The United States and its Western allies have stepped up a media campaign to accuse India of running an assassination policy targeting expatriate dissidents.
The government of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has furiously denied the allegations, saying there is no such policy.
Nevertheless, the American Biden administration as well as Canada, Britain and Australia continue to demand accountability over claims that New Delhi is engaging in “transnational repression” of spying, harassing and killing Indian opponents living in Western states.
The accusations have severely strained political relations. The most fractious example is Canada. After Premier Justin Trudeau publicly accused Indian state agents of involvement in the murder of an Indian-born Canadian citizen last year, New Delhi expelled dozens of Canadian diplomats.
Relations became further strained this month when the Washington Postpublished a long article purporting to substantiate claims that Indian security services were organizing assassinations of U.S. and Canadian citizens. The Post named high-level Indian intelligence chiefs in the inner circle of Prime Minister Modi. The implication is a policy of political killings is sanctioned at the very top of the Indian government.
The targets of the alleged murder program are members of the Sikh diaspora. There are large expatriate populations of Sikhs in the U.S., Canada and Britain. In recent years, there has been a renewed campaign among Sikhs for the secession of their homeland of Punjab from India. The New Delhi government views the separatist calls for a new state called Khalistan as a threat to Indian territorial integrity. The Modi government has labeled Sikh separatists as terrorists.
Indian authorities have carried out repression of Sikhs for decades including political assassination in the Punjab territory of northern India. Many Sikhs fled to the United States and other Western states for safety and to continue their agitation for a separate nation. The Modi government has accused Western states of coddling “Sikh terrorists” and undermining Indian sovereignty.
Last June, a prominent Sikh leader was gunned down in a suburb of Vancouver in what appeared to be a professional hit-style execution. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered by three assailants outside a religious temple. Indian state media described him as a terrorist, but Nijjar’s family denied he had any involvement in terrorism. They claim that he was targeted simply because he promoted Punjabi separatism.
At the same time, according to the Post report, the U.S. authorities thwarted a murder plot against a well-known American-Sikh citizen who was a colleague of the Canadian victim. Both men were coordinating efforts to hold an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora in North America calling for the establishment of a new independent state of Khalistan in the Punjab region of northern India.
The Post article names Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s state spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), as orchestrating the murder plots against the Sikh leaders. The Post claims that interviews with US and former Indian intelligence officials attest that the killings could not have been carried out without the sanction of Modi’s inner circle.
A seemingly curious coincidence is that within days of the murder of the Canadian Sikh leader and the attempted killing of the American colleague, President Biden was hosting Narendra Modi at the White House in a lavish state reception.
Since the summer of last year, the Biden administration has repeatedly pressured the Modi government to investigate the allegations. President Biden has personally contacted Modi about the alleged assassination policy as have his senior officials, including White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA director William Burns. Despite New Delhi’s denial of such a policy, the Modi government has acceded to American requests to hold an internal investigation, suggesting a tacit admission of its agents having some involvement.
But here is where an anomaly indicates an ulterior agenda. Even U.S. media have remarked on how lenient the Biden administration has been towards India over what are grave allegations. It is inconceivable that Washington would tolerate the presence of Russian or Chinese agents and diplomats on its territory if Moscow and Beijing were implicated in killing dissidents on American soil.
As Tthe Washington Post report noted: “Last July, White House officials began holding high-level meetings to discuss ways to respond without risking a wider rupture with India, officials said. CIA Director William J. Burns and others have been deployed to confront officials in the Modi government and demand accountability. But the United States has so far imposed no expulsions, sanctions or other penalties.”
What appears to be going on is a calculated form of coercion by the United States and its Western allies. The allegations of contract killings and “transnational repression” against Sikhs in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and Germany are aimed at intimidating the Indian government with further embarrassing media disclosures and Western sanctions. The U.S. State Department and the Congress have both recently highlighted claims of human rights violations by the Modi government and calls for political sanctions.
The objective, it can be averred, is for Washington and its Western allies to pressure India into toeing a geopolitical line of hostility towards China and Russia.
During the Biden administration, the United States has assiduously courted India as a partner in the Asia-Pacific to confront China. India has been welcomed as a member of the U.S.-led Quad of powers, including Japan and Australia. The Quad overlaps with the U.S. security interests of the AUKUS military partnership with Britain and Australia.
Another major geopolitical prize for Washington and its allies is to drive a wedge between India and Russia.
Since the NATO proxy war blew up in Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has been continually cajoling India to condemn Russia and to abide by Western sanctions against Moscow. Despite the relentless pressure, the Modi government has spurned Western attempts to isolate Russia. Indeed, India has increased its purchase of Russian crude oil and is importing record quantities, more than ever before the Ukraine conflict.
Furthermore, India is a key member of the BRICS forum and a proponent of an emerging multipolar world order that undermines U.S.-led Western hegemony.
From the viewpoint of the United States and its Western allies, India represents a tantalizing strategic prospect. With a foot in both geopolitical camps, New Delhi is sought by the West to weaken the China-Russia-BRICS axis.
This is the geopolitical context for understanding the interest of Western powers in making an issue out of allegations of political assassination by the Modi government. Washington and its Western allies want to use the allegations as a form of leverage – or blackmail – on India to comply with geopolitical objectives to confront China and Russia.
It can be anticipated that the Western powers will amplify the media campaign against India in line with exerting more hostility toward China and Russia.
India expects to secure a “long-term arrangement” with Iran to manage the Iranian port of Chabahar, Reutersreported on 13 May, as India seeks to expand exports to central Asia and Europe.
India has been developing part of the port in Chabahar on Iran’s southeastern coast to export goods to Iran, Afghanistan, and central Asian countries while bypassing Pakistani ports in Karachi and Gwadar. India and Pakistan have been enemies since the partition of British-occupied India created the Muslim state of Pakistan in 1947.
Thus far, India has managed the Chabahar port under short-term contracts, which must be renewed regularly. The uncertainty about future operations this has caused, and the complications of engaging in trade with Iran due to US sanctions, has discouraged significant investment in the port.
“As and when a long-term arrangement is concluded, it will clear the pathway for bigger investments to be made in the port,” Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told reporters in Mumbai.
A source speaking with Reuters said Indian Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is traveling to Iran to witness the signing of a “crucial contract” that would ensure a long-term lease of the port to India.
The contract is expected to last ten years and will give India management control over a part of the port.
Expanded trade via the Chabahar port will help India expand trade to both central Asia and Europe.
Business Standardreports that Chabahar is also part of the proposed International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a mixed sea and land transport route linking the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran and onward to northern Europe via Saint Petersburg in Russia.
Exporting goods through the INSTC via Chabahar Port is expected to reduce transit times between India and Europe by 15 days compared to the Suez Canal route.
Chabahar will also allow Iran to bypass US sanctions and allow Afghanistan better access to the Indian Ocean.
US sanctions on Iran have similarly delayed construction of a pipeline to transport Iranian natural gas to energy-stricken Pakistan.
The stalled pipeline deal, signed in 2010, envisaged the supply of 750 million to a billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from Iran’s South Pars gas field to Pakistan for 25 years.
Last month, Islamabad said it would seek a US sanctions waiver to proceed with the pipeline. However, US officials publicly said they did not support the project and warned Pakistan about the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran.
Beijing rejects “illegal sanctions” and will defend the interests of its companies, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said following a report that the EU could blacklist some of the country’s firms for allegedly helping Russia to evade the bloc’s restrictions.
The EU is planning to place restrictions on three Chinese businesses and one Indian company as part of its 13th round of sanctions on Russia over its conflict with Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Brussels believes the firms in question are helping Moscow to circumvent existing restrictions, especially through the supply of electronic components that can be repurposed for use in drones and other weapons systems. If the plan is approved by member states, it will see the EU sanction companies from mainland China and India – two of the bloc’s key trading partners – for the first time.
”We are aware of the relevant reports,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “China firmly opposes illegal sanctions or ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ against China on the grounds of cooperation between China and Russia.”
Chinese and Russian companies “carry out normal exchanges and cooperation and do not target third parties, nor should they be interfered with or influenced by third parties,” the ministry said.
Beijing “will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”
According to media reports, the EU was already considering sanctioning Chinese firms over their links with Russia last year, but refrained from doing so after Beijing assured Brussels that it was not supporting Moscow’s military effort in Ukraine.
Indian newspaper the Economic Times claimed on Wednesday that the government in New Delhi was also studying reports that an Indian firm could face sanctions over its dealings with Russia.
The Indian authorities may ask senior EU officials to clarify the situation during their meetings as part of the Raisina Dialogue forum on geopolitics and economy, which will take place in New Delhi next week, according to the outlet.
The paper’s source said it was “curious” that the report had emerged ahead of the high-profile event in the Indian capital.
Since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, both China and India have consistently called for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Beijing and New Delhi have resisted Western pressure to join sanctions on Moscow, and instead have boosted economic cooperation with Russia, becoming the main destinations for Russian oil.
Chinese customs data shows that trade turnover between the two countries has grown by 26.6% percent in the past year, reaching a record $240 billion. The sales volume between Russia and India in the first ten months of 2023 stood at almost $55 billion, according to the Russian ambassador in New Delhi – an increase of 41% compared to 2022.
An Indian conglomerate has dispatched Hermes 900 killer drones to Israel as the UAVS are extensively used in the regime’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in the Gaza strip amid the genocidal war, a report says.
The sale of more of than 20 Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs delivered by Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India Ltd to Israel was first reported on February 2 by Neelam Mathews for the defense-related website Shephard Media.
The Wire report said it has not yet been publicly acknowledged by either Tel Aviv or New Delhi.
In 2018, Israel’s Elbit Systems entered into a joint venture with Adani group with a 49% share and opened a $15-million facility in Hyderabad to manufacture UAVs for the first time outside of Israel.
The Wire said when it contacted Israel’s Elbit Systems a spokesperson responded that they could “confirm that Elbit Systems collaborates with Adani, which is a supplier to our UAS [Unmanned Aerial Systems] supply chain.”
Haaretz reported last February that the vice president of UAV systems in the Aerospace Division at Elbit Systems, Vered Haimovich, said the Hermes 900 has been Elbit System’s flagship drone, which has been operationally used by the Israeli Air Force since 2015. It has also taken part “in all rounds of conflict in recent years.”
Indian activists have criticized the Indian government for its double standards against Palestine, as on one hand, New Delhi backs the Palestinian cause while advocating for a free Palestinian state, but on the other, its actions suggest it supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.
After Israel unleashed a war on Gaza on October 7 following Hamas Operation Al-Aqsa Strom into the occupied territories, India initially expressed unconditional solidarity with Israel.
New Delhi had even abstained on a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a humanitarian pause in October 2023. However, two months later, it voted in favor of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The role of an Indian conglomerate in supplying drones, which are extensively used by the IOF for attacks in densely populated urban areas in Gaza, came as the prime minister Narendra Modi government’s official position is seeking an immediate ceasefire.
Shir Hever, the coordinator responsible for enforcing the military embargo on behalf of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, expressed his disapproval of India’s current alliance with Israel, deeming it disgraceful considering India’s extensive past under colonial domination.
“This moment is a test of the international law system, and instead of siding with Israel’s genocide and its enabling of Western powers, India should take inspiration from South Africa’s global-south leadership and end its complicity with genocide,” Hever told Middle East Eye.
He also said that ever since the International Court of Justice said it’s “plausible” Israel committed genocide in Gaza, two Japanese firms ended their MoUs with Elbit, while, a Dutch high court banned the Netherlands from continuing its export of F-35 parts to Israel, “citing a clear risk of violations of international law.”
In another such instance, on Monday, the European Union foreign policy Chief Josep Borrell called on the US to cut arms supplies to Israel due to high civilian casualties in its war in Gaza.
Adani, a 60-year-old multi billionaire and one of the richest persons in the world, was accused in a report by a US investment research firm, Hindenburg’s Research LLC, of stock manipulation and accounting fraud last year, and is seen by many as someone very close to Modi and his government.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a controversial temple that was built on the site of a historic mosque, demolished by Hindu extremists, heralding a “new era” for India.
“January 22, 2024, is not merely a date in the calendar but heralds the advent of a new era,” Modi said, speaking outside the temple to the Hindu deity Ram on Monday.
Modi has been accused of orchestrating the event for political gain ahead of the upcoming elections in the spring.
The opening ceremony was seen as an unofficial start to his re-election campaign this year, where he will seek a third term in power. The general election is expected to be held between April and May.
The inauguration of the temple, which came amid rising anti-Muslim hate crimes in India, has evoked blood-soaked memories of the violence that was sparked after the mosque that stood for centuries in Ayodhya was torn down in 1992 by Hindu far-right mobs incited by members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Some 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the violence.
Speaking to media, Mohammed Shahid, 52, recounted how his father was burned alive by a mob.
“For me, the temple symbolizes nothing but death and destruction,” he told AFP last month.
Ever since it came to power in 2014, the BJP has been synonymous with its anti-Muslim stance as there have been recurring incidences, including mob lynching and hurting the sentiments of minority groups, especially of the Muslims of India.
Modi has been setting his sights on winning a third straight term by pleasing the Hindu majority in India.
Sunita Viswanath, executive director of the US-based nonprofit group Hindus for Human Rights, said the inauguration of the temple is an “electoral stunt” that “should not be happening in the name of my faith.”
From the standpoint of affirming ‘solidarity’ with the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7 attack, India has swung away to the far horizon and has unceremoniously dumped the US-Israeli axis, which provided beacon light to Delhi’s West Asian policies in the past few years.
From a strategic asset, the Israeli connection is becoming a liability for the Indian government. Delhi spurned Netanyahu’s repeated entreaties to brand Hamas as a terrorist organisation — by the way, India never pointed finger at Hamas for the October 7 attack. It has resumed the traditional stance of voting against Israel in the UN General Assembly resolutions on the Palestine problem. The Netanyahu-Modi pow-wows have become infrequent.
This is a far cry from the controversial gesture by PM Modi during his ‘historic’ five-day visit to Israel in 2017 to pay homage at the tomb of the founding father of Zionism Theodor Herzl in Haifa.It is doubtful if any Indian prime minister would repeat Modi’s feat in the future. With reasonable certainty, it can be said that the future of Zionism in West Asia itself looks rather bleak.
Again, for reasons that remain obscure even today, India decided to be a strong votary of the ill-fated Abraham Accords that purportedly aimed at ‘integrating’ Israel into the Arab fold but, in reality, to isolate Iran in its neighbourhood. Delhi never provided a rational explanation for such a dramatic shift in the traditional policy not to take sides in the intra-regional fratricidal strife in West Asia or identify with the US hegemony in that region.
Delhi followed up by enthusiastically lining up with a surreal venture called ‘I2U2’ which brought together India and the UAE with the US and Israel as a condominium to promote the spirit of the Abraham Accords. In an extravagant gesture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a 5-day visit to Israel to participate in ‘I2U2’.
Above all, Delhi, which hosted the G20 Summit last year and was supposedly highlighting the rise of the Global South in the world order, instead ended up arranging photo-ops for the visiting US President who hijacked the event and instead catapulted a phoney, laughable idea as the main outcome of that historic event — the so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC).
The US apparently incentivised Delhi by planting the patently absurd thought that IMEEC would toll the death knell for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China of course retaliated by just hoisting the BRI flag high all over the Maldives (population: 515,132 in the 2022 census) on India’s soft underbelly from where it is visible all over the subcontinent day and night.
However, Indian diplomats are quick learners and course corrections come naturally to them. Delhi has understood that such absurdities in its West Asian policy will do no good and may even be counterproductive as they raise hackles in the Arab Street. Thus, Qatar ticked off India recently by ordering the 15 Indian schools in Doha that cater to the needs of the largely-Hindu 700,000-strong Indian ex-patriate community to ignore Hindu holidays, especially Diwali.
Consistent with the championing of the Global South, India should have voiced support for South Africa’s brilliant initiative to petition the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to bring Israel to justice for its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. After all, it was in South Africa that Mahatma Gandhi had finessed the concept of resistance to racialism. But, alas, India lacked the courage of conviction and the moral fibre to do so.
It is too much to expect the ICJ to put Netanyahu in a cage and try him in the Hague court for his abominable acts against humanity. But there is a strong likelihood that with tacit western support, the ICJ may issue in the coming weeks some sort of interim order for a ceasefire. And in the present atmosphere, that can prove to be a game changer.
All this makes India’s decision to stay clear of the US’ harebrained idea of disciplining Yemen’s Houthis a sensible step. The theatre of the absurd playing out in the Red Sea with the Five Eyes in the cockpit is incredibly complicated. One main vector there is about the phenomenon of the Houthi resistance as such.
An old friend and Beirut-based editor-in-chief of the Cradle, Sharmine Narwani tweeted about the quagmire in the Red Sea that awaits the Anglo-American attack on Yemen today:
“I honestly question whether the US or UK have carefully considered #Yemen‘s potential responses to this act of war. Ansarallah (Houthi) is an unusual member of the region’s Axis of Resistance. It marches to its own tune and its mindset is entirely devoid of western narrative grooming. There is no guessing at the full spectrum of its retaliatory palette, but I would not want to be an American or Brit in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or any of the neighbouring waterways right now.
“It may be that Washington misread the Russian and Chinese abstentions at the UNSC yesterday (on Red Sea). Or, perhaps Moscow and Beijing dangled that bait so the US would miscalculate this badly. The Americans are now militarily engaged, supplying, or bogged down on 5 separate fronts: Ukraine, Gaza-Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Syria. US adversaries can easily hold out until the fatigue sets in; they are nowhere near depleted.
“Bottom line is I think the entire Global South is going to be wearing Abdul Malik al-Houthi t-shirts by springtime.”
Indeed, it is such prescience that is often lacking in India’s West Asia strategy. This is not a region for one-dimensional men. It has been a strategic mistake to be aligned to the US and its allies in the Indian Ocean under the rubric of ‘maritime security’. The erstwhile colonial powers are innovating Neo-mercantile mechanisms to transfer wealth to their metropolis. Why should Indians act as ‘coolies’, as during British rule?
Most important, India should be seized of the Renaissance that is sweeping through the Muslim countries in West Asia. It is epochal in its sweep and has cultural, political and economic dimensions — and will inevitably have far-reaching geopolitical significance. That is why, it becomes imperative that Delhi stops viewing the region though Netanyahu’s Zionist eyes. It is important to terminate India’s collaboration with the US and colonial powers such as France and the UK to interfere in the region on the pretext of maritime security in the Indian Ocean.
India has no reason to have institutionalised partnerships with the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). In a conceivable future, the curtain could well be descending on the western military bases in West Asia. Delhi should grasp the reality that something fundamentally changed post-October 7 in the geopolitics of West Asia.
It is in sync with what Germans call the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) that Saudi Arabia is demanding that the security of the Red Sea is an international responsibility in cooperation with the riparian countries and UN support. Since 2018, Saudi Arabia has called for the establishment of a Council of States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and in 2020, eight countries signed the Council’s founding charter, who include, ironically, Yemen. Saudi Arabia plans to host a summit meeting of the Council of States.
Today’s Anglo-American missile strike against Yemen should come as a rude awakening to India messaging that the very same western powers who are backing Israel are also escalating the conflict in Gaza and step by step transforming it as a regional conflict — all in the name of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia, the regional superpower in the Red Sea, has called on the US to exercise restraint.
The Indian Navy has deployed three guided missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea in response to an alleged drone attack on an Israeli-linked chemical tanker last week.
New Delhi also uses long-range maritime patrol aircraft for “domain awareness,” the defense ministry reported Monday night.
On Saturday, the Liberian-flagged MV Chem Pluto, a Japanese-owned tanker traveling 370km off the coast of India, was reportedly hit by a kamikaze drone, according to the Pentagon.
The Israeli-linked tanker had been on its way from Saudi Arabia to India, according to maritime security firm Ambrey.
The Indian Navy says they are examining the specifics of the attack on the MV Chem Puto, which managed to anchor in Mumbai on 26 December.
Although Indian officials say a preliminary evaluation suggests a drone strike, they emphasize that additional forensic and technical examinations are necessary to determine the exact method of attack.
Washington blamed the attack on Iran, saying the drone had been launched “directly” from the Islamic Republic.
“We declare these claims completely worthless,” said Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, on Monday.
“Such claims are aimed at projecting, distracting public attention, and covering up for the full support of the US government for the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” he added.
Saturday’s drone attack came less than a week after the US announced the formation of the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, described by US officials as a new “coalition of the willing” that seeks to counter the threat posed by Yemen in the Red Sea.
Although the Yemeni armed forces have been conducting the attacks against Israeli-linked vessels of their own accord, the Pentagon insists Iran is somehow involved.
“The [Yemeni] resistance has its own tools […] and acts by its own decisions and capabilities,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri told Mehr News Agency on Saturday.
“The fact that certain powers, such as the US and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement […] should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region,” he added.
China’s fast-expanding global influence – especially, in the context of the Gaza war – has already emerged as a key issue for Washington. The US is already in a state of denial, and China’s rising global status is turning into too big an issue for New Delhi to handle without entering into a formal anti-China alliance being put together by the US. Therefore, there is an added incentive for New Delhi to reinforce its alliance with the US in an even more anti-China way. This was the major development out of the fifth annual US-India “2+2 dialogue” held on November 10, 2023, in India. As a result, India is reinforcing Washington’s global position on almost all key flashpoints, ranging from Ukraine, and Palestine to the Indo-Pacific region.
The joint statement that came out of New Delhi points in this direction. The statement noted both countries as “natural and trusted partners” seeking “to promote a resilient, rules-based international order with respect for international law, including the UN Charter, sovereignty and territorial integrity” and taking steps to develop a joint approach to “developments in the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, Ukraine among other regions. The ministers expressed mutual deep concern over the war in Ukraine and its tragic humanitarian consequences”.
The joint vision is a prelude to a strategic alliance between New Delhi and Washington. For decades, India championed ‘non-alignment’. But, in the wake of profound shifts in the world due to the two ongoing military conflicts in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and the Middle East (Palestine), the geopolitical landscape is shaking badly, forcing a great many countries to adjust their positions.
The fact that India is essentially reinforcing Washington’s position against China (and even Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine) means that India is also supporting Washington against two of its key competitors with a view to neutralising their bid to make the world multipolar. This is the key part of India’s shifting foreign policy. Where India might have previously sensed a place for itself in a multipolar world, that dream remains far from close to being realised within today’s polarised global context. Its reason is that the struggle between the US and China, on the one hand and between Russia and NATO, on the other hand, has strengthened US rivals far more than it has benefitted the US. The fact that China is gaining influence means the gap between India and China is, instead of shrinking, fast expanding. China’s economy is already five times larger than India’s, with a GDP of US$ 17.7 trillion versus India’s GDP of US$ 3.2 trillion. The same goes for both countries’ military power.
It makes sense for India to, at least for now, drive its growth and rise within a bipolar world. And, to achieve that, New Delhi has decided to shake hands with Washington. It needs to have Washington on its side in order to neutralise what New Delhi sees as China’s hegemonic rise in Asia and beyond.
With a view to presenting a competition to China, both Washington and New Delhi are also targeting Afghanistan, where the Taliban appear to have developed strong working ties with Beijing. Notably, the logic of Beijing’s normalised ties with the Taliban is underpinned by non-interference in questions and issues of Afghanistan’s politics and society under Taliban rule. While short of recognition, the Taliban’s ties with Beijing – and the fact that Kabul has been successful in largely preventing terror attacks on Chinese interests in Afghanistan – has strengthened the group’s claims to power. For China, these ties matter because Afghanistan is a strategic territory within Beijing’s BRI projects. Therefore, China became the first country to appoint a formal ambassador to Kabul in October, and both countries are already talking about opening the Wakhan Corridor to boost trade and ultimately open a new territorial link between China and Central Asia via Afghanistan.
However, the US and India see these developments differently. Whereas Washington sees it as yet another diplomatic success for China and a step towards the consolidation of its Silk Roads projects, for India, Beijing’s success means that its hopes for developing any ties with the Taliban have shrunk significantly. There is, therefore, an incentive for New Delhi to join hands with Washington to attack the Taliban because it cannot possibly compete with China in Afghanistan. It is for this reason that Afghanistan featured prominently in the meeting. The joint statement basically sought to de-legitimise the Taliban (to internationally complicate China’s terms of engagement with the group) when it said that,
“The Ministers called on the Taliban to adhere to their commitment to prevent any group or individual from using the territory of Afghanistan to threaten the security of any country, and noted UNSC Resolution 2593 (2021), which demands that Afghan territory not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists, or to plan or finance terrorist attacks”.
The statement also targeted the Taliban’s handling of human and women’s rights. This growing convergence could have crucial implications for the future of Asia. India’s growing willingness to toe the US line could significantly militarise Asia. New Delhi is all set to host the next meeting of the QUAD, a group comprising India, the US, Australia, and Japan. Although it is not yet a military alliance, it appears to be moving in this direction due to the recent emphasis we have seen on the security aspect in the “2+2 dialogue”. To quote the joint statement,
“The Ministers reaffirmed the importance of a free, open, inclusive and resilient Indo-Pacific and renewed their shared desire to consolidate their dialogue and collaboration through the Quad. They emphasized the important role of the Quad as a force for global good for the peoples of the Indo-Pacific.”
Being seen as a “force for global good” only implies the idea that the US and India see a lot of geopolitical potential in the alliance in terms of achieving a common global objective, i.e., keeping the US-led “rule-based” international order intact. While the US has long been pushing for making the QUAD a military alliance, India’s close embrace of the US will significantly facilitate this possibility.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations (U.N.) this month launched an “ambitious-country-led campaign” to promote and accelerate the development of a global digital public infrastructure (DPI).
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said its “50-in-5” campaign will spur the construction of “an underlying network of components” that includes “digital payments, ID, and data exchange system,” which will serve as “a critical accelerator of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
“The goal of the campaign is for 50 countries to have designed, implemented, and scaled at least one DPI component in a safe, inclusive, and interoperable manner in five years,” the UNDP stated.
In September 2022, the Gates Foundation allocated $200 million “to expand global Digital Public Infrastructure,” as part of a broader plan to fund $1.27 billion in “health and development commitments” toward the goal of achieving the SDGs by 2030.
The Gates Foundation stated at the time that the funding was intended to promote the expansion of “infrastructure that low- and middle-income countries can use to become more resilient to crises such as food shortages, public health threats, and climate change, as well as to aid in pandemic and economic recovery.”
California-based privacy attorney Greg Glaser described the “50-in-5” campaign as “a totalitarian nightmare” and a “dystopian” initiative targeting small countries “to onboard them with digital ID, digital wallets, digital lawmaking, digital voting and more.”
“For political reasons, U.N. types like Gates cannot openly plan ‘one world government,’ so they use different phrases like ‘global partnership’ and ‘Agenda 2030,’” Glaser told The Defender. “People can add ‘50-in-5’ to that growing list of dystopian phrases.”
Another California-based privacy attorney, Richard Jaffe, expressed similar sentiments, telling The Defender the “50-in-5” initiative “point[s] to the much bigger issue of the globalization, centralization and digitalization of the world’s personal data.”
“My short-term concern is bad actors, and that would be individuals and small groups, as well as state mal-actors, who will now have a big fat new target or tool to threaten the normal operation of less technologically sophisticated countries,” he said.
Jaffe said Gates’ involvement “scares the hell out of him.” Derrick Broze, editor-in-chief of The Conscious Resistance Network, told The Defender that it is “another sign that this renewed push for digital ID infrastructure will not benefit the average person.”
“Projects like these only benefit governments who want to track their populations, and corporations who want to study our daily habits and movements to sell us products,” Broze said.
Initiatives to promote DPI globally also enjoy the support of the G20. According to The Economist, at September’s G20 Summit in New Delhi — held under the slogan “One Earth, One Family, One Future” — India garnered support from the Gates Foundation, UNDP and the World Bank for a plan to develop a global repository of DPI technologies.
‘World doesn’t need 50-in-5’
The 11 “First-Mover” countries launching “50-in-5” are Bangladesh, Estonia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Moldova, Norway, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Togo.
“Countries, regardless of income level, geography, or where they are in their digital transformation journey, can benefit from being part of 50-in-5,” the campaign states, adding that “with steadfast and collective efforts, the world can build a future where digital transformation is not only a vision but a tangible reality.”
According to Glaser, the 11 initial countries were chosen not because they are “digital leaders” but because the U.N. sees smaller nations as a “unique threat” because their leaders are occasionally accountable to the people.
“We have seen what happens to leaders of small nations who reject international intelligence agencies’ favorite products, such as COVID-19 vaccines, GMOs [genetically modified organisms] and petrodollars,” Glaser said. “U.N. programs like ‘50-in-5’ are a way for smaller countries to sell out early to Big Tech and preemptively avoid ‘economic hitmen,’” he added.
Speaking at the “50-in-5” launch event, Dumitru Alaiba, Moldova’s deputy prime minister and minister of Economic Development and Digitalization said, “The source of our biggest excitement is our work on our government’s super app. It’s modeled after the very successful Ukrainian Diia app [and] will be launched in the coming few months.”
"We are committed to enhancing & establishing key DPI components (digital ID, payments) .. The source of our biggest excitement is our work on our government's super app modeled after the very successful Ukrainian Diia app": Moldova Deputy Prime Minister Dumitru Alaiba, 50-in-5 pic.twitter.com/z173VsKqBr
At the same event, Cina Lawson, Togo’s minister of Digital Economy and Transformation, said, “We created a digital COVID certificate. All of a sudden, the fight against the pandemic became really about using digital tools to be more effective.”
According to Hinchliffe, Togo’s DPI system had seemingly benign origins, launching as a universal basic income scheme for the country’s citizens, “but shortly after that, they expanded the system to implement vaccine passports.”
Today, Togo became the first sub-Saharan African country whose digital COVID-19 vaccination certificate is recognized by the @eu_commission. Travelers with a Togolese certificate will be able to validly present it in the EU & vice versa. @AmbUETogo@KoenDoenspic.twitter.com/Uy9mRF8bkU
Togo’s vaccine passport was interoperable with the European Union’s (EU) digital health certificate. In 2021, the EU was one of the first governmental entities globally to introduce such passports. In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the EU’s digital health certificate standards on a global basis.
Speaking at the G20 Summit in September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “The trick is to build public digital infrastructure that is interoperable, open to all and trusted,” citing the EU’s COVID-19 digital certificate as an example.
The future is digital. I passed two messages to the G20:
→ We should establish a framework for safe, responsible AI, with a similar body as the IPCC for climate
→ Digital public infrastructures are an accelerator of growth. They must be trusted, interoperable & open to all
Four of the “First-Mover” countries are African. Shabnam Palesa Mohamed, executive director of Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Africa Chapter, told The Defender the “50-in-5” campaign will be used as a geo-political tool. “Africa is always a prime target because it is comparatively untapped digitally,” she said.
“Africa needs respect, food, water and peace,” she said. “It does not need DPI.”
Along similar lines, Hinchliffe said, “The world doesn’t need ‘50-in-5.’ The people never asked for it. It came from the top down. What the people want is for their governments to do their actual jobs — to serve the people.”
Digital ID intended to be ‘securely accessed’ by government, private stakeholders
According to The Economist, India is heavily promoting its digital ID technologies, first deployed domestically, for global implementation in “poor countries.” These technologies have garnered support and funding from Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation.
For instance, Lawson said Togo was issuing biometric digital ID “for all our citizens using MOSIP” — Modular Open Source Identity Platform — a system developed at India’s International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore.
MOSIP, backed by the Gates Foundation, the World Bank and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, is modeled after Aadhaar, India’s national digital ID platform — the largest in the world — which has been beset by controversy.
Glaser said Aadhaar “has been a nightmare for Indians. It is constantly hacked, including, for example the largest personal information hack in world history earlier this month, with personal information sold on the dark web.”
“Aadhaar is openly mocked in India,” Glaser said. “The only reason it is still used by the citizenry is because people have no practical choice. To participate meaningfully in Indian society, you need the digital ID,” he added.
A Business 20 (B20) communique issued following this year’s G20 summit called on “G20 nations to develop guidelines for unique single digital identification … that can be securely accessed (based on consent) by different government and private stakeholders for identity verification and information access within three years.”
In April, Nandan Nilekani, former chair of the Unique Identification Authority of India, told an International Monetary Fund panel on DPI that digital ID, digital bank accounts and smartphones are the “tools of the new world.” He added that if this is achieved, “Then, anything can be done. Everything else is built on that.”
“The lesson of course for the rest of the world is to never let digital ID take root in your society,” Glaser said. “Once a nation’s consumer class adopts digital ID with global partners, as in India, it is basically checkmate for that nation.”
‘When they say inclusive, they really mean exclusive’
According to The Sociable, DPI “promises to bring about financial inclusion, convenience, improved healthcare, and green progress.”
According to the “50-in-5” campaign, DPI “is essential for participation in markets and society in a digital era [and] is needed for all countries to build resilient and innovative economies, and for the well-being of people.”
But Hinchliffe refuted that assertion. “You don’t need digital ID and digital governance to provide better services to more people,” he said. “The tools are already available. It’s about incentives. Businesses, governments, and private citizens all have the power to come up with better solutions now, but why don’t we?”
Still, “inclusivity” is one of the key narratives employed to promote DPI. The “50-in-5” campaign states, “Countries building safe and inclusive DPI … can foster strong economies and equitable societies” and that DPI “promotes innovation, bolsters local entrepreneurship, and ensures access to services and opportunities for underserved groups, including women and youth.”
Experts who spoke with The Defender warned DPI has the potential to be exclusionary.
“While the United Nations, the Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation promote DPI as necessary for an ‘equitable’ world, the reality is that these tools have the potential for furthering exclusion of political activists, whistleblowers, and other individuals who hold controversial opinions,” Broze said.
Similarly, CHD Africa’s Mohamed claimed, “People, groups and organizations that pose a threat to the establishment will be targeted for digital surveillance and socio-economic isolation” via DPI. “This … is an easier way to control critical thinkers.”
Hinchliffe said DPI will “accelerate technocratic control through digital ID, CBDC and massive data sharing, paving the way for an interoperable system of social credit.”
Similarly, Glaser said, “With DPI, the U.N.’s plan is to issue everyone a social credit score in line with U.N. SDGs (Agenda 2030) … Your digital ID will become the new you. And from the perspective of governments and corporations, your digital ID will be more real than your flesh … required in various measures to travel, work, buy/sell, and vote.”
“When they say inclusive, they really mean exclusive, because the system is set up to exclude people who don’t go along with unelected globalist policies,” Hinchliffe said. “What they really want is for everybody to be under their digital control.”
Notably, a June 2023 WEF report titled “Reimagining Digital ID” concedes that “Digital ID may weaken democracy and civil society” and that the “greatest risks arising from digital ID are exclusion, marginalization and oppression.”
Making ID — digital or otherwise — mandatory may exacerbate “fundamental social, political and economic challenges as conditional access of any kind always creates the possibility of discrimination and exclusion,” the report adds.
Experts who spoke with The Defender said people must be given the choice to opt out.
“If the U.N. and its member states push the digital ID agenda, they must ensure that their respective populations have a simple way to opt out without being punished or denied services,” Bronze said. “Otherwise, the digital ID creep will eventually become mandatory to exist in society and we will see the end of privacy, and, in the long-term, liberty,” Broze said.
Jaffe said that while he does not oppose digital payment systems, he “would be vehemently opposed to the elimination of non-digital payment, like fiat paper currency,” calling this an issue of “freedom and privacy.”
Similarly, Hinchliffe said, “There should be non-digital alternatives available at all times and this should be a right of every citizen. Systems can fail. Databases can be breached. Governments can become tyrannical. Corporations can become greedy.”
‘The endgame is sovereignty by transhumanists’
Many of the initiatives that are backing “50-in-5” are themselves interlinked — in addition to their connections to entities such as the Gates Foundation.
For instance, the Omidyar Network, one of the supporters of “50-in-5,” has provided funding to MOSIP — as has the Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the UNDP and UNICEF participate in the Digital Public Good Alliance’s “roadmap” of entities that “strengthen the DPG [digital public goods] ecosystem.”
Earlier this year, Co-Develop invested in the establishment of the Center for Digital Public Infrastructure, which is headquartered at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, and is also home to MOSIP. Co-Develop was co-founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, along with the Gates Foundation and the Omidyar Network.
And “endorsing organizations” of the World Bank’s “Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development” report include the Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, UNDP, Mastercard, ID2020 and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Glaser said that Gates attained wealth by “monopolizing his operating system into every home and business worldwide” and “is doing the same now at the U.N. level with vaccines and DPI applications.”
“DPI platforms essentially outsource sovereignty to international governing bodies that do the bidding of financial entities like Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street,” he said.
“Companies with that much information on citizens hold enormous power to sabotage infrastructure [with] very few ethics to stop them,” Mohamed said.
“The endgame is sovereignty by transhumanists,” Glaser added. “The reason digital ID is an existential threat to society is because it separates people from their local governments, who have always worked cooperatively to prevent tyranny.”
“DPI is being sold to authorities on the grounds that it will include them in the worldwide economy, when in reality it will commodify their people and remove the ability of local authorities to ever govern meaningfully again,” he said.
Hinchliffe also connected DPI to policies that purport to combat climate change.
“With G20 nations committing to net-zero carbon emissions policies by around 2050 … restrictions will be placed on what we can consume, what we can purchase, and where we can go thanks to the widespread implementation of digital ID and CBDC to track, trace, and control our every move in … 15-minute smart cities,” he said.
“They openly talk about using DPI for ‘digital health certificates’ … and I believe that next will come carbon footprint tracking to monitor and control how you travel and what you consume,” Hinchliffe added, calling it “a future of constant surveillance and control.”
“If we can legislate and litigate to retain the right to traditional identification, then this categorically protects all of our rights,” Glaser added. “As long as the consumer classes of large nations like the United States resist digital ID, there is hope.”
“These schemes do little to nothing for the prosperity of the majority of Africans, but rather, they further the interests of a small economic and political class,” Mohamed said. “With growing economic disparity and anger, the attempt to waste more African resources on digital ID may lead to widespread revolt.”
“Generally, once Africans know what Bill Gates is about, they refuse to get involved in or support his activities,” she added.
Watch this Kitco News segment on the ‘50-in-5’ campaign:
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
India’s muscular diplomacy, an attribute of the present government, has run into heavy weather. Body blows from multiple sources — spat with Canada; Maldives’ triumphalism about evicting Indian servicemen; China-Bhutan normalisation, etc. — testify to it.
On top of it comes the latest diplomatic faux pas at the UN GA over the Gaza situation and a not-entirely unrelated shock and awe dealt out by Qatar over the past week. Doha has handed down death sentences to eight Indian ex-naval officers on charges of spying for Israel.
Whichever way one looks at the Explanation of Vote (EoV) on Thursday’s UN General Assembly resolution on Gaza, India’s abstention was a mistake. Simply put, our diplomacy has become entrapped in our solidarity with Israel.
The topmost consideration for India at the UN GA debate should have been that the draft was tabled by the Arab and OIC countries with whom India has fraternal ties, and, second, it called for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza, which is an urgent necessity.
Yet, France outclassed Indian diplomacy, exposing the need for more creative UN diplomacy on our part. France not only sought that some reference to Hamas’ raid into Israel on October 7 be made in the draft, but while on a recent visit to Tel Aviv, President Emmanuel Macron even proposed an alliance of like-minded countries to take on Hamas militarily.
Yet, when the crunch time came, France ultimately voted for the Arab resolution and issued an EoV justifying it. As France saw it, the imperative need today is to stop the fighting and the compelling reality is the importance of being on the right side of history when it comes to the Middle East crisis, where it has high stakes. The point is, in the final analysis, what stands out for the record is the actual voting, not the EoV.
It was apparent that the Canadian amendment — at Israel’s behest and sponsored by Washington from the rear — was a clumsy attempt to divide the votesby calling for “unequivocally rejecting and condemning the terrorist attacks by Hamas.”In a notable speech that drew wide acclaim, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN Munir Akram highlighted the contradiction.
If Canada was being fair in its amendment, he said, it should as well agree to name Israel as well as Hamas. “We all know who started this. It is 50 years of Israeli occupation and the killing of Palestinians with impunity,” Akram argued, therefore, not naming either side was the best choice.
It appears that India was taken aback by Akram’s intervention at the UN GA during Agenda Item 70, Right to Self-Determination where he forcefully linked the Palestine issue and Kashmir problem.Alas, India’s abstention has only left the centre stage to Pakistan to occupy. This could be consequential. A prudent course would have been to identify with the stance of the Arab countries unequivocally, since this is a core issue for them and it is playing out in their region, first and foremost.
India should have factored in that feelings are running high in the West Asian region and the US-Israeli propaganda that the Arab world paid only lip-service to the Palestinian cause doesn’t hold good. There is unmistakable anger and anguish among the regional states and a groundswell of opinion has appeared demanding a settlement of the Palestine issue as an imperative of regional stability.
Fundamentally, the tectonic plates in regional politics have shifted following the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement under China’s mediation, which in turn triggered new thinking in West Asia giving impetus to a focus on development. Equally, the regional states prefer to address their issues increasingly on their own steam without external interference. China and Russia understand this but the US refuses to see the writing on the wall.
Therefore, it will prove to be damaging to our interests if a growing perception crystallises that Indians are carpetbaggers. The Indo-Israeli fusion through the past decade hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Muslim countries. They resent it, perhaps, but it may not surge into view because Arabs are a hospitable people. That said, their resentment may surface if push comes to shove and their core interests are involved.
The US-Israeli attempt to put the lid on the region’s growing strategic autonomy is one such core issue. It is far from the case that the regional states — be it Qatar, Iran, Egypt, Syria or even Turkey — do not understand that the Biden administration’s grandiloquent idea of a India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is in reality a wedge to disrupt the nascent trends of unity among regional states so as to insert Israel into the regional processes and rekindle the flame of sectarian schism and geopolitical rifts, which the US invariably exploited to impose its hegemony in West Asia historically.
That is why, the three-way Qatar-India-Israel tangled mess of espionage, which should never have been allowed to happen, becomes a litmus test of mutual intentions in the geopolitics of the region. Lest it is forgotten, Qatar and Israel had once collaborated since the mid-nineties to prop up Hamas as an Islamist antidote to the secular-minded PLO under Yasser Arafat.
In a recent interview with the Deutsche Welle, former Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert disclosed, inter alia, “We know that the Hamas was financed with the assistance of Israel— for years — by hundreds of millions of dollars that came from Qatar with the assistance of the state of Israel, with the full knowledge and support of the Israeli government led by Netanyahu.”
That convergence — rather, Faustian deal — ended in 2009 following the three-week Gaza Massacre by Israel, whereupon, Doha drew closer to Tehran. Nonetheless, a pragmatic relationship continued, and in 2015, the Qatari government facilitated discussions between Israel and Hamas in Doha in search of a possible five-year ceasefire between the two parties. Suffice to say, Indian diplomacy is swimming in shark-infested waters. The news from Doha this week is a wake-up call.
Equally, our public discourse on Hamas as a terrorist organisation and our branding of that national liberation movement is surreal, to say the least. Although it may be difficult today for the government to openly deal with Hamas, it shouldn’t be that we lack a proper understanding of Islamism. If ever a Palestine settlement comes to fruition, Hamas will have a lead role in it as the fountainhead of resistance. India’s political elite must bear in mind this reality.
Eliminating the Hamas from the political landscape is no longer possible, given the massive grassroots support it enjoys among the Palestinian people, which is of course a proven fact in the successive elections held in Gaza and West Bank.
In Part Two of our serialisation of the book HPV Vaccine on Trial by Mary Holland, Kim Mack Rosenberg and Eileen Iorio, we analyse what happened when an NGO, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recruited girls in India to test the HPV vaccine. More than 25 per cent of all newly diagnosed cases of cervical cancer in the world occur in India. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, claiming approximately 74,000 lives a year. Despite this large number, cervical cancer deaths by 2005 had dropped almost 50 per cent. This occurred without the vaccine and without widely accessible screening because of several factors including better hygiene, cleaner water, and improved nutrition, among others. You can read Part One here.
IN 2010 seven girls died in India allegedly after taking part in Gardasil and Cervarix HPV vaccine trials. A cover-up was then instigated stating that they had died of insecticide poisoning, snake bites or suicide, it is alleged. The vaccine trial is now being described by the Indian authorities as child abuse.
While India’s parliament says the trials were unauthorised and unethical, manufacturers Merck, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and their allies, strongly disagree. However, an investigation discovered that the ‘safety and rights of children were highly compromised and violated’ as it emerged that their parents and guardians had not given proper informed consent.
A fact-finding report by physicians detailed several interviews with subjects and their family members. They learned that families were told that the vaccine would protect the subjects from ALL cancers, they were not told about any side effects, and they were not provided with any medical insurance in the event of injury or death. They learned that several of the girls suffered adverse events including loss of menstrual cycles, and psychological changes such as depression and anxiety. The report concluded that ‘the safety and rights of the children in this vaccination project were highly compromised and violated’.
Here is the background.
Shortly after the US Food and Drink Administration (FDA) approved Gardasil (Merck) in June 2006, an international NGO called Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) began a five-year project described as a ‘demonstration project’ (to test and measure effects of drugs in real-world situations). Its objective was to generate and disseminate evidence for informed public sector introduction of HPV vaccines. They chose India, Uganda, Peru and Vietnam to monitor safety and efficacy. All four countries have state-funded immunisation programmes and if Gardasil and Cervarix were adopted, Merck and GSK (the maker of Cervarix), stood to make major financial gains.
Two remote provinces in India, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, were chosen for the trials in 2009 and 2010. The subsequent investigation, while initially focusing on the girls’ deaths, uncovered systemic failures in government agencies and their oversight of the trials.
PATH engaged in extraordinary practices to obtain ‘informed consent’ from minors in economically vulnerable areas. Indian law requires parents’ or guardians’ consent on behalf of minors to participate in clinical trials. For the uneducated, an independent person must be present to explain and witness the consent process.
A 2011 parliamentary committee reviewed thousands of consent forms from the two provinces signed by dormitory supervisors in schools where the girls lived without their parents. These supervisors were not the girls’ legal guardians. The committee found forms with no witness signatures and signatures by thumb impression of those who could not write. Many forms had no dates. Direct interviews revealed that trial participants had received grossly inadequate information about potential risks and benefits while being offered financial inducements to participate.
The committee harshly criticised PATH’s treatment of adverse events. They noted that there were clear situations when a vaccination should not have been given to a girl, but those conducting the study ignored contraindications. The committee observed that this was ‘clearly an act of wilful negligence’. They noted that the project design failed to account for the possibility of serious adverse events and failed to provide for an independent monitoring agency. ‘Investigations into causes of deaths took an unacceptably long time’ and there were critical discrepancies in the investigation.
The report noted: ‘PATH’s wrongful use of governmental logos made it appear as if the project were part of the Indian Universal Immunisation Program.’ The committee found governmental responses ‘very casual, bureaucratic and lacking any sense of urgency’. They concluded that ‘PATH exploited with impunity the loopholes in the system’ and ‘had violated all laws and regulations laid down for clinical trials by the government’.
PATH’s sole aim had been to promote the commercial interests of HPV vaccine manufacturers who would have reaped windfall profits had PATH been successful in getting the HPV vaccine included in India’s immunisation programme. ‘This act of PATH is a clear-cut violation of the human rights of these girl children and adolescents . . . and an established case of child abuse.’
A second Parliamentary Committee report in 2013 described how PATH entered into a memorandum of understanding to study HPV vaccination with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the highest medical research body in India. PATH said the project would vaccinate around 23,000 girls aged between ten and 14. They said it did not conform to the definition of a clinical trial, so it was an observational study.
Merck and GSK supplied the vaccine to PATH free of charge. In turn, PATH distributed the vaccines to local medical agencies free. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the other costs of the study as part of its global public health activity.
(The Gates Foundation has invested heavily in India’s vaccine programme through two organisations that have influenced vaccine policy since 2002: the Global Alliance for Vaccines and immunisation (GAVI) and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), India’s largest non-profit organisation. Pharma executives sit on GAVI’s board, which has a public-private partnership with the Indian government, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to fund vaccine programmes. Although the Indian government set up PHFI, the Gates Foundation largely funds it, causing potential conflicts of interest.)
The parliamentary committee dismissed PATH’s explanations that these studies were not clinical trials, and the report alleges that PATH resorted to subterfuge, jeopardising the health and wellbeing of thousands of vulnerable Indian girls. The report makes clear that these de facto clinical trials could not have occurred without corruption within India’s leading health organisations. The committee noted ‘serious dereliction of duty by many of the institutions and individuals involved’ and accused some of having ‘undisclosed conflicts of interest with the vaccine manufacturers’.
In October 2012, activists on behalf of the girls in the trials filed a petition in the Indian Supreme Court against the drug controller general, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the State of Andhra Pradesh, the State of Gujarat, PATH, GSK, Merck and others. The petition alleged that the clinical trials for Gardasil and Cervarix were unethical, that the vaccine use was illegal, and that various actors enlisted girls in an experiment and then abandoned them without follow-up treatment or adequate information.
The complaint stated that ‘adverse events were grossly under-reported and hidden. Records were falsified. Deaths that took place were stated as having nothing to do with the vaccines and were described as deaths due to suicides, insecticide poisoning, and snake bites.’ To date, the case has not been heard and proceedings seem to have stalled.
Largely because of the HPV vaccine scandal, the Indian government restricted clinical trials in 2013 and forced an end to the Merck and GSK demonstration projects. That same year the Supreme Court suspended 162 drug approvals pending the creation of a better monitoring system. In 2014, the government published new guidelines for audio/visual recording of informed consent in clinical trials.
Since 2015, though, provinces obtained the right to approve some drugs without national approval, bypassing general regulators. The Delhi government launched a school-based HPV vaccination programme in November 2016, and the Punjab government followed suit in early 2017.
In the US, there are currently about 80 cases pending in federal court against Merck for injuries associated with Gardasil, with hundreds more cases likely to be filed in the coming months.
Trey Cobb, 22, was injured by Gardasil aged 14 and developed autoimmune symptoms and severe fatigue. He won a major victory recently when the federal vaccine court ruled that he is entitled to compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
In the meantime, Gardasil 9, which replaced Gardasil, is expected to generate £1.2billion a year in sales.
PATH contests any notion that there may have been conflicts of interest in India: ‘Any suggestion that inappropriate collusion existed in this project is baseless, wholly inaccurate, and defies the very spirit of our cross-sector partnerships, which are essential in India and around the world.’
Merck and GSK strongly deny any wrongdoing.
The HPV Vaccine on Trialwas written and researched by Children’s Health Defense legal expert Mary Holland, lawyer and advocate for autistic children Kim Mack Rosenberg, and vaccine safety advocate Eileen Iorio.
Read our previous articles on HPV vaccine injured here and here.
The Indian reaction to the massive eruption of violence between Hamas and Israel on Saturday belies ground realities and ignores the geopolitical environment in that region and globally in which this cataclysmic event merits careful appraisal. It will prove to be unsustainable and can damage the country’s interests and standing globally.
One, Indian policy has blatantly tilted toward Israel. What has been a matter of speculation assumed habitation and a name when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet on Saturday underscored India’s “solidarity” with Israel.
The resonant expression signifies a historic departure from India’s consistent stance on the Palestine issue, which followed, quintessentially, the footfalls of Gandhiji who had the prescience and vision to oppose the creation of Israel on Palestinian homelands in the cruel manner in which the Western powers imposed that geopolitical construct on West Asia.
What prompted this radical shift on an issue where angels fear to tread remains a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
Two, Delhi had the benefit of a “preview” of what is to follow in Gaza in the coming weeks or months. Prime Minister Benjamin proclaimed that the “enemy will pay an unprecedented price” and promised that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.” He declared war on Gaza.
Netanyahu’s capacity for mindless violence is a legion. Yet, Delhi rushed in to react at an emotional, subjective level.
Three, the possibility of a ground offensive and even occupation of Gaza is real. Simply put, India’s patented mantra that ‘this is not an era of wars’obliges it to mark distance from Netanyahu. But instead, India risks taking a virtual partisan in the carnage that is to follow — politically, morally, diplomatically.
At such a crucial juncture, at the very least, our government being a ‘Vishwa Guru’ who tirelessly propagates the notion of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakaam (The World is One Family), gets exposed, warts and all. India’s role should be of a unifier rather than divider.
Four, India’s reaction is clearly at odds with the sentiments of the Global South. For, other than the ‘collective West’, India becomes a lone ranger in the Global Majority that stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel. Empathy with victims of violence is one thing, but political support for the collective West (which is what this entails, in reality, in the prevailing climate in world politics) is another thing.
Two days after Vladimir Putin praised Modi’s India sky-high as a stellar example of a civilisation state role model in a multipolar world in a landmark speech addressing an elite audience, distinguishing it from the predatory neo-colonial Western powers, India negated his thesis.
There is no question that the Indian stance exposes the paradox of its self-appointed claim to be the leader of the Global South. When the crunch time came, Indian elites showed their true colours.
Five, Israel’s reaction, which is already under way, is expected to be massive, unremitting and ruthless. An Israeli occupation of Gaza is a high probability, howsoever foolish that might eventually turn out to be. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s chilling words vowing to “change the reality in Gaza” will mean that increasingly, it will become difficult for the countries of the region and the Global South —and even the ‘friends of Israel’ in the US and Europe — to remain passive.
India has dug itself a foxhole from where it will be difficult to come out saving face and battered reputation and credibility.
Six, troubling questions arise in regard of India’s credentials to be a UN Security Council permanent member. Whose interests, after all, does India represent other than its self-interests? This becomes a daunting question for which there are no easy answers. Succinctly put, the fruits of decades of hard work by successive Indian leaderships and diplomats are being squandered away.
Seven, all wars come to an end through negotiations. But this incoming war will be a long and wide-ranging one. The wily politician in Netanyahu, who is under immense pressure domestically, facing personal legal charges and holding on to power with the help of ultra-nationalist and right-wing partners, will seize the opportunity to salvage his reputation as Israel’s great protector and rally the political and security establishment in his country, which is deeply divided, and shall be in no hurry to sit at the negotiating table with Hamas.
On the other hand, American intention will be to claw its way up the greasy pole of West Asian politics after the Iran-Saudi rapprochement. In a major display of force, a vast armada of warships and planes is slouching toward East Mediterranean. How this force projection will pan out remains to be seen.
The temptation will be there to reimpose US hegemony in West Asia and to project President Biden as a decisive leader at a time when, on the one hand, his re-election bid in the 2024 election is wide open and, on the other hand, the spectre of a humiliating defeat in Ukraine haunts his presidency.
Suffice to say, the political interests of Biden and Netanyahu are coalescing and the stench of Israel’s war will likely touch the heavens and may even engulf other countries in the region as time passes. The Indian leadership will be hard-pressed to demonstrate its friendship and bonhomie with Netanyahu in an apocalyptic scenario.
Eight, Modi government might as well say goodbye to the grand idea of building an Indo-Arab economic corridor to Europe in a foreseeable future. That means, Haifa Port, which was acquired by the Adani Group in a “strategic purchase” at a reported cost of $1.13 billion with Netanyahu’s blessing, will be underperforming. Smart economic diplomacy entailed fostering Arab-Israeli amity.
Nine, Indian government has blithely ignored that Israel is a state sponsoring terrorism. Optics matter in politics and international affairs, and at a time when India’s own credentials are under Western scrutiny, it is doubly important that it is careful in its words and behaviour. There is an old saying, ‘Show me your friends and I will show you your future!’ If the intention is to fly on the wings of the Israeli lobby in North America — or to catch Biden’s eye — it smacks of naïveté, to say the least.
Finally, India should know that in the final analysis, sins are forgotten and forgiven when a political movement that might have had uses of violence in its toolbox commands the overwhelming support of the masses. Indeed, that is how it should be. By that yardstick, Hamas passed the litmus test decades ago, much before the BJP formed a government in 2014.
Hamas today is the unquestioned leader of Palestinian aspirations, towering head and shoulders above peer groups and is a mainstream interlocutor for the regional powers. It even has a representative office in Moscow. Clearly, the Indian reaction, which tends to view the current development as a ‘stand alone’ event of terrorism, is anachronistic.
An enduring Palestinian settlement will have to be inclusive and will include Hamas after the audacity of hope it has displayed.The BJP leadership should educate its provincial leaders with tunnel vision on international affairs that Islamism is not to be equated with terrorism in the global commons, especially the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood to which Hamas belongs.
By James Petras | Global Research | September 12, 2018
Introduction
Despite having the biggest military budget in the world, five times larger than the next six countries, the largest number of military bases – over 180 – in the world and the most expensive military industrial complex, the US has failed to win a single war in the 21st century.
In this paper we will enumerate the wars and proceed to analyze why, despite the powerful material basis for wars, it has led to failures. … continue
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