Brahumdagh Bugti seeking political asylum in India. In an exclusive conversation with Times Now on Friday, Brahumdagh Bugti, who is President of the Baloch Republican Party and exiled in Geneva, said, “We requested the Indian government to highlight the situation on an international level; today we are getting asylum in the western world, it is my humble request to the Indian government to open the doors for the Baloch people and the Baloch nation.” Bugti stated that ever since Prime Minister Modi raised the issue of Baloch atrocities from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi, Pakistan has been rattled. “Balochi people are facing genocide by the Pakistani army in Balochistan. We don’t have any place for refuge. Everyone knows that they (Pakistan) have intensified their operation in Balochistan. They are issuing arrest warrants and threats. And this just because I praised the Indian Prime Minister,” Bugti said in the interview. Earlier on Friday, reports indicated that Pakistan was preparing to approach the Interpol for a red corner notice against Bugti and Islamabad is likely to press for his extradition to Pakistan. Bugti has been charged with sedition by the Pakistan government after he welcomed the statement of Indian Prime Minister on Balochistan. A kaul 2 The lineage of Brahumdagh Bugti can neither be ignored by Pakistan nor India. Bugti is the grandson of former Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti who also led a rebel movement against Pakistan. Earlier in 2010, Pakistan had asked Kabul to hand him over and Bugti immediately moved to Switzerland for his personal safety appealing for an asylum. When contacted, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vikas Swarup, who was with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Hanoi, Vietnam, said, ‘We cannot comment on such issues’. Diplomatic sources, however, confirmed that it was the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) which was mandated to grant a political asylum, although in such sophisticated cases it would be the Prime Minister’s Office which would take a final decision in this regard. Top government sources when asked if the Indian Government would consider such a request for asylum from a Baloch leader said, ‘Why not? We have His Holiness the Dalai Lama. That too from the bigger neighbour. And our another neighbour has Dawood Ibrahim to top it all. The call would be taken at the highest level once a formal request is made, considering all diplomatic and security-related aspects in mind.’ India granted Dalai Lama, the living incarnation of Lord Buddha, political asylum in April 1959 after a fierce Chinese crackdown which led to a Tibetan uprising. Dharamshala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh became the seat of Tibetan Government-in-exile which functions till date, also known as ‘Little Lhasa’. While over 80,000 people from Tibet followed the footsteps of Dalai Lama and sought exile in India, interestingly, Dalai Lama became a symbol of peaceful resistance against oppression after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. If India could grant political asylum to the Dalai Lama who came from a bigger neighbour, why not a Baloch leader in exile who was made homeless by Pakistan? In New Delhi, Minister of State (MoS) in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh, reacting to Brahumdagh Bugti’s demand said, ‘It would be out of turn for me to address the issue directly’. Interestingly, the Minister who hails from the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir did not reject the possibility of an asylum. ‘Atrocities and oppression unleashed by Islamabad in Balochistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) indicate that Pakistan has become an epicentre for terrorism. The irony of the matter is that those who are raising issues of human rights violations there are subjected to further oppression’, Singh said hinting at the latest action against Brahumdagh Bugti by Islamabad. Bugti’s plea for a political asylum in India has put a diplomatic test before the Indian Government. It would be pertinent to mention that the Swiss Government in Geneva rejected a similar plea earlier this year which had been pending for over five years. Sources indicate that the Pakistani mission in Geneva has been diplomatically putting pressure on the Swiss authorities to not let Bugti reside in Geneva. For now, Bugti’s appeal to the rejection is pending before the Swiss immigration authorities yet again. New Delhi’s litmus test in diplomacy has just begun and that too from an ally without a nation. With Pakistan’s continuous provocations in the form of cross-border terrorism and raking up the Kashmir issue internationally, it is a challenge before the Indian government to sail smooth against the tide. Will South Block move beyond the confines of diplomacy to grant Bugti asylum? For the first time, an Indian Prime Minister has reached out to the Baloch people – promising to amplify their voice against atrocities committed by Islamabad in Balochistan. The move has now made Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif jittery, who began a crackdown on Baloch leaders for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s big outreach. As India looks to globally isolate Pakistan, a decision in favour of granting Bugti asylum could hurt the power-centre of Rawalpindi more than Islamabad. Inviting yet another proxy war, leaving the Kashmir pot burning. Yet, isn’t it a risk worth taking to assert India’s domination in the region and show the terror-state a mirror? For now, India is moving ahead on the policy shift, a step at a time. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B Ministry) has directed the All India Radio (AIR) to produce news bulletins in the Balochi language. Sources say the External Services Division of the AIR has been tasked with finding ways of introducing Balochi language content in news and features, not merely on radio but also broadcast it through the website and social media. While the wait for asylum may continue, the Baloch people in exile could soon hear the signature tune of Akashvani in a familiar tone saying: ‘Ayy All India Radio En. Ni halaan Balochi’a gosh bedaare..’

SELF RELIANCE IN DEFENCE EQUIPMENT ONLY WAY AHEAD

The recent crisis provoked by the revelation of the highly classified technological specifications of the Scorpene submarines jointly built by DCNS of France with the cooperation of Navantia from Spain highlights gravest dangers to the security of some of the most important international actors of the world, including India. Normally defence powers are meticulous about the security of their technology, especially in a world where industrial defence espionage is one of the most serious threats. The Scorpene submarine leak shows that a few competitors will not only want to steal the technology of other, but will also try to break the trust that any potential client could have by exposing secrets so irresponsibly. In today’s world, too much is known about the defence systems that are sold on the international markets, but only the ones that the leading defence industrial nations produce for themselves and don’t share with any other country are the best-kept secrets. This argument alone justifies that the leading nations of the world develop their own defence industry, which has been possible because of the quality of their scientists and a solid industrial base. That is the case of the US, the UK, France, China, and Israel, and it could also be the case of India, a nation with world-class scientists and a promising hi-tech industry. The development of defence technology is a powerful booster for the economy and society, and has greatly contributed to the progress and technological advancement of the world—take, for example, the GPS, helmets or firefighting material. The call for tightening of the security of classified information and technology is another stinging reason for India to expedite the process of building a seriously protected national defence industry. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has proven to be a useful instrument in developing the industry, but it needs to be able to effectively pass from an idea to a prototype and from that to the industrial production of the system. It is here where the main problem lies—the fact that it sometimes takes decades to effectively develop the industrial production of some of DRDO’s best designs. During my tenure as ambassador of Spain to India, I had frequent and intensive contacts with DRDO. It’s an excellent instrument that has far greater potential than its present exploits suggest. It also enables India to interact and cooperate with those countries that are not only willing to transfer their latest technology—something very rare in this field—but also develop the latest generation technology as a joint venture. This is something very few admit to be ready to do, and even fewer actually accomplish. In the defence sector, Make in India is not only an effective and legitimate means to enhance the economy and create high quality and specialised jobs, but is also, and perhaps above all, a means to protect India’s sovereignty, better defend its interest and citizens, and keep highly sensitive secrets from being stolen or leaked. The defence industry has become one of the basic pillars of security and defence of the leading industrial nations. The 21st century is becoming a complicated place for anything related to security and defence. We depend so heavily on computers and transmission of data, and that opens a wide flank of danger to the security of sensitive information. The better the technology to protect secrets, the harder hackers and rival countries try to break it. If you look at who is lagging behind in science and technology, you will most likely find the smoking gun of those that try to steal someone else’s ideas and breakthroughs, as they have been incapable of developing their own. It also happens to be those nations that are more expansionist or aggressive. Do we really need to spell it out more clearly

Why India needs to ramp up its token training of Vietnamese submariners By Sandeep Unnithan It will ensure Vietnamese People’s Navy can inflict heavy losses on a maritime aggressor

Why India needs to ramp up its token training of Vietnamese submariners By Sandeep Unnithan It will ensure Vietnamese People’s Navy can inflict heavy losses on a maritime aggressor. On August 31, the first batch of Vietnamese navy submariners finished a six-month course at the Indian Navy’s premier training school, INS Satavahana in Visakhapatnam. These personnel, 20 officers and 40 sailors, will go on to man the Vietnam Peoples Navy’s six Russian-built Kilo class submarines. This bit of military diplomacy comes just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi lands in Hanoi on September 3 for the first state visit by an Indian PM in 15 years. Foreign secretary S Jaishankar told media in New Delhi on Friday to expect "strong outcomes" from the prime minister’s visit. There is speculation about military hardware sales like the Indo-Russian Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles and patrol craft. There is no sign, however, of India undertaking what could be a potential game-changer: advanced submarine tactical training for the Vietnamese. This is because the present training course is nothing more than a token exercise. The 60 Vietnamese navy personnel, the crew strength of one Kilo-class submarine, were only given a basic training course at INS Satavahana. Most of it was in classrooms to understand the structure of the submarine and familiarise navigators, engineers, communicators about the onboard systems. To use an air force analogy, it would be like the first stage of ab-initio training using piston-engine trainer aircraft. Except, there is very little exposure to an actual submarine. What the Vietnamese People’s Navy really needs—and this has been borne out by recent visits to Vietnam made by Indian officials — is training in advanced undersea warfare. Vietnam’s 2009 decision to buy six Kilo-class submarines from Russia was influenced by China’s muscle flexing in the region. Submarines like the Kilo class armed with torpedoes, sea mines and anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, are lethal steel sharks. They prowl undetected as they perform sea-denial missions or prevent the enemy the freedom to use the sea. Submarines allow smaller navies to tie down larger navies and are a bit like guerillas of the sea. This would seem like a natural choice for the Vietnamese whose nimble Viet Cong guerillas inflicted military defeats on three of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, including China in 1979. But operating submarines is a far more complex game than running fleet-footed guerillas. The Vietnam People’s Navy, essentially a gunboat navy that has never operated submarines, is attempting one of the biggest capability leaps by any global navy in buying these complex undersea platforms. This is where the Indian navy, that has operated Kilo-class submarines in tropical waters for over thirty years, fits in. It needs to provide Vietnamese submariners with the tactical training to exploit the sturdy Kilo class submarines to their maximum war-fighting potential, particularly the second, six-month advanced phase where crews spend 45 days on board submarines at sea. At the end of this one-year course, the crew are presented with the prestigious twin dolphins which qualify them as full-fledged submariners. In the advanced course, crews are taught to stalk enemy warships, mine harbours, snoop on the enemy, hunt submarines and, crucially, how to use the formidable 220-km range "Klub" cruise missiles to attack targets on land and at sea. In short, this is the training that will ensure the Vietnamese People’s Navy can inflict heavy losses on a maritime aggressor and even take the fight to the adversary’s home turf. An undersea Viet Cong force that is also an excellent opportunity for India to put some steel into its "Act East" policy

हेल्मेटसाठी हौतात्म्य पोलिसांना चिलखते पुरवा!SAMNA EDITORIAL

पोलिसांना चिलखते पुरवा! Saturday, September 03rd, 2016 रस्त्यावरचा पोलीस हाच राज्याच्या कायदा-सुव्यवस्थेचा कणा आहे. हा कणाच मोडून पडला तर राज्य मोडून पडायला वेळ लागणार नाही. एक विलास शिंदे जात्यात भरडला गेला, पण असंख्य विलास शिंदे सुपात आहेत. गृहखात्याला त्यांच्या अंगावरील वर्दीला बळकटी तसेच प्रतिष्ठा द्यावीच लागेल. पोलिसांवरील असे हल्ले ‘हेल्मेट’सारख्या प्रकरणांवरून सुरूच राहिले तर पोलिसांना ‘वर्दी’ऐवजी चिलखते पुरवावी लागतील. विलास शिंदे प्रकरणाचा हाच धडा आहे. हेल्मेटसाठी हौतात्म्य पोलिसांना चिलखते पुरवा! हवालदार विलास शिंदे अनंतात विलीन झाले आहेत. कर्तव्य बजावताना मुंबईच्या रस्त्यावर त्यांच्यावर समाजकंटकांनी हल्ला केला. आठवडाभर मृत्यूशी झुंज देऊन शेवटी त्यांनी अखेरचा श्‍वास घेतला. शिंदे यांना सरकारी इतमामात अखेरचा निरोप दिला. शिंदे यांना श्रद्धांजली वाहण्यासाठी स्वत: मुख्यमंत्री, पोलीस आयुक्त मुंबईतील शिंदे यांच्या घरी गेले. शिंदे यांना ‘शहीदा’चा दर्जा देण्यात येईल, अशी घोषणा यावेळी मुख्यमंत्र्यांनी केली असली तरी हे खरोखरच शक्य आहे काय? मुख्यमंत्री घोषणा करून बसले व मंत्रालयातील कर्मचारी वर्ग समाजकंटकांच्या हल्ल्यात बळी पडलेल्या पोलिसांना शहीदाचा दर्जा देणारा नियम व कायदा आहे काय, ते शोधण्याच्या कामास लागले आहेत. पोलीस शिपायांना शहीद घोषित करण्याचा कोणताही ‘सरकारी अध्यादेश’ म्हणजे ‘जीआर’ अस्तित्वात नसेल तर मुख्यमंत्र्यांना तो काढावा लागेल व त्यासाठी दुसर्‍या विलास शिंदेंच्या हौतात्म्याची वाट पाहण्याची गरज नाही. मुंबईसह महाराष्ट्रात पोलिसांवर हल्ले करून त्यांना मारले जात असेल तर राज्याला हा प्रकार शोभणारा नाही. मारलेल्यांना फक्त ‘शहीद’ घोषित करून जबाबदारी झटकता येणार नाही. तिकडे कश्मीरात अतिरेक्यांच्या हल्ल्यात मारले जाणारे ‘जवान’ शहीद होत आहेत तर महाराष्ट्रात टिनपाट गुंडा-पुंडांच्या हल्ल्यात आमच्या पोलिसांची जीवनयात्रा संपत आहे. ‘हेल्मेट का घातले नाही?’ असे विलास शिंदे यांनी एका अल्पवयीन मोटरसायकलस्वारास विचारले व त्यातून झालेल्या हल्ल्यात शिंदे यांना आपले प्राण गमवावे लागले. म्हणजे पोलिसांना काम करू द्यायचे नाही. पोलिसांच्या सूचना व कायद्याची बूज राखायची नाही असे ठरवणारी ‘जमात’ येथे माजली आहे. पोलिसांच्या अंगावर मोटरसायकली घालून त्यांना जखमी केले जाते. रात्रीच्या वेळी हे ‘बाईकर्स’ पोलीस व कायद्याची पर्वा न करता मुंबईतील विशिष्ट भागात सुसाट वागतात. त्यांना अडवले तर दंगली भडकतील म्हणून प्रकरणे दाबली जात असल्याची आमची माहिती आहे. हा सर्व हिरव्यांचा हैदोस असून पोलिसांच्या अंगावर हात टाकण्याचे प्रकार ठरवून सुरू आहेत, असे म्हटले तर कुणाची धर्मनिरपेक्षता उगाच फसफसू नये! शिंदे यांना अखेरची मानवंदना दिली जात असताना मुंबईत आणखी दोन ठिकाणी पोलिसांवर हल्ले झाले. नवी मुंबईतदेखील असा प्रकार घडला. राज्यात खाकी वर्दीचे असे धिंडवडे निघत असतील तर जनतेच्या आयुष्याचे व सुरक्षेचे तीनतेरा वाजायला किती वेळ लागणार? मृत पोलिसांना फक्त शहीदाचा दर्जा देऊन हे धिंडवडे थांबणार नाहीत. पोलिसांचे मनोबल खच्ची झाले आहे व राजकीय हस्तक्षेत वाढला आहे. हे सर्व पाहिल्यावर गृहमंत्री म्हणून पोलिसांचे नेतृत्व केलेल्या बाळासाहेब देसाईंची आठवण झाल्याशिवाय राहात नाही. मात्र गेल्या काही वर्षांत आपापल्या माणसांची भरती व बढती हेच गृहखात्याचे काम झाले आहे. राजकीय विरोधकांवर पाळत व स्वकीयांवर नजर ठेवणे या पलीकडेही पोलीस खात्यांचे काम आहे. रस्त्यावरचा पोलीस हाच राज्याच्या कायदा-सुव्यवस्थेचा कणा आहे. हा कणाच मोडून पडला तर राज्य मोडून पडायला वेळ लागणार नाही. एक विलास शिंदे जात्यात भरडला गेला, पण असंख्य विलास शिंदे सुपात आहेत. गृहखात्याला त्यांच्या अंगावरील वर्दीला बळकटी तसेच प्रतिष्ठा द्यावीच लागेल. पोलिसांवरील असे हल्ले ‘हेल्मेट’सारख्या प्रकरणांवरून सुरूच राहिले तर पोलिसांना ‘वर्दी’ऐवजी चिलखते पुरवावी लागतील. विलास शिंदे प्रकरणाचा हाच धडा आहे. एका ‘हेल्मेट’वरून मुंबईचा पोलीस शहीद झाला. तुकाराम ओंबळे कसाबसारख्या अतिरेक्यांना पकडताना शहीद झाले. पोलिसांना क्षुल्लक कारणासाठी ‘शहीद’ व्हायला भाग पाडू नका. त्यांनाही आई-वडील, पत्नी, मुले आहेत, एवढे भान गृहखात्याने ठेवावे. - See more at: http://www.saamana.com/sampadkiya/polisana-chilkhate-purva#sthash.3c93AM9u.dpuf

UPDATE ON CHINAS SOFT UNDERBELLY-Xinjiang

The leader of a troubled western province has been replaced. He will not be missed by its ethnic Uighurs WHEN he took over in 2010 as the Communist Party chief of the western province of Xinjiang, Zhang Chunxian was portrayed by state media as a young, media-savvy official with a mission: to crack down hard on its separatists but also to foster “brotherly affection” between ethnic groups in the poor, violence-torn region. On August 29th Mr Zhang was moved to a new, as yet undisclosed, job, having claimed some success in his fight against Islamist “extremism”. The region’s ethnic divide, however, remains bitter. Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic-Turkic people who make up nearly half of Xinjiang’s residents, have particular reason to grumble. Mr Zhang was sent to Xinjiang partly, officials said at the time, to improve the lot of people living in poorer, Uighur-dominated, areas (he is pictured, arm raised, meeting some of them last year). A few months earlier an explosion of rioting between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese, who form more than 90% of China’s population, had left around 200 people dead in the provincial capital, Urumqi (see map). Officials believed that poverty and unemployment among Uighurs was fuelling unrest. Mr Zhang, however, did little to boost Uighurs’ morale (or, possibly, to impress leaders in Beijing—some analysts speculate that he may now be sidelined). Restrictions in some areas on displays of Muslim faith, such as observing Ramadan or wearing face veils, made many even angrier. So too did the security clampdown that Mr Zhang maintained after taking over from his hardline predecessor. In spite of it, the violence continued. A spate of attacks in 2014 included some of the bloodiest in years blamed on Uighur militants: 33 slain in March that year by knife-wielding assailants at a railway station in Kunming in the south-western province of Yunnan; 43 killed in April, including four attackers, at a street market in Urumqi; more than 100 shot by police or killed by attackers in July near Kashgar in southern Xinjiang. Since 2014, there appears to have been a considerable decline in large-scale violence. But it is possible that smaller-scale incidents go unreported. Despite his unusually relaxed manner with journalists, Mr Zhang did not make it easy for foreign ones to visit Xinjiang. Police kept them away from trouble-spots (in his previous role as Tibet’s party chief, Chen Quanguo, Mr Zhang’s successor, was even less keen on them). One tool that Mr Zhang used to keep tabs on Uighurs was the inaptly named bianmin, or “convenient for the people” card. This was, in effect, a new kind of internal passport, required for use by people from Xinjiang who were living away from their home district in other parts of the province. The card bore contact details of named officials in the bearer’s hometown. This enabled someone inspecting it to alert the authorities quickly, and ensure a rapid response, if a troublemaker was found. Uighurs often had to show the card at security checkpoints, when they boarded long-distance transport or when they checked in at hotels. Han Chinese rarely had to produce one. Uighurs called it the yeshil kart, or “green card”, because it made them feel like immigrants in their own country. In May, two years after introducing it, Xinjiang’s government abolished the card. Official media said one reason was that its use had given rise to bribery. Uighurs often had to pay large backhanders to get hold of one. But ordinary identity cards are still often used to monitor the movement of out-of-town Uighurs. As a result of tighter controls on internal migration, the number of Uighurs from the south of the province working in Urumqi, in the north, has fallen sharply in recent years. Street stalls in the city, at which many such migrants once worked, are now conspicuously rarer. For years after the rioting in 2009, the authorities made it nearly impossible for many Uighurs to obtain foreign passports. They feared that those who travelled abroad might be infected by international jihadism. In recent months, however, the authorities have made it easier for some Uighurs (usually better-off and better-connected ones) to get them. As with the repeal of the bianmin card, however, this does not mean that the authorities are ready to relax their grip on the region. On August 30th an attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, which borders on Xinjiang, will have compounded their anxieties about global terror. Three Kyrgyz staff were injured when an unidentified suicide-bomber blew himself up outside the compound. More likely is that Xinjiang’s government is more confident in its other methods of control. These include the fencing in of Uighur neighbourhoods in Urumqi’s south, with checkpoints at the entrances. Police visit homes to identify any newcomers. A QR code is attached to the door of each apartment. An officer scanning this can view photos of authorised residents. Now that the bars of the cage are stronger, the government feels it can give the prisoners a little more room

POLICING INTERNET CHINESE STYLE

IN CHINA, the battle to control information is largely waged online. The Communist Party blocks most foreign social media, routinely censors dissenting views and punishes those who repeatedly speak out. It employs around 2m people to police the internet and bombard users with positive messages about the regime. Yet criticism of the party still bubbles up. Even as the authorities try to tighten controls, netizens devise new ways of airing their views more freely. Zhihu, a question-and-answer site on which people mostly ponder mundane topics such as fitness or films, has emerged as a surprising springboard for political discussion. Internet users everywhere migrate between social-media platforms as preferences change. But in China a site’s popularity is determined as much by users’ pursuit of freedom as it is by their love of fashion. Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging site, gained a colossal following after it was launched in 2009 (Twitter itself is blocked). Many users relished the opportunity to air sensitive views and link up with like-minded people. It has since been eclipsed by the rise of WeChat, a messaging app which the authorities find less threatening, and so censor less. Zhihu, meaning “Do you know?” in classical Chinese, started in 2011 as a copycat of Quora, an American site. It is now China’s most popular question-and-answer portal, with 100m monthly active users (compared with Weibo’s 261m and WeChat’s 800m). It has evaded some of the strictures suffered by other forums because it is neither a news site nor a means of exchanging salacious videos (a new preoccupation for regulators, who recently called for 24-hour monitoring of live-streaming sites). Zhihu targets young urban professionals, who in China tend to be more willing than others to comment on sensitive topics. In January Zhihu users expressed doubts about the reliability of a televised confession made by a bookseller from Hong Kong, Gui Minhai, who is being detained by Chinese police for selling gossipy books about the country’s leaders. Though Zhihu does not provide news coverage, questions raised on it sometimes generate news stories. In May former university classmates of a 29-year-old environmentalist, Lei Yang, posted an account on Zhihu of Mr Lei’s death in police custody, raising several queries that challenged the official explanation. “We demand to know more. We demand that our questions be answered,” they wrote. News of this spread rapidly on other social media, forcing state media to look into the story. Two officers were eventually arrested for “neglect of duty” in their handling of the case—an apparent concession by the authorities to the public’s outrage. Sometimes it is the answers on the site that create an online sensation. Early this year a 21-year-old man with terminal cancer responded to the question “What is humanity’s greatest evil?” with the answer “Baidu”, the name of China’s biggest search engine. He accused it of profiting from distorted information after his search on Baidu for a cure led him to fork out for expensive and dodgy medical treatment from an institution that had paid to raise its search ranking (he subsequently died). The regulator has since ordered Baidu to give less weight in its search results to the amount advertisers pay. For its part, Zhihu uses an algorithm that rewards answers from experts, ranking them higher than posts by amateurs. Experts often correct and comment on each other’s responses, too. This enhances the site’s credibility. When news emerged last year that new running tracks in several Chinese schools were made from toxic materials, a heavyweight academic posted extensive information on Zhihu about how such tracks could harm pupils. By providing authoritative insights into topical issues, Zhihu is helping to shape political debate, says Ma Tianjie, a blogger in Beijing. Zhihu is still vigilant. Like other Chinese portals, it warns users against “endangering national security” and “spreading rumours”. Sometimes it removes questions, such as one in December asking about the arrest of labour-rights activists in the southern province of Guangdong. More often, controversial answers are deleted, leaving anodyne responses to questions such as: “Is [the prime minister] Li Keqiang doing the right thing to avoid the ‘middle income’ trap?” A page on Zhihu run by the US embassy in Beijing (at the invitation of the site’s owners) was taken down in May. A WeChat account run by the Communist Youth League accused the page of waging a “public-opinion war” and trying to “destroy China”. Caution may not protect Zhihu forever. Another Chinese question-and-answer site, Fenda, on which celebrities answer questions for cash, has been offline since early August. What it described as a temporary closure to allow it to carry out an upgrade has lengthened into weeks, prompting speculation that the site has been closed for good. It may be an early target of a new government campaign, made public this week, against sites that promote “Western lifestyles” or hype celebrity gossip. Fenda won notoriety in May after Wang Sicong, the son of one of China’s richest men, responded to the question “What is your favourite sexual position?” His answer, that he would do whatever gave his partner pleasure, may not have been discreet enough

CHINA NEEDS TO TALK TO WORLD ON HOW TO FIGHT TERROR

Within the span of 24 hours, two unexpected events in Central Asia earlier this week may finally have dragged China into the global struggle against terrorism. Looming instability in the Central Asian, majority Muslim country of Uzbekistan, followed by an attack on the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan, highlight Beijing’s security risks. During the G20 summit in Hangzhou this weekend, Chinese President Xi Jinping would be wise to seek the advice of leaders who have longer-term experience fighting terrorism – and then move quickly to develop new security measures at home. For the last 15 years, as the world’s most powerful countries have focused much of their attention on international terrorism, Beijing has largely been able to avoid the issue. It condemned the September 11 attacks, and offered some intelligence cooperation to the George W. Bush administration and the U.S.-led “war on terror.” But for the most part, China initially sat out the thorniest questions of how to deal with terror groups abroad – and handle the fallout of militant violence at home. This was largely because China didn’t attract the attention of terror groups. In the early 2000s, its international profile was still low, so Beijing had the luxury of not having to take positions on issues that would place it in the sights of al Qaeda and others. Although it was slowly intensifying its suppression of the Muslim minority Uighurs in Xinjiang province, few outside China paid much attention. And China’s presence in the Middle East was small, restricted largely to oil and gas purchases from abroad. But over the last decade, China’s fast-growing economy has required a deeper and broader presence overseas, often with facilities and citizens on the ground in volatile regions. In the last five years, the Chinese navy has had to rescue its citizens twice, once in Libya in 2011 and again from Yemen in March of this year. Chinese citizens have been killed in terror attacks in Mali, and Chinese peacekeepers have been killed there and in South Sudan. Attacks have occurred domestically as well. Chinese citizens were the victims of a car bombing in Tiananmen Square in 2013 and a coordinated knife attack in Kunming in 2014, both connected to Uighur attackers. Beijing has so far responded to these domestic and foreign attacks by intensifying its intelligence gathering in Central Asia and starting to build a security presence close to the Middle East with its first overseas base in the northeast African nation of Djibouti. So far, this has all been moving slowly. The pace may start to quicken. On August 29, Islam Karimov, the 78-year-old president of Uzbekistan, was hospitalized after a serious stroke, and conflicting reports started circulating about whether he is alive or dead. Almost immediately, palace intrigue and the succession struggle in the isolated country became public. As the most powerful Central Asian republic, Uzbekistan’s own stability helps underpin the security of the whole region, an obvious area of concern to China. If Karimov's death, now confirmed, results in a prolonged power vacuum, the region could become less stable with each passing day. In this case, Beijing could feel compelled to pick or endorse “their man” in the succession struggle, possibly along with Russia, to help end it. This could very easily turn the losing faction against Beijing, with unpredictable long-term consequences. China’s vulnerability became even more obvious less than a day after Karimov was hospitalized, when a suicide bomber struck the Chinese embassy in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. The bombing was doubly threatening to Beijing. Not only was it a foreign threat to its interests and presence, but Beijing's belief that the attacker was an Islamic militant relates directly to China’s treatment of its own Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang province, which borders Kyrgyzstan. Beijing sees the Uighurs as a separatist threat, and this attack will only increase that perception. If history is any guide, China’s reaction in Xinjiang will follow a pattern of state intrusion and minority suppression, either through its increasingly sophisticated internet monitoring technology, its enormous police and paramilitary presence throughout the territory, or both. And if China does decide on a more aggressive effort to resist terrorism, and finally becomes the last of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to be dragged into this global fight, it will, somewhat perversely, have a greater chance of being treated with the “Great Power” status it has long coveted.

THE BANGLADESH FACTOR IN INDIAS SECURITY CALCULUS

Hiranmay Karlekar The return of the BNP-Jamaat alliance to power will re-establish ascendance of anti-India forces in Bangladesh which will revert to being the happy hunting ground of the ISI. This is something that India must prevent The security threats India faces from Pakistan and China have been discussed at length. Islamabad’s strategic doctrine of balkanising India to counter this country’s military superiority over it and salience in the world is well-known. While its main focus is currently on stirring up trouble in Jammu & Kashmir by orchestrating street violence, and stepping up cross-border terrorist strikes, in the State, North-East India has from the beginning been very much under its gaze. China’s goals are different. At one level it seeks the resolution of its claims on Indian territory in Ladakh in the north-west, and south of the McMahon line, which marks the border between the two countries in the East and the North-East, on its terms. At another, it wants to keep India from emerging as a power that can rival its own role as a super power. A Government in Dhaka that is hostile to India and ready to assist in Pakistan and China’s designs, will pose serious problems for India. Bangladesh, either on its own or on behalf of Pakistan and China, can threaten India or become the springboard of threats to India, in several ways. The first is cutting off India’s links with its north-eastern States through the Siliguri-Islampur Corridor or the Siliguri Corridor, which is about 200 kilometres long and between 20 and 60 kilometres wide, and is often referred to as the “Chicken’s Neck”. It is unlikely to attack Chicken’s Neck on its own. It can, however, try such an adventure in a situation in which India is engaged in a war with Pakistan in the west and China in the north and North-East. And even if it does not move militarily, it may sponsor terrorist strikes to hinder the movement of troops, arms and supplies, through the corridor. That this is not a mere hypothetical speculation became clear during the Kargil War when a blast occurred in a train in north Jalpaiguri station on June 24, 1999. It was directed at a group of jawans travelling to north-western India in connection with the operations. Two jawans were killed and 16 injured. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has been active in the area since the early 1950s when Bangladesh was east Pakistan, was strongly suspected to have been behind the incident as well as several others aimed at disrupting the movement of troops and equipment from north-eastern to north-western India. Besides, it can — as it had been doing in the past — provide sanctuary and assistance to North-East India’s rebel groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom, the National-Socialist Council of Nagaland, the People’s Liberation Army of Kangleipak in Manipur, the All-Tripura Tiger Force (initially formed as All-Tripura Tribal Force), and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland. In addition, either the Bangladesh Government or terrorist groups supported by it, or too powerful to be curbed by it, may send money, arms and terrorists across the long and porous border between the two countries to stage terror strikes in India. As for the movement of terrorists to India, there is the example of what happened in January, 1999, when Delhi police arrested Syed Abu Nasir, a Bangladeshi, who had crossed over from Bangladesh to bomb the US Embassy in Delhi and Consulate General in Chennai. He revealed during interrogation that he and his team of nine — six of whom had come via Bangladesh, gathered in Calcutta in December, 1998. From there, the three Indian members had been sent to Siliguri to establish a support base in collaboration with ISI agents stationed there, while the six ‘Afghans’ — a generic term used to signify Afghans as well as various Arab and other terrorists trained in Afghanistan by the Al Qaeda — went to Chennai. The three Indians who went to Siliguri were subsequently arrested while the six ‘Afghans’ managed to disappear. Bangladesh not only provided sanctuary, assistance and training to North-East India’s rebel groups, but mocked at detailed information India provided about the location of training camps. Major-General Mohammad Jahangir Alam Khan Chowdhuri, Director-General of the Bangladesh Rifles (now Bangladesh Border Guards), visiting India for talks with his counterpart in the Border Security Force, Ajay Raj Sharma, referred to the list of insurgent camps provided by the Border Security Force (BSF) and said, “There is not a single camp in Bangladesh. We looked for the camps’ locations given in the BSF list. Some of the addresses were of our cantonment area and our headquarters…. Some addresses even pertained to the Bay of Bengal.” Bangladesh’s awareness of its ability to threaten North-Eastern India was starkly demonstrated when its Foreign Minister, Morshed Khan, stated while inaugurating an India-Bangladesh Dialogue of Young Journalists in Dhaka on September 7, 2004, “Bangladesh is India-locked. But Delhi has also to remember that the seven North-Eastern Indian States are Bangladesh-locked.” Khan further raised the pitch of his minatory statement when, referring to what he described as India’s restrictions on the import of goods from Bangladesh, he said, he could “end India’s three billion dollar (sic) trade here by issuing an Statutory Regulating Order (SRO) on all Indian goods entering Bangladesh.” Khan was Foreign Minister in the coalition Government comprising the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which was in office from 2001 to 2006 with Begum Khaleda Zia as Prime Minister. It made no bones about its hostility to India. Major-General Khan Chowdhuri, headed the BDR in the same period. In fact, except those headed by Sheikh Hasina, all Governments of Bangladesh since the murder of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 have been hostile to India and pro-Pakistan. The Awami League Government, headed by Sheikh Hasina, which is now in power, is friendly to India. It is working closely with this country. It has not only closed down the camps of the North-Eastern India’s insurgent groups but made it impossible for these to operate from Bangladesh. It has clamped down hard on fundamentalist terrorist Islamist organisations like Ansar-al-Islam (pro-Al Qaeda) and Islamic State (or New Jamaat-ul Mujaheedin Bangladesh) whose name indicates its allegiance, as well as other elements associated with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat that are implacably hostile both to Sheikh Hasina and India. In fact, India-Bangladesh relations are now more cordial than perhaps even when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman headed the Government in Dhaka. The return of the BNP-Jamaat coalition to power will mean the re-establishment of the ascendance of anti-India forces in Bangladesh which will revert to being the happy hunting ground of Pakistan’s ISI. This is something that India must try to prevent at all cost.