Monthly Archives: August 2018

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, February 10

The Biden administration must address India’s ties with Russia and its “downward trend of democratic values and institutions”, said a report by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

• Editorial: India-Russia trade

The report said the Biden administration was right in not predicating the Indo-Pacific strategy only on competition with China. But to succeed, it has to grapple with the realities of this competition for the US and the challenges it poses for its regional allies and partners, it said. While calling on the US government to wean India away from dependence on Russian arms and to take a firmer stand on India’s human rights record, the report acknowledged that the Indo-US relationship has been on an upward trajectory for more than two decades overcoming Cold War antagonism and India’s testing of a nuclear device in 1998.

Beijing’s influence continues to grow

Little progress has been made to advance US diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific… China continues to expand its influence through predatory economic investments. Senate Foreign Affairs Chairman

“Even as the administration rightly treats India as an important security partner, it will need to address the very real complications of India’s continued ties with, and dependence on, Russia for defence equipment and its recent downward trend of democratic values and institution,” it said.

“In the nine years, two administrations, and numerous strategies since my last report, little progress has been made to advance US diplomacy and development efforts in the Indo-Pacific, all while China continues to expand its influence through aggressive imposition on states’ sovereignty, localised disinformation campaigns, and predatory economic investments,” said Senate Foreign Affairs Chairman Robert Menendez while releasing the report, “Strategic Alignment: The Imperative of Resourcing the Indo-Pacific Strategy”.

The report wanted the US and its partners to provide alternative financing and economic development projects to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road.

He described the US and India as major defence partners and noted the new joint initiative on critical and emerging technologies in areas such as quantum computing, 5G and 6G networks, space, semiconductors, biotech, and artificial intelligence.

The US administration has said in the past that it raises concerns over backsliding in India’s democratic credentials during high-level interactions between officials and ministers. It has given leeway to the South Block by not acting on successive reports by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to red flag India as a country of particular concern. New Delhi asserts that India has well-established democratic practices and robust institutions to safeguard the rights of all.

The US has also been discouraging India from relying on Russia for its defence needs. New Delhi is under the threat of facing US sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for its $5 billion deal for buying the Russian S-400 air defence missile systems.

Wants alternative to china’s Belt and road initiative

The report wants the US and its partners to provide alternative financing and economic development projects to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road.

Flags dependence over defence items

Even as the administration rightly treats India as an important security partner, it will need to address the very real complications of India’s continued ties with, and dependence on, Russia for defence equipment and its recent downward trend of democratic values and institution. — Report

1. KHALSA AID REACHES TURKEY WITH TRUCKLOADS OF BLANKETS AND LANGER
2. NDRF RESCUES 6-YR-OLD GIRL, SCALES UP OPERATIONS
3. ISIL-K THREATENED TO LAUNCH TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST EMBASSIES OF INDIA, CHINA, AND IRAN IN AFGHANISTAN: UN REPORT
4. REPORT: US BLEW UP NORD STREAM GAS PIPELINES WITH NORWAY’S HELP
5. ISIL-K PLANNED TO ATTACK INDIAN MISSION IN KABUL, CLAIMS UN
6. RUSSIA OFFERS PARTNERSHIP IN HI-TECH ARMS
7. IN MOSCOW, DOVAL DISCUSSES STRATEGIC TIES WITH PREZ PUTIN
8. LETTER TO PM : CLICK TO OPEN

LETTER TO PM

THE EXPRESS INDIA NEWS

Khalsa Aid Reaches Turkey with Truckloads of Blankets & setting up Guru Ka Langar for Earthquake affected region. That’s Humanity & Selfless service to mankind..!!🙏🙏👏👏.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 9

A rescue team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) rescued a six-year-old girl from under the debris at Gaziantep in quake-hit Turkey on Thursday. India has sent three teams of the NDRF to Turkey for rescue and relief operations.

“Standing with Turkey in this natural calamity. India’s NDRF HQ is carrying out rescue and relief operations at ground zero. Team IND-11 successfully retrieved a six-year-old girl from Nurdagi, Gaziantep, today,” the spokesperson of the Ministry of Home Affairs tweeted, along with a video of the girl and how she was rescued.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted, “In the rescue operations in Turkey, Team IND-11 saved the life of a six-year-old girl, Beren, in Gaziantep city. Under the guidance of PM Modi, we are committed to making the NDRF world’s leading disaster response force.”

India has launched “Operation Dost” to extend assistance to Turkey as well as Syria following Monday’s devastating earthquake that has killed more than 19,300 persons in the two countries so far. Meanwhile, a field hospital set up by the Indian Army in Hatay province in Turkey has become operational with surgical and emergency wards.

Help under ‘Operation Dost’

• 5 C-17 IAF aircraft
• 135 tonnes relief material
• 3 NDRF teams
• 250 personnel
• 7 four-wheeled vehicles, trucks
• 4 canines
• 19,300 Turkey, Syria quake toll

Syrian Prez slams west for politics over aid

• Twitter suspended verified account of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after he criticised West’s withholding of aid to his country while generously sending it to fellow NATO member Turkey
• “The West says they didn’t send aid because Syria didn’t ask for it. Are the pictures not enough? Or do they want Syrian people to beg on broken legs?” he said in a tweet
• India, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, the UAE, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have promptly send aid to both Turkey and Syria. tns

PTI

United Nations, February 9

The ISIL-K have threatened to launch terrorist attacks against the embassies of India, Iran and China in Afghanistan and by targeting them, the terror group sought to undermine the relationship between the Taliban and the UN member states in the Central and South Asia region, according to a UN report.

The revelations were made in a report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the threat posed by ISIL.

“The activities of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan (ISIL-K) remained a significant terrorist threat in Central and South Asia, and the group retained ambitions to conduct external operations,” the 16th report of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIL (Da’esh) to international peace and security and the range of United Nations efforts in support of member states in countering the threat said here.

The Security Council will on Thursday hold a meeting on ‘Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts’ during which Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism Vladimir Voronkov will present the report issued last week.

The report said that ISIL-K had positioned itself as the “primary rival” to the Taliban and was reportedly set to portray the Taliban as incapable of providing security in the country.

“By targeting diplomatic missions, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan also sought to undermine the relationship between the Taliban and member states in the region,” it said.

“The group also threatened to launch terrorist attacks against the embassies of China, India and the Islamic Republic of Iran in Afghanistan,” the report said.

In June last year, India resumed its diplomatic presence in Kabul by deploying a technical team in its embassy in the Afghan capital, over 10 months after it pulled out its officials from the mission following the Taliban’s capture of power.

The reopening of the embassy took place after an Indian team led by senior Ministry of External Affairs official JP Singh had visited Kabul and met acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi and some other members of the Taliban dispensation. 

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 9

The US has questions to answer over its alleged role in explosions that destroyed the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, said the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakhariva. She was reacting to a report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that quoted a source with “direct knowledge of the operational planning” stating how “skilled deep-water divers” from the US navy, with the help of the Norwegian navy, planted explosives on the pipelines during a training exercise last June. They then detonated the bombs remotely three months later.

“President Joe Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponise natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions,” wrote Hersh, who claims the planning for the sabotage began well before the Russian conflict with Ukraine began on February 24 last year. The Norwegian embassy here said the “allegation is nonsense”, while the US also had a similar response.

Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, who exposed the 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians by American forces. But his recent reports have been met by outright denials and no US or European mainstream media house has published his articles of late.

Hersh wrote that Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back-and-forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. The planning regarding the pipelines started in December 2021, where the participants debated options for an attack. The US navy proposed using a submarine to attack the pipeline, while the Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. However, the CIA said action would have to be covert, without leaving evidence, Hersh said.

An American submarine base in Norway was chosen as the “perfect place to base the mission” as they “hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration”. On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian navy surveillance plane dropped a sonar buoy and a few hours later high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission.

“The White House must now comment on all these facts,” said Russian Foreign Ministry’s Maria Zakharova.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 9

The ultra fundamentalist ISIL-K had planned to hit the embassies of several countries, including India, to undermine their relationships with the ruling Taliban government in Kabul, said a UN report. India has long viewed the ISIL as an organisation that has also conducted operations at the bidding of Pakistan’s ISI.

Bid to undermine ties

By targeting diplomatic missions, the ISIL-K sought to undermine the relationship between the Taliban and member states in the region. UN report

The ISIL-K had threatened to launch terrorist attacks against the embassies of India, Iran and China in Kabul, said the report.

“The activities of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan (ISIL-K) remained a significant terrorist threat in Central and South Asia, and the group retained ambitions to conduct external operations,” said the 16th report of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIL (Da’esh) to international peace and security. The report was released on Thursday by Under-Secretary-General of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism Vladimir Voronkov. “By targeting diplomatic missions, it also sought to undermine the relationship between the Taliban and member states in the region. The group also threatened to launch terrorist attacks against the embassies of China, India and Iran in Afghanistan,” the report said.

It said the ISIL-K had positioned itself as the primary rival to the Taliban and wanted to portray the Taliban as incapable of providing security.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 9

Russia today said it was offering new points of cooperation for the joint manufacturing of high-tech products under the “Make in India” programme in compliance with all localisation and technology-transfer requirements.

This was conveyed in a statement by Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-run arms exporting agency, which will be participating in the Aero India air show at Bengaluru from February 13-17.

The agency plans to hold substantive meetings and negotiations with representatives of the Ministry of Defence and other security agencies of India and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the company expects to work extensively with state-owned and private enterprises of the Indian defence industry to expand the scope of industrial partnership between Russia and India in accordance with the requirements of “Make in India” thrust.

Russia’s collective display at Aero India will include 200 samples of advanced armaments and military hardware, including the fifth-generation Sukhoi-57E multifunctional fighter jet, Checkmate light tactical aircraft, IL-76 military transport plane, Sukhoi-35, Sukhoi-30S and MiG-35D fighter jets.

Russia will also feature the Orlan-30 reconnaissance drone for the first time abroad. The Orlan-30 is intended for conducting aerial reconnaissance and detecting objects in the visible or infrared range.