At least 17 cases have been filed against 51 people in India for supporting Palestine through protests or social media posts, according to a report published Monday, Anadolu Agency reports.
The report by Article 14, an Indian non-governmental organisation, investigated 17 First Information Reports (FIRs) filed in several Indian states since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Palestine on 7 October last year.
The cases span Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
They found that charges range from organising rallies to displaying Palestinian flags and posting pro-Palestine content on social media. Most cases fall under the new Indian Penal Code, while one invokes the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, according to the report.
Notable cases include a 20-year-old shopkeeper charged for waving a Palestinian flag during a religious procession and students facing legal action for participating in a campus solidarity march.
Nine of the FIRs were registered in states governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its allies, with the remaining eight in opposition-controlled areas, the organisation reported.
In September, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a public interest litigation that had sought an order for the federal government to halt licenses to Indian firms exporting arms to Israel.
Earlier, a group of eminent citizens in India had written to the country’s Defence Minister, calling on him to halt the licensing process that enables exporters to send arms and ammunition to Israel.
September 16, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, India, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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President Putin has asked the government to consider restrictions on the export of strategic materials like nickel, titanium and uranium in response to unfriendly countries’ actions. Sputnik asked investment experts specializing in resource markets how these restrictions would impact the world economy. In short: it wouldn’t be pretty for the West.
Investors and market experts are buzzing over the Russian president’s instructions to Prime Minister Mishustin to whip up a report on measures Russia could take to limit the export of certain strategic minerals in response to Western sanctions policy, with uranium stocks enjoying an immediate price surge, and observers warning of shortages and hefty price increases for strategic metals if were to Moscow move forward with restrictions.
Along with nickel, titanium and uranium, Putin hinted that “other” resources may be affected, while emphasizing that restrictions should be considered so long as “this does not harm us.”
A resource superpower, Russia is endowed with substantial reserves of virtually all the primary commodities required to keep a modern economy functioning.
- The country possesses up to 12% of the world’s oil reserves, 32% of its natural gas, 8% of all untapped uranium, and 11% of the planet’s coal.
- Russia accounts for 25% of global iron reserves, 33% of nickel, 15% of zinc and titanium, 11% of tin, 10% of lead and rhodium, 8% of chromium, 7% of copper, 3% of cobalt, 2% of bauxite and about 1% of gallium, plus substantial amounts of beryllium, bismuth, and mercury. Russia also has about 12% of global potash (used in an array of areas, from agriculture and industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals).
- Up to 23% of the world’s gold, 12% of silver, up to a fifth of platinum group metals, and as much as 55% of diamonds are buried under Russia’s soil.
- Russia is also a potential world leader in the production of rare earth minerals (which are used in an array of modern high-tech devices, communications systems and advanced weaponry). While it only accounts for about 2% of rare earths production today, Russia has the second-largest reserves, constituting up to 28.7 million metric tons, and has committed to major investments in production and processing. Known rare earths possessed by Russia include samarium, europium, gadolinium, lanthanum, neodymium, promethium, and cerium.
World’s Dependence on Russian Resources
Russia’s detractors have often played up its resource exports as a sign of the country’s lagging development or low place in the global hierarchy of ‘developed vs. underdeveloped’ nations. However, the partial breakdown in ties with Western countries after 2022 showed that while Russia can definitely survive without Western technological and consumer goods, the same cannot be said of the West when it comes to Russian oil, gas, uranium, fertilizers and other materials.
The US, for instance, continues to rely on Russian uranium to fuel its nuclear power plants, vowing to wean itself off its dependency only by 2028. Europe, having largely cut itself off from Russia’s cheap and dependable pipeline-delivered natural gas, is currently buying record volumes of Russian LNG amid shortages of US and Gulf-sourced supplies. Furthermore, major Western agricultural producers including the US, Germany, France and Poland have carved out special exceptions for themselves to allow the continued purchase of Russia’s world-class nitrogen fertilizers, which are energy-intensive to produce.
“The pain” of a Russian freeze on strategic resource exports “would be felt by both the US and the EU, and all countries listed as ‘unfriendly’ to Russia, as they would have to source the required elements from third country suppliers, and that would entail an appreciable price increase for the commodity, and the extended supply chain costs that entails,” Paul Goncharoff, general director of consulting firm Goncharoff LCC, told Sputnik, commenting on Putin’s proposal.
“In this case, most if not all alternative suppliers would be countries listed as ‘friendly’ to Russia. This is a value-added benefit for those countries,” Goncharoff added.
“In every instance the end user pays this mandatory unlegislated tax bill in the form of even higher inflation,” Goncharoff said, hinting that the higher commodity prices would add to the pain already being experienced by producers and consumers in many Western countries as a consequence of the two-and-a-half-year-old hybrid war against Russia.
The US and Europe should expect a 15-20% bump in the costs of its strategic resource imports if Moscow moves ahead with the restrictions, especially since Russia is in a unique position globally in the production of high-quality nickel, aviation-grade titanium, and enriched uranium, says Maxim Khudalov, chief strategist at Vector X, a Moscow-based investment and brokerage firm.
For instance, while Russia today accounts for ‘only’ about 8% of total global nickel output, it accounts for about 20% of the production of “high-grade nickel used to produce high-quality stainless steel and nickel-containing alloys, which are needed for space, aviation and defense technologies,” Khudalov explained.
The same goes for high quality titanium, Khudalov said, pointing out Russia’s titanium giant VSMPO-AVISMA in Sverdlovsk region is “unique in the world” as far as its ability to produce vast amounts of aviation-grade titanium is concerned.
Finding a replacement supplier would take time, including running a gauntlet of quality and safety testing and recertification which could take years, and in the case of aviation-grade titanium be required to meet strict temperature, bending, pressure load and other requirements, the expert noted.
“In an airplane, you can’t just say ‘well, I don’t like this supplier of an element used for the wing, I’ll take it from somewhere else.’ Nothing of the kind. If you replace the element used in the wing, you change the airplane, and have to retest it, because it’s no longer safe for civilian use,” Khudalov explained. “The conclusion here is that it is very difficult to replace Russian supplies in the aviation industry, requiring significant recertification efforts.”
If Europe loses access to Russian aviation-grade titanium, that would add to Airbus’s production costs, affecting the aviation giant considerably in its high-stakes rivalry with Boeing.
Meanwhile, higher nickel costs would mean higher prices for virtually all of Europe’s high-tech products, from electronics to specialized mechanical engineering products, Khudalov said, emphasizing that “all of this will become more expensive in Europe and again allow their American ‘friends’ to grab the remainder of their markets.”
“In this sense, Europe is more vulnerable than the US, because the US, with all its capabilities, can afford to increase production costs, at least because their energy is cheap. Europe cannot afford any increase in production costs and will objectively lose,” Khudalov said.
In the case of enriched uranium, the situation is even more complex, according to Khudalov, because it is a restricted resource typically exported to a specific customer for a specific use, and planning for the replacement of suppliers is a long and painstaking process, since nuclear power plants can’t simply be turned on and off at will.
“The French are the second player after Russia in uranium enrichment, but Russian enrichment technology is head and shoulders above anyone else in the world, and our enrichment costs are 35-40% cheaper than anywhere in the world. So if a country is forced to switch to French-sourced material, it will have to pay a very hefty premium,” Khudalov emphasized.
In that sense, France could meet increased US demand over time, but not overnight, since it would have to ramp up its own enrichment capacity.
“The US themselves were planning on disconnecting from our uranium starting in 2028. Well, we could ‘help them’, so to speak, to implement their decision by making deliveries more regulated,” Khudalov suggested.
Short-Term Losses, Long-Term Win
Russia, over the short term, could lose a bit of its export revenues if resource exports to the West were suddenly curtailed, Khudalov noted.
“But on the other hand, what do we need export revenues for? Generally speaking, the whole point of international trade for us is to sell raw materials in exchange for technology. Western countries have refused to supply us with technology basically going back to 2014. Then the question is: why do we continue to supply them with strategic raw materials? To get some green pieces of paper which they then seize from us? This is a rather strange position. Therefore, here it is turning out that since they limit our access to technology, we are starting to limit their access to raw materials,” Khudalov said.
“It can’t be said that all these possible restrictions on the Americans and the Europeans are critical and would kill their industry. It won’t. But it will add very serious difficulties, first and foremost of an organizational nature, because they would have to look for a supplier of comparable quality, and of course, pay a price they’re not accustomed to paying. Because when a force majeure occurs on the market, and for them this would constitute a force majeure, any normal businessman will be obliged to take advantage of their status as an alternative supplier. Most of the alternative suppliers are located in China, with whom the Americans are in the process of kicking off a global trade war,” the observer stressed.
“The cherry on the cake is that the president’s proposal sounded like a proposal to limit the supply of strategic metals to unfriendly countries, but probably implies no restrictions for friendly countries. In that case, we would deliver a nice pass to China, whose entire industry is aimed at producing high-tech equipment, and would effectively get a 15-20% advantage on the cost of strategic materials over Western competitors,” benefiting Beijing in its push to put “pressure on Europe and the US in all markets” globally, Khudalov said.
Russia, meanwhile, will be able to reorient its strategic metals exports to other major alternative markets as well, including India, according to the expert.
September 13, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics | China, European Union, India, Russia, United States |
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Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has a shocking accusation against the U.S. On August 12, while in exile in India, she told the Economic Times, “I could have remained in power if I had surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal. I beseech to the people of my land, ‘Please do not be manipulated by radicals’.”
Hasina resigned on August 5 after weeks of violent street protests by students angry at a law which awards government civil service jobs. The protests began in June 2024 after the Supreme Court reinstated a 30% quota for descendants of the freedom fighters who won the independence for the country in 1971 after fighting against Pakistan with the help of an Indian military intervention. The students felt they were facing an unfair system and would have limited opportunity for a job based on their educational qualifications, instead of ancestry.
On July 15, Dhaka University students were protesting and calling for quota reforms, when suddenly they were attacked by individuals with sticks and clubs. Similar attacks began elsewhere and rumors circulated that it was a group affiliated with the ruling Awami League.
Some believe the group who began the violence was paid mercenaries employed by a foreign country. Street protesters who were met by a brutal crackdown were the western media description of the March 2011 uprising in Syria. However, the media failed to report that the protesters were armed and even on the first day of violence 60 Syrian police were killed. The question is in cases like Bangladesh: was this a grass-roots uprising, or a carefully staged event by outside interests?
By July 18, 32 deaths were reported, and on July 19, there were 75 deaths. The internet was shut down, and more than 300 were killed in less than 10 days, with thousands injured.
Some call the Bangladeshi uprising the ‘Gen Z revolution’, while others dub it the ‘Monsoon revolution’. But, experts are not yet united in a source of the initial violent attack on student protesters.
Hasina had won her fourth consecutive term in the January 7 elections, which the U.S. State Department called ‘not free or fair’. Regional powerhouses, India and China, rushed to congratulate the 76-year-old incumbent.
Hasina had held the peace in a country since 2009 while facing Radical Islamic threats. Targeting Bangladeshi Hindus was never the message or the intent of the student movement, according to some student activists.
The Jamaat-e-Islami has never won a parliamentary majority in Bangladesh’s 53-year history, but it has periodically allied with the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Jamaat, as the party is widely known, was banned on August 1, when Hasina blamed the two opposition parties for the deaths during the anti-quota protests.
Muhammad Yunus, a respected economist and Nobel Laureate, accepted the post of chief adviser in a transitional government until elections are held. He said he will seek to restore order as his first concern.
The Saint Martin Island is a stretch of land spreading across merely three square kilometers in the northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal, and is the focus of the U.S. military who seek to increase their presence in Southeast Asia as a balance against China.
On May 28, China praised Hasina for her decision to deny permission for a foreign military base, commending it as a reflection of the Bangladeshi people’s strong national spirit and commitment to independence.
Without naming any country, Hasina had said that she was offered a hassle-free re-election in the January 7 polls if she allowed a foreign country to build an airbase inside Bangladeshi territory.
“If I allowed a certain country to build an airbase in Bangladesh, then I would have had no problem,” Hasina told The Daily Star newspaper.
Bangladesh was formerly East Pakistan, becoming a part of Pakistan in 1947, when British India was divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Bangladesh was founded in 1971 after winning a war of independence. On August 15, 1975, a military coup took over, and Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, was assassinated along with most of his family members.
The U.S. State Department, aided by the CIA, have a long history of political meddling in foreign countries. Examples are the 2003 ‘regime change’ invasion of Iraq, and in the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ we saw the U.S. attack Libya to overthrow the government, the U.S. support of the ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria who were Al Qaeda terrorists, and the U.S. manipulated election in Egypt which installed a Muslim Brotherhood member as President. The American Lila Jaafar received a 5 year prison sentence for her manipulation of the Egyptian election, but Hillary Clinton evacuated her from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo before she could serve her prison sentence, and she is now the Director of the Peace Corps with a White House office.
The U.S. often uses sectarian issues and strife to accomplish their goals abroad. After the Islamists in Bangladesh drove out Hasina, reports of attacks on Hindu temples and businesses circulated on mainstream Indian TV channels.
Hindus, Muslim-majority Bangladesh’s largest religious minority, comprise around 8% of the country’s nearly 170 million population. They have traditionally supported Hasina’s party, the Awami League, which put them at odds with the student rioters.
In the week after Hasina’s ouster, there were at least 200 attacks against Hindus and other religious minorities across the country, according to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, a minority rights group.
The police have also sustained casualties in their ranks, proving the protesters were armed as well, and went on a weeklong strike after Hasina fled to India.
Dhaka-based Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies said they believe inclusivity and plurality are important principles as Bangladesh navigates a post-Hasina era. Those exact words: inclusivity and plurality are current ‘buzz-words’ used in Washington, DC. based political and security groups.
Hasina is credited with doing a good job balancing Bangladesh’s relations with regional powers. She had a special relationship with India, but she also increased economic and defense ties with China.
In March 2023, Hasina inaugurated a $1.21 billion China-built submarine based at Bangladesh’s Cox Bazaar off the Bay of Bengal coast.
On May 28, China praised Hasina for refusing to permit a foreign air base. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, “China has noted Prime Minister Hasina’s speech, which reflects the national spirit of the Bangladeshi people to be independent and not afraid of external pressure.”
Mao said some countries seek their own selfish interests, openly trade other countries’ elections, brutally interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, undermine regional security and stability, and fully expose their hegemonic, bullying nature.
China has invested over U.S.D 25 billion in various projects in Bangladesh, next highest after Pakistan in the South Asian region, who also steadily enhanced defense ties with Bangladesh supplying a host of military equipment, including battle tanks, naval frigates, missile boats besides fighter jets.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hasina had long ignored the democratic backsliding in each other’s countries to forge close ties, and bilateral trade increased with Indian corporations striking major deals
“I also congratulate the people of Bangladesh for the successful conduct of elections. We are committed to further strengthen our enduring and people-centric partnership with Bangladesh,” Modi said in a post on X in January.
Mainstream Indian news outlets, which often serve as mouthpieces for Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, have been focused on a Bangladeshi Islamist party. “What is Jamaat-e-Islami? The Pakistan-backed political party that brought down Sheikh Hasina’s govt,” read one headline. “Jamaat may take control in Bangladesh,” read another, quoting a senior member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Some critics claimed India “covertly” helped Hasina win the election, while others said New Delhi used its influence to tone down U.S. and European criticisms of the Bangladeshi vote.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party came to power in 2014, and Modi’s commitment to a Hindu rashtra, or Hindu nation, while turning its back on secularism has undermined a core Indian foreign policy principle.
In 2019, the Modi government passed controversial citizenship laws that were criticized as anti-Muslim. The BJP’s strident anti-migrant rhetoric sees hardline party members often railing against Muslim “infiltrators” with Indian Home Minister Amit Shah infamously calling Bangladeshi migrants “termites” during an election rally in West Bengal.
The revolution to oust a long-serving leader, who kept the Muslim majority and the Hindu minority in a peaceful coexistence, has opened a new chapter for Bangladesh society. Will this prove to be a destabilizing period in which the Islamic party, Jamaat, holds sway over the society? Will the secular history of Bangladesh be forgotten? The final question will be, when will the new U.S. military base be opened on Saint Martin Island?
August 22, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Bangladesh, China, India, United States |
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Chinese experts on Tuesday slammed a recent report by the Chinese language version of the Voice of America (VOA) on India’s newly debuted light tank, saying that the US media is seeking to sow discord between China and India amid a recent recovery in relations by hyping the threat of military confrontation which has been subsiding for years.
VOA reported on Monday that India’s Zorawar light tank, designed for high altitude operations, will be deployed along the China-India borders “amid continued tensions.”
Calling it a game changer, the report hyped India’s new tank and its capabilities, and how it can rival its Chinese counterpart, the Type 15.
The first reports on the debut of the Zorawar light tank were published by Indian media in early July, which, although mentioning China as well, noted that the new Indian tank will not be ready before 2027, a key detail that was ignored by VOA.
Recently, relations between China and India have been recovering, with the two sides having held the 30th Meeting of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs in late July.
It has been more than four years since the Galwan Valley clash of 2020, and since then the two countries have held multiple rounds of border talks on different levels in both military and diplomatic channels, having seen de-escalation and disengagement in multiple points of contact, a Beijing-based military expert who requested not to be named told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The US media’s hype on military confrontation along the China-India border is unprofessional, and it exposes the US’ mentality of wanting to sow discord amid improving China-India ties, the expert added.
From a military point of view, China has commissioned and actually deployed the Type 15 light tank since 2019, while India’s new tank will have to wait until at least 2027, the expert said, noting that India’s defense industry has a history of issues such as delays, cost rises and technical problems.
August 13, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | China, India, United States |
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Bangladeshi Hindus fleeing to India for safety gather at the international border, Sitalkuchi, Cooch Behar, August 9, 2024
The exclusive report in today’s Economic Times carrying Sheikh Hasina’s first remarks after her ouster from power will come as a slap on the face of the nincompoops in our country who are waxing eloquently about developments in that country as a stand-alone democracy moment in regional politics.
Hasina told ET, “I resigned, so that I did not have to see the procession of dead bodies. They wanted to come to power over the dead bodies of students, but I did not allow it, I resigned from premiership. I could have remained in power if I had surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal. I beseech to the people of my land, ‘Please do not allow to be manipulated by radicals.’”
The ET report citing Awami League sources implied that the hatchet man of the colour revolution in Bangladesh is none other than Donald Lu, the incumbent Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs who visited Dhaka in May.
This is credible enough. A background check on Lu’s string of postings gives away the story. This Chinese -American ‘diplomat’ served as political officer in Peshawar (1992 to 1994); special assistant to Ambassador Frank Wisner (whose family lineage as operatives of the Deep State is far too well-known to be explained) in Delhi (1996-1997); subsequently, as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Delhi from 1997-2000 (during which his portfolio included Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations), inheriting the job, curiously enough, from Robin Raphel, whose reputation as India’s bête noire is still living memory — CIA analyst, lobbyist, and ‘expert’ on Pakistan affairs.
Indeed, Lu visited Bangladesh in mid-May and met with senior government officials and civil society leaders. And shortly after his visit, the US announced sanctions against then Bangladesh army chief General Aziz Ahmed for what Washington termed his involvement in “significant corruption.”
After his Dhaka visit, Lu told Voice of America openly, “Promoting democracy and human rights in Bangladesh remains a priority for us. We will continue to support the important work of civil society and journalists and to advocate for democratic processes and institutions in Bangladesh, as we do in countries around the world…
“We [US] were outspoken in our condemnation of the violence that marred the election cycle [in January] and we have urged the government of Bangladesh to credibly investigate incidents of violence and hold perpetrators accountable. We will continue to engage on these issues…”
Lu played a similar proactive role during his past assignment in Kyrgyzstan (2003-2006) which culminated a colour revolution. Lu specialised in fuelling and masterminding colour revolutions, which led to regime changes in Albania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan (ouster of Imran Khan).
Sheikh Hasina’s disclosure could not have come as surprise to the Indian intelligence. In the run-up to the elections in Bangladesh in January, Russian Foreign Ministry had openly alleged that the US diplomacy was changing tack and planning a series of events to destabilise the situation in Bangladesh in the post-election scenario.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement in Moscow,
“On December 12-13, in a number of areas of Bangladesh, opponents of the current government blocked road traffic, burned buses, and clashed with the police. We see a direct connection between these events and the inflammatory activity of Western diplomatic missions in Dhaka. In particular, US Ambassador P Haas, which we already discussed at the briefing on November 22.
“There are serious reasons to fear that in the coming weeks an even wider arsenal of pressure, including sanctions, may be used against the government of Bangladesh, which is undesirable to the West. Key industries may come under attack, as well as a number of officials who will be accused without evidence of obstructing the democratic will of citizens in the upcoming parliamentary elections on January 7, 2024.
“Unfortunately, there is little chance that Washington will come to its senses and refrain from yet another gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. We are confident, however, that despite all the machinations of external forces, the issue of power in Bangladesh will ultimately be decided by the friendly people of this country, and no one else.”
Moscow and Beijing have nonetheless taken a scrupulously correct stance of non-interference. True to Russian pragmatism, Moscow’s Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander Mantytsky noted that his country “will cooperate with any leader and government elected by the people of Bangladesh who is ready for equal and mutually respectful dialogue with Russia.”
That said, both Russia and China must be worried about the US intentions. Also, they cannot but be sceptical about the shape of things to come, given the abysmal record of the US’ client regimes catapulted to power through colour revolutions.
Unlike Russia, which has economic interests in Bangladesh and is a stakeholder in the creation of a multipolar world order, the security interests of China and India are going to be directly affected if the new regime in Dhaka fails to deliver and the country descends into economic crisis and lawlessness as a failed state.
It is a moot point, therefore, whether this regime change in Dhaka masterminded by Washington is ‘India-centric’ or not. The heart of the matter is that today, India is flanked on the west and the east by two unfriendly regimes that are under US influence. And this is happening at a juncture when signs are plentiful that the government’s independent foreign policies and stubborn adherence to strategic autonomy has upset the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy.
The paradox is, the colour revolution in Bangladesh was set in motion within a week of the ministerial level Quad meeting in Tokyo, which was, by the way, a hastily-arranged US initiative too. Possibly, the Indian establishment was lulled into a sense of complacency?
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy reached out to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with a phone call on August 8 coinciding with the appointment of the interim government in Dhaka, which the UK has welcomed while also urging for “a peaceful pathway to an inclusive democratic future” for Bangladesh — much as the people of that country deserve “accountability.” [Emphasis added.]
India is keeping mum. The only way Bangladesh can figure a way out of the foxhole is through an inclusive democratic process going forward. But the appointment, ostensibly at the students’ recommendation, of a US-educated lawyer as the new chief justice of the Supreme Court in Dhaka is yet another ominous sign of Washington tightening its grip.
Against this geopolitical backdrop, a commentary in the Chinese daily Global Times on Thursday titled China-India relations easing, navigating new realities gives some food for thought.
It spoke of the imperative for India and China “to create a new kind of relationship that reflects their status as major powers… Both countries should welcome and support each other’s presence in their respective neighbouring regions.” Or else, the commentary underscored, “the surrounding diplomatic environment for both countries will be difficult to improve.”
The regime change in Bangladesh bears testimony to this new reality. The bottom line is that while on the one hand, Indians bought into the US narrative that they are a ‘counterweight to China’, in reality, the US has begun exploiting India-China tensions to keep them apart with a view to advance its own geopolitical agenda of regional hegemony.
Delhi should take a strategic overview of where its interests would lie in this paradigm shift, as the usual way of thinking about or doing something in our neighbourhood is brusquely replaced by a new and different experience that Washington has unilaterally imposed. What we may have failed to comprehend is that the seeds of the new paradigm were already present within the existing one.
August 11, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism | Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Georgia, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, United States |
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A group of 25 prominent Indian activists, including former judges, diplomats, activists, writers, and economists, issued a letter urging their government to cancel arms exports to Israel, the Hindustan Times reported on 2 August.
In a letter addressed to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the group argues that licenses issued for the export of arms and ammunition to Israel violate India’s commitments under international law and its constitution.
“We are writing to you as concerned citizens, alarmed at the continued grant of export licenses and permissions to various Indian companies, for the supply of military arms and munitions to Israel, since the war on Gaza began,” the letter states.
The group, which includes Booker prize-winning author Arundhati Roy and renowned lawyer Prashant Bhushan, referenced recent rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) showing Israel is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention and that Israel’s occupation and settlement of the West Bank are illegal.
The group noted that, as a result of the ICJ rulings, any supply of military material to Israel would amount to a violation of India’s obligations under international humanitarian law and the mandate of Article 21 read with Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India, the group noted.
“We urge you, therefore, to cancel the concerned export licences and halt the granting of any new licences to companies supplying military equipment to Israel,” the letter concludes.
Several countries have imposed unofficial or “silent” arms embargoes on Israel in response to its war on Gaza, which has killed over 39,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and displaced some 90 percent of the strip’s 2.3 million residents.
In response, Israel has begun to rely more heavily on India for weapons purchases. Israel also exports large amounts of weapons to India.
Several Indian companies, both government-owned and private, have joint ventures with Israeli defense manufacturers and make sub-systems and parts for the original manufacturers.
The letter highlights the role of three Indian companies working closely with the Israeli military: Munitions India Ltd, Premier Explosives Ltd, and Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India Ltd.
“We demand, therefore, that India should immediately suspend its collaboration in the delivery of military material to Israel,” the letter urged, adding that, “International law aside, we consider such exports to be morally objectionable, indeed abominable.”
August 2, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | India, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Türkiye’s obligations to the US-led military bloc are not consistent with the Eurasian organization’s values, Moscow has said.
Türkiye’s bid to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is not compatible with its membership in NATO, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended a summit of the Eurasian mutual defense group, in which his nation has observer status. While returning home from Kazakhstan, he told journalists that Ankara wants to “further develop” ties with the SCO and its founding members Russia and China. During the NATO leaders’ summit in the US this week, he said Türkiye wants to join the SCO as a permanent member.
Asked by journalists when Turkish accession could be expected, Peskov said there was a problem with such a proposal.
“There are certain contradictions between Turkish commitments and [its] position on fundamental issues as a NATO member and the worldview formulated in the founding documents of the SCO,” he explained.
The expansion of the SCO is of interest to many nations and remains on its agenda, but there is no specific timeline for accepting new members, he added. Commenting later during a press call on bilateral relations with Türkiye, Peskov said Russia was “open for attempts to reach agreements based on a certain worldview.”
Moscow perceives NATO as a hostile, aggressive military organization, which serves US geopolitical interests and is currently conducting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Despite being a NATO member state, Türkiye has maintained a neutral stance on the Ukraine conflict, refusing to impose economic sanctions on Russia and serving as an intermediary between Moscow and Kiev on several occasions. Ankara helped to mediate a nascent peace deal in the early months of the hostilities, which Kiev eventually ditched in favor of continued fighting. The Russian government believes that the US and its allies, particularly the UK, forced Ukraine to reject the proposal.
The SCO was founded in 2001 and currently has ten full members: Russia, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. Kazakhstan holds the rotating presidency this year and hosted the leaders of member states on July 3 and 4 in Astana.
One of the key pledges to which SCO members subscribe is not to seek the improvement of their own national security at the expense of the national security of other parties. NATO policy does exactly that, according to its critics, including Russia.
July 12, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, NATO, Pakistan, Russia, SCO, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan |
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India is going gangbusters building new coal plants
The need for energy in India is so dire, the Modi government just leaned on the power companies to get their act together. Instead of adding the usual 1 – 2 gigawatts of new coal power, which they have for a lot of the last decade, last year they ordered enough gear to build 10 gigawatts. And this year Modi wants them to aim for 31 gigawatts. Which is about the same capacity as the entire coal generation of the Australian National Grid (and our gas plants too).
Somewhat miraculously, they are talking of building them “in the next 5 or 6 years”:
India ‘Asks Utilities to Order $33bn in Gear to Lift Coal Output’
Rush to add more coal plants
India is rushing to add fresh coal-fired plants as it is barely able to meet power demand with the existing fleet in non-solar hours.
Post pandemic, the country’s power demand scaled new records on the back of the fastest rate of economic growth among major economies and increased instances of heatwaves.
India saw its biggest power shortfall in 14 years in June, and had to race to avoid night time outages by deferring planned plant maintenance, and invoking an emergency clause to mandate companies to run plants based on imported coal and power.
— Asia Financial
And they are discussing numbers like $33 billion instead of $3.3 trillion. When President Modi wants electrical generation fast, he didn’t say “quick, build 50,000 wind mills, with batteries, gas plants, high voltage lines and pumped hydro.”
India now consumes more coal than Europe and North America combined, making Australia and the UK, and everyone except China, just so irrelevant.
Meanwhile the Western advisors sit around at frequent-flyer lounges on the way to UN junkets and tell themselves how the world is transitioning away from coal. And when the UN patsy declares coal is a “stranded asset” they nod obediently and sip more champagne.
When our inept and traitorous scientific agencies calculate energy costs, they won’t even put coal on the map unless they add up the cost of every cyclone in the next hundred years and park it in the “coal” column. Witchdoctors, every one of them.
July 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | India |
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India has reportedly provided Israel with advanced Hermes 900 drones as well as other weaponry manufactured in the city of Hyderabad, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Sunday.
The report said the factory, established by Israel to supply these drones to the Indian military, converted 20 of them specifically for the Israeli army due to the shortage created during the war back in February.
The factory, a joint venture between the Israeli defence company, Elbit Systems, and the Indian billionaire, Gautam Adani’s consortium, is the first in the world to produce these drones outside of Israel.
This dramatic decision was likely approved by the highest officials in India, likely due to Israel being one of its main arms suppliers to the country.
The move joins other reports indicating India has supplied Israel with artillery shells and weapons since the start of the war. The strategic partnership between the countries has proven highly beneficial for Israel, according to the Israeli paper.
June 24, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | India, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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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 Post published 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.
May 14, 2024
Posted by aletho |
False Flag Terrorism | Canada, India, UK, United States |
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India expects to secure a “long-term arrangement” with Iran to manage the Iranian port of Chabahar, Reuters reported 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 Standard reports 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.
May 13, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Wars for Israel | Afghanistan, India, Iran, Pakistan, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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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.
February 14, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | China, European Union, India |
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