Friday, April 28, 2017
The Indian dogs that are dying out because everyone wants a Labrado
Even ardent animal lovers might stumble a bit here, but these too are dog breeds which have another thing in common—they’re all Indian. Skilled, sturdy, and well adapted to the country’s tropical climate, these dogs are great workers and excellent companions. Unfortunately, the other characteristic Indian breeds share is that they’re disappearing.
Tuesday, October 04, 2016
Making Pakistan Bleed By A Thousand Cuts
By M H AHSSAN ! INNLIVE
India must now step up, not ease up, its multi-pronged strategy against terrorism.
The hit-and-run terrorist attack in Baramulla on October 2 left one BSF jawan dead and another critically injured. Following India’s precision surgical strike in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on September 29, ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) have risen sharply.
India must now step up, not ease up, its multi-pronged strategy against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
Strategic restraint as an anti-terrorism doctrine has been given a quiet burial. Two issues stand out. First, further Pakistani retaliation: what form it will take and how to neutralise it. Second, India’s unfolding counter-terrorism strategy.
Renewed Pakistani retaliation could take two forms. One, attacking soft targets like malls, theatres, markets and other populated urban areas by activating sleeper cells and terrorists who had crossed over into India before the Uri terror attack.
Two, more hit-and-run attacks by Pakistani terrorists on Indian border posts and increased LoC shelling.
India must be prepared for both forms of retaliation by a Pakistani army humiliated by India’s precision surgical strike.
Meanwhile, the multi-pronged strategy to counter Pakistan-sponsored terrorism can be broken up into four broad areas:
Military
India’s covert strike on September 20/21 (not officially acknowledged) reportedly killed around 20 terrorists. The surgical strike on September 29 killed an estimated 40 to 55 terrorists, though the actual figure could be higher.
More than the damage inflicted on Pakistan’s terror machine, India’s political will to strike and its military capability to do so have been clinically established.
Doubting Thomases in India abound. Some said the surgical strike was a routine affair. Others bemoaned the dangerous path India had embarked on. A few said economic growth would suffer.
The government should ignore these perennial naysayers. Vested interests in India are sometimes more beholden to Pakistan’s national interest than India’s. That is the nature of a subverted ecosystem. It will unravel in the fullness of time.
Economic
Implement the full ambit of the Indus Waters Treaty. India must optimise the water it is legally entitled to under the treaty. Pakistan can object only to abrogation of the treaty, not its full legal implementation.
As a result, Jammu and Kashmir will receive more water and generate an extra 15,000MW of hydroelectric power. All India needs to do to achieve this without violating the treaty is to build barrages and water storage facilities in J&K.
The Tulbul project (dubbed the Wullar barrage by Pakistan) is a good start. China’s move to block part of the Brahmaputra’s flow into Assam and Arunachal Pradesh should not deter India.
Pakistan will pay in two ways.
On one hand, it will receive progressively less water under the legally incontestable provisions of the Indus treaty. On the other, the principal beneficiary will be the people of J&K. The political capital this can deliver to the J&K government is incalculable.
Simultaneously, Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status granted to Pakistan in 1996 on the principle of reciprocity (a principle brazenly flouted by Islamabad and meekly accepted by Delhi for 20 years) must go.
Official trade between the two countries is low ($2 billion). Unofficial border trade is higher ($15 billion). All this misses the point. You cannot isolate a terror state by retaining its most favoured nation status. The messaging gets blurred, the outcome compromised.
Diplomatic
Isolate Pakistan both internationally and regionally. Admonitory statements from the United States, Russia and other major powers directed at Pakistan after India’s surgical strike have made it clear that the world’s patience with Islamabad has run out. The winter session of Parliament will present an opportunity to pass a resolution to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism.
Meanwhile, the cancellation of the SAARC summit has isolated Pakistan regionally. Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bhutan have made common cause with India by pointing to Pakistan as the repository of terrorism.
The BIMSTEC forum is the obvious replacement for SAARC. It brings together a group of countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Dubbed the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, BIMSTEC comprises Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.
Five BIMSTEC members are also members of SAARC which comprises eight countries. If Afghanistan and the Maldives (both part of SAARC) are invited as observers in BIMSTEC, the grouping will give India an even wider geopolitical footprint across Asia. Pakistan, the eighth SAARC country, will be isolated.
Concomitantly, China’s move to block Maulana Masood Azhar as a UN-designated terrorist can be used to shame China internationally as a protector of global terror. It will not be easy for an aspiring global power like China to live that down.
Strategic
Grant Baloch dissidents asylum in India and allow them to establish a government-in-exile. The "Free Balochistan" movement will keep Pakistan off balance.
Meanwhile, India must shift its strategic goalposts on J&K. The LoC is no longer sacrosanct. PoK is Indian territory, as a parliamentary resolution in 1994 underlined. The only issue now to be resolved in the "dispute" over Kashmir should be Pakistan’s vacation of PoK.
The Manmohan-Vajpayee doctrine recognised that a dialogue with Pakistan was necessary to demilitarise J&K, thus indirectly legitimising Pakistan’s claim on a part of Kashmir that is in India’s possession.
That argument has now shifted decisively. The only area in dispute and open to dialogue is the part of Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan.
This represents a paradigm shift in India’s stand on J&K. More that last week’s surgical strike, it is this shift and its long-term implications that has rattled Pakistan the most.
Myths
Meanwhile, banish three myths that invariably surface when Pakistan is under pressure as it is today. One, that "we are the same people". We are not.
Two, that "the people of Pakistan do not support terrorism against India". Most do. The antipathy towards Indians amongst ordinary Pakistanis is far stronger than most Indians recognise.
Three, "Both India and Pakistan are victims of terrorism". This false equivalence has infected the vocabulary of peace professionals in India. The difference of course is India does not send gangs of terrorists to Lahore and Islamabad to kill ordinary Pakistanis.
This fraudulent equivalence on terror victimhood is a narrative that, like strategic restraint, must be buried forever.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Opinion: Is Holding Simultaneous Elections For Lok Sabha And State Assemblies Necessarily A Good Idea?
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Where Healthcare Comes Floating On A Boat Once In A Month
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
India Unzipped: How Did Polyamory Become Synonymous With Sexual Liberation?
Saturday, June 11, 2016
Frank Opinion: When Did Civil Service Become Synonymous With Self-Service?
In 2008, I was in Chandel district of Manipur on field work. As I went about listening to local people's stories about their lives and aspirations, most of them kept praising this particular woman administrator, an IAS officer. She was from South India, they said, and yet she was able to blend in with local people and was very responsive to their needs. As I walked towards the office of the Block Development Officer (BDO),
I understood what they meant. It was an office with an open door, and there were no "middle men" to stop people from meeting the officer. The people waiting outside did not have the look of being intimidated by power.
Wednesday, June 01, 2016
'Aaj Aane Ki Zid Na Karo': India Deserves Better Than Rahul Gandhi
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Congress Holds 'Sachchai Ka Aaina' While BJP Celebrates Two Years Of PM Modi
Monday, July 20, 2015
Focus: Where Are The Free School Textbooks For Children?
By Rati Kumar in Bhopal |
According to the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009, every child in a primary school should have text books available on time i.e. at the beginning of the academic year. But the reality is far from what the Act stipulates. In fact, most children do not receive school books and even those who do, don’t necessarily get all the books and rarely at the beginning of the academic year.
Monday, May 04, 2015
India's Water Woes: 'Hydropolitics' Is 'Reason For Crisis'
Water has the same popular appeal as justice, freedom, equality, representation and power. There is also something elemental or inherently wicked about water because searching for solutions to manage and cope with water issues creates a set of different problems that are political, emotive and divisive.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Nepal Earthquake Isn't The Big: Next 'Quake' Maybe More Dangerous And Closer To Home! - World Geo Experts
The quake, which reduced large parts of Kathmandu to rubble, is not the 'great Himalayan quake' that the region has been bracing for. All has to get ready for the worst in the near future, world geo-experts warned.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Focus: Crisis For India's Orphans As Adoption Is Being Abandoned By Parents And Neglected By Government
The adoption rate within the country as well as those by foreign nationals in India has gone down by nearly 50 per cent in the last five years.
What adds to the grim situation is the disparity between South Indian states and the rest of the country in terms of adoption of children.
Monday, March 09, 2015
Special Report: Why Blame Mufti On 'Masarat Alam', When BJP Wooed 'Separatists'?
It is very easy to adopt a hardline national interest view and hurl fire and brimstone at Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for ordering the release of Masarat Alam, supposedly the architect of the 2010 protests.
The BJP, being part of the ruling coalition in Jammu and Kashmir, is party to the government's decision to release Alam.
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Alarming Scenario: 'Brahmaputra Glaciers Are Vanishing'
"Hydrological modelling was carried out in the upstream areas of the Brahmaputra, which indicate the glaciers are likely to reduce by 20 to 55 percent by 2050," Nand Kishor Agrawal, programme coordinator for the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), told INNLIVE.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Special Report: 'Who Cries When A Mothers Die?'
Lhamu, a mother of twelve, lives in a remote village in Western Tibet. Three of her children died within a month of birth and the four year old strapped to her back looked as small as a one year old. She gave birth all alone, at home, all twelve times.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Narendra Modi Suit Fetches Rs 1.1 Crore For Ganga Shuddhi: Will Charity Wash Away The Vanity?
Not everyone can carry off that hornbill hat from Arunachal Pradesh with an airy sangfroid. Or that traditional outfit from Leh which made him look like a portly Indian businessman in a golden dressing gown with a grand vizier hat. But those were fashion faux pas.
Monday, February 16, 2015
'Maha Shivaratri'- The Night Of 'Enlightening Ignorant Minds' And Protecting From 'Human Sufferings'
This body-consciousness gives rise to vices such as lust, anger and greed, which are the root causes of all human suffering. Shivaratri thus stands for not just one night but the entire Kaliyug period of ignorance and unrighteousness that is brought to an end by Shiva.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
In Manipur 'Migrants' Are Soft Targets Of Terror Groups
Manipur’s capital Imphal is once again in news for violence. In the latest violence, three daily-wage labourers were killed, while four others were injured seriously when a very powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off in a bus stand in the heart of Imphal city.
Monday, November 03, 2014
Exclusive: Loyal Congressman GK Vasan quits party after 14 years: Here's why Gandhis should be worried?
"This has raised hopes in other parties and leaders who think they can create space for themselves in the state which was dominated by either the AIADMK or the DMK for close to half a century. This is the best opportunity to come their way. And this includes the BJP which is stands benefit the most from the situation in the state where it wants to set up its footprint," said a Congress leader.