Baloch, Pashtun Struggle Similar to East Pakistan’s Separation

On December 3, 1971 around 4 pm, Gen Yahya Khan left the President’s House to go to the Air Command Centre to launch the pre-emptive air strikes on India. Just then, according to Arshad Sami Khan, Yahya’s ADC, an unusually large vulture appeared from nowhere and landed a few meters ahead of his jeep, blocking the driveway to the exit gate.

The vulture refused to move even when Gen. Abdul Hamid Khan, the Chief of Staff, slowly moved up the jeep; blew the horn; or when Yahya Khan dismounted from the jeep and tried to scare it away with his baton. Instead, it just stared back with greater defiance. It was only when a nearby gardener shooed the bird with a large sickle that it finally cleared the road with an ominous gait allowing the jeep to pass. This certainly was not a propitious omen for launching a war.

The Pakistani plan of attack pivoted around pre-emptive air strikes against Indian airfields. According to Shuja Nawaz, in all, thirty-two aircraft out of an inventory of 278 fighter planes took part in the initial strike that started between 1709 hrs and 1723 hrs. The PAF strikes were not successful. Only the Amritsar airfield was blocked and a radar target was destroyed. Pathankot could not be attacked because of poor visibility.

The objective of the air strikes was to target the runways of Indian airbases. However, the platforms used for this purpose – F-86s – were inappropriate. According to Arshad Sami Khan, the F-86 was a multi-role aircraft but the one role it was not very accurate at was bombing, especially high-level bombing. The release the two 1000-pound bombs required climbing to 10,000 feet, going into a 45 degrees dive and releasing the bombs by about 4,500 feet at speeds of 460 knots. As a result, most of the bombs did not hit the targets. Moreover, the damage to runways even from a direct hit could be repaired in a few hours.

The limited Pakistani attack surprised even the US. Admiral Thomas H.Moorer, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), told the Washington Special Action Group (WASAG) meeting on 3 December (held just three hours after the PAF attack) that he was ‘surprised that the Paks attacked at such a low level. In 1965, they moved much more strongly.’ Henry Kissinger, the chair of the group, added: ‘These aren’t significant fields. That’s [a] helluva a way to start a war.’ Moorer filled in the details: ‘One field had only 12 helos [helicopters] and 17 Gnats [fighter aircraft]…There was a field not too far away with 82 aircraft on it, including 42 MIG-21s. They didn’t go for them.’

The confused state of higher-level decision-making in Pakistan was revealed by the fact even the defence secretary and the head of the ISPR, the official mouthpiece of the regime, were unaware about the imminence of the war on 03 December. The latter was informed via a telephone call at his residence from the defence secretary about an announcement he had heard over Radio Pakistan that India had invaded West Pakistan. The statement was so worded as to convey that it were the Indian forces that had attacked West Pakistan at ‘various points.’ According to Shuja Nawaz, ‘the thinking behind this subterfuge was to invoke US help, based, among other things, on the aide memoire of 06 November 1962 to Ayub Khan in which US ambassador McConaughy had promised to assist Pakistan “in the event of aggression from India against Pakistan”.’

The naval chief, too found out about the air strikes from a Pakistani radio broadcast; Pak Navy ships at sea also heard about the attack from the radio.On the eastern front, Lt Gen. A A K Niazi learnt of the air strikes while listening to the BBC world service.

A day after the war began Brigadier Gul Mawaz went to see Yahya, his close friend. According to Hassan Abbas, the brigadier found Yahyaand Gen Hamid inebriated. Yahya told Gul Mawaz that as commander he had launched his armies. Now it was up to his generals. While they were talking, Yahya received a call from Japan from Nur Jahan, the famous Pakistani singer. After telling the brigadier whom the call was from, Yahya asked her to sing him a song.

In the context of the war in the west continuing after the fall of Dacca (Dhaka), when Roedad Khan, then Information Secretary, raised the matter with Yahya and told him that nations do not fight wars by halves, Yahya retorted that he was not going to endanger West Pakistan ‘for the sake of Bengalis’. This was very much like Ayub Khan saying at a cabinet meeting after the 1965 war that never again would Pakistan ‘risk 100 million Pakistanis for 5 million Kashmiris.’

Following Mrs Indira Gandhi’s unilateral offer of a ceasefire in the west, the Emergency Committee conveyed Pakistan’s unconditional acceptance. However, such was the unreality of the situation that, according to Roedad Khan, ‘Nobody raised any objection to the substance of the draft but a heated and animated discussion followed on how the timings of the ceasefire was to be described, in terms of IST, GMT, or PST; and if PST, in terms of West Pakistan Standard Time or East Pakistan Standard Time. The implications in each case were discussed threadbare.’

The surrender in East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh was a devastating event for West Pakistan, the aftershocks of which continue to this day. Along with the physical fall of Dacca, Pakistan was also defeated psychologically. The two-nation theory, that Muslims of the subcontinent formed a nation, was demolished. Pakistan is still searching for a rationale for its existence and for its identity.

Imran Khan wrote in his 2011 autobiography, ‘Pakistan: A Personal History’ that like others in Pakistan, he had swallowed the official propaganda of the state television that branded ‘the Bengali fighters as terrorists, militants, insurgents or Indian-backed fighters–the same terminology that is used today about those fighting in Pakistan’s tribal areas and Balochistan. Then, as now, Pakistan fought symptoms rather than addressing the root cause of the violence–our failure to address the legitimate aspirations of Pakistan’s many ethnic groups.’

Imran Khan would do well to recall his words considering that the Pakistan army is doing to the Baloch and the Pashtuns under his watch exactly what it had done to the Bengalis in the then East Pakistan.

(The author is Member, National Security Advisory Board. Views are personal. The article has been extracted by his 2018 book, ‘Pakistan: At the Helm’, published by Harper Collins Publishers, India – ANI)

Difficult For Pak To Sell Anti-India Narrative To Biden

The main focus of Pakistan as US President-elect Joe Biden gears up to take over in January 2021 does not appear to be a comprehensive reset of relations after the trauma of the President Donald Trump’s years but how to ensure that Indo-US relations do not continue to deepen.

For this, Pakistan will try and build on Biden’s regular visits to Pakistan since the 1990s, his old connections with and knowledge of Pakistan as also his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of Barack Obama’s White House. Biden, after all, was the original architect of the Kerry-Lugar bill and the policy of engagement with the civil government to support a sustainable long-term relationship with Pakistan.

The key strand in its strategy is to stress the necessity of Indo-Pakistan equivalence and the need for the US to adopt a balanced and equitable approach towards both countries. While Pakistan’s quest for parity with India is as old as a partition of the sub-continent, most recently in an interview with Der Spiegel, Imran Khan had reiterated that Pakistan expected even-handed treatment from the US with respect to India.

Another key component, signalling its own insecurities, is to warn Biden about India. Thus, Imran Khan in his interview said: ‘The US thinks India will contain China, which is a completely flawed premise. India is a threat to its neighbours, to China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and to us.’ Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Munir Akram in an interview called the US-India strategic partnership a “wrong choice,” and advised that improving ties with Pakistan could prove extremely beneficial for the incoming administration.

An adjunct to this theme is to try and chip away at a central pillar of Indo-US relationship – shared democratic values– by stressing that such values were fast dissipating in India; that India was becoming exclusivist, violating democracy and human rights and finally, the Imran Khan rant of India becoming an extremist and fascist country under the BJP government.

The greatest expectation, of course, is on Kashmir–that Biden will robustly support ‘American’ values that means a greater emphasis on democracy, human rights and freedom of expression all around the world. Translated into action Pakistan is hoping that this would mean that Biden as president would strongly address the issue of the removal of the special status of the J&K, factor in adherence to human rights and castigate India for the alleged repression there.

Much has also been made of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s statement in October 2019 that: ‘We have to remind Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world. We are keeping track of the situation. There is a need to intervene if the situation demands.’ Pakistan hopes that this would be translated into political action.

Another thread of concern is Washington’s China policy. Pakistan is hoping that under Biden the US would find a way of competing with China without conflict. This could ensure Pakistan not becoming totally dependent on China and the US still finding some use for it.

Pakistan is concerned that if Biden goes the Trump way in dealing with China, it would have an adverse impact on it, on its need for international financial institutions like the IMF, on trying to extricate itself from the ‘grey list’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and especially on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Of concern to Pakistan are the views of Kamala Harris on the human rights violations of the Uighurs. In an interview, she had said: ‘China’s abysmal human rights record must feature prominently in our policy toward the country. We can’t ignore China’s mass detention of more than a million Uighur Muslims in “re-education camps” in the Xinjiang region, or its widespread abuse of surveillance for political and religious repression.’ Were the Biden administration to make this an important element in its China policy, Imran Khan would no longer be able to feign ignorance about the Uighur problem as he has done in the past.

Pakistan would also be looking closely at the Afghanistan policy of Biden. It would look to capitalise on what then-Vice President Joe Biden had told Afghan President Karzai in 2008 that Pakistan was 50 times more important than Afghanistan for the US. However, the Biden administration is bound to look at the US-Taliban agreement of February 2020 and especially credible reports of the Taliban continuing to maintain ties with Al Qaeda, the unacceptable levels of violence and the stalled intra-Afghan dialogue. This will entail increased pressure on Pakistan to deliver on its promises.

Well aware that the new administration will be absorbed in internal issues, at least in the short term, Pakistan has devised its own strategy to get it to focus on the subcontinent. This includes, for the moment, activating the LoC with caliber-escalation firepower and producing a dossier accusing India of fomenting terrorism in Pakistan. Both are geared to put out the message that the region is a nuclear flashpoint that the incoming administration should not ignore.

However, the reality check for Pakistan is that Indo-US relations are deep and broad-based, something that was underlined by the recent signing of the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). What Pakistan would find uncomfortable is that in 2008, Biden garnered the support of other Democrats to back the India-US civil nuclear deal. Moreover, in an interview in 2006 as a Senator, Biden had stated: ‘My dream is that in 2020, the two closest nations in the world will be India and the United States. If that occurs, the world will be safer.’ He now has the opportunity to translate his dream into reality.

A policy paper released during the presidential campaign noted that the Biden administration would place a high priority on strengthening the Indo-US relationship by pushing India to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, continuing co-operation on terrorism, climate change, health and trade, working towards a multi-fold increase in bilateral trade. The paper recalled the lead role played by Biden, both as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as Vice President in the Obama administration, in systematically deepening strategic engagement, people-to-people ties, and collaboration with India on global challenges.

Ultimately, Pakistan would have to accept that the Pak-US relations have been and are likely to remain transactional due to lack of substantive content. The US will remain engaged on issues like the safety of Pak nuclear weapons and terrorism but Afghanistan apart, there is very little that Pakistan has to offer positively to interest the US.

Compounding the problem is the fact that Imran Khan had criticized the award given by the then PPP government to Biden in 2009 for his role in pressuring President Musharraf to give up power and return Pakistan to democracy.

Pakistan will also have a hard time selling an anti-India narrative simply because of its own track record whether about ‘missing persons’, the ‘kill and dump’ policy in Balochistan, the daylight murders of Ahmadis and those perceived to have indulged in blasphemy, the rampant abduction and forced conversion of minor Hindu, Christian and Sikh girls as also the appalling persecution of the media under Imran Khan. Its charges against India on terrorism would be dismissed out of hand like similar dossiers were dismissed in 2015.

The Biden presidency is also likely to see the return of the traditional and mainstream foreign policy establishment with area specialists providing crucial policy inputs, something absent under President Trump. They will be aware of Pakistan’s past duplicity of supporting the Taliban while pretending to be a US ally against terrorism. This will not bode well for Pakistan.

Hence, despite all its efforts, it is unlikely that Pakistan would be able to succeed in trying to prevent the further strengthening of the Indo-US relationship under Biden. At best, Pakistan could look to nudge the US to restore the policy of aid that had taken a hit under the Trump presidency and hope that the deepening New Delhi-Washington relationship would not further enhance the disparity with India.

(The author is a Member of the National Security Advisory Board. Views are personal – ANI)

October 22 – The Black Day For Kashmir

Pakistan had entered into a Standstill Agreement with the Maharaja of Kashmir on August 12, 1947. On October 22, 1947, Pakistan unilaterally broke the Agreement and launched an invasion to forcibly capture Jammu and Kashmir using tribal raiders. The raiders, as is well known, looted and pillaged the state with a ferocity that shocked the people till the Indian army came to the rescue and decisively threw them back.

However, despite its direct responsibility, Pakistan has managed to spin a narrative that concealed its role in the 1947 invasion calling it a ‘spontaneous’ attack by the tribals in response to the communal killings in J&K. In addition, it has sought to throw doubts about the genuineness of the accession of J&K to India, labelling the entry of Indian troops on October 27, 1947, in Kashmir as illegal. Pakistan has observed this day as a ‘Black Day’ for decades in Pakistan, in Pakistan occupied J&K (POJK), and in the diaspora in order to bolster its narrative.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, there is documentary evidence in terms of eyewitness accounts of the tribal invasion that demolishes its case. One such is of Akbar Khan (later a Maj. General and involved in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case) whose book ‘Raiders in Kashmir’ leaves no doubt about how Pakistan planned the invasion and was directly involved in it.

Akbar Khan was then Director, Weapons, and Equipment at GHQ. He devised a plan to use a previous government sanction for the issue of 4,000 military rifles to the Punjab Police and have the rifles transferred from the police to the raiders. Likewise, old ammunition was secretly diverted for use in Kashmir. He even devised a plan titled ‘Armed Revolt inside Kashmir’ to strengthen Kashmiris internally and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilians or military assistance from India into Kashmir, either by road or air.

The plan was discussed, first at a preliminary conference at the Provincial government secretariat in the office of Shaukat Hayat Khan, then a minister in the Punjab government. However, there was also another plan devised by the latter based on using the officers and other ranks of the former Indian National Army (INA). Zaman Kiani was to lead operations across the Punjab border and Khurshid Anwar of the Muslim League guards north of Rawalpindi. Both sectors were under the overall command of Shaukat Hayat Khan.

Later, Akbar Khan attended a meeting chaired by prime minister former Liaquat Ali. Others who attended were Finance Minister Ghulam Mohd., Mian Iftikharuddin, a Muslim League leader, Zaman Kiani, Khurshid Anwar, Shaukat Hayat. According to his book, several army and air force officers as also the Commissioner Rawalpindi were involved.

Another book is of Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) author Mohammad Saeed Asad titled ‘Yaadon Ke Zakhm’ (Wounded Memories). Asad has managed to collect a series of first-hand accounts that graphically reveal the brutalities inflicted by the raiders on the people.

What Saeed’s account emphasizes is the tolerant and peaceful nature of society that existed in Kashmir before the tribal invasion. All the three communities- the majority of Muslims and the minority Hindus and Sikhs – lived in peace and harmony. The friendship between the communities extended to all aspects of social interaction- festivals, marriages, and funerals.

Let alone coming to the aid of their religious brethren, Saeed’s book makes clear that the raiders did not distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims. Shops and homes of all communities were equally plundered. No home was spared the tribal carnage just because it belonged to a Muslim. In Baramulla, for example, only 3,000 survived out of a population of 14,000. In places, even the holy Quran was desecrated. No village en-route escaped plunder and devastation. Many Muslim women read the kalma and pleaded for their lives but the raiders took no heed. A large number of them were taken back to the Frontier and sold.

A third book is of Humayun Mirza who revealed in ‘From Plassey to Pakistan’ that his father Iskander Mirza (later Governor-General of Pakistan) was tasked by Jinnah to raise a tribal Lashkar in February 1947 to wage a jihad against the British if they did not concede Pakistan. Mirza identified the tribesmen from Waziristan, Tirah, and the Mohmand country for this purpose. He asked for a sum of Rs one crore (or Pounds 750,000 at the then exchange rate) to achieve this objective. Jinnah gave him Rs 20,000 for immediate expenses and told him that the Nawab of Bhopal would provide the rest.

In the event, the British conceded Pakistan and so the plan did not have to be put into action. However, by October 1947, Iskandar Mirza was Defence Secretary and his earlier experience with the tribesmen would have come in use to organize the invasion. The book also reveals that Jinnah was very much in the know about the events in Kashmir.

That is why 22 October matters because for too long has Pakistan got away with a false narrative, hiding its culpability in the tribal invasion. That’s why it is so necessary to sensitize people, especially the youth in Kashmir who may otherwise not be aware of the history of the event. They need to be reminded of the brutalities that Pakistan had subjected their forefathers to and what Pakistan’s real intentions were then and are even today.

Thus, if there is a ‘Black Day’ in Kashmir it has to be October 22 when its history was permanently distorted. This was the day when the princely state became an ‘issue’ and a ‘question’, this was the day when the truth was masked to further the Pakistani agenda, this was the day when Pakistan deliberately destroyed the unity, integrity, and civilizational ethos of Kashmir and this was the day when a deceitful and conniving Pakistan betrayed the people of Kashmir but projected itself as the champion of their rights.

(The author has written three widely acclaimed books on Pakistan and is a Member of the National Security Advisory Board. – ANI)

Dissecting False Claims Of Imran’s NSA Moeed Yusuf

The interview that Moeed Yusuf, the unelected advisor on national security of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, gave to an Indian media platform recently, made headlines in Pakistan. In some circles, it was even seen as a much-needed victory against the backdrop of the gathering storm of Opposition protests.

What exactly is Moeed Yusuf’s role? A judgement delivered by the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court in August 2020 held that unelected advisers and special assistants to the prime minister cannot exercise executive or administrative powers in the functioning of the government; any executive function so performed would deem to have been taken illegally, and hence void. Most crucially, as per the court’s decision, advisers and special assistants were not even authorised to speak on the government’s behalf.

According to the same judgement, the PM’s advisers have no role in policy matters of a ministry. Pakistan has a Foreign Minister and a Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan so how was an unelected adviser making policy statements?

For example, Yusuf asserted that no decision had been made on making Gilgit Baltistan (GB) a province and that GB will be included in the plebiscite the day the plebiscite happened. Such policy statements are not only illegal and void but they do raise the question whether the Foreign Minister and the Minister of Kashmir Affairs have been sacked or are they so incompetent that they have abdicated responsibility in foreign policy and Kashmir affairs to an unelected adviser?

Yusuf probably tried to get around this violation by projecting himself as the equivalent of India’s National Security Advisor (NSA). Unfortunately for him, he is not. The last NSA of Pakistan was Lt General Naseer Janjua (retd) who resigned in June 2018 after the Imran Khan government came into power.Thus Yusuf had no locus standi to make the kind of statements that he did purport to speak on behalf of the Pakistan government. On this ground alone, the entire interview can be junked and at best be seen as the views of an individual.

The article could well end here but it is necessary to expose the untruths and half-truths that Yusuf made with the full knowledge and backing of Imran Khan and through him of the army.

For starters, the interview, cleared at the highest levels in Pakistan, was pegged on the falsehood that it was India that had sent messages to Pakistan indicating a desire to engage in dialogue. Having painted India as the supplicant, the interview allowed Yusuf to enumerate the Kashmir-centric preconditions that Pakistan considered necessary to get the dialogue started.

This enabled cheap chest-thumping for its domestic audience that Pakistan was not desperate for dialogue but was laying down tough conditions before talks could take place. Yusuf would well have known the absurdity of the conditions and so the logical conclusion has to be that if the offer of talks was not essentially a bluff, then in a convoluted manner it was indicative of Pakistan wanting to have talks.

In a nutshell, while trying to convey the message that Pakistan was not really interested in a dialogue with India, he actually achieved the reverse. In any case, Yusuf’s efforts came to nought when the Indian MEA spokesman subsequently debunked the claim of India sending any message for a dialogue.

A more nefarious plank in the interview was trying to force equivalence between Pakistan and India on the issue of terrorism. He tried to do this by linking to India, individuals who carried out specific attacks in Pakistan like on the Army Public School in 2014. While Yusuf thought this would be sensational, it actually fell flat because it was not supported with any proof nor was he convincing why such information had not been revealed earlier.

On Kashmir, Yusuf said that India had scored a self-goal with the 05 August 2019 changes, was staring at an implosion, should save itself the embarrassment and reverse course. This actually begs the question that if India was in a quagmire, Pakistan should actually be rejoicing so why was Yusuf concerned?

Clearly, it was because India had handled the situation with maturity, belying Pakistan’s expectation and Yusuf was articulating Pakistan’s frustration that the situation had not exploded. Yusuf’s underlying argument was that India had become a ‘rogue state’ because it never obeyed the UN Charter and the UN resolutions and now India had formally violated them. Yusuf clearly had not read the UN resolutions and the step-by-step approach they prescribed for holding a plebiscite. Perhaps it would do him good to re-read the resolutions carefully and realize that it was Pakistan that had not followed the resolutions and was in violation of the UN resolutions and not India.

An incredible assertion Yusuf made was that Pakistan did not recognize the instrument of accession because it was signed under duress. He, like other before him have totally blanked out the Pak-sponsored invasion of the so-called raiders on 22 October 1947 that created the Kashmir issue in the first place.

Pakistan had directly planned and operationalized the invasion despite having a Standstill Agreement with the Maharaja. There is documentary evidence to show that both Jinnah and Liaquat Ali were on board.

The choices before the Maharaja were stark- either accept the looting and devastation of his kingdom or call for help. He chose the latter option but that according to Yusuf made the instrument of accession suspect!!! What Yusuf implied was that faced with the invasion, the Maharaja should have acceded to Pakistan and then the instrument would have been legitimate.

On Kulbhushan Yadav, too, Yusuf was very weak. He claimed that the two consular accesses given had been unimpeded whereas they were anything but that. He insisted that India should choose a Pakistan lawyer even after it was pointed out to him that as far back as April 2017, the Lahore High Court Bar Association had said that action would be taken against any Pakistani lawyer who defended Kulbhushan Jadhav. Against such a back-drop how could India expect any Pakistani lawyer to defend Jadhav? Yusuf was unable to answer this adequately.

On the Mumbai terror attacks, aware that Pakistan had been dragging its feet, Yusuf accused India of deliberately delaying sending witnesses and sharing evidence.

This, according to him was being done to continue to accuse Pakistan of terrorism. This was indeed an incredulous argument The escape hatch Yusuf used was to claim the moral high ground, that on the instructions of his prime minister, he wanted to talk about the future – ‘to talk to you how we can move forward, how we can get over our problems, not to litigate the past.’

In other words, India should sweep Pakistan terrorist activities under the carpet and forget about them. Yusuf must realize that this is not going to happen. Precious Indian lives have been lost that the country is not willing to forget. Pakistan will have to accept that without accounting for its terrorist activities in India, there can be no forward movement and India will litigate the past to its full satisfaction.

Where Yusuf possibly damaged himself the most was his denial of the genocide of the Uyghurs. He claimed that Uyghurs was a non-issue, ‘… I am telling you as a responsible official, we know everything we need to know about the Uighurs and everything else in China as they do about us. We have zero concerns, absolutely zero concerns.’ Not only was this a blatant lie given the mounting credible evidence but it would haunt Yusuf for a long time to come.

Defending one’s boss is admirable but for Yusuf to claim that Imran Khan is a strategic thinker is being ridiculous and facetious. Imran Khan’s track record is anything but of being a strategic thinker while such an assertion did Yusuf’s credibility no good either.

Overall, the most striking thing about the interview was the series of untruths and half-truths hawked by Yusuf. In the process, however, he revealed Pakistan’s strategy of trying to dent Brand India prior to India taking its place in the UN Security Council.

(The author is a Member of the National Security Advisory Board – ANI)

Supreme Court

SC Stops Felling Of Trees In Mumbai's Aarey

A special bench of Supreme Court on Monday asked the Maharashtra government to ensure that no trees are further axed at Mumbai’s Aarey Colony. The bench was hearing a suo moto PIL based on a letter written by students.

A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Ashok Bhushan directed the government to maintain the status quo and said it would further hear all the petitions in the matter on October 21.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assured the bench that no trees will be further cut in the Aarey Colony. He told the court that the people who were arrested for protesting against Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) action were released. “In case those are still not released shall be released immediately,” Mehta assured the court.

The court also asked Mehta to include the Ministry of Forest and Environment as a party in the matter.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde was representing the group of law students’ who sent a letter to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, prompting him to set up a special bench to hear the matter.

Environment activists were represented by senior advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan.

During the course of hearing, Justice Arun Mishra asked whether or not the Aarey Colony was the eco-sensitive zone. To which, advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan said, “Wider issues relating to Aarey being a forest or not has been pending before the Supreme Court in a 2018 matter.”

He also apprised the court that a matter is also pending in National Green Tribunal as to whether Aarey is an eco-sensitive zone or not. “As the matter is pending the authorities should have not gone ahead with the felling of trees,” Sankaranarayan submitted.

On Sunday, the court received a letter by the students’ group against the axing of trees in the Aarey forest, decided to pursue it as public interest litigation (PIL) and constituted a “special bench” to hear the matter.

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) started axing the trees on Friday night after the Bombay High Court rejected a bunch of petitions filed by NGOs and activists against the tree felling. Resolved to save the trees, many protestors gathered at the site to raise their voice against the felling of trees. Later, more people joined the protestors near the Aarey colony area, where the Mumbai Police imposed Section 144, thereby banning unlawful assembly.

The protesters have been demanding the relocation of the bus depot, which is a part of the Metro III project.

The police had held at least 84 protestors for allegedly disturbing public order and obstructing government officials from performing their duties. Twenty-nine out of 84 protestors were sent to five-day judicial custody by a local court on Saturday. The 29 protestors were granted bail on Sunday by Dindoshi court on a cash bond of Rs 7,000 each and asked to appear at the police station for further inquiry.

Leaders from various political parties including Shiv Sena and Congress have condemned the move to fell the trees.

On October 5, the Bombay High Court had refused to entertain urgent mentioning by Aarey activists to stay the ongoing tree cutting. (ANI)

]]>
Net Direct Tax Collections

India Gets Info On Swiss Bank Accounts

The Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA) said on Monday it has exchanged information on financial accounts with 75 countries including India, under the framework of the global standard on automatic exchange of information (AEOI).

Following the first exchange last year in which no technical problems were encountered, this year the AEOI involved a total of 75 countries.

With 63 of these countries, the exchange of information was reciprocal. In the case of 12 countries, Switzerland received information but did not provide any, either because those countries do not yet meet the international requirements on confidentiality and data security or because they chose not to receive data.

About 7,500 reporting financial institutions (banks, trusts, and insurers) are currently registered with the FTA. These institutions collected the data and transferred it to the FTA.

The FTA sent information on around 3.1 million financial accounts to the partner states and received information on around 2.4 million from them. The largest exchange was with Germany (in both directions) as was the case in the previous year. The FTA cannot provide any information on the amount of financial assets.

Switzerland has committed itself to adopting the global standard for the international automatic exchange of information in tax matters. The legal basis for the implementation of the AEOI in Switzerland came into force on January 1, 2017.

Identification, account and financial information are exchanged including name, address, state of residence and tax identification number as well as information concerning the reporting financial institution, account balance, and capital income.

The exchanged information allows the cantonal tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.

Next year, Switzerland’s network of AEOI partner states will expand further to nearly 90 countries. The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes reviews the implementation of AEOI. (ANI)

]]>

'Saudi Prince Snubbed Pak, Recalled Jet'

Seems like Pakistan has suffered another blow on the diplomatic front. A Lahore-based weekly magazine ‘Friday Times’ has claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s actions at the UN General Assembly miffed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to an extent that he ordered his private jet flying the Pakistani delegation from New York to Karachi, to return midway.

When Khan was on a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince had insisted Pakistan Prime Minister to fly to the United States on his “special aircraft”.

However, during his return trip, Khan, who was travelling in the jet provided to him by the Saudi government, had to deboard it midway and board a commercial flight as the Saudi plane had developed a technical glitch minutes after taking off from New York airport.

Interestingly, the Friday Times in its article revealed that there were no reports of any technical glitch and the Pakistani delegation, including Khan, were “disemboweled” from the Saudi’s aircraft following Salman’s resentment.

The magazine, in its report titled ‘Tryst with democracy’, critisized Pakistan Prime Minister.

“Imran Khan has returned from New York a ‘conquering hero’. Never mind that he admitted Pakistan’s culpability in germinating Al Qaeda. Never mind that he raised the world’s hackles by brandishing nuclear weapons and threatening Armageddon. Never mind that the vicious Indian lockdown in Kashmir persists. Never mind that the prospects of Indo-Pak dialogue are dimmer than ever before. Never mind that a territorial state conflict has been relegated to a clash of fierce ideologies representing ‘Islamic’ Pakistan and ‘Hindu’ India.”

The report added, “There were some unintended consequences of the trip too. Inexplicably, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was so alienated by some dimensions of the Pakistani prime minister’s diplomacy in New York – he couldn’t have been happy at the prospect of Imran Khan, Recip Tayyib Erdogan and Mahathir Mohammad planning to jointly represent the Islamic bloc, nor with Pakistan’s interlocution with Iran without his explicit approval — that he visibly snubbed Imran by ordering his private jet to disembowel the Pakistani delegation. Significantly, too, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, lost her job (did Khan’s cronies have anything to do with it?) before the dust of ‘victory at the UN’ had settled.”

Meanwhile, Islamabad which has been left red-faced has rejected claims made by the magazine that the report was “totally false and absolutely carries no truth whatsoever”. (ANI)

]]>

SC To Hear Plea On Aarey Tree Cutting

The Supreme Court on Sunday took cognisance into the trees felling matter in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony and said that a special bench will sit on Monday to hear the petition submitted by a group of law students protesting against the felling.

The students staged protest against the axing of the trees by the authorities in Aarey colony for construction of a metro car shed.

The top court bench agreed to hear the matter after a letter was sent to Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi by students to intervene in the matter.

“A special bench has been constituted to hear the matter tomorrow, October 7 at 10 am on the basis of a letter dated October 6 addressed by Rishav Ranjan with regard to the felling of trees in Aarey forest, Maharashtra which has been registered as a public interest litigation,” the Supreme Court said in a notice.

Earlier in the day, a Mumbai court granted bail to the 29 protesters, who were arrested from Aarey for allegedly disturbing public order and obstructing government officials from performing their duties.

Advocate Aditya Bambulkar, who appeared for the accused, confirmed that they were granted conditional bail by the Dindoshi court on a cash bond of Rs 7,000 each and they have to appear at the police station for further inquiry.

The accused were arrested under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

One of the family members of the arrested person said: “They have been charged under the worst sections of the IPC which will affect their career. Government has to understand that we are protecting our mother nature and we are not criminals.”

Tanvir Nazam, Bombay High Court Lawyer, said, “If they will move to Bombay High Court to quash the FIR then the decision will come in their favour. These are not maintainable these charges are frivolous. They are students. We will seek sanction to prosecute the public servant in this case.”

He further claimed that he has proof showing that the protestors were peacefully protesting while the police were beating them.

On Saturday, a local court had sent 29 people to judicial custody for five days while police had detained 55 others in connection with protests against the cutting of trees in Aarey colony area.

On late-Friday, many protestors gathered at the site to raise their voice against the felling of trees. Later, more and more people joined protestors near the Aarey colony area, where the Mumbai Police imposed Section 144, thereby banning unlawful assembly.

The protesters opposed the cutting of trees for the construction of the car shed of the metro station. They have demanded the relocation of the bus depot, which is a part of the Metro III project.

Leaders from various political parties including Shiv Sena and Congress have condemned the move to fell the trees.

On October 5, the Bombay High Court had refused to entertain urgent mentioning by Aarey activists to stay the ongoing tree cutting. (ANI)

]]>
Candle March IN Srinagar

Next, PDP Delegation To Meet Mehbooba

As National Conference delegation met with detained party  leaders Farooq and Omar Abdullah on Sunday, the J&K government allowed a delegation of People’s Democratic Party to meet party chief Mehbooba Mufti on Monday.

Speaking to ANI, PDP leader Firdous Tak said: “In the morning, we had requested the Governor to allow us to meet our party chief. Our request has been accepted. We will discuss the current situation and every other issue related to Jammu and Kashmir with Mufti. It has been two months since she and various other party leaders were put under detention.”

After the Central government decided to revoke the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370, two months ago, the region was placed under a communications blockade and several mainstream political leaders, including National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar Abdullah and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti were put under house arrest.

Last month, the Supreme Court had allowed Mufti’s daughter Iltija to travel from Chennai to Srinagar to meet her mother in private amid curfew in several areas of J&K.In her plea, Iltija had said that she is concerned about her mother’s health as she had not met her for a month after the abrogation of Article 370.

As political parties came down heavily on Governor Satya Pal Malik and the Centre for putting these leaders under house arrest, the Raj Bhavan said that such decisions are taken by the local police administration and the Governor had no role to play in it.

On Saturday, the Governor permitted an NC delegation to meet under-detention Farooq and Omar Abdullah.

Earlier today, a 15 member delegation of the party met Farooq at his residence in Srinagar.

“We are happy that they both are well and in high spirits. They are pained and anguished about the developments, particularly the lockdown of the people,” NC leader Devender Rana said.

The delegation sought the release of both leaders to kick-start the political process in the region ahead of the Block Development Council (BDC) elections. (ANI)

]]>

India Assures Bangladesh On NRC Issue

Bangladesh raised the issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) during the discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina on Saturday.

According to sources, the India side, however, pointed out that it is an ongoing process and “we have to see how the situation emerges.”

On Friday, while addressing a press conference, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson, Raveesh Kumar had also said that NRC was a Supreme Court-mandated process and was ongoing.

“On NRC, we have been saying that this is a Supreme Court-mandated process. It is an ongoing exercise. Therefore, from the MEA perspective, there is nothing that I can add at this stage. I think it is important to understand that the due process has to be completed first,” Kumar has said during a press briefing yesterday.

On September 1, it was reported that India had said people excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam have not become “Stateless” and will enjoy all rights as before till they exhaust all remedies available under the law.

“Exclusion from the NRC has no implication on the rights of an individual resident in Assam. For those who are not in the final list will not be detained and will continue to enjoy all the rights as before till they have exhausted all the remedies available under the law. It does not make the excluded person ‘Stateless’,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said.

He had termed as “incorrect” commentaries in sections of the foreign media about aspects of the final NRC.

Kumar had said updating of the NRC is a statutory, transparent, legal process mandated by the Supreme Court and this is not an executive-driven process. (ANI)

]]>