In-Diadem World

 

 

                                                                     IN-DIADEM WORLD

 

 

 

 

                                                            BY: Dr. GOPAL RAYAPPA KOLEKAR

 

 

 

 

                                                                                 Dedication

 

 

                                                          This book is dedicated to my sister

                                                                    Bharata Yeshawind Patil

 

 

 

 

 

 

Begging is dangerous to one’s existence in all walks of life. Hence none should indulge in begging in whatsoever a manner.

 

 

 

PREFACE

I have used the word, In-Diadem in this book. You will wonder from where this word has come. It has its history. In the olden days, the British coined this word. It means that countries that are only interested in having natural sex and food, do not care about science; for such countries and people, the word, In-Diadem was applied. In the old Oxford Dictionary, it is mentioned that the meaning of In-Diadem is: old-fashioned criminals who are useless in real life. They are always interested in conversing in their unscientific language throughout life. The Britishers of those days thought they were scientific and well developed, and the first Industrial Revolution took place in England between 1760 and 1870.

Me being an author, I find that this term perfectly applies to developing countries. Their lifestyle is found only In-Diadem. To remove this In-Diademness, I wrote a book on Education, “How Should the Indian Education System be?” Despite this book being widely circulated, it is observed that people are not foregoing In-Diademness. In-Diademness is such a disease that it will not go away quickly. Illiterate persons are enjoying their In-Diadem life as they do not have any better work to do other than indulging in natural sex. Due to this reason, biological sex also becomes a revenue-generating business for them. Each country's present independent administration policy creates wars and terrorist activities on Earth. In 2022; during the ongoing Russia and Ukraine war thousands of people died and most of Ukraine was devastated.

Please tell me who is responsible for that one mentally ill political leader. Mental illness can come at any stage of life. Because of one person’s mental illness, should everybody suffer? To put a stop to that, we should implement a Global system of Administration in the world. I have already published a book on “The Modern Administration of the Earth.” Despite such a book being available, the present In-Diadem people do not wish to follow the guidelines outlined in the book. From my telecast video of life in the 24th century, the Global Administration will be implemented on Earth. My question is why the present people on Earth should not bring into practice my vision of the Global Administration of the Earth from the beginning of the 21st century. I see this foolishness in the present population of the world and such foolishness should be eliminated. With the help of my book, people will leave their In-Diademness and usher in the Global Administration to bring peace and wellness to all the people on Earth.

 

Gopal Rayappa Kolekar

 

Bangalore

Date: October 10, 2022

 

 

 

 

© All Rights Reserved

 

IN­-DIADEM WORLD

 

Author: Dr. Gopal Rayappa Kolekar

 

A Book in English.

 

Under the Indian Copyright Act, all rights of the contents of this book are reserved with the author, Dr. Gopal Rayappa Kolekar. No part of this book, including the name, title, design, or inside matter or photographs, may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, in any language. Breach of any of these conditions is liable to legal action.

All disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of Bangalore courts.

 

First Edition: October 2022

ISBN Number : 978-1-387-49023-3

 

Published by:

Gopal Rayappa Kolekar

Lane: Patil Galli, Post: Kangrali B.K.

Taluka and District: Belagavi: 590 010

State: Karnataka, India.

Email: gopalkolekar@yahoo.com

 

                                                                       AN INTRODUCTION TO Dr. GOPAL KOLEKAR
                                                                                            - a multi-faceted author

 

 

Dr. Gopal Rayappa Kolekar, was born on 14th August 1972, in a small village called Kangrali B.K. in Belagavi, Karnataka state in India. He pursued his Primary and High School education at his place of birth. He graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from a college in Belagavi.

 

He has written five books in English. Despite English being a foreign language, it is extensively used for scientific purposes. For example, how should the Education System be in countries like India? In the present times, due to mass terrorism and hatred, the world is suffering by waging endless wars. 

Dr. Gopal Rayappa Kolekar, a multi-faceted author, puts forth his views on how the current administration should be conducted. According to him, it should be based on liberal thinking, and the central power should be inspired by Christ’s message. English for Foreign Students is a book recommended only for adults who have completed their primary education in their Regional Language and want to learn English for their day-to-day work.  The author has revealed some scientific secrets in the book titled Secrets from Gopal. In his book, The Modern Administration of the Earth, he has written about what transpired in 2018 and how such problems could be dealt with in the future. This is my sixth book.

________________________________________________________________

                                                                                            SECRETS OF JESUS

Jesus, who was the cleverest person on Earth, wrote The Bible at an early age and started to educate society, but some people kept on telling him not to engage in such activities. But Jesus didn’t want to pay heed to the advice of such people. Many politicians of that time feared that their detrimental activities would be exposed before society and hence opposed Jesus. Jesus was advising them not to indulge in criminal activities which were against the community, but politicians wanted to keep it a secret because their studies and research were against humanity.

Jesus was also one of them, but he didn’t want to torment the people. Peacefully, the research could be carried out, but other politicians didn’t like this statement. Jesus thought that humanity should be protected. This disagreement increased to a great extent. Finally, the political class decided that the death penalty be imposed on Jesus. Accordingly one day, Jesus was slowly killed before society and then they nailed him to a Red Cross and threatened the other political members that if anybody indulges in such activities in the future; their life would also end in the same manner as Jesus’ life.

The next morning, Jesus flashed his face on the cloud. Seeing this vision, other political members decided that Jesus’ name may be written in the future as ‘The Lord Jesus’ and beyond that nothing more. From then onwards, no one was interested in indulging in such activities. I am also not interested in opening the secrets of ‘The Lord Jesus’, but I want to reveal how long such a situation will remain. Even today I tell people to please change the Red Cross of ‘The Lord Jesus’ into the Green Cross, but nobody cares.

The present world has two problems and they are Language and Administration. If these two issues are solved, the world will become a peaceful and better place to live for the world’s inhabitants going towards progress in the scientific field. According to my telecast video of life on Earth in the 24th century, man will work for only two years in his eighteenth and nineteenth years of age. In the future, science will grow to such an extent that the Government will supply free products to people for the entire duration of their lives.

As I mentioned in my education book, firstly the language problem should be solved; the world’s universal language should be made into English. English in the present world has international reach and is scientific. English is spoken in many countries of the world. Therefore English is the language for the future of the world. I am saying this because, in the olden days, high-speed transportation and information technology were not available. So, for human communication in a small area, people used many languages to understand each other. Now the situation has changed by leaps and bounds in the present world. Science has seen enormous growth in transportation and information technology. We can conduct all our work in the world in one language and that is English.

With the aid of the directions given in my published book on education titled “How should the Indian Education System be?” I am proud to say that just in 20 years, the world’s common administrative language will be English. But some illiterate people constantly disregard the guidelines outlined in my book. And it may be seen that by using their languages they are speaking proudly in the present world. First, I have to educate them on what language means and for what purpose it is to be used. Only then will these persons understand the meaning of language.

Language means what I want to say first; the language makes for sounds created by our mouth—different sounds are used in an alternative manner to make words. Each word conveys a specific meaning. The understanding of the human brain is such that it goes through small sentences and the method of construction of these sentences is called grammar. Sounds may vary by whatever consonant that is in it. Why should the wide-ranging English vocabulary sound not be used throughout the world? But people are showing more interest in protecting their outdated and unscientific languages. Unscientific languages mean that they do not support science because of their everyday mundane vocabulary. Such languages are useless in the present world, and they should be wiped out. We speak in different sounds which the listener can’t understand. Therefore, we have to bring in the unique language of the world. I believe that the world language should be English which is essential to work in the 21st century so that the coming generation does not face such a problem. Now we should see writing means what we speak, but it is listening from a small distance. If we want to send a speech to a far-off distance, man finds the sound recorded in script form. Man developed the letter for each sound and wrote it on paper. In this way, the sound is scripted as it is spoken in the scripted form using different letters and signs. After this, the letter can be deciphered even in a faraway place. By reading the letter, one can understand whatever speech is scripted in a letter by using his sense of understanding. This is called the brain’s understanding method of scripted language. Nowadays, technology has improved and we can record sounds electronically. And this is also possible when we can hear the sound even at far-off distances with the help of sound waves via the telephone. Hence the universal language should be English, and no other language should exist 50 years from now.

Now watch what In-Diadem means in my broadcast video which goes back four centuries and forward four centuries. In the 16th century, the British kept In-Diadem standards which I finally revealed. And in the future 24th century, the Global Administration will come to Earth.

Please do watch the incredible video of life on Earth in the 24th century at this link: Gopal Kolekar - YouTube

The secret of the vocabulary of INDIA

 

To understand the secret of the vocabulary of India; please begin by splitting the word INDIA into two parts, as shown below:

IN + DIA

Now add the letters DEM to DIA to make it DIADEM.

Now it becomes:

IN DIADEM

The above two words convey the following meaning:

The welcome one gets in a pleasant country

Where women wear a garland of flowers in their hair.

The secret of India’s nomenclature now stands revealed.

In case some of you have any hesitation in accepting the above statement, you are welcome to contact the author after consulting the Grammarian of the British Oxford Dictionary at the following id: gopalkolekar@yahoo.com

 

Primary Education in the World

 

Primary education is being imparted to children in different countries. In the USA and UK, they educate children in their mother tongue which is English. Other countries are providing education in their mother tongue which could be anything from Chinese, German, African, etc. South Asian countries offer education to their children in their mother tongue and English. In today’s world, many languages are there. They are creating confusion in understanding different countries’ people and in the progress of science. In many countries, research papers are published in their local language and not in English. This kind of communication gap hinders scientific research. I am requesting that a unique language be used in the world and that should be English.

In South Asia, education is taught in a very incorrect manner. There are two education systems: one is in the regional language and the other is in English. There is no problem with the English Education system but there is a problem with the regional language system. Up to the tenth standard, the children are taught all the subjects in their mother tongue and English as one language subject. With such teaching, children are more attracted to their mother tongue and ignore English. When they enter college, these countries can’t give a college education in their mother tongue because these are unscientific languages with a common vocabulary. Through such activities, these regional language students badly fail to take a college education, and afterward, they are forced to do menial jobs with low salaries. Such senseless children lead to illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism, due to a lack of English knowledge. To avoid further illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism globally, please follow one language formula and give special education to children in all countries according to my published book “How Should the Indian Education System be?” In just 20 years, the universal language will be English.

The present world’s most acute problem is its independent administrative policy. This means each country takes its own decision in administering its country. With such an administrative policy, ill-advised political leaders rule the world according to their whims and fancies. They don’t have sufficient knowledge to understand what proper administration is. In the present world, there are still people who have faith in such independent administration policy of each country. In the current scenario, people don’t have the knowledge to usher in a global administration policy even after the publication of my book on “The Modern Administration of the Earth.”

Hence, I am referring to this era as the In-Diadem era of the world. In this era, people are more interested in natural sex, illiteracy, poverty, and selfishness and think only about eating like animals throughout their life. We are sorry to call them human beings. They are animals with five senses, brain software only. They are a big zero in real social life and are useless to lead a life. Man is a knowledgeable animal, but his brain circuit has failed, and he shows his mental retardation in his daily life. With an independent administration policy, some countries are aggressively encouraging terrorism and wars with other countries. Nobody is in full control of the country’s government. There is UNO, but nobody cares about it.

It can be observed that those who don’t have any knowledge and are jobless such as beggars are interfering in the present politics of the world. Their only ambition in life is how to procure free food for eating. In reality, there is no necessity for it. The people of the world should maintain discipline and conduct themselves as good human beings. This is a request to usher in the Global administration policy on Earth. Due to the present faulty administration policy, half of the people in the world are associated with administration ruling with no work or money. The question is that to rule the world it is essential for half of the world's citizens. Please follow the guidelines mentioned in my administration book on the Earth. All problems will be solved automatically. Man is stupid by nature, but what is the use of having so much stupidity which does not add any meaning to real life? So be clever and forget In-Diademness and be good human beings.

The present media does not follow any rules and regulations for publishing /broadcasting news. They should refer to the guidelines given in the Administration book in the chapter ‘The Role of Media in the Present World.’ I have observed that people are learning in schools and colleges and having several degrees in different fields of education from childhood. They teach so much knowledge and I doubt that it is only how to do In-Diadem activities in their lives. I just want them to read the book and follow the guidelines mentioned in it. What is the difficulty in that? I am not asking them to conduct research by doing hard work. Finally, I can say God decides the world’s timing, and only then does it come to man’s knowledge properly, and this will happen only in the 24th century.

Towards Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

I think it is pertinent to mention here that the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons is observed on September 26 every year. The devastating impact of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is well known. This apart, over 2000 nuclear tests have been conducted to date; the last one in 2017, by North Korea. Such tests have caused cancers, birth defects and chronic diseases, among other illnesses in people, and severely damaged the natural features of the world.

An estimated 12,705 nuclear weapons still exist in the world as of 2022, with the United States and Russia, owning most of them. The United Nations’ objective to achieve total nuclear disarmament was underlined in the first resolution of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1946. To raise public awareness about nuclear weapons, the UNGA, in 2009, declared August 29 as the International Day against Nuclear Tests. Then, in December 2013, the UNGA declared September 26 as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons to mark the high-level UNGA meeting on nuclear disarmament on September 26 that year.

Each year, the UN member states, civil society, parliamentarians, non-governmental organisations, mass media, academia, and individuals celebrate and promote the international day through various educational activities. The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons reminds people of the dangers of nuclear weapons and urges world governments to cooperate and bring about a permanent and complete nuclear disarmament. Total nuclear weapons elimination remains a dream for now. However, I am of the opinion that The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons rekindles that dream every year.

August 29 marks the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The day, declared by the United Nations in 2009, aims to raise awareness of the effects of nuclear weapons testing and achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world. On July 16, 1945, during World War II, the United States detonated the world’s first nuclear weapon, codenamed Trinity, over the New Mexico desert. A month later, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 100,000 people instantly. Thousands more died from their injuries, radiation sickness and cancer in the years that followed, bringing the toll closer to 200,000.

While Russia and the US have dismantled thousands of warheads, several countries are thought to be increasing their stockpiles, notably China. The only country to voluntarily relinquish nuclear weapons is South Africa. In 1989, the government halted its nuclear weapons programme and in 1990 began dismantling its six nuclear weapons. In 1991, South Africa joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear country. At least eight countries have carried out a total of 2,056 nuclear tests since 1945.

In 1954, the US exploded its largest nuclear weapon, a 15 megaton bomb, on the surface of the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the test was codenamed Castle Bravo. The power of the nuclear test was miscalculated by scientists, and it resulted in radiation contamination that impacted the inhabitants of the Atoll. The nuclear fallout of the explosion is said to have spread over 18,130 square kilometers (7,000 square miles).

The Soviet Union carried out the second highest number of nuclear tests at 715 tests between 1949 and 1990. The USSR’s first nuclear test was on August 29, 1949. The test, codenamed RDS-1, was conducted at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. According to the CTBTO, the Soviet Union conducted 456 tests at the Semipalatinsk test site, with devastating consequences for the local population such as genetic defects and high cancer rates.

Kazakhstan closed the Semipalatinsk test site on August 29, 1991. Following this move, the UN established August 29 as the International Day against Nuclear Tests in 2009. France has carried out 210 nuclear tests, while the United Kingdom and China have each carried out 45 tests. India has carried out three nuclear tests, while Pakistan has carried out two.

The largest nuclear detonations

 

The largest nuclear explosion occurred in 1961, when the Soviet Union exploded the Tsar Bomba on Novaya Zemlya north of the Arctic Circle. The explosion’s yield was 50 megatons, 3,300 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Other major nuclear explosions by different nations include China’s largest detonation in Lop Nur in 1976, the test had a yield of four megatons.

Impact of different levels of radiation

 

Nuclear testing has immediate and long-term effects caused by radiation and radioactive fallout. Increased rates of cancer have been associated with nuclear testing, with studies showing that thyroid cancer is linked to radionuclides. After a nuclear test, large areas of land remain radioactive for decades after the test. The health impact of different levels of radiation varies from nausea and vomiting to death within days.

Will Russia use Nuclear Weapons?

 

President Vladimir Putin's threat to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine if Russian territorial integrity is threatened has sparked deep discussion in the West as to how it would respond. I don't think that the Russian president is willing to be the first to unleash nuclear weapons since the US bombed Japan in 1945. I am of the view that Moscow would likely deploy one or more tactical or battlefield nuclear bombs. These are small weapons, ranging from 0.3 kilotons to 100 kilotons of explosive power, compared to the 1.2 megatons of the largest US strategic warhead or the 58 megaton bomb Russia tested in 1961. Tactical bombs are designed to have a limited impact on the battlefield, compared to strategic nuclear weapons which are designed to fight and win all-out wars. The atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 to devastating effect was just 15 kilotons. I think Russia's goal in using a tactical nuclear bomb in Ukraine would be to frighten it into surrender or submission to negotiations.

Moscow could instead send a strong message and avoid significant casualties by detonating a nuclear bomb over water or exploding one high over Ukraine to generate an electromagnetic pulse that would knock out electronic equipment. The United States has positioned about 100 of its own tactical nuclear weapons in NATO countries and could respond in kind against Russian forces.

Russia’s test-fires new hypersonic Tsirkon missiles

 

In January 2022, Russia successfully test-fired around 10 new Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missiles from a submarine. The Zircon missile would be capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and has a range of 1,000 kilometres. The Tsirkon Cruise Missile will join Avangard glide vehicles and the air-launched Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles in Russia’s hypersonic arsenal. It is one of several hypersonic missiles under development in Russia.

North Korea authorises nuclear strikes by law

 

North Korea has approved a law that gives it the authority to launch a nuclear attack in advance. With this law, North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state has become irreversible. According to the law, among other things, the North may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear or non-nuclear attack by hostile forces against the state’s leadership and the command structure of its nuclear forces. North Korea, this year tested a record number of weapons, including an intercontinental ballistic missile. The supreme leader of North Korea is Kim Jong-un.

North Korea fires two ballistic missiles at Japan

 

It justified its recent blitz of sanctions-busting tests as necessary countermeasures against joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. North Korea blamed Washington for "escalating the military tensions on the Korean peninsula".

South Korea's military said it had detected two short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Samsok area in Pyongyang towards the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan. Japan's coastguard also confirmed the launch of two potential ballistic missiles, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida telling reporters that the recent testing spate was "unacceptable".

North Korea's long-time ally and economic benefactor Beijing also blamed Washington for provoking the spate of launches by Kim Jong Un's regime. Deputy Chinese ambassador to the UN Geng Shuang said North Korea's recent launches were "closely related" to military exercises in the region conducted by the United States and its allies. Geng accused the US of "poisoning the regional security environment". Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have ramped up joint military drills in recent weeks, including large-scale naval manoeuvers and anti-submarine exercises.

North Korea flies warplanes near South Korea

 

South Korea says North Korea flew 12 warplanes near their mutual border on October 6, 2022, prompting South Korea to launch 30 military planes in response. South Korea's military says eight North Korean fighter jets and four bombers flew in formation. It says the North Korean planes were believed to have conducted air-to-surface firing drills. It says South Korea responded by scrambling 30 warplanes.

 

US, South Korean and Japanese destroyers launched joint drills later on Thursday off the Korean Peninsula's east coast to horn their abilities to search, track and intercept North Korean ballistic missiles, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the launches didn't pose an immediate threat to United States or its allies, but still highlighted the “destabilizing impact” of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Russia and Ukraine war – the role of UNO and NATO

Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, which is in its eighth month as of October 2022, came at a singularly inopportune time for a world recovering from the economic impacts of a global pandemic. The fact that the conflict shows no signs of ending is worse news as the global economy continues to lose momentum. Russia’s inroads into the east and south of Ukraine and its staying power against stringent Western sanctions and the arming of Ukraine with sophisticated weaponry have proven to be an unexpected dynamite. With predictions of an imminent Russian withdrawal and/or the overthrow of President Vladimir Putin proving premature, the forecast is gloomy.

At the centre of the conflict is Europe’s ability to wean itself off its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas, particularly the latter. The sharp spike in global fossil fuel prices immediately after the conflict offered a wake-up call on the long-term impacts. Now, though the prices have cooled somewhat, partly on account of subdued demand from a slowing global economy, the price of gas, which is used principally for heating, remains volatile as the European winter approaches.

The precipitating conflict between Russia and Ukraine was not anticipated the way it has evolved. When Russia recognised the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, it was clear that Moscow was going to take matters head-on, but no one expected it to go for an all-out war against Ukraine. The separatists control barely one-third of the territory of the two regions, while the Ukrainian forces control two-thirds. Therefore, the moot point was whether Russia would try to take the territory controlled by Ukrainian forces. Hence, one would have expected that Russian President Vladimir Putin would take some such action.

For months since US President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Putin launched a bilateral dialogue in Geneva in June last year, the two countries have been discussing measures to repair their relations and to make them stable and predictable. The dialogue has involved, besides the presidents, their foreign ministers, national security advisers, chiefs of the armed forces, heads of intelligence services and foreign ministry officials at senior levels. The factors covered have included a range of bilateral and multilateral issues that bedevilled their relationship, since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. But the important spotlight was on the European theatre, where the simmering tensions in eastern Ukraine and NATO’s strategic posture sustained the acrimony between Russia and the US-led NATO.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch military strikes in Ukraine has escalated the ongoing confrontation between Russia and the West to another level. The action comes after months of suspense over Russia’s intentions and actions as its troops were amassed at Ukraine’s borders with Russia as well as Belarus. Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of adding fuel to the fire by supplying advanced rockets to Ukraine and said it did not trust Kyiv not to fire them into Russia.

 

The roots of the conflict go back in history. In July 2021, President Putin wrote an article in which he emphasised the close historical and civilizational connections between the Russians and Ukrainians. He emphasised that Ukraine has never been an independent country and was historically part of Russia; it was a negation of Ukraine’s existence as an independent sovereign state. The least that Russia wanted was that Ukraine should be in its sphere of influence and not join NATO. Russia's grievances against the US and Western Europe go back more than 20 years. Russia was opposed to the expansion of NATO, a Cold War-era grouping, to include the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, especially into former Soviet space. In 1997 and 2004, NATO expanded to include former Communist countries despite Russian objections.

After the 9/11 attacks against the US, Russia provided unequivocal support to the US war on terror in Afghanistan. However, the very next year, in 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty without consulting Russia. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq, overriding Russian objections. Hence, there have been many issues on which President Putin had serious grievances against the US and NATO.

ROOTS OF RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT

 

In February 2007, at the Munich security conference, President Putin made a scathing criticism of the US unilateralism and the policy of humanitarian intervention. The 2008 Russia-Georgia war further deepened differences between Russia and NATO. Another issue on which Russia had serious reservations was the US policy of support for regime change, the so-called colour revolutions. After the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovych was replaced by anti-Russian Yushchenko, who wanted closer ties with the European Union.

In 2005, Putin described the Soviet dissolution as the "greatest catastrophe of the 20th century". Since then, he has been trying to bring the former Soviet states into the Russian-sponsored Eurasian Economic Community. Ukraine, as the second-most populous country, lying between Russia and Europe, and the place of origin of the Russian Civilisation holds special significance. In 2010, the pro-Russian Yanukovych regained the presidency and in 2013 stopped negotiations for an association agreement with the EU, which led to widespread protests. In February 2014, he fled Ukraine. It angered Putin so much that he invaded and occupied the Ukrainian region of Crimea, where Sevastopol, the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, is situated.

It is still not clear what Putin wants to achieve through military invasion. The stated objective is the safety of the Russian-speaking population of Donetsk and Luhansk, part of which had been under the control of the Russian-backed separatists. Putin declared that he wants to demilitarise Ukraine. But the way Russian forces launched air, sea, and missile attacks against various Ukrainian cities, it seems Putin wants to weaken and neutralise Ukraine to the extent that it can never pose a security threat to Russia in the future. He also wants to force the US and NATO to take Russian objections and concerns seriously.

What might have strengthened Putin’s resolve is the US/NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan and the realisation that Europe/NATO would not go to war with Russia over Ukraine, still not a NATO member. Russia has been able to amass a 600-billion-dollar foreign exchange reserve, with which Russia can survive for many years. The 2014 sanctions annexation of Crimea, created a problem for Moscow, but not very serious.

Russia also has an economic super-power China on its side. Europe imports more than 40 per cent of its gas and oil from Russia, which is beneficial for Moscow too. Hence, many countries in Europe, including Germany, are not keen on very severe sanctions. As of now, Europe seems united against what they see as unprovoked Russian aggression. India has been under tremendous pressure because of the conflict. The conflict may lead to a rise in international crude oil prices, putting a serious burden on the country’s economy. I am of the opinion that in view of India’s very special ties with Moscow, New Delhi hasn’t criticized Russian actions. It wants a peaceful resolution of the conflict, taking into consideration the legitimate security interest of all the parties to the conflict. Ukraine’s interest is its sovereignty and territorial integrity, while Russia wants Ukraine and other post-Soviet states should not be allowed to join NATO. It may undermine Ukraine’s freedom of choice, but perhaps that may guarantee its core security interest.

For months since US President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Putin launched a bilateral dialogue in Geneva in June last year, the two countries have been discussing measures to repair their relations and to make them stable and predictable. The dialogue has involved, besides the presidents, their foreign ministers, national security advisers, chiefs of the armed forces, heads of intelligence services and foreign ministry officials at senior levels. The factors covered have included a range of bilateral and multilateral issues that bedevilled their relationship, since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. But the important spotlight was on the European theatre, where the simmering tensions in eastern Ukraine and NATO’s strategic posture sustained the acrimony between Russia and the US-led NATO.

President Biden’s objective in seeking a stable, predictable relationship with Russia was to disengage the US from its politically and financially costly engagements in conflicts and tensions in Europe and West Asia, so that it could concentrate its focus on its domestic challenges and its principal strategic adversary, China. Russia welcomed this outreach as an opportunity to reengage politically and economically with the US and Europe. It would enhance Russia’s global profile and promote much-needed technology and investment flow into the country.

At the same time, President Putin stipulated that the engagement should be on equal terms. Russia wanted an amicable settlement of the Ukraine impasse, an assurance that NATO would not further expand into Ukraine and a mutual agreement to limit the number and range of advanced weapons systems deployed in NATO countries on Russia’s periphery, with reciprocal obligations on its side. While some diplomatic fudge could have resolved the second issue and there was a reasonable meeting ground on the third, the first proved to be impossible to resolve to the mutual satisfaction of Russia, Ukraine and other European stakeholders.

From indications available now, this is what led the Russian President to precipitate matters by launching direct military strikes in Ukraine. His stated purpose is to neutralize security threats to Russia from Ukrainian territory both from western-supplied military installations in that country and from right-wing, anti-Russian “neo-Nazis”. The Russian military action has drawn widespread condemnation.

India treading carefully

 

India will have to consider its response and actions carefully. During the long-drawn-out episode of the massing of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, India took a balanced position in the UN Security Council and in its official statements essentially called on all parties to follow the route of diplomacy and accommodate the legitimate security concerns of all stakeholders in the interests of long-term peace and stability. While this may seem like mere platitudes, it did capture the essence of what all stakeholders were themselves saying.

The US-led West was, even while criticizing Russian intimidation by troop build-up, asking Russia to come to the negotiating table. Russia was also saying it wanted diplomacy, but that the West was not taking its security demands seriously. The fact that Russia had legitimate security concerns was acknowledged by the US and NATO, even if there were differences with Russia about their extent and nature. Moreover, as long as Russian troops were on Russian territory (and in Belarus on invitation), international law had not been breached.

The situation is now very different since military action has taken place. The pressure on India will be intense to unequivocally condemn Russia’s actions as a contravention of international law, which in fact it is.

 

This presents India with a challenge. But we have been there before, in 2014, when Russia practically annexed Crimea by arranging a referendum there in which people voted overwhelmingly for the peninsular region to accede to Russia. India has long held the position that the principle of self-determination cannot be applied to enable parts of countries to secede
from it.

At the same time, while recognizing that this act violated that principle, India also understood the strategic and security considerations that moved Russia to take that action. Recognizing that this was a core concern of Russia, India did not publicly criticize this Russian action. However, our unease was expressed by the Prime Minister in a telephone conversation with President Putin, in which he drew attention to our position on self-determination while supporting diplomatic solutions in the legitimate interests of all countries.

The India-Russia partnership is important for our defense cooperation and for our engagement with Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan. We need to ensure that critical areas of cooperation are not impacted by unhelpful statements about Russia’s actions. This is a pragmatism that all countries bring to international relations.

The other challenges of war

 

The Russian action poses other challenges as well. Economically, the Western sanctions likely to be imposed against Russia may provoke counter-sanctions from Russia. Together, they may result in economic pain, in terms of oil and gas prices and the prices of commodities and raw materials, which are major Russian exports. Currency-related sanctions may restrict dollar-denominated and Euro-denominated trade.

On a broader strategic plane, the Russian actions strike at the root of the objective of the Biden-Putin summit that a modus vivendi with Russia could result in US-Russia cooperation on major global issues while enabling the US to focus its energies on dealing with China and its Indo-Pacific commitments. Unfortunately, the US may be bogged down for some time in Europe, dealing with the consequences of the Ukraine war. This may dilute its focus on the Indo-Pacific, which is not in India’s interest. A US-Russia confrontation also suits China, since it increases Russia’s dependence on its support and gives it greater freedom of action in its neighbourhood.

The Russia-West confrontation reminds us that the post-Cold War security order in Europe is still under construction. A stable order cannot be created without negotiations with Russia and accommodating its legitimate concerns. The sooner this happens, the better for European peace and security.

Modi asks Putin to end the Ukraine war

 

At a bilateral meeting in September 2022 with Putin on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the historic city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, Modi reiterated his call for early cessation of hostilities and the need for talks and diplomacy. This was the first meeting between the two leaders since their summit in New Delhi last December. Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to PM Modi as “dear friend” and said he knew about Modi’s position and “concerns” on the Ukraine conflict.

India has consistently called for an end to the fighting in Ukraine and pushed for dialogue while refraining from publicly censuring Putin for the invasion launched in February. The Indian side has not voted against Russia at the UN but also repeatedly raised the impact of the Ukraine crisis on food and energy prices, especially for vulnerable countries.

Modi said he hoped to talk about “how we can move forward on the road of peace in the coming days”, and to understand Putin’s viewpoint. “Today the biggest worry before the world, especially developing countries, is food security, fuel security [and] fertilizers. We must find ways to these problems and you will also have to consider it,” he said.

 

Putin, who spoke before Modi and referred to the Indian premier as a “dear friend”, said he knew about Modi’s position and “concerns” on the Ukraine conflict. “We want all of this to end as soon as possible. But the leadership of Ukraine has refused to engage in the negotiating process. They said that they want to achieve their objectives on the battlefield militarily,” he said.

Jammu and Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan

 

Seventy-five years ago at the stroke of midnight, India and Pakistan were waking up to freedom, shedding the bondage of colonialism and beginning a new era. But unfortunately, it appears that 75 years later, South Asia has become a lesser connected region than it was at the time of independence for want of the settlement of lop-sided political issues left behind by the colonial powers.

Besides giving birth to the Kashmir dispute, the partition and freedom of India and Pakistan came at a heavy price. By the time the violence faded around 1950, an estimated 3.4 million people were found missing or dead in the worst ever communal clashes. Besides, both countries went to war immediately on Kashmir. In 1948, India’s freedom icon, Mahatma Gandhi, was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist.

In the 75 years since their independence, relations between India and Pakistan have continued to simmer, erupting into four wars and ongoing cross-border attacks. For many in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the events unfolding in 1947 are also associated with losses and memories of bloody days. The cause of conflict between India and Pakistan is the territorial disputes over the Kashmir region which sparked two of the three major Indo-Pakistani wars in 1947 and 1965, and a limited war in 1999. While both countries have maintained a fragile ceasefire since 2003, they regularly exchange fire across the contested border, known as the Line of Control (LoC).

Fifty-seven years ago, India and Pakistan ordered a ceasefire to end the 1965 war, the second conflict between the two countries that began with the latter’s army launching Operation Gibraltar in August of that year to infiltrate a force of thousands into Kashmir to engineer an uprising, capture vital installations and annex the border state.

 

A swift and firm Indian response thwarted the Pakistani plan in Kashmir, but the conflict soon spread to the entire western sector. Pakistan launched Operation Grand Slam on September 1, 1965 after the failure of Operation Gibraltar. Operation Grand Slam was aimed at Akhnoor near Jammu to isolate Indian positions at Naushera, Rajouri and Poonch. “The Indian Air Force played a major role in blunting the Pak offensive. Pakistan’s grand aim to capture Akhnoor was thwarted,” said a paper published by the United Service Institution of India in 2015.

 

The Indian reaction to Pakistan’s Grand Slam came by way of counter-offensives, across the international border from Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan, wrote Major General PJS Sandhu (retd) who authored the USI paper. “The ‘go-ahead’ for an all-out military response was given by the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The Indian grand strategy was to threaten Lahore and Sialkot, thus relieving pressure in the Chhamb-Jaurian sector (Jammu area) and while doing so, degrade Pakistani armed potential and capture some territory which could be used for bargaining in the post-war negotiations,” he wrote. The fierce battles fought during the war included those at Haji Pir, Asal Uttar, Burki, Phillora and Dograi. The war also saw a series of air battles in which Indian Gnats shot down Pakistani F-86 Sabres.

 

Despite a ceasefire, India was perceived as the victor due to its success in halting the Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir, and the outcome was viewed as a “political-strategic” victory in India. In 2015, Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh, the last surviving armed force commander of the conflict, said that the war ended in a stalemate, but only due to international pressure for a ceasefire, and that India would have achieved a decisive victory had hostilities continued for a few more days.

 

“While informing Parliament of India’s acceptance of the Security Council’s ceasefire call, Prime Minister Shastri made it amply clear today that what the Government had agreed to was a “simple ceasefire (without any preconditions),” the report added.

Under the terms of the Indian Independence Act, adopted by the British Parliament, the Indian subcontinent was formally divided into two new dominions of India and Pakistan on the midnight of Aug. 14 and 15, 1947. On that historic night, both countries made a tryst with destiny, with leaders promising to end misfortunes and opening of opportunities for achievements.

 

According to figures available from India’s PHD (Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Delhi) Chamber of Commerce and Industry, more than 70% of Pakistan’s trading transactions were with India in 1948-49, and 63% of Indian exports were destined to Pakistan. But the figures collected in 2018 showed that the trade trickled to less than 1%. After India scrapped the special status of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir state and bifurcated it into two centrally administered territories on Aug. 5, 2019, the trade has come to a complete halt.

In 1985 at the initiative of Bangladesh, South Asian countries gathered to establish the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to find ways of promoting trade, connectivity and cooperation between its seven members – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Its headquarters is located in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.But due to acute disputes between India and Pakistan, its two key members, the forum has degenerated into irrelevance. The intraregional trade between eight South Asian nations remains only 5%, making it one of the most disconnected regions in the world. In contrast, the neighbouring ten-member grouping of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) accounts for 25% of intraregional trade. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, intraregional trade has improved over the years to 22%. India is also annoyed at Pakistan’s attempts to bring China and Central Asian states into the SAARC fold. It believes that by this move Pakistan was attempting to counter India’s influence in the region. In 2005, India and Pakistan agreed to open the heavily militarized Line of Control (LoC) that divides Jammu and Kashmir for bus service and later in 2008 launched trade between the divided regions. It was touted as one of the biggest confidence-building measures that will ultimately lead to a solution for the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.But in 2019, the Indian government suspended cross-LoC trade, which was running using the barter system as both countries had not come to terms on which currency should be used for trading goods. But still, it had achieved a cumulative volume of $1.2 billion, a significant amount considering the nature of the economics of the region.

 

This trade generated around 170,000 labour days, or $12 million, for labourers and freight of around $88 million. So, cross-LoC trade helped establish a strong economic dependency between the otherwise politically turbulent neighbours, India and Pakistan.

As and when the governments of India and Pakistan decide to reinitiate this trade, they need to keep in mind the security and policy concerns that have been raised over the last ten years.

India’s singular contribution to the liberation of Bangladesh from the clutches of the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani State that had trampled upon their political, cultural and linguistic rights, is a golden chapter in the annals of our history. Faced with the horrendous atrocities committed by the Pakistani establishment in its eastern wing – East Pakistan -- and a massive influx of refugees, India’s decisive political leadership, nimble-footed diplomacy, and above all, a brilliant military strategy and the valour of our armed forces came together to hand down a humiliating defeat to Pakistan, resulting in the capture of 93,000 military and civilian
prisoners of war.

India hosted the summit meeting between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at Shimla less than seven months after its splendid victory, and the two leaders signed the Shimla Agreement on July 2, 1972. It was not only an accord, but a blueprint to end conflict and confrontation and work for durable peace. It provided, among other things, for respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, and settlement of differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations. Pending such settlement, neither side was to one-sidedly alter the situation. In J&K, inviolability of the Line of Control, resulting from the ceasefire of December 1971, was to be upheld by both sides without prejudice to their respective positions. The Shimla Agreement envisaged further discussions for normalization of relations, including for “a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir”.

Commitment and willingness on both sides, mainly from the diarchy in Pakistan, is a prerequisite to the normalization of India-Pakistan relations. Many times during the bitter relationship between India and Pakistan, there have been opportunities to make peace. But every time, such chances were nipped in the bud. Often, we hear theories of how if Muhammad Ali Jinnah were alive, perhaps the trajectory of India-Pakistan relations would have been different. Viewing what today would have been, through the lens of the lost opportunities, is always accompanied by the caution: "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear".

However, there was an opportunity when Sheikh Abdullah, reportedly carried a message to Ayub Khan on his trip to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in May 1964, of Jawaharlal Nehru's invitation to his counterpart to visit India to discuss lasting peace between the two countries. Despite the 1948-49 war over Kashmir, the two countries allowed their nationals to travel across the border then. The Sheikh arrived in Muzaffarabad in PoK and was scheduled to go over to Rawalpindi to meet Ayub when he got the news that Nehru had passed away. The death of India's first prime minister nipped that initiative in the bud. Thirteen months later, India and Pakistan clashed in Kutch, and four months later, the 1965 war took place. The results of that war ruined any chance for peace. Ayub lost ground, and after the student revolt in 1968, and constant sniping by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was replaced by Yahya Khan.

The Shimla Agreement that followed the 1971 war was expected to bring about some normalization between the two countries, but a bitter, revanchist Bhutto, encouraged by generals who had lost face in the war, took Pakistan on the path of hostility towards India again.

During Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's time, India and Pakistan nearly came to war again, and the realist that Zia was, he made some nice noises, visiting India on cricket diplomacy. His death in an air crash ended whatever his plans were. One story goes that his fellow generals who were against his peace overtures to India planted the bomb that blew him up, along with the US ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Lewis Raphael.

Rajiv Gandhi's visit to Pakistan in 1988, for a summit with Benazir Bhutto promised much, with Benazir describing the trip as a "historic departure from 40 years of hostility," but both leaders lost powers soon after.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee sparked fresh hopes when he bused it to Lahore in February 1999 and met Nawaz Sharif. But soon, the Pakistani generals, fearful of an India-Pakistan peace, did Kargil and blamed Nawaz for their defeat. Musharraf ousted Nawaz in a coup that November.

Musharraf, in his new avatar as the prerequisite peacemaker, arrived in India in July 2001 for the Agra summit, but he could not convince his fellow generals to carry the initiative forward and a final draft of the treaty remained unsigned. Representatives of India and Pakistan, Satinder Lambah and Tariq Aziz held back-channel talks and were even ready with a non-paper on a solution to Kashmir.

But the BJP lost power in 2004 before Vajpayee could carry his peace initiative to a conclusion. The Congress was politically too timid to carry forward Vajpayee's initiative. So, the next opportunity came only when the BJP returned to power in 2014 under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Soon after coming to power, Modi invited Nawaz Sharif, to the inaugural of his swearing-in ceremony, and the gesture promised much. The Indian prime minister followed it up with an unscheduled visit to meet Nawaz to attend the wedding of the granddaughter of his Pakistani counterpart. That visit sank Nawaz. The army, bristling with anger and suspicion, weakened Nawaz, and used the Panama Papers scandal to unseat Nawaz. So, what does all this tell us?

That the Pakistani Army is the ultimate arbiter of its country's foreign policy. Other countries have armies, but in Pakistan's case, its army owns a country. Until and unless the Pakistani Army comes on board, totally and irrevocably committed, there can be no peace with India. Hanging hopes on Modi's reach-out to our benighted neighbour on its floods tragedy, and Pakistan's decision to reopen trade with India is unrealistic, at least till the time the generals in Pindi decide that their country is too much up the creek to play games and decide to drive Islamabad to the negotiation table.

In late August 2022, Pakistan’s finance minister said Islamabad could consider food imports from India to overcome shortages caused by devastating floods but Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif virtually ruled out the possibility and sought to link the matter to the situation in Jammu
and Kashmir (J&K).

The development also came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed sadness at the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan and extended condolences to those affected by the natural calamity, raising hopes for possible cooperation between the two countries.

Sharif faced a volley of questions on possible food imports and resumption of trade with India when he briefed the international media in Islamabad on Tuesday on the unprecedented floods that have resulted in more than 1,000 deaths and displaced 33 million people.

“There wouldn’t have been problems about trading with India but genocide is going on there and Kashmiris have been denied their rights. Kashmir has been forcibly annexed through the abolition of Article 370,” Sharif said, referring to India’s 2019 decision to scrap the special status of J&K and to split the region into two Union territories.

“I am, however, ready to sit and talk with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We cannot afford war. We will have to dedicate our meagre resources for alleviating poverty in our respective countries, but we cannot live in peace without resolving these issues,” Sharif said.

He added, “We shouldn’t be doing politics at this point, but it is a fact that minority rights are being subjugated in India. We want peace in the region. We are neighbours not by choice.” Sharif also emphasized that peace can “come only through sensible actions”.

Pakistan’s Finance Minister Miftah Ismail in a media interaction said that his country could consider importing vegetables and other food items from India to help people cope with the widespread destruction of crops in flash floods. “If the supply is affected, the import of vegetables will have to be opened. If we have to import vegetables from India, we will do so,” Ismail was quoted as saying.

In August 2019, Pakistan suspended all trade with India as part of retaliatory measures against New Delhi’s decision to scrap the special status of J&K. Pakistan also downgraded diplomatic ties with India and expelled the Indian envoy in Islamabad.

In 2019, India withdrew the Most Favoured Nation status for Pakistan as part of its response to a suicide attack at Pulwama that killed 40 Indian troopers. That attack was blamed on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

The former government of Imran Khan announced a move for limited resumption of trade with India in April 2021, but did a U-turn just a day later due to opposition to the proposal from hardliners within the cabinet.

People familiar with the matter said Pakistan is now eyeing the option of importing wheat from Russia and vegetables and other food items from Afghanistan and Iran. Sharif has set up a committee under planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal to explore possible options for importing food items, including vegetables, to overcome severe shortages.

 

I strongly feel that since both India and Pakistan now have leaders born after 1947, there is a need for them to learn from the past, chart a new course and find people-centric solutions to resolve disputes, and redeem the pledge of a tryst with destiny that leaders made 75 years ago, to end misfortunes, and seek opportunities and achievements.

In August 2022, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that Pakistan wants to have "permanent peace" with India through dialogue as war is not an option for either of the countries to resolve the Kashmir issue. Speaking to a delegation of students from Harvard University, Mr. Sharif also said that sustainable peace in the region was linked to the resolution of the Kashmir issue as per the United Nations resolutions.

India has said it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence. During the interaction, Mr. Sharif pointed out that Islamabad and New Delhi should have competition in trade, economy and improving the conditions of their people. He said Pakistan was not an aggressor, but its nuclear assets and the trained army are deterrence, adding that Islamabad spends on its military to protect its frontiers and not for aggression.

ISI-backed terror module busted

 

Punjab Police on August 14, 2022 said they along with the Delhi police have busted a Pakistan-Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) backed terror module with the arrest of four members associated with foreign-based gangsters, ahead of the Independence Day.

State Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said the accused were associated with Canada-based gangster Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dala and Australia-based gangster Gurjant Singh alias Janta. “They were apprehended from Delhi during the intel-led operation carried out by the Counter-Intelligence unit of Punjab Police with the help of Delhi Police,”
he said.

“Working on the leads obtained during the questioning of the arrested persons, the police teams have also recovered one IED and three hand-grenades from the locations pinpointed by them in Punjab,” he said, adding that the arrested accused also revealed that they were being tasked by Arsh Dala to execute criminal activities in areas of Delhi and Punjab ahead of Independence day to disrupt the peace and harmony.

Pakistan’s economic woes

 

In response to a question about Pakistan's economy and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the Pakistan Prime Minister said that the country's economic crisis stem from structural problems along with political instability in recent decades. He said the first few decades since the inception of Pakistan witnessed impressive growth across all sectors of the economy when there were plans, national will and the implementation mechanism to produce outcomes.

“Over time, we lost the edge in sectors in which we were ahead. The lack of focus, energy and policy action led to reduction in national productivity,” Mr. Sharif added. Cash-starved Pakistan is facing growing economic challenges, with high inflation, sliding forex reserves, a widening current account deficit and a depreciating currency. With the rising current account deficit at $13.2 billion in the first nine months and pressing external loan repayment requirements, Pakistan required financial assistance of $9-12 billion till June 2022 to avert further depletion of foreign currency reserves. The International Monetary Fund's executive board is expected to approve a bailout package for Pakistan, including the pending disbursement of about $1.18 billion.

India refrained from lending credibility to the speculation over sending humanitarian aid to Pakistan in the wake of the devastating floods in the neighbouring country or the resumption of bilateral trade. Regarding the floods that have hit Pakistan in August 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared his sadness at the devastation caused by the floods,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists in New Delhi. He was replying to a question on whether India would extend humanitarian assistance to Pakistan, where the devastating flood so far resulted in the death of at least 1,186 people, while 4,896 others were injured, 5,063 kms of roads damaged and 1,172,549 houses partially or completely destroyed.

The office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimated that over 30 million people have been affected by torrential rains and flash floods across the country, leaving 6.4 million people in need of immediate support. Natural calamities triggered an acute crisis of grains and vegetables across Pakistan and triggered speculation if the government of the neighbouring country would resume importing food-items from India. Pakistan has already decided to import onions and tomatoes from Iran and Afghanistan in the wake of the food crisis.

After the Modi Government in August 2019 stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and reorganised the erstwhile state into two Union Territories, Pakistan announced suspension of its bilateral trade with India, but partially relaxed its ban in September 2019 by permitting trade in certain pharmaceutical products. There has not been any progress regarding resumption of India’s trade with Pakistan since then. After Modi's tweet, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that Islamabad had to suspend bilateral trade as the Government of India was committing a ‘genocide’ in Kashmir and denying the rights of the people of Kashmir.

Sharif said that the Modi Government had forcibly annexed Kashmir by abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution of India. He added that he was ready to hold talks with his counterpart in New Delhi. “We cannot afford war. We will have to dedicate our meagre resources for alleviating poverty in our respective countries. But we cannot live in peace without resolving these issues,” said the prime minister of Pakistan.

Pakistan remains on ‘grey list’ for terror financing, money laundering

 

Pakistan will continue to be on the “Grey List” of countries under increased monitoring of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), from the global money-laundering and terror-financing watchdog. Pakistan has been on the grey list of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) since June 2018 for failing to check money laundering, leading to terror financing, and was given a plan of action to complete it by October 2019. Since then, the country continues to be on that list due to its failure to comply with the FATF mandates. The concluding session of the plenary meeting of the FATF is due and includes Pakistan’s review on the agenda. Pakistan is now targeting the full completion of the 2021 action plan on anti-money laundering and combating terror financing by the end of January 2023.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has increased pressure on Islamabad to take action against terror funding flowing from its territory. The Paris-based watchdog has also suggested that Pakistan might be removed from the grey list if it works effectively against terror organizations.

Pakistan’s obsession with terrorism

 

I think that terrorism is ever so often elucidated as a well-planned, dangerous form of violence in response to perceived injustices. The after-effects of terrorism are usually reported without understanding the underlying psychological and social determinants of the act of terror. Terrorism has brought an enormous burden worldwide by adversely impacting the social, economic, political, and physical infrastructure. In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan has been the flash point of terrorism.

India, USA, and many other countries are frustrated with Pakistan’s continuous support of terrorist organisations operating in various parts of the world, including Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism refers to the involvement of Pakistan in terrorism through its backing of designated terrorist organisations. Pakistan has often been accused by India, USA, UK, France, Germany etc., of spreading terrorism in their countries. Pakistan, allegedly, still provides direct military, intelligence and logistic support to terrorists who are killing people, destroying property, and destabilising world peace.

I went through a report published in Brookings Institute in 2008 perhaps the world’s most active sponsor of terrorism is Pakistan, which is aiding and supporting many terrorist organisations and thus posing a direct threat to world peace. Pakistan’s north-western tribal areas, along with the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK), have been described as safe havens for various terrorist organisations. In July 2019, it was reported that roughly 30,000 to 40,000 active armed terrorists were thriving on the soil of Pakistan. These terrorists can raise funds, organise, plan, recruit, train, communicate, transient, operate, etc., probably with or without the government’s support. Pakistan has thus, played both sides- supporting the USA in its ‘war on terror’ and simultaneously aiding and abetting terrorism, especially in Afghanistan.

Various terrorist organisations which are probably still active and thriving on Pakistan’s soil are Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Omar, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Jaish-ul-Adil, Al-Badr Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, ISIS-PK, Tarikh-e-Taliban Pakistan, etc. In 2009, during his visit to the US, then Indian Army Chief, Gen Deepak Kapoor, asserted that more than 43 terrorist Organisations are operating from Pakistan. Terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir are generally based in POJK. These terrorist organisations are openly raising funds and carrying out recruitment among the general public in Pakistan. However, Pakistan officially denies providing any support to these terrorist groups.

India has handed over substantial proof and evidence to Pakistan regarding the terrorists involved in various terror activities in India, but Pakistan has not responded positively. This reveals the lack of Pakistan’s inclination toward effectively tackling terrorism. Dr Shakil Afridi, a doctor who helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound, is paying a heavy price for his role in the operation. He is being held behind bars in Pakistan, and despite repeated requests, he has not been handed over to the US. More recently, bids by India, the US, and other western allies to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorists under the UNSC sanctions regime have been put on hold numerous times by Pakistan’s all-weather friend, China.

Self-Rule Only Option for Solution of J&K

 

Speaking at Kashmir in early September 2022, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti said that her party’s self-rule formula has the only option available to peacefully resolve the issue of Jammu and Kashmir without compromising the sovereignty of India and Pakistan. “Nobody can stop the self-rule…if you want to resolve the issue of J&K under the constitutional framework, self-rule is the only option which can find a solution to the issue without changing the boundaries or compromising the integrity of both India and Pakistan,” Mehbooba said.

Defending her father and former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s decision to form a government with the BJP which ultimately collapsed in 2018, Mehbooba said he had not become a supporter of the BJP but joined hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wishing that he would tread the path that Vajpayee had shown to resolve the J&K problem.

“He took a decision keeping in view the prevailing situation, the mandate of the people, Vajpayee’s record and the need for dialogue for resolution of the J&K problem. Mufti thought for the people of Jammu who have voted in favour of the BJP and cannot be side-lined, she said.

 

China’s conflict with Taiwan, India and the US

 

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the north-western Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The dispute and ambiguity over the meaning of "China" and which "China" stemmed from the division of the Republic of China into two Chinas at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1955.

Since then, two Chinas have existed, although the PRC was not internationally recognized at the time. The Republic of China government received Taiwan in 1945 from Japan, then fled in 1949 to Taiwan with the aim to retake mainland China. Both the ROC and the PRC still officially claim mainland China and the Taiwan Area as part of their territories.

In actuality, the People's Republic of China (PRC) rules only Mainland China and has no control of but claims Taiwan as part of its territory under its "One China Principle". The Republic of China (ROC), which only rules the Taiwan Area (composed of Taiwan and its nearby minor islands), became known as "Taiwan". Constitutional reform in 1991 amended electoral laws to focus on the territory controlled by the Republic of China, increasingly referred to as "the Republic of China on Taiwan" or simply "Taiwan".

India recognizes only the People's Republic of China and not the Republic of China's claims of being the legitimate government of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau - a conflict that emerged after the Chinese Civil War (1945–49). The Embassy and Consulate of India in Taiwan serves the diplomatic end of India in Taiwan. The Embassy office is located in Taipei.

The bilateral relations between India and Taiwan have improved since the 1990s, despite both nations not maintaining official diplomatic relations. However, India's economic and commercial links, as well as people-to-people contacts with Taiwan have expanded in recent years.

Even as India's own relations with the PRC have developed in recent years, India has sought to gradually develop better commercial, cultural and scientific cooperation with Taiwan, while ruling out the possibility of establishing formal diplomatic relations. Taiwan has also viewed India's rising geopolitical standing as a counterbalance to the PRC's dominance in the region.

As a part of its "Look East" foreign policy, India has sought to cultivate extensive ties with Taiwan in trade and investment as well as developing cooperation in science & technology, environmental issues, and people-to-people exchanges. Both sides have aimed to develop ties, partly to counteract Chinese rivalry with both nations.

In May 2021, the ROC Foreign Ministry of Affairs sent its first batch of supplies to India, including 150 oxygen generators and 500 oxygen cylinders, and subsequently tweeted, "Love from Taiwan has arrived in India. We're working hard to send more. StayStrongIndia!" Taiwan's support for India generated a tremendous outpour of support from thousands of Indians on social media, some of whom pointed out the stark contrast between Taiwan's significant and timely assistance to comments perceived to be mocking India's pandemic plight from an official Weibo account linked to the PRC's Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. Both governments have launched efforts to significantly expand bilateral trade and investment, especially in the fields of information technology, energy, telecommunications and electronics.

While the ROC and India are two of Asia's leading democracies, both with fairly close ties to the United States and Europe, both sides continue to lack formal diplomatic relations. However, the two governments maintain unofficial ties with each other. Fifty-nine countries have established unofficial diplomatic relations with Taiwan/RoC, including the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

Senior military officials of India and China held talks in eastern Ladakh focusing on maintaining security and stability in the region. People familiar with the development said it was routine dialogue at the level of major general and such talks take place on a monthly basis. The talks came amid a lingering standoff between the two sides at several friction points in the region.

The Indian and Chinese armies are engaged in the stand-off at the friction points for more than two years. India has been consistently maintaining that peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are key for the overall development of the bilateral ties.

The two militaries have held 16 rounds of corps commander-level talks to resolve the standoff. As a result of a series of military and diplomatic talks, the two sides completed the disengagement process last year on the north and south banks of the Pangong Lake and in the Gogra area.

Notwithstanding the speculations about a possible bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping—at Samarkand in Uzbekistan in Sept. 2022, India is sending stern messages to the communist-ruled country.

“India has never attacked any country, nor has it ever occupied an inch of foreign land,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in Udaipur, Rajasthan. “But if anyone ever tries to undermine the sovereignty, unity and integrity of our nation, a befitting reply will be given.”

His statement comes at a time when a large number of soldiers of the Indian Army were still deployed along the disputed boundary between India and China in eastern Ladakh. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar once again articulated New Delhi’s position that normalcy in India-China relations could not be restored without completely resolving the two-year-long military stand-off between the two nations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

“Much of the future of Asia depends on how relations between India and China develop in the foreseeable future,” Jaishankar had said at the launch of the Asia Society Policy Institute in July 2022. “For ties to return to a positive trajectory and remain sustainable, they must be based on the three mutuals: mutual sensitivity, mutual respect and mutual interest. Their current status is, of course, well known to all of you. I can only reiterate that the state of the border will determine the state of the relationship.”

 

If Prime Minister Modi holds a bilateral meeting with the Chinese President, it will be the first such engagement between the two after the military stand-off along the LAC started in April-May 2020, and took the relations between the two neighbours to a new low. The last bilateral engagement between Modi and Xi was at a seaside resort at Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu in October 2019. The next bilateral meeting was scheduled to be held in mid-September, 2022 at Samarkand.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises fears that China might try to take Taiwan by force. The United States did little, for example, after China violated its treaty commitments on Hong Kong and extended China’s police state to the previously autonomous territory. The Biden administration may have encouraged China further when the White House walked back Biden’s off-the-cuff commitment that the U.S. would defend Taiwan. Biden’s willingness to ignore a “minor incursion” in Ukraine and prioritize the fight against climate change over efforts to counter both China’s genocidal campaign against the Uyghurs and Russia’s moves in Ukraine emboldens Beijing further.

Russia accused the United States on Saturday of "playing with fire" around Taiwan while China said it will press on working for "peaceful reunification" with the democratically-governed island and pledged to take forceful steps to oppose any interference, a thinly-veiled reference to Washington.

Putin explicitly backs China over Taiwan. "We intend to firmly adhere to the principle of 'One China'," Putin said last week. "We condemn provocations by the United States and their satellites in the Taiwan Strait." Asked last week in a CBS 60 Minutes interview whether US forces would defend Taiwan, Biden replied: "Yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack."

The statement was his most explicit to date about committing US troops to defend the island. It also appeared to go beyond a long-standing US policy of "strategic ambiguity," which does not make clear whether the United States would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.

IMF releases $1.3 bn in emergency aid for Ukraine

 

The International Monetary Fund announced in early October 2022 that it will provide $1.3 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine through its new food crisis assistance program. The package will help meet Ukraine's "urgent balance of payment needs... while playing a catalytic role for future financial support from Ukraine's creditors and donors," the IMF said in a statement. "The scale and intensity of Russia's war against Ukraine that started more than seven months ago have caused tremendous human suffering and economic pain.... Real GDP is projected to contract by 35 percent in 2022 relative to 2021 and financing needs remain very large."

 

The World Bank granted Ukraine $530 million in additional aid to "meet urgent needs created by Russia's invasion." The bank said it had already mobilized almost $13 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine, $11 billion of which had already been disbursed as of September 2022.

China's Ukraine warning

 

Wang said China supported all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the "crisis" in Ukraine, but cautioned against a potential spill over of the war. "The fundamental solution is to address the legitimate security concerns of all parties and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture," Wang said in his address. "We call on all parties concerned to keep the crisis from spilling over and protect the legitimate rights and the interests of developing countries." China has criticized Western sanctions against Russia but stopped short of endorsing or assisting in the military campaign. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week said China's leader Xi Jinping had concerns about Ukraine.

Taiwan, however, is not the only country in mainland China’s sights. Seventy years ago, Chinese Communist Party authorities gobbled up the entirety of Tibet in a violent, colonialist orgy. Today, mainland China has territorial disputes with 17 other countries. It is one thing to dispute a border but another thing to change it by force. In recent years, China has seized Filipino territory in the South China Sea and encroached by land into Bhutan. Two years ago, China began making similar incursions into Ladakh, an Indian region. That dispute may flare again.

China’s aggression in Arunachal Pradesh

 

While other countries focus on Taiwan, the bigger danger of Chinese aggression maybe 1,700 miles to its east in Arunachal Pradesh, a state in north-eastern India bordering Bhutan, China, and Burma. While Ladakh has a population of less than 300,000, Arunachal Pradesh has 1.2 million. In late December 2021, China indicated its ambitions when it renamed 15 areas inside the Indian state. A month later, Chinese troops abducted a 17-year-old Indian in the state. Just as China has invented historical claims in the South China Sea, so, too, does it now say Arunachal Pradesh is within the boundaries of historic China? China has even refused to stamp visas onto the passports of Indians from the state in order to underscore Chinese claims that since the state was Chinese, there is no need for visas for its residents.

While any move on Taiwan might engender a broader response, China would not face the same problem with Arunachal Pradesh: It need not fear any U.S. naval deployments, and the state’s greater distance and location inland would make any emergency airlift more difficult than with Taiwan. The White House is right to worry about China’s ambitions toward Taiwan, but expansionist states seldom limit their ambitions to a single territory. For China, Taiwan may be the trick; India could be the target.

China's renewed aggression along the Line of Actual Control is due to the Indian government's recent outreach to the Dalai Lama and overtures to Taiwan. China is reportedly upset over the birthday celebrations of the Dalai Lama involving ministers and the fact that the Dalai Lama’s visit to Leh in July 2022. China has always objected to the Tibetan spiritual leader's visits to the region including his last one in 2018. This would be the Dalai Lama's first major trip to the area after Ladakh was carved out as a separate Union Territory in 2019.

Last year, the Chinese PLA had put up banners asking people not to celebrate the Dalai Lama's birthday. Chinese action indicates that Beijing isn't interested in following the five-point agreement reached between the two foreign ministers earlier. Since 2014, India has maintained close interactions with the Dalai Lama and the head of the Tibet Government-in-Exile and China might have perceived this as a shift in India's Tibetan policy.

I think that Beijing may also be considering that since the world's attention is focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it is an opportune moment to pressurise India. The likelihood of the Chinese regime launching an attack in the near future on its disputed border with India is more than it attacking Taiwan.

India and China are building up their military forces along their disputed border in Ladakh as 15 rounds of talks have made no headway, following the 2020 bloody conflict of Galwan in which both countries suffered casualties for the first time in nearly 45 years. The military relations between India and China are tense, and the disputed border has remained a sore spot in their relationship for seven decades.

Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there has been increasing concern about the possibility of the Chinese regime launching a similar attack on Taiwan. While America is busy countering Russia in Ukraine, China is steadily increasing its footprint all over the globe. What’s even more worrying is not just the Indo-Pacific part of it, or the Taiwan part of it, but the greater danger that exists on India’s northern border.

While there are multiple issues between India and China, these could have been discussed between the two foreign ministers when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi came to India in March 2022. Neither the Chinese succeeded in their hidden agenda of declaring an international anti-West posture where India would have seemed to be aligned with Russia and China nor India made any major concessions. But the direction of future negotiations was made clear. Though there was no further progress in the easing of the LAC stand-off, China did try to address the concerns of Indians studying in China who were not able to get a Chinese visa to resume their studies. Now when both foreign ministers have met on the side-lines of the G-20 meeting in Bali, new realities have come to the fore for both countries. China has to cope with the adverse impact of the US and US-led groupings besides an adverse perception created due to its expansionist agenda as well as debt-trapping strategy the world over. China can ill-afford to face India with large-scale mobilisation on the LAC with no world power coming to its rescue. The one new-found friend, Russia, has more problems than it can solve.

India is also in a difficult position. Its firm stance has already done whatever good could be done. India also needs time to develop infrastructure along the borders, and handle internal security challenges, especially in Jammu & Kashmir. India should, therefore, also carry out a reappraisal of its stance with China to utilise the opportunities which have come to its doorstep in the form of Chinese eagerness to improve the bilateral relationship. While India has already drawn the red line in the public domain, especially on the LAC issue, it needs to re-craft its response so as to achieve maximum gains in all the interactive domains.

The Indian and Chinese military commanders failed to achieve an immediate breakthrough even as they had a 12-hour-long meeting in July 2022 to end the stalemate in negotiations to resolve the more than two-year-long military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

However, the two sides issued a joint press release in New Delhi and Beijing reaffirming that the resolution of the “remaining issues” would help in the restoration of peace and tranquillity along the LAC in the western sector and enable progress in bilateral relations. The corps commanders of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also agreed to stay in close contact and maintain dialogue through military and diplomatic channels and work out a mutually acceptable resolution of the “remaining issues” at the earliest.

The commander of the Indian Army’s XIV Corps, hosted his counterpart, the chief of the South Xinjiang Military District of the Chinese PLA, for the 16th round of negotiations to end the standoff along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. They met at the Indian Army’s post at Chushul on India’s side of its de facto boundary with China. Though an agreement for withdrawal of troops from Hot Springs was perceived as the “lowest hanging fruit” in the negotiation after disengagement at Gogra Post in August 2021, the two sides could not agree on it in the past 11 months. The withdrawal of troops from Hot Springs would be followed by similar deals for Depsang and Demchok. The Chinese PLA blocked the Indian Army’s access to Patrol Points 10, 11, 12, 12A and 13 by deploying troops in Depsang Bulge, well inside the territory of India along the country’s LAC with China. The negotiations between the two sides had earlier resulted in the mutual withdrawal of troops by both sides from some of the face-off points along the LAC – from the Galwan Valley in June 2020, from both banks of Pangong Tso in February 2021 and from Gogra Post in August 2021.

India, China Complete Disengagement in Ladakh's Hot Springs Region

As of September 2022, the two sides have now resolved all the friction points that came up after the May 2020 aggression by the Chinese army. Indian and Chinese troops have completed disengagement from a key standoff point in Ladakh, according to government sources. The process started on September 8 after the discussions between the two sides during the 16th round of corps commander level.

India and China announced the disengagement of their troops from the Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs area of eastern Ladakh in a "coordinated and planned way". Both armies have agreed to move back from their positions towards their respective sides of the LAC and verify each other’s positions after that. The two sides have now resolved all the friction points that came up after the May 2020 aggression by the Chinese army in the Pangong Lake areas.

America to defend Taiwan in event of war

The single most important question about a potential war over Taiwan between the United States and China is whether such a conflict could remain non-nuclear. Yet when President Joe Biden stated again in May 2022 that America would defend the island in the event of a Chinese attack, no one asked if that meant he was willing to risk a nuclear exchange with Beijing. If the fast-gelling opinion of Washington’s foreign policy is correct — that such a war is no longer simply possible but likely — then assessing such a risk needs to be at the forefront of every discussion. Since the first use of atomic weapons nearly eight decades ago, no nuclear-armed power has ever fought another in a major conflict. During the cold war, America and the Soviet Union fought both direct and indirect proxy wars but avoided direct conventional conflict that could have escalated out of control. The reliability of America’s nuclear umbrella and promises of “extended deterrence” are regularly questioned by non-nuclear allies. It is also the reason that NATO was so circumspect in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Once the cold war ended, many in the US assumed that the era of the Cuban Missile crisis and “duck and cover” was over, emphasised by the shutting of the fearsome Strategic Air Command in 1992.

Nuclear weapons never went away of course, and SAC eventually morphed into US Strategic Command. Yet the fears that civilisation could end in billowing mushroom clouds rapidly abated as the country turned to another generation of wars in the Middle East and against global terrorism. But policymakers and the US public can no longer ignore the fact that a new nuclear age has dawned. Vladimir Putin’s sabre-rattling in the early days of the Ukraine war revealed that nuclear-armed authoritarian aggressors may not be restrained.

As Beijing considers Taiwan its sovereign territory, there can be no assurance that a conflict would remain conventional. Make no mistake about it, this would be no small clash. Control over Taiwan has been the primary foreign policy and strategic concern of Beijing since Mao Zedong took power in 1949. Much would depend on how such a war broke out, whether it was intentional or accidental, and how committed Washington actually would be to defending the island. But all the old cold war questions about nuclear escalation control, signalling and off-ramps would immediately come into play. War games are one thing but in the real world, as soon as one US missile hits Chinese territory, the question of escalation becomes critical. Retaliatory strikes by People’s Liberation Army rocket forces against US territory almost inevitably would follow, sparking an escalatory spiral. It is possible the Chinese would not wait to find out if incoming US missiles were indeed conventional but would strike at America’s land-based nuclear missile silos to prevent a full attack. Any major clash would, in fact, be the first ballistic missile war between great powers. Americans long ago ceased any civil defence preparation and the public is entirely unprepared to come under missile attack.

Such an escalation would put enormous pressure on US leaders to strike back even harder at Chinese targets, thus risking an all-out confrontation, with the urge to go nuclear growing with each new setback. The implications of a Taiwan war are enormous, but no US leader should blithely commit to defending the island without understanding that a conflict with China could be like no other fought in history. How far the US is willing to go must be openly debated and the risks of action as well as inaction equally assessed.

Chinese President Xi Jinping asked his US counterpart Joe Biden, during a phone conversation in July 2022, to prevent US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from visiting Taiwan. But Xi's concern was rebuffed and he was warned against Beijing's "provocative" actions if the visit were to take place.

The US President told his Chinese counterpart that he "could not oblige" as the US Congress is an independent branch of government and that Pelosi would make her own decisions about foreign trips. Biden also warned his Chinese counterpart against taking "provocative and coercive" actions if the US House speaker's visit were to take place.

"Members of Congress have gone to Taiwan for decades and will continue to do so. Speaker Pelosi had every right to go and her visit is consistent with our long-standing one-China policy," National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson was quoted as saying by a newspaper.

Pelosi travelled to Taiwan in early August 2022. It was the first visit by a US House speaker to the island since 1997. Pelosi became the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. China condemned Pelosi's trip, which it regarded as a gesture of support for separatism, and launched large-scale military exercises in the vicinity of the island.

Beijing considers Taiwan an unalienable part of its sovereign territory and opposes any official contact between the island and other countries. Beijing has said that the One China principle is a political foundation of China-US ties and that violations of these obligations would jeopardize cooperation between the two countries.

In his first TV interview since taking up his post in Beijing in August 2022, US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns said that China needs to convince the rest of the world it is not an "agent of instability" and will act peacefully in the Taiwan Strait. He also spoke about Pelosi's recent visit to Taiwan and China's aggressive military drills around Taiwan. "We do not believe there should be a crisis in US-China relations over the visit -- the peaceful visit -- of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to Taiwan. It was a manufactured crisis by the government in Beijing. It was an overreaction," Burns told CNN. It is now "incumbent upon the government here in Beijing to convince the rest of the world that it will act peacefully in the future," the Ambassador said.

"I think there's a lot of concern around the world that China has now become an agent of instability in the Taiwan Strait and that's not in anyone's interest. U.S.-China relations are teetering on a precipice after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. Ms. Pelosi received a rapturous welcome in Taipei and was applauded with strong bipartisan support in Washington, despite the Biden administration's misgivings. But her trip has enraged Beijing and Chinese nationalists and will complicate already strained ties even after her departure.

China is preparing new shows of force in the Taiwan Strait to make clear that its claims are non-negotiable on the island it regards as a renegade province. And, as the U.S. presses ahead with demonstrations of support for Taiwan, arms sales and diplomatic lobbying, the escalating tensions have raised the risks of military confrontation, intentional or not.

China summons U.S. envoy Nicholas Burns, warns America shall 'pay price' as Pelosi visits Taiwan. And the trip could further muddle Washington's already complicated relationship with Beijing as the two sides wrest with differences over trade, the war in Ukraine, human rights and more.

Wary of the reaction from China, the Biden administration discouraged but did not prevent Ms. Pelosi from visiting Taiwan. It has taken pains to stress to Beijing that the House Speaker is not a member of the executive branch and her visit represents no change in the U.S. “one-China” policy. That was little comfort for Beijing. Ms. Pelosi, who is second in line to the U.S. presidency, was no ordinary visitor and was greeted almost like a head of state. Taiwan's skyline lit up with a message of welcome, and she met with the biggest names on the island, including its President, senior legislators and prominent rights activists.

Chinese officials were enraged. “What Ms. Pelosi has done is definitely not a defence and maintenance of democracy, but a provocation and violation of China's sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said after her departure.

“Ms. Pelosi's dangerous provocation is purely for personal political capital, which is an absolute ugly political farce,” Hua said. “China-US relations and regional peace and stability is suffering.” The timing of the visit may have added to the tensions. It came ahead of this year's Chinese Communist Party's Congress at which President Xi Jinping will try to further cement his power, using a hard line on Taiwan to blunt domestic criticism on COVID-19, the economy and other issues.

Summoned to the Foreign Ministry to hear China's complaints, U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns insisted that the visit was nothing but routine. “The United States will not escalate and stands ready to work with China to prevent escalation altogether,” Burns said, according to the State Department.

The White House also said that Ms. Pelosi's visit “doesn't change anything” about the U.S. stand toward China and Taiwan. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. had expected the harsh reaction from China, even as she called it unwarranted. “We are going to monitor, and we will manage what Beijing chooses to do,” she added.

Alarmed by the possibility of a new geo-strategic conflict at the same time the West sides with Ukraine in its resistance to Russia's invasion, the U.S. has rallied allies to its side. The foreign ministers of the Group of 7 industrialized democracies released a statement Wednesday essentially telling China — by the initials of its formal name, the People's Republic of China — to calm down.

“It is normal and routine for legislators from our countries to travel internationally,” the G-7 ministers said. “The PRC's escalatory response risks increasing tensions and destabilizing the region. We call on the PRC not to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region, and to resolve cross-Strait differences by peaceful means.”

Still, that status quo — long identified as “strategic ambiguity” for the U.S. and quiet but determined Chinese opposition to any figment of Taiwanese independence — appears to be no longer tenable for either side. “It's getting harder and harder to agree on Taiwan for both Beijing and Washington,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, an emeritus professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

In Taipei and the U.S. Congress, moves are afoot to clarify the ambiguity that has defined U.S. relations with Taiwan since the 1970s. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will soon consider a bill that would strengthen relations, require the executive branch to do more to bring Taiwan into the international system and take more determined steps to help the island defend itself.

Writing in The New York Times, committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., lambasted China's response to Ms. Pelosi's visit. “The result of Beijing's bluster should be to stiffen resolve in Taipei, in Washington and across the region,” he said. “There are many strategies to continue standing up to Chinese aggression. There is clear bipartisan congressional agreement on the importance of acting now to provide the people of Taiwan with the type of support they desperately need.”

But China appears to be pressing ahead with steps that could prove to be escalatory, including live-fire military exercises and a steady uptick in flights of fighter jets in and near Taiwan's self-declared air defence zone.

“They are going to test the Taiwanese and the Americans,” said Mr. Cabestan, a professor in Hong Kong. He said the actions of the U.S. military in the area, including a naval force led by the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, will be critical.

China had ratcheted up potential confrontation weeks ago by declaring that the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland is not international waters. The U.S. rejected this and responded by sending more vessels through it. Mr. Cabestan said that showed that “something had to be done on the U.S. side to draw red lines to prevent the Chinese from going too far."

Meanwhile, Taiwan is on edge, air raid shelters have been prepared and the government is increasing training for recruits serving their four months of required military service — generally considered inadequate — along with two-week annual refresher courses for reservists. “The Chinese feel that if they don't act, the United States is going to continue to slice the salami to take incremental actions toward supporting Taiwan independence,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund.

She said that domestic U.S. support for Taiwan actually gives China added incentive to take a strong stance: “China does feel under pressure to do more to signal that this is an issue in which China cannot compromise."

Despite the immediate concerns about escalation and potential miscalculation, there are others who don't believe the damage to U.S.-China ties will be more long-lasting than that caused by other, non-Taiwan-related issues.

China is “going to raise a huge fuss and there will be military exercises and there will be embargoes on importing Taiwan goods. And after the shouting is over, you will see a gradual easing,” said June Teufel Dreyer, a Chinese politics specialist at the University of Miami. “The situation never goes back to completely normal, whatever normal is, but it will definitely die down,” she said.

The Governor of Indiana arrived in Taipei in late August 2022, becoming the latest U.S. official to visit Taiwan and defying pressure from China for such trips not to happen. China, which claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory despite the Taipei government's strong objections, has been carrying out war games and drills near Taiwan since U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a two-day visit to Taipei.

In the last week of August 2022, a second group of U.S. lawmakers visited Taiwan. Governor Eric Holcomb tweeted that he would also be visiting South Korea, while Taiwan's presidential office said he would meet President Tsai Ing-wen. "I'm energized to spend this week building new relationships, reinforcing long-time ones and strengthening key sector partnerships with Taiwan and South Korea," Holcomb tweeted.

He termed his visit to Taiwan and South Korea as an "economic development trip", saying he was the first U.S. governor to come to Taiwan since the COVID-19 pandemic began more than two years ago. "Our delegation will spend this week meeting with government officials, business leaders and academic institutions to further strengthen Indiana's economic, academic and cultural connections with Taiwan and South Korea," Holcomb wrote on his Twitter account.

There was no immediate response from China to his arrival. China says Taiwan is the most important and sensitive issue in its relations with Washington, and that it considers it an internal issue.

Taiwan's government says that as the People's Republic of China has never ruled the island it has no right to claim it, and that only Taiwan's 23 million people can decide their future. China's military drills have been continuing around Taiwan, though on a smaller scale than immediately after Pelosi's trip.

China tries to stem growing anger over frozen bank deposits

 

Armoured tanks were seen on the streets of China to stop citizens from withdrawing their savings from banks. This has been the case since April 2022. Henan branch of the Bank of China said that savings of depositors are "investment products" and cannot be withdrawn. Clashes between police and depositors have become frequent. Chinese People’s Liberation Army deployed tanks on the streets to scare protestors. Customers from four rural banks in the central province of Henan, and one in neighbouring Anhui province, will be repaid by authorities starting Friday, according to statements late Monday by the provincial financial regulators. Chinese authorities will start refunding bank customers whose accounts have been frozen for months, following some of the biggest protests the country has seen since the start of the pandemic.

The rural banks have still not offered a clear explanation as to why and for how long the funds will remain frozen. In May, the national banking regulator said that a major shareholder of the Henan banks was responsible for having illegally attracted money from savers via online channels. The announcements come after a mass demonstration in Zhengzhou city, Henan province, which was crushed violently by authorities. It was the largest protest yet by the depositors, who have been fighting for months to retrieve their frozen savings. As many as 400,000 customers across China were unable to access their savings at the rural banks in Henan and Anhui provinces, according to an estimate in April by Sanlian Lifeweek, a state-owned magazine.

That’s a drop in the ocean of China’s vast banking system, but about a quarter of the industry’s total assets are held by around 4,000 small lenders, which often have opaque ownership and governance structures and are more vulnerable to corruption and the sharp economic slowdown. In China, local banks are only permitted to obtain deposits from their home customer base, but it has become common in recent years for many small banks to partner with online platforms and attract funds across the country.

In early 2021, Beijing banned banks from selling deposit products via online platforms, fearing that the rapid expansion of the fintech sector could increase risks in the wider financial system. In China, deposits up to 500,000 yuan (almost $75,000) are guaranteed in the event of bank failures, but if the government’s investigation finds that these cases involved “non-compliant” transactions, people could lose everything. The social discontent arising from the incident could be a significant problem for the government. The most impacted are farmers with low incomes who had deposited nearly all their life savings, Wang said.

United State to give $1.1 billion arms package for Taiwan

 

The US announced a $1.1 billion arms package for Taiwan in Sept. 2022 vowing to keep boosting the island's defences as tensions soar with Beijing, which warned Washington of "counter-measures." The sale comes a month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defiantly visited the self-governing democracy, prompting mainland China to launch a show of force that could be a trial run for a future invasion.

The package -- the largest for Taiwan approved under President Joe Biden's administration -- includes $665 million for contractor support to maintain and upgrade a Raytheon early radar warning system in operation since 2013 that would warn Taiwan about an incoming attack. Taiwan will also spend $355 million on 60 Harpoon Block II missiles, which can track and sink incoming vessels if China launches an assault by water. The deal also includes $85.6 million for more than 100 Sidewinder missiles, a mainstay of Western militaries for their air-to-air firepower.

Taiwanese Presidential Office spokesman Chang Tun-han in a statement thanked the United States for its continued support for the island's security and defence. "This arms sale will not only help our soldiers fight against grey zone coercion, it will also enhance the island's early warning capabilities against long range ballistic missiles," he said.

The announcement of the sale came after Taiwanese forces shot down an unidentified commercial drone amid a sudden spate of mysterious incursions that have unnerved the island following the earlier show of force by Beijing, which said it fired ballistic missiles over the capital Taipei. China, calling Taiwan an "inalienable" part of its territory, urged the United States to "immediately revoke" the arms sales. "It sends wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces and severely jeopardizes China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," said Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington. "China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures in light of the development of the situation," he added.

A spokesperson for the State Department, which approved the sale, said the package was "essential for Taiwan's security" and stressed that the United States still recognized only Beijing and not Taipei. "We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan," the spokesperson said in a statement.

The sales "are routine cases to support Taiwan's continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability," the spokesperson said on condition of anonymity in line with protocol. "The United States will continue to support a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues, consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people on Taiwan."

The sale needs the approval of the US Congress, which is virtually assured as Taiwan enjoys strong support across party lines. The weapons approval, by contrast, clearly comes from the Biden administration, although it is consistent with sales since 1979 when the United States switched recognition to Beijing but agreed to maintain Taiwan's capacity for self-defence.

Biden, on a trip to Tokyo in May, appeared to break with decades of US policy by saying the United States would defend Taiwan directly if it was attacked although his aides later walked back his remarks, insisting that US policy remained deliberately ambiguous. China considers Taiwan a province awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. China's nationalists set up a rival government in Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war on the mainland, although the island has since blossomed into a vibrant democracy and major technological hub. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised growing questions on whether China may follow suit in Taiwan and whether the island is equipped to defend itself.

 

Sri Lanka Present Political issues

The history of Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) is intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent and the surrounding regions. The island was divided into numerous kingdoms intermittently (between CE 993–1077) united under Chola rule. Between 1597 and 1658, a substantial part of the island was under Portuguese rule. The Portuguese lost their possessions in Ceylon due to Dutch intervention in the Eighty Years' War. The island was united under British rule in 1815. Armed uprisings against the British took place in the 1818 Uva Rebellion and the 1848 Matale Rebellion. Independence was finally granted in 1948 but the country remained a Dominion of the British Empire until 1972.

In 1972 Sri Lanka assumed the status of a Republic. A constitution was introduced in 1978 which made the Executive President the head of state. The Sri Lankan Civil War began in 1983, including Insurrections in 1971 and 1987, with the 25-year-long civil war ending in 2009. There was an attempted coup against the government under Sirimavo Bandaranaike. He promoted Sinhalese culture and extended state control of the economy. However, he was assassinated in 1959. In 1960 he was replaced by his widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She was prime minister until 1965. She continued the policy of nationalization. From the 1950s tension between Tamils and Sinhalese grew. In 1956 Sinhalese was made the only official language (instead of both Sinhalese and Tamil). Mrs. Bandaranaike also deported many Indian Tamil laborers. In 1972 Sri Lanka was given a new constitution. This one stated that Buddhism had ‘foremost place’ among Sri Lankan religions. This was very unpopular with followers of other religions. Furthermore, in 1972 the number of Tamil places at university was reduced. Furthermore in 1972 the name of the country was officially changed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka.

In 1976 the Tamil United Liberation Front was formed. They demanded a separate Tamil state. Then in 1977 Sri Lanka was rocked by ethnic riots in which 128 people died. Yet another constitution was introduced in 1978. This one made a president the head of state. However, the new constitution failed to satisfy the Tamils. In 1983 civil war broke out between Tamils and Sinhalese. On 23 July 1983 Tamil separatists ambushed and killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers. The result was rioting in which hundreds of people died. Afterward, the Tamils fought a guerrilla war against the government.

India was drawn into the crisis in 1987 when they agreed to send a peacekeeping force to the north and east of Sri Lanka. However, fighting soon broke out between the Indian forces and the Tamil ‘Tigers’ or guerrillas. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) withdrew in 1990 and fighting between Tamils and Sinhalese began again. The war ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan government. Despite the bloodshed, some progress was made in Sri Lanka. The main factor has been conflict and civil war regarding the status of minority Tamils. In 1958, the first major riots between Sinhalese and Tamils flared up in Colombo as a direct result of the government's language policy. Under Bandaranaike, the country became a republic, the Free Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka, the Senate was abolished and Sinhala was established as the official language (with Tamil as a second language). The militants claimed their independence, their rights, and their "traditional homeland", and formed armed separatist groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ('Tamil Tigers'), demanding an independent Tamil state called Eelam. Much of this had the implicit and material support of politicians in India. In July 1983, communal riots took place due to the ambush and killing of 13 Sri Lankan Army soldiers by the Tamil Tigers. Rajiv Gandhi's offer to send troops into Sri Lanka was deeply unpopular with the Sinhalese and, although initially popular with the Tamils, led to an outbreak of hostilities between the Tamil Tigers and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) – Eelam War II.

Negotiations with the LTTE stalled and low-intensity conflict began. The violence dipped off after talks in February but escalated in April and the conflict continued until the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. From 1977 the Sri Lankan government adopted a market economy. Sri Lanka still produces tea, rubber, and coconuts and the textile industry is growing. Tourism has now become a major industry. In the early 21st century the economy of Sri Lanka grew steadily. In 2020 the population of Sri Lanka was 22 million. Unfortunately in 2022, Sri Lanka is facing an economic crisis but hopefully it will soon pass.

I am of the opinion that Sri Lanka has not made measurable progress in finding a political solution to ethnic issues involving the island nation’s Tamil minority through full implementation of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was aimed at resolving Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict that had aggravated into a full-fledged civil war between the armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam militant organization in 1983. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam wanted a separate state in northeast Sri Lanka because of alleged discrimination and persecution of Sri Lankan Tamils by the
Sinhalese government.

The 13th Amendment assured a power-sharing arrangement between the Sinhalese and the Tamils by allowing all nine provinces in the country to govern themselves. The Sinhala nationalists have opposed it, saying that it will lead to sharing too much power in the country, whereas the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam argued they were not getting enough say. The Sri Lankan leaders have also indicated that they do not want to displease the Sinhala majority by not committing to implement the amendment.

India’s consistent view on peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka has been for a political settlement within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, ensuring justice, peace, equality and dignity for the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan government declaration of total victory on 16 May 2009 marked the end of the 26-year-long civil war. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, while attending the G11 summit in Jordan, addressed the summit stating "my government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily". 19 May 2009 saw President Mahinda Rajapaksa giving a victory speech to the Parliament and declared that Sri Lanka is liberated from terrorism. Troops attached to Task Force VIII of Sri Lanka Army, reported to its commander, that the body of Velupillai Prabhakaran has been found. The Sri Lankan civil war cost the lives of an estimated 80,000–100,000 people. This included more than 23,327 Sri Lankan soldiers and policemen, 1,155 Indian soldiers and 27,639 Tamil fighters.

Earlier this year, Sri Lanka, battling the worst economic crisis in its history, had plunged into unprecedented turmoil, with an acute shortage of essentials such as fuel and medicine triggering massive protests, which forced Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign as President, a post taken over by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe says that huge tax cuts in 2019 and extensive money printing to settle debts triggered the worst economic crisis in the history of the country. He also stated that the government of Sri Lanka and the Central Bank had already defaulted even before the debt standstill was announced. He said the country has USD 7.6 billion in reserves, but when he took over as the central bank governor in April 2022 usable reserves had already plummeted to just USD 20 million.

 

He pointed out that if the economic difficulties faced by low-income groups increase, then such groups may take to the streets and because of this, riots may occur in the country. Therefore, he further pointed out that by dividing the economic burden between the high-income and low-income groups, the economy should be stabilized by controlling the discomfort caused to the low-income groups. He also pointed out the need to increase government revenue by controlling borrowing. He also said that the current inflation should be controlled and the export income should be increased and further emphasized that it is important to manage the government income and expenditure.

Dr. Weerasinghe pointed out that by restricting imports, the cost of 2 billion last year was reduced to 1.3 billion this year said that it was possible to buy essential items such as medicine, mineral oil and gas. He explained that especially the current state income is about 1.2 billion and if it is possible to control the state expenditure by restricting the import of non-essential items, it will be important for the state income.

The preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), under which Sri Lanka nation stands to receive $2.9 billion to tackle the ongoing economic crisis, is a “first step” in the long haul of economic recovery but will provide the country and investors “confidence” to attract increased investments and remittances. Sri Lanka now expects more countries to offer assistance while underlining that India was the “only partner” to have stepped up even without a framework in place. Moragoda said that with the IMF agreement taking shape, Sri Lanka now expects more countries to offer assistance.

Asked what the low-hanging fruit was when it came to vital structural reforms, Moragada said: “I would take the electricity sector. I would use the relationship with India, the connectivity grid with India, and bring in private investment in electricity generation. That could mean new power plants in renewable energy, or it could mean buying existing plants through a privatization process. I would go as far as to liberalize the last mile distribution like you have done and use the grid to India to create capacity and export and also import if we need it. But I think India can be the catalyst for that, but we need to move quickly.”

UN Condemns Sri-Lanka’s Human Rights Record

 

The United Nations Human Rights Council early this year passed a resolution on Sri Lanka that ignores calls for an international investigation into alleged abuses during recent fighting and other pressing human rights concerns. The council held a special session on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, a decade after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by government forces.

The resolution largely commends the Sri Lankan government for its current policies and fails to address serious allegations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law by government forces, focusing only on the abuses committed by the LTTE.

 

India's Outlook

 

India is willing to make more investments in neighboring Sri Lanka after supporting it with $3.8 billion this year, New Delhi's envoy in Colombo said speaking to journalists. Gopal Baglay, India's high commissioner in Sri Lanka, said that "The idea is to respond to Sri Lanka's requests for enabling them to meet their foreign exchange crisis. We would like to continue to bring more investment into Sri Lanka because that will help create medium- and long-term capacity to respond within the Sri Lankan economy."

 

Sri Lanka borrows USD 1.5 billion currency from China

 

Sri Lanka signed a USD 1.5 billion currency swap deal with China in early 2021 with the main motive to promote bilateral trade and direct investment between the two countries. China remains Sri Lanka’s largest source of imports. In 2020, imports from China amounted to USD 3.6 billion, or just over 22 percent of Sri Lanka’s imports. The deal comes as Sri Lanka is undergoing a difficult time with COVID-19, dealing a severe blow to its economy, especially its USD 4.5 billion tourism industry. Sri Lanka also must pay nearly USD 4.5 billion in foreign debts annually until 2025. China has provided billions of dollars in loans for Sri Lankan projects over the past decade. The projects include a seaport, airport, port city, highways and power stations.

IMF To Extend 2.9 Billion $ To Sri Lanka

 

Sri Lanka has agreed to a conditional $2.9 billion bailout with International Monetary Fund negotiators, as it seeks to overcome an economic crisis that saw its president flee the country. Months of acute food, fuel and medicine shortages, extended blackouts and runaway inflation have plagued the country after it ran out of dollars to finance even the most essential imports. Dwindling foreign-exchange reserves, crippling shortages of essential items and Asia’s fastest inflation have hammered the $81 billion economy. Sri Lanka must implement major tax reforms including making personal income tax more progressive while broadening tax base for corporate income tax and VAT to meet a primary surplus of 2.3% of GDP by 2025.

I am of the opinion that Sri Lanka must reduce corruption vulnerabilities by improving fiscal transparency and public financial management. It should mitigate the impact of the current crisis on the poor by raising social spending. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has permitted trade transactions with Sri Lanka to be handled in Indian Rupees (INR), outside the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism, due to the difficulty faced by exporters in obtaining revenues from the island country. The Indian government guaranteed a term loan of $1 billion granted to Sri Lanka by the State Bank of India to finance the acquisition of vital commodities and services such as food, medicines, gasoline, and industrial raw material.

Sri Lanka elects new Prime Minister and President

 

Senior politician, Dinesh Gunawardena has been appointed as the new and 15th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, by President Ranil Wickremesinghe in July 2022. With Gotabaya fleeing the country and resigning from his position, earlier Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the eighth President of Sri Lanka on July 2022. The 73-year-old Wickremesinghe will serve the remaining term of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, which ends in 2024.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned on July 12, 2022. Following months of demonstrations against an economic crisis, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa travelled to the Maldives, prompting Sri Lanka to proclaim a state of emergency as large-scale riots swamped Colombo. He fled his official residence in Colombo shortly before tens of thousands of protestors overran it. He had pledged to step down and pave the way for a peaceful transfer of power. Rajapaksa is thought to have intended to leave Sri Lanka before resigning in order to avoid the risk of being arrested because he is president and is therefore immune from arrest.

Sri Lanka’s economy is bracing for a sharp contraction due to the unavailability of basic inputs for production, an 80 per cent depreciation of the currency since March 2022, coupled with a lack of foreign reserves and the country’s failure to meet its international debt obligations. During its greatest economic crisis since its independence in 1948, Sri Lanka hiked its fuel costs, adding to the suffering of the populace.

As Sri Lanka scrambles to get back on track after the election of a new President, the people in the country — who are facing severe economic hardship — are still uncertain about the future.

Afghanistan after US troops withdrawal

 

US President Joe Biden in April 2021 announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September bringing to end the country’s longest war. He said the US troops, as well as forces deployed by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Allies and operational partners, will be out of Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of that heinous attack on September 11 (2001).

Biden and his team are refining national strategy to monitor and disrupt significant terrorist threats not only in Afghanistan, but anywhere they may arise — Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Before making the announcement, Biden had spoken with former US presidents Barack Obama and George Bush. The US and the Taliban signed a landmark deal in Doha on February 29, 2020, to bring lasting peace in war-torn Afghanistan and allow US troops to return home from America’s longest war.

Between 2001–2021, the country sustained itself on aid from the international community led by the United States and its allies, Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), as well as remittances from Afghans abroad. With the creation of the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) in 2002, 34 donors came together to inject US$10 million into the reconstruction of the country. These efforts, whilst successful in making enormous strides in healthcare, education, and other indicators, failed to permeate the deeply entrenched ‘networks of access’ that run in the country, consequently being inadequate in stimulating domestic competitiveness or advancement of tradeable sectors. In a ministerial conference in Geneva in November 2020, the international community committed to giving US$13 billion in aid to Afghanistan from 2020-2024 for basic services and sustaining the peace process. This aid amount was to be complimented by ‘domestic resource mobilization, efforts to reduce corruption, improving governance and introducing structural reforms.’ However, once the Republic was replaced by the Emirate of Afghanistan, all these commitments were set aside.

After the Taliban came to Afghanistan and wanted to be in power, President Ashraf Ghani tendered his resignation, as the government had surrendered to the Taliban forces, which entered Kabul and sought the unconditional surrender of the central government. Following this, a new interim government had been announced, to be headed by Ali Ahamd Jalali, a US-based academic. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as the Islamist terrorists entered the city, he wanted to avoid bloodshed, while hundreds of Afghans were desperate to leave flooded Kabul airport. In Washington, opponents of President Joe Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war, launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. American diplomats were flown by helicopter to the airport from their embassy in the fortified Wazir Akbar Khan district as Afghan forces, trained for years and equipped by the United States and others at a cost of billions of dollars, melted away.

In August 2022, the Interim Taliban Administration (ITA) completed a year in Afghanistan after taking over last year. The withdrawal of foreign troops, enabled by the signing of the Doha Peace Agreement between the United States (US) and the Taliban ultimately resulted in the fall of Kabul. Since the disintegration of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the insurgent group has been flailing to govern the country, if at all its actions can fall under the ambit of ‘governance’.

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the US seized $7 billion of foreign currency reserves from Da Afghanistan Bank and directed European allies to seize another $2 billion stored there. Without reserve currency to stabilise prices and balance exports and imports, the Afghan economy went haywire, with prices skyrocketing, the currency collapsing and imports coming to a complete halt. The country is also experiencing runaway inflation along with a widespread shortage of bank notes. As described in the World Bank’s ‘Afghanistan Economic Monitor’ for August, prices for basic household goods saw 43.4% year-on-year inflation during July, while cash withdrawals from banks remained regulated for firms and individuals.

A year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the country faces "cascading crises" and a crippled economy that humanitarian aid alone cannot address, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The report calculates that the already-declining licit Afghan economy lost nearly US$5 billion after August 2021 and is reversing "in 12 months what had taken 10 years to accumulate." The cost of a basket of essentials needed to avoid food poverty has meanwhile risen 35 percent, forcing poorer households to go deeper into debt or sell off assets just to survive. Nearly 700,000 jobs have vanished, further threatening a population reeling from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, drought, and war in Ukraine.

The report paints a bleak fiscal picture of the country, dating back more than a decade before the transition of August 2021. With GDP in steady decline since 2008, Afghanistan had come to rely on international aid to sustain its economy, which accounted for 75 percent of total government spending and nearly 40 percent of GDP at the time of transition. But foreign donors largely suspended aid after the transition. With external financial support curtailed, Afghanistan must rely on limited domestic revenue from agriculture and coal exports. Authorities have sought to address revenue shortfalls by cracking down on corruption in key revenue streams, such as customs, and by reaching out to the private sector and foreign investors.

The massive humanitarian crisis and the perilous condition of the economy in Afghanistan are likely to worsen with the impending onset of the harsh winter season for the second time since the Taliban took over power last August. The dire situation Afghanistan is currently experiencing is reflected by the fact that it has the highest prevalence of insufficient food consumption in the world, with as high as 92% of Afghan households struggling to meet their food needs, as per the United Nations (UN) data. Acute malnutrition has been witnessed across the country. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that tens of thousands of children are being admitted every month for emergency medical treatment for acute malnutrition. Many others in remote areas are unable to get help and have starved to death.

UN and humanitarian officials have also alleged that the Taliban rulers were clearly interfering with the delivery of humanitarian aid, including in the selection of beneficiaries and channeling assistance to people on their own priority lists, and not the needy. It is, however, clear that the impoverishment of the Afghan people and the humanitarian crisis are a result of the serious economic crisis facing the landlocked nation. A year after the Taliban took over power, teenage girls are still barred from school and women are barred from working in offices and required to cover themselves from head to toe in public, despite initial promises to the contrary. Girls are prohibited from attending schools beyond primary classes.

Alongside, the media in the country has been facing continued attack and persecution at the hands of the new rulers- from physical assaults, threats and harassment- to censorship and harsh restrictions. While the region’s media unions have urged the Taliban rulers to respect press freedom and ensure the safety and security of all working journalists in Afghanistan, these appeals have gone unnoticed. In a press release, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said the UN mission has documented a total of 173 media rights violations documented in Afghanistan from August 15, 2021, until June 15, 2022.

 

                                                                                                  EPILOGUE

One can come to a conclusion by reading the above-mentioned facts that the present independent country’s Democratic Policy has failed and we should think of something different. The Global Administration Policy on the Earth is in the interest of the world’s inhabitants.

In the present world, the Administration Policy of each country is hilarious and a knowledgeable person may mock at this. In some countries, there is a Democratic Administration Policy, and some countries have Dictatorial rule. No common Rules and Regulations are followed by these countries. Each country can take a national decision according to the choice of its ill-advised leaders. These senseless leaders are taking such decisions and are indulging in terrorism, corruption and endless wars against other peace-loving countries. This is nothing new for us, we all are seeing these matters in the present world. In many countries, human rights are snatched from the citizens even while there are no proper schools in rural areas.

The UNO has published a report stating that schools are running without electricity, proper classrooms, and sanitation. Such senseless leaders are giving such education to their children under these conditions. They are so thoughtless without common sense of proper living conditions they might be vagabonds. As if they were born in the world just recently but the fact is that man was born on the earth billions of years ago but even now man is living in this condition. It’s a great disgrace to human beings.

It is found that each country has its own Defence Research Development Organisation. Their work is to produce nuclear weapons and inter-continental ballistic missiles and other dangerous war-related weaponries. These ill-advised leaders are encouraging such activities and many don’t have foodstuff for their citizens and other basic necessities. They do not care about it and think of waging wars day and night without sleeping for manufacturing such weapons. Being the Author I wonder why these irresponsible leaders don’t have common sense that all countries people should live on the Earth only. In the present time, there is no such technology to go beyond the earth. Then also these senseless leaders are taking decisions to wage wars against other countries.

Finally, we should all live on the earth, eat, and breathe in our daily life. Then being the Author I want to ask what is the necessity for indulging in terrorism, corruption, and waging endless wars against other countries. Why should we not live happily on the earth thinking that this is our home planet? The Earth is a natural gift for us and we should protect it from pollution and maintain peace and harmony for all human beings. Besides this, these senseless leaders are waging wars against other countries and utilising deadly weapons against humans. They don’t have such common sense that we should live on the earth for many more years. But these unwise leaders took an oath to destroy the earth.

By waging wars UNO has reported many deaths in the war and several refugees in different parts of the earth without proper food and shelter. Being the Author I am soliciting that please stop all these nonsensical activities and implement Global Administration according to my published book on the subject.

We must bring in measures to control the population of the Earth. The exponential population growth has resulted in illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism throughout the world. If one is illiterate and does not want to stop In-Diadem activities, then do tell me why I should not say the present era is In-Diadem. The same is presented in a detailed and straightforward manner in this book.

 

 

 

Impressum

Texte: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Bildmaterialien: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Cover: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Lektorat: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Korrektorat: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Übersetzung: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Satz: Gopal Rayappa Kolekar
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 16.06.2023

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
I have used the word, In-Diadem in this book. You will wonder from where this word has come. It has its history. In the olden days, the British coined this word. It means that countries that are only interested in having natural sex and food, do not care about science; for such countries and people, the word, In-Diadem was applied. In the old Oxford Dictionary, it is mentioned that the meaning of In-Diadem is: old-fashioned criminals who are useless in real life. They are always interested in conversing in their unscientific language throughout life. The Britishers of those days thought they were scientific and well developed, and the first Industrial Revolution took place in England between 1760 and 1870. Me being an author, I find that this term perfectly applies to developing countries. Their lifestyle is found only In-Diadem. To remove this In-Diademness, I wrote a book on Education, “How Should the Indian Education System be?” Despite this book being widely circulated, it is obse