Month: August 2023

Outspoken journalist from India Rana Ayub tweeted and said the Hindus chanted loud slogans “Jab Mulle kaate jaayenge, hum Ram naam chillayenge”.

“Well-meaning friends will ask “but how is Modi responsible for this?” Well- Meaning,” she tweeted.

 

According to Times of India report, hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants’ workers living in Haryana have had to flee due to violence targeted at the community following communal clashes in Nuh district earlier this week.

The Hindu fundamentalists threatened migrants with violence unless they left.

Nuh Violence 2023

As curfew in Nuh has limited the options for the workers to leave, several of them were seen travelling with small bags towards either Alwar or Sohna in an effort to flee the violence-hit district, according to the TOI.

As per Indian media, a total of 202 people arrested so far and 80 taken into preventive detention in connection with the recent communal clashes in Haryana, state Home Minister Anil Vij said on Friday.

Vij also said 102 FIRs have been registered, half of which are in Nuh alone and the rest in other districts, including Gurugram, Faridabad and Palwal.

Death toll in religious riots near India’s capital rises to 6

Riot police were patrolling urban neighbourhoods near India’s capital on Wednesday following a second night of sectarian riots that have killed six people so far.

The unrest began Monday when mobs hurled stones at a Hindu religious procession and set cars alight in the predominantly Muslim district of Nuh, around 75 kilometres (45 miles) south of New Delhi.

Arson and vandalism attacks broke out the following evening in parts of nearby Gurugram, a satellite city of the capital and a key business centre where Nokia, Samsung and other multinationals have their Indian headquarters.

One neighbourhood saw a mob of around 200 people armed with sticks and stones loot several meat shops and set fire to a restaurant while chanting Hindu religious slogans.

Haryana state chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said six people had been killed in the violence and 116 arrested so far.

“Those found guilty will not be spared. We are committed to the safety of the public,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON: The United States has said that it backs direct talks between arch-rivals India and Pakistan.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has proposed to initiate dialogue with the neighbouring nation, provided it is “serious”.

US State Department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing in Washington on Wednesday that America has long-supported such talks.

“As we have long said, we support direct dialogue between India and Pakistan on issues of concern. That has long been our position,” he said.

On Tuesday, in his bid to further regional development, PM Shehbaz reiterated his willingness to collaborate with India, emphasising that Pakistan harbours “nothing against anyone”.

Despite a history of strained ties between the two nations, marred by three wars since their independence in 1947, the premier seeks to promote valuable engagement.

However, bilateral relations have remained seriously impacted since India’s decision to revoke the special status of occupied Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, leading to a virtual standstill in diplomatic interactions between the two countries.

“We are prepared to talk with everyone, even with our neighbour, provided that the neighbour is serious to talk serious matters on the table because war is no more an option,” PM Shehbaz said.

He mentioned that the country has fought three wars with India in the last 75 years, which only resulted in increased poverty, unemployment, and lack of resources to finance education, health, and well-being of the people.

He stressed that this is not the way to adopt, but to fight through economic competition in the region.

“Because if there is any nuclear flashpoint, who will live to tell what happened? So (war) is not an option,” he said, insisting that while Pakistan understands the issue, it is also equally important for India to realise the same.

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir has said that bilateral ties between Pakistan and China are “unique” and the militaries of the two countries are “brothers in arms”.

He made these remarks while addressing the 96th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, which was commemorated at the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

 

 

The military’s media wing said the army chief was the chief guest on the occasion while Pang Chunxue, Chargé d’Affaires of the embassy of the People’s Republic of China, Major General Wang Zhong, Defence Attaché, Chinese Embassy officials and officers from tri-services of Pakistan attended the event.

While highlighting various facets of the deep-rooted ties between the two states, militaries, and the people, the COAS was quoted as saying: “Pakistan-China relationship is unique and robust that has proven its resilience in the face of all challenges.”

“The PLA and Pakistan Army are brothers in arms and our relationship will continue to contribute towards safeguarding our collective interests”, Gen Munir added.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chinese diplomat thanked the army chief for hosting the event for the 96th anniversary of the founding of the PLA.

“This all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between China and Pakistan has stood the test of the time and change of international landscapes”, the Chinese diplomat remarked.

“China & Pakistan have just jointly celebrated the 10th anniversary of the launch of CPEC and in the past months, COAS and other military leaders paid successful visits to China, which has strongly promoted the relationship between the two militaries”, she added.

The COAS felicitated the PLA and lauded its role in China’s defence, security and nation-building, the ISPR statement concluded.

Last week, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrived in Islamabad on a three-day official visit to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Addressing the ceremony, the Chinese dignitary termed CPEC an important project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), saying that the multibillion-dollar project significantly changed the lives of the people of Pakistan.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had said the two countries were entering the second phase of CPEC which would help promote investment, progress and prosperity not only for Pakistan but also for the entire region.

In his message to mark the decade of the CPEC, President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s unwavering support to Pakistan, saying: “No matter how the international landscape may change, China will always stand firmly with Pakistan”.

During the Chinese vice premier’s visit, both countries also signed six MoUs aiming to promote bilateral cooperation.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched naval drills on Wednesday near strategic Gulf islands controlled by Iran but claimed by the United Arab Emirates, state media said.

The manoeuvres, which were being held mainly near Abu Musa island but also around Greater and Lesser Tunb, came two weeks after the United States boosted its naval presence in the Gulf.

It was not immediately clear how long the exercises would last.

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval exercise started Wednesday morning for the defence of the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf,” the official IRNA news agency reported.

It quoted Guards navy commander Ali Ozmaee as saying that the drills “were held in Abu Musa island and Greater and Lesser Tunb”.

The three islands — located near the Strait of Hormuz, the vital sea passage between the Gulf and the open ocean through which a fifth of world oil output passes — have been a source of contention between the UAE and Iran for decades.

Last month, Iran summoned the Russian ambassador in Tehran to protest a statement by Gulf Arab governments and Moscow, challenging Tehran’s claim to the three islands.

IRNA said the Guards naval vessels were equipped with the Ghadir cruise missile system and Fath 360 ballistic missiles.

The Guards had also deployed unmanned surface vessels equipped with artificial intelligence, as well as warplanes, helicopters and aerial drones, the news agency added.

Last month, the US military said it was deploying a destroyer as well as F-35 and F-16 warplanes to the Middle East to deter Iran from seizing ships in the Gulf.

On July 6, the US Navy said the Guards seized a commercial vessel in the Gulf, a day after it accused Iranian forces of two similar attempts off Oman.

Iran later said the seized vessel was carrying “more than one million litres (220,000 gallons) of smuggled fuel”.

At least nine people were killed Wednesday in a police operation targeting criminal gangs in a complex of slums in Rio de Janeiro, authorities said, the latest in a series of deadly security force raids across Brazil.

The Rio raid brought the death toll from six days of police crackdowns on drug gangs in Brazil to at least 42, including 14 in Sao Paulo state and 19 in the northeastern state of Bahia.

Rio state police said officers had returned fire after coming under attack during a raid on a meeting by organized crime bosses in the Complexo da Penha group of favelas, on the city’s north side.

The deaths come amid mounting calls for independent investigations of alleged police abuses in Brazil, where the security forces have faced accusations of human-rights violations in their war with heavily armed drug gangs.

Rio state police said the operation came after officers received intelligence on a high-level meeting by gang leaders.

“A clash occurred when police teams came under attack by gunmen at the scene,” they said in a statement.

“Eleven suspects were wounded” and taken to the hospital, it said.

“Nine of them died of their injuries.”

A policeman was also wounded and is in stable condition, it added.

Rio state legislator Dani Monteiro noted the operation came just over a year after a May 2022 raid in a nearby favela that left 23 dead, the second-deadliest police operation in the city’s history.

Calling that raid a “massacre,” she criticized Rio state Governor Claudio Castro, a security hardliner and ally of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

“Castro’s (in)security policy must stop!” Monteiro, a lawmaker for the left-wing PSOL party, wrote on X, formerly called Twitter.

AFP reporters outside the hospital where the wounded were taken described scenes of anxious residents waiting for news on injured relatives, amid a heavy police contingent and helicopters hovering overhead.

 

In Sao Paulo, police launched a massive anti-gang operation after a 30-year-old special forces officer was shot dead Thursday last week while on patrol in the port city of Guaruja.

Police have killed 14 alleged criminals so far during the operation, according to Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, another Bolsonaro ally.

In the northeastern state of Bahia, officials meanwhile said 19 suspects in three different cities had been killed since Friday in clashes with police.

In all the cases, authorities said police had returned fire after coming under attack.

However, the killings have drawn criticism from rights groups in Brazil, where accusations of abuses by security forces are frequent.

The Sao Paulo operation shows “clear signs of vengeance for the death of a police officer,” said rights group Amnesty International.

“Residents have accused officers of abuses, intimidation and torture.”

Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s justice minister, Flavio Dino, has also criticized the operation, saying the police reaction “doesn’t seem proportional to the crime committed.”

Last year, 6,429 people were killed by police in Brazil, according to the Public Security Forum, a watchdog group.

The landlocked southern African country heads to the polls on August 23 to elect the president and legislature in what analysts expect to be a tense affair amid a crackdown on the opposition and rigging fears.

Large-scale disinformation campaigns in the run-up to a vote are now a staple across the continent. Zimbabwe is no exception, but the situation there is more opaque.

In Kenya and Nigeria, which recently held votes, misinformation peddlers hung out in the open, mostly on Facebook and Twitter, while in Zimbabwe WhatsApp is king of the rapid spread, analysts say.

This is because that’s where most voters are – but the app’s encrypted messaging service makes fact-checking harder, as fake content proliferates undetected.

Chris Chinaka, editor-in-chief of ZimFact, a Zimbabwean fact-checking group, said staff now spend most of the time flicking through WhatsApp groups for messages to debunk.

“For most Zimbabweans, the internet is WhatsApp, and a lot of communication happens there,” said Nqaba Matshazi, a journalist working at the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) in Zimbabwe.

Internet penetration is quite low in Zimbabwe, where only about a third of the country’s more than 15 million people are online, according to a 2023 report by DataReportal, a data analysis firm.

Only nine percent of those who have internet use social media.

WhatsApp has a much broader reach and many Zimbabweans consider it a safe means of communication – a valued commodity in a country where criticising the government can land people in jail.

In May, Zimbabwe approved a broadly worded law imposing harsh penalties for damaging the country’s “sovereignty and national interest”, which critics say effectively bans government criticism.

Bots and pseudonyms

Few people on Twitter write about politics under their real name, as that comes with the “risk of you being arrested”, said Matshazi.

But WhatsApp is not a free zone either, as messages on the app have also landed people behind bars, he added.

The law worsened “a festering wound in an environment where already freedom of expression is quite limited,” said Matshazi.

Still, traditional social media are not immune from fake content.

Political analyst Jamie Mighti said Twitter was awash with bots that seem to have been commissioned to push government talking points.

Some embellish the accomplishments of the ruling ZANU-PF party, in power since independence in 1980.

Others repeat President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s view that Western sanctions are to blame for the country’s economic collapse.

The United States and Europe deny this, noting that the measures target specific individuals accused of graft and right abuses.

Doctored videos

Manipulated photos and videos are also circulating in large numbers – with both ZANU-PF and the leading opposition party, the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), making good use of them, analysts say.

“(They) have used doctored images of rallies from the past, or from totally different contexts, to project the false impression of overwhelming support,” said Bhekizulu Tshuma, a media studies professor at the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe.

The parties have also used the tactic to suggest their rivals have few followers, he added.

Campaign messages have been deliberately distorted.

In one example, a clip of CCC leader Nelson Chamisa was edited to make it sound as if he advocated for the reversal of radical land reforms enacted by late president Robert Mugabe – and for the land to be returned to white farmers.

Disinformation can also be easily found on television, where experts say state broadcaster ZBC often depicts the CCC as a party with little support and takes its leader’s speeches out of context.

“It is a matter of public record that ZBC refuses to give any independent or fair coverage to the CCC,” the party’s spokeswoman Fadzayi Mahere wrote on Twitter, which is being rebranded as “X”.

“Not only is the state media’s coverage unequal, but whatever token coverage is accorded to the opposition is biased, derogatory and manipulated.”

Voices critical of ZANU-PF also have limited reach in South Africa, which is home to a large Zimbabwean diaspora, said Mighti.

Zimbabweans abroad, in South Africa and the UK in particular, also play a critical role in amplifying misinformation, analysts say.

“A lot of the discourse about the Zimbabwean election happens on the internet and in South African, European and American media, primarily because of the restrictions in Zimbabwe and the fear of reprisals,” he said.

“The Indian parliament cannot declare itself as a constituent assembly,” senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who appeared on behalf of the petitioner, told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

According to The Wire, Mr Sibal made his submissions on behalf of the petitioner, Mohammad Akbar Lone, on how the Modi government unilaterally unravelled India’s unique federal scheme five years ago, while undermining crucial elements of the due process and the rule of law.

 

Tracing the history of the “accession” of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to India, which Pakistan disputes, Mr Sibal shed light on Clause 3 of Article 370 which provided that any alteration to the relationship between the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian union could only be made upon the recommendation of the constituent assembly for the state.

Indian chief justice starts hearing slew of petitions against ending Article 370 for held Kashmir

Article 370 (3) of the Indian constitution, before its reading down in 2019, said: “Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this article, the President may, by public notification, declare that this article shall cease to be operative or shall be operative only with such exceptions and modifications and from such date as he may specify: Provided that the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of the State referred to in clause (2) shall be necessary before the President issues such a notification.”

On Aug 5, 2019, the newly inserted Article 367(4)(d) amended Article 370 (3) by replacing the expression “Constituent Assembly of the state” with the “Legislative Assembly of the State”.

Will of the people

During the hearing, Mr Sibal contended that the concurrence of the state government provided by the governor did not express the will of the people.

He argued that Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir had a separate constitution, and therefore, the parliament had a limited scope to enact legislation for the state. Powers given to the state by its own constitution were read down by parliament, he submitted.

But the constitution bench interrupted Mr Sibal to question him whether a provision, intended to be temporary in 1950, could become permanent in 1957, only because the state’s constituent assembly had completed its task of framing the constitution for the state, and dissolved itself.

Mr Sibal explained that the proviso in Article 370(3) was incorporated to ensure that the article could be changed during the existence of the state’s Constituent Assembly.

The use of the word “temporary” in the marginal note of Article 370 serves the purpose of indicating that when Article 370 was introduced, it could be amended/abrogated with the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, he clarified.

Mr Sibal suggested framers of the constitution in 1950 would have included a reference to the state legislature if they had intended that it should be able to make such a recommendation.

In his view, the state’s Constituent Assembly had the exclusive power to determine the state’s relationship with India and to recommend the abrogation or modification of Article 370.

The petitioner submitted that the constituent assembly stands for enacting a constitution for the future, and it is essentially a political exercise to take into account the aspirations of the people.

“Constitution itself is a political document; drafting of [the] constitution is a political exercise. Once the constitution comes into place, all institutions are governed by the constitution, and those institutions are limited in the exercise of their powers consistent with the provisions of the constitution,” he told the bench.

“Parliament cannot convert itself as a Constituent Assembly. That’s done. [The] Indian Parliament cannot declare itself as a Constituent Assembly. Where does parliament get that power to decide the legislature of the state?” he asked.

Mr. Sibal submitted the task before the constituent assembly was not a law-making exercise. “There was a disparity. There were 562 princely states which had to be amalgamated. Each of them had certain conditions. Jammu and Kashmir was an exception, and therefore, it was constitutionally grafted in Article 370. You can’t jettison the people of J&K,” he elaborated.

He pointed out that the residuary power was with the state legislature/state government throughout, unlike other states.

Mr Sibal deplored that the withdrawal of the special status for the state was a move away from representative democracy. Never in the history of the country, a state could be converted into a union territory, he said.

He will continue his submissions on Thursday (today).

Economists believe a 0.25 percentage point rise – to 5.25% – is the most likely increase to be announced at middal

However, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) defied expectations last time when they hiked the rate by a bigger than expected 0.5 percentage points in June. There are some who think that could happen again.

Governor Andrew Bailey has said that increases will help bring down high inflation in the UK to the Bank’s target of 2% – although some critics are not convinced it is the right strategy.

Rising interest rates mean bigger borrowing costs – including larger monthly mortgage payments for many homeowners, which can have a knock-on effect of higher rents for tenants.

But, in theory, they should also result in much better rates for savers. However, concerns have been raised that many banks are not fully passing on such benefits to customers.

The Bank of England’s “shock” hike in the interest rate in June came after inflation did not fall as predicted, and instead remained at 8.7% in the year up to May.

However, inflation then dropped by more than expected to 7.9% the following month.

The last time the bank base rate stood at 5.25% was 15 years ago in March 2008.

The MPC’s announcement will be closely watched for its impact on the housing market – and the wider economy, amid fears that rising rates could help push the UK into recession.

The Nationwide Building Society said earlier this week that property values declined by 3.8% in July, the biggest drop in 14 years. It blamed dampened demand on stretched affordability for mortgages.

According to figures from Moneyfacts, the average two-year fixed residential mortgage rate was 6.85% on Monday and Tuesday.

Over the same period, the average five-year fixed residential mortgage rate was 6.37%, the financial information company said.

A survey of economists found they believe there is a 64% probability of the interest rate being increased by 0.25 percentage points on Thursday, and a 36% chance of a 0.50 percentage points rise.

But Joseph Calnan, from payments provider Moneycorp, said it was “anyone’s guess” what the MPC would do.

He said: “For the first time in a long time, we’re unsure what to expect at this next meeting. We could see a 50 bps [basis points] hike, a 25 bps hike, or even no change at all given [inflation] finally eased off in June after a stubborn 11 months.”