Is Narendra Modi facing a mutiny?
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Amit Shah, the president of India"s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wave to their supporters during a campaign rally ahead of state assembly elections, at Ramlila ground in New Delhi in this January 10, 2015 file photoImage copyrightReuters
Image caption
Mr Modi and Mr Shah are the most powerful leaders of BJP
US founding father Thomas Jefferson once said a "little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world, as storms in the physical".
After suffering two consecutive - and humiliating - defeats in the Delhi and Bihar elections, India's ruling BJP, many believe, also needed a small rebellion to shake it out of its complacency.
On Tuesday evening, four senior party leaders, led by India's former deputy prime minister LK Advani, fired what was clearly a broadside against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.
"The principal reason for the latest defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year," said the leaders in a statement, criticising the party's campaign strategy after Sunday's humiliating defeat in Bihar. "A thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as the way the party is being forced to kow-tow... and how its consensual character has been destroyed."
The scathing missive was strategically timed: it came hours after the government eased regulations for foreign direct investment in at least 15 sectors to boost reforms and inject some feel-good before a gloomy Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Anup Chetia: Bangladesh 'hands over' India rebel leader
The rebels have fought for a separate Assamese homeland since 1979
India says Bangladesh has handed over a jailed separatist rebel leader whose group has been fighting Indian rule in the north-eastern state of Assam.
Junior home minister Kiren Rijiju said Anup Chetia, a leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), was being brought to India from Dhaka.
Chetia was jailed in 1997 for illegal entry into Bangladesh and possessing huge amounts of foreign currency.
The rebels have fought for a separate Assamese homeland since 1979.
Mr Rijiju told reporters on Wednesday that a team of Indian federal investigators were bringing back Chetia.
However, according to the AFP news agency, Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said he had no information that Chetia was being handed over to India.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina to thank her for handing Chetia over to the Indian government.
In 2009, the government in Bangladesh launched a crackdown on Indian separatists operating out of its territory.
More than 50 rebel leaders and activists have been handed over to India since then, while others have been arrested while trying to enter Bangladesh to avoid capture in India.
The rebels have fought for a separate Assamese homeland since 1979
India says Bangladesh has handed over a jailed separatist rebel leader whose group has been fighting Indian rule in the north-eastern state of Assam.
Junior home minister Kiren Rijiju said Anup Chetia, a leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), was being brought to India from Dhaka.
Chetia was jailed in 1997 for illegal entry into Bangladesh and possessing huge amounts of foreign currency.
The rebels have fought for a separate Assamese homeland since 1979.
Mr Rijiju told reporters on Wednesday that a team of Indian federal investigators were bringing back Chetia.
However, according to the AFP news agency, Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said he had no information that Chetia was being handed over to India.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina to thank her for handing Chetia over to the Indian government.
In 2009, the government in Bangladesh launched a crackdown on Indian separatists operating out of its territory.
More than 50 rebel leaders and activists have been handed over to India since then, while others have been arrested while trying to enter Bangladesh to avoid capture in India.
Crass, loud, meaningless: Why have we ruined Diwali like this?
AFP
Diwali is perhaps the most important Hindu festival celebrated in north India, but over the past decade or so, it has degenerated into a crass commercial fiesta, writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi.
In my family, Diwali was traditionally the festival of lights - when we decorated our homes with diyas (little clay lamps), prayed to Lakshmi, the "goddess of wealth", to make us rich, and Ganesha, the cute elephant-headed god who removed obstacles in our path, helped us pass our exams when we were young, and made us generally happy.
We would wear new clothes and gorge on traditional sweets - some bought from the market and some made at home by my extremely talented mother.
We never had firecrackers - as a child whenever I asked my dad for money to buy crackers, he would say "you might as well burn the money".
Pakistan pokes fun at Indian PM Modi over Bihar defeat
- 10 November 2015
- India
EPA
Pakistani fundamentalists and liberals have both cheered Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election defeat in Bihar, though for very different reasons, writes the BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.
Mr Modi has emerged as possibly the "most hated" Indian leader in Pakistan to date.
Islamists here see him in a negative light due to his image as a Hindu revivalist. Pakistani liberals, on the other hand, dislike him because they feel his nationalist rhetoric only helps strengthen the fundamentalist lobby in the country.
Therefore, both camps saw plenty of reason to celebrate Mr Modi's election loss in Bihar.
Television channels laced their news of the BJP defeat with poetic narratives of political irony and Bollywood songs of heroes taunting villains.
Pakistan's most reputed newspaper, Dawn, in a front-page headline noted that "Bihar Steals Modi's Crackers" - a reference to BJP president Amit Shah's pre-election warning to voters that "if BJP loses in Bihar, crackers will go off in Pakistan".
A previous report on the Dawn website on Sunday evening was headlined "Bihar Voters Put Modi Out to Pasture", a reference to what many Pakistanis call "cow politics" after a Muslim man in India was recently lynched by a Hindu mob for allegedly consuming beef.
Pakistan's official PTV in a tweet reckoned that Bihar election results were indicative of Mr Modi's waning appeal in India.
Twitter
Another journalist tweeted that he hoped the defeat would teach Mr Modi to drop jingoism and improve relations with Pakistan
In short, there is an overall sense of vindication across Pakistan, with some predicting that this election defeat will throw water on Mr Modi's religious revivalism. Others are hoping it will cool temperatures on the India-Pakistan border.
Yet others are enjoying the moment while it lasts, like Gen Raheel Sharif - an anonymous tweeter who impersonates the Pakistani army chief - who tweeted: "Mr Modi called, said 'my party lost Bihar election, what do I do??' [I] replied, macho men never accept defeat, simply call it rigged."
Friday, November 13, 2015
At least 21 people killed in latest tragedy to spotlight poor safety standards in South Asia
Rescuers at the site of a collapsed four-story factory building in eastern Pakistan continued to dig through the rubble on Thursday, as the death toll rose to 21, officials said, describing the latest tragedy to spotlight poor safety standards in South Asia.
Rescue officials said 102 survivors had so far been pulled from the wreckage of the factory, which manufactured polythene shopping bags 12 miles south of the eastern city of Lahore, and collapsed on Wednesday night.
"The building collapsed more than 24 hours ago and we have a hope to find more survivors," Jam Sajjad Hussain, a spokesman from the state rescue agency, told The Associated Press.
Earlier, officials estimated as many as 250 people – including women and children – had been in the building when it collapsed, Pakistani news site Dawn.com reported citing local authorities. Rescuers had to move slowly, government officials said, to avoid further injuries to those still trapped.
Muhammad Ramzan, 22, one of the survivors, said that he had witnessed cracks appearing in the structure moments before it collapsed.
"Suddenly, I saw cracks appearing in the pillars. I immediately drew the owner’s attention towards the cracks. He was watching them when the roof collapsed and I saw him being crushed by a heap of concrete that led to his death," he told Reuters.
Many survivors were able to guide rescuers by calling relatives using their mobile phones.
"I ran towards the stairs but they collapsed before I reached there and then the whole building collapsed. I stayed in touch with my father on phone and was recovered after 13 hours,” said Mohammad Asghar, 16, who suffered a broken arm and a head injury.
The cause of the collapse is yet to be determined. It happened just over a week after a 7.5-magnitude earthquakehit Pakistan, killing 273 people and damaging nearly 75,000 homes.
Injured survivors said the factory's owner, who was adding a new floor to the building, had ignored advice from his contractor and pleas from his workers to stop construction after cracks in the walls followed the earthquake.
Pakistan's construction sector is plagued by poor oversight and developers frequently flout building codes.
In September 2012, 289 people burned to death in a fire at a garment factory in the southern city of Karachi. On the same day, a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore killed 25.
The U.S. Department of Defense spent an estimated $43 million to build a single compressed natural gas (CNG) station in Afghanistan, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said Monday. It is the latest example of alleged overspending identified by the office, the federal government’s oversight authority for reconstruction in the country.
SIGAR’s report called the plan to build a CNG filling station in the small northern Afghan city of Sheberghan “ill conceived” and said it came at an “exorbitant cost to U.S. taxpayers.” The report noted that the station should have cost roughly $500,000.
“Even considering security costs associated with construction and operation in Afghanistan, this level of expenditure appears gratuitous and extreme,” SIGAR said in its report.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.
SIGAR’s report was based on a study by the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), established by the Department of Defense in 2006 to bolster the economies of post-U.S.-occupation Iraq and Afghanistan.
The TFBSO study showed that the Department of Defense spent $42,718,739 from 2011 to 2014 to build the gas station and that its goal was to further Afghanistan’s reliance on its own natural resources.
From 1980 to 2012, Afghanistan imported 100 percent of its refined petroleum products, the report said, adding that CNG “costs approximately 50 percent less than a comparable amount of gasoline in Afghanistan and burns cleaner than gasoline.”
The SIGAR report blasted the Department of Defense for failing to provide an explanation for the overspending.
“One of the most troubling aspects of this project is that the Department of Defense claims that it is unable to provide an explanation for the high cost the project or to answer any other questions concerning its planning, implementation or outcome,” the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John F. Sopko, said in a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter that accompanied the report.
Sopko told Al Jazeera in June that the United States has been wasteful in Afghanistan. He said Washington built “things that didn’t work; things that the Afghans didn’t know about, didn’t want or can’t use; and things that can’t be sustained.”
“We identified, for example, $400 [million] to $500 million for airplanes that the U.S. purchased for the Afghan air force. The Afghan air force couldn’t use them. They were the wrong planes for the country. They basically had to be destroyed, and we got three cents on the dollar,” he said.
SIGAR in December 2014 published a report saying that U.S. development authorities failed to track the results of millions of dollars spent to improve medical care and professional training for women in Afghanistan.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday with coffins carrying the bodies of seven ethnic Hazara demanding justice after their beheadings.
The protests included women and men from Afghanistan's different ethnic groups - Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara - as they marched on the Presidential Palace to urge the government to take action against rising violence against Afghan civilians.
According to Afghan officials, the Hazara hostages were captured by ISIL fighters more than a month ago and held in Arghandab district of Zabul province.
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| ISIL and the Taliban |
Four men, two women, and a child had been beheaded with razor wire, officials said. The Hazaras were abducted in Ghazni and their bodies were later found in Zabul province.
"We will continue to fight for the safety of our family," civil rights activist Shahzaman Hashemi told Al Jazeera. "This is our right to feel safe. Whatever happened to those women and children can happen to us as well."
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Thousands Afghan gathered protesting against the murder of seven people from the minority Hazara community (Maryam Mehtar/Al Jazeera English)
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The Afghan government announced a national day of mourning on Wednesday over the killings.
'Had enough'
Maryam Jamal, who also took part in the march, said it was important to pressure the government to halt the escalating violence in the country. "They've now started killing women and children," she said.
"It can be me tomorrow, can be my children. This protest is historic and we are adamant to not back off until something is done about this. We've had enough."
Kabul Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told Al Jazeera security officers had taken control of the protest area and were making sure no one gets hurt during the demonstrations.
"There are thousands of people here and the number is expected to increase. People from far off places have come to Kabul to take part in the protest today," Rahimi said. "We are making sure the protest doesn't get violent. So far people are protesting peacefully."
Demonstrators chanted "death to Islamic State" on Tuesday in Ghazni province as a van carried the coffins covered by Afghan flags. Ghazni police blamed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Afghanistan for the grisly killings.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Race to find survivors after deadly factory collapse in Pakistan
At least 18 people were killed and up to 150 trapped on Wednesday when a factory collapsed near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, officials said, adding to a number of industrial disasters to hit the South Asian nation.
Rescue workers digging for survivors with construction equipment have recovered 75 injured people so far, said Mohammad Usman, a senior local government official who was on the scene.
Eighteen dead bodies have also been found, he said.
Around 150 people were feared trapped under the rubble after the building collapsed, said rescue worker Kashif Nazir at the scene.
No part of the four-floor building remained standing after the disaster, and hundreds of rescue workers were carefully picking through piles of concrete and bricks to find survivors.
“People have received phone calls from three or four people from inside the debris, so we cannot remove the rubble recklessly,” said Usman.
The military was flying urban search-and-rescue teams to the scene, said a military spokesman in a text message.
“Army engineers have been immediately moved for the rescue operation,” the message said.
The factory, located at an industrial site about 20 km (12 miles) south of the city, manufactured shopping bags. It was not clear what caused the collapse, though construction work had been going on there.
“My son is a daily wage laborer here. We can’t find him among the dead or the injured, so I am just hoping that he will be recovered from the rubble safely,” said Mohammad Ramzan, whose 24-year-old son Amin was missing.
Pakistan’s construction sector suffers from poor oversight and developers frequently flout building codes.
In September 2012, 289 people burned to death in a fire at a garment factory in the southern city of Karachi. On the same day, a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore killed 25.
MSF report casts doubt on US claims hospital strike was a mistake
Medical aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday it was hard to believe a U.S. strike on an Afghan hospital last month was a mistake, as it had reports of fleeing people being shot from an aircraft.
At least 30 people were killed when the hospital in Kunduz was hit by the strike on Oct. 3 while Afghan government forces were battling to regain control of the northern city from Taliban forces who had seized it days earlier.
The United States has said the hospital was hit by accident and two separate investigations by the U.S. and NATO are underway but the circumstances of the incident, one of the worst of its kind during the 14-year conflict, are still unclear.
MSF General Director Christopher Stokes told reporters the organisation was still awaiting an explanation from the U.S. military.
“All the information that we’ve provided so far shows that a mistake is quite hard to understand and believe at this stage,” he said while presenting an MSF internal report on the incident.
The report said many staff described “seeing people being shot, most likely from the plane” as they tried to flee the main hospital building.
“From what we are seeing now, this action is illegal in the laws of war,” Stokes said. “There are still many unanswered questions, including who took the final decision, who gave the targeting instructions for the hospital.”
Several Afghan officials have suggested Taliban fighters were using the hospital as a base, a claim that MSF firmly rejects. It says the facility was under its control at all times and there were no armed fighters present either before or during the attack.
The hospital was treating wounded combatants from both sides as well as civilians, but the group says it always maintained a strict policy of neutrality between the two sides.
“Treating wounded combatants is not a crime,” Stokes said.
MSF says the site’s location had been clearly communicated to both Afghan forces and the Taliban and it was clearly identifiable as a hospital.
“That night, it was one of the few buildings with electrical power, it was fully lit up,” Stokes said.
He also said that inspections of the area around the hospital since the Taliban withdrew from Kunduz last month did not reveal signs of heavy fighting.
MSF, called Doctors Without Borders in English, has revised the original casualty figure upwards and now says 30 people, including 13 staff members and three children were killed during repeated attacks by a powerful U.S. gunship.
The U.S. investigation is headed by a U.S. general and two brigadier generals.
A separate NATO casualty report into the incident, originally expected in October, has been delayed while the investigation continues, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced last month.
India's ruling party suffers setback in key state poll
It is quite rare that a state or regional election attracts so much attention.
State elections happen all year round in India. But this election in the central state of Bihar did become a significant event, possibly even an outlier, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party upping the ante.
Modi attended about 30 election rallies, significantly higher than any prime minister has ever done before.
Nitish Kumar, the current chief minister of the state of Bihar, left the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) when Modi was chosen to lead the general election campaign and was declared the party's nominee for the prime minister's post in 2014.
Kumar cited Modi's "communal" credentials as his reason of departure from the then-ruling alliance in Bihar.
He subsequently allied with his long-time rival Lalu Prasad Yadav to prevent the government from losing its majority in the local assembly.
An 'aggressive' campaign
After a resounding win in the general elections of 2014, BJP did lose the Delhi state elections to the new Common Man Party, AAP.
But Delhi is a small state and does not boast national electoral import despite being the capital city.
Meanwhile, subsequent wins in state elections of Haryana and Maharashtra, which took place soon after the national elections, enforced Modi's authority on Indian politics.
Against this backdrop, Bihar assumed significant importance - this was an election which took place after almost 18 months of the central government in place.
It is the third largest state in India with a population of more than 100 million.
After the resounding victory on Sunday, Kumar referred to the aakramak (aggressive) campaign.
"Unity has won today... This was an election watched closely by the whole country. The win today has national implications. People across India want an alternative and strong opposition," Kumar told journalists.
Development dream dying
Campaigning during the election in Bihar was littered with various controversies like the Beef Ban, the killing of rationalists in other states of India allegedly by Hindu groups, and the resultant protests by writers and intellectuals to return their national awards.
There were also some controversial statements from a top official of BJP's ideological parent, the RSS, that signalled a rethink on India's reservation policy for lower castes in government jobs and education.
The general sense of growing intolerance in the country, and the fact that it was not being countered by the powers-that-be with an emphatic thumbs-down, seemed like a tactical encouragement between the hatemongers and the ruling administration.
Even the most ardent BJP supporters admitted that Modi, who successfully sold a development dream to the country in 2014, is embroiled in the current communal discord.
The economic agenda was getting hazy and the required climate for development and reforms were getting lost in the cacophony of the "holy cow", "Pakistan", "rationalism" and "reservation".
Meanwhile, Modi critic Kumar has positioned himself as a development man.
After all, he had in the past dislodged Lalu Yadav - a leader with many charges of corruption during his 10 years of rule in the state.
Kumar was widely considered a pro-development administrator but after he quit the BJP alliance, he also became a champion of the secular agenda.
In fact, he undertook a tactical gamble by putting more emphasis on fighting communalism by agreeing for the Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan), which included Lalu Yadav and the Congress Party, both of which have been tarred by allegations of corruption.
The "Bihari Brothers", as the book title of journalist Sankarshan Thakur refers to the Nitish-Lalu force, finally proved their mettle on Sunday by sending out a clear message: Development? Yes. Secularism? Yes please.
Russia to provide Iran with S-300 air defence missiles
Russia has signed a contract to supply Iran with sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
The contract got the go-ahead after international sanctions on Iran were lifted earlier this year, following a deal over its nuclear programme.
Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia are all opposed to the missile contract.
Russian officials say the first batch could be delivered 18 months after Iran has specified the S-300 type that it wants. Technical talks are continuing.
"The deal to supply the S-300 to Iran has not only been signed between the parties but it has already come into force," said Sergei Chemezov, head of Russia's Rostec arms firm, speaking at the Dubai Airshow-2015.
The $800m (£545m) contract, signed in 2007, was frozen by Russia in 2010 because of the international sanctions. President Vladimir Putin unfroze it in April.
Israel and the US fear the missiles could be used to protect Iranian nuclear sites from air strikes.
AFP
The S-300 can be used against multiple targets including jets, or to shoot down other missiles.
The S-300B4 variant - delivered to the Russian armed forces last year - can shoot down any medium-range missile in the world today, flies at five times the speed of sound and has a range of 400km (248 miles), Tass reports.
When the Russian deal was suspended Iran filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in damages.
Mr Chemezov said Saudi Arabia had asked Rostec repeatedly not to supply the S-300 to Iran.
But he insisted that it was a defensive weapon. "So if the Gulf countries are not going to attack Iran... why should they be threatened? Because this is defence equipment," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
Massive earthquake hits Afghanistan, deaths reported across South Asia
A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan on Monday, with massive tremors felt across Pakistan and India, leaving hundreds dead and many more injured across the region.
The total death toll stood at 249, with at least 185 people killed in Pakistan and at least 64 more in Afghanistan, according to official reports from the two countries.
The death toll could climb in coming days because communications were down in much of the rugged Hindu Kush, where the quake was centered.
The U.S. Geological Survey put the epicenter near Jarm in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan, 150 miles from the capital, Kabul, with effects felt in India and Pakistan.
The total death toll stood at 249, with at least 185 people killed in Pakistan and at least 64 more in Afghanistan, according to official reports from the two countries.
The death toll could climb in coming days because communications were down in much of the rugged Hindu Kush, where the quake was centered.
The U.S. Geological Survey put the epicenter near Jarm in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan, 150 miles from the capital, Kabul, with effects felt in India and Pakistan.
At least 10 reported killed in Pakistan factory collapse
The accident at the site under construction trapped scores of other workers, with more feared dead
A factory building under construction on the outskirts of Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore collapsed on Wednesday, killing at least 10 workers and injuring dozens, officials said.
Rescue official Jam Sajjad Hussain said emergency teams were using heavy machinery to pull out bodies and survivors as dozens remained trapped under the rubble. Initial reports on the number of casualties put the number of dead at as many as 20.
A factory building under construction on the outskirts of Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore collapsed on Wednesday, killing at least 10 workers and injuring dozens, officials said.
Rescue official Jam Sajjad Hussain said emergency teams were using heavy machinery to pull out bodies and survivors as dozens remained trapped under the rubble. Initial reports on the number of casualties put the number of dead at as many as 20.
Suu Kyi calls for ‘national reconciliation’ talks with Burma military
Aung San Suu Kyi called for "national reconciliation" talks with Myanmar's president and the nation's powerful army chief on Wednesday as her pro-democracy party sat poised for a landslide election victory.
With power beckoning after her National League for Democracy (NLD) party collected 90 percent of the seats declared so far, Suu Kyi moved to take the initiative.
With power beckoning after her National League for Democracy (NLD) party collected 90 percent of the seats declared so far, Suu Kyi moved to take the initiative.
Iran appoints first female ambassador since 1979 Islamic revolution
Iran appointed its first female ambassador abroad since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, choosing to send foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham to head its embassy in Malaysia, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced on Sunday.
The post makes Afkham, one of Iran's most high-profile female public figures, the second female ambassador in the history of Iran and the first since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The only other female ambassador was Mehrangiz Dolatshahi, who served in Denmark in the 1970s.
The post makes Afkham, one of Iran's most high-profile female public figures, the second female ambassador in the history of Iran and the first since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The only other female ambassador was Mehrangiz Dolatshahi, who served in Denmark in the 1970s.
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