2020 Strategic and Political Analysis-1

[Suresh S]

it is very likely that India emerges is the biggest winner from this disaster both civilizationally and economically and militarily. Low oil prices. likely low probability of high covid-19 cases being a tropical country and summer almost there.China will be the biggest looser. they have brought the world to the doors of disaster with there habits of eating every animal species.This is not the first time either that china has contributed to an epidemic in recent memory.

A civilization that has given the human race everything from language to math and science but the ungrateful never appreciated but yet another great contribution to humanity which the intelligent people will recognize. World,s biggest vegetarian population, where animals are worshipped and respected not always killed and abused where a simple greeting of namaste has profound implications.

I predict India,s time as the biggest economy on this planet has been fast forwarded by this crises by several years. I initially thought this is likely to happen by 2060-2070 timeframe but it is going to happen much earlier than that.

This crisis will fast forward the exit of western corporation,s flight from china and I predict India as the biggest winner

[kit]

This is a good time to promote SAY NO TO MADE IN CHINA. In these Corona times, it will be indeed difficult to say no to this !

[sanjaykumar]

do not have to articulate this sentiment. The meme is taking hold.

[sanjaykumar]

https://twitter.com/hashtag/boycottchina?lang=en

[SriKumar]

^^^I think this sentiment needs to be articulated and emphasized as much as possible, with a megaphone gigaphone if necessary. Make it go viral (poor pun). I still remember the Dokalam time when people were exhorting desis to not buy Chinese, and GOI was putting tarrifs and yet many continued to buy CHinese goods because there was no alternative or because they were cheap, or people did not care two hoots about Dokalam. After Dokalam...it was back to business as usual, figuratively and literally speaking. This time around I hope there is a permanent shift in the sentiment and it does not go away with the COVID infection.

It is entirely possible, public memory being short, that 'good business' and economically priced products will win over strategic concerns a year from now, once people forget. (Aam janata has forgotten that China still supports terrorists (Azhar) who killed in India, their agressive maneuvers around the border has forced India to divert meager resources to building nuclear submarines, away from development, they have tried to block India from drilling in south China sea in VIetnam's economic zone and are buying up Sri Lanka and MAldives to surround India and yet Chinese goods sell well. I hope this virus wakes people up finally).

[Sachin]

In this sad time of Corona/Covid-19 spreading across the world, Deccan Herald comes up with some comical relief.
Bengaluru: Coronavirus can’t stop us, say Bilal Bagh protesters.
This protest has been ignored by even the police who has to ensure L&O. City police commissioner Bhaskar Rao said he has no intentions of intervening to close down the site. “It (Bilal Bagh) was never a priority for me and frankly, we have other priorities such as limiting the spread of coronavirus in the city,” he said..

[banrjeer]

it is very likely that India emerges is the biggest winner from this disaster both civilizationally and economically and militarily. Low oil prices. likely low probability of high covid-19 cases being a tropical country and summer almost there.China will be the biggest looser. they have brought the world to the doors of disaster with there habits of eating every animal species.This is not the first time either that china has contributed to an epidemic in recent memory.

A civilization that has given the human race everything from language to math and science but the ungrateful never appreciated but yet another great contribution to humanity which the intelligent people will recognize. World,s biggest vegetarian population, where animals are worshipped and respected not always killed and abused where a simple greeting of namaste has profound implications.

I predict India,s time as the biggest economy on this planet has been fast forwarded by this crises by several years. I initially thought this is likely to happen by 2060-2070 timeframe but it is going to happen much earlier than that.

This crisis will fast forward the exit of western corporation,s flight from china and I predict India as the biggest winner

There are rules of pollution in India not to touch a used plate or unbathed person etc. wash if you have touched it etc. This is why those rituals must have evolved because population were packed into dense urban centers from during Harappan times. Untouchability similarly is projected as a social evil but must be rooted in this kind of paranoia against infection. It's just that its rituals were retained and memorized more by a certain class of people but its origins were rooted in survival behavior.

Still right now social distancing and lockdown is more relaxed in India and people seem complacent compared to the US.

[chetak]

Complacent governments will be torn to shreds as a coronavirus quake reshapes the global order

Complacent governments will be torn to shreds as a coronavirus quake reshapes the global order

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD

8 MARCH 2020

Covid-19 is turning into a strategic contest between the social control model of China and the unruly, free-spirited pluralism of the West

The world’s geopolitical order will be unrecognisable once Covid-19 has done its worst. Long-standing regimes will be badly compromised. Political systems that have never fully recovered from the Lehman crisis will suffer a second body blow.

Those Western democratic governments that have been most complacent or incompetent will be torn to shreds by unforgiving electorates. Social media will see to that.

Covid-19 is turning into a strategic contest between the social control model of China’s Communist Party and the unruly, free-spirited pluralism of the West. How that comparison plays out will shape the global order in the 21st Century.

In this country, Brexit scarcely matters right now. Decimal points of GDP are irrelevant. Boris Johnson will be judged on whether or not his administration allows avoidable decimation of the elderly – and the not so elderly – and whether the National Health Service buckles in catastrophic institutional failure.

Korea has six times as many intensive care (ICU) beds per capita, and Germany four times as many. What we know so far from Lombardy is that 13pc of infected patients require ICU treatment, typically for two to three weeks.

The outbreak is already overwhelming the system in Italy’s best equipped region. ICU patients are being sent to Tuscany because beds have run out.

The Italian society of anesthesia and critical care says it may be necessary to reserve “very scarce resources” to patients with a “higher chance of survival and more years of life to come”. The unthinkable is happening.

“Italy should be a warning to everybody, everywhere,” says Professor Massimo Galli, head of infectious diseases at the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan.

He is scathing about those still playing down the threat. “It was never anything like flu. People uttering such things are sowing confusion among those who wish to be confused,” he said.

Coronavirus live map
If the British government can buy vital weeks to “flatten the peak” and stretch the epidemic into the less contagious summer (we hope), it might have a chance of preventing a national disgrace – starting with a shortage of respirators, one variable explaining why reported mortality rates in Wuhan are 5.8pc, 2pc in Beijing, and 1pc in Shanghai, but rising everywhere as slow deaths come in.

Should the Prime Minister succeed in limiting ratios to “best-in-the-class” levels among the democracies, or close to it, he has some chance of political survival. The crucial choices will be made this week in Cobra session and on the Budget.

My advice is to opt for war-time measures and drastic contagion barriers, biting the bullet on economic trauma. The Government cannot dodge this trade-off, but it can use all powers to cushion the blow for business and “collectivise” the cost.

Data from China suggest a death rate of 15pc for infected cases over the age of 80. It is 8pc for those in their seventies, and 3.6pc in their sixties (or 5.4pc for men). No elected government in any Western democracy will survive if it lets such carnage unfold. Do we consign the disabled of whatever age, or the immuno-suppressed, or those with weak lungs, to Russian roulette? Of course we don’t.

Unfortunately, the early figures from Italy seem to be tracking Hubei’s epidemiology with a horrible consistency. The death rate for all ages is near 5pc. While there may be large numbers of undetected infections – distorting ratios – Italy has tested widely, much more than Germany or France.

As I write, 366 have died in Italy. The average age is 81, and 72pc are men. For whatever reason, the Italian system seems unable to save them. The death rate is six times the reported rate in Korea, even adjusting for age structures. Is it because the Italian strain has mutated into a more lethal form (we don’t yet have the sequence data) or because Europeans are genetically more vulnerable?

Is it because Italy’s nitrogen dioxide pollution is the worst in Europe (the UK is bad too), leading to chronic lung inflammation? Is it the chaotic administration that led to a catalogue of errors in the hotspot of Codogno?

Perhaps, but it may also be because Italy’s decade of austerity has been harsher than anything George Osborne ever imposed. Are we seeing the delayed kick from cut after cut to the Servizio Nazionale Sanitario, the budget paired to 6.6pc of GDP, all forensically dissected in a report by the Fondazione GIMBE? If you think Britain’s NHS has been starved of funds, spare a thought for Italy, Portugal, Spain, or Greece.

Can one conclude that the eurozone’s ideology of fiscal contraction has come back to haunt? Certainly.

For now, premier Giuseppe Conte is riding a wave of national unity, but his drastic decision to lock down Milan, Venice and much of the Italian industrial core will – while necessary – have violent recessionary consequences that Italy cannot counter. It lacks the sovereign instruments to do so. Twenty years of depression have left the Italian economy itself immunosuppressed.

As this becomes clear, Covid-19 will chip away at the ruling coalition – shoe-horned into office by the pro-EU establishment – and play into the hands of Matteo Salvini, the Lega strongman. The spectacle of Rome pleading with Brussels for licence to defend its society in an emergency is the perfect foil.

“Companies need emergency aid to avoid closure and lay-offs. If there is no aid because of some accounting fanatics, it means the EU is dead. Paying to belong to a union that sticks two fingers in our eyes is no longer sustainable,” he told the Italian Senate. Europeanism is a fair-weather attitude. In crisis, war and death, people revert to being national.

Germany is just days behind on a similar contagion trajectory as Italy, as is most of Europe – and it too has been caught off guard. The trusting German public seem to think their fragmented health system has the virus under control. No doubt German efficiency and good kit will prevent the worst, but citizens have a surprise coming.

The hotlines are as jammed as in Britain. The testing bureaucracy has been Kafkaesque. The hotspot of North-Rhine Westphalia is short of doctors. Berlin seems to be tilting towards economic business-as-usual rather than contagion control. It will regret that choice.

Coronavirus impact on NHS

My conjecture is that Covid-19 will trip up Angela Merkel’s Grand Coalition, ushering in an unfamiliar Germany fractured five ways with the Greens, the hard Left (Linke), and the hard-right (AfD) tearing into the flesh of a decaying political centre.

Medical failings will unfold in tandem with a deep recession across the eurozone, which has failed to take advantage of the Draghi Reprieve to rebuild monetary union on viable foundations with a fiscal backstop. The European Central Bank is exhausted. Interest rates are at minus 0.5pc. The ECB can compress corporate debt yields further, or offer limitless free loans to banks, but this is just damage control.

Only fiscal stimulus on a New Deal scale can counter the shock and pull the eurozone out of a deflationary slide. Such a move collides head on with the EU's machinery of spending restraint, fixed in treaty law. Token flexibility on deficit targets is not going to move the economic needle. Brussels does not have the legal latitude to tear up the rule-book even if it wanted to. Europeans have built for themselves a structure that cannot respond to crises.

Of all the regimes, the Khomeinist Islamic Republic of Iran is the most obviously damaged. The cocktail of lies, corruption and ineptitude over Covid-19 may have shattered whatever remaining confidence existed in the self-serving revolutionary elites. Now it faces a collapsing oil price as well. So does Saudi Arabia. The Gulf petro-bloc is a step closer to its insolvency crisis.

The verdict on China's Communist Party is harder to discern. Xi Jinping has seized on the epidemic to tighten surveillance and build his personality cult, using totalitarian control over social media website Weibo to expunge any reference to the early Wuhan cover-up. He has launched a media blitz declaring heroic victory, with martyrs entering the pantheon like heroes of the Long March. Party officials are putting it about that the coronavirus did not start in China, insinuating that it came from the US. It is a propaganda war now.

It is impossible to judge claims that the epidemic is contained given the police state methods deployed to suppress any verification. There is persistent talk from the informal Samizdat network that the virus is spreading fast and furiously in Beijing itself. Much as I would like to believe the World Health Organisation, that underfunded body is out of its political depth in China and disturbingly prone to the Potemkin syndrome.

How deadly is coronavirus compared with other viral outbreaks

The Politburo’s frantic efforts to revive economic output and head off a financial Minsky Moment – to the point of inflating electricity usage figures to confuse short-sellers – cuts against virus control. This relaxation in containment is akin to “suppressing a forest fire, but not putting it out,” says Prof Mike Osterholm, author of Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. “It’ll come roaring back.”

What we have seen so far in China may only be the “herald wave” before the virus returns, as it did with such ferocity in wave two of the 1918 Spanish Flu.

But the jury is also out on the US. It has allowed a surveillance failure. The fight is being led by a man who persisted in calling it a “hoax” long after it was already spreading in Washington state.

That infamous mantra will ring down through the ages as the defining epithet of the Trump presidency.

Barely in office, Donald Trump slashed the global health security funds of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) by 80pc and closed the pandemic machinery at the White House. His first reflex when cases escalated was to try to spin the message. All must be well so long as Wall Street is rising. But the markets were wrong. On matters of science, it is better to heed scientists.

Whether cuts to the CDC contributed to the fiasco of a faulty reagent sent out to labs will be combed over in the political post mortem, as will the long delay before permitting others to step into the breach. The fact is that the US tested almost nobody until early March. By then it was too late. It was the fatal missed window. Call it “Wuhan II” – American style.

The US is about to face its grim reckoning. It has the best health care in the rich world – and the worst. Pandemics exploit the worst.

Mr Trump can still avert disaster if he invokes executive powers immediately to extend testing and care to the uninsured and illegal aliens (without deportation risk), and if he switches to lock-downs and war-time policies.

But that is not happening. So the crowded rallies go on and the contagion will go exponential before hot weather comes to the rescue. I fear that the coming news cycle and the footage from America’s busy morgues will be gold dust for the Chinese propaganda department.

As for this wet little island, we have alarming weaknesses but also strengths. Listening to the candid reassuring tones of Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, I feel at least that we are not being spun. The decisions taken will be judicious and in the common interest. It is the old British style. We may just muddle through with our national model intact, if we are lucky.

[komal]

There are rules of pollution in India not to touch a used plate or unbathed person etc. wash if you have touched it etc. This is why those rituals must have evolved because population were packed into dense urban centers from during Harappan times. Untouchability similarly is projected as a social evil but must be rooted in this kind of paranoia against infection. It's just that its rituals were retained and memorized more by a certain class of people but its origins were rooted in survival behavior.

Still right now social distancing and lockdown is more relaxed in India and people seem complacent compared to the US.

In my community purification rituals were performed on anyone who had gone abroad. And these rituals included what now would be termed self quarantine.

The rituals continued to be performed until the 1960s

[Hari Seldon]

New Malay PM seems smart. Putting nations interest ahead of ego and Islamic bravado.
Modi should work with him but only after making a few things perfectly clear.

To start with, "Give us Zakir Naik, then we will buy Palm Oil".

Nah. Zakir Naik is peanuts level small fry, and his nuts will be chutney soon enough.

Malaysia to prove itself will have to vote against FATF clearance to pak, to prove its reformed ways....

Only.

[chetak]

shameless, hypocritical, taqiya filled and devious eeyeranian mullahs.


Iran goes from threatening ‘isolation from Islam world’ to requesting India’s help to fight Coronavirus

President Hassan Rouhani, in his letter, emphasised that the fight against the coronavirus requires bolstering joint and coordinated regional and international measures, adopting serious strategies, and sustaining huge medical and care costs.

The pleading for help from the Islamic Republic of Iran comes at a time when Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had stoked a controversy by threatening India of isolation in the Muslim world. He had asked the Indian government to confront what he called “extremist Hindus and their parties”, saying the hearts of Muslims all over the world are “grieving” over the recent communal violence in Delhi.




Despite the anti-India and anti-Hindu stand, Iran has now approached India to fight the global epidemic in the country. Iran has emerged as the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in West Asia, with more than 12,700 confirmed infections – including several senior government officials testing positive. According to the Iranian health officials, more than 610 have died due to the outbreak.

Following the health emergency, Iran President has written a letter seeking India’s help in tackling the global pandemic. “This virus knows no boundary and claims, victims, without political, religious, ethnic, and racial considerations,” he wrote to the world leaders including PM Modi.

Calling the act of continued sanctions when the world is fighting the coronavirus pandemic, as “immoral”, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif in a tweet wrote, “In a letter to counterparts Hassan Rouhani informs how efforts to fight COVID-19 pandemic in Iran have been severely hampered by US sanctions, urging them to cease observing them: It is IMMORAL to let a bully kill innocents. Viruses recognize no politics or geography. Nor should we.”

In another tweet, Zarif had highlighted the severe shortage of medicine and equipment that Iran is now facing.

[chetak]

UP invokes Section 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act. Those who hide #Covid19 symptoms, refuse quarantine and medical assistance or raise obstacles to Govt response will face jail and fine under S 188 IPC.
#YogiRoxx https://zeenews.india.com/hindi/india/u ... ion/653956 via @zeenews

[pankajs]

Finally ...

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1239482622343925761

ANI @ANI

Bhima Koregaon case: Supreme Court rejects anticipatory bail plea of activists Gautam Navlakha & Anand Teltumbde. The court gives three weeks to Teltumbde & Navlakha to surrender himself. It also asks them to surrender their passports immediately.

[Vikas]

UP invokes Section 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act. Those who hide #Covid19 symptoms, refuse quarantine and medical assistance or raise obstacles to Govt response will face jail and fine under S 188 IPC.
#YogiRoxx https://zeenews.india.com/hindi/india/u ... ion/653956 via @zeenews

How long before even this measure will be termed as Anti-Muslim by you-know-who.
Anyone who is Covid-19 positive and yet does not quarantine should be charged with attempt to Murder.

Meanwhile Shaheen Bagh Tamasha continues to go on. Surprisingly the community that is willing to believe any and every conspiracy theory doesn't believe that C-Virus can harm not only them but anyone who comes in contact.
It was a Allah-given opportunity to disperse with perfect face saver but they want SC to grovel before them and request them to go home. Who is responsible if hundreds of these rioters end up with Covid-19 positive.

[Yagnasri]

Then they will have perfect opportunity to blame NM and AS for their infection. They brought their months old kids to protects and one of the kid even died. No one in them took any responsibility for that.

The BIF invested too much money for Biryani and other payments and will not let it go so easily. In the end it is a battle of wills and who will blink first. I am sure GoI will not do it.

[schinnas]

Nobody bothers about it. Slowly the noose is tightened over the funders and organisers. It will dissipate in due course or when summer starts and people get heat stroke. With corona, it will accelerate.

[chetak]

who is funding the sojourn of this rapist trio to the ICJ.

Does the ICJ even have jurisdiction over a domestic criminal case in which all appeals have been legally dismissed.

what next after this, the UNGA

India TV @indiatvnews

Nirbhaya case: 3 convicts approach ICJ seeking stay on execution of death sentence

[KLNMurthy]

Cleaning up Mahathir's mess


‘We’ll buy your sugar, please buy our palm oil,’ new PM of Malaysia goes all out to placate India

New Malay PM seems smart. Putting nations interest ahead of ego and Islamic bravado.
Modi should work with him but only after making a few things perfectly clear.

To start with, "Give us Zakir Naik, then we will buy Palm Oil".

Zakir Naik etc. is a side-issue and a distraction. Small change onlee.

Malaysia should just be asked to issue an official statement: “We hereby accept that the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, and absolutely India’s internal affair. We were wrong to have talked about India’s internal affairs and we hereby undertake that we will never do so ever again. We recognize that India has the right to impose consequences of its choosing if we ever violate this undertaking.”

Simple onlee.

[Jay]

There are rules of pollution in India not to touch a used plate or unbathed person etc. wash if you have touched it etc. This is why those rituals must have evolved because population were packed into dense urban centers from during Harappan times. Untouchability similarly is projected as a social evil but must be rooted in this kind of paranoia against infection. It's just that its rituals were retained and memorized more by a certain class of people but its origins were rooted in survival behavior.

Still right now social distancing and lockdown is more relaxed in India and people seem complacent compared to the US.

You must be joking. Were from people like you come from the woodwork to sprout nonsensical BS as soon as something bad happens? If you are equating and justifying the practice of untouchability as some sort of rational response then you need to get your head off this forum and do a self admittal in erragedda mental hospital.

[Theeran]

There are rules of pollution in India not to touch a used plate or unbathed person etc. wash if you have touched it etc. This is why those rituals must have evolved because population were packed into dense urban centers from during Harappan times. Untouchability similarly is projected as a social evil but must be rooted in this kind of paranoia against infection. It's just that its rituals were retained and memorized more by a certain class of people but its origins were rooted in survival behavior.

Still right now social distancing and lockdown is more relaxed in India and people seem complacent compared to the US.

You must be joking. Were from people like you come from the woodwork to sprout nonsensical BS as soon as something bad happens? If you are equating and justifying the practice of untouchability as some sort of rational response then you need to get your head off this forum and do a self admittal in erragedda mental hospital.

People like you will say Namaste is a form of untouchability too.

[KLNMurthy]

You must be joking. Were from people like you come from the woodwork to sprout nonsensical BS as soon as something bad happens? If you are equating and justifying the practice of untouchability as some sort of rational response then you need to get your head off this forum and do a self admittal in erragedda mental hospital.

People like you will say Namaste is a form of untouchability too.

But salaam and adaab are ok

[Jay]

You must be joking. Were from people like you come from the woodwork to sprout nonsensical BS as soon as something bad happens? If you are equating and justifying the practice of untouchability as some sort of rational response then you need to get your head off this forum and do a self admittal in erragedda mental hospital.

People like you will say Namaste is a form of untouchability too.

Do yo think untouchability is same as saying namaste?

Only an intellectually challenged poster will argue saying Namaste, and untouchability are the same things and construct arguments around these concepts and I do not wish to continue conversation with such an individual. I'll agree to disagree and will move on.

[Vikas]

Guys, Predators will start patrolling the skies with grave consequences if you go on this slippery slope of Namaste and untouchability. There can not be any winners in this argument.

[OmkarC]

it is very likely that India emerges is the biggest winner from this disaster both civilizationally and economically and militarily. Low oil prices. likely low probability of high covid-19 cases being a tropical country and summer almost there.China will be the biggest looser. they have brought the world to the doors of disaster with there habits of eating every animal species.This is not the first time either that china has contributed to an epidemic in recent memory.

A civilization that has given the human race everything from language to math and science but the ungrateful never appreciated but yet another great contribution to humanity which the intelligent people will recognize. World,s biggest vegetarian population, where animals are worshipped and respected not always killed and abused where a simple greeting of namaste has profound implications.

I predict India,s time as the biggest economy on this planet has been fast forwarded by this crises by several years. I initially thought this is likely to happen by 2060-2070 timeframe but it is going to happen much earlier than that.

This crisis will fast forward the exit of western corporation,s flight from china and I predict India as the biggest winner

I want to really believe what you are prognosticating but not sure if things will unfold that way.

The western world will always act on their immediate short term interests and that entails means leveraging Chinese recovery to the best possible extent.

And China will extract a heavy price for supplying wherewithals to support this recovery. Just like Pakis did for "war on terror".

They will pull enough levers among opinion makers & media to soften public perception against China.

Plus we have enough negative elements within India to ensure "India is intolerant" propaganda doesn't get drowned out amidst this other issue.

[VKumar]

This is a good time to promote SAY NO TO MADE IN CHINA. In these Corona times, it will be indeed difficult to say no to this !

EXACTLY!!!

At the very least let's stop buying Chinese products

[Bart S]

^^
+1 Yes, ironically the winners out of this whole mess might be the Chinese.

[pankajs]

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1239609518016741378

ANI @ANI

Gujarat: Congress MLAs Pravin Maru, Pradyumansinh Jadeja, Soma Koli Patel, JV Kakadia and Mangal Gavit have submitted their resignations to the Speaker of the state legislative assembly Rajendra Trivedi.

Seems like a fresh batch of MLAs

[kumarn]

There is a culture of dependency on china or a stockholm syndrome that needs to be rooted out from some sectors of the indian pharma sector. Having said that I know a few Eu clients are looking to India to source vegan cosmetic raw materials. Any help would be appreciated please

Can help here.
What products, like make up or skincare or personal care?

[ramana]

who is funding the sojourn of this rapist trio to the ICJ.

Does the ICJ even have jurisdiction over a domestic criminal case in which all appeals have been legally dismissed.

what next after this, the UNGA

India TV @indiatvnews

Nirbhaya case: 3 convicts approach ICJ seeking stay on execution of death sentence

It flummoxes me that these guys are getting such legal support to even go to ICJ which has no locus standi.
I suspect there are some big names to come out if they don't exhaust the process. Hence this drama.

[vijayk]

See new Tweets
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Shehla Rashid
@Shehla_Rashid
Appeal to the government of India to revoke recent controversial decisions such as CAA, NPR, nationwide NRC, etc. in the wake of Coronavirus outbreak. There are mass protests in the country everywhere due to these decisions, please halt them for now.
@narendramodi

@AmitShah
#nCov

[schinnas]

Some anti capital punishment NGOs and families of these culprits are funding the legal vattle. Mercenary lawyers are making money from desperation of the families of culprits by following a path which goes nowhere.

Coronavirus has effectively killed the anti CAA protests. A rumour that one corona infected patient was at SaheenBagh is all it would take to eliminate the protest.

[VinodTK]

who is funding the sojourn of this rapist trio to the ICJ.

Does the ICJ even have jurisdiction over a domestic criminal case in which all appeals have been legally dismissed.

what next after this, the UNGA

It flummoxes me that these guys are getting such legal support to even go to ICJ which has no locus standi.
I suspect there are some big names to come out if they don't exhaust the process. Hence this drama.

If Indian judiciary allows/entertains the ICJ appeal,
in my view India is not an independent country anymore.
What next ICJ apple giants the breakup of J&K
Followed by apples against CAA, NPR, and NRC

[schinnas]

Former CJI Ranjan Gogoi nominated to Rajya Sabha by the President. Surprised that he accepted it before a larger cool off period.

https://m.hindustantimes.com/india-news ... ZONbL.html

[Gerard]

It flummoxes me that these guys are getting such legal support to even go to ICJ which has no locus standi.
I suspect there are some big names to come out if they don't exhaust the process. Hence this drama.

How do they intend to do this? Only State parties (for disputes) or UN agencies (for advisory opinions) can approach the ICJ.

Btw, Judge Cancado Trindade, in a separate opinion in Jadhav (India vs Pakistan) had referenced India's arguments regarding the ruling of the Inter American Court of Human Rights wrt human rights and the death penalty.

India highlights several key points in the IACtHR’s Advisory Opinion n. 16 (1999), including the notion that a treaty can serve to protect human rights, even if its principal or central purpose is not concerned with human rights (para. 154)15. Still in its Memorial, India stresses the IACtHR’s finding that the evolving corpus juris of the ILHR enshrining due process standards ought to guide the interpretation of Article 36 of the 1963 VCCR (paras. 157-159)16. Furthermore, India again singles out the significance and contribution of the IACtHR’s Advisory Opinion n. 16 (1999) also in its oral arguments presented in the public hearing of 18.02.2019 before the ICJ17.

49. Such prohibition has, furthermore, found expression in international case-law. For example, with its landmark Judgment (merits and reparations, of 21.06.2002) in the case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin versus Trinidad and Tobago, the IACtHR became the international tribunal which for the first time established the incompatibility with a human right treaty (the American Convention on Human Rights) of the “mandatory” death penalty (for the delict of murder).

In my Concurring Opinion appended thereto, I pondered, inter alia, that in effect, the legal order which applies the death penalty resorts itself to the extreme violence which it intends to fight; by means of the application of the millennial lex talionis, the public power itself resorts to violence, disposing of the life of a person, in the same way that this latter deprived another person of his or her life, — and all this “despite the historical evolution, likewise millennial, of justice to overcome revenge (public and private)” (para. 4).

In effect, there is an important aspect which cannot be overlooked in the cas d’espèce, namely, the condemnation of death penalty at world level, as shown by initiatives and endeavours in the United Nations along the years. The present case of Jadhav is focused on the established breach of Article 36 of the VCCR, but one cannot make abstraction of the factual context of the subject-matter. At United Nations level, attention can be drawn to conventional supervisory organs (such as the Human Rights Committee under the CCPR), as well as other United Nations organs (such as the former U.N. Commission on Human Rights, and presently the U.N. Council on Human Rights).

[KJo]

New Malay PM seems smart. Putting nations interest ahead of ego and Islamic bravado.
Modi should work with him but only after making a few things perfectly clear.

To start with, "Give us Zakir Naik, then we will buy Palm Oil".

Zakir Naik etc. is a side-issue and a distraction. Small change onlee.

Malaysia should just be asked to issue an official statement: “We hereby accept that the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India, and absolutely India’s internal affair. We were wrong to have talked about India’s internal affairs and we hereby undertake that we will never do so ever again. We recognize that India has the right to impose consequences of its choosing if we ever violate this undertaking.”

Simple onlee.

Sure, why not. I just put in my wish-list but I bet MAD has their own list.
I was just highlighting that we were a laughing stock pushover during the MMS days. Piddly Malaysia thought that Modi was MMS and tried his Islamic bullying and now his successor has to clean up the mess he left. But there needs to be some consequence to it and people need to fear of it. The demand to make Malaysia recognize JK being part of India is a good one.

Coronavirus has effectively killed the anti CAA protests. A rumour that one corona infected patient was at SaheenBagh is all it would take to eliminate the protest.

Why not start this rumor? Create a "news item" and let it go viral on Whatsapp. Problem solved.

[Suraj]

As Swarajyamag explains, each of the 4 Nirbhaya accused gets four rounds of appeals , and by law since they are being condemned for the same crime, they all have to finish appeals procedures before any of them can be executed - the law requires them to be executed together and in the same manner. This is a legal loophole. It makes sense that they need to also appeal together, but by appealing indepedently, they can attempt to maximize the delay.

[KL Dubey]

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1239609518016741378

ANI @ANI

Gujarat: Congress MLAs Pravin Maru, Pradyumansinh Jadeja, Soma Koli Patel, JV Kakadia and Mangal Gavit have submitted their resignations to the Speaker of the state legislative assembly Rajendra Trivedi.

Seems like a fresh batch of MLAs

Same four guys plus one more. Still good. If a few more Congi MLAs cross-vote then BJP can win all three RS seats from GJ. Two are already in the bag.

[KL Dubey]

Former CJI Ranjan Gogoi nominated to Rajya Sabha by the President. Surprised that he accepted it before a larger cool off period.

https://m.hindustantimes.com/india-news ... ZONbL.html

Good move by goremint.....shows the current CJI and others in line the "carrot" side of thingz.....and maybe Chandrachud will like the carrot idea more than the possible stick.

I think Misra and Gogoi faced the full ugliness of the Break India Forces and decided to break out of the Congi-era "NBJPRIE nexus" (acronym is courtesy of Shri Rahulbhai Mehta who is no more with us...on BRF, I mean).

[chetak]

SBI plans FIR over leaked clip of FM pulling up brass

NEW DELHI: A day after a controversy erupted over finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman pulling up SBI executives led by chairman Rajneesh Kumar in Guwahati, finance ministry officials on Sunday defended the minister’s impatience, describing it as “ justified and legitimate concern” over the functioning of state and local level bankers.
“She was lamenting the insensitivity of local bank officials and pulled up the officers of the state-level bankers' committee (SLBC). In fact, their insensitive action had deprived almost 8 lakh tea garden workers of accessing their Jan-Dhan bank account dues for more than a year. The poor tea garden workers were unable to get their own DBT benefits withdrawn. They were suffering for no fault of theirs and the local bank officials, despite various attempts by the local and state administration, were not paying any heed to resolve this issue,” a senior officer present at the meeting in Guwahati last month said.
At the meeting, the issue was flagged by the Assam government, led by state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He complained that there had been no progress despite several meetings convened by him. Sarma told the Union FM that some of the senior executives did not attend these meetings.
The issue came to light after the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation issued a statement criticising the FM’s comments, only to withdraw it later. After the audio clip started doing the rounds on social media on Saturday, Sarma took to Twitter to say that AIBOC did not understand the context.
In the audio clip, Sitharaman is heard referring to SBI as a “heartless” bank, while telling bankers that their approach was unacceptable. She is heard saying she will approach the RBI to resolve the issue, although it is not her job. “What kind of SLBC is this?... I will speak to the RBI governor today. It is not my business. You should have approached the department and made it talk to RBI and you should have finished it before 24 months were exhausted. I am sorry to sound so harsh. I am not pleased, sir. I am not pleased, chairman SBI, SLBCs don’t function like this.”
She instructed the bankers to start the work while she spoke to RBI and then added: “Nothing makes up for your inefficiency. Let me be blunt on this.”
Sitharaman then demanded a timeline to fix the problem faced by the tea garden workers who could not access their accounts and instructed SBI chief to meet her in Delhi. Describing it as “utter omission of job”, the FM is heard telling the SBI chairman that she holds him “completely responsible for a failure” and would have a “detailed talk”.
The minister then rapped a local executive. “You may be a senior official but I am sorry, you let the government down,” she is heard saying, after which the banker apologised.
At the meeting there were also complaints of the absence of ATMs and branches, which resulted in tea garden workers being unable to access money lying in their accounts.
On Sunday, Sarma seemed to strike a reconciliatory tone. “The government highly values spirited partnership of all banking institutions,” he tweeted.
The 8 lakh accounts were opened by the Assam government in 2017 and an incentive amount of Rs 5,000 was transferred to each account. But due to the “half-hearted approach of local bank officials”, a sizeable section of these tea garden workers were being deprived of their rightful dues, the officer said.
The senior finance ministry official said that Sitharaman had pulled up the local bank executives, including the one who was heading the state level bankers committee for ”being insensitive” to the plight of 8 lakh tea garden workers.
“These local bank officers were giving some lame excuses. The finance minister did not agree to it and asked the issue of these tea garden workers be resolved on urgent basis,” the officer said.

why are cell phones allowed in ministerial meetings.

so what if some baboo(n) has been ticked off publicly.

These clowns deserve to be sacked publicly.

[Yagnasri]

Both did good work in the end. While one of them was not always a PIF he was never openly BIF either. The other said to be PIF from the start in-spite of long family association with principle political force of BIF. They both faced huge pressure from BIF during their tenure and should be appreciated for that. NM already appointed one CJI as a governor earlier. Nothing stops from doing the same again. A clear signal that good work will be recognized.