NEW DELHI: India is pressing ahead with talks to join a China-led free trade pact, officials said on Thursday, despite the fears of some domestic producers that the country would be flooded with cheaper Chinese imports. Negotiators for the 16-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are in the Thai capital Bangkok this week for talks aimed at finalising the giant free trade zone by the end of the year.Proponents of the deal say it's better for Indian agriculture to be in the trade zone than out. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the fountainhead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has joined opponents of the free trade pact. RSS called on Friday for a nationwide campaign against the deal, saying any change in tariffs would cripple factories and farms at a time of slowing economic growth.
Hyderabad: The Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) has found dangerously high levels of uranium concentration in the groundwater samples across the Lambapur-Peddagattu region, known for large uranium deposits, in Telangana’s Nalgonda district alarming top atomic energy officials to red flag the issue to the government agencies. The atomic energy officials have red-flagged the startling findings of AMD on high uranium concentration around Lambapur-Peddagattu region to various government agencies, which include the department of atomic energy, ministry of forests and environment, water resources, pollution control agencies and the PMO that supervises the atomic energy activities.These startling findings have come even as the civil society bodies and political outfits were raising concerns over high levels of uranium concentration found in the groundwater around Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh’s Kadapa district, where uranium is mined.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Friday issued a full page advertisement in local newspapers urging people to end the self-imposed shutdown that took shape after the government started lifting restrictions put in place post the scrapping of the state’s special status on August 5.
While threats by militants asking residents to observe a complete shutdown in protest of the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370 have been blamed, it has partly been a ‘people’s curfew’ that has kept them indoors.
Edited by xyzt on Oct 11th 2019 at 4:09:58 PM
Archaeologists have been busy digging out the treasures buried in Keeladi, a village in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu, and historians and anthropologists are now interpreting the rich finds from the Sangam era. This is the fifth phase of excavations, and it has revealed many more artefacts and engineering designs. The fourth phase had established that the antiquities unearthed here could date from the 6th century BCE to the 1st century CE. The present phase has shed more light, particularly on the advanced engineering techniques used then, “establishing that there was a culture and civilisation” in the region, as one archaeologist puts it. This is the first time that such a large-scale excavation on a ‘habitational mount’ has been carried out in Tamil Nadu. The excavations offer insights into engineering techniques that are more than 2,000 years ago.
Jaipur: The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the inclusion of 5,300 families, who had been displaced from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (Po K) and initially settled outside Jammu and Kashmir before being relocated to the region, in the one-time financial assistance package worth Rs 5.5 lakh announced by the Modi government in 2016.
A labour court in Dhaka this week issued a warrant of arrest against the Nobel Prize-winning Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus after he failed to appear at a hearing over the sacking of three workers at Grameen Communications, which is the IT wing of Grameen Bank, the organisation Yunus founded in 1983. The three employees of the company had filed a criminal complaint against the management for sacking them in June after they were accused of forming a trade union in the workplace.
Edited by xyzt on Oct 13th 2019 at 6:28:54 PM
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
Xi Jinping made his visit to India and Nepal.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
Kathmandu: President Xi Jinping warned on Sunday that anyone attempting to "split" China will be "crushed" as he held wide-ranging talks with Nepal's top leadership and the two countries elevated their bilateral ties to strategic partnership and signed a slew of agreements, including a plan to build a trans-Himalayan railway line. During his meeting with Nepalese counterpart Bidya Devi Bhandari on Saturday, President Xi Jinping announced the support of 3.5 billion RMB equivalent to Nepalese Rs 56 billion to Nepal over the next two years to help the development programmes, officials said.
New Delhi: Air quality in Delhi is expected to remain "poor" for a fourth straight day today, with the national capital likely to record an Air Quality Index of 256, up from 222 on Saturday and 208 on Friday. The AQI is likely to worsen to "very poor" by the third week of October, according to the centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR). Certain neighbourhoods in Delhi, such as Anand Vihar and Wazirpur, have already recorded AQ Is of more 300, placing them in the "very poor" category. The deterioration of air quality has been linked to stubble burning in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana. Stubble burning has also contributed to an increase in PM 2.5 levels - atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometres - with the concentration of the pollutant expected to rise to 6 per cent by Tuesday.
Prohibitory orders under section 144 have been clamped in Ayodhya as the Supreme Court's revised deadline for wrapping up the proceedings in the sensitive Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case approaches. The prohibitory orders will continue till December 10, officials said.Posting the order on his official Twitter account, District Magistrate Anuj Kumar Jha said,"The order has been issued considering safety and security of Ayodhya and those visiting here as Govt's paramount concerns."
India finishes at number 102 in 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI), published on October 15, 2019. As per GHI, India suffers from “a level of hunger that is serious.” For the ruling BJP, this is a big blow as Pakistan is comparably at a far better place by finishing at 94th place in the list. In 2017, India was ranked at the 100th position. The GHI, now in its 15th year, ranks countries based on four key indicators—undernourishment, child mortality, child wasting and child stunting. The 102nd rank means that India has failed in all four indicators. GHI is a joint project of Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide. India is ranked below to many of its neighbours such as China(25th), Nepal(73rd), Myanmar (69th), Sri Lanka(66th) and Bangladesh(88th).
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/pakistan-doing-a-better-job-in-feeding-its-people
In their zeal to prevent any protest against the Chinese President, the police are blamed for mistaking north-easterners for potential Tibetan protesters. Associations representing north-easterners in Chennai said that this was despite almost all detainees carrying identity proof. “We received informal communication from police before the visit to anticipate security checks. We were told that carrying identity proof would keep us away from trouble. We had communicated the same to our people,” said P.C. Michael, general secretary, Chennai Mizo Welfare Association.
Edited by xyzt on Oct 15th 2019 at 7:51:44 PM
The vexed Ayodhya dispute witnessed a new twist on the last day of the hearing of the case in the Supreme Court, when the Sunni Central Waqf Board, one of the main plaintiffs in the matter, reportedly offered to withdraw from the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid Title suits provided certain conditions, it put forward, were met. Although there was no confirmation from the Board in this regard, sources familiar with the case, said that the Board had made the offer through the mediation panel, which was formed by the apex court to resolve the dispute through mediation.
India, the world’s largest democracy, is also among the biggest surveillance states. The country ranks behind only Russia and China when it comes to surveilling citizens, the UK-based research firm Compritech has found. On the company’s privacy index, India scored 2.4 out of 5, indicating a “systemic failure to maintain (privacy) safeguards.”
https://qz.com/india/1728927/indias-among-the-worlds-top-three-surveillance-states/amp/
A Border Security Force (BSF) soldier was killed and another seriously injured when their patrol came under fire from the Bangladeshi Border Guards after a flag meeting along the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal's Murshidabad. "This morning, three Indian fishermen went fishing in River Padma in the border area. Two fishermen returned and approached the Kakmarichar BSF post, saying that the Border Guard Bangladesh had apprehended them and later released two of them," BSF said in a statement. The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) claimed they "fired in self-defence". The Bangladeshi Border Guards said that it told the BSF if they want to take the prisoners back, they would be given a formal return with the flag meeting. "BGB patrol team informed them that you too came to Bangladesh illegally, so you too will be handed over through official flag meeting," the BGB said in a statement, according to news agency ANI. The BGB further said, "The BSF members were then forced to flee. When BGB stopped them, the BSF members started firing. Speedboats continued to enter India. The BGB then fired in self-defence."
Edited by xyzt on Oct 18th 2019 at 12:38:11 AM
Even before the supreme court verdict in the vexed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suits, Hindu seers declared that their next agenda would be to free Kashi and Mathura. All India Akhara Parishad (AIAP), an apex body of the seers in the country, said on Thursday that it would launch a movement to get the mosques adjoining the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi and Shrikrishna Janambhoomi in Mathura once the Ram Temple was built.
I am supportive of the compromise solution for the babri Masjid but if the Sangh and hindu groups decide to destroy other mosques using the same excuse then I will support the Muslims for any future cases in having any future demolished mosques rebuilt and given back to them, supposed historical wrongs be damned. This is precisely the problem I have with the Sangh possibly winning the babri Masjid case. They will never be satiated until almost all old mosques or even old Islamic architecture for that matter are destroyed.
In other news, Prime Minister Imran Khan will not put down his resignation papers 'under any circumstances', the federal government said on Saturday after the opposition parties called off negotiations and vouched to go ahead with their 'Azadi march' to hold anti-government protests countrywide over the incumbent government's failure to fulfil any of its promises so far. The opposition parties called to "restore 'real' democracy in the country" and urged the Prime Minister to resign.
Edited by xyzt on Oct 20th 2019 at 11:52:15 PM
Servant of the Omnissiah
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That attitude is exactly what the Sangh wants. You harden the line and support the Islamic parties in the dispute - history be damned, to quote your own words - and they'll gleefully use it as an excuse to be even more hardline.
There are alternative ways to take the steam out of them - but full on confrontation will simply feed their narrative. That's the deviltry of it, you see.
There's already talk about revisiting history from the nutters within the Sangh. And as far as the far-Right is concerned, it's less about corrections and more in the vein of "It's payback time."
And it's a result of decades of not taking them seriously. Lots of reforms to Hinduism, minimal reforms for Indian Islam - and even those usually take place in the teeth of reactionaries, because of vote-bank politics. So it's no surprise that the Hindu Right is more than a little upset.
There's also the "fuck outsiders" thing, but that's bleeding obvious.
Edited by TechPriest90 on Oct 21st 2019 at 5:09:17 AM
I hold the secrets of the machine.
Beware the Crazy Man.
Capitulation is also not a great idea because it gives them the idea that their tactics work and should be encouraged.
Reforms in Indian Islam may be needed (and it should be done by them, not imposed by Hindus) but the topic is neither here nor there vis a vis the Babri Masjid and similar other situations.
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
Servant of the Omnissiah
Fairly said. I meant discrediting them - and there's enough reasons to do so.
One such attempt did happen - the Waqf Board agreed to surrender all claims to the land no matter the verdict. The Sangh parties in the dispute rejected it out of petty spite - one can easily make the claim they're doing it out of bloody-minded vindictiveness and slander them thoroughly that way. No way to claim the moral high ground when it's already been ceded, you see.
As for reform, also true - except that that's not how the Sangh sees it. Which is all sorts of bad. And - as you say - that's mostly irrelevant from any sane perspective (which the Sangh does not have).
A concerted effort has to be made to discredit them - the sooner, the better. Trouble is, I don't really see it happening.
In other news, the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition is expected to sweep the Maharashtra elections, with the indications being the BJP will win enough seats to rule alone. The reports from Haryana are mostly the same. The Congress is facing total routs in both states, and the less said about Sharad Pawar's NCP, the better.
Great going, INC - way to shoot yourself in the foot with no hint of irony.
Edited by TechPriest90 on Oct 21st 2019 at 10:37:13 AM
I hold the secrets of the machine.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
The New Yorker has a pretty amazing (and very long) article about the present situation in Afghanistan. Particularly interesting are the Taliban's efforts to re-brand itself as a friendlier, cuddlier alternative to the savagery of ISIS, the USAF, and the CIA's Zero units.
New Delhi: The share of stubble burning in Delhi's pollution has risen to 35 percent, the season's highest, and the hazardous haze shrouding the city on Wednesday can be "purely" attributed to it, said the Ministry of Earth Sciences' air quality monitor SAFAR. Extremely calm surface winds on Tuesday night aggravated the problem, it said. "After recovering from firecracker smoke, Delhi's overall air quality has again plunged into 'severe' category. It can be purely attributed to stubble fire the share of which increased to 35 per cent today," SAFAR said in a report.
BJP ally JD(U), which had refused to join the Narendra Modi government in June 2019, on October 30 pushed for a “proportionate representation” for the party in the Union Cabinet, saying if Mr. Modi or BJP president Amit Shah takes an initiative to this effect, it will welcome the move. Shortly after Nitish Kumar addressed his party’s national council following his re-election as party president for a fresh three-year term, the JD(U) reminded the BJP that the Bihar Chief Minister has given the saffron party a proportionate representation in the State government.
New Delhi: The share of stubble burning in Delhi's pollution has risen to 35 percent, the season's highest, and the hazardous haze shrouding the city on Wednesday can be "purely" attributed to it, said the Ministry of Earth Sciences' air quality monitor SAFAR. Extremely calm surface winds on Tuesday night aggravated the problem, it said. "After recovering from firecracker smoke, Delhi's overall air quality has again plunged into 'severe' category. It can be purely attributed to stubble fire the share of which increased to 35 per cent today," SAFAR said in a report.
Oh, what
◊ a shocker. Air pollution is so bad that it creates hurricanes...
Leh/Kargil: The formation of the UT of Ladakh evoked mixed reactions from political parties in the region, with those in Kargil observing it as a 'black day' and leaders in Leh seeing it as an opportunity for development.
Kargil is facing issues of development as the Centre's attention is on Leh. The division needs more attention but it has been getting a step-motherly treatment, former MLC Aga Syed Ahmed Razvi said.
Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday transitioned from a state into union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, nearly three months after Parliament abrogated the state's special status.
Lucknow: Making provisions for implementation of NRC-like exercise in Uttar Pradesh, chief minister Yogi Adityanath has said that a survey was underway to determine the actual extent of illegal immigrants in the state.
"A survey is currently underway in the state (for determining illegal immigration) and after the reports of the survey, it will be decided when to roll out a similar exercise," the CM said at an event in Lucknow on Thursday.
Servant of the Omnissiah
Getting involved? They've been involved one way or another right since the sixties.
All they're doing now is admitting that, yes, they've been playing spoiler. With the usual line about how "It's Chinese Ancestral Territory hurr durr" like that so-called "South Tibet" - better known as Arunachal Pradesh.
The rest of the thread is the really amusing bit though - Twitterati idiots taking snipes at each other like foul-mouthed kids.
I hold the secrets of the machine.
Mumbai: Devendra Fadnavis resigned as Maharashtra Chief Minister on Friday with no sign of a new government and his BJP and its ally Shiv Sena no closer to forming one together. Mr Fadnavis met with Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to hand in his resignation hours before the midnight deadline for government formation. The term of the Maharashtra assembly ends tomorrow. Addressing the media, Mr Fadnavis delivered his strongest statement against the Shiv Sena since 2014, when he took over as Chief Minister. He also questioned whether the Shiv Sena, which had not spared Prime Minister Narendra Modi from its attacks, was worth continuing an alliance with.
This feels like unnecessary drama since at the end of the day I don't think Shiv Sena will refrain from forming a government with BJP.
NEW DELHI: The Centre has rushed 40 companies (around 4,000 personnel) of paramilitary forces to Uttar Pradesh to assist the state government in maintaining law and order ahead of the Supreme Court’s verdict on the sensitive Ayodhya case, which is expected anytime before Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s retirement on November 17. A total of 40 companies, which include 16 companies of RAF and six companies each of CISF, ITBP, SSB and BSF, will be deployed in UP till November 18. The Home Ministry has also issued an advisory to all states asking them to remain alert ahead of the verdict on the Ramjanambhumi-Babri Masjid title dispute case.
Edited by xyzt on Nov 8th 2019 at 7:58:34 PM
A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on November 9 has delivered its judgment in the cross-appeals filed by the Hindu and Muslim sides challenging the three-way partition of the disputed 2.77 acres of Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land among Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and the Sunni Waqf Board in September 2010.
In a unanimous judgment, the Bench has ordered that a temple must be constructed at the disputed site and the Muslims must be compensated with five acres of land at a prominent place in Ayodhya. The court also ordered the Central government to formulate a scheme within three months to implement this order.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ayodhya-verdict-live-updates/article29929219.ece/amp/
President's Rule was imposed in the state of Maharashtra on Tuesday evening after Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in a report to the Centre stated that the formation of a stable government was impossible in the current situation despite all his efforts.
Things appear to have turned full circle in a matter of two days with the BJP, which had said on Sunday that it cannot form the government as it does not have the numbers, now saying that the party will ensure that the people's mandate is respected and that it will try to form a stable government.
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Sri_Lankan_presidential_election
The presidential elections in Sri Lanka just happened. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is set to win and he promises to "fix" relations with China... considering what happened as part of the BAR initiative.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
Ugh. Another Rajapaksa?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Servant of the Omnissiah
Yup - and he's exactly the same as that Rajapaksa.
Some things don't change.
I hold the secrets of the machine.
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
I remember he was controversial at one point since he was a dual national.
He kept his SL nationality at the end.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
That is precisely the point. He's willing to take the risks and the blame for disruption, but not concede to the Trade Unions under any circumstances.
Admittedly, them pulling that stunt during the Holiday Season drained all public sympathy for them, which is why he could do it with little backlash. Still doesn't justify the mass firing though.
EDIT: 0/10 for no-context pagetopper. Read the previous page to see why.
Edited by TechPriest90 on Oct 8th 2019 at 4:07:08 AM
I hold the secrets of the machine.