Monthly Archives: August 2018

PTI

New Delhi, October 14

The Supreme Court Friday came down heavily on producer Ekta Kapoor over “objectionable content” in her web series ‘XXX’, saying she was polluting the minds of the young generation of this country.

The top court was hearing a plea filed by Kapoor challenging the arrest warrants issued against her for allegedly insulting soldiers and hurting the sentiments of their families in the web series aired on her OTT platform ALTBalaji

“Something has to be done. You are polluting the minds of the young generation of this country. It is available to all. OTT (Over The Top) content is available to all. What kind of choice are you providing to the people?….on the contrary you are polluting the minds of youngsters,” a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and C T Ravikumar said.

The court made the observation after senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Kapoor, submitted that a petition has been filed before the Patna high court but there is no hope the matter will be listed for hearing soon.

He said the top court had earlier granted protection to Kapoor in a similar matter.

Rohatgi said the content is subscription based and that there is freedom of choice in this country.

The court, which stopped short of imposing costs, then wondered what kind of choice is being given to people.

“Everytime you travel to this court….we don’t appreciate this. We will put a cost on you for filing such a petition. Mr Rohatgi please convey this to your client. Just because you can afford and hire the services of good lawyers….this court is not for those who have voices.

“This court works for those who don’t have voices…if these people who have all kinds of facilities, if they cannot get justice then think of the situation of this common man. We have seen the order and we have our reservations,” the bench observed.

The top court kept the matter pending and suggested a local lawyer may be put to work to know about the status of hearing in the high court.

A trial court in Bihar’s Begusarai had issued the warrant on a complaint lodged by Shambhu Kumar, an ex-serviceman.

Kumar, in his complaint of 2020, alleged series ‘XXX’ (Season-2) featured several objectionable scenes related to a soldier’s wife

Tribune News Service

Gaurav Kanthwal

Mohali, October 12

The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report of the mobile phone conversations between the Chandigarh University girl suspect and Army man runs into around 8,000 pages, sources have said.

SIT member Rupinder Kaur Bhatti said: “It runs into thousands of pages but it has a lot of gibberish data, which is not related to the case. We will be concluding the case shortly,” she said.

Sources said the girl suspect and Sanjiv Singh got acquainted through the social media, and might have met in person as well.

The forensic report has reportedly established that Sanjiv had sent objectionable videos and photographs of the girl to her father and aunt. The cops confirmed this but remained tight-lipped on whether the videos were pornographic or not.

The police are yet to recover another mobile phone of Sanjiv, a resident of Samba, from his earlier place of posting. The third suspect, Sunny Mehta, became friends with the CU girl during her college days as she used to stop by at his bakery shop.

It has also come to light Sunny, a class IX passout and a bakery worker, was avoiding the girl, an MBA-I student, for the past one-and-a-half years although they had been friends for around one year in the past.

Later, differences cropped up between the two and their conversations were restricted. “They were on talking terms off and on,” confirmed the cops. The police are still rummaging through the pile of FSL report to make sure relevant facts are not missed in the investigation.

Political bosses are encouraging police in new role of judge & executioner

Julio Ribeiro

Four young men caught for pelting stones on the pandal under which garba had been organised were flogged by a police inspector in Kheda district of Gujarat. The flogging was carried out in full public view and it was captured live on video. Was that legal? Of course not. Third-degree torture, as practised within the confines of a police precinct, and fake encounters where criminals are dealt with are also illegal, but such practices have the approval of many citizens and, hence, continue with impunity.

The political class should be made aware of the dangers involved in allowing the police to run amok.

The inspector, who carried out the summary punishment, was confident that he had the consent, tacit or spoken, of his superiors. I would go a step further and say that even the political bosses were knowingly complicit. After the use of bulldozer in Yogi’s UP, that instrument of destruction and of revenge has been used in other BJP-ruled states too. The infection has spread. The police in those states are sure that they will be supported if they adopt extra-judicial methods to ensure quick ‘justice’.

Why is this unconventional and uncivilised method of dispensing justice admired by the people, mainly the middle class? The haves lean on the State’s authority to live their lives in peace and comfort. When the judicial process system becomes slack in ensuring the safety of life and property, pressure is built on the police to adopt shortcuts to achieve a modicum of law and order. When there is a ground-swell of public adulation for policemen who are adept in such shortcuts, politicians, who closely follow trends in public perception, cling on to these straws to ensure their own hold on power. Even though those who support these methods belong largely to the haves, the politicians do take note because it is this class that dictates public perception.

A digression at this stage is necessary. Ever since communal politics has assumed prime importance in our land, the minority community has found itself at the receiving end of the police lathi. This development has, to some extent, enthused the have-nots of the majority community and they, too, have joined the ranks of those who exult when ‘criminals’ are disciplined. The flogging of the stone pelters would have been welcomed by all elements of the majority, both haves and have-nots. The police are encouraged in this new role of judge and executioner because of the overwhelming support of the majority community.

The only corrective step that can be advocated to combat this descent into police criminality is to put the criminal justice system back on track. The entire process has to be addressed — beginning with the registration of crimes, proper and timely investigation, quick prosecution of the culprits, daily hearings in murder and serious crime trials, as used to be the practice when I was a student of law in the late 1940s.

The practice of seeking adjournments at the drop of a hat should be discouraged by the judiciary. At present, it has degenerated into routine. Superior courts have specified the number of adjournments that can be permitted, but these directions are honoured only in their breach. For instance, there is a case of murder registered against Sachin Vaze, the cop who was collecting money from bar owners in Mumbai at the instance of his political boss or departmental superior, either of them, or more likely, both of them in cahoots with each other! The trial has not even begun despite the crime having been reported nearly two decades ago.

The Minister for Justice in the Modi government is a go-getter. He should spearhead this project. To begin with, he needs to get the higher judiciary and the police leaders, as well as the Bar chiefs and Directors of Prosecution in each state to sit together and thrash out the doable correctives, like adjournments, before discussing increased manpower in the judiciary, the prosecuting agency and the police investigation segment. Rijiju is a capable minister. If he puts his heart into the project, it can, and will, succeed.

At present the police, especially in BJP-ruled states, and particularly in UP, seem sure of political backing for adopting shortcuts. The political class should be made aware of the dangers involved in allowing the police to run amok in this fashion. Police officers who have been given such unlawful liberties will soon become a menace to society, as has been proved in Mumbai. The stark example of permitting a Sachin Vaze such licence has resulted in him being accused of murdering in cold blood his own friend who had lent his vehicle to plant explosives outside Mukesh Ambani’s residence!

In territories unaffected by terrorism, there is no excuse for letting loose criminals in uniform. Terrorists do not recognise the law and its legally mandated representatives like the police, prosecutors and judges. Terrorists do not bribe politicians or policemen. They just pump bullets into them. In terrorist-affected areas only those armed with guns matter. Others, including political leaders, bureaucrats and judges, besides the citizenry, are all at their mercy. The police becomes the only possible saviour, but that proposition requires a lid to be kept on irresponsible personnel at different levels.

Terrorists captured from within the Golden Temple by KPS Gill after Operation Black Thunder II had surrendered in full view of global television audiences. KTS Tulsi, the prosecutor, had promised their conviction. Not one was convicted! Any judge trying them would necessarily weigh the risk to his own life, and also to that of his male progeny. (Khalistani terrorists were reputed to concentrate only on males.)h

The rules applicable to the handling of terrorism-based crime may need to be tweaked but there is no justification to allow the police in Gujarat or UP to become a law unto themselves. It may be difficult to give anything but token punishment to the inspector who ‘flogged’ the pelters. (TV video shots show that he did the flogging ‘rather gently’.) It is his departmental superior and the political boss of the district who need to be re-educated on the nature of the danger involved.

NewDelhi, October 13 Army’s assault dog ‘Zoom’, who sustained gunshot wounds earlier this week while battling terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district, succumbed to injuries on Thursday, said officials from the Srinagar-based 15 Corps. The two-year-old Belgian Shepherd, also known as Malinois, was active in the service for the last eight months. The canine was known to be ferocious, committed and highly trained to locate and bring down terrorists. The officials said Zoom was under treatment at the Advance Field Veterinary Hospital in Srinagar, but succumbed around noon. “Zoom’s condition was improving and the canine was responding well to the treatment. The dog looked fine till noon after which it suddenly started gasping and soon collapsed,” the officials said. It was on October 10 that security forces had launched a cordon and search operation in Tangpawa following inputs about the presence of terrorists. As was the norm, Zoom was tasked to clear the house where the terrorists were hiding. “Zoom identified and attacked the terrorists, but received two gunshots…. The canine kept on fighting and performing its task, which resulted in the killing of two Lashkar terrorists,” the officials said. The terrorists had taken refuge in the house of a civilian. Zoom was trained to retrieve the weapons from terrorists hiding in buildings. The dog is learnt to have approached the target stealthily and pounced upon the terrorists. “Zoom was fired upon by the terrorists in hiding, injuring it seriously. However, the dog was successful in destabilising the terrorists, who were then effectively neutralised through precision fire,” the Army had said on the day of the operation. On June 30, another Army dog, Axel, had died in a counter-terrorism operation in Kashmir. Like Zoom, the twoyear-old Axel, also a Belgian

Offensive formations of the Indian Army are preparing to take part in a military exercise on the Western front this month, according to a defence release here on Thursday. It is expected to be one of the biggest exercises in recent times and will be witnessed by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, and other key officials from Army headquarters, it said.
“The exercise is planned to validate newly converted mechanised formations, also known as Reorganised Plains Infantry Division, test efficacy of latest induction and upgrades in weapons and equipment, and also test the enhanced force ratios accrued post rebalancing of forces on entire Western Front,” according to the release.
Validation of tactical concepts of these formations, especially on canal-based operations, and fighting manoeuvre through built-up areas apart from many other latest operational concepts designed to launch a swift punitive blow to the adversary as part of the proactive strategy will be the key features of the exercise, it said.
“The exercise will put into practice the synergy between all arms and services including attack helicopters in a semi desert terrain, it said.

Indian Kashmir’s great leap forward economically, socially, and politically can only embarrass Pakistan, for it both shows the failure of Islamabad’s stewardship and highlights its cynicism
by Michael Rubin
SRINAGAR—In 2019, just weeks after Indian president Ram Nath Kovind abrogated Article 370 of India’s constitution, ending Kashmir’s de facto autonomy, I visited Pakistan. Anger was palpable. Electronic billboards, depicting barbed wire and dripping blood, counted the time since the Indian government imposed a curfew on the territory. At a Pakistan National Defence University conference, both officers and civil society leaders spoke about the horrible situation of Indian Kashmir. “It’s like the Gaza Strip,” one activist told me.
Three years later, I took the opportunity to see Kashmir for myself. My conclusion: Pakistan is in trouble. While Kashmiris under Pakistani control remain hobbled by a moribund economy and suppressed by Jamaat-e-Islami extremism, Kashmiris in India have security, taste freedom, and thrive.
The signs are everywhere. Whereas Pakistanis depict a region in India where civilians cower under the yoke of the Indian army and separatists represent popular will, the reality is different. Certainly, Indian police from outside the territory are present, but their checkpoints are unmanned and traffic flows. The emergency is over and life is normal. At the height of the day and long after dark, both in the capital Srinagar and in the hinterlands, there were no active checkpoints. This extended to southern Kashmir, where in years past, Pakistan-trained terrorists exploited the night to bring commerce and life to a halt.
Evidence of Kashmir’s growing confidence is everywhere. I drove past the crowded new Inox multiplex, Srinagar’s first operational cinema in thirty years, where young men and women as well as families can see the latest films. It may sound simple, but many Kashmiris spoke about the cinema as a sign of normality after militants began to harass and even kill Bollywood fans in the 1990s.
I met a seventeen-year-old girl who badgered her father into allowing her to do karate. She is now a national gold medallist and competes in international tournaments. Her schoolmates and friends now demand similar freedom from their families. With militancy pushed back, Kashmir’s traditional moderation and even liberalism again prevail. Her friend, a blackbelt and power lifter, had a similar story. Other women have started businesses or entered politics. In the nearby town of Ganderbal, the Sikh president of the local university showed off new athletic fields and preparations for a multi-university football, volleyball, table tennis, and kho-kho tournament. When I asked what kho-kho was, he took me to a nearby court where two teams of young women were scrimmaging in the ancient Indian team tag sport. With the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and state-sponsored extremism in Pakistan, Indian Kashmir is an oasis of freedom for women to pursue activities forbidden elsewhere.
Perhaps the biggest cause for local optimism was the normalization of education and commerce. For almost three decades, separatists sought to show their power by forcing schools and businesses to shutter. The sense of impunity was so absolute that they would publish monthly calendars in advance to show where and when they would flex their muscle. The losers were the Kashmiri people, as India’s regimented exam system does not make exceptions for those forced out of school for months at a time.
Today, not only do schools operate smoothly and without interruption, but new opportunities also exist as the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management open local branches to accommodate the hundreds of well-qualified Kashmiris.
Business was apparent as was the growing wealth of Jammu and Kashmir. Tourists, mostly from India but also many from Europe, Israel, and the United States have returned to Dal Lake, and its famous houseboat hotels. The line to enter the nearby Mughal gardens stretched outside and down the block, a concentration of men, women, and children I would never see in any of the active conflict zones I visit. Nor was the tourism limited to Srinagar. On a mountain slope outside of Ganderbal, a young couple had purchased a plot of barren, rocky land and transformed it into a thriving eco-lodge and conference centre. Inspired by their intervention, their neighbour founded a fish farm. I stopped for coffee and a small snack at a sleek new restaurant along the main road in Kulgam, southern Kashmir, to give my driver a break; we had gotten caught in traffic as a train passed on the region’s new railroad. Heading to Jammu, it would pass over the highest railroad bridge in the world, more than 1,000 feet above the Chenab River below.
Not everything was tourism: Much as Morocco won over the Western Sahara by pumping money into a long-deprived region, today India spends more per capita on Jammu and Kashmir than it does in any other state. Saffron stores flourished, attracting business from the heavy traffic along the Srinagar to Jammu highway. Not far away, near Pulwama, infamous as the site of a February 2019 Pakistan-sponsored suicide bombing that killed more than forty Indians, new cricket bat factories dot the highway, planks of willow wood piled high. Each supports nine or ten families or perhaps 70 to 100 people. These, and handicraft and artisan factories and shops on the road to Gulmarg, the government now supports with low-interest loans and marketing support. The result is tremendous: Kashmiris now build expansive villas in the countryside. This is an important barometer of progress. When locals fear the continuation of conflict, they invest in gold because they can take it with them if forced to flee, but when families feel confident in their future, they invest in real estate and build a house to last generations.
Religious freedom is also apparent. In Srinagar, I met Hindus returning after having been forced to flee by Islamist militants decades ago. While I expected greater local concerns that the 2019 change in Kashmir’s status would mean an influx of outsiders into the state, locals told me this never materialized: Indians like to visit, but do not want to relocate outside major cities or their own ancestral regions. Traditional Sufism has made a rebound as the return of security no longer means Pakistan-inspired militants can impose their will through threat of violence.
This hit home when I met a Lashkar-e-Taiba veteran. He related how his Pakistani controllers brainwashed him into believing Hindus prevented Muslims from praying in Kashmir and closed mosques. After he infiltrated into the territory, he realized they had lied to him as mosques thrive and people pray openly. I visited a pro-bono lawyer who handled many such security cases; he said such revelations were common. Prior to 2019, teenagers often threw stones at vehicles belonging to security forces or violating the militants’ general strike orders. When police caught them, they often said they were following the Quran as Jamaat-e-Islami inciters taught them. When shown no such verses existed, they were chagrined.
Religious freedom manifests itself in other ways. In Pakistan, Shi’ites represent 20 percent of the population but are often subject to vicious terrorism. In Kashmir, I got caught in traffic as police closed one-half of a major road so that Shi’ites could march in a religious procession. Thousands turned out. In Pakistan, both militants and a state seeking to appease them victimize heterodox sects such as Ahmadis. In Indian Kashmir, I passed Sikh temples that could no longer exist across the border.
This does not mean everyone in Kashmir is happy with the changes brought by the abrogation of Article 370. At one university, professors complained bitterly that they no longer could directly hire faculty, but rather had to deal with central authorities in New Delhi. Other Kashmiris, however, dismissed such complaints as rooted mostly in the disruption of the old patronage system. Even those happy with current developments resented the initial blockage of the internet and cell phone system, as the central government undertook a security operation to arrest militants and deployed to prevent instability. Today, however, all those deprivations are gone. It was brief pain to prevent more sustained hurt. Essentially, New Delhi ripped off the band-aid.
There are other reasons for complaint. Demotion to “union territory” status means direct rule by New Delhi. This may strike outsiders as anti-democratic, but it has parallels in the United States: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania regularly extends receivership over bankrupt towns and cities when corruption and mismanagement threaten solvency and functioning. It was a temporary arrangement, much like union territory status will be. That more than 30,000 showed up earlier this month to hear Home Minister Amit Shah speak in Baramulla, a district once off-limits to senior Indian officials because of terrorism, is an indication that ordinary Kashmiris do not share the resentment voiced by a corrupt, aristocratic old elite.
For Islamabad, this is the problem. Islamabad and the separatists and terrorist groups it sponsors may say India denies Kashmir freedom, but reality increasingly suggests otherwise. Pakistan may claim to be the flagbearer for Kashmiris, but Indian Kashmir’s great leap forward economically, socially, and politically can only embarrass Pakistan, for it both shows the failure of Islamabad’s stewardship and highlights its cynicism. The developments in Kashmir appear irreversible; no opposition successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be able to set back the clock. The question for Pakistani authorities is how they will address the loss of any legitimacy to their rule in the portion of Kashmir they control. Will they double down on terrorism or will they recognize that peace, freedom, and tolerance are the way forward?

ANI

Gurdaspur, October 14

Border Security Force (BSF) troops shot down a drone that entered India in Punjab’s Gurdaspur sector from the Pakistan side on the International Border in the early hours of Friday.

A senior BSF officer said that the drone was spotted at 4.35 am by BSF troops on patrolling duty. They immediately opened fire and it was shot down.

According to the BSF official, a massive search operation has been launched in the area to determine whether the drone has dropped any consignment in the area.

A search operation is underway under the supervision of BSF DIG. It is suspected that the drone was carrying a consignment from Pakistan.

“Brave jawans of BSF spotted a drone coming from Pakistan side. As soon as it entered India, jawans fired 17 rounds of bullets at it. One of the blades of the drone was damaged. The entire area is being searched. The drone will be analysed,” said BSF DIG, Gurdaspur, Prabhakar Joshi. 

Pertinent to mention, in the past nine months, security forces have observed the illegal entry of 191 drones into Indian territory from neighbouring Pakistan, raising major concerns in terms of internal security in the country.

The central government recently shared the input from the security forces deployed at the India-Pakistan border to maintain such illegal attempts from the Pakistan side.https://a222434f420d567ecf16ff5e593f8cdd.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Of the 191 drones observed, 171 entered into Indian territory through the India-Pakistan border along the Punjab sector while 20 were seen in the Jammu sector, a document accessed by the ANI mentions.

As per the document, the “UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) observation in Indo-Pak border was seen in Punjab and Jammu frontier with effect from January 1, 2022, to September 30, 2022”.

The documents further reveal that most of these drones or UAVs managed to flee while a total of seven have been shot down by the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, who are deployed along the India-Pakistan border to keep a tab on such illegal activities being orchestrated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

Among seven drones shot down this year between January 1 to September 15 were observed in Punjab’s Amritsar, Ferozpur and Abohar regions.

Officials in the BSF told ANI that drones are being used by Pakistan’s side to transport weapons, explosives and narcotics across the international border in Jammu and Punjab from Pakistan.

The increased drone activity across the border was brought to the notice of Home Minister Amit Shah in the security review meeting in Srinagar recently with top security and intelligence chiefs in attendance. While BSF, which mans the international border with Pakistan in the Jammu sector, believes that it has been able to repel drones carrying arms, ammunition and explosives from Pakistan, the state police and the intelligence agencies differ with this assessment.

The security forces have seized various AK series assault rifles, pistols, MP4 carbines, carbine magazines, high explosive grenades as well as narcotics which were transported into Indian territory from Pakistan from the drones shot down so far. 

As per security agencies, BSF intelligence inputs and Jammu and Kashmir Police officials, the drones are also used to drop packets of Afghan heroin for financing terror operations in the Valley and Punjab.

It is learnt that the group behind the transportation of weapons, explosives and drugs is Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terror outfits which have camps across the International Boundary and are backed by ISI.

The Home Ministry is learnt to have directed the concerned agencies to find out a solution to stop drone activities and meanwhile security agencies and law enforcement forces are asked to keep a special watch on such movements.  

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G Parthasarathy

Chancellor, Jammu Central University & former High Commissioner to Pakistan

Russia’s ties with its former republics have generally been good, even after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1996. It was only natural for Russia’s smaller neighbours to seek to widen their regional and international options, which is happening now. Moreover, there are millions of Russians living as local citizens in virtually all former Soviet Republics. Russia also has a long coastline across the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean. It has, therefore, historically used ports, in what is now Ukraine, for the bulk of its trade and military operations across the sea. It also has serious concerns about ensuring uninterrupted access to the seas, through Crimea, in Ukraine. Under the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine has, however, in recent years, sought to widen its options through a growing strategic partnership with the US.

India has positioned itself as a constructive participant in the emerging situation in Ukraine.

Russia took control of the port facilities in Crimea in southern Ukraine in 2014. Russian population constituting 17% of Ukraine’s population lives largely near and across the shores of the Black Sea. Matters came to a head when the young and charismatic Zelenskyy hastily sought close military relations with President Biden’s administration in 2021. This transpired even as ethnic tensions between Russians and Ukrainians in southern Ukraine were escalating. Rather than seeking to promote stability in Ukraine, the Biden administration chose to play to the ego of the Ukrainian President.

In 2021 emerged a joint declaration by Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart, laced with strong anti-Russian rhetoric, which included: ‘Unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, including Crimea, and extending to its territorial waters, in the face of Russian aggression’. This was an assurance of support to Ukraine for actions which would undermine Russia’s access to the sea in Crimea. This was accompanied by rapid transfer of sophisticated US military hardware to Ukraine.

President Putin ordered his troops into southern Ukraine in February, with the stated objective of seizing the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk by declaring them independent states. He thereby established Russia’s control over areas where the Russians are well positioned. There are an estimated 7.7 million Russians in Ukraine, which has a total population of 43.3 million. The Russian population resides predominantly in six southern districts of Ukraine which control Russia’s access to the sea in Crimea. The Russian Black Sea Fleet was established in the Crimean Peninsula in 1783. It has historically been the gateway of Russia to the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Mediterranean Sea. The ill-planned and poorly executed Russian military response that followed the Biden-Zelenskyy declaration, combined with massive US and NATO arms assistance, threatened the only historical Russian access to the seas

The Russians are now confined to operating almost exclusively in Ukraine’s six districts of Mariupol, Luhansk, Donetsk, Melitopol, Kherson and Crimea. While Russia had taken control of these largely Russian-dominated areas, its forces are now under tremendous risk of being overrun by far better equipped Ukrainian forces. Given the strategic dimensions and the location of these areas, there is every possibility of Russia resorting to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, if unavoidable. Just over a year ago, Biden and Putin proclaimed in a joint statement that: ‘A nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought’. The durability of that statement is now under test, with Putin not ruling out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Biden, in turn, is warning of dire consequences if Russia does so.

Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces in ‘special combat readiness’ on February 22, and held high-profile nuclear drills. More recently, he said: ‘If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, without a doubt, use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.’ Biden predictably rebuffed Putin’s threat. This is the first time that the world is facing such a dangerous threat of an impending use of nuclear weapons, especially as the Ukrainians are now eyeball to eyeball with Russians. While many Russians may not agree with Putin’s policies, they will rally behind him in such a situation.

While the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a capacity of 15-25 kilo tonnes of high explosives, tactical nuclear weapons have capacities ranging from 0.1 to 1 kilo tonne. According to US intelligence, Russia has about 2,000 tactical weapons. One hopes Zelenskyy does not provoke the Russians to act drastically.

Russia has lost support and sympathy across Europe. But, it is a country with scientific skills and immense natural resources. It is also one of the world’s leading producers of oil and natural gas. With shortages in supplies worldwide, there is little the western world can do to halt the looming rise in oil prices now brought about by Arab oil producers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This, despite appeals by Biden to lower oil prices. Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia, however, appears determined to challenge Biden’s diktats. The impact of Russia’s actions will be felt by people in Europe during winter months without the availability of Russian gas supplies.

India has positioned itself as a constructive participant in the emerging situation in Ukraine. This is evident as all sides have hailed PM Modi’s talks with Putin at the recent SCO Summit, where Modi drew attention to the reality that: ‘Today’s era is not an era of war.’ This statement has been welcomed by the governments and media in the US, Russia and across Europe. One hopes that Biden, Putin and Zelenskyy heed the advice and move towards a negotiated settlement to avoid a looming, dangerous conflict.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 14

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that India and China supported “peaceful dialogue’’ in Ukraine, a month after their leaders appeared to differ with him over the conflict.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment that “now is not the time for war’’ and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “concerns and questions’’ about the conflict made at the Samarkand summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was interpreted as the attempt by both leaders to distance from Putin’s “special military operation.’’

Speaking at a press conference in the Kazakh capital Astana, Putin said that Ukraine was not prepared for negotiations and thanked Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan for his role in brokering prisoner exchanges.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also said he saw “no need” for talks with the US. There was no need for more strikes on Ukraine because most designated targets had been hit and that Russia was not looking to destroy the country. Russia had launched a missile blitzkrieg last week in response to the terrorist bombing of the bridge over Kerch Starit to Crimea.

Russia was willing to hold talks although they would require international mediation if Ukraine was willing to take part, he said.

He warned that any direct clash of NATO troops with Russia would lead to a global catastrophe while hoping that “those who are saying this are smart enough not to take such steps.’’

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 14

MEA spokeperson Arindam Bagchi has categorically conveyed India’s stand to Pakistan over latter’s proposal for talks stating that India will comply with the offer only when terror module thriving in neighbourhood is dealt with. “But, as we have always said, in an atmosphere free of terrorism,’’ Bagchi said when he was asked about Shehbaz Sharif’s statement, who insisted the engagement if India is ready to show ‘sincerity and purpose’.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Sharif said that the engagement between the two countries is important for the peace and prosperity of the region.

“We are willing to engage with India for the sake of peace, prosperity, and progress of the region. We cannot afford to have more poverty and unemployment on both sides of the border. Absolutely willing to have serious dialogue and discussions with our counterpart provided they show the sincerity of purpose,” Sharif said when asked about possible talks with India.

Sharif said talks will be possible if both countries can keep aside issues that have caused rifts in the past. “If we don’t act speedily, then history will not forgive us. We can talk if they show that they are ready to discuss issues which have kept us at a distance over decades. This has to come to a stop and I am absolutely committed and ready to move forward,’’ he said.

But Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi, who was also in Astana for the same conference, was unimpressed by Sharif invoking history. Speaking about the present, Lekhi said Pakistan should first dismantle the terror infrastructure and get on the better side of law and order. “Then you can have a conversation with India. We want good relations with all our neighbours including Pakistan but not at the cost of India’s integrity,’’ she said.