Tag: Opinion

Abrogation that led to integration
17Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Abrogation that led to integration

It’s officially been a year since the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was stripped of its special status and bifurcated into two union territories. The abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A on August 5, 2019 was one of the most talked about legislations of the 21st century across the globe, with every big player in the global state of affairs expressing concerns about the emerging situation in J&K, post abrogation.The move was highlighted by every big media house in the world. Reporters and media houses were trying to get information from the ground in J&K, but the information blockade controlled the outflow of information from the region.The media blackout, which was considered as a violation of human rights including the right to information, basically acted as a damp
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President Xi’s long game: Time to measure what the world is dealing with
14Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

President Xi’s long game: Time to measure what the world is dealing with

Over the last six months, President Xi Jinping has become China’s Supreme Leader. The July 15 issue of the Chinese Communist Party journal, Qiushi, has declared that it is the highest duty of all Chinese to “safeguard the core position of General Secretary Xi Jinping”. It then goes on to say that “to safeguard the core position of General Secretary Xi Jinping means only Xi Jinping and no other individual.”In short, there is no other leader and no power-centre other than Xi.It took many years for Mao Zedong to dominate a party that he had literally built and led to victory. Even then, at the height of his power, he was still compelled to share authority at times with others like Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai, and PLA Marshals Zhu De and Ye Jianying.President Xi Jinping, on the other hand, appea
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Second-class citizens of Sindh: Women
11Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Second-class citizens of Sindh: Women

The incidents of honor killings in Pakistan’s Sindh are no less than gruesome horror stories – women burned, shot, strangled, drowned, decapitated in cold-blood every year. One such case came to limelight on July 4, when Sindh police discovered a severely beaten body with the disfigured face on Indus Highway. Initially unrecognizable to police, it was finally found to be of a 24-year-old married girl, Waziran. Her father and husband accuse each other of her murder. A joint investigation team (JIT) has been set to investigate the incident. According to local witnesses, the murder was carried out in the name of honor.Marks on the body show that Waziran was pelted with stones and repeatedly hit with a wooden stick. Waziran is another innocent soul that has lost her life to the menace of honor
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Success story: There is a reduction in terrorist recruits after Article 370 abrogation
11Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Success story: There is a reduction in terrorist recruits after Article 370 abrogation

Shopian district in South Kashmir has been home to a number of terrorists over the years and Tariq Mohand, a carpenter from village Heff in Shopian district was one of the victims of the terrorists who abducted him the evening of July 8, 2018, tortured through the night and killed him.His body was recovered from a nearby village next morning.Tariq was the cousin of a terrorist named Bilal Mohand who was killed in an encounter in May 2018. He was buried in a normal graveyard in his village. Villagers had huge resentment against the gruesome act and the terrorists were condemned unequivocally.Two days after killing him, the terrorists labelled Tariq as a “martyr”. His body was exhumed four days after the murder and buried in the “martyrs’ graveyard” of the village. His family, including his
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Accused of ‘Defaming Islam’, Bangladesh blogger fears for family
11Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Accused of ‘Defaming Islam’, Bangladesh blogger fears for family

Accused of defaming Islam, Bangladeshi blogger and secular activist Asaduzzaman Noor, fears for the safety of his family living at Amtali Upzila of Barguna district (around 320 km south of Dhaka).He says that his family is being harassed by the government for posting a Facebook video criticizing alleged appropriation of a Buddhist temple.Noor has been in hiding — in Bangladesh and abroad — for past several years after receiving death threats from Islamist groups for defending a Buddhist monk, and 10 Minute School, a pro-LGBTQ platform.He has been charged under the Digital Security Act, 2018, for defaming Islam — an offence punishable with a jail term of up to 10 years. Amnesty International has described the law as a serious threat to freedom of expression in Bangladesh.Bloggers, social me
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Article 370: How Modi government changed status of Kashmir
9Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Article 370: How Modi government changed status of Kashmir

On August 5, 2019, the Narendra Modi government in the Centre brought two resolutions related to Jammu and Kashmir. The first revoked Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and the second resolution was for bifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.This step fulfilled a much-awaited demand of the RSS-BJP, since the days of Bharatiya Jan Sangh, whose leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee died in a Kashmir prison, campaigning against the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.Article 370, combined with Article 35A, accorded Jammu and Kashmir special status under the Constitution of India, allowing it to have a separate constitution and a separate penal code among other legal distinctions.Article 370 is a temporary provision in relation to Jammu ...
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Article 370: Can Jammu and Kashmir regain statehood?
9Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Article 370: Can Jammu and Kashmir regain statehood?

Soon after the Indian government announced abrogating the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 in 2019, converting the state into two Union Territories, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said it was a "temporary" situation.PM Modi said statehood of Jammu and Kashmir would be restored at "some point of time".In March this year, PM Modi told a visiting delegation of politicians from Kashmir that "the government will work with all sections of the population to realize the hopes of statehood for Jammu and Kashmir at an early opportunity".Union Home Minister Amit Shah also told the Jammu and Kashmir leaders that "visible changes will be seen on the ground in the next few months".However, around 10 days after the meeting, the coronavirus lockdown had to be imposed across the coun...
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Xi’s attempted coup against Pakistan
8Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Xi’s attempted coup against Pakistan

In order to expand his direct influence over the political and economic processes of Pakistan, Chinese President Xi Jinping is all set to sideline the democratically elected representatives and civil servants of the people of the country.Since 2016, Xi has been forcing the Pakistani establishment to put pressure on the government (it was Nawaz Sharif’s government back then) to sideline the Planning Ministry’s role in the implementation and monitoring of the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).He pushed for the creation of a supra-constitutional CPEC Authority that would freelance the management of the predatory infrastructure and power-generation projects under his direct command.The proposal was rejected then, but in 2019, it was again presented before the current
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Jammu and Kashmir: A year without Article 370
8Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Jammu and Kashmir: A year without Article 370

It has been a year since the government of India scrapped Article 370 (and Article 35A), taking away the special status of Jammu & Kashmir and bifurcating it into two Union Terrirtories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Undoubtedly, August 5, 2019, was a watershed moment, popularly dubbed as “historical blunder being corrected in one stroke”. Of course, the cynics cried foul – ranging from the killing of a democratic polity, recommitting a historical blunder, a betrayal, to a sinister ploy to alter Kashmir’s demography, so on and so forth.Nonetheless, it was a monumental step taken by the Narendra Modi government to seal Kashmir’s fate. In one stroke it removed all the ills of Kashmir misfortune, which boosted national domestic confidence, struck a deadly blow to Pakistan’s ostentatious
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Abrogation of Article 370: Dawn of a new era for Jammu and Kashmir
4Aug By Stuart WhiteNo Comments
Opinion

Abrogation of Article 370: Dawn of a new era for Jammu and Kashmir

It is almost a year since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. It was this ‘special status’ that barred the Indian mainland as well as any foreigner from investing in the former state. Not only that, a cluster of privileged families freely ran the roost and created hereditary political lineage that was no different than the pre-Partition hereditary monarchy practiced in the state since the signing of the Amritsar Treaty between Maharaja of Jammu Gulab Singh and the East India Company at the end of the First Anglo-Sikh war in March 1846.The Amritsar Treaty signed on March 16, 1846, was the basis on which the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was established and which existed as an independent state for 101 years before Pakistan launched an unprovoked attack on the fa
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