Opinion - Jared and the Saudi Crown Prince Go Nuclear?

By Nicholas Kristof

There are too many unanswered questions about the White House’s role in advancing Saudi ambitions.

Jared Kushner slipped quietly into Saudi Arabia this week for a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, so the question I’m trying to get the White House to answer is this: Did they discuss American help for a Saudi nuclear program?

Of all the harebrained and unscrupulous dealings of the Trump administration in the last two years, one of the most shocking is a Trump plan to sell nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia that could be used to make nuclear weapons.Even as President Trump is trying to denuclearize North Korea and Iran, he may be helping to nuclearize Saudi Arabia. This is abominable policy tainted by a gargantuan conflict of interest involving Kushner.

Kushner’s family real estate business had been teetering because of a disastrously overpriced acquisition he made of a particular Manhattan property called 666 Fifth Avenue, but last August a company called Brookfield Asset Management rescued the Kushners by taking a 99-year lease of the troubled property — and paying the whole sum of about $1.1 billion up front. Alarm bells should go off: Brookfield also owns Westinghouse Electric, the nuclear services business trying to sell reactors to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi swamp, meet American swamp.

It may be conflicts like these, along with even murkier ones, that led American intelligence officials to refuse a top-secret security clearance for Kushner. The Times reported Thursday that Trump overruled them to grant Kushner the clearance.

This nuclear reactor mess began around the time of Trump’s election, when a group of retired U.S. national security officials put together a plan to enrich themselves by selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. The officials included Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, and they initially developed a “plan for 40 nuclear power plants” in Saudi Arabia, according to a report from the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The plan is now to start with just a couple of plants.

As recently as Feb. 12, Trump met in the White House with backers of the project and was supportive, Reuters reported.

These are civilian nuclear power plants, and Saudi Arabia claims it wants them for electricity. But the Saudis insist on producing their own nuclear fuel, rather than buying it more cheaply abroad. Producing fuel is a standard way for rogue countries to divert fuel for secret nuclear weapons programs, and the Saudi resistance to safeguards against proliferation bolsters suspicions that the real goal is warheads.

Trump may be vigilant (destructively so) about Iran’s nuclear plants, but in the Saudi case his response seems to be: There’s money to be made! When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised objections to the transfer last year, Axios reported, “Trump and his advisers told Netanyahu that, if the U.S. does not sell the Saudis nuclear reactors, other countries like Russia or France will.” Trump seems to believe that the Saudis have us over a barrel: If we don’t help them with nuclear technology, someone else will. That misunderstands the U.S.-Saudi relationship. The Saudis depend on us for their security, and the blunt truth is that we hold all the cards in this relationship, not them.

Why on earth would America put Prince Mohammed on a path to acquiring nuclear weapons? He is already arguably the most destabilizing leader in an unstable region, for he has invaded Yemen, kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister, started a feud with Qatar, and, according to American intelligence officials, ordered the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

The prince has also imprisoned and brutally tortured women’s rights activists, including one who I’m hoping will win the Nobel Peace Prize, Loujain al-Hathloul. As Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, has noted, “A country that can’t be trusted with a bone saw shouldn’t be trusted with nuclear weapons.” The White House won’t clarify whether Kushner discussed the nuclear issue when he met Prince Muhammed a few days ago, but Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, told me, “I’d be surprised if it didn’t come up.” Along with Senators Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, Merkley has introduced a resolution to oppose the transfer of nuclear technology that would allow Saudi Arabia to create nuclear weapons.

There’s another element of Trump’s Saudi policy that is simply repulsive: the fawning courtship of a foreign prince who has created in Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, murdered a journalist and tortured women’s rights activists. The White House genuflections are such that Prince Mohammed had a point when, according to The Intercept, he bragged that he had Kushner in his “pocket.

No one knows whether Prince Muhammed will manage to succeed his father and become the next king, for there is opposition and the Saudi economic transformation he boasts of is running into difficulties. Trump and Kushner seem to be irresponsibly trying to boost the prince’s prospects, increasing the risk that an unstable hothead will mismanage the kingdom for the next 50 years. Perhaps with nuclear weapons.

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One of the hurdles in #Pakistan's development is its education system

By Zoha Masood

We live in a country where people educate their children not for wisdom but for making them a source of income.

How can a country advance if its people don’t value education as it should be? How can it prosper when people get the degrees but still remain uncivilized? The problem is actually the education system which offers the education but not its worth.

There are a number of problems Pakistan is facing nowadays in its education system including syllabus, multiple education systems, no uniformity in programs of study, religious issues, poverty, gender inequality and many more. Due to the unnoticed complications, our education method is getting more and more rotten, yet the rising issues are still unsolved. Here are some of the serious setbacks in Pakistani education system.

Focus of syllabus is quantity not quality

One of the major drawbacks of our education system is its bulky syllabus which is shifted to students’ shoulders without any reduction. No matter how irrelevant the books are and how inappropriate is the way of teaching, but they want students to memorize all the stuff and expect them to give the exam as soon as they complete the syllabus. Students are now being transformed into memorizing machines rather than learners.

Career planning is one of the issues that are given least importance yet they should have the highest. Majority of the students in our country don’t know their interest and choose their field of study as per their parents’ wish or how their friends do. Many people fail to discover their talent throughout the life by choosing wrong field of education and they just have to regret when they have made their career in the wrong direction which does not give them any sort of happiness.

Increased demand of tuition

After spending half of the day in school, the child is sent to the tuition where he has to study further thus gets no time for activities like playing, fun, entertainment and amusement. The students are getting very busy in their studies that their childhood and adult age is full of books more than anything else.

If the schooling is such that the student does not need tuition, it will ease students as well as parents because the burden of school and tuition gets very difficult for parents to pay for.

Inexpert teachers

The teachers nowadays are not professional, they teach not to convey information but just to get paid. Regardless of the fact that they are appointed to teach and make the students gain knowledge, they just try to complete the syllabus anyhow, whether a student understands anything or not. Many of the teachers are not even capable at the subject they are teaching, it’s just like they are teaching because they fail to get employed anywhere else.

Conduction of exams is no less than a joke

Conduction of exams is yet another issue! Board exams from class 9th to second year are not organized sincerely. Many of the examination centers are arranged in such a way that students can cheat very easily, not only this but in some cases the invigilators are also indulged in this exploitation. One can guess that how inferior is the sector of education in our country where the most important years of students’ life are wasted by helping them getting grades through illegal means.

Corrupt educational organizations

The problem is not only limited to examinations but also to the execution of results. Due to the corruption in examination systems, even students’ marks have got a cost. The grades and marks and even positions are being sold just for the sake of a few thousands or lacs. A hardworking students’ career has no value in front of a rich student’s money or source.

This is something of guilt that the government schools and colleges are so useless that even people of lower classes try to admit their children in private schools. Huge buildings but poor quality of education and insincere staff is the fate of most of the government institutions. They fail to provide the facilities to students that are available in private institutes.

Unaffordable fee structure

Inflation in the sector of education is the most important issue that needs to be considered. There is a high fluctuation in the fee of good and average quality schools. People belonging to middle class cannot afford to send their children to a school that offers quality education due to its high fee. Moreover, the schools are now taking the fees of June and July in advance which adds to the problems of parents. This is also due to non-uniformity in the education system, charging the fees according to requirements and setups.

#Pakistan - Moral policing in #Punjab University

Last Friday, a group of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) activists beat up a student for accompanying his female classmate to the cafeteria in Punjab university.Mobile footage of the student being thrashed is being circulated online.

This is not a new occurrence. Punjab University has always been haunted by extremist student organisations intent on morally policing their peers. They have beaten up students, teachers and even the administration on alleged claims of misrepresentation to justify their violence. This culture of violence on campuses needs to end. We need to foster an environment of learning and tolerance, where students can grow as individuals without fear.

The administration needs to take strict action against these organisations to keep the university a safe space, free of political organisations or at this rate IJT will end up running the administration as well. Media reports in the past have suggested the extraordinary influence that IJT exerts over the PU administration.

The latest incident is not a one off case in which the Jamiat succumbed to such tactics, it was a strategic move to publically thrash the student and keep their control intact. The vast majority of the students witnessed the spectacle without intervening, they either had been victims in the past or were afraid to be targeted in the future.

This shrinking of academic space is extremely problematic as it will only pave the path for violence and extremism. An educational institution where the focus of the student organisation is on what someone wears or their adherence to a particular worldview, instead of open dialogue had failed to fulfill its part. It is time that university spaces are secured and turned into nurseries of ideas, tolerance and enlightenment.

No lessons learnt - Welfare, not warfare: What #Pakistan needs to learn from history -

Anjum Altaf


PAKISTAN should be a welfare state. With millions of people straddling the poverty line, there is no other way forward. Those who believe the market will offer a solution are driven by ideology, blind fundamentalists in the same category as religious fundamentalists.

Only the state can cater for such destitution and the fact that a state has no interest or ability to do so does not mean that the task should be turned over to the market. The plain truth is that the market cares nothing for those without the ability to pay and there are many more in that category than should be acceptable.

Not just that, without a strong state the market doesn’t trickle wealth down, it siphons it up. The only viable alternative is to force the state to deliver on its responsibility and in the long run the only peaceful weapon citizens have to achieve that is the power of their votes. Let not this power be exhausted by either subverting it or ignoring its claims. The demand for bread can be fobbed off only so long with the promise of cakes.

We should pay heed to the fact that instead of moving towards a ‘welfare’ state we are consciously turning into even more of a ‘warfare’ state than we already happen to be. It is in this context that one should consider the decision of the cabinet, delivered without any sense of irony by the minister for information at the time of the recent mini-budget: “The country’s defence budget is already low as compared to other states in the region, and therefore it should be increased” — though there was no such known demand for this by the establishment.

‘Welfare’ not ‘warfare’ should be the goal.

 Hello, Mr Minister. The country’s budget for everything else — health, education, public transport, environmental sanitation, you name it — is also already low as compared to other states in the region. So why just the privileging of defence? On the contrary, the budget for everything else is being reduced even further to make up for the increase.

The deficit is intended to be made up “through the generation of more revenue” but given that no elite has ever taxed itself voluntarily except under extreme duress, this burden of taxation is also likely to fall on the middle and lower classes through dubious withholding taxes on mobile phones and the like.

In actual fact, the deficit is being made up by scrounging around for a billion here and a billion there on terms that cannot be disclosed to citizens and by printing money like there is no tomorrow.

All that the printed money is causing is inflation that is eroding the purchasing power of the helpless even further. I am sure the poor are ready to sacrifice for the nation but what does the interest of the nation entail? Is it always more guns at the cost of butter? And will the sacrifice ever be equitably shared or will one category continue to be evicted from tiny plots where they have lived for decades while others are allotted plots on which pets live better than the humans who feed them?

Where is the sense of irony in all this? Recall the out-of-the-box policy of some wizard in the Economic Advisory Committee who advocated a ban on imported cheese with the justification: ‘can a country that has no foreign exchange afford to eat cheese?’

Hello, again, Mr Jack-in-the-Box. Granted a country that has no foreign exchange ought not to eat imported cheese but can its leaders still afford to fly around in helicopters and ride in SUVs? Why doesn’t the cabinet set an example by getting to work on camels and setting up offices in tents instead of sprawling complexes with perpetual air-conditioning? And while they are demonstrating how people — all people — ought to be living in a country with no foreign exchange, why don’t they turn off the hot water as well since that has now been declared a luxury in the New Pakistan?

Have we learned nothing from history? The Soviet Union collapsed ballooning its defence budget while making people wait in endless queues for the necessities of life. Countries that neglect the minimum welfare of their citizens and fight endless futile wars get hollowed out from within and ultimately implode. This insight was obvious even to a president like Reagan who was otherwise not very bright. All the US had to do was to engage the Soviet Union in an endless arms race and the latter ran out of space.

Modi is a sharper politician and is following the same strategy with Pakistan — no negotiations till the room for manoeuvre disappears. And we are helping him along. When two countries are developing at radically different rates, every day that passes weakens the negotiating position of the laggard till the only recourse left is capitulation or the madness of mutual destruction.

Verily it is said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. And when they wish to destroy completely, they make them madder still.

Washington wants to know if Pakistan used U.S.-built jets to down Indian warplane

Drazen Jorgic, Fayaz Bukhari

The United States said on Sunday it was trying to find out if Pakistan used U.S.-built F-16 jets to down an Indian warplane, potentially in violation of U.S. agreements, as the stand-off between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors appeared to be easing.

Pakistan and India both carried out aerial bombing missions this week, including a clash on Wednesday that saw an Indian pilot shot down over the disputed region of Kashmir in an incident that alarmed global powers and sparked fears of a war.

A Pakistan military spokesman on Wednesday denied Indian claims that Pakistan used F-16 jets.

Pakistan returned the captured Indian pilot on Friday in a high-profile handover Islamabad touted as a “peace gesture”, which appeared to significantly dial down tensions, but both sides remain on high alert.

At the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed Kashmir region, there was relative calm in the past 24 hours, both armies said on Sunday. But Indian security forces said they were carrying out major anti-militancy operations on their side on Kashmir and had shot dead two militants.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said on Sunday it was looking into reports that Pakistan used F-16 jets to shoot down the Indian pilot, a potential violation of Washington’s military sale agreements that limit how Pakistan can use the planes.“We are aware of these reports and are seeking more information,” a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said. “We take all allegations of misuse of defense articles very seriously.”While Pakistan has denied using F-16 jets during a dogfight that downed an Indian Mig-21 warplane over Kashmir on Wednesday, it has not specified which planes it used, though it assembles Chinese-designed JF-17 fighter jets on its soil.

Pakistan has a long history of buying U.S. military hardware, especially in the years after 2001 when Islamabad was seen as a key partner in the U.S.-led War on Terror.

Pakistan bought several batches of F-16 planes, built by Lockheed Martin Corp, from Washington before relations soured and the United States cut off subsidized sales in 2016.

It is not clear what exactly these so-called “end-user agreements” restrict Pakistan from doing. “The U.S. Government does not comment on or confirm pending investigations of this nature,” the U.S. Embassy added.

On Thursday Indian officials displayed to reporters parts of what they called an air-to-air missile that can only be fired from F-16 jets, alleging they were used to bomb its side of the disputed Kashmir border on Wednesday.A Pakistan military spokesman told reporters on Wednesday that Pakistani jets “locked” on Indian targets to demonstrate Pakistan’s capacity to strike back at India, but then chose to fire in an empty field where there would be no casualties.Pakistan said its mission on Wednesday was in retaliation for India violating its airspace and sovereignty a day earlier, when Indian jets bombed a forest area near the northern city of Balakot.India said it struck at militant training camps, but Islamabad denied any such camps existed, as did some villagers in the area when Reuters visited.

MILITANCY OPERATIONS

Cross-border shelling in the past few days has killed seven people on the Pakistani side and four on the Indian side of Kashmir. But on Sunday it was relatively quiet near the de facto border of Kashmir, the source of two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since independence from Britain in 1947.

“By and large the LoC was calm last night but you never know when it will become active again,” said Chaudhry Tariq Farooq, a minister in Pakistani Kashmir. “Tension still prevails.”

In Indian-administered Kashmir, troops on Sunday shot dead two militants after a three-day gun battle that also killed five security force personnel, taking the total death toll to 25 in the past two weeks.

The Young Suicide Bomber Who Brought India and Pakistan to the Brink of War

By Basharat Peer

Both countries share responsibility for reducing Kashmir to a ruin and destroying generations of lives.

For the past few decades, Kashmir has largely been referred to in news reports and policy papers as a “low-intensity conflict,” as if someone were leisurely making a lamb stew. But for those of us who call the region home, it means living with the constant ache of our painful history, a despair and rage about an oppressive present, and an uncertain future.

Political discontent has simmered in Kashmir since the partition of India in 1947. India and Pakistan, which each control parts of the region and claim the whole, have fought three wars over it. India eroded the autonomy of the part of Kashmir it controlled by imprisoning elected leaders and appointing puppet administrators. After a rigged local election in 1987, Kashmiris began a secessionist armed uprising with support from Pakistan.

Indian military presence rose to half a million, and by the mid-1990s Islamist militants from Pakistan began to dominate the insurgency. Fighting ebbed by the 2000s, but not before it exacted a high price: Around 70,000 people have been killed, several hundred thousand displaced, 10,000 more are missing since being arrested.

Half a million Indian troops remain in the region. In the 2000s, Kashmiris turned to street protests — either peaceful or armed with nothing more than stones — against the military occupation. Indian troops responded with bullets, and more recently, with pellet guns, completely or partially blinding hundreds of protesters.

India and Pakistan blame each other, each country obsessed with proving itself better than the other, but they share the responsibility for reducing Kashmir to a ruin and destroying generations of Kashmiri lives. In the past several years, the phrase I often recall when I think of my home is “dying invisibly in ones and twos.” Every death is another knife into a bloodied body.

I have been thinking about all of this quite a bit over the past two weeks. On Feb. 14, a suicide attack on a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces in Kashmir killed at least 40 soldiers. The bomber was a young Kashmiri who had joined a Pakistani militant group.

After the bombing, India’s hypernationalist television networks and social media warriors relentlessly screamed for revenge. A nationalist tide baying for the blood of Kashmiris rose across India. College students from Kashmir were attacked by mobs; fearful for their safety, more than 2,000 reportedly have returned home. A journalist from Kashmir who has worked in New Delhi for about 25 years found his home circled by a mob. He was there with his wife and son, writing a column. “I thought this was the last column I was writing,” he messaged me. His neighbors saved him. As strongman rulers tend to do, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, set to convert the nationalist surge into votes in an election that begins next month. He promised to avenge the tears. On Tuesday, India carried out airstrikes on a militant camp in the Balakot area in northwestern Pakistan — the first time Indian warplanes had crossed the border since 1971.

India’s top diplomats hailed the strikes in wickedly obtuse language as “pre-emptive nonmilitary strikes” and the giddily compliant news media were told by official sources that more than 300 militants had been killed. Security analysts in India credited the airstrikes with destroying the illusion that nuclear deterrence can keep India from hitting terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan.

But Mr. Modi’s plan didn’t go as intended. Independent reporting showed that the Indian jets had hit some trees, a field — and not much else. The next morning, Pakistani fighter jets dropped some bombs inside Indian-controlled territory, which did no damage, restored Pakistan’s national pride and showed its willingness to escalate beyond Indian expectations.

A dogfight between Pakistani and Indian jets ensued. An Indian plane was shot down in Pakistani territory and its pilot, Wing Cmdr. Abhinandan Varthaman, was captured. Pakistan released a video of the pilot: an athletic man with a luxurious mustache on his bruised, bloodied face. He was filmed drinking a cup of tea offered by his captors. A civil and graceful conversation followed between him and his interrogator. It was a moment filled with a hint of hope, as the Indian and Pakistani militaries are notorious for shredding the Geneva Convention to bits: chopping off heads on the border and burning bodies of insurgents.

The Indian pilot’s capture seemed to deflate Mr. Modi’s bluster; the prime minister and his colleagues stayed silent for a while. On Thursday, Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, announced his decision to release and return the pilot, following it up by offering peace talks. Mr. Modi, according to Indian press reports, refused to engage until Pakistan did more against the terror groups based in the country and patronized by its military establishment.

Wing Commander Varthaman returned home on Friday. But great anxiety remains about Mr. Modi’s next move, as jingoistic cheerleaders haven’t stopped their clamor for war. Videos of tanks and military vehicles being moved toward the border with Pakistan filled Indian social media. At the Delhi airport on Thursday, I watched hundreds of soldiers quietly stand in long lines to board flights, possibly heading toward the border with Pakistan.

Mr. Modi suggested on Thursday that the airstrikes on Pakistan were a hint of more to come: “Now the real one has to be done; it was practice earlier.” Those are words pregnant with catastrophe, the words of a strongman who can’t afford to be seen as having failed to subdue an enemy he loves to hate.

Anxiety about the next fatal step, the cries of revenge and war, and the military escalations all will continue haunting India, Pakistan and the broader world as long as everyone insists on looking away from the issue driving the crisis: the long, bloody dispute over Kashmir.

As fighter planes circled overhead and several thousand more Indian troops were sent to Kashmir, the sense of panic increased. In a renewed crackdown, hundreds have been arrested. But the necessary question is ignored: What led that young Kashmiri man, Adil Ahmad Dar, to become a suicide bomber who brought South Asia to the brink of war? The last suicide bombing in Kashmir — and the first — was 19 years ago.

Handlers from the Jaish-e-Muhammad, the Pakistani terrorist group behind the attack, exploited the young man raised in a pitiless war. But the structural violence and political repression in Kashmir are equally responsible for turning Mr. Dar into a weapon.

After dropping out of high school in a small village, he had worked at a neighbor’s sawmill, and did other odd jobs to support his family. His father told a reporter that he often spoke about the day a group of policemen stopped him on the way back from school and made him circle their vehicle while rubbing his nose on the ground. During mass protests in Kashmir in 2016, when Indian troops killed about 100 protesters and blinded several hundred, Mr. Dar was shot in his leg. After he joined the militants in March 2018, his family told reporters, Indian troops raided their home, locked them inside and set it on fire.

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India’s Retaliatory Strikes On Pakistan Signals End To ‘Risk Aversion’ Strategies – Analysis

By Dr Subhash Kapila

India with its pre-emptive Indian Air Force strikes on Pakistani terrorist bases on February 26 2019 marks a significant signal under PM Modi’s leadership that India has finally dispensed with its ‘Risk Aversion Strategies’ and will not shirk upholding India’s ‘National Honour’ in face of repetitive provocations by India’s military adversaries- Pakistan to be more precise in instant case.

Dispensing with ‘Risk Aversion Strategies’’ followed by past Prime Ministers could not have been an easy decision for the Indian Prime Minister as it has in attendance the challenges of Pakistan climbing the  ‘Escalation Ladder’ in response. But should that deter India which today counts geopolitically high in global power calculus be deterred by Pakistan’s constant needling.

Pakistan has in the past been emboldened by the political timidity of past Prime Ministers and also countries like China presently and the United States in the past ego-massaging of the Generals in Pak Army HQs in Rawalpindi that Pakistan is the ‘Strategic Equivalent’ of India. In the process India’s ‘National Honour’ was being besmirched by Pakistan with impunity.

At this significant turning point in India’s history of upholding India’s ‘National Honour’  a quote of Major General J F C Fuller of1923 which I used in my Book ‘India’s Defence Policies & Strategic Thought: A Comparative Analysis”92004)  needs to repeated to drive home this point. Abridging the quote in my book, a relevant portion applicable today, makes thoughtful reading:

  “There is only one balsam which can make peace worth living—Honour, which is righteousness….Peace without honour is degradation…..so will an upright nation because of its honour, not only protect but sacrifice itself for righteousness cause. All may be lost save honour, for without honour, mankind ceases to exist”.

India had literally ceased to exist with its ‘National Honour’ singed by Pakistan and China by their repeated military provocations. Pakistan revelled in the myth that it could not be expended by China or United States because of its strategic utility to both these nations because of tactical political expediencies.

India has by its strikes signalled that it will no longer be a passive spectator to military provocations by its adversaries whatever the costs. Surely, the Modi Government and the defence establishment would have worked out the contingencies that would arise from the instant decision.

India’s upholding its ‘National Honour’ is not the sole responsibility of the Government and the Indian Armed Forces. It is also the duty of all Opposition Parties and the media o do likewise and not displays political fissures emerging from the politicking of Elation Year campaigns.

Some are already visible. Opposition leaders have gone all out to extoll the Indian Air Force valour for political correctness but have not one word of appreciation for PM Modi’s display of POLITICAL WILL. Surely, the Indian Air Force proceeded with the strikes against Pakistan on orders of the Government of the day determined that the moment had arrived when India’s ‘National Honour; can no longer be trifled with by Pakistan.

Similarly, some TV anchors have started disputing the damage estimates arising from the strikes. This is immaterial as to what matters are the exercise of India’s ‘Political Will to Uphold India’s National Honour” and that rich symbolism cannot be drowned in statistical debates.

India, and I believe, the vast majority of the Indian people going by visuals and media reports stand by the Government in dispensing with the ‘risk Aversion Strategies’ of past Governments, including BJP first government tenure

Within India, it needs to be appreciated that for the first time a Pakistani Prime Minister, PM Imran Khan was directly intervening in India’s domestic politics and elections by publicly asserting that Pakistan could wait for India’s Elections My 2019 and its outcome.  Implicit in Pak PM Imran Khan’s public statement was the hope that India would vote-out PM Modi in the coming General Elections.

What makes PM Imran Khan lead to such conclusion? Obviously, the fractitiouos Opposition parties electioneering campaign politicising national security issues and defence acquisitions rather than concentrating on  finding faults with the Government’s shortfalls in providing effective governance.

Added to this was the distortion of India’s political landscape by visits of some Opposition political worthies to Lahore and making discordant noises giving political mileage to Pakistan’s propaganda and fostering or perpetuating the myth that India was a divided house and that Pakistan could have a free run to indulge in its favourite pastime of ‘Bleeding India’ through Jihadi affiliates of Pakistan Army. The JeM suicide bombing at Pulwama on February 14 2019 killing 44 CRPF soldiers was the latest such provocation and that led to this Indian Air Force strike within Pakistan as a retaliatory response.

Having taken the first measured and deliberate military step in climbing the ‘Escalation Ladder’ with Pakistan we need to be alert and vigilant to ward off any ripostes cooing from Pakistan, and which it will compulsively do so.

India had put Pakistan on notice when in 2016 PM Modi authorised the first ‘surgical strikes’ by Indian Army Special forces in the wake of Uri attacks on Indian Army base. Pakistan did not pay heed to this witnessing the immediate politicisation by Indian Opposition Parties.

The Prime Minister immediately after Pulwama suicide attack by Jem operating from its HQs in Bahawalpur adjacent to Pakistan Army Corps Headquarters had given enough notice to Pakistan that a strong retaliation was coming for such military adventurism. Once again Pakistan felt secure that India would be shackled as before by its traditional policies of ‘Risk Aversion’ of past Prime Ministers.

India in 2019 is not the India of earlier decades of not following up rhetoric with action with sharp retaliatory actions as it happened in Mumbai 26/11 when the Congress Government was in power.. The present Indian Modi Government is strongly backed by Indian public opinion incensed with Pakistan’s repeated terrorists attacks and suicide bombings and demanding that Pakistan’s military adventurism be tamed or deterred.

Since Pakistan had commenced attacks targeting Indian Army bases and security forces convoys’ Indian public opinion against Pakistan was  more vociferous. That combined with PM Modi’s POLITICAL WILL to not allow India’s ‘National Honour’ be sullied impelled P Modi to order these IAF retaliatory strikes against Pakistan-based Jihad terrorist infrastructure.

Unlike the past, this time around, even in the wake of Pulwama suicide bombings, international support in terms of condemnation of Pakistan for not reining in Jihadi terrorists attacks against its neighbours was vocal. President Trump was on record castigating Pakistan on this issue. US National Security Advisers Bolton is also on record that India had the “right of self defense” against Pakistan-based terrorism provocations.

Also, the UN Security Council Permanent members with exception of China have expressed their determination to not let China again shield JeM chief Azhar Masood from being designated as ‘global terrorist’ by the UN.

No doubt the above factors were factored-in by the Modi Government in its calculations when it took the fateful decision of ordering IAF strikes within Pakistan on JeM terrorist launch pads and bases. Also would have been factored-in was the remote likelihood of a reckless opting by Pakistan for the nuclear option—-highly unlikely though.

In Conclusion, all that is required to be stated and emphasised is that India has signalled its intention of dispensing with past policies of ‘Risk Aversion’ so far shackling India’s audacious responses and retaliation against Pakistan military provocations. It is upto Pakistan’s strategic patrons to advise Pakistan for restraint and it is upto Pakistan and specifically its Army Generals that India has awakened to forcefully retaliate against Pakistani military provocations, or for that matter from any other quarter also.

Don’t let border tensions hamper trade: UN & World Bank economists to India, Pakistan

HIMANI CHANDNA

India's decision to withdraw the MFN status from Pakistan would boost informal trade, that is, smuggling & corruption, UN & World Bank experts said.

Economists from the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank have advised India and Pakistan against letting border tensions hamper their trade relationship.

“There are tensions between India and China (as well) but the business is kept out of the political or border problems,” said Dr Nagesh Kumar, director of social development division at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

“Adopting the same ideology, India should not hamper the bilateral trade relationship with Pakistan,” he added, speaking to ThePrint on the sidelines of a recently-concluded summit on the “Benefits of South Asia Economic Integration”, held in Dubai between 24 and 27 February.

“Irrespective of the present trade value with Pakistan, we must consider the potential of trade growth — which is at least ten times more than the present trade value,” said Kumar.

As reported earlier by ThePrint, at present, India exports $1.92 billion (approx. Rs 13,695 crore) worth of goods to Pakistan, while the imports from that country are worth $4.88 million (approx. Rs 34.8 crore), according to data from the ministry of commerce and industry.

Sanjay Kathuria, the lead economist at World Bank’s South Asia Regional Cooperation and Integration Unit, echoed the concern, pointing out that barriers in trade between India and Pakistan were evident in the fact that “it is 18 percentage points cheaper for India to trade with Brazil (in South America) than with Pakistan (its immediate neighbour)”.

“India and Pakistan have regimes that discriminate against each other, which is evident from the negative list both countries maintain,” he added, addressing the audience at the summit via video link.

“Pakistan maintains a list with around 1,209 items that cannot be imported from India whereas India maintains a negative list of around 600 items,” said Kathuria.

Quoting a World Bank report, ‘Glass Half Full: Promise of Regional Trade in South Asia’, of which he is the lead author, Kathuria said: “The trade between the two countries, which stands at around $2 billion, could go up to $37 billion if they worked through their differences.”

Withdrawal of MFN status flagged

India and Pakistan, whose ties have never been smooth, are currently locked in one of the most tense phases of their relationship.

Last month, the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) claimed responsibility for one of the worst terror attacks ever perpetrated on Indian soil — the 14 February strike on a CRPF convoy that killed 40 personnel in Kashmir.

India, which has repeatedly called Pakistan out for harbouring terrorists, subsequently launched a campaign to isolate Islamabad diplomatically, and also revoked the ‘most favoured nation (MFN)’ status granted to Islamabad.

The MFN status is accorded by a country to valued partners to boost non-discriminatory bilateral trade. At the Dubai summit, economists pointed out that India’s decision to withdraw the MFN status would boost informal trade — that is, smuggling and corruption — via Dubai and Singapore.

“A significant chunk of trade between both countries is already happening through a third country — mostly Dubai and Singapore,” Kumar said.

“With the latest move of snatching MFN status, informal trade through a third country will get a major boost,” he added.

“Currently,” Kumar said, “the amount of total trade (formal and informal) between India and Pakistan is approximately around $6 billion. The worth of formal trade stands equal to informal trade… Unless the political and trade environment improves, informal trade will only continue to coexist and is likely to increase in the coming years.”

“The move [to withdraw MFN status] would increase the cost of exports for Pakistan apart from increasing the discrimination (between both nations). More trade will be diverted to informal channels, mostly through Dubai and Singapore,” said Kathuria.

4 civilians killed after India, Pakistan trade fire on Kashmir border

Three Indian civilians and one Pakistani were killed in multiple ceasefire violations. Both countries have vowed to step back from the brink of war.

At least four civilians were killed and 11 injured on Saturday as Indian and Pakistani soldiers traded fire in the disputed Kashmir frontier region. The resumed fighting violated a temporary ceasefire put in place after a week of escalating unease at the border.

The dead included a 24-year-old woman and her two young children in India-administered Kashmir. Their father was also critically injured.

On the Pakistani side, officials said a boy died after heavy firing from Indian troops late on Friday night. Two Pakistani soldiers also died after an exchange of fire with Indian forces near the Line of Control that separates Indian and Pakistan-administered areas of Kashmir, the military said.

De-escalation

Despite the truce violations, the two neighbors appeared to step back from the brink on Saturday as India handed over the body of a Pakistani citizen killed in an Indian jail.

Indian inmates beat the man to death following the February 14 terrorist attack on Indian forces in Kashmir, according to Pakistan's foreign ministry. "India had failed to protect the Pakistani prisoner," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qurehsi said.

The February 14 suicide attack killed 40 members of India's security forces. The latest round of tensions erupted after New Delhi accused Islamabad of harboring the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group that claimed responsibility for the attack.

Return of Indian pilot

The return of the Pakistani prisoner's body came a day after Pakistan returned a captured Indian air force pilot whose plane was shot down and crashed in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir earlier this week.

The Pakistani government called it "a goodwill gesture aimed at de-escalating rising tensions with India."

Pakistan's military nevertheless said its air force and navy "continue to be alert and vigilant," but that it would respect the ceasefire. Kashmir has already been the site of two wars between India and Pakistan.

The Next India-Pakistan Crisis Will Be Worse

By Michael Kugelman

With both sides now willing to climb higher up the escalation ladder, a future nuclear exchange could become a far less remote prospect.

The last few days have been downright scary in South Asia.

India and Pakistan, the only two rivals in the world to be both neighbors and nuclear states, have suffered through their most serious crisis in nearly twenty years.

The crisis has featured multiple traumatic events that made escalation inevitable. Take the February 14 attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based terror group, on Indian security personnel in India-administered Kashmir—one of the deadliest attacks on Indian forces in years. Consider India’s retaliatory strikes on Pakistan—launched not in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, further away from the border. And witness Pakistan’s decision to respond with its own strikes on Indian targets, and its capture of an Indian Air Force pilot.

Recent days, fortunately, suggest that de-escalation is approaching. Pakistan decided relatively quickly to release the captured Indian pilot—a gesture that reduces the likelihood of, but does not rule out, any further Indian uses of force in the immediate term.

Eventually, this crisis will end. However, when it does, both countries will have to acknowledge an inconvenient truth: fundamental realities on the ground—those that most aggrieve each side— will not have changed.First, the India-focused terrorists that New Delhi claims to have targeted in its strikes on Pakistan will continue to enjoy shelter from the Pakistani state. Islamabad will not have changed its policies toward them. On the contrary, in the aftermath of this crisis, an emboldened Islamabad—armed with a heightened awareness of its need to depend on assets that can push back against its Indian foe—may well embrace these actors more tightly.

Second, India’s position on the region of Kashmir it administers, which has long been claimed by Pakistan, will not have changed. New Delhi will still believe that there is nothing in dispute about the region, and that its status is settled and need not be renegotiated. And it will continue to use repressive tactics against local communities who despise the presence of the Indian state there.Indian security forces could well intensify these tactics under the guise of counterterrorism; the militant who staged the attack in Kashmir last month was a local resident. Such measures would undoubtedly galvanize Kashmiris even more. The violent crackdowns that New Delhi may describe as counterterrorism will be—and already are—depicted by many Kashmiris and Pakistanis as Indian state terrorism.

Islamabad is destined to double down on its dependence on terrorist assets. And New Delhi is destined to double down on its repressive ways in Kashmir.

In effect, after the crisis abates, India and Pakistan are likely to step up activities that sharpen each side’s core grievances—thereby paving the way for fresh tensions and a new crisis.

All this said, the crisis has yielded a new normal of sorts.

For the first time, both sides have signaled, as nuclear states, that they are willing and able to rain missiles down on each other’s territory, and in India’s case in areas well beyond the contested border.

There are positive takeaways here for both countries. New Delhi has telegraphed its willingness to act preemptively in areas beyond Pakistan-administered Kashmir when it feels threatened by Pakistan-based terrorism.

True, the details surrounding the Indian operation are murky; on-the-ground media reports (including from Al Jazeera and Reuters) suggest that Indian claims of more than 300 terrorists killed and large-scale destruction of terrorist facilities may be exaggerated.

Still, issues surrounding the targeting of the strike are less important than the geography: New Delhi has signaled it will no longer restrict itself to strikes along the border. And that can’t be a reassuring thought for Pakistan.Meanwhile, Pakistan has demonstrated that while its conventional military power may not be as formidable as that of India’s, it is still perfectly capable of matching India’s own moves. In this regard, Pakistan has defied the naysayers in India and elsewhere who were skeptical that the Pakistanis would mount a military response to India’s operation. Islamabad has proven that it won’t be deterred if India resorts to a type of military action in Pakistan that hadn’t been deployed since the early 1970s, many years before either country went nuclear.For these reasons, both Islamabad and New Delhi can claim victory and conclude the crisis was worth sweating through—even though fundamental realities about terrorism and Kashmir have not changed.Still, at the end of the day, Pakistan and India will have merely given each other bloody noses, and otherwise emerged unscathed. This has some unsettling longer-term implications.

In effect, for India to have a greater chance of achieving the goals that couldn’t be achieved during the current crisis, it will need to escalate its tactics. If New Delhi wants to pressure Pakistan into rethinking its decision to provide support to India-focused terrorists, then it will need to turn to measures more muscular than a few airstrikes. Likewise, if Islamabad wants to pressure India into rethinking its policies in Kashmir, it too will need to turn to something more aggressive than a few airstrikes.

The upshot? With India and Pakistan having demonstrated they are comfortable engaging in increasingly provocative uses of military force under the nuclear umbrella, they will have an incentive in the future to go up a few more rungs on the escalatory ladder to try to achieve goals that couldn’t be achieved further down that ladder.

Regardless of whether they succeed or fail, this much is true: With both sides now willing to climb higher up the escalation ladder, a future nuclear exchange could become a far less remote prospect.

Coverage of India-Pakistan crisis by mainstream media is strangely objective. What's going on?

Simon Rite 

I've been trying to make up my mind about how concerned I should be about events in Kashmir, nothing causes pause for thought like two nuclear powers launching airstrikes against one another.

There's something about the human mind, or at least mine, which causes it to immediately jump to the worst case scenario, especially when it's fuelled by ignorance.

So, this is what my brain does when it hears that India and Pakistan have been firing missiles at each other and shooting each other's planes out of the sky.

First it accesses everything it knows about the situation in Kashmir, which can be summed up as "India and Pakistan don't like each other very much, and they both have nuclear missiles."

My imagination then uses that information to form a conclusion, which in this case is "we'll probably all be vaporised by Monday lunchtime."

Even for me that conclusion seemed a little extreme, so I thought I might dive into the details a little bit more, see if I could work out what was actually going on before cancelling the appointments I had for Tuesday. At the very least I wanted to know who I should be blaming if anyone started pushing me for an opinion. I find acquiring opinions much more convenient than forming them.

However, the general coverage of this possible nuclear confrontation has confused me. Most broadcast outlets and newspapers (newspapers are like paper versions of websites, ask your grandad about them) did cover the story, and most mentioned quite high up in their coverage the potential for nuclear catastrophe, so that was reassuring.

However, hardly anyone in the mainstream media that I could find had it as a lead story until Friday, when Pakistan shot down a couple of Indian fighter jets and it had become hard to ignore.

I took solace in the fact that in the eyes of much of the commentariat, a disastrous nuclear confrontation didn't seem as important as Donald Trump's disgraced former lawyer calling him names, or that Brexit, erm, something about Brexit.  

Paradoxically negotiations in Vietnam over North Korea's nuclear programme that probably doesn't threaten much, beyond the underground caves it's tested in, dominated most headlines.

I fully understand that decision though, because even if I saw a mushroom cloud on the horizon, I would probably still be mainly thinking about the weird spectacle of Trump and Kim Jong Un negotiating on behalf of large parts of humanity.

Still, isn't it a little strange that the very real risk of actual nuclear war, possibly by the weekend, isn't the top headline everywhere?

Surely, I thought, there will be some juicy op-eds out there, accusing one side of geopolitical villainy. Again, I was to be disappointed, because when it came to an India-Pakistan confrontation there seemed to be an unlikely outbreak of objectivity.

To name just a few, the Times of London suggested both sides shared the blame, and so did the Telegraph. The New York Times decided to cover the story by decrying people using social media in times of tension. I combed the media (well, not the media in India and Pakistan where it was a different story) and I couldn't find anyone who was blatantly demonising just one side, or telling me who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. What was going on? This isn't the media I rely on!

Even world leaders seemed to have been chatting in their WhatsApp group about what they should say, and agreed they would all call for "restraint." That's it.  Everyone, the same word. The US and Iran, China and Britain.

And then I noticed a curious thing among the emerging details. There had been some confusion about what planes each side had been using in the tit-for-tat attacks on each other.  

There was speculation over whether India had used the planes it had bought from France or the ones it had bought from Russia. And whether Pakistan had used its US-made F-16s, or its Chinese jets.

And it all became clear! India and Pakistan are key allies of pretty much everyone apart from each other. India has lots of cash, and Pakistan has lots of access to extremely useful spy networks.

In a situation like this, it's really hard for the media to know who they're allowed to blame, governments aren't telling them who to demonize and that makes it hard for the usual invective to spew forth.

You won't struggle to find opinion pieces on who is to blame in Venezuela or Syria for example, but with Kashmir there has been a torrent of balanced factual reporting. Imagine that.

Objective reporting, a joint international call for restraint. This Kashmir crisis may hold important lessons for us all… if we're still here after Monday.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/452759-coverage-india-pakistan-crisis/

De-escalation delayed: India & Pakistan exchange shelling on Kashmir border, casualties reported

Just a day after an Indian pilot was freed from Pakistani captivity, offering hope for de-escalation, the two countries resumed shelling in Kashmir, killing a number of civilians on both sides, according to local authorities.

A 24-year-old woman and her two siblings were killed on Friday night near the Line of Control, a heavily militarized frontier that divides Pakistani and Indian parts of Kashmir. Another civilian was gravely injured in the shelling, NDTV reported, citing local police. 

Meanwhile, on the Pakistani side of the line, Indian artillery fire killed a boy and wounded three people, according to a government official. He told AP that the neighbor’s forces were “indiscriminately targeting border villagers,” and added that Pakistani troops were “befittingly” responding to the Indian artillery barrage.

In total, at least five civilians and 2 soldiers were killed in the attack, Al Jazeera reported.

The deadly shelling came despite some signs of a de-escalation in the latest crisis. On Friday, Pakistan released a captured Indian pilot in what its prime minister called a “peace gesture.”

After a dogfight over Kashmir on Wednesday morning, India initially said that all of its pilots had returned safely, but Pakistan’s Information Ministry then released – and later deleted – footage showing the pilot blindfolded, with blood on his face.

India then confirmed the loss of one of its MiG-21s and the capture of its pilot, but demanded that he be immediately released. It said that it had also foiled an attack by Pakistani warplanes over Kashmir, and shot down one Pakistani plane. Islamabad denies that any of its aircraft were shot down.

Pakistan and India have fought on several occasions over Kashmir since they gained independence from the British Empire in 1947. Each country controls a section of the territory, separated by one of the most militarized borders in the world, known as the Line of Control, which has seen frequent shelling and several short-term conflicts.

https://www.rt.com/news/452825-india-pakistan-shelling-civilians/

#Pakistan and #India step back from the brink, tensions simmer

Abu Arqam Naqash, Fayaz Bukhari

A flare up between arch-foes India and Pakistan appeared to be easing on Saturday after Islamabad handed back a captured Indian pilot, but tensions continued to simmer amid efforts by global powers to prevent a war between the nuclear-armed neighbors

Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who became the face and symbol of the biggest clash between India and Pakistan in many years, walked across the border just before 9 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Friday in a high-profile handover shown on live television.

Shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) that acts as a de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region, a frequent feature in recent weeks, continued on Saturday.Pakistan’s military said on Saturday its air force and navy “continue to be alert and vigilant”, while two of its soldiers were killed after exchanging fire with Indian troops along the Line of Control. India’s military said on Saturday that Pakistan was firing mortar shells across the LoC.Pakistan touted Abhinandan’s return as “as a goodwill gesture aimed at de-escalating rising tensions with India” after weeks of unease that threatened to spiral into war after both countries used jets for bombing missions this week.

Global powers, including China and the United States, have urged restraint to prevent another conflict between the neighbors who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.Tensions escalated rapidly following a suicide car bombing on Feb. 14 that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Indian-controlled Kashmir.India accused Pakistan of harboring the Jaish-e Mohammad group behind the attack, which Islamabad denied, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised a strong response.

Indian warplanes carried out air strikes on Tuesday inside Pakistan on what New Delhi called militant camps. Islamabad denied any such camps existed, as did local villagers in the area, but Pakistan retaliated on Wednesday with its own aerial mission, that led to both sides claiming to have shot down jets.The stand off came at a critical time for Modi, who faces a general election that must be held by May and who had been expected to benefit from nationalist pride unleashed by the standoff.

Pakistani leaders say the ball is now in India’s court to de-escalate the tensions, though the Pakistani army chief told top military leaders of the United States, Britain and Australia on Friday that his country would “surely respond to any aggression in self-defense”.

“COLLIDE HEAD-ON”

The Indian pilot’s ordeal since being shot down on Wednesday had made him the focal point of the crisis and he returned to his homeland to a hero’s welcome, with crowds thronging the Wagah border crossing and waving Indian flags.

Before his release, Pakistani television stations broadcast video of Abhinandan in which he thanked the Pakistani army for saving him from an angry crowd who chased him after seeing him parachute to safety.“The Pakistani army is a very professional service,” he said. “I have spent time with the Pakistan army. I am very impressed.”

On Friday, four Indian troops and one civilian were killed in a clash with militants in the Indian-administered Kashmir, where a further three people were killed and one wounded from Pakistani shelling.

Pakistan’s military said two civilians were killed and two wounded since Friday afternoon on Pakistan’s side of Kashmir from a barrage of Indian shelling.

In a sign of the unease, residents say they are afraid another conflagration is likely.

“The way situation is developing along the LoC makes me feel that both sides may collide head-on anytime now,” said Chaudhry Jahangir , a Pakistani resident of the Samahni sector in Kashmir.