FATF Team to Visit India as NGOs Lose FCRA Clearance En Masse; Drones Giving New Dimensions to Narco-terror on India-Pak Border
Canadian diplomats leave India, Moitra says friend's affidavit coerced, NREGA sheds 5 crore job cards, Zubair wins award, Kannur clothier stops making Israeli uniforms, Jyotiraditya pressganged to MP?
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal
Snapshot of the day
October 20, 2023
Pratik Kanjilal
Israel’s war with Hamas isn’t giving Adani any sleepless nights over his acquisition of Haifa, the region’s biggest deep-water port. “The entire Haifa Port has been designed keeping such a situation in mind. This is not the first time that a situation like this has developed,” Gautam Adani has said, reports Nikkei Asia. “The whole port’s security features have been designed keeping in mind such events.” What does that mean?
There is unrest in the US State Department about President Joe Biden’s stance on the conflict, says HuffPost. “There’s basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels,” an official said.
On moral grounds, an apparel-making firm based out of Kannur in Kerala, which has been supplying uniforms to the Israeli police since 2015, has decided not to take fresh orders until peace is restored in the region.
Several Indian media houses have sent reporters to ‘cover’ the Israeli war against Gaza but all of them are stationed on the Israeli side, scratching sand for stories. The big stories are inside Gaza, which is impossible to enter, of course. But one might imagine the Gaza border with Egypt at Rafah would offer a better vantage point to the incessant Israeli bombardment which has led to the displacement of more than one million Gazans, all of whom have been forced south.
Indian internal medicine specialist Sunil Rao has reportedly been arrested by the anti-cybercrime directorate in Bahrain for hate posts against Palestine, says the South Asian Journal. Bahrain is one of the few Arab states to recognise Israel.
Forty-one Canadian diplomats have left India amid a rift over the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India asked Canada two weeks ago to withdraw diplomatic staff en masse, or they would lose immunity today. Canadian officials called the threat a “violation of international law.” India has denied the allegations, calling them “absurd.” On Thursday, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly confirmed that many Canadian diplomats and their dependents in India have left.
The agreement with the US for 31 MQ-9B UAVs is expected to be finalised by February 2024, says The Hindu. The deal is progressing as planned, and the US Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) is awaited. The contract could be completed by February 2024 and deliveries are scheduled to begin from February 2027, three years after the contract is signed and 10 years after it was initially demanded. That is, literally, the timeline of political decision-making.
TMC MP Mahua Moitra wanted to make a mark as a parliamentarian by targeting Prime Minister Modi but so impeccable is his reputation that the only route she had was to go after Adani “as both were contemporaries, and they belong to the same state of Gujarat,” said Darshan Hiranandani, Dubai-based businessman in an affidavit on Thursday night. He said that Moitra, whom he described as a close personal friend, had given him her Parliament login and password, which he used to file some questions relating to Adani, that she raised in the House. Though he also said that he helped furnish her bungalow in Delhi and gave her gifts and favours, Hiranandani said nothing in his affidavit that corroborated the ‘bribery’ charge levelled against her by the BJP. In a statement of her own, Moitra said the government had put a gun to her friend’s head and threatened to shut down his business. He has not been called by CBI or the (Lok Sabha) Ethics Committee. Why would he write this on his own?’”
Anticipating smaller sugarcane harvests in Maharashtra and Karnataka following an indifferent monsoon, the Union government has imposed an indefinite ban on sugar exports. Export restrictions were supposed to end on October 31.
After the Supreme Court disappointed the LGBTQ community in the world’s most populous country by declining to offer protections to same-sex marriage, the US State Department has said that it “supports marriage equality globally” and is “closely monitoring follow-up steps” of the government. The courts had decriminalised gay sex, but on the question of marriage, the ball is now in the court of the legislature.
Manipur has 354 relief camps with 54,488 inmates. This is over and above the people who are in Mizoram, Nagaland and Myanmar. Imagine the humanitarian crisis after more than five months. In that time, Modi has moved from campaigning in Karnataka to Madhya Pradesh.
Undeterred by the Supreme Court’s repeated postponement of his bail hearing, former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, who has now spent three years in jail for terror-related charges related to the 2020 anti-Muslim riots in Delhi is now challenging the constitutionality of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
A group of former civil servants are contesting the constitutionality of the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, citing concerns that the new law would significantly undermine the country’s long-standing forest governance framework.
Recovering well from a paroxysm of Atmanirbharta, the government has permitted the import of laptops and tablets via an ‘import management system’ which takes effect from November 1. It requires companies to register the quantity and value of imports. The government will not impose curbs, but instead use the data to monitor traffic. Earlier efforts at limiting imports, without guaranteed domestic production, would have reinstituted the licence-quota raj and the shortages which accompanied it.
India’s electronics exports have contracted after a year of steady growth, declining 3.7% in September from the same month a year ago. “Electronics exports were valued at $1.9 billion during September, down from $2 billion a year ago. Meanwhile, imports of electronics surged by 13.3% to reach $8.1 billion, leading to a trade deficit of $6.1 billion,” says Mint.
Real earnings of regular workers in 2022-23 as per PLFS survey are lower compared to the pre-pandemic levels.
Summons issued by the ED under Section 50 of the PMLA do not by themselves give the agency power to arrest someone, the Delhi high court held yesterday. It also took care to say that “whims and fancies” are not valid grounds for exercising powers of arrest.
AltNews co-founder Mohammad Zubair has won the Index of Censorship Award.
A Delhi Court dismissed the Delhi Police’s plea against the magisterial court’s order which directed release of the electronic devices seized from The Wire’s journalists last year. “The Press is considered Fourth Pillar of our great Democracy and if it is not allowed to function and operate independently, it would cause serious injury to foundations of our Democracy,” the court said.
After first ducking questions about why they canceled a journalism award announced for Kashmiri reporter Safina Nabi, the Pune based ‘Maharashtra Institute of Technology-World Peace University’ has said it rescinded the award after being “made aware” that some of her published views and opinions were “contentious” and “not in alignment with the Indian government’s foreign policy”. “Disgusting”, was the response of Gurbir Singh, who heads the Mumbai Press Club – sponsors of India’s prestigious Red Ink media awards.
India’s new 418 foot flagpole at Wagah, inaugurated by Nitin Gadkari, stands 18 feet higher than Pakistan’s, but the puerile whose-is-bigger contest will continue. The tamasha at Wagah is a microcosm of all that is wrong in the interaction between the two neighbours, reports Rahul Bedi.
FATF team to visit India as NGOs lose FCRA clearance en masse
The inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) against money laundering is asking if India, under the Narendra Modi government, is seeking to apply laws regarding the financing of organisations “overzealously” and “misusing local laws to crack down on nonprofit organisations like Amnesty International and policy think tanks,” reports Bloomberg. A FATF team will visit India in November to catch up with NGOs and make a close assessment of the situation. A review would seriously damage India’s credibility.
Since the BJP took office, organisations have lost their FCRA licences in large numbers, and critics say that NGOs which are independent-spirited or critical of the government are particularly affected. The Wire has reported on the sharp decline in FCRA licences, which affects thousands of grassroots workers and organisations. On January 1, 2022, the MHA said that nearly 6,000 organisations had lost their FCRA licences. Before that, in December 2016, the FCRA licences of about 20,000 NGOs – out of about 33,000 that had held this licence – were cancelled for alleged violations of the FCRA Act.
Sunak in conflict of interest spotlight again
The Guardian reports that UK PM Rishi Sunak’s pandemic-era fund supporting startups directed nearly £2 million to companies linked to his wife, Akshata Murty. One such recipient, Carousel Ventures, partially owned by Murty’s venture capital firm, received £250,000 in investment from the Future Fund to facilitate its involvement with Heist Studios, a luxury underwear business. This is the fourth instance of a business linked to Murty benefiting from the fund Sunak established during his tenure as chancellor, to help startups tide over the pandemic. Concerns are mounting over the lack of transparency and potential conflicts of interest, because none of Murty’s related investments are publicly listed on Sunak’s register of ministerial interests.
Jesus image does not signal conversion, court says
The presence of an image of Jesus Christ in a home does not mean that its inmate has converted to Christianity, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court has said. A division bench of Justices Prithviraj Chavan and Urmila Joshi Phalke on October 10 allowed a petition filed by a 17-year-old girl challenging a September 2022 order passed by the Amravati District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee invalidating her caste as Mahar. “The report of the vigilance officer (of the committee) needs to be discarded at the threshold as it is clear that the petitioner'’s family follows the tradition of Buddhism,” it said. The decision invalidating her caste claim was taken after the committee’s vigilance cell conducted an inquiry and found that the petitioner’s father and grandfather had converted to Christianity and a photograph of Jesus Christ was found displayed in their home.
Bollworms destroying cotton crop
Pink bollworm infestations are wreaking havoc on cotton crops in north Indian states including Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Even the genetically modified Bt Cotton, which is resistant, is succumbing to the invasion. Farmers are facing devastating losses with up to 90% of crops damaged, reports Down to Earth. The first cotton picking showed poor yields and labourers are refusing to work in the fields. This dire situation is burdening farmers with mounting debt and pushing some to the brink of suicide.
The Long Cable
Drones giving new dimensions to narcoterrorism at the India-Pakistan border
Vaishali Basu Sharma
On October 11, Punjab Police arrested Jaswinder Singh, Lovepreet Singh and Gurpartap Singh from Ajnala, Amritsar, for planning targeted killings in the state. The accused, from whom the police seized two pistols, three magazines and 11 bullets, had connections with Harvinder Singh alias Rinda, a designated terrorist and a member of the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), based in Pakistan. The group had received a weapons consignment from Pakistan and aimed to target political and socio-religious leaders in India.
This is not an isolated case. Last month, Punjab Police detected the financial trail of three modules which were sending over Rs 2 crore in drug money on a daily basis to smugglers based in Pakistan and Afghanistan via an extensive hawala network.
Interstate conflict has many dimensions. In the Indian context, the scope of gangsters has evolved by way of extensive criminal networks, across traditional geographic boundaries and their technological utilisation, thus posing a substantial challenge that coalesces organised crime, gang activity, narco-trafficking and terror orchestration. Apart from narcotics, cross-border consignments have been found to include hand grenades, RDX IEDs, pistols, magazines, cartridges and cash ― explicit evidence that these criminal cartels are receiving state backing.
Exactly a year ago, the Punjab Police had recovered “an RDX-loaded tiffin box fabricated into an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) or tiffin bomb, two sophisticated AK-56 assault rifles along with two magazines and 30 live cartridges, one .30 bore pistol and 2 kgs heroin.” Upon interrogation, the module it was recovered from admitted to receiving backing from Pakistan-based entities. In May 2022, an IED packed with RDX in a metallic box weighing over 2.5 kg, prepared in Pakistan, was recovered from two men who admitted that they were carrying out terror activities for money and drugs.
Running international smuggling operations interested in acquiring advanced weapon technologies and readily excited about violence over Khalistan, gangsters in Punjab have been easily galvanised by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). From targeting government infrastructure to killing influential civilians whom they perceive to be working with law enforcement, these gangsters have engaged in terrorist activities with the purpose of weakening the administrative system, and engaging in blatantly anti-national activities.
Escalated drone sightings along the India-Pakistan border
Along the US-Mexican border, cases of drug trafficking cartels moving narcotics via unmanned aerial systems (UASs or drones) are plenteous. The method had also caught on along the India-Pakistan international border.
But lately, there has been a distinct escalation of drone-assisted cross-border delivery of drugs and weapons along the northern border areas. Since 2020, such drone deliveries have increased fourfold. On October 12, the Border Security Force (BSF), in a joint search operation with the police, captured a drone carrying 3.213 kg payload on the outskirts of Daliri Village in Tarn Taran District. Drone intrusions occur almost every day in border areas of Punjab ― Fazilka, Ferozepur, Tarn Taran, Amritsar, Gurdaspur. This month, until October 14, there have already been four separate drone sightings.
The drone operations are orchestrated by Pakistan-based associates, and the drones are of Chinese origin, most commonly the DJI Matrice 300 RTK, DJI Matrix 350 RTK or DJI Mavic 3 classic variants. The Matrix is a ‘next-generation drone’ with a live video transmission system visible from as far as 20 km, an ‘efficient battery’ for 55 minutes of flying time and ‘robust’ compatibility to carry four payloads at once, with 10 kg of additional payload capacity. The batteries are rechargeable up to 400 cycles. The flight data of captured drones reveals that they had not only been operational within Pakistan, but had also flown in China. The embedded chip in the drones contained coordinates that pointed to their airborne presence in Chinese territory and subsequently in Khanewal, in Punjab province of Pakistan.
The utilisation of high calibre drones in the cross-border delivery of weapons and narcotics for anti-India activities is beyond the capacity of criminal gangs, and is happening with active state sponsorship. The influx of narcotics and the cash from their sale, along with weapon deliveries, has resulted in a virulent hybridisation of the illicit drug trade, weapons trafficking, terrorism and assassinations.
Last month, local Congress leader Baljinder Singh Balli was shot at his house in Dala Village in Moga District, for which Canada-based gangster-turned-terrorist Arshdeep Singh Gill (alias Arsh Dala) claimed responsibility via Facebook. In 2020, Shaurya Chakra awardee Balwinder Singh Sandhu was gunned down at the behest of Pakistan-based Khalistani terrorist Lakhbir Singh Rode. Gangster and terrorist Lakhbir Singh ‘Landa’ faces charges of smuggling drugs, arms and explosives from across the border, using drones. Wanted for several targeted killings in Punjab, Landa and his Czech Republic-based associate Gurdev Singh Jaisel, organised RPG attacks at the Sarhali Kalan police station and the Punjab Police’s intelligence headquarters in Mohali on May 9. Landa received consignments of firearms, IEDs and AK47 rifles from across the border. In the past year, Sarhali Police Station in Punjab’s Tarn Taran has been attacked more than half a dozen times, and other police and Army establishments have been struck.
Aside from strengthening Village Defence Committees (VDCs) and rewarding those who had helped curb narcotics smuggling, Punjab Police plan to use Artificial Intelligence to counter drone and narcotics threats in border areas. Drone Emergency Response System (DERS) has been launched in sections of the border, but it is not foolproof and more comprehensive, proactive and collaborative countermeasures are required.
It is conventionally understood that drug trafficking organisations and terrorist groups are linked, but contemporarily, this linkage has found new ground in India through backing from Pakistan. With increasing cases of ‘gangsters’ targeting police stations and undertaking political assassinations, the lines distinguishing gangsters and terrorists have blurred. The massive narcotics push into India, in addition to being a challenge to the solvency of the state, has begun to affect the moral fabric of society by creating a drug addiction epidemic in border states.
(Vaishali Basu Sharma is a strategic and economic affairs analyst.)
Reportedly
When Yashodhara Raje Scindia, a Madhya Pradesh minister, relinquished her family’s pocket borough of Shivpuri, the bush telegraph had announced that it was to permit her nephew Jyotiraditya Scindia to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls. Now, not at all coincidentally, Jyotiraditya says that his identity is that of a “mere sevak of Maa Bharati”, and not that of a Union minister or an MP, the identities he presently glories in. That leaves him with a choice of donning the identities of MLA and state minister, suggesting that the BJP wants to field him in the state polls. Already, the BJP has press-ganged seven unhappy MPs and three ministers into the candidate list for Madhya Pradesh, where it will have to fight off serious anti-incumbency. Incidentally, state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has generated that sentiment, was off the blocks long before Scindia, and had announced that he has no desire for power, pelf or office. That, too, could mean that he is clearing the way for the Gwalior scion.
Deep dive
The ILO doesn’t consider unpaid work of any kind as employment. But India’s Periodic Labour Force Survey is perhaps unique in using the category of ‘unpaid helpers in family enterprises’, which increases employment figures. Therefore, the movement of real wages needs to be examined further to assess what is really happening to India’s workers, say CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh.
Prime number: 5 crore job cards
The MGNREGA scheme is shedding job cards on an epic scale. LibTech India, which tracks rural public services delivery, says that while the scheme’s database loses 1-1.5 crore workers on average every year, in 2022-23, state governments deleted over 5 crore. It vetted 600 deletions in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand, and found that rules were flouted in all cases, and the reasons recorded for deletion were incorrect in 380.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
Hindutva ideologues and supporters identify with and dream of India as another Israel. What they will beget is another Pakistan, says Sushant Singh.
Amid the Israel-Gaza war, Indian right-wing accounts are among leading amplifiers of anti-Palestinian fake news, writes Mark Owen Jones.
Suppression of data “suggests maximum government with minimum governance: a state focused on control and the management of public perception, rather than positively changing the reality.” Jayati Ghosh on the erosion of a national statistical system that was once the pride of India.
“The Supreme Court’s uncritical passing of the buck to an unwilling government felt like a kick in the gut, a complete shirking of obligations by an institution meant to be the upholder of justice in the country,” writes Anish Gawande.
To put Bihar’s caste census to best use would be to use its (yet unpublished) socio-economic data to map backwardness afresh, and prioritise benefits to the more backward communities, writes Suhas Palshikar.
The Skill India mission, made up of inadequate short-term courses, often leads to apprenticeships that end in a year. Meanwhile, India’s labour policies that promote contractual employment for low wages and no benefits fuel the pursuit of government jobs, writes Aparna Kalra.
Writers have no armies, says Salman Rushdie in an interview to DW.
Listen up
Sujat Ambedkar is in a fun and insightful conversation with Anurag Minus Verma, in which the two discuss the unique Ambedkarite culture of Maharashtra, the fascinating local Maharashtra food, Dr Ambedkar’s inspiring personal habits, the future of Dalit politics and much more.
Watch out
A fantastic conversation between the inimitable maverick Roshan Abbas and the grounded genius Imtiaz Ali on Stumble with Roshan Abbas.
Over and out
Nisha Pahuja’s documentary To Kill a Tiger, about an underaged girl who was raped and faced down the patriarchal society of her village in the Northeast is startling for a society which encourages victims to take cover. The protagonist, now aged 18, decided to face the camera.
The Supreme Court verdict on marriage equality disappointed the LGBTQIA+ community as a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, in a 3:2 verdict, rejected petitions seeking same-sex marriage and left it for the legislature to decide on the issue. However, for Utkarsh Saxena, a lawyer and development economist, and Ananya Kotia, a PhD student at the London School of Economics, the week wasn’t all about disappointment ― they exchanged rings in front of the Supreme Court building in Delhi a day after the verdict. They vowed to continue their fight for their rights.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.