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India-Pakistan

India Tests Long-Range, Ballistic Nuclear-Capable Missile

2016-12-27

India successfully test-fired its longest range nuclear-capable missile, confirming its status in the select group of nations with weapons that can travel from one continent to another. Agni-V, with a range of more than 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles), completed its final firing test at the Defence Research and Development Organization’s range on Dr. Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of the eastern state of Odisha on Monday. "This was the fourth test of Agni-5 missile and the second one from a canister on a Road Mobile Launcher," the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. "All the four missions have been successful." India’s president, Pranab Mukherjee, confirmed the launch with a tweet. "Congratulations DRDO for successfully test firing Agni V. It will enhance our strategic and deterrence capabilities." he wrote. Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon followed with his own tweet: "It will add tremendous strength to our strategic defense." India’s space and missile programs, along with economic growth of more than 7 percent and a bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, is part of the country’s efforts to build up its defense capabilities and establish itself as a world power. India’s current range of missiles are mostly intended for confrontation with neighboring rivals China and Pakistan. The locally-developed Agni-V is capable of reaching as far as Beijing, IANS reported in July. India joined a group including the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K that have intercontinental ballistic missiles when it first test-fired Agni-V in 2012.

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India-Pakistan

Those who shelter terrorists can’t be spared: PM

2016-10-12

[Daily Excelsior] Breaking from tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today attended the historic Ramlila celebrations here where he launched a veiled attack on Pakistain, saying those who help and provide shelter to forces of Evil cannot be spared, but made no reference to the surgical strikes. Making terrorism the centrepoint of his over 20-minute speech, he said terror was the worst enemy of humanity and called upon the world community to speak in one voice against the menace to put an end to it. "Terrorism does not have any boundaries. It is bound to destroy all...A need has arisen to root out those who spread terrorism. Those who help forces of Evil and provide shelter to them can no longer be spared," he said in an obvious reference to Pakistain without taking its name. "Terrorism is against humanity. The entire world is being destroyed...If you think that we are insulated against terrorism, then we are wrong. It is a virus affecting our societies. All forces across the world have to talk in one voice and end it. It will not be possible to save humanity without eradicating terrorism," the Prime Minister said. "The forces of humanism should unite globally to end the menace," he said. Modi became the first Prime Minister to attend a Ramlila event outside Delhi and his participation at the Aishbagh celebrations assumes significance in the context of Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh early next year. The theme of this year’s Dussehra here was ’destruction of terrorism’. In the run up to the event today, there have been many references to the surgical strikes by characters enacting Ramlila. In significant gestures, Modi was presented a Sudarshan Chakra, bow and arrow and a mace at the event, symbolising valour. At the Delhi event at Ramlila Maidan, as usual, President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi were present. "No one should have this misunderstanding that they are safe from terrorism as terrorism has no boundary, no morality, it can go anywhere and it is bent upon crushing humanity...It is essential for all to come together against terrorism," Modi said. "The entire world is being harmed. For the last two days we are seeing the picture of a little girl of Syria....And so today, when we are buring Ravana, all human forces as one will have to resolve to fight terrorism as humanity cannot be saved without bringing an end to it," he said. Modi recalled his meeting with a top US official who had then not recognised terrorism as a problem and had instead termed it as a law and order issue. He said the world’s perspective towards terrorism changed after 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. He also urged the people to remain vigilant against terrorists, saying their attempts to carry out attacks can be thwarted by alert citizens. While celebrating Dussehra, which signifies victory of good over evil, the Prime Minister said Lord Rama represented humanity and its rich values and traditions. He said the first person to fight terror was neither a soldier nor a politician, but the mythological bird Jatayu who fought against Ravana to protect a helpless Sita, whom he was trying to kidnap. Noting that war at times becomes inevitable due to prevailing circumstances, he said India is a country which follows the principles of peace as taught by Lord Buddha. "We balance between the Mohan of the Sudarshan Chakra, and the Mohan of the Charkha (Mahatma Gandhi)...We are the people who have seen yudhh (war) and Buddha. We can go from yudh to Buddha. Buddha’s path (of peace) should be our final path," he said. Terming castiesm, communalism and nepotism as the forms of social evils present inside people, he said and there is a need to get rid of these ’Ravanas’. Modi said on one side the country was celebrating Vijay Dashmi and on the other the world was observing the day of the girl child today and called upon people to end the menace of female infanticide and feoticide.

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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Ghana Academics Demand to Remove 'Racist' Gandhi's Statue

2016-09-21

[All Africa] A group of professors at the University of Ghana have demanded the removal of a Mahatma Gandhi memorial from the campus. They accuse the Indian hero of being "racist" towards Africans. ... the perfect being the enemy of the good... In an online petition, Ghanaian academics led by Akosua Adomako Ampofo urged authorities to facilitate "the removal of the statue of Gandhi." The statue was presented to the Ghanaian government when Indian President Pranab Mukherjee visited Accra in June this year. The teachers expressed dismay that the university administration had not consulted its staff before agreeing to install the statue in the institution's premises; they said it was the only memorial of a historical personality in the campus. In the petition, the professors asked: "How will the historian teach and explain that Gandhi was uncharitable in his attitude towards the Black race and see that we're glorifying him by erecting a statue on our campus?" As of the time of publication, just over 950 people had signed the online petition urging the statue's removal. Born on October 2, 1869 in Gujarat ...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime... in western India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as the "Mahatma" (meaning "the great soul"), was famous for his non-violent resistance to British colonial rule. He went to study law in London in 1888 and after a short stint back in India, left for Cape Colony (now South Africa) in 1893 to represent a local firm. Once in Africa, he experienced several instances of racism, including being thrown out of a train for being Indian - despite having a first-class ticket. The incident, along with several others, is believed to have spurred him to launch a movement against color prejudice. He also started the Passive Resistance Movement in the colony in 1906, according to information on the website of Sevagram Ashram, a charitable trust founded by Gandhi in 1936 in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. South Africa's anti-Apartheid hero Nelson Mandela wrote of the inspiration Gandhi had provided him. Gandhi's 'racist' ideas The rationale for their demand, the professors said, was Gandhi's objectionable references to Africans as being socially lower than Indians. In his writings, the leader referred to black Africans as "kaffirs," a derogatory term for black people. The petitioners quoted sentences from Gandhi's collected works. In an open letter to "The Natal Mercury" in 1894, he wrote, "A general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir." In a speech at a public meeting in Bombay in 1896, Gandhi spoke about the racist treatment meted out to ethnic Indians in trains running through the South African colony. "Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness." Removing racist symbols The petitioners used several examples from Gandhi's writings to urge authorities to remove the memorial. "We are of the view that if there should be statues on our campus, first and foremost, they should be of African heroes and heroines, who can serve as examples of who we are and what we have achieved as people." "At world class universities, even former bastions of slavery, apartheid and white supremacy, statues and other symbols associated with controversial persons have been pulled down or removed," they added. They referred to similar cases, including one in Yale in August, where authorities decided to replace stained-glass windows depicting enslaved Africans. In October 2015, Rhodes University established a team to find a new name for the university, named after Cape Colony's former prime minister, Cecil Rhodes - a British imperialist with notoriously racist political views. Despite his legacy of non-violent struggle, Gandhi is a controversial personality. Other than his dubious comments on African people, there have been accusations regarding his approach towards sexuality and his relations with his wife and children, as well as his support for India's caste system.

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India-Pakistan

Mumbai bomb plotter on death row loses final appeal

2015-07-22

[DAWN] India's top court on Tuesday rejected a final appeal by Yakub Memon, a key plotter of kabooms that killed hundreds in Mumbai in 1993, paving the way for his execution. Media reports said Yakub Memon would hang on July 30 -- more than two decades after the deadliest attacks ever to hit India --after the Supreme Court rejected his final plea. The Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of Air India and a luxury hotel were among the targets of the March 1993 blasts, which killed 257 people in India's commercial capital. The attacks were believed to have been staged by Mumbai's Moslem-dominated underworld in retaliation for anti-Moslem violence that had killed more than 1,000 people. Memon was the only one of 11 people convicted for the 1993 attacks to have his death sentence upheld on appeal. The sentences on the others were commuted to life imprisonment. Executions are only carried out for "the rarest of rare" cases in India. But President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected a number of mercy pleas in recent years, ending an unofficial eight-year moratorium. A Kashmiri separatist convicted of involvement in a deadly 2001 attack on the Indian parliament was executed in New Delhi in 2013, while the lone surviving gunman from the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks was hanged in 2012. "Crimes such as these deserve maximum punishment," Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch ... During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, HRW received a pledge from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, of which George Soros is Chairman, for general support totaling $100,000,000. The grant is being paid in installments of $10,000,000 over ten years.Through June 30, 2013, HRW had received $30,000,000 towards the fulfillment of the pledge.... , told AFP. "But we believe that the maximum punishment should not be the death penalty because it is inherently inhumane," she said.

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India-Pakistan

New Delhi imposes direct rule in Indian-held Kashmir

2015-01-10

[DAWN] Indian-held Kashmire was brought under New Delhi's direct rule Friday after political rivals failed to agree on a power-sharing coalition, more than two weeks after elections in the country's only Moslem-majority state. A federal government front man confirmed that President Pranab Mukherjee had placed Governor N. N. Vohra in charge of the state, the day after the acting chief minister stepped down. The president has approved the governor's rule for the state, home ministry front man M.A Ganapathy told AFP after Vohra had made an official recommendation to Mukherjee. The move comes more than two weeks after the December 23 announcement of results of the state elections which saw all parties fall way short of the 44 seats needed for an absolute majority. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, whose National Conference Party won only 15 seats after suffering an electoral meltdown, had stayed on as caretaker but he submitted his resignation to Vohra on Thursday. The imposition of direct rule means local representatives will have no say in the running of Kashmire for the timebeing, a particular sensitive issue in a region where rebels have been fighting to secede from India since 1989. It comes after the two parties which won the most seats the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to work out a power sharing arrangement or cut a deal with other smaller parties. The PDP won 28 seats while the BJP won 25, mainly mopping up in the mainly Hindu Jammu region in the south of the state. Abdullah, who suffered a backlash over his government's handling of devastating floods in September, said it was vital the state not be left in limbo. I am sorry after an election with such a good turnout we have a situation of Governor's rule but as I've maintained the onus lies with PDP, he said on Twitter. PDP front man Nayeem Akhtar said that the party was still in discussions with a range of parties. It might lead to a brief spell of governor's rule but ultimately a popular government has to come and serve the state because the people have voted for the government, Akhtar told NDTV.

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India-Pakistan

Modi govt to re-energize ties with US

2014-06-10

[Indiatimes]NEW DELHI: India will re-energize its relations with the US, after a couple of years of slump in bilateral ties. This is the stated objective of the Narendra Modi government as articulated by President Pranab Mukherjee in his inaugural address to the 16th Lok Sabha. "India and the United States have made significant progress in developing strategic partnership over the years. My government will bring a renewed vigor to our engagement and intensify it in all areas, including trade, investment, science and technology, energy and education," the Mukherjee said. The US came in for special mention in the President's address, which is significant given the visa baggage that has hung in the air. But Modi has made it clear he would not hold bilateral relations hostage to a personal issue. For his part, US President Barack Obama too went out of his way to put the visa issue behind them by inviting Modi over in September. The dates and agenda for the bilateral summit are being negotiated now. Enlightened self-interest on both sides. India is one of the dominoes lined up for China to knock-over one by one. China, Japan and Russia were clubbed together in one paragraph while Pakistan evaded mention completely, except for a pointed reference to "terrorism against neighbors". The South Asian neighborhood will be an area of focus for this government. Modi will make his first trip to Bhutan in mid-June, and Japan in the beginning of July. Japan is a must. Meanwhile, assistant secretary of state Nisha Desai Biswal, the first senior US official to visit India after the new government took office, told reporters, "The United States is very committed to the US-India relationship. And this is an opportunity for us to hear the priorities and the opportunities that the new government is seeking in terms of their desire for this relationship. United States is very excited about the opportunity ahead and the road ahead because we see the resounding mandate with which this government has come in, with which Prime Minister Modi has come in, and the hopes and the aspirations of the Indian people."

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Afghanistan

India Will Do All in Its Power to Promote Afghan Stability

2013-05-23

[An Nahar] India said Wednesday it will do all within its means to promote stability in Afghanistan after visiting President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... said he had given a military "wishlist" to the Indian government. "We have a wishlist that we have put before the government of India," Karzai told news hounds in New Delhi, adding it was up to the Indian leadership to decide how much help it was willing to extend to Kabul. India's foreign ministry refused to detail what the "wishlist" contained but local media reports said it included light and heavy artillery, aircraft and small arms and ammunitions. "The leaders agreed that both countries will work together and will do all within their means to promote stability and security in Afghanistan," said Indian foreign ministry front man Syed Akbaruddin. Karzai's comments came after his office said last week that he would ask for "all kinds of assistance from India in order to strengthen our military and security institutions" during the high-level talks in the Indian capital. Karzai held closed-door talks late Tuesday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a separate meeting with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on his two-day trip which ended on Wednesday. India has been training a limited number of Afghan military officers for years at its military institutions, but has provided little weapons assistance except for some vehicles. India's support for Karzai is a reflection of its desire to ensure that the departure of the United States and other foreign forces in 2014 does not lead to the return of the radical Islamist Taliban to power in Kabul, analysts say. In 2011, India and Afghanistan began a "strategic partnership" to deepen security and economic ties. But Indian activity in Afghanistan has sparked unease in neighboring rival Pakistain which fears losing influence in Kabul. The former Taliban regime was allied with Pakistain and gave refuge to anti-Indian Islamist bad boys. A statement from Karzai's office in Kabul on Wednesday sought to underline its neighborly relations with both India and Pakistain while ruling out inviting Indian troops to the country after the U.S. pullout. "Afghanistan is a sovereign country and... has the right to choose its own friends. Pakistain is a neighbor, it is a close neighbor and the people of Pakistain have given Afghans refuge for 30 years," the statement said. "India is a traditional friend and ally, particularly so over the last 10 years," the Afghan statement added.

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Bangladesh

Bomb blast near hotel where Indian president is staying

2013-03-04

A bomb exploded this afternoon in front of the hotel in Dhaka where India's President Pranab Mukherjee is staying on his official visit to Bangladesh. Nobody was wounded. The president was in his suite at the Hotel Sonargaon when the blast took place nearly half a kilometer away, Deputy High Commissioner Sandeep Chakravarty said. He added that the explosion was part of the protest that have become a near-daily occurence in Dhaka, was caused "by a harmless device" and that the president was not the target.

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India-Pakistan

India's big leap into space, launches world's first smart phone-operated nano satellite SARAL

2013-02-25

An Indian rocket carrying seven satellites- the Indo-French satellite SARAL, world's first smart phone-operated nano satellite, a space telescope satellite and four other foreign satellites - on Monday blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, around 80 km north of Chennai. A little after 6 p.m., the rocket - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C20 (PSLV-C20) - standing 44.4 metres tall and weighing around 230 tonnes hurtled towards the skies ferrying seven satellites to sling into orbit. President Pranab Mukherjee and scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) rocket mission control room intently watched the rocket's progress towards the heavens, escaping the earth's gravitational pull with a one way ticket. ISRO officials are hoping that the agency's 101th space mission and also the first of the 10 planned for 2013 will turn out to be a grand success. The PSLV-C20 rocket is expected to deliver its main luggage - the 407-kg SARAL (Satellite with ARGOS and ALTIKA) and six other foreign satellites 794 km above the earth.

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India-Pakistan

India Executes Man Convicted in 2001 Attack on Parliament

2013-02-09

[NY Times] India hanged a man on Saturday who had been convicted of involvement in the 2001 attack on Parliament that killed nine people. The hanging of the man, Afzal Guru, I think his alias was Ghazi Baba, but I'd have to check. a 43-year-old militant with the group Jaish-e-Mohammad, ...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf banned the group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat... came more than a decade after the Dec. 13, 2001, suicide attack on India's Parliament in which five gunmen opened fire, killing nine people, including security officials and a journalist. The execution drew protests from human rights groups concerned about the growing use of capital punishment in such cases. I'm still hazy on why capital crimes don't merit capital punishment. The attack killed nine people. No human rights groups stepped in to try and prevent that. The human rights groups wait for the bullets to stop flying and then step in to criticize. It's safer that way... Mr. Guru was convicted of conspiracy in the plot and sentenced to death by a special court in 2002. In 2004, the Supreme Court of India upheld the death sentence. Pointing out that the attack killed nine people, and that it was on the seat of India's democracy. After the execution, clashes broke out in Mr. Guru's hometown Sopore, in the northern part of the Kashmir, and the police and paramilitary units were called to restore order. Lots of Moslems there, y'see. Days before the execution, President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected a mercy plea by Mr. Guru's wife, according to reports from The Press Trust of India, paving the way for Mr. Guru's hanging in the Tihar Jail complex, officials said.

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India-Pakistan

India President Approves Death Penalty in Some Rape Cases

2013-02-04

[An Nahar] India's president on Sunday approved harsher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty, after a brutal gang-rape in New Delhi sparked national outrage and triggered demands for tougher laws. President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the new rape law two days after cabinet ministers recommended changes to improve safety for women. "The Indian president has given his assent to the ordinance on crime against women. It comes into effect immediately but it will also be tabled before the parliament," a senior officer in the president's office told Agence La Belle France Presse. A government-appointed panel and the cabinet had recommended tougher laws after the death of a 23-year-old woman who was savagely raped and attacked in a bus on December 16 and died nearly two weeks later. Under the changes, the minimum sentence for gang-rape, rape of a minor, rape by coppers or a person in authority will be doubled to 20 years from 10 and can be extended to life without parole. In the existing law, a rapist faces a term of seven to 10 years. The cabinet has also created a new set of offenses such as voyeurism and stalking that will be included in the new law. But women rights activists have slammed the ordinance saying it lacks teeth to fight sexual crimes against women and lashed out at the government for passing the law without holding a debate or discussion.

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India-Pakistan

India set to introduce death penalty in some rape cases

2013-02-03

[Dawn] India's cabinet has approved harsher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty, after a brutal gang-rape in New Delhi that sparked national outrage. A government-appointed panel recommended the changes to ministers after the death of a 23-year-old woman who was savagely raped and attacked in a bus on December 16 and died nearly two weeks later. The case ignited nationwide demonstrations by protesters demanding better safety for women. The changes, which must be approved by President Pranab Mukherjee to become law, include doubling the minimum sentence for gang-rape and imposing the death penalty when the victim is killed or left in a vegetative state. "We have taken swift action and hope these steps will make women feel safer in the country," Law Minister Ashwani Kumar told reporters late on Friday. "This is a progressive piece of legislation and is consistent with the felt sensitivities of the nation in the aftermath of the outrageous gang-rape," he added. The changes to the rape laws are expected to be approved by Mukherjee as early as this weekend but must be ratified by parliament or they will lapse. Under the changes, the minimum sentence for gang-rape, rape of a minor, rape by policemen or a person in authority will be doubled to 20 years from 10 and can be extended to life without parole. Under the current law, a rapist faces a term of seven to 10 years. The cabinet has also created a new set of offences such as voyeurism and stalking that will be included in the new law. Delhi gang rape suspects plead not guilty Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, the partisans of Honorius went for their knives and the partisans of Stilicho went for the doors... five men pleaded not guilty on Saturday in the New Delhi gang rape case. A Reuters witness saw the men file into the court room with their faces covered, where lawyers in the case said they were read thirteen charges including murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. They left after 15 minutes. "After the judge read out the charges, the five pleaded not guilty and walked out," said AP Singh, a lawyer defending two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur. Singh said the next hearing will be held on February 5, when the prosecution will call three witnesses to the formal start of the trial. A sixth person police say was part of the gang that attacked the woman and her friend is a juvenile and will be tried separately. Police say the gang lured the 23-year-old physiotherapy student onto a bus, where they repeatedly raped and assaulted her with a metal bar before throwing her bleeding onto a highway. She died of internal injuries two weeks later.

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