India
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Neo Hindus – Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack
This term, Neo Hindus, is a very recent phenomenon, perhaps in the last twenty-five years or so. It was always sort of hanging around amongt us; like an optical illusion, lurking like a thief who is unable to make that final reach to grab the handbag, (so near; yet so far). It may have been… Continue reading
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BOMBSHELL: India’s Role in the US Proxy war on Myanmar (and on China)
January 6, 2022 (The New Atlas) – Just as India had in the past aided US foreign policy objectives against China through hosting violent militant groups targeting Tibet, India is once again hosting militants, this time targeting China’s BRI partner, Myanmar in Southeast Asia. Continue reading
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US plays Tibet card as India seeks modus vivendi with China
The cracking sound of ice breaking on the frozen lake of India-China relations will trigger a new wave of US-backed media campaign to instigate the hawks. Armed with satellite imageries made available from the US and peppered with random, free-wheeling remarks by garrulous Indian ex-generals and academics, the Washington Post has drawn attention to the… Continue reading
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This Victory Gives Confidence for Future Struggles: The Forty-Seventh Newsletter (2021)
On 19 November 2021, a week before the first anniversary of the farmers’ revolt, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi surrendered. He accepted that the three laws on agricultural markets that had been pushed through the parliament in 2020 would be repealed. The farmers of India had won. The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), one of… Continue reading
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Farm Laws Repeal: A Historic Day For India
On November 19 the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi announced the important decision of repealing three highly controversial farm laws. This decision should be widely welcomed cutting across narrow narrow political divides. Continue reading
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COP26: India ends up as fall guy
Greta Thurnberg, the famous Swedish climate change activist, summed up that the deal reached at COP26 at Glasgow on Saturday was “very, very vague” with several loopholes. She told the media in Glasgow that the pact only “succeeded in watering down the blah, blah, blah”. Continue reading
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Quad is turning & turning in widening gyre
By coincidence, perhaps, on the same day that President Biden hosted the first Quad summit, he also cleared the way for a senior executive of Huawei Technologies to return to Beijing — “removing one major irritant between the two superpowers,” as the New York Times put it. Continue reading
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Indian state with 240 million people completely eradicated Covid with Ivermectin
How did an Indian state with more than 240 million residents beat the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19)? Simple. Its people took ivermectin. Uttar Pradesh, located in northern India, has officially declared that all 33 of its districts are now “covid-free” thanks to a benevolent effort by the leaders there to provide everyone with “horse dewormer.” Continue reading
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India reaches out to Russia to break out of regional isolation over Afghanistan
The Indian establishment media hyped up Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 24 in a desperate attempt to distract attention from Delhi’s abject isolation over the Afghanistan situation. Continue reading
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Don’t waste the opportunity at UN SC
India’s thirty-day tenure through August as the president of the UN Security Council has got mired in needless controversy. The issue is about the “emergency meeting” regarding Afghanistan that India convened on Friday. According to Pakistan, it had made a “a formal request” for participation in the meeting but India turned it down. Continue reading
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Blinken’s single-point agenda in Delhi – China
The overnight visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to New Delhi has been an eye-opener in many ways. It highlighted how much India has changed through the searing pain and suffering it underwent in the past one-year period and how that tumultuous period also led to a reset in the government’s calculus. Continue reading
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Takeaways for Russia, India from Merkel’s US visit
A caveat must be added to the famous line by Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General and Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War, that the purpose of the Alliance was “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. Continue reading
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The Campaign against Ivermectin: WHO’s Chief Scientist Served with Legal Notice for Disinformation and Suppression of Evidence
On 25 May 2021, the Indian Bar Association (IBA) served a 51-page legal notice on Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), for “her act of spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfil her agenda.” Continue reading
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Microsoft vs Indian Farmers: Agri-Stacking the System
In April, the Indian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft, allowing its local partner CropData to leverage a master database of farmers. The MoU seems to be part of the AgriStack policy initiative, which involves the roll out of ‘disruptive’ technologies and digital databases in the agricultural sector. Continue reading
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How India lost its way in Persian Gulf
There have been two successive setbacks in the past one-year period to the India-Iran relationship. India has been literally eased out of two strategically important projects in Iran that were full of promise to uplift the ties in a medium and long term perspective. Continue reading
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Anthony Fauci “has no clue and no authority to lecture on what is good for India”
In light of the current COVID-related situation in India, Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US adviser on COVID, has called for India to implement a hard lockdown and for the mass roll-out of vaccines. However, Fauci “has no clue and no authority to lecture on what is good for India”. Continue reading
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India will be front-line state in Myanmar civil war
Conceivably, therefore, the decision by the Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd to abandon their highly lucrative Myanmar container terminal project and write down the investment falls in the same league. For, corporate houses are also known to possess animal instincts — they pick up subtle sounds or vibrations in the earth and anticipate impending disasters. Continue reading
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Boris Johnson walks away laughing with India’s Serum Institute in tow
Three cheers for the Indian Supreme Court’s suo moto intervention on the issue of distribution of essential supplies and services during the pandemic. India, the “world pharmacy”, is entering shark-infested waters, as vaccine supply is getting intertwined with the country’s opaque decision-making, its powerful corporate culture and episodic diplomacy. Continue reading
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India’s “COVID outbreak” & the need for scientific integrity – not sensationalism
Western media outlets are currently paying a great deal of attention to India and the apparent impact of COVID-19. The narrative is that the coronavirus is ripping through the country – people are dying, cases are spiralling out of control and hospitals are unable to cope. Continue reading
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US: Indian Ocean is not India’s ocean
The guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones sailing past Lakshadweep Islands April 7 has thrown India’s Sinophobes into confusion. One leading daily noted it as a “rare falling out between the two partners in the Quad grouping.” An anti-China analyst tweeted that it’s just a “botched PR exercise” on the part of Americans. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 