Humanoid Robot Sophia, who was in India, says the country is colourful, diverse and beautiful.

Developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics, Sophia is modelled after actress Audrey Hepburn, and is known for her human-like appearance and behaviour compared to other robotic variants. She uses artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition.

Sophia, who is here to be the part of 7th Forevermark Forum, got into an interesting conversation with Stephen Lussier, CEO Forevermark & EVP of The De Beers Group of Companies during the forum that focussed on the theme, “Future is Now.”

When Lussier asked her if this is her first time in India, she replied: “No. I have been to India before. It’s a colourful, diverse and a beautiful country.” Talking further about herself, she said: “I live in Hong Kong and travel the world to meet people from different cultures.”

Sophia, who spotted a Forevermark Diamond necklace, asked Lussier that, “How does one really choose the best diamond?” To this, he replied: “You start by asking your jeweller about the 4Cs that is the cut, clarity, colour and the caratage. So diamonds having the best cut, flawless clarity, colourless nature and the high carat weight are the ones that are most valuable and worth buying,” he told her.

Also talking about what the future means to her, she said: “The future is unpredictable but I really want to make a difference.”

And is there anyway you think we could make the future better, asked Lussier? Replied Sophia: “Yes. By planting more trees, by using water wisely and contributing to help the environment.”

The goal of the forum was to provide a wide platform for all its partners to interact, transact and gain new perspective to events within and outside the industry. Partners discussed diversity in thought, culture, design and innovation in a multi-faceted future which they felt was brimming with diverse opportunities.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Nawaz Sharif, being one of the canniest politicians in the world, will try his best to get out of the jail. But can he be successful in performing a Houdini-like escape this time?

Nawaz Sharif would never have imagined that he would one day become a poster-child for democracy. But in an increasingly dysfunctional Pakistan, he is now a prisoner of conscience of the Pakistani deep state. Nor could he imagine that Indian newspapers across the political spectrum would be writing sympathetic editorials for him. Pakistan is a country where the Armed Forces have all but taken over all functions of the state without admitting to actually doing so. They have certainly taken over the judiciary. Politicians in Pakistan undoubtedly suffer from the bug of corruption so deep-rooted in South Asia and the fact that Sharif, like so many other Pakistani Prime Ministers before him, is corrupt is quite believable. The news reports about the Sharif family having secret bank accounts in Panama should not surprise anyone; many of South Asia’s elite have ferreted away millions of dollars of public funds. But the fact is that Sharif is also one of the best bets Pakistan has of not completely turning into a Chinese client state.

Pakistan’s military-industrial complex, in this case quite literally as much of Pakistan’s industrial complex is controlled by the military, has been gorging of late on Chinese funds for China’s planned economic corridor from Gwadar on the Arabian Sea via roads and rail through to the Chinese border. However, as several other countries have seen the example of Sri Lanka and how the Chinese have economically captured that nation in a debt-trap, Pakistan wants China to double-down on their investments even as reports emerge of China having second thoughts about Pakistan’s economic viability. The fact is, minus any semblance of democracy, Pakistan’s political parasites are being wiped out by their far worse cousin species, the Pakistani military parasite, and the judiciary is aiding the process.

We do not know what will happen to Nawaz Sharif now. He returned to Pakistan fully-well knowing the risks he was undertaking. Pakistan’s military has executed one Prime Minister, killed their own Chief and assassinated another Prime Minister. It is a truly dysfunctional military whose only objective is to keep surviving, the nation be damned. Nawaz Sharif must have been the last person to believe that one day he would be called brave, but he could have stayed on in exile. One could believe that Mian Sharif knows that the path his country is headed down is not a good one and if he did not act, Pakistan would be beyond saving.

Nawaz Sharif stood up to the military before and paid the price. He was the single best-bet India had for negotiating a truce with its neighbour and foster the belief that our two nations for long divided by hate might finally work together in joint economic prosperity. And being a popular mass leader, he could have also sold the idea to his nation. Unfortunately, that is not the case right now. One hopes that elements in the Pakistani deep state come to their senses soon enough and realise that Sharif, despite all his flaws, is not bad compared to the alternative.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

There are a number of different takes people have when it comes to the what the real Benazir Bhutto. With all the different versions, Sashanka S Banerjee will always believe that Benazir Bhutto was the woman who first offended him and eventually befriended him, sharing dark secrets.

Ironically, my first experience of meeting Benazir Bhutto was quite unpleasant, to say the least. To my surprise, minutes after I was introduced to her by Justice Abu Sayeed Choudhury, who had earlier served as the President of Bangladesh, at his then family home in Hendon, London, I was denied even breathing space as she started an unprovoked and an unrelenting verbal attack on India. She described India as a “hegemonic power harbouring territorial ambitions on neighbouring countries”, an “oppressive tyranny masquerading as a democracy”, a “violator of  human rights in Kashmir”, a “Muslim baiter” and much more. Her voice was shrill, her face flushed with goose pimples indicating that she was nervous while talking to me — an unknown Indian from the enemy country. I suspect she was under the illusion that I was a member of some sort of a repressive, Gestapo-like organisation of India.

I was disappointed to have discovered that a mature and sophisticated lady who had studied in Oxford and Harvard and belonged to a highly-regarded political family in Pakistan, would be so naive in her approach. It was her first interaction with a former senior bureaucrat — even if from the enemy country. And before this, the bureaucrat actually had regard for her as she had introduced democracy in Pakistan. But, she went on with her anti-India rant. And I wondered what her underlying motive could be. Whatever her intention was, my curiosity only increased over time. One thing I was sure about was that her worldview was not dissimilar to the official position of Islamabad that Pakistan would never bow down to India and be a poodle to New Delhi.

Initiated as a policy option by Benazir, Pakistan had devised its own ways of keeping India — a soft power in her view — firmly on the leash. Forging of ties with Taliban after she had become the Prime Minister of Pakistan meant using the terror group’s violent methods against India as an instrument of state policy.  Pakistan Army had long aspired to secure “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. Benazir had played a key role in that. And this was her idea of power play with New Delhi.

Thus, Pakistan started an innovative “two-front war” — on the East with India and on the West with Afghanistan. There was no dearth of funding for this dangerous game, richly sourced from three of its key allies. At the same time, for Islamabad it was strategically important to maintain the pretense that it was a “friend to India”. Within the parameters of this manufactured ambivalence, Justice Abu Sayeed Choudhury’s introduction of Benazir Bhutto, heralded the beginning of a stormy and complicated equation.

Our next meeting was scheduled a few days later at her home in a luxury apartment at the Lauderdale Towers in The Barbican, London. Most of my remaining meetings in the subsequent period of my association with her were held at her home.

Benazir being much younger to me, I chose to address her by her first name. She didn’t mind it. I said, “Benazir, the other day, you thundered like the cataract of Niagara but, just think, did your fire and fury serve any real purpose? Neither was I intimidated nor was Justice Choudhury persuaded by what you said.” I added, “How can anybody call India  a hegemonic power when within three months of the liberation of Bangladesh, at the end of a successful military campaign, India withdrew its armed forces from the soil of what was now sovereign independent Bangladesh? It was a gesture of goodwill. Some 93,000 Pakistani POWs taken at the end of the Bangladesh War of 1971 were also released. But Benazir didn’t return the compliment.  

Gradually, our discussions began taking shape. I took the initiative and asserted that if she was looking for India’s support in promoting liberal democracy in Pakistan, I thought that India would gladly come forward and help her and the Pakistan Peoples’ Party. But this was all subject to New Delhi agreeing. I gave her the example of India’s support extended to the secular, democratic, and pluralistic Bangladesh Liberation Struggle led by Shaikh Mujibur Rahman.

I could see she was not amused. I felt like she had other things weighing on her mind. After several interactions, I got a shrewd impression that she was hiding something from me. Soon, I had no doubt in my mind that she was still in a state of deep shock and mourning. I would often find her getting emotionally choked while talking about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, her father. Her eyes would moisten at the very mention of his name.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged till death on August 4, 1979, and buried at Larkana, the family’s graveyard. I often heard her saying that General Zia-ul-Haq was an incarnation of evil.

She would speak about her father as “Shahid Zulfikar Ali Bhutto” and described his hanging as “judicial murder”. I could detect the undercurrent of an overpowering dark force working within her, craving for revenge against the Pakistani dictator. She had mentioned the word “revenge” to me a number of times. I was pretty certain that she had also spoken about it among some untrustworthy friends. I knew only too well that Benazir had no security cover appropriate to her status provided by the state. She was an easy target, very vulnerable.  

It couldn’t be that the ISI didn’t get a wind of Benazir’s overzealous pronouncements on avenging the dead. I was not prepared to believe that the ISI would not deploy a posse of surveillance detail on her, like static and mobile watch and telephone tapping for delving into her inner thoughts on her father’s hanging by General Zia-ul-Haq. It was all too well known that the grip of the ISI on Pakistan was so firm that not even a crow could fly over Pakistan without the ISI knowing about it.

Benazir had an inherent capacity to spring surprises. I was not quite ready for it, but one day she came up with a proposal that was beyond the bounds of my wildest imagination. She said, “You have been putting pressure on me to open up about my “secret agenda”. I will tell you, but it will be in bits and pieces”. Then, she told me that she would like to send a group of six young men to India on an “extended” educational tour for training in leadership skills in democratic principles and practice drawn from the Indian experience. The training would include lectures on international relations with special focus on India-Pakistan relations. As our discussions expanded, I was getting a sneaky feeling that Benazir was keeping what she “really” wanted close to her chest. She was shrouding her real thoughts in ambiguity. Her half-baked thoughts in the backdrop of what she was saying all this time, were in all probability linked to her zeal for revenge against General Zia-ul-Haq.

I asked her if she was thinking of an extreme kind of capital punishment with the help of an enemy country. And added that she must know the consequences of embarking upon such a dangerously mad mission. Moreover, why would India get involved in such a misadventure?

“What would happen if there was a leak? Are you not afraid of dying,” I asked. “No, for my father’s sake I am prepared to die. But my mission must succeed,” she said. It was becoming devastatingly clear to me that the “judicial murder” of her beloved father had acted as a catalyst in splitting her personality into two parts.

She asserted that a question kept nagging at her, “Why should I not take revenge with a concrete plan of action against that murderer? He has ruined my family. My mother has been widowed and my brothers and I have been orphaned when we are still at the prime of our lives.” A second shock awaited me. I asked her how much she trusted “the boys”. “Hundred percent” was her answer. What were their political affiliations? She paused for a moment and then admitted coyly, “Yes, you are right. They were cadre members of Jiye Sindh Mahaz (JSM) led by GM Syed.” Do you know him? She didn’t hesitate to say “Both of us are Sindhis, Yes, I know him”. I told her that GM Syed was serving a life sentence in a Pakistani prison for treason. I did not have to remind her that JSM was a pro-independence militant organisation fighting for the liberation of Sindh. Nobody knew if he was still alive. I reflected what was Mujibur Rahman to Bangladesh Liberation Struggle, GM Syed was to Sindh Freedom Movement. I told her that the ISI regarded JSM as “a separatist terrorist outfit” and they would go to any extent to crush them with heavy handed brutality.

It was a revelation to me that Benazir had close connections with GM Syed’s pro-independence movement in Sindh. I wondered, “Did she have an open mind for switching her loyalties to the Sindhi Freedom Movement, if her aspirations at Pakistan’s national level were to fail?” At this point, I thought I had enough knowledge of her inner thinking and must not pursue this matter any further. In fact, it seemed to me that there was perhaps already a dark deal struck up between JSM and herself.

India partly agreed to Benazir’s request but it was nowhere near to what she really wanted. India agreed to receive the “boys” in Delhi. As a huge gesture of goodwill to Miss Bhutto, they would be issued tourist visas for three months. The boys would be extended normal consular courtesies. They would be taken around the Golden Triangle — Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra. While in Delhi, they would be taken around on day trips to the Houses of Parliament, the Supreme Court, CP, and Raisina Hill. They could be taken on a short day trip to a Military Academy and so on. They would be treated as honoured guests. As per Benazir’s personal wish, total secrecy would be maintained about the trip. What was deeply disappointing for Benazir was that there was not a word about military training for the boys that she had asked for. Her core interest was ignored in totality.

In the blood-soaked, revenge-filled, unforgiving political environment of Pakistani politics, a brief comparative study of three high-level political assassinations that happened in quick succession between 1979 and 2007 may be in order. I will touch on them in chronological order. For starters, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged to die on some “flimsy grounds” under orders of General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s military dictator, on April 4, 1979. There were reports that General Zia-ul-Haq did not trust the highly ambitious Bhutto and suspected that any day Bhutto he may usurp power from Zia. The hanging solved the military dictator’s fears but threw the country into turmoil and Benazir in a determinedly revengeful outrage.

Nine years later, General Zia-ul-Haq was killed, in an “air mishap” after his flight on a PAF heavy duty C-130 transport carrier took off from Bahawalpur Cantonment’s airfield on August 17, 1988. This game-changing event, described as “political murder” has also come to be known as “a case of exploding mangoes”.

Security had cleared “some casual employees” working in the Cantonment. There was a fruit and vegetable shop that loaded two basketful of the finest Dasheri mangoes, one for the military dictator and another for the US Ambassador Arnold Raphel, who was accompanying the General. They were on a visit to Bahawalpur Cantonment to oversee the performance of America’s best known main battle tanks (MBTs) Abram M1. After their field inspection, they were going back to GHQ Rawalpindi, satisfied that the tanks were to the liking of the military dictator. The order was to be in the region of 300 Abrams M1 MBTs. The loaders — there is no scope for any doubt — had placed two high explosive time bombs hidden in the mango baskets. Nobody checked the baskets because the security environment in the Cantonment was thought to be water-tight. After the explosion that killed everybody on board the aircraft, the ISI went into an overdrive to find out who had done it but the matter was so delicate that the report of the investigation was kept “top secret”. Any punitive action would have to wait for an appropriate date. Apparently, the assassination looked like part of a bigger conspiracy where there was involvement of biggies who had  political and military interests.

Nineteen years later, it was Benazir Bhutto’s turn to face the wrath of her enemies, quite probably, the military top brass, perhaps avenging the killing of Gen Zia-ul-Haq. A brief recount of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination — as her cavalcade started moving out after her successful election rally held at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi, where Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated in 1951, a small group of Punjabi-looking young men who also had Punjabi accent surrounded her moving car, started shouting slogans of “Jiye Benazir” a Sindhi language version of “Benazir zindabad” or “long live Benazir” in English. She was lured to stand up looking through an opening in the roof of the SUV to thank them. In a flash, she was fired upon from a precision weapon allegedly of military origin. Of the four bullets fired, one went through her head, killing her almost instantly. This was quickly followed by a bomb attack which completed the job of killing the leader.

For the record, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination took place after her fateful election rally on December 27, 2007. Thus, Benazir with a tasbih — a string of prayer beads — in her hand, chanting “Jiye shahid Bhutto”, died. A thing to note about these three political murders was that they were all linked to each other by a thread of starkly competing interests in an intense power struggle among viciously ambitious power-hungry military men and politicians at high places. In the bargain, all three lost their lives after short spells of glory. What’s worth is the lack of any long term impact — it was business as usual after a few short weeks.   

A few days after General Zia-ul-Haq died, Benazir summoned me to a pub located in a hidden corner on the ground floor of the Barbican Towers for a chat. I saw her beautiful face, pretty much glowing like one who had won a war and established an empire. She felt quite strongly that the exit of an “evil genius” like Gen Zia-ul-Haq was reason for celebration. “The punishment was willed by Allah,” she asserted with a raised glass of Coca-Cola in her hand and a broad smile on her face.

What was no less important for Benazir was that the death of Gen Zia-ul-Haq potentially opened the door for her to climb the political ladder and win her position as the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. Her passion for the creation of a sovereign, independent Sindh emulated from the example of Liberation of Bangladesh, seemed to have died with her.

Before I left for home, I said, “Benazir forgive me for asking you something that may upset you — who put the “exploding mangoes” in the baskets of the C 130 that killed General Zia-ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel?” For the first time,  she addressed me endearingly and said, “My dear friend, I should not answer your query. However, since I have already shared so many secrets with you, I will not disappoint you. Yes, I happen to know them.” For her comfort, I did not ask their names.

For me, it was now time to say goodbye to Benazir. I had a warm hand shake, said an emotional goodbye, and stepped back. And as it turned out, I was never to meet her again. Benazir’s assassination will be remembered by future generations as the darkest day for democracy in Pakistan’s turbulent history.

Banerjee is the author of A Long Journey Together

— India, Pakistan and Bangladesh published in 2008

Writer: Sashanka S Banerjee

Courtesy: The Pioneer

PM Narendra Modi is expected to make the most of his stay to the African continent.

Stakes are high as Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his five day three-nation tour of Africa on Monday. The visit comes at a time when there is a decline in trade and investment in the continent not to mention years of diplomatic neglect of Africa and its absence from the foreign policy matrix. The past decade, however, has seen Chinese presence in Africa expand exponentially as Beijing cast its net wide looking for energy security and strategic depth. This has, fortunately, compelled India to facilitate a comprehensive engagement with the continent and also enter into its fourth phase of friendship with Africa, the first India-Africa Forum Summit having taken place from April 4 to April 8, 2008, in New Delhi. Despite such unprecedented diplomatic outreach and high-level visits to Africa, India’s contribution as well as interest in Africa’s growth has failed to keep pace with intent and declined with time. China, our biggest competitor on the continent, makes India’s economic presence in Africa look miniscule. The figures are revealing: Chinese investments increased from 2011-12, when its investment levels were equivalent to India’s at $16 billion, to a massive $40 billion in 2016-17.

In terms of defence and security ties too, China is way ahead of India. According to the Stockholm Institute of Peace Research, China’s export of arms and ammunition to Africa increased to 55 per cent in a period of four years (2013-2017). China also boasts of an exponential growth in arms import to sub-Saharan Africa, which is up to 27 per cent from 16 per cent over the past four years. And our bleeding hearts diplomats must take some responsibility for India lagging behind in forging a deep defence and military relationship with various African nations. Perhaps nothing exemplifies how ahead of the game Beijing is when compared to New Delhi than the factoid that China has virtually gifted Rwanda, the Prime Minister’s first port of call during his African sojourn, a military training centre and provided tech support for an Artificial Intelligence based security platform. We have a lot of catching up to do; the Prime Minister’s visit, despite the memes it has spawned on social media, is essential. We hope something substantive comes of it. Africa is an aspirational continent with a young population and huge scope for development. India needs to sustain its engagement with Africa and set itself the aim of emerging as its economic, security and cultural partner so it can be a part of the African growth story even as expands its global strategic footprint.

Writer: Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The power of Brexiteers’ lie in their threat to have the ability to stage a revolt that fatally splits the Conservative Party, overthrows May, and precipitates an early election.

Even with Donald Trump scheduled for a brief visit to the United Kingdom this week amid massive protests, it’s still ‘all Brexit, all of the time’ in the sceptred isle — and the long struggle over the nature of the deal that will define Britain’s relationship with the European Union post-exit allegedly reached a turning point last weekend.

“They had nothing else to offer. They had no Plan B. She faced them down,” said a senior Government official about the hard-line Brexiteers after Prime Minister Theresa May got them to sign up a so-called ‘soft Brexit’ at a crisis Cabinet meeting last Friday. But the armistice between the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ factions in her fractious Conservative Party lasted less than 48 hours. On the morning of July 8, hard-line Brexiteer David Davis, the ludicrously titled Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, reneged on his short-lived support for May’s negotiating goals and resigned in protest. Then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson followed suit, claiming that May’s plan meant “the (Brexit) dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”

The sheer fecklessness of the ‘Brexit dream’ is epitomised by Johnson, who first compared May’s negotiating plans to “polishing a turd”, then came round to supporting them for about 36 hours, and finally resigned, saying that they would reduce the UK to a “vassal state” with the “status of a colony” of the EU. Yet at no point in the discussion did either of them offer a coherent counter-proposal.

And what is all this Sturm und Drang about? A negotiating position, devised by May with great difficulty two years after the referendum that yielded 52 per cent support for an undefined ‘Brexit’, which could never be accepted by the European Union. Its sole virtue was that it seemed possible to unite the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ factions of the Conservative Party behind it. But the unity imposed by May broke down before the weekend was over.

All four of the great offices of the state — Prime Minister, Chancellor (Finance Minister), Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary (Interior Minister) — are now held by Conservative politicians who voted Remain in the referendum. Yet they are unable to persuade their party to accept even a ‘soft Brexit’ that preserves Britain’s existing access to its biggest trading partner, the EU.

The Brexiteers’ power lies in their implicit threat to stage a revolt that overthrows May, fatally splits the Conservative Party, and precipitates an early election that brings the Labour Party to power. They may not really have the numbers to do that — it’s widely assumed that a majority of the Conservative members of Parliament secretly want a very soft Brexit or no Brexit at all — but May dares not test that assumption.

So, horrified by the prospect of a Labour Government led by Jeremy Corbyn (who is regularly portrayed by the Right-wing media as a Lenin in waiting), the Conservatives are doomed to cling desperately to power even though they can probably never deliver a successful Brexit. And the time is running out. The United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union on March 29 next year, whether there is a deal that maintains most of its current trade with the EU or not. In practice, the deadline for an agreement is next October, since time must be allowed for 27 other EU members to ratify the deal. If there is no deal, the UK simply ‘crashes out’, and chaos ensues. The volume of trade in goods and services between the United Kingdom and the rest of the EU is so great, and the preparation for documenting the safety and origins of goods and collecting customs on them so scanty, that the new border would simply freeze up.

That would cause great difficulty for many European enterprises, but for Britain it would be a catastrophe. As an example, two-fifth of the components for cars built in the UK are sourced from elsewhere in the EU. Yet most of the time available for negotiating a soft Brexit has already been wasted, and Britain still does not have a realistic negotiating position. This preposterous situation is almost entirely due to the civil war within the Conservative Party between the Brexit faction the rest. The only reason that there was a referendum at all was because former Prime Minister David Cameron thought that a decisive defeat in a referendum would shut the Brexiteers up and end that war. He miscalculated.

The Brexiteers spun a fantasy of an oppressive EU that was the cause of all Britain’s troubles and sold it to the nostalgic older generation, the unemployed and underemployed who were looking for somebody to blame, and sundry nationalists of all colours. They narrowly won the referendum with the help of a rabidly nationalist Right-wing Press, spending well beyond the legal limits in the campaign – and, it now appears, with considerable support from Russia. (The biggest contributor to the Brexit campaign, mega-rich investor Arron Banks, met the Russian ambassador at least 11 times during the run-up to the referendum and the subsequent two months). There’s still a chance that reason will prevail before the UK crashes out of the EU, of course. But the odds are no better than even.

(The writer is an independent journalist)

Writer: Gwynne Dyer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Religious minorities in Afghanistan such as Hindus and Sikhs have been at the receiving end due to decades of internal conflict. International organisations’ failure to acknowledge their plight adds insult to injury.

India’s foreign policy has its task cut out — to ensure the safety of the Hindu-Sikh community within Afghanistan or its safe repatriation to India (or migration elsewhere) with full citizenship and rehabilitation. In a positive move, New Delhi has issued long-term visas to members of Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu communities and offered them the right to live in India without any limitation. India’s envoy to Afghanistan, Vinay Kumar, said that these Afghan citizens must take the final call. The Jalalabad bombing (July 1, 2018) has complicated matters for New Delhi and Kabul. India has given sustained support to successive Governments in Afghanistan (barring the Taliban that behaved shabbily during the Kandahar episode); Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invested personal capital in support of “Afghanistan’s multicultural fabric”. India has invested in many large development projects but growing insecurity has forced a slowdown. Seven Indian engineers kidnapped in May, in Baghlan Province, remain captive.

Some things are notable about the Jalalabad incident. First, Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility, though security agencies are yet to confirm this. IS fighters are fleeing Syria in droves under pressure from the Syrian Arab Army and need safe havens; Pakistan which has long desired to be leader of the Islamic world seems a natural destination. How IS coexists with other terrorist groups there remains to be seen but Nangarhar, where the attack occurred, borders Pakistan and is a terrorist stronghold despite sustained operations by Afghan commandos and American airstrikes.

Second, Avtar Singh Khalsa, an important Sikh community leader and among the 19 victims in a convoy of Hindus and Sikhs that was going to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, may have been an intended target. He was planning to contest Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections in October and would have been elected unopposed to the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House) as the seat he was planning to contest was reserved for minorities by Presidential decree in 2016. The IS statement disparaged Hindus and Sikhs as “polytheists” and may have aimed at preventing even token political diversity in the nation.

Afghanistan’s Hindu-Sikh minority has lived under various strains for decades. The rich fled to India after the assassination of President Daoud in 1978. The assassination of President Najibullah in 1996 made life more difficult and a silent exodus began towards the West and India. In 2016, TOLOnews reported that 99 percent of Hindus and Sikhs had left Afghanistan in the past three decades. From 2,20,000 in the 1980s, their number shrank to 15,000 during the mujahideen era followed by the Taliban rule, and currently stands at barely 1,350. The television channel said that the main reasons for their flight were religious discrimination and official neglect. Under the mujahideen-Taliban, their lands and assets were seized by warlords, reducing them to penury. These were never restored after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Under the Taliban, Hindus and Sikhs wore yellow armbands and were not allowed to hold Government jobs. Even post-Taliban, bigoted neighbours harassed them while cremating their dead, children were bullied and could not attend schools and the community as a whole was made to feel like outsiders. The head of the Hindu Council in Afghanistan, told TOLOnews that he had lost 10 members of his family in the Afghan conflict; two brothers in the Army had died fighting the mujahideen. He said discrimination against the community began in 1992 “when people started counting who were Hindu or Muslim and Tajik, Uzbek or Hazara.” TOLOnews observed that Hindus and Sikhs once had thriving businesses in the country, but now faced increasing poverty. There are no Sikhs or Hindus in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces. Only two gurdwaras function, one each in Jalalabad and Kabul; most temples are deserted.

The timing was political. It came the day after the Government ordered Afghan security forces to resume offensive operations against the Taliban on expiry of the Government’s 18-day ceasefire that overlapped with the Taliban’s three-day ceasefire for Eid, which IS did not join. It coincided with the visit of US envoy Alice Wells, who came to pressure the Taliban to engage with Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban is demanding direct talks with the US, which Washington has refused. Wells said, “Right now it’s the Taliban leaders … who aren’t residing in Afghanistan, who are the obstacle to a negotiated political settlement”, and added that Islamabad had to do more to bring Taliban to the negotiating table.

The attack is a setback to the Afghan Government as it has forced the minorities to weigh the prospects of continued survival in that country. Tejvir Singh, secretary of a national panel of Hindus and Sikhs, told Reuters, “I am clear that we cannot live here anymore… We are Afghans. The Government recognises us but terrorists target us because we are not Muslims.” Sikhs who took shelter in the Indian consulate in Jalalabad added, “We are left with two choices: To leave for India or to convert to Islam”.  Some Sikhs, however, said that their ties with Afghanistan were too deep to contemplate leaving. The situation is grim. Hours before the Jalalabad bombing, terrorists set fire to a boys’ school in Khogyani district and beheaded three workers, a standard tactic of IS, which had threatened to attack schools in the area as revenge for the US-Afghan military operations. It had specifically stated that it would also attack schools with girl students. The Norwegian Refugee Council, which runs a programme for displaced students, noted that, “Afghan schools are increasingly at risk on military, ideological and political fault lines, with attacks increasing in eastern Afghanistan”.

In a heart-warming gesture on July 3, 2018, as members of the Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee protested against the attack outside the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi, Afghan diplomats and officials joined the protests. Stating that Afghans were also victims of cross-border terrorism, they said Ambassador Shaida Abdali viewed the incident as “a shared pain” and the embassy “was obliged to protest together with the Afghan Sikhs residing in India who also found support from Sikh brothers of India”. The attack underlines the fragility of the regime in Kabul. The rogue elements in Pakistan cannot be controlled without joint and concerted action by the US, Russia, India and China.

Writer:  Sandhya Jain

Courtesy: The Pioneer

The world is transfixed by the ongoing rescue effort for the boys trapped in a cave in Thailand and their will to survive

Hardly does a story of human endeavour feature in the chaos and conflict of information and interpretation. Neither does faith find a place if it is not trawling trolls. That is why the cave rescue of the Thai boys — who were trapped by sudden rain and flooding in a subterranean chamber on an exploratory mission and who miraculously blipped up after 12 days of being mistaken as dead — is a life-positive story that the world is glued to moment to moment. Amid trade wars and conflicts, this is the hope story that everybody wants to be part of and contribute to, simply because these crises remind us what a chance at life means beyond our destructive potential. It has had dramatic peaks and troughs, the joy of discovery plummeted by the almost impossible nature of rescue. With rapidly receding hopes — last heard oxygen levels in the cave were dipping low and a fresh spell of rains predicted more flooding, threatening to gobble up the perch where the boys are — all nations are stretching every limb for what could be the greatest human endeavour of our time. The challenges are superhuman: The dive route is a serpentine, narrow-neck channel, five hours long where large oxygen tanks cannot be carried through. Ace divers have had to hack through boulders with limited air supply, one dying in the process. We do not know whether the untrained boys will be able to dive in perilously murky water that is filling up faster than being pumped out or whether rescue workers can drill an escape chute through the slippery and stubborn rocks overhead. But it is a chance that the world is ready to take. Football stars like Ronaldo are cheering them, the FIFA president has even invited them to watch the World Cup finals and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is doing everything possible to aid their extraction, innovating on an inflatable pod. India, too, is offering technical expertise in flushing out water through Kirloskar. Over 1,000 international experts are at it while keeping up the morale of the boys, who now have food to wait it out for four months, can talk to families through an optic fibre link and will have an air tube to stay in a bubble of sorts. But the can-do spirit ticks because of another epic rescue in 2010 when 33 Chilean miners trapped in a caved-in shaft were rescued after two months of persistent efforts. The hurdles were many — the main submergence was followed by a secondary slip-in, the first two shafts for sending down a capsule for evacuation failed, the third worked and the first capsule collapsed. Yet all 33 made it to the surface for a world exclusive moment that was freeze-framed by photographers and became the subject of a Hollywood film.

Will fate deal a cruel hand? If the boys could hold out 12 days of blackout, don’t they deserve a chance to get back in the land of the living? Perhaps it is a test of human will. More so of technology that needs to come out of the cloud and tame Nature’s wilful ways. Or perhaps it’s Nature’s way of telling us that there is no bigger battle than survival worth fighting for.

Write: The Pioneer

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Taking into consideration Trump’s orders to stop oil imports from Iran, India must craft its oil import policies carefully to protect its interests with Iran.

In another of many policy reversals of the previous administrations, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran that was signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. The immediate impact of such a decision was that Iran was squeezed of foreign investment as investors, particularly the Europeans, are frightened to take the risks. Further, the Trump administration has issued a diktat that all oil imports from Iran, including that by India, must be stopped from November 4 and countries failing to meet this deadline shall face the prospect of US sanctions. India is unwilling to accept such a diktat. Iran, a regional power, is not only key to oil supplies to India but also its gateway to Eurasia and Afghanistan.

In May 2018, when Trump announced that US would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the multilateral agreement constraining Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, little was perceived about the consequences the decision would entail. Trump called the Iran deal “decaying and rotten” but did not offer any specifics of how he would replace it or how he would restrain Iran from rebuilding its nuclear infrastructure should it choose to do so. Trump’s main aim was to target Iran’s energy, petrochemical, and financial sectors, which effectively took the US out of the agreement. But the European stakeholders — including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson — sensed the fallout of such a decision and rushed to Washington urging Trump to remain in the deal, but to no avail. This was despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organisation responsible for monitoring Iran’s compliance with the agreement, consistently found that it had abided by the deal since it entered into force in 2016.

What is most disturbing after the tension in the Korean Peninsula is Trump’s annulment of the nuclear deal with Iran signed by his predecessor in cooperation with other European allies. The US diktat to world companies to cut oil imports from Iran to zero by November 4 or face US sanctions is a new element in world diplomacy. This is worrying the European allies, who were part of the Iran nuclear deal. The US decision has already started adversely impacting some European companies. For example, French automaker Peugeot now has started viewing Iran as too risky a place to do business. For the US, the window between May 8 and November 4 deadline is the drawdown period when countries importing oil from Iran should start reducing immediately and bring to zero by November 4 deadline.

The move applies not only to Europe but also to India, China, and Turkey. Following this announcement, oil prices rose sharply, and depressed currencies of many countries (in India, rupee breached 69 a dollar mark), making imports of critical products more expensive. Iran is OPEC’s third largest oil producer, exporting two million barrels a day.

Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union as a whole strongly protested Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and vowed to protect their companies from “secondary sanctions”, which punish companies from other countries that engage in business with sanctioned sectors of the Iranian economy. The US, however, says that secondary sanctions are in place in Iran since 1996.

Trump seems to be needlessly interfering in Iran as his policy on the nuclear issue and sanctions have created domestic turmoil, leading to increasing street protests. The US State Department argues that “Iranians are basically fed up with the regime’s squandering of the nation’s wealth on not particularly productive or enriching ventures abroad”. While the rial collapsed in foreign exchange markets and the country’s economic woes worsened, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for unity to cope with the new challenge the nation faces now.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, was in India and in her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged on cutting oil imports, but was politely told that it would be difficult for India to make any significant cut. India shall be unwilling to bend under the US pressure, as its relations with Iran range from the energy trade to connectivity projects, particularly the development of Chabahar Port, and cutting trade between the two countries could hurt India’s long-term interests.

Given that the Indo-US ties have warmed, it is unclear if Trump will unilaterally impose sanctions on India if the latter does not cut oil imports from Iran or give some waiver. There is a view in some quarters in the policy-making circles in India that the US is not threatening India over purchase of crude oil from Tehran. The US is already aware that India had already cut down its oil intake from the Islamic Republic to 6 per cent of the total oil it imports before the sanctions were lifted when Iran signed the deal with the US when Obama was in power.

Despite the fact that Iran is experiencing domestic turmoil over governance issue, Iranian leaders are seeking ways to defend the nation’s economy from the US sanctions. After Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal, which lifted most sanctions in 2015, the rial currency dropped up to 40 per cent in value. This prompted protests by bazaar traders usually loyal to the Islamist rulers. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rightly said that the US sanctions were aimed at turning Iranians against the Government. Apart from the severe economic situation at home to the extent of even shortages of drinking water, Iran is increasingly finding it difficult to access the global financial system. It is not clear if President Rouhani’s counter-measures to withstand the sanctions can bring any succour and help bail out the nation from the negative impact of the sanctions.

Among the counter-measures that Iran is thinking is to attain self-sufficiency in gasoline production, look for potential buyers and ways of repatriating income in conformity with international law after the US sanctions take effect. Khamenei suspects that the US is acting with Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that regard Shi’ite Muslim Iran as their main regional foe to destabilise the Government in Tehran.

Iran’s fears seem to be genuine. For example, Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City and an ally of Trump, said in a speech he delivered at the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris on June 30 that Trump’s move will suffocate Iran’s “dictatorial ayatollahs”, suggesting the decision to reimpose sanctions was aimed squarely at regime change. It appears that with the increased fear of sanctions, major European companies have started leaving the country despite Europe’s vows to save the nuclear accord. Even the US National Security Advisor John Bolton had made similar observations in the same forum in May 2016 before he assumed the current office. However, Britain, France, and Germany — which signed the nuclear accord along with the US, Russia, and China — opine that the agreement prevents Iran from developing weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

As with Iran, Trump also has a problematic relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but despite that, a summit with him is scheduled for July 16 in Helsinki. Russia, too, faces sanctions over its annexation of Crimea some time ago. The truism, however, is that the US sanctions against Russia and Iran are backed neither by the UN nor the world community. Seen from this perspective, drawing India into this battle and coercing it to cut oil imports is neither justified nor legally valid. If India bends, it would risk breaking ties with its traditional allies. On its part, it would be against America’s interest to displease India as it needs it now more than ever before. Indian investments in Afghanistan assist the US in its effort to develop the nation. Secondly, India is the only country in Asia with the military and economic power to cope with the Chinese challenge and check its efforts to establish hegemony in the region, which is why military cooperation with India by the US could be of its interest. India should be careful not to allow itself to be used by the US against its traditional allies Russia and Iran.

If India bends to Trump’s diktat, it would be against its national interests. Russia is a time-tested friend of India, and has always stood by its side. Over 60 per cent of its military equipment is of Russian origin. With the example of the way Trump handled North Korea after exchanging diatribes against Kim Jong-un before meeting him in Singapore on June 12 and then praising him, India needs to be circumspect if it decides to review its decision to purchase S-400 from Russia, lest Trump’s change in direction could result in India spoiling its own relations with Russia and unable to restore the ties.

India’s economic and strategic interests are enmeshed with that of Iran’s. Seen to be a counter to China’s port development activities across Asia, such as in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, and recently in Djibouti, Indian interests and participation in the development of Chabahar Port in Iran provides India with multiple strategic benefits. Moreover, India signed an agreement with Iran after Rouhani’s visit to India when it agreed to increase its oil purchases from Iran. Supporting Trump’s call to stop this shall not only violate that agreement but could push Iran away from India and would damage its agreement on the Chabahar Port. China is in multiple conflicts with the US and the largest purchaser of oil from Iran is unlikely to accede to the US requests. If India succumbs to Trump’s demands, it would almost mean gifting the Chabahar Port to China.

So, what are then India’s options? Despite its growing proximity with the US, India needs to, as before, continue pursuing an independent foreign policy and not compromise with its national interests. As a first step, India should not sign the Communication, Compatibility, Security Agreement, underlining its disagreement with America’s unilateral policies.

In the meantime, with the announcement of the US sanctions against Iran, oil prices rose as significant volumes of crude oil from world markets were taken away coinciding with the increase in demand worldwide. Trump was quick to lash out at OPEC and warned that it is manipulating oil markets. The US put pressure on ally Saudi Arabia to raise supplies to compensate for lower exports from Iran. Saudi Arabia pumps around 10 million bpd and could raise output to 11 million bpd, but Trump wants Riyadh to increase production to 12 million bpd, something the kingdom has never done in the past. Rising gasoline prices could create a political headache for Trump. It remains to be seen if Saudi Arabia bails out Trump as it is the biggest producer of oil in the Middle East.

But the disturbing news is that India’s Oil Ministry has asked refiners to prepare for a “drastic reduction or zero” imports of Iranian oil from November as demanded by Trump. Does it mean that New Delhi is responding to a push by the US to cut trade ties with Iran and surrendering its autonomy to take policy decisions in conformity with its national interests? It is perplexing that while at the one hand, India says it does not recognise unilateral restrictions imposed by the US and only follows UN sanctions, it advises its oil refineries to prepare for a cut in imports and bring close to zero by the deadline given by Trump and look for alternatives.

India is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil after China and if India is forced to take action to protect its exposure to the US financial system, it could have huge implications for the region, besides jeopardising its ties with Iran.

It may be recalled that during the previous round of sanctions, India was one of the few countries that continued to buy Iranian oil, although it had to reduce imports as shipping, insurance, and banking channels were choked due to the European and US sanctions. But this time, the situation is not the same. Now while India, China, and Europe are on one side, the US alone stands alone on the other.

The question that arises is how effective is Trump’s diktat? On the surface, it seems to be working. Reliance Industries Ltd, the operator of the world’s biggest refining complex, decided to halt imports. Nayara Energy, an Indian company promoted by Russian oil major Rosneft, is also preparing to halt imports of oil from Iran from November. The company has already started cutting its oil imports from June.

This leaves open the question if there are options to find replacements to Iranian oil. Though Saudi Arabia is expected to boost oil production, as it has pledged a “measurable” supply boost, it remains unclear if that is the best alternative to outcast Iran from the oil market.

Iran is not done yet and is unlikely to give in so quickly. In honouring its ties with India, it has offered virtually free shipping and an extended credit period of 60 days. India does have the option of buying oil from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait to replace Iran, but it has to consider what economic values such choices offer. India would be happy with the assurance given by Haley in New Delhi that a trade war with India “wasn’t an option” for the Trump administration.

India, therefore, needs to craft its Iran policy carefully; a policy that protects its important strategic and economic interests with Iran, while at the same time, does not displease other stakeholders.

Dr Panda, former Senior Fellow at the IDSA, was until recently ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan

Writer: Rajaram Panda

Courtesy: The Pioneer

China has been expanding its boundaries to fulfil its dream of becoming the world’s most powerful nation. But the picture is not rosy. Resentment among the best of China’s friends is growing

Since the new Emperor sat on the throne in Beijing in 2012, the Middle Kingdom has steadily extended its influence in the periphery of the Empire. The CPC proclaims today: “The great rejuvenation of Chinese nation is an unstoppable historical trend that won’t be diverted by the will of any individual country or person.” The CPC has a dream: For its 100 years in 2049, it wants China to be the most powerful nation in the world. But if one looks at the Empire’s neighbourhood, all is not rosy and resentment has been created everywhere, even amongst China’s best ‘friends’.

Take Pakistan, whose friendship is deeper than oceans and sweeter than honey; according to The Tribune, the border trade with China through Khunjerab Pass resumed last week after a three month gap.  The reason? A traders’ strike against a Web-Based One Customs system newly introduced at the Pakistan-Xinjiang border. The newspaper explained: “The decision to end the strike took place during a meeting held in Gilgit under the supervision of the Army. Traders had blocked the strategic Karakoram Highway which is a part of the multibillion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor project.” It is obvious that not everyone is delighted by the largesse of the all-weather sponsor, particularly  inhabitants of Gilgit-Baltistan and Baluchistan.

A similar phenomenon is happening elsewhere. Last month, The Washington Post published a long investigative piece on Sihanoukville, a new city of 90,000 inhabitants, which has been developed by China in Cambodia. The number of Chinese tourists doubled in a year to 120,000 in 2017, according to The Post: “Restaurants, banks, landlords, pawnshops, duty-free stores, supermarkets and hotels all display signs in Chinese. The Cambodian government has allowed extraordinary levels of Chinese investment…Thirty casinos have already been built, and 70 more are under construction.” The Blue Bay casino promotes itself as “one of the iconic projects of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.” The smallest studios start at $143,000, while the most prized apartments cost more than $500,000. The Post continued: “With the exception of those working in the hotels and casinos, most Cambodians, whose average income is $1,100 a year, are seeing little benefit from this investment. And resentment is mounting.” It is the pet project of Hun Sen, the Cambodian Prime Minister, who has been ruling for the past 34 years, “his willingness to be embraced by China is most evident,” said the US newspaper.

As a result, serious tensions have appeared between the new landlords and the locals. As The Financial Times put it: “Cambodia is not alone in weighing the mixed blessings of Chinese investment, which elsewhere has been welcomed for its scale and relative lack of conditions attached. What is unusual about Sihanoukville’s transformation is that tension in the town has coalesced into a public backlash — unusual in a country where personal freedoms are fading.”

Vietnam, too, is caught between the generous Chinese investments and the nationalists’ demands to not bow to Beijing. The South China Morning Post reported: “Earlier this month…more than 1,000 workers went on strike at a Taiwanese shoe factory in Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, blocking a highway.” The workers were singing: “We don’t want to give any of our land away to China, not even for one day.” They protested against their own Government’s plan to set up three new special economic zones where foreign companies (read China) would be granted decades-long leases. Later the protests swept across Vietnam.

The Hong Kong paper said: “Police shut down protests in urban centres, and at times clashed with demonstrators, including in Binh Thuan province near Ho Chi Minh City, where protesters burned police vehicles and defaced Government buildings.…Production stopped at multiple Chinese — and Taiwanese — owned factories across the south of the country.” Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered, holding up banners shouting: “I love my fatherland — don’t let China lease our land.”

Already last year, Forbes titled a report as  “Violent Protests Against Chinese ‘Colony’ In Sri Lanka Rage On.” In January 2017, as the first brick of a Southern Industrial Zone was laid in Hambantota, violent protests erupted in the new port. It left more than 10 people hospitalised and many others were sent to jail. According to an  economic newspaper: “A group of demonstrators led by Buddhist monks from nearby Amabalantota took to the streets as the opening ceremony of the industrial zone took place. However, these protesters were met by mobs of Government supporters, who reputedly attacked them with clubs and fists. The monk-led demonstrators fought back by throwing rocks. The police, meanwhile, found themselves in the middle of the fray, using water cannons and tear gas.”

The reason for the protests was the handing over of the port to the Chinese; “the perceived loss of autonomy to a foreign power as well as the potential land grab that could be necessary to build the 15,000-acre industrial zone.” One can wonder if Nepal has thought of this aspect of the Chinese ‘generosity’. Last month, Prime Minister KP Oli visited Beijing and told Xinhua that Nepal attached great value to its relationship with China “which has always respected its sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence”. During the visit, it was announced that China would build a railway connecting Tibet with Nepal. It was one of several bilateral deals signed during the Nepali Prime Minister’s visit. The rail link will connect the Tibetan city of Shigatse to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, via the border port of Kyirong. According to a Chinese official website, the two sides further signed 10 other agreements involving technology, transportation, infrastructure and political cooperation.

Nepal has also inked a $2.5 billion deal with China’s state-owned Gezhouba Group to build a hydropower facility in the west of the country. The China Daily quoted Li Keqiang, the Chinese Premier, saying: “China would also like to work with Nepal to build a ‘cross-Himalayan connectivity network’ through aviation, trading ports, highways and telecommunications.”

It sounds good, especially in Kathmandu,  but as I was finishing writing this piece, a Twitter message came in saying, “A Chinese rubber factory in Talgar, Kazakhstan, burned by locals today.” Talgar is located some 20 km from Almaty, the Kazakh capital. Here too resentment is growing. The moral of the story: There is no free meal and a nation like Nepal will sooner or later realise this, even if the Chinese dishes are appetising to start with; in fact the Indian food may be less tasty, but it definitively leaves less hangovers.

(The writer is an expert on India-China relations and an author)

Writer: Claude Arpi

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Humanity has come to a standstill, and even depreciating day by day. The most innocent witnesses of this horrible truth are the children of Syria. With thousands of kids being killed, the fate of the nation seems grimmer than ever.

Casually skimming through several news websites, I stopped at a news item about a young Syrian boy who had fallen unconscious after a bomb attack. When he woke up in a hospital, he had become blind. The boy must have been six or seven years old. The news also carried a video in which the boy was screaming in terror, as his father held him to his chest trying his best to console him.

Can you imagine the terror of waking up blind? Can you imagine this happening to an innocent child? The boy was almost my nephew’s age, whom I am very close to. I tried to flush the images out of my system. I had to. I was about to make a presentation. I am not a very emotionally demonstrative man. But that day when I went back home, I instinctively found myself sitting quietly in a secluded corner. And then I wept. Forlorn, I lay on my bed and closed my eyes for a nap. After about half an hour or so, I suddenly woke up, gasping. I could see my surroundings to assure myself that I had woken up from a bad dream. But that child, he woke up to complete darkness. An entire generation of Syrian children faces psychological damage, ever-increasing danger and death. These are terrible times for children. They are being raped, tortured and killed as if society, as we know it, has declared war against them — a mad war against the future of the human race. Being mutilated by mentally ill perverts, maimed by vicious dictators, slaughtered by those who want to “bring democracy” to faraway lands, and butchered by men who do so in the name of faith.

Each of these sadists may have different ideologies and views, but inherently, they all carry a perverse existentialist streak which is apocalyptic. It makes them believe that there is no tomorrow, just a lonesome today. Some want to gluttonise life as much as they can from this today, while others want to destroy it because they think there’s something better waiting for them in the hereafter. They feel threatened by children because they remind them of a future — a continuation of life and the human race. By killing and maiming children they think they are halting this continuity. Some are doing it because they are deranged (yet respectable, pious members of the sane society). Some are doing it because of those grand sounding “geopolitical” reasons, in which supposedly a devastating war would end a dictatorship and herald a utopian democracy. Some are doing it because they don’t want to let go of power. They are scared of a different future; a future without them at the helm. Some are doing it because they believe the Almighty has sanctioned them to go on killing sprees so that their places in paradise are confirmed. The day after I watched that tragic video, I saw on my Twitter timeline, a journalist colleague exhibiting patience and tact while trying to engage with a Twitter handle that claimed to exhibit deep love for Pakistan’s Armed Forces. He/she suggested that it was wrong of the Government and military of Pakistan to have gone to war with the extremists because they were not anti-Pakistan.

Emotionally ravaged by the video that I had seen — and still remembering stories about how during a suicide bombing at Lahore’s Moon Market some years ago, children holding their parents’ hands were simply blown to pieces — I wanted to snap at the person tweeting such convoluted claptrap. I wanted to tell that person that it was narratives such as these that not only tried to justify the tragic, gruesome demise of thousands of Pakistanis at the hands of extremists, but eventually led to the extremists attacking and slaughtering over 140 schoolchildren in Peshawar in December 2014. Had this ridiculously imprudent person who claimed to be a lover of Pakistani military already forgotten about that attack? Or about how the extremists played football with the heads of executed Pakistani soldiers?

In 2013, when a prominent extremist was killed in a US drone attack in North Waziristan, then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar actually held a Press conference condemning the attack. Opposition leader Imran Khan was not far behind, calling the attack “an attempt to derail peace talks between the state and the extremists.” Even though hundreds of children had already been killed in suicide bombings, and hundreds more had lost a parent, and, in some cases, both the parents, between 2004 and 2013, yet these two gentlemen and others who were regulars on rabid television talk shows, couldn’t stop themselves from gazing at their navels and brazenly concocting reasons in their bid to hold back the military from launching an all-out operation against extremist groups.

But Gen Raheel had had enough. This nation of mine only managed to get the spell of the apologists over it broken by the tragedy of 140-plus students mercilessly killed by extremists in Peshawar. Just imagine, it had to take a tragedy of this proportion for many of us to finally realise how all that convoluted and conspiratorial nonsense barefacedly spouted by the apologists was a sham. By the way, many still hold on to such hogwash. On the other end, tragic images of children suffering the most terrible effects of war in Syria and Yemen often get overshadowed by the drawing room and social media debates about “geopolitics”. As if these wars were board games played by men who wanted you to believe that they were the most rational, yet okay about a few thousand children being mutilated by bombs and starvation. Collateral damage. Happens in wars, you know.

When children die, so does humanity. Those killing them know this. And they are doing this because they are not human anymore. They justify their murderous lust through a plethora of convoluted political and theological ideologies. But nothing will stop history from remembering them as nothing more than madmen who wanted to prolong their psychotic presence by killing innocent children.

Writer:  Nadeem Paracha

Courtesy: The pioneer

Spells of trouble await for Germany. First, elimination from the FIFA World Cup, and then, the ultimatum issued to Chancellor Angela Merkel by a coalition partner to act decisively and put an end to any more accommodation of asylum seekers from West Asia and North Africa. Coalition partner from Bavaria is demanding that Germany regain control of its own national borders.

What the regional party from Bavaria — a long-term ally of the ruling Christian Democrats — is demanding of its national Government is not unique. Ever since Germany stunned the world by accommodating nearly a million refugees — mainly Muslims — from war-affected zones, the European Union has been rocked by political convulsions. Two of its foundational principles — the free movement of people within the EU and the protection of human rights—have come under sharp attack from national governments of member-states.

It was Hungary’s pugnacious Viktor Orban who raised the banner of revolt by refusing to accommodate any of the refugees/ asylum seekers within its national borders because he felt their cultural assumptions were alien to the core assumptions of the EU — ‘Christian’ or ‘western’ values. Hungary was followed by Poland and Slovakia. Now Italy —by no means a late entrant or one of those states that had been under Soviet tutelage — has joined in the resistance to immigration from non-EU countries. The United Kingdom, still awkwardly perched between being in and out of the EU, has, in any case, never really acquiesced in taking on a flood of asylum seekers.

Germany, not least because of its extremely troubled history in the 20th century, had always resisted the trend to accommodate exclusively national sentiments. The post-1945 consensus deemed that Germany would find a new role for itself by embracing an European ideal and devolving many aspects of national sovereignty to a multilateral, pan-European body. Consequently, despite grave domestic compulsions, Chancellor Merkel has not succumbed to the pressures from within Germany to take unilateral action that pitted national sovereignty against multilateralism. Even when her own Government was on the verge of collapse, she took the matter of asylum seekers to Brussels to ensure that whatever measures Germany took had the backing of the EU and didn’t violate the larger principle of free movement of EU citizens.

Merkel will, however, be accused of doing too little and too late. That charge is valid. The Chancellor’s real folly was to unilaterally announce that she would take in a million asylum seekers at one go in 2015. She was lavishly praised for her enlightened sense of accommodation by the world’s liberal fraternity but there was a huge price she has paid for her decision.

First, Merkel clearly miscalculated the extent of simmering resentment of ordinary Germans to the influx. Despite the sympathy for people whose lives had been destroyed by the conflicts triggered by fanatical politico-religious movements in Asia and Africa, many Germans wondered why it had become obligatory for them to take a disproportionate burden of a problem that, in any case, had not been created by Germany.

After the details of Hitler’s holocaust were fully grasped, Germans were sufficiently demoralised and guilt ridden to accept the loss of one-fifth of its territories. The country disavowed militarism completely and its Constitution made it impossible for any strong leader to emerge. However, the crisis of 2015 left Germans completely unmoved. They felt no responsibility for it and Merkel’s undeniable over-generosity left them unmoved. They resented the fact that they weren’t consulted. In effect, Merkel’s 2015 open door policy undermined the guilt consciousness that had dominated German consciousness since 1945. The feeling that Germany had more than done its fair share of atonement now became prevalent.

Secondly, the attempts to meet Germany’s present concerns over asylum seekers has eroded the country’s touching faith in multilateralism and the lofty ideals of the EU. Although Merkel still preferred to take the matter to Brussels rather than initiate national action, there is a growing realisation that Germany cannot be the only guys playing by the rules. The Government in Budapest may appear abrasive to the editorial classes but there is no question that Orban’s stubborn refusal to extend hospitality to asylum seekers enjoys widespread support within Germany. The EU too appears to have grudgingly recognised this too. Hence its recent decision that gives national governments scope for autonomous action. What this means is that the Franco-German moves towards a deeper EU that will, in time, evolve a common foreign policy and even have a common EU military, has suffered a setback.

Predictably, the strains in the EU and within Germany as a result of the asylum seekers problem will be welcomed by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader may even find comfort with the growing strains between the EU and US over tariffs and contributions to NATO. That, however, is an incidental consequence. What is probably more consequential is that events may be propelling Germany and France to take a more active role in promoting European interests in an age of nationalism. Will that create opportunities for China? Or will European countries now acknowledge that China’s economic expansion also has a definite political sub-text.

A Great Game is also being played out in Europe. It offers India some new openings, if only we are far-sighted enough to realise what these are and move accordingly.

Writer: Swapan Dasgupta

Courtesy: The Pioneer