IndiaSpin

Shashi Tharoor on Indian foreign policy

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 05:55:00 +0000

https://youtu.be/zu8iPPfeBc0

Shashi Tharoor On Trump, Trade, Gaza and multialignment.

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 05:45:00 +0000

Erudite Shashi Tharoor On Trump, Trade, Gaza and multialignment.

BIRDS OF THE FEATHER , NO LONGER FLOCK TOGETHER

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 07:47:00 +0000

BIRDS OF THE FEATHER, NO LONGER FLOCK TOGETHER

By Col Avnish Sharma(retd)

The unfortunate incident of a physical assault on Col Pushpinder Baath, a serving army officer by 12 Punjab policemen has besides highlighting mindless brutality of the law enforcers has brought to fore a terribly disturbing issue to fore.

The manner in which the aftermath of the incident panned out , made us all see a hesitant , apprehensive and an aloof ‘ozone layer’ of the serving fraternity of the Army. Except the commander on the spot i.e the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the locally stationed formation, the rest of the might of the Indian Army up the chain seemed incognito.

The first statement on X (formerly twitter) by the highest but one in the hierarchy seemed insensitive to the intensity and sensitivity of the issue. They , instead of standing rock solid behind the embarrassingly aggrieved serving member of the organization, portrayed a routine albeit compromising stance which oozed of misplaced and mis timed flavor of bonhomie between the Army and the Civil administration including police , the perpetrators of the heinous crime. The sequence of events that followed were uninspiring to say the least.

The media, the veterans, the family, friends, nation as a whole and even section of the police came in a wholehearted support of the aggrieved family wherein the brave fighter, the wife of Colonel Baath, in an inimical stance of an army wife roared like a tigress demanding justice . Mind you, in this fight the lady and her family had nobody from the organization except the local army boss holding her hand in the nascent stages of her brave campaign, who too being a solitary crusader got hoodwinked by false assurances by local police authorities to bring the culprits to book. Other than and beyond this, no calls, no reach outs, no show of support!

It is ironic that the family in its bid to knock for justice approached the Governor, the Chief minister and the Defence minister of India, if you please . Where were the big wigs in the chain of command whose timely intervention would have eased matters expediously. The Army wives welfare association (AWWA) which has an elaborate set up with a primary mission to provide a soothing ‘balm and blanket’ to the families of serving soldiers, especially in distress, remained practically non existent in the lady’s lone struggle when her husband was laid up at the hospital injured , bruised and terribly let down.

The nail in the coffin was a lack luster press conference jointly chaired by Army’s Western Command Headquarters and the Punjab police DGP, which quite clearly showed disparity in body languages of two involved VIPs , one being confident, sure and in unison with its bunch and the other on back foot with a hurried impatience to steer clear of the perceived mess. The read out statement ‘that the episode occurred on the night of 13 march and came to the notice of the Indian Army on 15 March’ signified the intent of the olive green powers that be, to steer clear of the issue. Amends, though, were made to reach out to the distressed family but only after much water had flown under the bridge.

All this makes us wonder that on one side we belong to a nation which shows strength and resolve to carry out surgical strike and a Balakot on an enemy which dares to inflict harm on us, whereas on the other hand, the flock gets frittered when it needs to be standing in unison to give justice to one of its very own.

I get reminded of good ol’ Jungle Book originated by Rudyard Kipling and later suitably picturized by Waly Disney . The peace and tranquil invariably gets disturbed due to transgression of loose cannons, like in case of an orangutan who tries to promote anarchy and not follow the jungle law. The king of the jungle is candid in his durbar, when he roars and delivers,” My kingdom has the vastness which is impossible for me to rule ‘hands on’. It is for each community that comprises it to manage its flock in a manner that befits the laws of the jungle. ”

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Commented On by...

I can not agree more sir!

Col Baath is the latest example. The example and sign of of our wonderful organisation going weak and fragile.
Such cases and victims are no one’s babies. No candlelight marches no human chains. We are happy siring to those who don’t even deserve a handshake and rising from our chairs!

AWWA - expect nothing from it!
Ask me and <Wife Name Redacted> and we can go on and on!!
Comradery is left only in the Military History books and to be spoken about when we refer to some old soldierly General! On ground it as much as part of our Military tradition and culture as much the AKSAI CHIN is an integral part of India!

The problem lies at our own end. Starting from the CO level! A fresh pool gets created at that stage who these days are appearing to be essentially forward and upward looking. Zero error syndrome has become the very nature. It no more allows seeking pardon, expecting assistance. Taking to task is the culture.
The General offrs emerge from this very pool and the journey of an indl and thus of our organisation becomes very much predictable!

We all throughout in our JC, SC or HC are taught about our duties and responsibilities but no one teaches us about our authority and equivalence with our counterparts from Civil Administration/ LEA.

Most of us don’t even know whether we should or shouldn’t interact with these officials.
We have uncanny ability to SIR everyone when our counterparts have knack for throwing their weight around.

Most importantly it’s a deep rooted and well established and proven fact that the hierarchy would be the first one to disown you and not hold your hand. Comradery has remained in printed form and as a part of history. Getting after each other is the prevailing culture.

Tigers these days are found only in Zoos and in protected environments and so we have our Cantonments to show our authority and power. Rest the outside world is free to pelt pebbles at us.

Rather than evolving as one of the strongest organisations by keeping ourselves abreast with changing civ and socio political situations, we are fast heading towards proving ourselves mere as a CULT.

It is high time that we need to bring in reforms. Make Colonels the TIGERS at SC and not mere Commanding Officers. Unfortunately I’ve seen Major Generals and Brigadiers siring the ACPs.
Unless we show our spine they would treat us like invertebrates.

This probably is the first time I’ve preferred being vocal. I wish to remain tacit for I know nothing can be undone what has happened in past in anyone’s life and career.

I only wish that someone like our old drill instructors from our Alma-maters appear in front of our flag ranks and shake them up holding their belts to wake them up from their slumber and make them realise that even after becoming the General Officers they still have something called spine if not the spirit!

-Ends-

Roshni Act: Ankur Sharma, Ikkjutt Jammu

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:39:00 +0000

The Roshni Scam

An 11 Points Fact-Sheet

Jammu, 25.02.2023, a lot of misinformation on Roshni Case is doing rounds on social media. We present you a factual, chronological and true picture of the entire episode based upon Court record & after speaking to the Petitioner/Advocate Ankur Sharma (President IkKJutt Jammu Party).

1. In 2014, a CMP 48/2014 was filed by Ankur Sharma; Advocate & President IkKJutt Jammu Party in J&K High Court seeking CBI Probe in Rs. 25,000 Crore Roshni Land Scam. The figure of Rs 25,000 Crores was calculated by CAG in its periodical report of the year 2014.

2. PIL 41/2014 titled Ankur Sharma V. State of J&K & Ors. challenging the Constitutional Validity of the Roshni Act & retrieval of State Lands from unauthorised occupants was filed and argued by Ankur Sharma (Advocate & President IkKJutt Jammu Party).

3. In 2014, by virtue of an Interim Order passed by Division Bench of JK High Court headed by the then Chief Justice Mr. M.M Kumar the operation of the Roshni Act was stayed on account of submissions advanced by Ankur Sharma during the course of hearing in PIL 41/2014.

4. By virtue of an order dated 18.02.2018, the J&K High Court after hearing Ankur Sharma passed a blanket ban on Roshni Properties severely affecting Roshni beneficiaries (those who had been granted ownership rights of State Lands under the Roshni Act).

5. Following this serious development, the then Governor Satya Pal Malik on directions from Union Home Ministry & in order to protect Roshni Beneficiaries came out with a Roshni Repeal & Savings Act 2018. The Roshni Act was Act repealed prospectively BUT it had a provision saving and protecting all the existing Roshni beneficiaries. The Repeal Act provided as follows: “The Roshni Act stands repealed today. No New applications under the Act shall be entertained henceforth. Pending applications if any shall be abated. All those who have been given ownership of State Lands under the Roshni Act are protected. Their ownerships are safe and final”.

6. Aggrieved of this Savings Clause, Ankur Sharma again filed a PIL in J&K High Court at Jammu Numbered 06/2019 titled Ankur Sharma V. State of J&K and Ors. seeking declaration of this Savings clause as unconstitutional. The thrust now was to get the Roshni Act declared unconstitutional ab-initio (from the very beginning) so that State lands could be retrieved back from each and every unauthorised encroacher.

7. Accordingly, all these petitions i.e. PIL 41/2014 (Petition seeking annulment of Roshni Act); PIL 06/2019 (Seeking Annulment of BJP Govt’s Roshni Saving Act); CMP 48/2014 (Seeking CBI Probe in 25K Crore Roshni Scam); PIL 19/2011 (Filed by Prof SK Bhalla bringing to fore specific instances of Land encroachment) were clubbed and heard together.

8). By virtue of J&K High Court’s Final Judgment dated 09.10.2020:

a). The infamous Roshni Act was declared unconstitutional ab initio;

b). 25,000 Crore Land scam was handed over to CBI for investigation;

c). Saving Clause of BJP Govt’s Roshni Repeal Act 2018 protecting ownership of Roshni Beneficiaries was made redundant;

d). All mutations attested under the Roshni Act were cancelled. The State Govt was directed to retrieve back all State Lands given away to encroachers since 2001.

9). Instead of implementing the HC Judgment essential for reversing Land Jihad/Demographic Invasion of Jammu Province, BJP Govt in December 2020 filed a Review Petition in JK High Court seeking review of the Roshni Judgment and stalled its implementation. BJP Govt through its Review Petition essentially seeking permission from the High Court to bring-in a new scheme for regularising small/mid-sized encroachments. This essentially means facilitating Demographic Invasion of Himalayas/Sanatana/Jammu Province.

10). In 2020, the BJP Govt in Supreme Court through SGI Tushar Mehta gave assurance that the Govt will not take any coercive action against Roshni beneficiaries. The Court didn’t pass any interim order. However, the Govt voluntarily got this statement recorded in the Apex Court.

11. Owing to sustained pressure of standing Roshni Judgment and pressure exerted on the Govt by the petitioner, the recent Anti Encroachment Drive in line with Directions of HC in Roshni Judgment reluctantly started. Owing to pressure from Muslim establishment, the drive now has been put on hold on the directions of BJP Govt at the centre. It was widely reported in newspapers (front pages) that the anti encroachment drive has been stoped on the directions of Central Govt (Home Ministry & PMO). J&K figures on the top in the list of States/UT where BJP is starting its Muslim Outreach programme for 2024 elections.

The Hot Indian Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sat, 16 Apr 2022 16:28:00 +0000

In the background of the 2+2 US India melee and the multiple and scripted Muslim radical attacks during the Hindu Ramanavami festival processions.

Between the steady whine of western pedantry and the boring appeasement vote bank talking heads in media it has been a hot summer in New Delhi.

The fiercely independent Indian foreign policy that resists sanctions compliance and western media infowar has seen the use of pretexts like religious freedom and human rights given the frustration of America and European Union in embarrassing inability of convincing India and Indians to cancel Russia.

Allies come and go in geopolitical realignment but national interest remains omnipotent and omnipresent. Lessons of 1962, 1971, Kargil and most recently Ladakh are hard wired in Indian strategic thought.

Pressure by the West like the illconsidered statements of America and Germany have backfired. India is solvent, growing as a top 3 economy and has a choice in market access and as an investment location.

Finally, it has a battle hardened and professional Military that dispelled illusions from Balakot to Galwan. This is not lost on China that wants to sell mobile phones in India as it sponsors cyberwar against India.

Or Pakistan its vassal state that sends Terrorism across a porous LoC while it talks about talks and peace in the same breath as Kashmir.

The thing about malcontents is that if you give them enough freedom and they will hang themselves with their own contradictions.

It is only in India that government allow such liberties and tolerance for secularism despite centuries of communal strife.

The Judiciary errs on the other side of caution and works hard to a fault but the appetite for malcontents is reducing every day.

The easy Hinduphobia of the West and certain Middle East nations rooted in stone age belief manifested for decades in funding and ideological sponsorship of over ground workers and sympathisers.

The Modi Era is reviled for its pushback to such antinational rhetoric and propaganda that puts religion and subnational radicalisation over the nation.

India must find its own destiny in a multipolar world away from the West and its contradictions as well as dictatorial and theological regimes bordering it from the middle to far east.

A hot summer coming but India is smelling good and feeling great after the Pandemic!

Resurgent Bharat by Jay Bhattacharjee, An Anthology of Essays

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sun, 26 Sep 2021 02:18:00 +0000

This week, I am pleased to present a book by Jay Bhattacharjee.

An anthology of Essays and other works published over the past few years with a distinct focus on Resurgent Bharat and issues germane to it.

Jay or Dada, as many refer to him has been a long term observer of the national and geopolitical issues surrounding the evolution of Bharat from colonial India and its pokey colonial narrative.

His essays and articles are written on the interplay of politics, social mores and the many contradiction of Lutyens Delhi, have the unique perspective of bringing together a world view that stretches on a canvas anywhere from ancient mythology to cutting edge day-zero commentary on defence, foreign policy, political bromides, and governance itself. In that, he brings a powerful second look, a juicy

break from the old colonial narratives ingrained by years of Oxbridge rote and bad education.

For the modern Indian man and woman, whether living in our cities or abroad as a professional, in media, diplomacy, bureaucracy or the Military, the author represents an alternative reality.

These are the green shoots of the so called Indic movement that seeks to reclaim a past low balled by colonialism.

For the young scholar, or for those who seek to see and understand the trajectory of Bharat, this provides a meaningful back story to construct a rubric and an appreciation of the genesis of the current state of the nation and its rise in the world.

Even for the casual observer, it provides insight to understand legacy and connect it to modern day reality. Something lost in the cut and thrust of the stale academic schooling, tainted curriculums of British Raj or Mughal Colonialism, or worse Nehruvian socialism mediocrity characterised by a pidgin language of dysfunction, self deprecation and acceptance of a lack of perfection.

This is the new reality spread over essays, some as reactions to policy and judiciary, other to politics and enterprise. Like good tea, coffee of wine, expect a lot of diverse notes and flavours, from sarcastic to pungent, hilarious to bitter, and often philosophical.

In conclusion, this tome belongs on the bookshelf of the consciousness of the Bharatiya out there, not just ideologues but common people going about the business of life trying to make sense of the times they live in. It belongs on the Kindle of the flyer, the mind of the second generation diaspora out there awash in a sea of Hinduphobia and just as much for jobbers, reproducing and mortgage paying macaulay's orphans given pause by the pandemic.

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Foreword

Resurgent India – And Other Issues - An Anthology of Essays, is a scintillating collection of thoughtful essays and reviews by Jay Bhattacharjee that were published in various journals and newspapers between the mid-1990s to 2021. When put together in a single tome, they convey a significant message that India has undergone a major change-one that is not merely wedded to the fortunes of its two major political parties, the Congress and the BJP and its allied organisations.

Another significant change is the near-permanent wilting away of the dogmas of Socialism and Secularism as they were practised by the Nehru Parivar, and their replacement by Hindu aspirations that had been denied their natural flowering earlier. This suppression was perpetrated under the previous colonial yoke, as well as during the successor regimes under Gandhi and Nehru.

Through the sheer vitality of his arguments, the author unmistakably conveys that the direction of change is irreversible, no matter how much resentment, rebellion, chicanery or sabotage the beneficiaries of the earlier established order may provoke or drum up.

Very early in the book, he takes up the question of why the creamy classes resist the change so vehemently. Is it their education in the Christian convent schools or their monolingual grooming through the English medium? The writer points out something more. The classes to whose good fortune fell the enjoyment of governing India after the “Transfer of Power”, were colonised not just by Macaulay but also by eight hundred years of Islamic rule before the British came to our country. The syndrome of ingratiating oneself before the invader has a longer recorded history. It is a result of such a humiliation, such a dhimmitude, that the official historians of the Nehru-Indra era denied the ravages of Islamic rule and concocted the story that British historians should be credited with the depiction of Islamic oppression.

Jay Bhattacharjee has no hesitation in pointing out that the core ethos of India is under siege today. There is a blatantly negative treatment of Hindus, particularly by the agencies of social reform. The bias is ingrained into the Constitution which calls for social reform only for Hindus while the minorities, namely Muslims, are exempted from that burden. On the contrary, they are provided with state-sponsored facilities of being as conservative as possible. He gives clear examples of the provisions in Article 25 and the reversal of relief granted to Muslim women who seek divorce.

Not content with mentioning the above blunders, the author has chosen to speak out against the much-venerated English language proponents and advocates in Nehruvian India. As somebody who has been part of the Anglophonic class of India by virtue of his job as teacher of English literature at a premier university, I have myself not been blinded to the unethical tyranny of the English language in India that has resulted in stultifying the Indian languages and their literatures. Despite all the attention our ruling establishment gave to English, our country has not succeeded in creating a class with any special facility in English. The writer points out that “English is now getting to be an albatross around our neck.” Most people never go beyond the pidgin level in handling it and, by turning away from their own mother tongues, they end up causing serious damage to the indigenous Indian languages. What is more, as the author describes so perceptively, many erstwhile premier institutes of India, such as the author’s own alma mater, Presidency College, Kolkata, have failed to maintain their glorious standards. They now wallow in utter mediocrity.

To salvage the linguistic decline, while examining the confusion created by national leaders like Gandhi and Nehru, Jay Bhattacharjee advocates the adoption of a high dose of Sanskrit-vocabulary usage in all modern Indian languages. He clearly points out such a common denominator will make it easier for all Indians to be at home with languages that are not their mother tongues. At this point, one wonders how our linguists and literary giants, simply overlooked this basic fact, and got deluded by spurious claims of religious harmony supposedly created by Hindi-Urdu bonhomie and Marxist fascination with plebian speech.

The book is not devoted to a reassessment of Nehru as a leader, but some crucial facts are stated by our author. He clearly says that Nehru had hardly anything Indian in his education and little to recommend by way of academic achievements. He contrasts Nehru’s performance with the academic careers of Sri Aurobindo and Subhash Bose who ranked at the top, while Nehru could only make it to a ‘compassionate pass’ degree in Cambridge. Not very generous as it may sound, this truth surely explains the momentous impact that Nehru’s ignorance of Indian culture had on the course of events in India’s history.

The theme of India under siege is expanded by the current rise of Islamism in West Bengal. In our author’s mind, the situation resembles what happened in Kosovo when Yugoslavia underwent its calamitous disintegration. Thus, he makes a clear call for the dismissal of the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal. For him, India must never wither away into a soft state under the onslaught of Islamist and liberal-Leftist machinations.

Some parts of the book may not be of interest to the general reader, since they concern issues that have passed into history, such as the Trump Presidency in the U.S. However, many critical issues still remain like the Jihadi violence in many countries in Europe. Here, the author attempts to remind us of the history of Islam’s foray into Europe and its later retreat, hoping that European people, though appearing very helpless right now before the Islamic onslaught through forced migration, may recover their defences soon.

While giving a pithy account of how Christians reclaimed Cordoba in AD 732 through the valour of Charles Martel the Frankish King, and then much of Europe in AD 1236 by the Spaniards during the Reconquista, followed by the battle of Vienna in AD 1683 won by the Polish king John III Sobieski, the author is exasperated by the terrible short-sightedness of the German Chancellor Merkel and the British Labour Party, who refuse to note that the number of Muslim refugees or migrants has crossed a dangerous threshold in Western Europe.

There are many insightful essays in the book on how the Indian politicians have been treating the country’s armed forces by not giving them their dues, either financially, or in terms of the status and respect they deserve. Jay Bhattacharjee discusses at length the basic flaws in the Indian state’s policies pertaining to the nation’s sword-arm.

The book calls for an enormous amount of introspection by all thinking persons and classes responsible for governance at every level. Publications like this are most necessary, when the political classes are wont to drum up a nationalism that does not have its feet firmly on the ground, when heritage and lived culture are seen through a clouded lens of half-baked ideology, and when leadership has to invigorate itself by eschewing all lethargy and senility.

At this stage of its history, India awaits a leadership that is firm in resolve, meticulous in planning and generous of heart to usher in a new Indic civilisation. This is no time to dilly dally or to be hesitant and depressed. This is the moment to hear and answer the clarion call once given to a great warrior, “Uttishtha parantapa. Rise and subdue the vicious.”

Through these essays and articles written over a span of twenty five years, Jay Bhattacharjee issues a clarion call to his readers and to a wider audience that our ancient civilisation is on the cusp of a giant leap forward. A failure at this juncture would be cataclysmic.

Professor Bharat Gupt

Trustee and Executive Member, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (Ministry of Culture), New Delhi

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PREFACE

WITTY, ACERBIC, IRREVERENT

Resurgent India – And Other Issues - An Anthology of Essays is a valuable compilation of Jay Bhattacharjee’s (JB’s) work over several decades. This may sound like a cliché, but the truth is that JB’s essays are unputdownable. He is sharp, witty, acerbic and irreverent, and it seems as if he regularly dips his keyboard in a trough of sarcasm!

JB has his pet aversions, and they make his essays eminently readable! They include the denizens of Lutyens Delhi (The LZ Gang) and pseudo-intellectuals of all varieties, specially pseudo-secularists, who go by the delightful acronym SS (Sarkari Secularists) and “media honchos”, including foreign correspondents stationed in Delhi. These two terms were clearly patented by JB at some stage of his writing career.

As one reads this book, one soon realises that it is indeed not advisable to ever get into his cross hairs, for JB can be punishing, unrelenting and unforgiving. Once he takes aim, there is little chance of survival for the victim. It is a lethal fusillade of words that hits the bull’s eye.

If this was indeed a battlefield, the images that come to mind are those of his bruised and battered opponents being carried away in stretchers by the International Red Cross.

If you find him irascible at times, forgive him, because he is doing your job! While you fret and fume all your life about the frauds and fakes you shake hands with at the Delhi Gymkhana Club, India International Centre and other watering holes in the Capital, JB goes for the jugular, so that your spirits may be buoyed by vicarious pleasure, as you enjoy your drink!

Sarcasm is a very special weapon in the armoury of a writer. Most writers who deploy it generally cause some damage to reputation. But, in JB’s case, you could get bludgeoned!

Here is a sample:

“The building belongs to the Central Government and has almost certainly been rented out to the FCC (The Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia) at the ridiculously low rate that the President of India is pleased to charge from his most privileged and affluent citizens. In other words, the hapless Indian tax-payer heavily subsidises a coterie of foreign scribes, whose purported mandate is to report objectively on this country’s affairs for their global readers, but who do precisely the opposite. The FCC is a sepulchral and dreary establishment, which also manages to project a distinctly sinister and eerie image. Its dimly lit rooms, tastelessly furnished, remind you of Eric Ambler and the Balkans of the 1930s…..

The whole ambience reeks of petty intrigue and low-level skulduggery………On the few occasions when I have visited the FCC in the last few years, I have always found the experience interesting. Invariably, the members of the international rat pack stunned me with their devastating ignorance of this country, its history and its people—worse was their mind-set and disposition”.

The denizens of Lutyens Zone (LZ)—“purveyors of a sordid ideology”—come in for appropriately harsh treatment at JB’s hands. He says, “The insidious elite in New Delhi’s Lutyens’ Zone (LZ) had honed its skills for decades after 1947 and indeed for many hundreds of years earlier, under Muslim rule, and then under Pax Britannica. I must hasten to clarify that the LZ denizens do not merely comprise folks who are inhabitants of this small municipal zone in the nation’s Capital. LZ wallahs include all those who subscribe to the ethos and “values” of an ideology spawned here. To give just a few examples, the LZ mafia have in their fold the media honchos (particularly in the English MSM), the jholawallahs from all over the country, the Muslim-Christian clergies, the erstwhile comrades who are now confined to two backward enclaves of the country, and assorted “intellectuals” from universities, academic/research institutions and other talking shops, especially in the JNU and other similar cesspools.”

The other large component in the LZ cabal is made up of the beneficiaries of the loot and corruption of the Indian economic system that was designed and run by the GNG trio”. (Note: GNG is an acronym for Gandhi-Nehru-Gandhi).

Further, “Their make-believe world is that of the Mughal conquerors and the English overlords; it is through these prisms that they look at their own pre-colonial civilisation and heritage”.

The second characteristic of the LZ Gang, he says, “is their visceral animosity to this country’s ancient culture and civilisation. 4,000-odd years of glorious achievements and accomplishments of this land and our Indic civilisation in numerous fields have all been brushed under the carpet and made to disappear”. In his view, “the most prominent figures in the desi media and the academic world are ardent “secularists,” whose raison d’être is to “mock, trivialise, distort and undermine our ancient civilisation and heritage”.

All this is not to say that he is an angry citizen who is out to whack anyone who crosses his path. He has a great sense of humour. For example, his take on “Begum Mawmota Banerjee’s Eengland Bheejit” comes with this self-deprecating advisory: “Some portions of this article, especially those that reproduce conversations and ruminations of some of the persons featured in the report, are in a language called Bongleesh. Readers who are not familiar with this language may be advised to consult their Bongo friends”.

Or this: “Empress Ponya was now in distress. Her son, Praoul, who was also referred to rather unkindly by the desi press as “always on the prowl” (AOTP), was clearly not cast in the mould of a great leader. Her daughter, Bianka, and son-in-law Herbert Dadra were even more disappointing…… Most…… members of her inner council were referred to as the “Cousins Zone” coterie because they all stayed in that part of the national capital, New Tilli, where relatives or close friends of the power elite stayed.”

In the essay titled “In Defence of Puppies and Dogs”, it becomes obvious that JB is an admirer of the famous French philosopher and moralist, Duc de Rochefoucauld, who is well known for his maxims, the source of which was his cynicism about human behaviour. JB says Rochefoucauld’s epic dictum (“The more I see of human beings, the more I love my dogs”) “is forever etched in my mind and heart”.

Like Duc de Rochefoucauld, JB believes that life is all about scruples, and any shortfall on that score deserves the harshest punishment that prose can offer. Therefore, he is the ace detective like Hercule Poirot, whose métier is not only to crack criminal cases but to sniff out the unscrupulous. So, once the detection is over, the assault begins! That is why, politicians and journalists, who get low scores on JB’s moral meter are sitting ducks when JB offloads his ammunition.

Finally, like Rochefoucauld, there is no sugar-coating, and, therefore, JB offers the ideal literary and intellectual diet for all those who wish to lead a healthy life. This book is, therefore, safe, and indeed ideal, for everyone, including cardiac patients and diabetics!

A Surya Prakash (Author, Indologist, Former Chairman (Prasar Bharati)

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ENDORSEMENTS

Lt. Gen. P G Kamath (Retired), PVSM, AVSM, YSM, SM

Military Scholar, Defence Analyst, and Writer, Former Commandant, Army War College (Mhow)

____________________________________________________________

“The book is a must-read for all those intellectuals and thinkers who are concerned with the state of the Indian polity, and the reasons for the denigration of Indic values. It is painstakingly researched and spelt out elegantly by the erudite author.

Jay Bhattacharjee’s appropriate choice of words and his felicity with writing elegant and incisive prose are most impressive. The essays dissect national and social issues at various stages of their evolution. The articles are thoroughly researched and the author refers to historical parallels across the world, in order to depict contemporary situations. The book is a testimony to his scholarship.

The author savours and soaks the beauty of the English language and gives the reader adequate opportunity to spend his time amidst the same sources of knowledge and erudition. His scholarship permeates his writings, because of the depth and span of his research. This allows him, when necessary, to speak the bitter truth, in spite of his undying love for his country.”

___________________________________________________

Tathagata Roy

Author, Technocrat, Former Governor (Meghalaya and Tripura)

“Jay Bhattacharjee’s forte is not only his incisive insight into national affairs, but also a deep, perceptive and dispassionate assessment of important developments in West Bengal. He has remarkable insight and perception.

The text is very enjoyable, readable as well as informative,”

Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Mrinal Suman (Retired) AVSM, VSM

Defense Expert, Writer and Commentator on Strategic Affairs

“Resurgent India – And Other Issues - An Anthology of Essays takes the reader on a journey of contemporary India, an India which is metamorphosing into a resurgent nation once again, by anchoring herself in the high ideals it set for itself since the Vedic
times. This book is extremely readable, and conveys the profoundest thoughts in elegant and humorous prose,”

P K BASU (IAS, Retd.)

Former Secretary, Government of India, Former Member, Central Administrative Tribunal

_______________________________________________

This book takes the reader on a journey of contemporary India, an
India which is metamorphosing into a resurgent nation once again,
by anchoring herself in the high ideals it set for itself since the Vedic
times. Subsequently, the Islamic, and then British, imperialists, rampaged over our ancient civilisation and attempted to destroy our culture and heritage, by imposing their alien ideologies.

Jay Bhattacharjee uses his engrossing and brilliant pen and presents a fascinating canvas of events and personalities in his essays, that are always accompanied by his characteristic wit and humour. The book is extremely readable, and conveys the profoundest thoughts in elegant and humorous prose. The writer has, once again, again given his readers a masterpiece.

Dr Saradindu Mukherji

Historian, Author, Member (Indian Council of Historical Research)

Those looking for a convenient and perceptive assessment and overview of some of the most remarkable facets of contemporary India, not usually available in other commentaries, will be hugely satisfied with what Jay Bhattacharjee offers so incisively. In total command of the scenario he surveys, he picks up some of the most significant themes and brings them under the scanner. His clarity of vision, when he analyses the historical and cultural experiences of a ‘wounded civilisation’, comes out in elegant prose and is a rare treat. This is a work that is most enjoyable and enlightening at the same time.

___________________________________________________________________

Theatre Commands - Make Haste But Slowly

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 18:31:00 +0000

The recent announcement of the creation of the Maritime Theatre Command is the first concrete step towards a total transformation of the Indian Armed Forces into integrated theatre Commands designed to conduct tri-dimensional military operations across both our land borders as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. With its strategic geographical location, growing economic strength and vibrant population, India is perceived as a regional power and a potential global one. Our aspirations have, however, to be backed up with both soft power as well as a strong military that can influence the course of events around us.

The proposed theaterization plan is largely based on the US model. It must, however, be understood that unlike the US, India’s stakes are totally different. America does not have to defend its own borders. The structure, training and psychological make up of its military is therefore fully oriented towards global power projection and multi-dimensional military operations in regions far away from home. On the other hand, India’s primary focus will always remain on the protection of ourterritorial sovereignty against two highly inimical neighbours. Nepal also remains in semi-permanent political turmoil and at loggerheads with India, which is being cleverly exploited by Beijing. To complicate matters, thethreat of nuclear weapons will always continue to influence policy making.

This dangerous external environment is compounded by a domestic situation which has been reeling from the Covid pandemic, a stressed economy and internal upheavals thatare taking a toll on both the government as also on the mental and financial health of our nation and our people.

The country’s last bastion, the military, is itself faced with multiple challenges. We have a dwindling defence budget and face shortages in critical war fighting equipment. The combat units are deficient of officers. The capability and integration of external intelligence gathering and coordination leave much to be desired. Our defence R&D is deplorable. The private sector is not yet geared up to meet the military’s needs but the CDS is ready to accept lower standards of weapons and equipment. The Army has for too long been fixated on low level counter insurgency operations, as a result of which we are steadily losing the art of conducting large scale conventional warfare involving integrated application of combat forces. The slew of proposed reforms and tinkering at grassroot levels, to save a penny here and a penny there, are causing friction within the senior leadership and uncertainty and disquiet amongst others. None of these are helping the cause of the military.

Under these circumstances, it is essential that the one pillar of power and security that needs to remain absolutely stable, and not be buffeted around, is the Indian military.

While undoubtedly there is a need to integrate the three Services, there seems to be a tearing hurry to complete the much more complex task of theaterization in the next two years. The mandate given to the CDS is to “bring about jointness in operation, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance, etc of the three Services, within three years”. It certainly does not state that the operational restructuring of the three Services into Theatres has to be completed by 2022.

In order to create and successfully operationalise multi dimensional, integrated Theatre Commands , there are several critical prerequisites that must be met. These include a clear operational directive from the Government, well thought out strategic and operational doctrines based on realistic mid and long term threat perceptions, strong budgetary backup, adequate and dedicated war fighting resources and reserves for each theatre and a seamless chain of command & control from the Theatre Commander upwards. All this has to be backed up with fully integrated intelligence,communications, training and logistics organizations as well as carefully structured tri-Service headquarters down to divisional levels. Most of these do not exist today.

While these hurdles can be managed over time,the most complex and difficult challenge is to bridge the emotive and psychological chasm between the Services which is bound to befurther aggravated by issues of turf and promotional avenues, especially those in the rank of C-in-C. The first priority must therefore be to address these areas and commence a cradle-to-grave integration of body and spiritamongst the three Services. Easily said, but a monumental challenge for the future military leadership.

The Grand Theaterization Plan envisages restructuring of the entire military into Northern and Western land theatres, a Maritime Theatre Command and an Air Defence Command, apart from supporting subsidiaries like Special Forces, Space, Logistics, Training and Cyber Warfare Commands.

The Northern Theatre Commander, probably located at Lucknow, will control operations along the entire 3500 km long Indo-China border from Ladakh to Arunachal, 2500 kmswith Nepal and Bhutan, 3300 km with Myanmar and 4100 Kms with Bangladesh, while the Western Theatre Commander located at Jaipur, will control operations across the 3000 km long Indo-Pak border from the super high altitude Siachen across the deserts of Rajasthan and down to Rann of Kutch.

The current territorial and operational responsibilities of the existing Army Commands have been well thought out and matured over the last fifty years. Creation of Northern and South Western Commands, raising of several additional defensive and Strike Corps, readjustment of operational boundaries, relocation of fighting formations closer to the borders etc have all been necessitated to overcome the problems of vast geographical expanse, greatly varying terrain and climatic conditions, span of command & control of operations, tenuous lines of communications, availability of and need for rapid movement of reserves, as well as management of extensive logistics chains.

The five Army Commanders already have their job cut out planning and conducting complex defensive and offensive operations across these borders. With theaterization, they will have another superimposed three star General breathing down their necks and interfering with the conduct of operations. In any case, to expect a lone Theatre Commander to plan, control and conduct vastly differing and difficult combat operations stretching from Siachen to Kutch or from Ladakh to Arunachal, without having the rank, stature and staff of a Service Chief, is a disaster in the making. To add to the complexities, there is a talk that the Northern Theatre may well be given to an Air Force Three Star with zero experience of land operations! The degradation of the Service Chiefs from their powerful command positions to that of a resource manager and provider is also bound to meet with resistance.

There are many other contentious issues regarding the proposed Air DefenceCommand(ADC) and the Maritime Theatre Command(MTC). Will the ADC located at Allahabad, become a super Air Force under a three star, instead of decentralizing air power assets to the regional Commands? Will the Vice Admiral of MTC be able to control such large forces across the entire Indian Ocean Region or does it require two MTCs ? Will MTC bestructured around Carrier based fleets or be replaced with submarines ?

There is little doubt that we need an integrated military capable of conducting tri dimensional combat operations, be it across our land borders or on the high seas. However, there are pitfalls in trying to overnight dismantle and reconstruct existing structures and systems that have taken decades to establish and mature. It may, therefore, be prudent to pause, take a deep breath and reassess these critical issues before diving off at the deep end.

Most importantly, under the current hostile conditions, the Indian Armed Forces just cannot afford to be imbalanced in its ability to meet the twin threats from China and Pakistan. Thus, without tinkering with the operational functioning of the current geographical Commands, the process of forming integrated Commands and Corps could start. However, let us take at least ten years to assessthe situation and then create overarchingTheatre based Commands that would best suit India’s operational and power projection requirements.

Lt Gen Ghosh, an alumnus of St Josephs, Nainital, and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, was commissioned on November 14, 1971 and immediately participated in the Indo-Pakistan war in J&K.

Besides commanding one of the oldest battalions of The Brigade of The Guards, he has commanded an infantry brigade on the Line of Control, an infantry division, the Mathura-based Strike Corps and the prestigious Western Army.

INDIA-CHINA: STRATEGIC METAMORPHOSIS AND LADAKH FACE OFF

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 13:01:00 +0000

INDIA-CHINA: STRATEGIC METAMORPHOSIS AND LADAKH FACE OFF

Umakant Dube

After a major breakthrough in February when Chinese and Indian troops withdrew from the north and south banks of the Pangong Tso in Ladakh, the disengagement process appears to have lost some steam in the past months. With talks at the Corps Commander level making little headway and tension persisting at other friction points in Gogra, Hot Springs, and Depsang Plains, a stalemate seems to have set in at the LAC.There are indication that Corps Cdrs Meeting may be scheduled in the last week of this month,Jul or early August. Although all eyes are fixed on the military stalemate in the Himalayas, it is equally important to take note of the political stalemate that has developed between the two countries.

Change in China’s India Policy vs. Change in India’s China Policy

For India, the deadly Galwan Clash, is undoubtedly an act of “unprovoked Chinese aggression” at the LAC, much in line with the recent episodes of Chinese power projection in the entire Indo-Pacific region. Indian strategists have mostly interpreted it as “a fundamental and consequential shift in China’s behaviour, a successful salami-slicing manoeuvre.” However, what is still somewhat unclear to New Delhi is what led China to readjust its India policy—that is, to violate all existing agreements regarding the maintenance of peace and tranquility at the LAC—with little regard for the future of the overall bilateral ties.

There are conjectures galore within Indian strategic circles and beyond about possible Chinese motivations- the conflict is the outcome of India’s 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 while some others state that this is the fallout of a construction arms race in the border areas, particularly India’s construction of the strategically significant Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie Road. Still others believe that this is a ploy by China to divert local and international attention away from the various controversies surrounding China’s role in exacerbating COVID-19 crisis across the world. However, the fact remains that no one in New Delhi can say for sure of what led China to seemingly recalibrate its India policy by suddenly upping the ante at the LAC.

In fact, India’s FM Jaishankar, has admitted on various occasions that India has yet to receive credible explanation for change in China’s stance towards India and massing of troops in border areas and its willingness to breach peace. and India is still trying to figure out not only China’s motivations, but also what the Chinese posture signals,its evolution, and its possible implications for future of ties.

Meanwhile, the Chinese side has stressed what it perceives as a distinct shift in India’s China policy .They feel what had led to the situation last year at the China-India boundary was clear. There has been some wavering and back-pedaling in India’s China policy, and practical cooperation between the two countries has been affected. It is important to note that in the recent past, particularly after the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, Chinese strategists have consistently flagged the issue of a perceived shift in India’s China policy, India’s strategic adjustment of major power diplomacy vis-á-vis China and the USA (marked by antagonistic competition towards China across the realms of ideology and economy), and the border issue. These strategists argue that the changes in India’s China policy are fueled by both internal developments, such as a conservative turn in Indian national politics, and external factors, such as the intensification of competition between the United States and China, which is in a way favorable to India’s rise. As summarized by some Chinese think tanks- China needs to beware of India’s rising self-confidence and its toughening stance towards China; moreover, it should not rule out the possibility of a real-time conflict breaking out between the two countries in near future. In other words, for the Chinese side, the present border crisis is retaliation to what is perceived as a clear change in India’s China policy.

Obfuscated LAC

The best way to end the repeated stand-offs at the LAC and mitigate fluctuations in ties with China is to once and for all clarify the location of the LAC. The Indian strategic community has sought to build up pressure on China to resume the process of clarifying the LAC, which has been stalled since 2002. Since the Galwan clash, the dominant discourse in New Delhi is that India and China should grasp the current situation as an opportunity to revive the stalled process of clarifying the LAC and push for a settlement of the distracting, protracted border dispute . It is widely believed in India that only a settlement will end the “shadow boxing” on the LAC, usher in a permanent “win-win” situation for both countries, and pave the way for regional cooperation beneficial to Asia and the world.

However, China remains elusive on the issue of clarifying the LAC and publicly ruled out the possibility of initiating the clarification process on grounds that “clarifying the LAC could ‘create new disputes’” and further hamper the process of “maintain[ing] peace and tranquility in the border areas.” Within Chinese strategic circles, clarification of the LAC is a complete non-starter. In fact, for the last few years, there has been much resentment among Chinese strategic circles over what is perceived as the Modi government’s unwillingness to “shelve the disputed border” and New Delhi’s consistent emphasis on China-India strategic cooperation based on proper settlement of the border dispute.

China’s reluctance to address the border row is supported by the argument that differences between China and India at the bilateral, regional, and international levels are not solely caused by the border dispute, but that both China and India consider themselves to be emerging powers, albeit at different stages. As per the Chinese assessment, even if China agrees to the settlement of the border dispute, China-India competition will continue unabated at various levels, only China will have one less card in hand, a crucial one, against India.They argue that, if the LAC is determined and the border is delineated, next India will turn the gun towards Pakistan, establish its dominance over South Asia, and subsequently concentrate its entire strategic focus and main resources on the Indian Ocean, preventing China from entering the Indian Ocean, and controlling China’s lifeline.

It is fair to believe that the disputed border is a point of leverage for China given India is the only Quad country that shares a border with China. Therefore, from the political, economic, and strategic perspectives, China seems to be in no rush to resolve the border issue. Rather, in a sharp contrast to the “end of shadowboxing” narrative emanating from New Delhi, China’s leading South Asia experts have been hinting at a “continuous struggle, a long term see-saw between forces” at the LAC, for at least the next 4-5 years.

Any long-term and substantial breakthrough at the LAC can only result from genuine reconciliation between the two sides’ conflicting positions on LAC clarification, the impact of border clashes on bilateral ties, and their respective perception of antagonistic policy changes by the other side.

Delinking vs. Re-linking of the Border Dispute with Overall Bilateral Ties

The other major point of contradiction is related to the position of the border dispute within their overall bilateral ties. Following the Galwan clash India took a series of punitive measures against China, beyond the realm of military, by banning popular Chinese apps, restricting Chinese investments and, most recently, excluding Huawei from India’s 5G trials. The goal was to convey to Beijing that peace and tranquility on the border is “absolutely essential” for good relations. Since last year, India’s EAM S. Jaishankar has reiterated the Indian stance multiple times through various platforms; “the bottom line for the relationship is clear: peace and tranquility must prevail on the border if the progress made in the last three decades is not to be jeopardized.” Cooperation between India and China, he stressed, has advanced steadily in the last three decades on grounds that peace and tranquility was maintained and that the LAC was both observed and respected by both sides. But now that there is a crisis at the LAC, it cannot be business as usual. “One cannot have friction, bloodshed, and intimidation on the borders and then say let’s have a good relationship in other domains,” Jaishankar has stated, while also emphasising that “the border and the future of China-India ties cannot be separated.”

However, in China, India’s stance is interpreted as a part of what is often referred to as India’s “adventurist policy” under the Modi government, where India is not only building pressure on Beijing to urgently resolve the border issue but also placing the border issue as a necessary precondition for the positive development of overall China-India relations.They quote, bilateral relations could be normalized and improved in 1988, when India finally agreed to decouple the border issue from the rest of the relationship. Since then, successive leaderships in both countries have tried to downplay the boundary issue for the sake of overall advancement of China-India ties. However, the present Indian government is trying to re-link the border dispute with the progress in bilateral relations, which not only violates the bilateral consensus to not allow differences to rise into disputes, but can also create insurmountable obstacles to the long-term development of bilateral ties.These contradictions were again resurfaced more pronounced during recent meeting at SCO between two FMs and respective read out.

While Dr S. Jaishankar conveyed to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi , the continuing impasse along the LAC was “visibly impacting the relationship in a negative manner”, the Chinese Minister offered a starkly different message, calling on both sides to “place the border issue in an appropriate position”.
Mr. Jaishankar reiterated India’s view — that the LAC crisis would have a bearing on broader ties. “Assessing the overall relationship, the External Affairs Minister emphasised that maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas has been the foundation for the development of ties since 1988,” the MEA read our quoted him as saying, adding that attempts to change status quo last year “disregarded commitments under the 1993 and 1996 agreements” and “have inevitably affected ties”.

Mr. Wang, in contrast, said in China’s view the boundary should be kept “in an appropriate position” and it should be addressed while both sides looked to “expand the positive momentum of bilateral cooperation and create favourable conditions for resolving differences through negotiation”.
He said ‘cooperation’ should be “the main theme” of ties, while interaction “should still be seeking mutual benefits and complementarity, pursuing healthy competition and avoiding confrontation”. India has said normalcy in other areas of ties will not be possible until there is disengagement and then de-escalation along the border.
Mr. Wang also repeated China’s view that “the responsibility does not lie with the Chinese side” for the LAC crisis — another point of difference. Both also differed in their assessment of how to tackle remaining issues along the LAC, with problems unresolved in several areas including Depsang, Demchok, Gogra and Hot Springs after the February disengagement at Pangong Lake. Mr. Jaishankar said “the successful disengagement in the Pangong Lake Area earlier this year had created conditions for resolving the remaining issues” and noted “the situation in remaining areas is still unresolved”.

Mr. Wang did not refer to any remaining issues. He said since their September meeting in Moscow, frontier troops “disengaged in the Galwan Valley and the Pangong Lake areas, and the overall situation in the border area was de-escalated”. He said China “is ready to find a solution acceptable to both sides on the issue that needs emergency response through negotiation and consultation,” yet talks between the military to find a solution since February have made little headway.

To conclude, one can argue that behind the ongoing military stalemate at the LAC lies a stifling stalemate in both countries’ political stances towards the other. Any long-term and substantial breakthrough at the LAC can only result from genuine reconciliation between the two sides’ conflicting positions on LAC clarification, the impact of border clashes on bilateral ties, and their respective perception of antagonistic policy changes by the other side. Taken together, the possibility of such grand reconciliation between China and India in the current international situation looks rather grim at the moment.In given contexual debate,was limiting disengagement to North and South of Pangang Tso and Not a overall pakage deal -Depsang to Demchok ,was a political and military error of judgment, we overestimated Chinese resolve and undue prodigious concerns to an accidental conflict to reach disengagement? Chinese were as concerned to avoid accidental conflict, if not more, as India was.Indian occupation of Kailash Ranges has imposed an extremely military adversial diminution on PLA.Did we failed to capitalised the situation?Answer must wait the details.

The writer is a Veteran General Officer of the Indian Army and can be contacted on ukdube@gmail.com

22 Years after Kargil, 6 Submarines for Indian Navy

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 07:18:00 +0000

First RFP for 6 Diesel Electric P75-I Submarines for Indian Navy

The Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh on June 4, announced an RFP for the construction of 6 conventional submarines in India with Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) equipped with land attack cruise missiles and torpedoes.

The submarines have been been pending approval for the past 22 years, currently envisaged as a part of the Strategic Partnership Model under the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP 2020) that received AON in 2015. This is first major defence deal under the makeinindia defence procurement model and its progress or failure will determine the future course of India’s defence preparedness over the next many decades.

In a move that raises many eyebrows to avoid a single vendor moral hazard state owned MDL and private vendor L&T have been cherry picked to bid for the RFP along with foreign OEMs including DCNS (France), Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems (Germany), Navantia (Spain), Rosboronexport / Rubin Design (Russia) and Daewoo (South Korea). On a sober note, given the bidding process the delivery of the first P75-I submarine is a good decade away!

India has 15 conventional submarines including 7 Kilo Class, 4 SSK or HDW, 3 Scorpene Class (with an additional 3 under construction), and 1 Nuclear Submarine left in its Navy of which the conventional submarines are over 25 years old. A Russian SSN nuclear submarine on lease has been returned to Russia following an accident, while a solitary nuclear submarine manufactured in India SSBN, INS Arihant does duty in the Navy, which has a much depleted and ragtag submarine fleet which is less than 50 per cent operational at any given time compared to more than 50 conventional and 10 nuclear powered attack submarinesserving with the PLA Navy (PLAN).

Caught unaware and embarrassed by the Ladakh fracas, long neglected defence procurement has seen some progress, despite bureaucratic hurdles and aatmanirbharbharat hoops that remain in denial of technical ecosystem, metallurgical and project management know how required to build modern weapon systems including attack submarines.

Post the Kargil war, the Vajpayee Cabinet Committee on Security, in June 1999, had approved a 30-year submarine-building plan including 24 conventional and 6 nuclear submarines indigenously by 2030. The delay and red tape has created a precarious balance of seapower for India, in a increasingly tough neighbourhood with inimical and aggressive navies, which needs to be reversed, so the Indian Navy receives its bare minimum operating fleet of 18 submarines, without further makeinindia and other obfuscation.

Indian defence procurement has been a swamp of corruption and socialist import substitution quagmire, putting the critical needs of the Indian Military above ideological baggage is needed to safeguard Indian security across land, air and sea in a tough SE Asian region.

Why Tatasky and DTH Cos are Dying

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 06:07:00 +0000

Slowly but surely #tatasky and other as a #dth box content provider are heading towards extinction. Here are the top reasons:

1. Dish and cable and bulky #settopbox hardware constraints. Unwieldy space and weather sensitive infrastructure prone to cable breaks and often dysfunctional during rain and other adverse conditions

2. Inability to #crosssell or #upsell #broadbandInternet to existing captive customers in times of InternetOfThings. Broadband as customer acquisition entry point opportunity was lost by Tata Sky just like MTNL, BSNL etc.

3. Horrid menus and #GUI in times of Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple TV, Android and other hardware application ecosystems. The #advertising is pedestrian and interferes with the initialisation of the menu and broadcast channel you may wish to watch! For a paid service, aggressive advertising is unheard of elsewhere and creates a nuisance with no #qualityreview on the commercial sewage pumped into your screen via satellite!

4. Crap customer service where contact centre, website, and Internet based Tata sky application don’t talk to each other in a unified CRM system. You will have to explain the problem every time to a rep with frustration guaranteed not resolution and definitely not in the committed SLA. COVID has only made this more pronounced!

5. Tata Sky pricing is becoming unsustainable. Compared to Reliance Jio, Airtel and several others, as well as online services of individual broadcasters it is opaque as well as forces bundling of channel’s you may never watch but land up paying for nevertheless.

6. The future of content is largely becoming hardware agnostic. Proprietary closed systems will face price pressures from commoditisation of casting technologies, as well as the onslaught of Mobile based Internet applications. Every #operatingsystem that has its menu is a free alternative to Tata Sky and #OTT platforms.

7. The inclusion of Facebook owned WhatsApp as a crm messaging based medium is not being seen by Telcos like Vodafone or Airtel opening up their customer databases to a competitor in Jio creating a socialmedia app #customerdata based ( #Facebook #Google ) cartel in both retail, voice, Internet and content ecosystems.

8. Finally, the #regulatory frame on #dataprotection #antitrust #dataprivacy is finally coming into its own in India stuck in a morass of #cronycapitalism and #licenseraj. This poses perhaps the largest challenge to large behemoths and #monopolies long fed on #importsubstitution and #protectionism. The creative destruction of the Internet will only become worse as #AI and IOT systems make inroads into consumers.

#dataprotection #antitrust #dataprivacy #AI #IOT #adaptordie #content #dth #cabletv #Facebook #Google #Vodafone #RelianceJio #Airtel

Border Infra, India’s Road to Victory in 2-Front War

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 04:31:00 +0000

The Road to Defence and Foreign Policy Strength

Infrastructure Key to Winning A 2-Front War with China and Pakistan

By Shael Sharma

A Background To India’s Border Infrastructure Neglect

It was a pleasure to witness the opening of the Rohtang Tunnel finally after many years of missed deadlines and other tribulations. It was befitting to name it after Vajpayee, perhaps a mention could have been made about the sterling contribution of Late Manohar Parrikar as Raksha Mantri in closing this and many other such projects! A sardonic and often self amused Parrikar was perhaps the brightest among all of Modi’s Defence Minister’s alas taken away too soon by a cruel fate much before his ability to break bureaucratic gridlocks and technical competence could finish the tasks he inherited.

Border infrastructure in India nee Bharat has been stalled and stuck in Nehruvian socialist contradictions that has overshot the demise of the Congress as a viable political entity. Between the psychosis of India’s independence from colonial British Raj in countless blunders Nehru made in J&K, and the North East, to the humiliating defeat in 1962, lies a scandalous tale of neglect of borders across the International Border (IB), the Line of Control with Pakistan (LoC), and of course much in the news lately, the Line of Actual Control with China (LAC). That we have military units stationed a 100 kms away with no motorable roads much less armour or artillery capable and only able to hump it on LRPs (Long Range Patrol) or pack mule logistics lines, while PLA has roads to their last post in Jammu, Kashmir, Kargil, Ladakh, Arunchal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and West Bengal is a scary reality.

Political Willpower for Defence Reform, Breaking Bureaucratic and Environment Gridlocks

Not even the Ram Rajya of the BJP led Government in 6 years of its existence hand is been able to the crack the Babudom cypher that actively defeats the path of reform, development and change that the Narendra Modi led BJP Government promised when it came to power! The Sangh too has its trade unionism contagion, and its injured victimhood has been unable to provide either talent or demonstrated successful leaders like the rare achiever in Parrikar. The pace of reform especially in Defence, Intelligence and Police has been especially substandard. This then has a direct effect on Security, that was one of the key planks that hoisted the BJP to power.

Coming back to the issue at hand namely border roads, railway and communication infrastructure that is crucial for not just war fighting but keeping loyal border populations rewarded for their unflinching loyalty to the nation, requires a very serious strategic rethink, hitherto not demonstrated by the strategically illiterate Prime Minister, Defence Minister and a rather controversial Raksha Mantri turned Finance Minister. Whatever may be the past in strategic thought or absence of it, today there is no excuse for a mammoth effort to fix this lacuna.

Be it local contract real estate mafias, environmental concerns used to stall projects, or other political fiefdoms, nothing is omnipotent over sovereignty and strategic defence of the nation.

Public Private Partnership: Bringing the Public and Private Sector Construction Behemoths to War

The crux of the issue is not just the beggarly 1.5% GDP Defence Budget that is ironically similar to that of Nehru in 1962 but also the absence of the political stomach to bring politically unpalatable reforms to break silos in turfs across road, rail, and the corporatisation of the Defence R&D, DPSUs and OFB, all marching to an ancient tune of socialist mediocrity, and lack of accountability rife with terrible project management, budgetary overruns, or just plain old incompetence.

There remains no consequence of failure in the public sector sarkar damaad kleptocracy, given the self serving nature of India’s bureaucracy that usurped authority without accountability, power without actually being elected.

The Political executive, and the talent of the Sangh Parivar and its Enfant Terrible, BJP with rare exceptions like General VK Singh, and Manohar Parrikar is no exception to this rule tainted by the same post colonial conditioning and tolerance to ineptitude, cronyism and an acceptance of substandard results paid for by taxpayer money!

Today we need a mix and match of both BRO and Defence Ministry, Railway Ministry, Ministry of Roads, as well as the best of private construction companies to come together to build together bring scale, technology, project management and innovative use of material to find solution to complex geological, weather and terrain problems. The synapse between public and private must be broken to come together to work for India and its people living in border states, and not just the Military.

A 2-Front War Imminent

The Chinese Virus and its attendant military aggression by China on the LAC, and that of its client state Pakistan on the LoC, has India staring at the prospect of a 2-front winter war where the enemy, especially the Chinese have superior border and logistics. Generations of Indian Army Officers and Men have kept the cartographic aggression and territory grabbing intrigues in check by often paying in life and limb.

The question one is forced to ask today is of the civil-military disconnect between a battle hardened but beggared Military, and a strategically illiterate politician and a self serving bureaucracy feathering its own nest at the cost of national interest.

Today as India faces a repeat of the Kargil siege across a 4000 km LAC, not knowing where the next PLA incursion will occur, the Pakistan LoC sees daily Indian Army casualties from shelling and of late an escalatory artillery fire, the decades of neglect in border roads, Railways, Bridges, Tunnels, Hard and Soft defences, Airfields, Missile Sites, has all come under an emergency spotlight.

What do we need to do: Strategic Road and Rail Asks

Current and Future State:

Tunnels required to make Manali-Leh all weather even after Atal Tunnel construction: Tanglang La Pass: 17,480 ft, tunnel of 7.32km, Shinku La Pass: 16,703 ft, tunnel of 13.5km, Lachung La Pass: 16,666 ft, tunnel of 14.7km, Baralacha La Pass: 16,040 ft, tunnel of 13.2km, and Zoji La: 11,570 ft.

Padum Darcha Chilling Nimmu Leh Road has been under construction for 3 decades now. This is the road that will provide redundancy to both the Srinagar Leh and Manali Leh Road but continues to yet not be ready, even with the enemy at the gates.

Railway link from Bilaspur- Leh section: Will require lots of efforts for strategic reasons. Tough terrain, inhospitable work environment, enemy right behind your lines. This is a section that will require the best of technological prowess along with deep pockets. If the Government were to operate this project in broken down, piece meal way, nothing like it, since in a one go the entire section cannot be completed as it will take at least 2-3 decades for completion.

Tunnel needed at Zojila pass: Right from Gumri , Captain Morh to Zojila Pass exit, a tunnel is needed and for obvious reasons. This section is the most critical of all as it connects Ladakh with Kashmir and the rest of India via the Kashmir route. A 14 km Bi directional tunnel is recommended which will be completed in short span of time. We are already late on this work by almost 3 decades. Any further delay and the blood is on the BJP Government hands.

Samba- Raya Morh Akhnoor, Nagrota, Domel Ring Road: Most of the time both Army as well as civilians get stuck together to reach to Nagrota or towards Akhnoor due to to choked municipal city traffic conditions, so a Ring Road to bypass this mess and help both travel seamlessly finally came into life. Work has started an year back and I expect the ring road to be completed in another 2-3 years as most of the land holding has been transferred. It will save almost one and a half hour of time.

Four Laning of Canal Road to Akhnoor section: Work in progress, very important particularly for Army keeping in mind the logistics as well as man movement from this section. Easy for them to reach to the LOC at Chhamb side…Intense traffic conditions as of now as the road is congested and population has increased manifolds in that cluster a bulk of them from Kashmir, Bhaderwah, Rajouri, Poonch areas. Once complete the time saved would be around 30 minutes and a hassle free movement for one and all.

Railway Link between Rajouri and Poonch section: Rail link will pass through Akhnoor, Kaleeth, Dori, Dagar, Chowki Chowra, Bhambla, Sunderbani, Nowshera, Rajouri and ultimately Poonch town. This is the most important section that will take care of local traffic as well as facilitate swift Army movement. The entire LOC from North Western side will be tackled without any road blocks. It is one railway network that govt of India should have proceeded on first and then gone for Katra- Dharam –Kashmir railway link. Critical border areas which come under intense shelling especially around Nowshera side need a well facilitated road as well as Railway link, and this Railway project will do the needful.

Tunnel needed at Mughal Pass : An 8 plus km tunnel is needed right after you cross Buffliaz, Behramgalla, Chandimarh exit and starting from Poshana, Chattapani, Peer Ki Gali, and exiting at Aliabad before you get the smooth roads of Zaznar, Dubjan, Hirpora, and Shopian. This route connects Kashmir but remains closed for 5 months post November owing to Snow fall. Imagine one of the most important routes to Kashmir remaining closed even after 73 years of Independence. This would be a strategic tunnel and will give a 365 days, round the clock access to Kashmir via the Poonch Side.

Railway Bridge at Anji Khad, Katr-Reasi Section: A 750 mtr Cable stayed Railway Bridge, that will connect with rest of the link to culminate at Qazigund and finally with Kashmir. Work going on from past few years. Will take another 2-3 years to complete. Important for taking care of Reasi area and its vast populace.

Railway Bridge at Kouri and Dugga, namely the Chenab Railway Bridge: Work is going on to construct this bridge from the past 2 decades. Such is the technological incompetence that we are unable to link this section that will have a 1.5 km long bridge even though the construction is in one of the most hostile Seismic V zone of Jammu, which coincidentally falls under Balakot –Bagh- Reasi fault line. This is the only major headache that remains in connecting Kashmir with rest of India via a Railway link. Expected to be complete by 2024.
Sangaldhan Tunnel section that will be a BG one of 13 km, Bi directional for Railways: Work is in progress. Will take another 3-4 years to construct and connect the link with Reasi and with Banihal.

4-Laning of Nashri –Ramban section, and; from Ramban to Banihal: The entire stretch of 80 odd kms from Nashri to Banihal is the most problematic route that requires massive work as this section can get closed on any given day owing to landslides , road caving in, traffic congestion, snowfall etc. This is the most important part of the highway that finally connects Jammu and the rest of India with Kashmir. Work has been going on for the past 4 years now. In the former section, almost 70% of the work has been completed, while in the latter case not even 20% work has been done. Once this 4-laning is complete which will include few tunnels, bridges, culverts, under passes, the total time taken from Jammu to Banihal via this road will be 2.5 hrs. From an earlier period of 8-9 hours, time and energy saved will be eye popping.

Banihal – Lower Munda Road tunnel: Work is nearing completion for this 8.5 km tunnel and once done, hopefully by middle of next year, there will be no need to go via Jawahar Tunnel, saving time and distance both. Strategic tunnel owing to its connectivity with Kashmir bypassing the snow clad and snow blocked Banihal to Qazigund Section. Most important for Army as well as civilian traffic.

Razdan Pass- Gurez Tunnel: An 8.5 km long tunnel is needed so that the strategic location of Gurez, which falls under Bandipora region, remains connected throughout the year which otherwise is not the case. Owing to snowfall, the entire region remains cut off owing to avalanches and heavy snow fall. This must become a priority as any further delay makes no logical sense.

Tunnel from Kishtwar- Vailoo area: An 8 to 8.5 km long tunnel is required which will connect Kishtwar with Vailoo ( Anantnag ) part that otherwise remains closed owing to snowfall and avalanches because of a compact, Zig Zag disaster of a road. Important mainly for the Army as it will provides a by-pass to can enter Kashmir from Kishtwar side as well.

This list is not exhaustive but a quick reckoner of the enormous task at hand. In addition, there are many similar unrequited strategic infrastructure stories in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal, Uttarkhand, Sikkim, West Bengal and Eastern UP that need to be tackled on urgent basis.

This is not to just help the Military create a viable deterrent against China, should the flag indeed decide to go up but to provide a reagent to development, business investment and tourism that will all go towards strengthening the exchequer and provide treasure for war fighting and internal as well as external security!

India is at the cusp of growth, reform and development but it will remain challenged where security is concerned if the border states don't keep up. The next decade should be of undoing the wrongs of 7 decades which kept our most beautiful geographies poor, unemployed and bereft of basic amenities, education and healthcare.

The Military imperative in border infrastructure is important but the byproduct of growth and development is the real fruit!

Can we change tack and bring this huge ship around in time?

The future of our civilisation depends on it!

A version of this story was also published at http://internationalaffairsreview.com/2020/10/09/infrastructure-key-to-defence-strength/

Hope in Times of Pandemic

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 04:08:00 +0000

Hope in Times of Pandemic

By Shael Sharma

Autumn has crept up on the summer and monsoon. Soon it will be winter!

Wiping fungus from leather, and airing cupboards and attics.

Rituals of renewal, the smells and sights of festival. Dussehra and Diwali haven’t ever crouched up in such stealth.

A time of quiet despair, a time of resilience, and confinement.

Moments of quiet discomfort as choice, habit, sit poorly on your skin.

A terrible time of reckoning, frayed relationships and forced minimalism.

Critically appraising your home, your life, tracing old dreams to present day reality!

Sometimes in gratitude, other moments in regret. Learning to be homebound, and wrestling with circumstance you long ignored that poke.

Vistas long forgotten, journeys of yore, mountain and sea. Strangers and wayside refuges for the travel weary soul.

The sights and sounds of airports, railway stations and ports. The distant imagined whiff of aeroplane, train compartments and buses.

That chance conversation of talking to a stranger sitting next to you. A life without mask or social distance

Separation. Longing for parent, sibling and family. Long lost friends and the unbearable sadness of relationships turned sour.

Ruefully revisiting the estranged, then the resignation of not caring anymore. So much has happened!

Wardrobes frozen in time. A letting go of things prized and hoarded. New needs, and a nagging realisation of minimalism.

The need to give. Help along the needier brother or neighbour. Relationships with young and old, long ignored, deferred or hidden in decades of guilt, revisited in smiles or tears.

Do you feel hope? Do you feel the onset of the dawn, after a long twilight!

As the smell of marigolds and jasmine approach, who and what do you love?

Global opinion against China in Ladakh

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 16:36:00 +0000

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will note from Kargil and earlier in 1987 and 1962 that the Indian Army does not retreat.

There is a bristling national resolve to ensure that the PLA go back to its pre-April positions behind the China side of LAC.

The Narendra Modi led government knows it is treading on hot coals and will be hounded out at the first sign of capitulation to a neocolonial aggressive nation.

The construction of Defences and road infrastructure on the Indian side of Line of Actual Control (LAC) is none of Chinese business. As a sovereign nation with a military, India can defend itself, especially in Ladakh where the Chinese are at a logistical disadvantage, just as they are in the Indian Ocean Region militarily.

Nobody wants a war but this is no 1962 or 1999, and if push comes to shove, China will bleed too, not having fought a war since 1967, which it lost to Vietnam!

Any border conflict will mean loss of market to Chinese exports and sustained Indian diplomatic amplification of the Wuhan virus at global multilateral forums stretching from the WHO, to the G7, to the UN Security Council.

The Indian Military is in a strong place on the land, in the air and at sea, besides in cyber warfare and space warfare to give the Chinese a very bloody nose, who are involved in multiple revisionist pursuits globally, including in Taiwan, HongKong, and the South China Sea.

The global anger in the international community against Covid-19 pandemic omissions and commissions by China will go in the support of India in any border war that China provokes with its misadventures and its racist overconfidence.

India is an idea whose time has come; despite what China wants or thinks of its place in the world order as a superpower, its efforts to contain the rise of Bharat will not succeed. If anything such expansionist gambits push a once non-aligned India deeper into the embrace of the Quad, a coalition of other sovereign powers aligned against the dragon’s revisionist menace including Japan and Australia.

India, once the pariah hated by US President Richard Nixon and sanctioned by the Bill Clinton administration, was never so wooed by America as it is today – with no less than a dozen open overtures early in the Ladakh Standoff timeline, starting from the US President, State Department, and other political watchers. The offer to mediate was noted and politely declined but in any shooting war will make the Chinese position on the global scale that of a expansionist aggressor.

The border with India which has been intentionally kept festering by the Chinese to grab territory is facing an increasingly strong oversight and military resoluteness from the Indian public opinion. Both Sumdorong Chu and Doklam saw the loss of face for Beijing in its hegemonic pursuits blocked and made untenable in military logic by the Indian military. The world must expect much more of these conflagrations unless the LAC is converted into the International Border and territory illegally usurped by China in Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley for its Belt and Road empire building returned to India in a just settlement based on facts and not some Chinese folklore myths.

The Chinese run state media has been thick with propaganda targeted at both international and Indian public opinion. This has had a contrarian effect in raising the hackles of a population distracted by the pandemic. As India loosens its draconian lockdown, many concerned voices in its citizenry is waking up to the full import of the PLA outrage in Ladakh.

Today, despite the Covid-19 impact on its economy, India has enough residual national willpower and military heft to compel the PLA to behave itself. If compelled, even by returning the use of military force. A bristling India is exploring multiple options to counter the cold war launched by Beijing through both conventional and non-conventional warfare as an open adversary. In these optics it is impossible for any nationalism mandated government to ignore such an incursion bordering on invasion with thousands of troops locked in confrontation across a cold desert in Eastern Ladakh region. In the event of shots actually fired in anger the world led by America will weigh on the side of its new ally in India. This will make any border war assume a far larger footprint than it would have had even a decade ago. Beijing has unleashed a risky gambit in its effort to grab territory and push the envelope in the choos unleashed by the Wuhan Virus. The world will not stand by and look the other way.

Let us hope better sense prevails and these expeditionary stunts meant for internal audiences chafing from economic stagnation, frustration at competing systems of other China’s in Taiwan, and Hong Kong succeeding better than the draconian Communist model are restrained before they become blunders in the rise of the middle kingdom.

Icarus flew too close to the sun, and burned his wings, and in Ladakh the sun burns your skin to a black cinder!

A copy of this article appeared at http://internationalaffairsreview.com/2020/06/10/global-opinion-against-china-in-ladakh/

Renu Gogoi Petition-Supreme Court Has Ordered Rule Nisi Army Proceedings Scrapped

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 15:02:00 +0000

This is Renu Gogoi’s petition in SC
Supreme Court has ordered Rule Nisi
Meaning the rule is absolute, if UOI has something new to add they can revert else the inquiry conducted by army and the disciplinary proceedings thereafter are to be scrapped unless the police files it’s charge sheet in trial court

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

WRIT PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO._________OF 2014

IN THE MATTER OF:

A PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 32 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA READ WITH ORDER XXXV RULES 1 & 2 & ORDER XLVII RULE 6 OF SUPREME COURT RULES, 1966

AND

IN THE MATTER OF:-

SMT. RENU GOGOI

…PETITIONER

VERSUS

UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

…. RESPONDENTS

WITH

CRL.M.P. NO._____/2014 :

AN APPLICATION SEEKING __________________

P A P E R B O O K

(FOR INDEX, KINDLY SEE INSIDE)

ADVOCATE FOR THE PETITIONER : .

I N D E X

S.NO.	PARTICULARS	PAGE NO.
1.	Listing Proforma	A1 – A2
2.	Synopsis & List of Dates	B – __
3.	Writ Petition with Affidavit	1 – __
4.	ANNEXURE P-1: Copy of
5.	ANNEXURE P-2: Copy of
6.	ANNEXURE P-3: Copy of
7.	ANNEXURE P-4: Copy of
8.	ANNEXURE P-5: Copy of
9.	Crl.M.P. No._______/2014: An Application seeking _______________

PROFORMA FOR FIRST LISTING

SECTION:_____

The case pertains to (Please tick/check the correct box):

Central Act: (Title)___________________________________________

Section : __________________________________________

Central Rule : NA

Rule No.(s) : NA

State Act : NA

Section : NA

State Rule : NA

Rule No(s) : NA

Impugned Interim Order : (Date) _________________________

Impugned final Order/Decree : (Date) ____________________

High Court : (Name) ______________________________________

Names of Judges: ___________________________________________

Tribunal/Authority : NA

_____________________________________________________________________

1.Nature of matter:Civil

2.(a) Petitioner/Appellant No.1 :________________________________

(b) e-mail ID: NA

3.(a) Respondent No.1: ________________________________

(b) e-mail ID:NA

4.(a) Main category classification:_______________________

(b) Sub classification:_________________________________

5.Not to be listed before: NA

6.Similar/Pending Matter:NA

7.Criminal Matters:

(a) Whether accused/convict has surrendered: Yes / No

(b) FIR No.NADate: NA

(d) Sentence Awarded:NA

(e) Sentence Undergone:NA

8.Land Acquisition Matters:

(a) Date of Section 4 Notification:NA

(b) Date of Section 6 Notification:NA

9.Tax Matters: State the tax effect:NA

10.Special Category (first Petitioner/Appellant only):

Senior Citizen 65 years / SC/ST / Woman/Child / Disabled / Legal Aid Case / In Custody :NA

11.Vehicle Number (In case of Motor Accident Claim matters): NA

12.Decided cases with citation:NA

Date:.2014[___________________]

Advocate for the Petitioner

Registration No.358

S Y N O P S I S

WHY PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 32 OF THE CONSTITUTION

OF INDIA IS BEING FILED BEFORE THIS HON’BLE COURT

This Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India is being filed before this Hon’ble Court praying that the incident that has taken place and which is being explained hereinafter should be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation in respect of the serious offences including dacoity committed by the Army Officials, 3 Corps Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (CISU), Dimapur, Assam in the house of the Petitioner.

F.I.R. No.922 dated 21.12.2011 under Sections 395 / 397 IPC, P.S. Jorhat, Assam was filed by the husband of the Petitioner and the same is still pending. No Challan has been filed by the police till date before the Competent Court and the entire investigation has been hijacked by the Army in order to save the Army Officials by taking over the inquiry in view of Section 125 of the Army Act, 1950 read with Section 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 even though, this Hon'ble Court has held that the stage of making an option to try an accused by a Court Martial and not by the Criminal Court is after filing of Charge Sheet and before taking cognizance or framing of the charges. In this regard, this Hon'ble Court in the matter titled ‘Army Headquarters Vs. C.B.I.’, reported as (2012) 6 SCC 228 has held as under :-

“91. Thus, the law on the issue is clear that under Section 125 of the Army Act, the stage of making option to try an accused by a Court Martial and not by the criminal court is after filing of the charge-sheet and before taking cognizance or framing of the charges.”

And

“95. To sum up:

95.1. The conjoint reading of the relevant statutory provisions and Rules make it clear that the term “institution” contained in Section 7 of the 1990 Act means taking cognizance of the offence and not mere presentation of the charge-sheet by the investigating agency.”

And

“95.2. The competent army authority has to exercise his discretion to opt as to whether the trial would be by a Court Martial or criminal court after filing of the charge-sheet and not after the cognizance of the offence is taken by the court.”

In the present case, Charge Sheet has not been filedand Petitioner is running along with her husband and children from pillar to post to get justice. There is no stay of investigation and yet, the F.I.R. is pending from 21.12.2011 till date without any Challan, without any investigation and in the meantime, the Indian Army after hijacking the entire investigation has punished its officers by simple reprimand, severe reprimand, 14 days RI in Military Custody and 3 months in civil prison. Such an act by the Army shocks the conscience.

FACTS

I.TERROR UNLEASHED

Hon’ble Judges may kindly imagine the plight of a woman who is a lawful and peace loving citizen and permanent resident of Rowariah Tiniali in the District of Jorhat, (Assam) in her 40s sleeping peacefully in her own house with 2 sons aged 21 years and 18 years respectively and 1 daughter aged 12 years. Around 1.00 AM on 20.12.2011, the rear doors of the house are broken by 10 - 12 persons dressed in Army Uniform, carrying sophisticated weapons in the form of AK-47, Pistols etc., faces fully covered by masks. As soon as they enter the house, they tie hands of the lady, her 2 sons and 1 daughter behind their back and blindfold them. The occupants of the house are made to sit in different rooms (male and females separately) and some of the persons out of the group of 10 – 12 persons hold a gun to their head threatening to kill them if they move even their little finger. Thereafter, ransacking and looting takes place as per the whims and fancies of the 10 – 12 persons. Terror is unleashed. There is complete chaos. Almirahs are opened and cash Rs.1.5 lakhs, gold jewellery worth Rs.6.5 lakhs, pistol .32 bore with valid licence, PAN card, cheque books, driving licence, and 4 mobile phones with Sim Cards are stolen away by these persons. To put it simply,dacoity is committed.

II.ORDEAL COMES TO AN END

Finally, the ordeal comes to an end when these persons leave. The occupants are left to fend for their own. Hands tied and blindfolded. One of the sons is able to release his hands and frees the others. The son then calls his father who is 200 kms. away from Jorhat in Gauhati at that point of time and informs him about the incident. Father calls the police and F.I.R. No. 922 / 2011 is lodged by P.S. Jorhat under Sections 395 & 397, Indian Penal Code, 1860.

III.WHO WERE THESE 10 – 12 PERSONS

The suspense about these 10 – 12 persons is cleared and Petitioner comes to know that these persons were actually Army Officials of 3 Corps Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (CISU), Dimapur, (Assam) led by Captain Rubina Kaur Keer. In order to save their faces, the Army took the plea that they suspected ULFA leaders to be present in the house. Armed Forces [Special Powers] Act, 1958 was pressed into service as a defence mechanism because the area in which the operation was conducted had been declared as ‘a disturbed area’ under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.

IV.LAW WITH REGARD TO

ARMED FORCES [SPECIAL POWERS] ACT, 1958

This Hon’ble Court in ‘Naga People’s Movement of Human Rights Vs. Union of India’ reported as [1998] 2 SCC 109 accepted the contention of the Government that the instructions in the form of a list of “Dos and Don’ts” that are issued by the Army Headquarters act as a safeguard. This Hon’ble Court held as under:-

“53. …The learned Attorney General has placed before us instructions in the form of a list of “Dos and Don’ts” that are issued by the Army Headquarters from time to time. The instructions contained in the said list which must be followed while acting under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 are in these terms:

“List of Dos and Don’ts while acting under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958

DOS

1. Action before Operation

(a) Act only in the area declared ‘Disturbed Area’ under Section 3 of the Act.

(b) Power to open fire using force or arrest is to be exercised under this Act only by an officer/JCO/WO and NCO.

(c) Before launching any raid/search, definite information about the activity to be obtained from the local civil authorities.

(d) As far as possible coopt representative of local civil administration during the raid.

2. Action during Operation

(a) In case of necessity of opening fire and using any force against the suspect or any person acting in contravention of law and order, ascertain first that it is essential for maintenance of public order. Open fire only after due warning.

(b) Arrest only those who have committed cognizable offence or who are about to commit cognizable offence or against whom a reasonable ground exists to prove that they have committed or are about to commit cognizable offence.

(c) Ensure that troops under command do not harass innocent people, destroy property of the public or unnecessarily enter into the house/dwelling of people not connected with any unlawful activities.

(d) Ensure that women are not searched/arrested without the presence of female police. In fact women should be searched by female police only.

3. Action after Operation

(a) After arrest prepare a list of the persons so arrested.

(b) Hand over the arrested persons to the nearest police station with least possible delay.

(d) Every delay in handing over the suspects to the police must be justified and should be reasonable depending upon the place, time of arrest and the terrain in which such person has been arrested. Least possible delay may be 2-3 hours extendable to 24 hours or so depending upon a particular case.

(e) After raid make out a list of all arms, ammunition or any other incriminating material/document taken into possession.

(f) All such arms, ammunition, stores etc. should be handed over to the police station along with the seizure memo.

(g) Obtain receipt of persons and arms/ammunition, stores etc. so handed over to the police.

(h) Make record of the area where operation is launched having the date and time and the persons participating in such raid.

(i) Make a record of the commander and other officers/JCOs/NCOs forming part of such force.

(k) Ensure medical relief to any person injured during the encounter, if any person dies in the encounter his dead body be handed over immediately to the police along with the details leading to such death.

4. xxxxxx

DON’TS

1. Do not keep a person under custody for any period longer than the bare necessity for handing over to the nearest police station.

2. Do not use any force after having arrested a person except when he is trying to escape.

3. Do not use third-degree methods to extract information or to extract confession or other involvement in unlawful activities.

4. After arrest of a person by the member of the armed forces, he shall not be interrogated by the member of the armed force.

5. Do not release the person directly after apprehending on your own. If any person is to be released, he must be released through civil authorities.

6. Do not tamper with official records.

7. The armed forces shall not take back a person after he is handed over to civil police.”

And

“55. The learned Attorney General has submitted that these instructions provide an effective check against any misuse or abuse of the powers conferred under the Central Act on an officer in the armed forces inasmuch as contravention of these instructions is punishable under Sections 41, 42(e), 63 and 64(f) of the Army Act, 1950.”

And

“58. The instructions in the form of “Dos and Don’ts” to which reference has been made by the learned Attorney General have to be treated as binding instructions which are required to be followed by the members of the armed forces exercising powers under the Central Act and a serious note should be taken of violation of the instructions and the persons found responsible for such violation should be suitably punished under the Army Act, 1950.”

Thus, it would not be wrong to comment that powers under the AF (SP) Act, 1958 were given to the Army under special circumstances and was done for the purpose of maintaining law and order situation. The whole object of AF (SP) Act, 1958 is to declare certain areas to be ‘disturbed areas’ so that if an area is in disturbed or dangerous condition, then the ‘use of Armed Forces in aid of civil power is necessary’. The whole idea behind Section 3 of the Act is that the Army is supposed to act in aid of ‘civil power’not ‘in the absence of civil power’. Section 3 of the Act, reads as under:-

“3. Power to declare areas to be disturbed areas.—If, in relation to any State or Union Territory to which this Act extends, the Governor of that State or the Administrator of that Union Territory or the Central Government, in either case, is of the opinion that the whole or any part of such State or Union Territory, as the case may be, is in such a disturbed or dangerous condition that the use of armed forces in aid of the civil power is necessary, the Governor of that State or the Administrator of that Union Territory or the Central Government, as the case may be, may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare the whole or such part of such State or Union Territory to be a disturbed area.”

V.GROSS IRREGULARITIES / ILLEGALITIES COMMITTED BY

THE ARMY OFFICIALS, 3 CORPS INTELLIGENCE AND SURVEILLANCE UNIT (CISU), DIMAPUR, ASSAM

The following irregularities and illegalities to name a few have been committed in the present case:-

(i) The Army Officials did not inform the local Army Sub-area Headquarter about the operation and even the area police was not informed about the incident casting serious apperception on the honestly behind and integrity of whole operation.

(ii) No Seizure Memo was prepared for any of the articles which were recovered from the house of Petitioner.

(iii) The items recovered from the house of the Petitioner were not handed over to the police at any time.

(iv) The raiding Army Team was neither accompanied by police representative or any village elders nor any troops from local Army Unit. Despite the inputs that 3 important ULFA (AT) cadres were expected to take shelter in the house of Mr. Puna Gogoi and there was a likelihood of a fire fight, no infantry or special force elements were taken along.

(v) That the three CISU parties had covered their faces to protect their identity and they confined the males and females in separate rooms, blindfolded and tied them. Thereafter, they opened the steel almirahs and trunks with keys provided by the occupants and carried out the search for weapons, equipment and documents. No declaration was made to the police about the said operation.

(vi) That one of the Havildar Sandeep Thapa of 3 CISU had picked up one licensed pistol and mobile phone. Neither a situation report nor any other report was initiated by the Unit in regard to the operation being carried out to help 3 Corps HQ.

(vii) The local police after doing their investigation came into contact with Major sub-area Commander Mr. Gautam Kar. Even the said officer had no knowledge of any operation done in this area and he in turn informed the Brigadier General Staff (Operations) HQ 3 Corps.

(viii) The police immediately informed Brigadier General Staff (Operations) HQ 3 Corps that a pistol had also been recovered during the said operation which on inquiry, Brigadier General Staff (Operations) HQ 3 Corps confirmed that no pistol was recovered from the house of Petitioner.

(ix) On 29.12.2011, Havildar Sandeep Thapa admitted that he had stolen the missing pistol said mobile and the pistol which were recovered from the unit location and handed over the same to the police.

(x) It is also important to mention here that the so called “operation” team did not obtain the “NO OBJECTION CERTIFICATE” from the house owner / elders of the locality. Neither any Seizure Memo was prepared nor the First Information Report (FIR) was lodged in concerned Police station, by 3 CISU for declaring recoveries made during the operation.

VI.PROCEEDINGS BEFORE LD. CHIEF JUDICIAL

MAGISTRATE, JORHAT, ASSAM

(i) That vide order dated 05.01.2012, the Ld. CJM, Jorhat, Assam by a detailed order recorded that committing dacoity and causing grevious hurt to any person cannot be treated as part of official duty and the act done by the accused persons were very serious. Vide the said order, non-bailable warrant of arrest was issued against Havildar Sandip Thapa of 03 Corps Intelligence (CISU), Dimapur.

(ii) That on 19.10.2012, an Application was filed by Major Dipak Vaishnav before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam on behalf of the GOC 3 Corps. This Application was filed under Section 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 125 of the Army Act, 1950. In the Application, it was submitted that Army Authorities have constituted a Court of Inquiry to investigate into the allegations and it had become imperative that records of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 be transferred to the authorized Army Representative so that necessary proceeding can be initiated against the individuals under the provisions of The Army Act, 1950 and The Army Rules, 1954. This prayer was accepted and the record of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 was handed over to the Army.

(iii) That on 31.10.2012, the Ld. Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam took up an Application filed by an officer in-charge of the Jorhat Police Station in which it was urged that sufficient evidence had been found by the police against as many as 14 accused persons and despite notices sent to these accused persons under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 none had turned up before the police. Under the circumstances, it was prayed that warrants of arrest be prayed for. The said prayer was rejected keeping in mind that the matter stood referred to the Army and no warrants could be issued.

(iv) That lastly, on 25.06.2014, an Application was filed by the husband of the Petitioner before the Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat praying for calling of the Status Reportof progress of investigation from the Investigating Officer. The Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate passed an order holding that the investigation of the case had been taken over by the Army Authorities and nothing could be done by the Court.

VII.WHAT HAS GONE WRONG

(i) F.I.R. No.922/2011 dated 21.12.2011 is still pending without any challan having been filedby the police. There is no stay of investigation and yet, neither the accused persons have been arrested nor the matter is investigated in accordance with law. Petitioner and her family still awaits justice for the gross misdeeds and acts committed by the accused persons.

(ii) In a systematic and calculated manner, the Army has hijacked the entire investigation into the dacoity for the purpose of protecting its Personnel.

(iii) In view of the Judgment of this Hon’ble Court in Army Headquarters (supra), it is clear that it is the job of the police to conduct the investigation in a criminal offence and no Court and no Authority can interfere in the investigation to be conducted in pursuance of the provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. It is not the job of the Army Authorities to conduct the investigation.

(iv) That the Army Authorities can step in only when the investigation is complete by the police and to put up before the Court for the purpose of taking cognizance and it is at that stage, a notice is given to the Army Authorities to make up their mind to make up their choice as to whether the accused would be tried by a criminal Court or by Army under the Court Martial only.

(v) That the police conducted the investigation and found sufficient evidence against 14accused persons named in the Application who were involved in connection with the raid in the house of Shri Surajit Gogoi and the Army authorities to assess all the 14 accused persons and they were urgently required to be arrested in this case in the interest of investigation. It was mentioned that number of times, notices under Section 160 Cr.P.C were issued but none of them have turned before the police as yet. The police had no choice but to get an order against all the accused persons from the Court. That as stated earlier, the Ld. SDJM, Jorhat vide his order dated 31.10.2012 refused to issue the warrants of arrest against the accused persons.

(vi) That it has also been clearly established that as many as 10 – 12 Army Personnel illegally entered the Petitioner’s house without any local authority and committed dacoity and in a high handed manner in violation of the provisions of the law of the land. It may not be out of place to mention that Respondent No.4 had full and complete knowledge of the crime committed by his fellow officers and all the officers were protected at his behest from being convicted by the Criminal Court. Even,police could not arrest the culprits.

(vii) The Petitioner most respectfully submits here that the accused persons involved in the instant F.I.R. are higher–ups of the Army and just to save and protect them from the said illegal acts and to blanket them from such a serious crime, army authority initiated hastily Summary Court Martial with respect to one individual Havildar Sandip Thapa only. This Summary Court Martial is a complete eye-wash and mockery of law. So far as other Army Personnel involved are concerned, there was summary disposal which is not even a Court Martial. Ultimately, the Army concluded its inquiry by convicting the junior officers in the simple nature of REPRIMAND, Severe Reprimand, 14 days RI in Military custody and three months RI in civil prison, so that the accused officers could get the benefit of Article 20 (2) of Indian Constitution read with Section 300 (1) of Cr.P.C.

(viii) It may be noted that there is no stay of investigation in F.I.R. No.922/2011 registered at P.S. Jorhat by any Court. The F.I.R. still stands as it is and under the law, challan is required to be presented by the police. In the present case, challan has been filed. There is no investigation is being done. No arrestshave been made by police and the Indian Army has concluded its inquiry in the mosthaphazard manner.

Hence, the present Writ Petition.

LIST OF DATES & EVENTS

21.12.2011	On 21.12.2011, at about 1.00 AM, some persons in the numbers of 10 – 12 armed with heavy weapons like AK-47, pistols and other weapons wearing mask in army uniform unauthorized and illegally entered by breaking the rear doors of the Petitioner’s house. Petitioner’s husband got lodged F.I.R. No.922/2011 under Sections 395 / 397 IPC with P.S. Jorhat after he reached from Guwahati at about 7.00 A.M and gave a list of missing / articles which had been looted by the Army Officers.
26.12.2011	After searching the house, Petitioner’s husband again gave a list of items looted from his house to the officer-in charge, P.S. Jorhat.
26.12.2011	As per the call details records received from Deputy Director General Signal Intelligence (DDGSI) East Zone, it was confirmed that Havildar Sandip Thapa was using the mobile phone which was missing from the house of the Petitioner.
29.12.2011	Havilder Sandip Thapa admitted that he had stolen the pistol and mobile and the same were recovered.
29.12.2011	HQ Eastern Command General Staff (Operations) ordered to convene vide its Order No. 101600/GS (Operations) to initiate Court of Inquiry against the accused Army Officials.
30.12.2011	The police telephonically informed the husband of the Petitioner about handing over of some items by military personnel and then husband of the Petitioner filed Application of Zimma of the recovered articles before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam.
05.01.2012	The concerned I.O. of the case moved an Application for issuance of NBW for arrest of one accused namely, Havildar Sandip Thapa from 3 CISU, Deemapur, which was allowed by the Ld. CJM, Jorhat, Assam.
10.02.2012	Husband of the Petitioner wrote a detailed Complaint to the Secretary, Defence, Sh. S.K Sharma praying for recovery of the goods from army personnel and legitimate compensation to the victims of the misdeeds of the Army and also to take stern action against the persons involved therein.
23.02.2012	The husband of the Petitioner filed a Representation / Complaint before the Respondent No. 4 i.e. Lt. Gen. Dalbir Singh Suhag, GOC-3 Corps, Rangapahar, Dimapur, Nagaland for return of the articles and legitimate compensation to the victims of the misdeeds of the Army and also to take stern action against the persons involved therein. The copy of the same complaint was also sent to Lt. Gen. Bikram Singh, GOC in charge, Eastern Command, Fort William, Kolkatta-21 for information and necessary action.
19.10.2012	On 19.10.2012, an Application was filed by Major Dipak Vaishnav before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam on behalf of the GOC 3 Corps. This Application was filed under Section 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 125 of the Army Act, 1950. In the Application, it was submitted that Army Authorities have constituted a Court of Inquiry to investigate into the allegations and it had become imperative that records of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 be transferred to the authorized Army Representative so that necessary proceeding can be initiated against the individuals under the provisions of The Army Act, 1950 and The Army Rules, 1954. This prayer was accepted and the record of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 was handed over to the Army.
31.10.2012	On 31.10.2012, the Ld. Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam took up an Application filed by an officer in-charge of the Jorhat Police Station in which it was urged that sufficient evidence had been found by the police against as many as 14 accused persons and despite notices sent to these accused persons under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 none had turned up before the police. Under the circumstances, it was prayed that warrants of arrest be prayed for. The said prayer was rejected keeping in mind that the matter stood referred to the Army and no warrants could be issued.
25.06.2014	On 25.06.2014, an Application was filed by the husband of the Petitioner before the Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat praying for calling of the Status Report of progress of investigation from the Investigating Officer. The Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate passed an order holding that the investigation of the case had been taken over by the Army Authorities and nothing could be done by the Court.
26.07.2014	Hence, the present Writ Petition.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

WRIT PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO._________OF 2014

IN THE MATTER OF:

A PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 32 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA READ WITH ORDER XXXV RULES 1 & 2 & ORDER XLVII RULE 6 OF SUPREME COURT RULES, 1966

AND

IN THE MATTER OF :

SMT. RENU GOGOI W/O SHRI SURAJIT GOGOI @ PUNA GOGOI, R/O ROWRIAH TINIALI, JORHAT P.S, JORHAT, (ASSAM)

….PETITIONER

VERSUS

1.UNION OF INDIA, THROUGH ITS DEFENCE SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, SOUTH BLOCK, NEW DELHI – 110 011

2.STATE OF ASSAM, THROUGH ITS PRINCIPAL SECRETARY (HOME), ASSAM SECRETARIAT, DISPUR, (ASSAM)

3.INDIAN ARMY HEADQUARTERS,THROUGH THE CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF, SOUTH BLOCK, NEW DELHI – 110 011

4.LT. GEN. DALBIR SINGH SUHAG, THEN GENERAL OFFICER COMMANDING, HQ 3 CORPS INTELLIGENCE AND SURVEILLANCE UNIT, INDIAN ARMY, NOW: VICE CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF, SOUTH BLOCK, NEW DELHI – 110 011

….RESPONDENTS

A PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 32 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT / ORDER /DIRECTION IN THE NATURE OF MANDAMUS OR ANY OTHER APPROPRIATE WRIT / ORDER /DIRECTION FOR DIRECTING THE CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION TO INVESTIGATE THE INCIDENT WHICH TOOK PLACE ON 20.12.2011

HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA

AND HIS COMPANION JUDGES OF THE

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

The Writ Petition of the Petitioner above named

MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH:

1. That the Petitioner is filing the present Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India before this Hon’ble Court and is entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of this Hon'ble Court since Petitioner is a citizen of India and there have been grave violations of her fundamental rights by the Respondents. Respondents are ‘State’ within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India and are amenable to Writ jurisdiction.

2. That husband of the Petitioner Surajit Gogoi @ Puna Gogoi has been awarded the best Contractor award by the Military Engineering Service Builders Association of India, Jorhat Branch in the year 2005 which award was presented to him by the then Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army at New Delhi. It is stated that husband of the Petitioner has no links with United Liberation Front of Assam (Anti Talk), or any of the leader of the said Organization.

3. That Respondent No.4 – Lt. General Dalbir Singh Suhag, the then Corps Commander was Head of the Intelligence Gathering as well as Operations of his Corps and this included the responsibility for the command and control of his 3 CISU (a Unit directly under his command). It is but natural that Respondent No.4 - Lt. General Dalbir Singh Suhag ought to have been in the knowledge of the entire operation which was conducted by the officers of the 3 CISU, Dimapur, Assam when these officers raided the house of the Petitioner and 1.00 AM on 20.12.2011.

4. That the Petitioner respectfully states that on 20.12.2011, the husband of Petitioner was in Guwahati in connection with his business work and at about 1.00 AM on 21.12.2011, some 10 – 12 persons came in one Indica Car and two Maruti Gypsy and entered the house of the Petitioner by breaking the rear side doors. They were in Army uniform carrying AK-47 and pistols and one lady officer also accompanied them. The faces of all the persons were masked. After entering the house, these persons covered the eyes of the Petitioner, two sons (aged about 21 and 18 years) and the daughter (aged 12 years) and tied their hands. Males and females were kept in a separate room and there were persons standing with gun to their headthreatening to kill them if there was any movement. Locks of steel almirahs were broken and these persons carried away cash amounting to Rs. 1.5 lakhs, gold ornaments worth about Rs. 6.5 lakhs, one laptop, .32 and pistol having valid license, 4 numbers of Mobile handsets with SIMs, Passport, Driving License, PAN Card, one cheque book of Indian Bank, 5 copies of photograph with Chief Minister and Local MLA, LICI Gold Club Membership Card, 2 laptop bags, 2 leather bags.

5. That the Petitioner respectfully states that in view of the above, the husband of the Petitioner filed an Ezahar / written Complaint before the concerned Police Station on 21.12.2011 and subsequently, by letters dated 26.12.2011 and 24.01.2012 informed the Police about the missing items. On the basis of the Complaint, Jorhat police registered F.I.R. No.922/2011.

Copy of the Written Complaint dated 21.12.2011 filed by husband of the Petitioner before the police along with its true translation is enclosed as ANNEXURE P-1 (Colly). [Pages ____ to ____]

Copy of F.I.R. No.922/2011 dated 21.12.2011 lodged by husband of the Petitioner with P.S. Jorhat, Assam is enclosed as ANNEXURE P-2. [Pages ____ to ____]

6. That the Petitioner respectfully states that thereafter, on about 30.12.2011, the Police informed the husband of the Petitioner over telephone regarding handing over of some of the items by the Military Personnel. Accordingly, the husband of the Petitioner filed an Application before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat who on consideration of the same by an order dated 25.01.2012 directed to give temporary Zimma of the seized articles on executing a bond of Rs. 2.00 lakhs and accordingly, the Petitioner got the Zimma of the items.

7. That the Petitioner respectfully states that considering the prayer of the Investigating Officer of the Police Case, the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat by an Order dated 05.01.2012 issued non-bailable warrants of arrest against Havildar Sandip Thapa, but till date, he has not been handed over to the police and the Police has not executed the non-bailable warrant of arrest in reference till date.

Copy of Order dated 05.01.2012 passed by Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat is enclosed as ANNEXURE P-3. [Pages ____ to ____]

8. That on 19.10.2012, an Application was filed by Major Dipak Vaishnav before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam on behalf of the GOC 3 Corps. This Application was filed under Section 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 125 of the Army Act, 1950. In the Application, it was submitted that Army Authorities have constituted a Court of Inquiry to investigate into the allegations and it had become imperative that records of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 be transferred to the authorized Army Representative so that necessary proceeding can be initiated against the individuals under the provisions of The Army Act, 1950 and The Army Rules, 1954. This prayer was accepted and the record of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 was handed over to the Army.

Copy of Order dated 19.10.2012 passed by Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat is enclosed as ANNEXURE P-4. [Pages ____ to ____]

9. That on 31.10.2012, the Ld. Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam took up an Application filed by an officer in-charge of the Jorhat Police Station in which it was urged that sufficient evidence had been found by the police against as many as 14 accused persons and despite notices sent to these accused persons under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 none had turned up before the police. Under the circumstances, it was prayed that warrants of arrest be prayed for. The said prayer was rejected keeping in mind that the matter stood referred to the Army and no warrants could be issued.

Copy of Order dated 31.10.2012 passed by Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat is enclosed as ANNEXURE P-5. [Pages ____ to ____].

10. That on 25.06.2014, an Application was filed by the husband of the Petitioner before the Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat praying for calling of the Status Report of progress of investigation from the Investigating Officer. The Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate passed an order holding that the investigation of the case had been taken over by the Army Authorities and nothing could be done by the Court.

Copy of Order dated 25.06.2014 passed by Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat is enclosed as ANNEXURE P-6. [Pages ____ to ____].

8.That after not getting any efficacious and alternative remedy for the relieves prayed in the Petition, Petitioner has come before this Hon’ble Court on the amongst other following;

G R O U N D S

A. BECAUSE the incident which took place on 20.12.2011 can send a chill down the spine. The plight of the Petitioner can only be imagined. She was sleeping peacefully in her own house with 2 sons aged 21 years and 18 years respectively and 1 daughter aged 12 years. Around 1.00 AM on 20.12.2011, the rear doors of the house are broken by 10 - 12 persons dressed in Army Uniform, carrying sophisticated weapons in the form of AK-47, Pistols etc., faces fully covered by masks. As soon as they enter the house, they tie hands of the lady, her 2 sons and 1 daughter behind their back and blindfold them. The occupants of the house are made to sit in different rooms (male and females separately) and some of the persons out of the group of 10 – 12 persons hold a gun to their head threatening to kill them if they move even their little finger. Thereafter, ransacking and looting takes place as per the whims and fancies of the 10 – 12 persons. Terror is unleashed. There is complete chaos. Almirahs are opened and cash Rs.1.5 lakhs, gold jewellery worth Rs.6.5 lakhs, pistol .32 bore with valid licence, PAN card, cheque books, driving licence, and 4 mobile phones with Sim Cards are stolen away by these persons. To put it simply, dacoity is committed.

B. BECAUSE pursuant to this act of dacoity, the husband of the Petitioner got lodged FIR No.922 dated 21.12.2011 under Sections 395 / 397 IPC, P.S. Jorhat, Assam. The same is still pending. No Challan has been filed by the police till date before the Competent Court and the entire investigation has been hijacked by the Army in order to save the Army Officials by taking over the inquiry in view of Section 125 of the Army Act, 1950 read with Section 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 even though, this Hon'ble Court has held that the stage of making an option to try an accused by a Court Martial and not by the Criminal Court is after filing of Charge Sheet and before taking cognizance or framing of the charges.

C. BECAUSE the law with regard to intervention of the Army to conduct Court Martial is well settled to the effect that the stage of making option to try and accused by a Court Martial and not by the Criminal Court is after filing of Charge Sheet or before taking cognizance or framing of the charges. In this regard, this Hon'ble Court in the case of ‘Army Headquarters Vs. C.B.I.’, reported as (2012) 6 SCC 228 has held as under :-

And

“95. To sum up:

And

D. BECAUSE in the present case, Charge Sheet has not been filed and Petitioner is running along with her husband and children from pillar to post to get justice. There is no stay of investigation and yet, the F.I.R. is pending from 21.12.2011 till date without any Challan, without any investigation and in the meantime, the Indian Army after hijacking the entire investigation has punished its officers by simple reprimand, severe reprimand, 14 days RI in Military Custody and 3 months in civil prison. Such an act by the Army shocks the conscience.

E. BECAUSE the law with regard to Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 is also well settled and the list of Dos and Don’ts are also well settled. In fact, this Hon'ble Court in ‘Naga People’s Movement of Human Rights Vs. Union of India’ reported as [1998] 2 SCC 109 accepted the contention of the Government that the instructions in the form of a list of “Dos and Don’ts” that are issued by the Army Headquarters act as a safeguard. This Hon’ble Court held as under:-

“List of Dos and Don’ts while acting under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958

DOS

1. Action before Operation

(a) Act only in the area declared ‘Disturbed Area’ under Section 3 of the Act.

(b) Power to open fire using force or arrest is to be exercised under this Act only by an officer/JCO/WO and NCO.

(c) Before launching any raid/search, definite information about the activity to be obtained from the local civil authorities.

(d) As far as possible coopt representative of local civil administration during the raid.

2. Action during Operation

(c) Ensure that troops under command do not harass innocent people, destroy property of the public or unnecessarily enter into the house/dwelling of people not connected with any unlawful activities.

(d) Ensure that women are not searched/arrested without the presence of female police. In fact women should be searched by female police only.

3. Action after Operation

(a) After arrest prepare a list of the persons so arrested.

(b) Hand over the arrested persons to the nearest police station with least possible delay.

(e) After raid make out a list of all arms, ammunition or any other incriminating material/document taken into possession.

(f) All such arms, ammunition, stores etc. should be handed over to the police station along with the seizure memo.

(g) Obtain receipt of persons and arms/ammunition, stores etc. so handed over to the police.

(h) Make record of the area where operation is launched having the date and time and the persons participating in such raid.

(i) Make a record of the commander and other officers/JCOs/NCOs forming part of such force.

4. xxxxxx

DON’TS

1. Do not keep a person under custody for any period longer than the bare necessity for handing over to the nearest police station.

2. Do not use any force after having arrested a person except when he is trying to escape.

3. Do not use third-degree methods to extract information or to extract confession or other involvement in unlawful activities.

4. After arrest of a person by the member of the armed forces, he shall not be interrogated by the member of the armed force.

5. Do not release the person directly after apprehending on your own. If any person is to be released, he must be released through civil authorities.

6. Do not tamper with official records.

7. The armed forces shall not take back a person after he is handed over to civil police.”

And

F. BECAUSE the whole object of AF (SP) Act, 1958 is to declare certain areas to be ‘disturbed areas’ so that if an area is in disturbed or dangerous condition, then the‘use of Armed Forces in aid of civil power is necessary’. The whole idea behind Section 3 of the Act is that the Army is supposed to act in aid of ‘civil power’ not ‘in the absence of civil power’. Section 3 of the Act, reads as under:-

G. BECAUSE the following irregularities / illegalities have been committed in the present case :-

(i)The Army Officials did not inform the local Army Sub-area Headquarter about the operation and even the area police was not informed about the incident casting serious apperception on the honestly behind and integrity of whole operation.

(ii)No Seizure Memo was prepared for any of the articles which were recovered from the house of Petitioner.

(iii) The items recovered from the house of the Petitioner were not handed over to the police at any time.

H. BECAUSE suddenly when proceedings were pending before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam on 19.10.2012, an Application was filed by Major Dipak Vaishnav before the Ld. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam on behalf of the GOC 3 Corps. This Application was filed under Section 475 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Section 125 of the Army Act, 1950. In the Application, it was submitted that Army Authorities have constituted a Court of Inquiry to investigate into the allegations and it had become imperative that records of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 be transferred to the authorized Army Representative so that necessary proceeding can be initiated against the individuals under the provisions of The Army Act, 1950 and The Army Rules, 1954. This prayer was accepted and the record of Jorhat PS Case No.922/2011 was handed over to the Army.

I. BECAUSE on 31.10.2012, the Ld. Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat, Assam took up an Application filed by an officer in-charge of the Jorhat Police Station in which it was urged that sufficient evidence had been found by the police against as many as 14 accused persons and despite notices sent to these accused persons under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 none had turned up before the police. Under the circumstances, it was prayed that warrants of arrest be prayed for. The said prayer was rejected keeping in mind that the matter stood referred to the Army and no warrants could be issued.

J. BECAUSE on 25.06.2014, an Application was filed by the husband of the Petitioner before the Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jorhat praying for calling of the Status Report of progress of investigation from the Investigating Officer. The Ld. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate passed an order holding that the investigation of the case had been taken over by the Army Authorities and nothing could be done by the Court.

K. BECAUSE F.I.R. No.922/2011 dated 21.12.2011 is still pending without any challan having been filed by the police. There is no stay of investigation and yet, neither the accused persons have been arrested nor the matter is investigated in accordance with law. Petitioner and her family still awaits justice for the gross misdeeds and acts committed by the accused persons.

L. BECAUSE in a systematic and calculated manner, the Army has hijacked the entire investigation into the dacoity for the purpose of protecting its Personnel.

M. BECAUSE in view of the Judgment of this Hon’ble Court in Army Headquarters (supra), it is clear that it is the job of the police to conduct the investigation in a criminal offence and no Court and no Authority can interfere in the investigation to be conducted in pursuance of the provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. It is not the job of the Army Authorities to conduct the investigation.

N. BECAUSE the Army Authorities can step in only when the investigation is complete by the police and to put up before the Court for the purpose of taking cognizance and it is at that stage, a notice is given to the Army Authorities to make up their mind to make up their choice as to whether the accused would be tried by a criminal Court or by Army under the Court Martial only.

O. BECAUSE the police conducted the investigation and found sufficient evidence against 14 accused persons named in the Application who were involved in connection with the raid in the house of Shri Surajit Gogoi and the Army authorities to assess all the 14 accused persons and they were urgently required to be arrested in this case in the interest of investigation. It was mentioned that number of times, notices under Section 160 Cr.P.C were issued but none of them have turned before the police as yet. The police had no choice but to get an order against all the accused persons from the Court. That as stated earlier, the Ld. SDJM, Jorhat vide his order dated 31.10.2012 refused to issue the warrants of arrest against the accused persons.

P. BECAUSE it has also been clearly established that as many as 10 – 12 Army Personnel illegally entered the Petitioner’s house without any local authority and committed dacoity and in a high handed manner in violation of the provisions of the law of the land. It may not be out of place to mention that Respondent No.4 had full and complete knowledge of the crime committed by his fellow officers and all the officers were protected at his behest from being convicted by the Criminal Court. Even, police could not arrest the culprits.

Q. BECAUSE the Petitioner most respectfully submits here that the accused persons involved in the instant F.I.R. are higher–ups of the Army and just to save and protect them from the said illegal acts and to blanket them from such a serious crime, army authority initiated hastily Summary Court Martial with respect to one individual Havildar Sandip Thapa only. This Summary Court Martial is a complete eye-wash and mockery of law. So far as other Army Personnel involved are concerned, there was summary disposal which is not even a Court Martial. Ultimately, the Army concluded its inquiry by convicting the junior officers in the simple nature of REPRIMAND, Severe Reprimand, 14 days RI in Military custody and three months RI in civil prison, so that the accused officers could get the benefit of Article 20 (2) of Indian Constitution read with Section 300 (1) of Cr.P.C.

R. BECAUSE it may be noted that there is no stay of investigation in F.I.R. No.922/2011 registered at P.S. Jorhat by any Court. The F.I.R. still stands as it is and under the law, challan is required to be presented by the police. In the present case, challan has been filed. There is no investigation is being done. No arrests have been made by police and the Indian Army has concluded its inquiry in the most haphazard manner.

9.That the Petitioner has not filed any other similar Petition before this Hon'ble Court.

P R A Y E R

In view of the premises stated above, it is therefore, prayed that the Hon’ble Court may be graciously be pleased to:-

a) Issue a Writ in the nature of Mandamus directing the Respondent Nos.1 to 4 to furnish all the records pertaining to the instant matter before this Hon’ble Court; and/ or

b) Refer / give direction to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the instant case / F.I.R No. 922/11, P.S. Jorhat, Assam, under Sections 395 / 397 IPC, dated 21.12.2011 and / or give Constitute Special Investigation Team to probe thoroughly the instant case / F.I.R No. 922/11, P.S. Jorjat, Assam, under Sections 395 / 397 IPC, dated 21.12.2011;

c) Initiate disciplinary action against Respondent No.4 for having willfully and consciously disregard ______________________________; and /or

d) Issue any other Writ or direction or order in favour of the Petitioner as may be deemed fit and necessary in the facts and circumstances of the case; and / or

e) Pass any other / further order / writ / directions, which this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case; and

f) Pass any such other order or order(s) which Your Lordships may deem fit in the interest of justice.

DRAFTED BY: FILED BY:

S.S. Sisodia, ADVOCATE

[_______________]

ADVOCATE FOR THE PETITIONER

NEW DELHI

Drafted on : ___________.2014

Filed on : ___________.2014

Indian Army Doesn't Retreat, PLA Beware in Ladakh

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 05:06:00 +0000

PLA will note from #Kargil and earlier in 1987 and 1962 that the #IndianArmy does not retreat.

There is a bristling #nationalresolve to ensure that the #PLA go back to pre-April positions behind the #China side of #LAC.

Despite its Nehruvian cowardice hangover of the #narendramodi led #Babudom will be hounded out at the first sign of #capitulation to a #neocolonial sociopath nation rooted in racism and like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan before.

The #Construction of #Defences and #road infrastructure on the Indian side of LAC is none of Chinese business. We are a #sovereign nation with a #Military that can defend itself, especially in #Ladakh where the Chinese are at a disadvantage, just as they are in the #IndianOceanRegion militarily.

Nobody wants a #war but this is no 1962 or 1999, and if push comes to shove, China will bleed too, not having a fought a war since 1967, which it lost to Vietnam!

Any border conflict will mean loss of #market to Chinese exports and sustained Indian diplomatic amplification of #ChineseVirus at global multilateral forums stretching from the #WHO, to the #G7, to the #UNSecurityCouncil.

The Indian Military is in a strong place on the land, in the air and at sea, besides #cyberwarfare and #spacewarfare to give the Chinese a very bloody nose, who involved in multiple #revisionist pursuits globally including #Taiwan, #HongKong, and #SouthChinaSea.

The global anger in the #internationalcommunity against covid19 omissions and commissions by China will support India in any border war that China provokes with its misadventures and #racist overconfidence.

#Bharat is an idea whose time has come, despite what China wants or thinks of its place in the world order as a superpower, its efforts to contain the rise of Bharat will not succeed. If anything such expansionist gambits push a once nonaligned India deeper into the embrace of the #Quad, a coalition of other sovereign powers aligned against the dragon's revisionist menace including #Japan and #Australia.

India once the bitch hated by #Nixon and sanctioned by #Clinton, was never so wooed by #America as it is today with no less than a dozen open overtures early in the #LadakhStandoff timeline, starting from the US President, State Department and other political watchers. The offer to mediate was noted and politely declined but in any shooting war will make the Chinese position on the global scale that of a #pariah.

The border with China which has been intentionally kept festering by the Chinese to grab territory is facing an increasingly strong oversight and military resoluteness from the Indian public opinion. Both #SumdorongChu and #Doklam saw the loss of face for Beijing in its hegemonic pursuits blocked and made untenable in Military logic by the Indian Military, expect much more of this unless the LAC is converted into the International Border and territory illegally usurped by China in #AksaiChin and #ShaksgamValley for its #BeltandRoad empire building.

Today, despite the covid19 impact on #economy, India has enough residual #nationalwillpower and military heft to compel the PLA to behave itself. If compelled then by returning the use of military force.

Let us hope better sense prevails and these expeditionary stunts meant for internal audiences chafing from economic stagnation, frustration at competing systems of other China's in Taiwan, and Hong Kong succeeding better than the draconian Communist model are restrained before they becoming blunders in the rise of the middle kingdom.

Icarus flew too close to the sun, and in #Ladakh the sun burns your skin to a black.

#takegalwanback #Ladakh #PsyOps #Infowar

The Bhattacharjee Chronicles – III

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:27:00 +0000

Note: This is the third installment of the Chronicles, delayed by a few weeks. The author confesses he was laid low by the blues generated by the Sino virus, the deadly pandemic from the Middle Kingdom. Creative thinking is rendered impossible during these attacks of acute depression. The author reassures his readers that he will do his best in the future to keep them informed of all major developments every fortnight. Stay glued to your computer screen.

The Former Bongo President of Sharat Desh, Pranam Bhaktjee, Had a Secret Pooja Room in the Presidential Palace Dedicated Only to Empress Mother Ponya Naino

The media in Sharatdesh was going bananas about a major discovery made by the country’s Archeological Survey of Lotusland (ASL) during one of its explorations. In the capital’s Presidential Palace, a.k.a. Rashtrapita Bhavan (RB), an exquisitely designed temple had just been unearthed by the venerable scientists of ASL. The temple, although not very big in size, had precious stones and gems of the highest quality, as well as white marble, the like of which is rarely seen these days. The entire structure blended very well with the grandiose design of the Palace constructed during the colonial rule of the European rulers of the subcontinent.

The former President (Pran baboo to his Bongo friends) after he was sworn in, wanted a special Pooja room in his new habitat in Tilli. The pooja room was to be constructed solely to honour Ponya Ma (a.k.a.Naino.), the ideological, spiritual and political patron of Pran baboo. The temple would have to be special in a number of ways – apart from its design grandeur, it had to be located in a secret spot, known only to the confidantes of Empress Ponya and Prandeb baboo (PB). It also had to be kept secret from the assorted Imams and mullahs who ran the country in tandem with the Empress. Initially, the engineers and architects of the country’s Central

Public Works Department (CPWD) who were tasked to carry out this job were flummoxed. However, they came out with an innovative and brilliant design that succeeded in meeting all the requirements of the former President.

The whole thing was so secret that it was not discovered for more than five years after Pran babu demitted office. However, the political fall-out is proving to be difficult for everyone. The maximum flak is understandably directed at Empress Ponya, Pran babu and their grand old Digress Party. However, even the new PM, Barendra Rodi (BR / BaRo) of the Sharatiya Janata Party (SJP), has not got away unscathed. This is because BR, in one of his rare moments of intellectual laxity, had decided that Pran babu, after demitting the office of President, would be honoured with the Republic’s highest award, Sharat Ratna.

The rumour mills in the capital are speculating that BaRo might well direct his administration to slap a penalty on PB to meet the cost of renovating the Rashtra Pita Bhavan after the illicit temple is destroyed.

Windbag Sain Wanted to Give Doctorates to Ponya Naino, Begum Mamtaaz Bannerheim, Monty Ah-Loo -Wallah, Kapil Seeballs and Other Suitable Luminaries

Windbag Amrit Sain, who was awarded the title of Lord Senseless of Trinity Street, by the Pitish Head of State, Lizzy Saxe-Coburg Gotha (also called Elizabeth Windsor), was anointed as Chancellor of the Malanda University under the regime of the former PM, Maddenwhom Singer. The actual campus of this new university was in Tilli’s Indus International Centre, the core of the country’s decision-making structure, located in the elite Cousins’ Zone of the capital.

When BaRo and the SJP took over the country’s reins of administration in 2014, the silver-tongued and manic-spender Sain was unceremoniously ejected from his position. The secret papers unearthed by the national audit bureau disclose very interesting nuggets of information. Evidently, the windbag had decided to bestow honorary doctorates on the four giant intellectuals listed above. The awards ceremony would have been a glittering international event in the first quarter of 2014.

Reportedly, Sain tried to persuade the President of the world-famous Harbour University (where he holds two Chairs) in Umreeka to give these honours to the dignitaries. Witnesses say that the President of the university threw Sain out of his office, accompanied by a string of choice expletives that are still doing the rounds in Harbour Square.

The Lady from Picily in Europe and the three desis were pleased as punch when Sain had grandly announced the news a few years ago. Fortunately, the entire razzmatazz was annulled when the SJP government under BaRo sent the Sain fellow packing. The ancient civilization of Sharat was given a much-needed reprieve.

However, one could never take Sain lightly. The national audit bureau has just discovered that the fellow had another card up his sleeve. In 1998, Sain had been awarded the Global Prize in Economics by the Royal Academy of Tweden. The SJP government that had a short tenure in Sharat in the late 1990s was led by a bumbling poet, A B Pajpayee (if you please). This fellow decided to award Sain the Sharat Ratna, the country’s highest honour. Not content with this, Pajpayee directed the country’s ailing national carrier Air Sharat to extend a Gold Pass to Sain. This enabled the high-flying fellow to travel First Class free for the rest of his life on any flight of the airline.

Sain has now asked the BaRo government to also give the Gold Pass to his present wife who is part of the famous Gothschild business family, whose last estimated net worth was around 800 billion in Umrikan dollars. Sain has told the Sharat Government that his wife does not always get the kind of airline seats that she is used to. The babus in Tilli are still to get over their shock.

Begum Mamtaz Bannerheim, the Lider Supremo of the Province of Tongodesh in Eastern Sharat, Collapses After Drinking Red Label Tea and Eating Saffron

The Lider Supremo suffered convulsions after sipping Trooke Bond Red Label tea at an official function in Tilli, convened by the Federal Government to discuss the pandemic. The Begum had also eaten a potato sandwich enriched with saffron. She started frothing at the mouth during her subsequent interaction with the press, but since this was natural with her, no one realised that something was amiss. The Begum’s condition is now stable. She has vowed terrible revenge on the perpetrators of what she referred to as “yet another assassination attempt by the SJP’s hit squad, aided and abetted by the Marxists on this occasion”.

Third of a 3-Part Series. This appeared earlier in Indiafacts.

About the Author:

Jay Bhattacharjee comes from a family of both Freedom-Fighters and members of the Armed Forces. He is a Delhiite and runs his own Advisory Practice in Finance and Corporate Law.

The Bhattacharjee Chronicles – II

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:21:00 +0000

Note: This is the second installment of the Chronicles. The author will do his best to keep the readers of this portal informed of all major developments every fortnight. Stay glued to your computer screen.

The key members of the former ruling family of Lotusland (a.k.a Sharat or Sharatdesh in the venerable Samskritam language, or Republic of Indusind or Indusind in English) were in an almighty tizzy. It is only very rarely in the annals of history that exquisite jubilation and happiness for a group of exalted persons gets transformed so suddenly and so brutally into utter sadness and agony. Therein lies a tale or saga, a word more appropriate if your tastes are somewhat classical and elevated, as the erstwhile royals of Sharat had always categorised themselves.

This chronicler, perforce, will have to take his readers back in time so that the entire episode can be viewed correctly and in the proper perspective. From about the late 1970s, the world got hit by a most pestilential disease, AIDS, or Acute Intelligence Deficiency Syndrome, in its full form. The symptoms of the dreaded malady were quite simple. The affected persons suddenly started manifesting complete idiocy or a total lack of common or basic intelligence.

While appearing to be outwardly normal, persons infected with AIDS would speak and write utter gibberish and nonsense. And they would do so with supreme confidence in their demeanour and conduct. This led their audience and contacts to believe that they, the persons sprouting trash, were actually scholars, scientists, thinkers and philosophers of the most elevated category. The dreaded disease originated in Umreeka, or Uncle Sam’s Land (USL or US in abbreviation).

Some white people from the US were said to have been infected when they went to Ufreeka, which they smugly called “the dark continent”, where they acquired this ailment from a tribe in Tongo. When they went back to the US, many of these intellectuals and scholars spread the infection in the country’s top university campuses and faculties. Some leading business persons in the corporate world, centred around the Big Apple or Noo Ark in its official form, and the artistes in the cinema world in Dollywood were also caught in the deadly web.

In Lotusland, too, the epidemic was widespread. The nation’s citizens were given a daily dose of the barrage and this led to widespread social and political problems. For the entire period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the country was led by members of the Mehroo family. Initially, it was Empress India whose word was law and the gospel rolled into one. She was so powerful that no one dared to suggest even remotely that she may have been suffering from AIDS, although most of her actions indicated a severe intelligence deficiency.

After the Empress was tragically assassinated, her son Raja was hurriedly catapulted to the position of Prime Minister by the sycophants in the ruling Digress Party, also known popularly as the Grand Old Party (GOP). The basic problem with Raja was that he loved being in the blue yonder flying an aircraft, and politics was not his forte. However, the new Empress Ponya (a.k.a Pantonia) Naino, who actually ran a remote-control operation, was already consolidating her iron grip over her adopted country. Ponya had roots that could be traced back to the European region of Picily and her entire DNA was perfectly in tune with the machinations of power and control.

This was the period when the inner council of the Digress Party completely internalised the modus operandi of AIDS. They were so skillful and adept in their craft that the majority of the population of Sharat got converted to the ideology propagated by the Digress Party. This was the prototype victory of the Big Lie concept that had been advocated by good old Dr. Johann Koebbels of the Mazi Party in Hermany that was ideologically so close to Ponya’s homeland.

From the late 1980s, the people of Sharat had forgotten about AIDS and its origins. As happens with many diseases, they had internalised the ailment and interpreted AIDS-like behaviour as the norm. To be fair to the Sharatiyas, they were in the good company of the international community who had also forgotten about AIDS, its origins and its manifestations.

The Digress Party continued to rule Lotusland seamlessly for nearly a decade and a half until a sea-change in 2014 brought into power a new political force, the Sharatiya Janata Party (SJP). The vast electorate of Sharat, although very poor and not highly educated, had finally seen through the machinations of the Digress Party and its Ruling Family. In a landslide victory, the SJP, its charismatic leader Barendra Rodi (BR / BaRo) and his loyal number two, Pramit Wash (PW / a.k.a. Mota Seth), became the new leaders of the country.

The Ruling Family was in acute distress; without political power, they were a drifting boat in the ocean. The only thing that kept them afloat was their war chest, comprising humongous financial and capital accumulated over seven decades of loot, plunder, brigandage and pilfering.

Empress Ponya was now in distress. Her son, Praoul, who was also referred to rather unkindly by the desi press as “always on the prowl” (AOTP), was clearly not cast in the mould of a great leader. Her daughter, Bianka, and son-in-law Herbert Dadra were even more disappointing. Her consolation was that she had some venerable and faithful family retainers from old times who had maintained their loyalties to her. Most of these members of her inner council were referred to as the “Cousins Zone” coterie because they all stayed in that part of the national capital, New Tilli, where relatives or close friends of the power elite stayed.

When things were looking very bleak for the former ruling family, word came from sources in an eminent research institute in the Northern European continent that scientists in one of the countries in that region, Tweden, had identified her family and its close associates in New Tilli / Tilli as unique repositories of an extremely rare human trait that had disappeared from the rest of the world. The Kungl Vetenskapsakakademien, the Royal Academy of Tweden, had issued a communique to this effect and the international community was also very excited about this development.

The formidable PR and media machinery of the GOP and the Family swung into action. The flunkies and the minions in TV and in the print publications went into overdrive, led by the ever-faithful NTTV and the Sharat Today groups. The Empress herself did not participate in the PR orgy, leaving it to the next generation and the old faithful. For a few weeks, the whole population of the old country was subjected to a media blitzkrieg, the likes of which had not been witnessed earlier. Even the SJP senior brass was jolted. One channel even forecasted a possible Bauble Prize for Ponya Naino, since the Bauble Academy was also located in Tweden.

The big day soon arrived. Herr Director Professor Gustav Magnusson and his deputy, Herr Biträdande Director Professor Andreas Larsson, the two top officials of the Royal Academy of Tweden, convened an international press and media conference in the Twedish capital. The entire world press was present and the estimated coverage was nearly 1100 million viewers, out of whom 400 million would be from old Lotusland itself.

In New Tilli, the Royal family and its acolytes had gathered in the grand residence of Ponya in the heart of the Cousins Zone. Everyone hoped that this building would be classified as a Palace in the near future after the evening’s events played out. The two Twedish scientific academics soon revealed their findings and the world came crumbling down for the desi Royals. What emerged from the crisp presentation of the two Nordics was that the AIDS virus that had disappeared from the rest of the world was now traced to the Naino family and its immediate flunkeys. The virus had somehow been contained so far among these few persons but was now threatening to contaminate the rest of the world.

It had been spreading slowly and relentlessly whenever anyone in the Royal family spoke. It affected the listener’s brain, mind, thought process and vocabulary. For many decades, the affliction had been restricted to the immediate circle of the Nainos. However, it was now threatening to infect the outside world.

The Twedish professors also revealed that urgent and complete isolation of these AIDS carriers was absolutely essential if AIDS were to be controlled. Accordingly, they recommended to the Sharat Government that one of the C-17 Globemasters of the Indusind Air Force should be readied immediately to take the entire contingent of affected persons (carefully identified to be around 80 persons) to an isolated base in Antarctica. The entire group would have to be quarantined for an indefinite period. That was the only remedy available to the international community.

The magnums of champagne that had been kept on ice in the royal residence in anticipation of the celebrations were immediately consigned to the flames on the orders of Ponya.

NOTE: This is fiction. Therefore, It may not be possible to correlate the scenario described above with real-life situations

Second of a 3-Part Series. This appeared earlier in Indiafacts.

About the Author:

Jay Bhattacharjee comes from a family of both Freedom-Fighters and members of the Armed Forces. He is a Delhiite and runs his own Advisory Practice in Finance and Corporate Law.

The Bhattacharjee Chronicles – I: How to Take Over a Country and Reformat its Civilisation

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:11:00 +0000

Editor’s Note: A fortnightly summary and analysis of news and events that the mainstream media missed out on. This is the first instalment of the Chronicles. The author will do his best to keep the readers of this portal informed of all major developments every fortnight. Stay glued to your computer screen. This is a piece of satire.

The command and control centre of the holy alliance movement was in a state of happy delirium. The top leaders of the triumvirate were chuffed to bits, and understandably so, after pulling off one of the most audacious coups in modern political history. If that sounds like a bit of a hyperbole, call it “electoral history”, hustings or whatever.

Admittedly, the remarkable coup d’etat of the Pottycan – Usalman alliance was initially confined to the strategically important and most affluent province of Lotusland, the venerable and ancient country that was called Aryasthan in the indigenous language (Prachinbhasha, also called Samskritam) that dated back to about five thousand years ago. The current name of Lotusland in the Samskritam language is Sharatdesh or Sharat (officially, the Republic of Indusind in English, or Indusind) and the province where the alliance had won such an important battle was Bararajya. Its capital is Nambay, in the language of the old European colonials who first built this magnificent city. In the subsequent discussion, Sharat / Sharatdesh / Lotusland will be used interchangeably.

The importance of Nambay in particular and Bararajya in general for Indusind is humongous. It is of an order of magnitude that cannot be spelled out in common discourse but is well known to all political scientists, economists and strategic analysts throughout the world. For thousands of years, the entire Western world had coveted the riches and the location of Lotusland. The latter’s contribution to human patrimony was unequalled and the nearest challenger was ancient Hellas, which itself became a victim of the savage onslaughts of the western wing of the Usulman hordes. The only other contender that could be considered to be in the same league (more or less) as Aryasthan was the Middle Kingdom in North-east Asia, peopled by the Chindits.

The irony in all this is that Aryasthan’s culture, philosophy and religion had spread all over Asia through peaceful methods. The influence of Aryasthan was implanted in the other regions of Asia culturally, not through the sword or the gun. While all this was going on, the people of Aryasthan and its social fabric became increasingly vulnerable to foreign military aggression. The overall ambience of peace, tolerance and acceptance could not quite confront armed aggression. There was also an excess of individualism and pacifism among the Kamals, as the residents of Lotusland are referred to in common parlance. As a result of this, they could easily be divided by foreign invaders. Set against each other, the Kamals soon lost out to the marauding Usalman hordes from the west and the north-west of Aryasthan. Admittedly, the military valour of the Kamals was unquestioned and evoked the grudging admiration of the conquerors themselves. But treachery and the enemy within are impossible to overcome.

Over the centuries, the invaders from the West ruthlessly and mercilessly destroyed countless structures and habitations of the Kamals, with particular emphasis on their places of worship. The wounded civilisation of the vanquished Sharat displayed remarkable resilience in the face of this savagery and scholars throughout the world have recorded (with admiration and awe) the titanic struggle of the Kamals to preserve their ancient culture, religion and civilisation.

The Usulman rulers, as their creed dictated, tried their best to weed away the Kamals from their old faith,. including brutal pressure. But the conversion attempts were barely successful. Sadly, some of the poorer and more disadvantaged segments among the Kamals could not resist the virulent oppression and converted to the invader’s faith. Thus, the ancient land slowly saw the fissures of religion develop over time. A religious fault-line was added to the other socio-political divisions in Lotusland. The population was now divided as the Kamals and the converted Kamals who were categorised as Usulmans for administrative and legal purposes.

The white invaders from Europe, the Pits from Pittain, who displaced the Usulman rulers in Lotusland about two hundred and sixty years ago, had the same game-plan for Lotusland as the latter. The riches and wealth of Lotusland were the primary attraction – the location of the new territory was another. Any power that controlled this country, which was rightly a sub-continent, also controlled the sea route from Europe to the East. The Pits did not have any religious agenda like the Usulmans – for them, it was the moolah that mattered.

However, the Pits were on the same page as the Usalmans as far as the ancient culture and civilisation of Aryasthan were concerned. There was more than an element of primeval jealousy involved here. Yes, the Pits wanted the magnificent heritage of their conquered possession wiped out. But, they also wanted to create a whole new class of Kamals and transplant it in the empire. This was the well-accepted process of deracination of the conquered population – create a breed of brown sahebs who would ape the mores and values of the white man more assiduously than the role model himself. These quislings would be more at home in Hindon, the capital of Pittain, than in the sweltering ambience of Lotusland, and guard the interests of Pax Pittanica as assiduously as the original lot.

Thus, the second decade of the twenty-first century continued to see the intellectual domination of the brown-Pits and also the Kamal-Usulmans, who, of course, predated the former. Briefly, the Kamal-Usulmans were the collaborators of the Usulman rulers in northern Lotusland. They comprised the courtiers and junior functionaries in the Usulman court and in the hinterland. They spoke Ardoo, a bastardised version of the original language of the West Asian invaders, which the latter also spoke and understood. Although the Pits ruled over the Kamals as well as the minority Usulmans, they clearly favoured the latter. This was to keep a check on the majority Kamals.

Slowly, from the turn of the nineteenth century, the Kamals had been asserting themselves and occasionally, the Usulmans also half-heartedly joined the former in confronting the white masters. The denouement occurred at the end of the fourth decade of the twentieth century when the entire world order changed. The continent to which the Pits belonged got engulfed in a brutal conflict, which gradually engulfed all parts of the globe. This, of course, was the Second World War (WW2). Lotusland contributed enormously to the war effort of the Pits both in terms of manpower and in terms of resources and finance.

While the global conflict raged in Europe, North Africa, East and South-east Asia, as well as in the Pacific, the freedom movement in Lotusland acquired critical momentum. Pax Pittanica had barely survived the conflict and was in no position to control Sharat. The Pits departed post-haste but not before dividing the beautiful country along religious lines. An artificial construct was created to the west of Sharat, where the minority Usulmans were supposed to go. Many went but a fairly large number chose to stay on in the old country.

The people to whom the Pits transferred the reins of administration were the brown Pits, as mentioned earlier. For 70 years (except minor interludes), this new oligarchy ruled Sharat with a mixture of egregiousness, greed and graft that had few equals. There was always the façade of democracy but the system was basically a Tammany Hall regime. Sharat’s constitutional structure provided for a Federal or Central Government and State Governments in various parts of the country. Unlike many countries in the Western hemisphere, the Central Government has most of the powers while the States have residual authority. This does not mean that some States do not have quite a clout, as this report will bring out.

The ruling party from 1947, when the Pits departed from Sharat’s shores, till 2014 was basically the Digress Party, to whom the departing white colonials had bequeathed power. The kingpins, with apologies to the feminists, were the Mehroo family, starting with Grandpa J.L. Mehroo, the original brown Pit, followed by his daughter India, and later on by his grandson Rajesh. We have to fast forward to 2014 when the country firmly rejected the Mehroos and their family coterie. The long-dormant Indusind electorate, that had been neutered for nearly seven decades by the Mehroo family and the Digress Party, finally woke up from its semi-perennial slumber and voted in the Sharatiya Janata Party (SJP); its charismatic leader Barendra Rodi (BR / BaRo) and his loyal number two, Pramit Wash (PW / a.k.a. Mota Seth).

During its first mandate, the SJP made a valiant effort to roll back the shabby residues of the Digress Party’s long years of relentless loot and brigandage. The efforts of the new occupants of Pristina Peak, the focal centre of the Central Government’s seat of power in Sharat’s capital, New Telhi, didn’t quite succeed. This was because the departing Digress clique had left behind a rear-guard army of saboteurs and guerrillas. These were from the entrenched bureaucracy, which had always been in cahoots with the rulers. Others in the unholy nexus included tainted business barons, the so-called intellectuals with their roots in the western hemisphere and the clergy that led the Usulman community.

When it came to the renewal of the national mandate in mid-2019, the SJP under BaRo and PW swept back to power with an increased majority, even in those parts of the country that were ruled by parties close to the Digress and its cohorts. In the state of Bararajya, the SJP, with its the-then allies, the Shibboleth Sentinels (SS) won the vast majority of seats that were up for grabs.

The fireworks started a few months after the Federal elections in mid-2019 when the State elections for Bararajya’s local Assembly took place recently. The SJP and the SS fought as allies on a common platform and won a comfortable majority in the state Assembly. The SJP won around two-thirds of the seats and the SS the remaining one-third. However, the Digress Party soon showed that its basic animal instincts of predatory survival were very much intact. In fact, under the white empress of the party, it was on the recovery path. Empress Ponya had roots that could be traced back to the European region of Picily, which taught the world the finer principles of extortion, brigandage and mass murder.

She and her team soon managed to break up the electoral alliance of the SJP and the SS, and a coalition government led by the Digress assumed power in Bararajya. The capital of the state, Nambay, is also the commercial and financial epicentre of Lotusland. Therefore, it was the appropriate springboard for the eventual takeover of the entire country. Ponya (a.k.a Pantonia) Naino and her son, Praoul, who was also referred to rather unkindly by the desi press as “always on the prowl” (AOTP), started their dialogue with the Usulmans to help them take on the SJP government at the Central / national level.

Soon, the dialogue bore fruit. The national government under BaRo and PW had enacted an important legislation to expedite the citizenship process of Kamals and members of allied faiths who had been compelled to leave the neighbouring three Usalman countries that surround Lotusland. Usulmans, naturally and logically, had not been covered by this legislation, since there is no question of these people being victims of religious victimisation in fellow-Usulman countries. For the holy alliance, this was a heaven-sent opportunity to engineer social strife and a semi civil war environment.

For the Usulmans, easily prone to violence and intolerance, the message from Ponya’s party and its allies like Harad Tower, the fish baron of Bararajya, and indeed Sharat, if not the entire globe, was sweet music. The clergy from the minarets also sang the same song. The Usulmans of the national capital and its surrounding areas hit the streets with the same intensity as the SS and the Nazi party cadres had done in Germany during the heady days of the Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938. Ponya’s chorus was soon joined by the political leadership of Porkistan (Pitsland), the breakaway region of Sharatdesh.

As New Telhi / Telhi, the capital of Lotusland, burnt and reeled under the onslaughts of the street gangs, the Digress Party’s High Command celebrated by swigging their Chianti and Frascati, although the party’s hoi polloi could hardly distinguish one from the other. For this entire lot, the cherry on the cake, in all this, was that the Indusind Republic had a state guest visiting the capital during the mayhem. And he was no less than Donald Duck Frump, the President of Umreeka.

Inshallah and hallelujah, life could hardly be better.

(NOTE: It may not be possible to correlate the scenario described above with any real-life situations)

First of a 3-Part Series. This appeared earlier in Indiafacts.

Jay Bhattacharjee comes from a family of both Freedom-Fighters and members of the Armed Forces. He is a Delhiite and runs his own Advisory Practice in Finance and Corporate Law.

The Lockdown Lemon Modi Sold India

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 05:28:00 +0000

The only number that can’t be fudged is the #dead. That too must be normalised with #unreported #cremations and #burials and #deathcertificates.

All Central and Stare #coviddata presentations must be forced to report institutional (polite word for forced ) #quarantine numbers, as well as those entire families and buildings advised #selfquarantine.

The lazy use of containment must be challenged by related testing and contact tracing data as a percentage. If you are going to cage people you better have a good cause to show for it, other than a confirmation bias and a strategy that hinges on claps, and lighting lamps while you lock away people for 14 days and throw away the key.

Economic and human rights costs of Lockdown and draconian extension of lockdown measures (Non Pharmaceutical Intervention aka NPIs) must be weighed against real measures taken in pharmaceutical and testing, contact tracing, healthcare infrastructure ramp up across hospitals in both urban and rural India. It has been a quarter, please show your report card!

The #panic from poor #risk and #crisis communication that used words like #Curfew, the
Nobody in the #Babudom will admit it nor will the #Neta but the #extendedlockdown was a lemon sold to Indians using the currency of #trust #credibility.

#Government must be kept #honest. Time to start asking questions and asking Neta, Babu to defend #governance #decisions with real costs in #accountability.

Lead, follow or get out of the way! 1.3 Billion people deserve better!

#coronavirusindia

ModiTimes, Minimum Governance and Maximum Babudom in Pandemic

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 05:10:00 +0000

Lots of clever talk on Lives or Economy in Modi Babudom.

Despite the deaths in Italy, UK, France and America, none preceded with a blanket lockdown.

This talk of life without economy is the Hobsons choice for India with 30% unemployment and a large chunk of daily wage workers. Even the middle savings elasticity can not stretch beyond a month or two.

Businesses especially small and micro will disappear unable to pay rent, and find money for staff salaries and other overheads.

I have been saying this for 2 momths: @narendramodi @MoHFW_INDIA has no #data on #objective, #efficacy or #results of the #lockdown.

#Lockdownextension whilst denying #communitytransmission are #Babudom mismanagement; #flyingblind sans #testing.

India #CV19 numbers are rubbish. Both on #covidpositive, #infectionrate, as well as #mortalityrate. Even Italy with #testing numbers way high may have #underreported deaths in rural hospitals #nursinghomes and #homes. Now imagine the numbers of #dead #unrecognised in India if a part of #Coronavirusstatistics.

The response of both Union and State Governments has been of knee jerk #panic, old #colonial impulses of #policebrutality and words like #curfew and emergency were freely communicated from no less but Modi PMO himself.

External experts and voices both local and international did not factor in this #decisionmaking that ideally should have been #consulted Industrialists, Economists, Epidemiologists, Pharmaceuticals Professionals, Eminent Intellectuals, Social Scientists, Branding and Mass Communications Professionals across conventional and #socialmedia.

#Crisis and #risk #communication is meant to build #trust with #populations. Instead we relied on ingrown and inbred self serving #Babudom on everything including ICMR. Predictably we got Nehruvian Socialism Gulag style #messaging and #visuals. Slapstick Bollywood and other low IQ endorsement from dodgy celebrities.

Today, nobody knows if we are any better off than we started before the #lockdown. Lazy #Babudom advising clueless politicians like Modi and State CM want to extend the lockdown based on some statistical modelling mumbo jumbo based on indefensible assumptions.

What we see are human rights taken away using a colonial epidemic legislation. What we see is business supply chains damaged as a self goal. What we see are kafkaesque populations marooned in and around cities hostage to food handouts without any employment far from homes in rural India.

What we see are senior citizens and people needing genuine noncovid healthcare intervention reduced to insignificance. What we see are old socialist welfare schemes throwing taxpayer money where it never reaches.

We are not China and our investments in Health Care are a scandal for a Democratic Republic. Our people vote.
I look forward to hearing the word #testing from Narendra Modi and his Politician Doctor Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

The nation also expects to see effective and enabling welfare that helps to implement social distancing. The nation wants targeted lockdowns where quarantine isn’t a prison sentence, where infected victims are not treated as criminals, where stigma and police brutality, and bureaucratic apathy is replaced by respect for the taxpayer and voter who pays all your salaries.

I also look forward to some honesty on insight (not information) used for decision making that has such existential ramifications for 1.3 Billion People.

Jai Hind!

The Hinduphobia at Twitter Needs GOI Intervention

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 10:39:00 +0000

Twitter has always been accused of a lack of transparency in its selective targeting of content deemed to be pro Hindutva or Hindu Nationalist. However off late its bias has reached draconian levels with arbitrary suspension of accounts, forced deletion of Tweets that fall afoul if its Hinduphobia.

As a third party platform on the Internet it seems to have overstepped its ambit by partisan content moderation bordering on political interference and promotion of Islamist propaganda. While it has been often summoned by relevant sections of the Indian Government its conduct in the period before, during and Delhi Riots has become suspect as a partner in waging information warfare against the BJP Government led by Narendra Modi and its ideological parent in the RSS.

The content moderation policy of Twitter India disrespects not just the mandate of the Indian Democracy but seeks to impose foreign bias and western notions based in colonial Hinduphobia and inimical lobbies. Given, its role in seeding media and shaping perceptions and in view of its opaque use of discretion in actively suppressing Hindu voices, it can not be allowed to operate independently where judgement has to be made in terms of what is against community standards and what promotes hate and communal or racist content.

The Law Ministry in conjunction with Ministry of Information and Broadcasting must urgently summon Twitter India representatives and ensure a fair and transparent policy that objectively moderates content without personal or political bias. The relevant legislation in the IT Act must be invoked to ensure online public platforms are not waging war against the Government of India or employing user data in shadow banning and other discriminatory policies.

The data protection bill must include all data collected and shared by Twitter so it can not be employed by foreign governments or political parties to influence and alter information in the user generated content space.

An audit of Twitter India by Home Ministry should be conducted regularly and flagged for regular explanation at the CXO level to ensure weaponisation of public opinion by compromised online content platforms.

Delhi Riots and the Poisonous Shaheen Bagh Biryani

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 04:58:00 +0000

Those finessing Delhi Riots are apologists who will eventually prepare a fertile ground for religious genocide and ethnic cleansing.

North East Delhi is the entree of this main poison dish not fully served again since the religious partition that created India and Pakistan. The partition killed millions, displaced millions, its psychological effects in generations of refugees remain in subliminal memories and post traumatic impulses that create dangerous traits and proclivities like stocking stones and assembling Molotov cocktails, sharp edged weapons and illegal handguns and in some instances even automatic assault rifles.

Out of power, Congress and Communist clones are using this contagion in Minority and Caste appeasement votebanks as a scorched earth campaign alongwith associated media gravy train and intelligentsia to create unrest.

Eventually unrest is commandeered and taken advantage of by foreign powers in armed, ideological sustained Insurgency be it Islamist or Maoist. Those who provide the veneer of acceptability to such enterprise in the guise of democratic protest are as big criminals as the ones throwing the rocks and acid, petrol bombs, stabbing, and shooting. They are the intellectual equivalent of the arsonist and terrorist, only more dangerous in their civilised poison.

Similarly for the diasporic flatulence associated especially with social media that seeks to fan religious or other divisive agendas. They don’t live amongst the communities but influence ideas a continent away from their hate filled echo chambers hostage to a time period or another riot seared into their collective consciousness.

In a way, Delhi Riots were an inoculation, in a way maybe this was better experienced now with its sad loss of life, property and sociopath nihilism.

Delhi has burned before and the arsonist, looter and rapist is hard wired in the psyche of the wolves that are unemployed, testosterone crazed, uneducated and full of religious hate living on the edge of our civilisation. When we unleash such black powers It is a choice that we consciously make, when we posit human weakness over what is dharma, over what is fair and right.

I believe in the wisdom of the crowds. I hope that they will see things for what they really are! Delhi Riots is the scorched earth conclusion to every ShaheenBagh Jamia and JNU lie. Somewhere in the burnt, mutilated and violated bodies lies dark knowledge. In the soot of burnt down and looted shops, invaded homes and destroyed businesses there lies the lesson of governance suborned by political sycophants. The economic and societal loss of such conflagrations is beyond the petty and cynical malcontents who lay the path to such destruction.

The Muslims in India have prospered and grown since the partition. In every Godhra and Chandbagh they bring a DejaVu of memories associated with the unspeakable abomination witnessed in the partition. That they have no leadership but remain contractors of fear and appeasement ensure their use as weapons in elections to the highest bidder usually a Congress Communist clone now with the urban facade of TukdeTukdeGang, the urbanMaoist in a high decibel idiot diva and sexy Bollywood siren package.

All mosques and madrassas must introspect at the effects of their mollycoddling militant Islamist propaganda. Those spreading hate are not the ones to die. It is poor innocent Muslims who become the target of retaliation and retribution not the psychopaths spreading the hate. It takes decades for the trust of syncretic communities to return, sometimes never. Those who knew the pre 1993 Bombay will know this street. This is the genie that doesn’t go back into the bottle. It becomes a Molotov Cocktail that brings the fires of hell all around it.

Not enough is said of the Hindus who die in such communal riots. They include many who never had anything to do with such sociopath enterprise. Policemen, Intelligence Operatives, Security Forces trying to stop the conflagration all die and face the effects of such pogroms by mosque crazed mobs.

Communism by any other names is a dying ideology just like Congress and its Nehruvian Socialism. Those that espouse it unconsciously are suborned by its lies in colleges and universities, other social milieux where such contagion lurk.

The media houses that were once the amplifier in their misplaced enthusiasm are as complicit in Delhi Riots. One cannot trust the credibility of most broadcasters and print nor of social media today given the perception of Muslim unrest trojans like Shaheen Bagh.

Ask any Muslim who has suffered loss of life, limb and property in Delhi if they expected such outcome from the tasty revolutionary biryani served in Shaheen Bagh. Will they learn their lessons? Probably not but one must believe in the intelligence and instinct of humanity.

Finally on Delhi Police, the Home Ministry and the Intelligence Agencies tasked to prevent exactly such communal cauldrons. Exactly the same folks in media, politics and social influencers demonising are responsible for the situation that has obtained. The biggest lie is the Muslim pogrom as riots are truly secular destroying Hindu and Muslim wherever they occur in a cycle of blind retribution and righteous bloodletting. Those handiing out prescription to how the Police omissions and commissions are as guilty if not more.

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah must persist and faster on Police and Intelligence Reform paralysed by brown sahib Babudom, the real rulers of Delhi who usurped power from colonial masters and philandering oxbridge demagogues like Nehru.

With condolences to those who lost their loved ones, whose lives, homes and businesses have been destroyed by the Shaheen Bagh Virus that has killed more people than Coronavirus in Delhi.

Please don’t eat free Biryani!

The Anatomy of Stillborn Congress Communist CAA NRC Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:35:00 +0000

The anatomy of a Protest in a democracy has a short half-life. The appetite for idealism fades very quickly as things start to catch fire. It is exactly this that has played out since the Narendra Modi BJP led NDA Government shanghaied the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 through both houses of the Parliament in brute majority!

As arson, mob violence, shooting moves up the escalation ladder people want to go back to procreating, paying mortgages and their kids college fees. They don’t want nervous excitement beyond a day or two. The appetite for violence is

limited even through the myriad anger and frustration of causes sometimes leads the silent, employed, taxpaying majority to seek a momentary catharsis in it.

That moment came and passed leaving an ugly reality of scorched street littered with burning tyres, torched police and private vehicles. The casualties were both hapless policemen and stone pelting, arsonist lynchmobs often infiltrated with criminal sociopaths to foreign intelligence moles depending on who you believe. As nervous exhaustion sets in, both CAA and NRC protest is stillborn. Malcontents in the Muslim ghettos of the mind will remain but for illegal immigrants, mainly from Bangladesh and the Rohingya, the future in Indian cities looks less than promising.

The Indian Muslims lost a huge opportunity to stand up and be counted and better their lot in employment, education and healthcare. Instead they behaved predictably and were used and thrown by foreign interests and political agents as is their won’t since the 1857 Mutiny, Khilafat, and 1947 Partition.

Our Muslims need their own leaders not commission agents, Congress, Communists, Uncouth Mamata, Bhim Army and other opportunist constructs. They need to get out of the ghettos of the mind and into the mainstream as a proud and prosperous community.

Congress and Communists and their clones like AAP, SP, spread in sporadic corners of India in Muslims votebanks behind the scorched earth campaign are all in a spot of bother. As Police moves to register cases and preventive detention using the ubiquitous Sec 144 of the Indian Penal Code to kill the protests, it is a bonfire of vanities for many in the old Macaulay Orphan narrative gravy train carrying intellectuals, influencers and media. Not only Modi and Shah stood firm and they have won the battle of wits.

Of course the devil is in the details. Babudom nearly did mess it up for the BJP but now the knives are out for them too both in the Intelligence Agencies and Internal Security corridors across the Home Ministry in Connaught Place to the PMO in Raisina Hill. There is a massive law enforcement and intelligence operation to ensure things don’t go out of hand. The usually boring Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is doing more than spew crusty socialist gruel with its PIB firing on all cylinders with myth busters on CAA / NRC. This is going down all ducks in row, tic tac toe.

Lastly on the media and influencers, a majority of whom read this badly. Terrorist attacks don’t have the potency of partition violence memories, lying latent in most Indians today of immigrant origin. People want peace and order. Not Police in riot gear brandishing MP5 submachine guns and Glock pistols with safety’s off. They want to go back to the familiar landscape of lazy outrage over Rape, Economy and Bollywood and Netflix Shows.

He who dares wins! Take a bow Amit Shah !

This Article was also published at http://internationalaffairsreview.com/2019/12/25/the-anatomy-of-the-anti-caa-ncr-campaign/

Popular Support Fades As Scorched Earth Campaign of Congress and Communists Tanks

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 05:54:00 +0000

Congress and Communist slide into the dustbin of history continues as the violent protests knock the bottom out of popular support. Each such trojan will polarise the injured Hindu into the BJP Camp. The scorched earth campaign shows the existentialist crisis in both regarding illegal immigrant muslim Votebank purportedly threatened by CAA,

The real crisis for the Congress and Left is the NRC. Also the real target of these violent protests engineered to somehow stall or prevent it from going through. While nobody has seen the NRC Draft Bill, its ghost has started hounding both.

The passage of the NRC is imminent. Sooner or later it will be revealed, hopefully with better communication unlike the CAA. Go through it will for Modi and Shah will not fritter the majority mandate to achieve their political goals, communicated in the BJP Manifesto.

Expect more violence and muscular policing and arrests to minimise effects of this campaign. Expect arrests in both Congress and Communist leadership as Intelligence led operations expose the contours of this sinister campaign.

The support for this campaign will evaporate as those misled into false premise causes realise that they have been had under false premise and social engineering. Hopefully with minimal casualties and loss of public property.

The maximalist positions on social media that have led to many a unfriending and arguments will fade into embarrassing silence.

The media and the influencers too have learnt their lessons on manufactured unrest. One remains buoyant on the wisdom of the Hindus, as India is reclaimed by Bharat from McCaulays half breeds compromised by colonial slavery.

The CAA, NRC and UCC represent the impulse of a people to reverse demographic invasion and purge regressive Islamist culture and practices from the national identity. They also represent election promises of the BJP to its voters who brought it to such rare majority mandate in Indian politics. The muscular numbers mean easy passage of legislation in both Houses of Parliament.

The rise of Bharat from the ashes of colonial India must see a robust framework for Internal Security buttressed by reform on Immigration, Citizenship, Police and Intelligence. Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have done that in this Government what was outstanding from the Independence of India in 1947.

The RSS often sullied by those compromised by their colonial upbringing has proven to be the nursery of leadership. It has done more for nationalism than all political movements in contemporary history both pre and post Independence and the unfortunate partition midwifed by Colonial Britain with ulterior motives and Hinduphobia.

Provincial political movements, caste, language and other fissures are today being filled over by a brutal globalisation. It is in this cauldron of competitive interests that someone has dared to attempt nation building and sovereignty. That is rare. That must be lauded for daring, for resourcefulness and for steel nerves.

Note to Students Misled into Congress Communist Propaganda on CAA

noreply@blogger.com (Indiaspin) — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 05:09:00 +0000

Note to students getting appropriated into bent political causes.

Don’t get misled by #Congress #Communist #Propaganda on #CAA.

The CAA has no consequence for any existing Indian #Citizen. Yes that includes #IndianMuslims too!

It applies only to #persecuted religious #minorities fleeing from neighbouring countries into India by supplying a framework for #naturalisation of these #oppressed people.

The fear among #illegalimmigrants including those from #Bangladesh and #Rohingya should be from #NRC and not CAA.

This is not a bad thing for they disturb #indigenous communities and people who have first right over taxpayers money and resources. They also brig regressive #misogyny and #Islamist #Sharia contagion.

Today #Assam has a 25% change in ethnic and religious character given this creeping #DemographicInvasion.

Please take the #bellyaching and #lazymoraloutrage in the West with a pinch of hypocrites colonial salt. It doesn’t add up when you see the regressive #immigration regimes and their racist, #religiousprofiling.

As a #sovereign country, India is well within its rights to who it grants citizenship. The #CitizenshipAmendmentAct is #legislation duly approved by both Houses of #Parliament.

Please don’t get appropriated by #dodgycauses. Save your beautiful idealism for worthy causes.

(A Former fiery, idealist, easily misled media secretary of Mandal Commission agitation AMCF in the DU of 90s)

http://www.indiaspin.com/2019/12/as-modi-shah-move-india-to-bharat.html
https://pibindia.wordpress.com/2019/12/18/citizenship-amendment-act-2019/