Why Was Prominent Pakistani Journalist Arshad Sharif Shot By Police In Nairobi On October 23^rd?

Mossad, the renowned Israeli Secret Service organisation, is well known for eliminating enemies of the Jewish State and its people in audacious and imaginative covert operations abroad. Usually, the targets for retribution are blood-soaked individuals, responsible for the murder of a large number of Jews themselves. Its not always bullets. Poisoned toothpaste, honey-traps, robot operated machine guns which are remote-controlled, old-fashioned infiltration, have all been used.  What is always evident is deep research, intelligence gathering, flawless execution, with rare exceptions to the contrary.

However, Mossad has never been known to assassinate a Jew abroad, whatever be the provocation.

Mossad quite often claims responsibility after the fact, even though such action violates sovereignty laws in other countries, but not always, particularly when ongoing strategic security interests are involved. The repeated elimination of Iranian nuclear scientists and mysterious explosions that retard Iran’s nuclear weapons programme are cases in point. When it does own up, working in concert with other secret agencies of the Government of Israel, it is to issue a warning to others engaged in action against Jewish interests, and that of the Jewish State.

In Pakistan, going against the military establishment is considered anathema. Any civilian government or institution that takes a critical position against the military is censured at a minimum.  Usually personnel have to resign, and if the provocation is serious enough, the government in power will generally fall, as in the case of Imran Khan’s PTI government most recently. For journalists to do anything of the sort is asking for brutal retaliation.

In this case, apart from supporting the Imran Khan government and suggesting the Army had caused its dismissal, Sharif was in the midst of creating an expose on corruption in the former Nawaz Sharif government, the corruption of Army chief General Bajwa and others, called ‘Behind the doors’, when he was killed with a shot to the back of the head on a dark dirt road near Nairobi at 10 at night. General Bajwa is about to retire and be replaced by a new chief of Army Staff sometime in November 2022. Rumours include a possible relocation by him to the United States.

That Sharif’s body was taken to Chiromo Mortuary, 78 km away from the alleged site of the killing, is just one of many strange facts and circumstances concerning this shooting.

The shooting of Pakistani TV journalist Arshad Sharif in Nairobi by Kenyan police is officially trotted out as a case of ‘mistaken identity’. But did the Kenyan police actually do it? Does it have the hand of Pakistan’s deadly ISI behind it, as is widely alleged?

 There is a wealth of confusing and contradictory reportage on the killing. One report says the Toyota Land Cruiser Sharif was travelling in, was being shadowed by a car full of Pakistani operatives, a ‘killer squad’ for several days prior, according to former governor of Nairobi, Mike Sonko. This gang of assassins were out to kill Sharif because he was preparing yet another Kenya based expose on people in the present Pakistani government and its deep state, involving a money-laundering syndicate that also owns car showrooms in Nairobi and Mombasa.  The Pakistan military and ISI are reported to have intensive connections with Islamic jihadi groups and war lords in Africa, including Kenya.

Allegations of the Kenya Police acting frequently as death squads for hire have also been rife. Al Jazeera has produced a documentary on the subject called ‘Inside Kenya’s Death Squads’, describing its cold-blooded murders on government orders, or for money.

Another report says gunshots were fired at the police at a police check point from inside the car Sharif was travelling in, presumably by his host Ahmed, injuring a policeman on the hand, prompting it to return fire.

It is ironic to note that only Sharif was killed with a clean shot to the back of the head, while all others in his car were unharmed. This despite nine shots being fired, four towards the back left of the car, and five towards the back right of the car including one that punctured the right rear tyre. The Land Cruiser was allegedly trying to flee, but from whom? Was it the Kenyan police check post/hit squad for hire, or the Pakistani assassins stalking it?

The ostensible reason for the police asking Sharif’s car to stop was a reported carjacking, involving also the abduction of a child. But the reported missing car was a Mercedes, and not a Toyota.

Common sense and Kenyan journalistic comments suggest a carjacking does not seem grave enough for the police to have opened fire on civilians, just because Ahmed’s Toyota flouted its order to stop. And then again, why would it not stop? And if Ahmed opened fire first, why was he not shot at?

Yet another report suggests the fatal gunshot was fired from within Sharif’s car. Hmm.

Sharif was being hosted by a family of Pakistani nationals at a farmhouse near Nairobi, at a place called Westlands. He had come to Kenya from the UAE where he had gone in August with an in-between possible visit to Britain.

This farm at Westlands is allegedly owned by a three-star ISI general from Pakistan.  Arshad Sharif and Kurram Ahmed, from the host family, had spent that final Sunday afternoon at Ammodump@Kwenia, an entertainment complex with a shooting range, popular with Pakistani gun enthusiasts. It is located on a feeder road in Kamukuru , 85 km south of Nairobi. The duo left the entertainment complex for Nairobi at about 8 pm local time, presumably for Westlands, where they were staying.

On Twitter, Kenyan investigative journalist Brian Obuya said the fatal shot that killed Sharif was ‘fired with precision through the rear mirror of the car’.

 Whatever be the truth of Sharif’s actual killing, let us look at the back-story. First, his recent anti-establishment stance. Sharif was known to be close to Imran Khan and his ousted Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf Party (PTI), that is trying hard to make a come-back to power via mass movements and marches. Sharif also gave himself the proverbial ‘kiss of death’ by being critical of the Pakistan military at the same time. Fearing an attack on his life,  Sharif fled abroad to Dubai and then to Kenya recently, presumably after losing his job in August, only to meet his fate there on Sunday 23^rd October 2022.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, who was attending a conference in Saudi Arabia, expressed grief, shock, and horror in a tweet on October 24^th and requested Kenyan President William Ruto over the telephone to expedite the repatriation of the body to Pakistan, and a thorough investigation into the killing. The funeral took place on Thursday the 27^th and attracted huge crowds in Pakistan.

Imran Khan, who said he had advised Sharif to leave the country after he was accused of sedition in May, a case being filed against him on 22May,  called Sharif’s shooting a ‘targeted killing’ for his criticism of the  power establishment. Khan also called him a ‘martyr’, but perhaps as some critics have said, as an investigative journalist, Sharif should not have drawn so close to a particular political party, out-of-power and in vigorous opposition.

Sharif, who was 49, was an anchor on Pakistan’s ARY TV network. Though he was earlier close to the Pakistan military, he had been vocally critical of late. So much so, that ARY was forced off-air for a spell because it had allowed him to use its platform to spread anti-military sentiment.

Sharif had been briefly arrested by the Pakistan Police for sedition after an interview with an Imran Khan aide from PTI called Dr Shahbaz Gill. He was eventually fired by ARY in August 2022, after serving as host and anchor for eight years at the channel. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), meanwhile had termed some of the comments in the Shahbaz Gill interview as incitement for the ’armed forces to revolt’.

The respected Dawn newspaper of Pakistan reported that Inter-Services-Public Relations (ISPR) Director General  (DG) Major General Babar Iftikhar, accompanied by ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed Anjum making a rare public appearance at a press conference in Rawalpindi, said the Pakistani military has requested the civilian government to conduct a ‘high level investigation ‘ into the ‘accidental’ killing of Sharif.  

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has since announced a thorough judicial investigation and review into the matter.

There is a strenuous effort towards plausible deniability amongst all the authorities in Pakistan. They are keen that America does not see the Sharif murder or mishap as another Jamal Khashoggi moment.

However, this kind of thing is not new in Pakistan. In recent times, Saleem Shehzad was killed on May 3oth, 2011. Hamid Mir was shot six times and  wounded by gunmen on April 19, 2014. Matiullah Jan was kidnapped from a busy street in Islamabad on April 20, 2021. Asad Toor, his ribs broken, was brutally tortured by unidentified persons on May 25^th, 2021. Absar Alam was shot but not killed. Judicial commissions investigating these attacks on jounalists have nor handed in any report known to the public.

Both the US and the UN want this death thoroughly investigated, though neither are generating any heat over it. It is, as if, coming from Pakistan, run by its all-powerful military, and known internationally as terrorist central, no one is truly surprised.

(1,561 words)

October 31^st, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Why Are One In Five British people Struggling To Put Food On The Table?

Britain intrigues with its portrait of continued policy mismanagement. But is it a consequence of dramatic policy changes from the Thatcher years?

Nearly 10 million adults and 4 million children of the UK population, who number a modest 67.5 million (67,508,936), and have a per capita income of $47,334 (World Bank -2021), are malnourished. Some are struggling to buy the food they need. Others are actually going hungry without a meal for the whole day. One in four households with children have experienced food insecurity in the last month alone, as per a Guardian newspaper article dated 18^th October 2022. Everyone who is not well-off, even in the middle class, is feeling the pinch.

Many of the ‘food insecure’ are more recent immigrants, that do not qualify for welfare benefits as yet.  But the state welfare system itself has been drastically downsized from 2010, under the so-called ‘austerity’ measures, with the British government refusing to rule out further cuts as it struggles to stabilise the economy.

This means that many others too have turned towards non-government charities to put food on the table. A recent joint statement by more than 2,000 UK food banks said they were facing unprecedented demand. The UK’s largest food bank charity, the Trussell Trust, has documented a 5,146  percent increase in emergency food parcels distributed between 2008 and 2018.

Schools that still provide them, report on children that come in hungry, dependent on the one free hot meal they receive there. 

By way of contrast, India at 1.44 billion people and a per capita income of a mere $ 2,277 is eating well and is food surplus. It has recently overtaken Britain in GDP.

India distributed free rations to over 800 million people during the Covid pandemic. It carries out massive welfare programmes for lactating mothers, babies, child nutrition. It benefits its millions with the Gareeb Jan Dhan Yojana, MNREGA, amongst a plethora of other welfare programmes. India has been able to export wheat and rice to countries affected by disruption in supply lines caused by the Russo-Ukraine War. Its economy is growing at between 6% and 7% per annum post-Covid, and is expected to carry on doing so for a decade and more going forward. IMF projections see it as the world’s 3^rd largest economy by 2028.

But then, we are mindful because India’s electorate is at the bottom of the pyramid to a significant degree. All politicians do their reckoning from the bottom upwards.

But what is the matter in Britain? Why can’t they feed their lower income groups who are desperately juggling between housing and heating costs plus that of food? And indeed, with the EU and the US, almost as badly affected. All of the West is undergoing a tremendous economic crisis they were not prepared for, hit by the double whammy of Covid and the Russia-Ukraine War.

The near collapse, but for widening fiscal deficits and yet more borrowing to stave it off, is a consequence of decades of reckless borrow-and-spend economics, starting from the 1980s, rather than revenue driven ones. Now, with the growth all but gone and recession looming, with untamed inflation provoked by high energy and food prices, the multifarious bills have come home to roost.

At one time,  in the first general election after WWII, Socialism ruled in a Labour Party government. Churchill, a Tory, was quickly ousted with his party after the war, and the elected representatives of the proletariat took over. The state owned all the utilities and services. Every place of work was unionised, and wage increases were  regularly negotiated with the  private sector owners and the government itself. Strikes, go-slows, work-to-rule were all fashionable and prevalent. The days of Empire were over and many industries and port cities that dealt with it went into recession. But Socialism powered on, untainted by upper class leadership, with all its many welfare benefits showered on the working classes. All seemed eternal, even if the books did not balance at all, till the time of ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher.

She reversed all this, selling off government ownership in railways, airlines, and companies alike, and taking on the unions. The most dramatic was the coal-miners union that she broke despite hunger strikes to the death. The proxy rule of the British working class was over.

It has stayed much that way ever since, even through Labour governments, because 80% of the population and the voter list is not working class, even though the upper classes had been decimated in two world wars.  Prosperity of the post-war years saw to that, before it all got a bit too top heavy, ideologically driven, and statist. Without the subsidies on everything day to day cost of living soared. There was inflation. The Pound Sterling was devalued.

The White working classes started diminishing in numbers though, almost straight after 1945 as the class barriers broke down. This went on till the British had to import black and brown people from the former colonies to do the grunt jobs. Hordes of the erstwhile poor, including the famed Cockneys of East London, moved up to the middle classes taking advantage of education and white-collar jobs on offer.

Looking back, the structures and mores built by Socialism gave the poorer citizens a three-decade ascendancy after the War.

But today, things are looking grim. UK GDP growth forecasts for 2022 is 3.3%, 0.2% in 2023 and 1% in 2024. Inflation will peak at 13% in 2022 alone. The cost of living continues to soar. Inflation is at a 40 year high as of September 2022. The value of the British pound has fallen substantially, putting it almost at par with the US dollar, and political instability is writ large, with four Tory prime ministers and their cabinets coming and going in short order.

The ruling Tories are threatening to further cut public spending and may raise taxes. This will, in the absence of growth, aggravate the problem. The rival Labour Party is demanding a snap poll as their popularity has risen substantially, and Scotland is once again asking for a second referendum, this time on leaving the United Kingdom.  Protestant Northern Ireland too is quite interested in merging with Catholic Eire to get back into the EU.

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the UK’s economic outlook from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’. 

But food insecurity in Britain has been neglected and goes back a while in recent memory. Food inflation in Europe began to aggravate in late 2006, got worse after the global meltdown in 2008, and became a long-term hunger problem for the British poor, a decided minority.

In 2014, 8.4 million British people, were often going hungry according to Food Foundation thinktank that put out a report. Frank Field MP, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hunger at the time, is quoted in a Guardian article of 6^th May 2016, ‘We now know for the first time the scale of the challenge confronting the nation to ensure all of us can afford to buy and eat a decent meal without needing to rely on food banks’. 

The UK imports almost half of its food and 84% of its fresh fruit, showing up glaring vulnerabilities in its food supply chain made worse by Brexit and Covid-19. There are various subsidies given to British farming particularly in the meat and dairy sector. But can these and others last under the economic squeeze the UK is facing? Is the worst yet to come?

Food insecurity in UK households receiving ‘Universal Credit’, the combined social security payment claimed by around 6 million people on low incomes or out-of-work, was four times higher than households not receiving it. Besides the Universal Credit payments have decreased in real terms over the years with rising inflation taking its toll.

In the 2015 general election season, right wing commentators, mostly much better-heeled, expressed scepticism with hunger figures presented by church groups and the leftists.  Given the overall population numbers reflected in the voter lists, it appears that the poorest do not have the leverage to dominate the polls except in working-class constituencies.

But if Labour comes back to power, because of general disenchantment with the bumbling Tories, does it have the wherewithal to reverse the trend of cutting back on welfare and subsidies?

Leaving the EU via Brexit has added pressure to British food imports from the Continent by way of duties and levies. It has also put barriers against British exports. Not being food self-sufficient is probably worse than the other supply chain problems of globalisation, but it is something Britain has in common with China. China too imports a great deal of its food.

 Having spent long years pointing fingers at the Global South for not looking after the needs of the poor and relatively impoverished, it is now the turn of the erstwhile rich economies to eat humble pie. Also, the West is no longer a  magnet for immigrants from India and elsewhere. As life and livelihood continues to steadily improve in India, they are getting decidedly worse in the West. However, if you are a Pakistani or a Sri Lankan, Britain must still appear to be the promised land.

Food insecurity may be much talked about in Britain, but it is prevalent for many of the same reasons, in Europe and America as well now. Manufacturing sundry items has been all but exported to China. Services account for 80% of the economy in Britain and other parts of Europe and America, but jobs, even there, are not growing in a near recession. Perhaps the greatest sting in the tail of a high-cost economy with high per capita income, is its inability to cope with the economic basics of self reliance, aatmanirbharta, in times when resources are tight. There are also not enough able-bodied people to pull the cart out of the mire. The ones that are there are mostly old, and most of the worthy are not having children. It is the story of a declining population curve aggravated by hostility to letting in more immigrants who promptly demand welfare support. The Catch-22 is evident.

 A low per capita economy like India, that has also doubled its number from about $ 1400 over the last couple of decades but with an explosion in population alongside, is saved by its substantial and rising working age population. About 65%  are between the ages of 15 and 35 years. It makes us cost competitive, with a little skilling and more education. This too is not permanent and will begin to age in about three decades. By then we would have grown to around $ 30 trillion in GDP. We will have enormous pent-up domestic demand from 1.70 billion people, and substantial exports. It is a projected ten-fold increase in GDP to help us cope.

What is sure is that when we get there, we will still be feeding all our people, our valuable voters, and be food surplus in 2050 too.

(1,831 words)

October 22^nd, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Hunger Index Concocted By Clueless German and Irish NGOs Who Should Not Be Indulged

There has been an explosion of outrage in India over the scandalous Hunger Index rankings shoved into the public domain yet again by a pair of clueless but motivated NGOs from Germany and Ireland.  

When India protested last year at their ridiculous findings, these two NGOs did nothing about it. They have produced an even more inaccurate offering this year. They dwell on child malnutrition, child wasting, stunting, mortality, all based on a sample of 3,000 correspondent in a country of 1.44 billion people.  

The two NGOs have been publishing this low-budget report annually since 2000 using narrow data and miniscule sample size of correspondents. This is their 15^th.

However, they claim that they use UN, UNICEF, World Bank and other such data. If they did truly, and with due diligence, they would not turn out such stunted rubbish.

The culprit NGOs apparently cannot be bothered to source and research enough of the correct data, let alone draw sensible conclusions from it. Even as an exercise in malicious propaganda, it is extremely low grade.

It flies in the face of widely known facts, this year at least, such as India’s food surplus status. India has had the ability to export both wheat and rice in large quantities during the disruptions caused by the Russo-Ukraine War. This after feeding 1.44 billion people without runaway food inflation.

It is, in fact, pulling millions of its citizens out of the clutches of extreme poverty all the while and picking up the pace at it.

Almost simultaneously, an United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) report says India has rescued 140 million people out of ‘multidimensional poverty’ (MPI), between 2015-16 and 2019-21.

In the fifteen years from 2005-06 to 2020-21, the incidence of poverty and deprivations amongst poor people against 10 MPI indicators such as health, education, and standard of living, has more than halved.

The report goes on to say ‘There have been visible investments in boosting access to sanitation, cooking fuel, electricity- indicators that have seen large improvements. A policy emphasis on universal coverage-for example in education, nutrition, water, sanitation, employment, housing-likely contributed to these results’.

So not everybody from the West makes bogus assessments or puts out inflammatory reports. The UNDP report and another from the IMF called India  the one ‘bright spot’ amongst the darkness of a global gloom .   

India distributed free rations to 800 million of its citizens throughout the Covid lockdowns, and continues to do so now in a limited manner, in the recovery phase back to an economy operating at full strength. This is not because 800 million people are in dire poverty, but to just help many households along at a difficult and unprecedented time.

There is an extensive lactating mothers and infant/ child nutrition welfare programme. In addition, there are other very successful welfare programmes such as the Garib Kalyan Yojana and MNREGA.

Indian temples and Gurdwaras are in the habit of feeding hundreds of thousands of people free, this activity financed by philanthropists and their own funds, on a daily basis, for aeons. Guests are never sent away hungry even from the poorest households. This is a cultural matter for Indians, extant for the ages.

Meanwhile, these problems are not unique to India. In America the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), states that 34 million people including 9 million children are currently ‘food insecure’. During the Covid pandemic, unemployment soared, and 53 million Americans turned to food banks and community programmes to put food on their tables. This is a significant percentage of people in the richest country in the world.

India is already at 5^th position as regards its economy, with $3.5 trillion in GDP, having overtaken much less populous Britain, and is poised to surpass the economies of both Germany and Japan by 2028, according to the IMF. It is  estimated  to be growing at between 6.1% and 7.2% over 2022, 2023 and 2024. It will continue to do so at a similar pace for at least a decade going forward, if not three.

In 2030, Indian GDP is expected to be at or around $ 10 trillion. Per capita income though will be under pressure for decades to come. We have a rising population, growing to an estimated 1.70 billion by 2070, before it begins to decline. However, growth in GDP of this order, and more, to an estimated $ 30 trillion by 2047, will go a long way to ameliorate the plight of the poorest.

Part of being the most populous country in the world, is a young work capable population to the extent of 65%, between the ages of 15 and 35. With proper skilling, this will be a great asset for three decades going forward, before this nation begins to age as population growth declines.

All this institutional optimism from the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB and international rating agencies may be another factor occasioning the malignant propaganda against India from Germany, Britain, America, Spain, China and other parts, who are seeing a steady decline in their own prospects and no way out of it.

The attacks on India, with little data to support it, encompass spurious narratives on religious freedom persecutions and human rights violations. The prospect of not only being economically overtaken or challenged, but losing dominance over an erstwhile third world country like India is proving hard to digest in the West.

Whatever be the dark motive, treating the convoluted nonsense from these two negligible NGOs seriously is an affront to common-sense and intelligence. And yet, many learned interpreters, perhaps out of a sense of inherent reasonableness, have tried.

Of course, such Indian commentary, well-reasoned as it may be, from the government, the RSS, other analysts and economists, media pundits, is going to fall on deaf ears. The objective of this survey and several others like it, that keep cropping up, may well be to dissuade those who want to move their manufacturing from China to India in order to diversify their supply chains. China cannot like the prospect, even as it is happening, and is still in cahoots with Germany, more so than any other country in the EU.

The Germans know their engineering. The whole world acknowledges that. And they sell a lot of their top-end cars in India as a consequence.

But are these poison-pen indexes from Welt Hunger Hilfe worth the adverse reaction from India? Have they written off Indian business to put all their eggs in the China basket? It may have more to do with Germany extensive investment and trade with China which hit an all-time high in the first half of 2022, despite the Ukraine War.

The new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced he is going to China soon, the first Western leader scheduled to do so after Covid. He is not keen on ‘decoupling from China’ as suggested by America. The German ambassador to America is busy putting it in the context of the ravages of the Ukraine war, and how Scholz does not want to rock the boat at this time. But, in effect, Germany is sticking with China in continuation of the policies of previous Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Meanwhile the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has suggested, and retracted, after strong Indian protest, that Kashmir should go through a referendum conducted by the UN.

It is easy to see the hand of not just Pakistan but China too in this. Even the American ambassador to Pakistan, Donald Blome, recently visited PoK and called it ‘Azad Kashmir’.

Another reason for the hostility from the broad Western alliance including America, NATO, EU, Britain and Australia towards India may well be occasioned by India’s neutrality with regard to Russia. They understand our position but that doesn’t mean they like it. An exception, discreet as it is, may be QUAD ally Japan.

Is India then really receiving some old fashioned Cold War stick, just because it is perceived to be siding with Russia?

WHO, prominent during the Covid pandemic, has also played a very partisan role in terms of shielding China as the originator of the virus. In addition, it has thrown many obstacles in the way of Indian made vaccines being used internationally. It is part of the ecosystem China has assiduously built at several UN bodies.

The problem is, one strong ally in Germany will not restore China’s export fortunes. Others are determined to delink and stay away, and Germany too may find it difficult to withstand American pressure.

America is already uncomfortable with France’s traditionally independent attitude. And these two countries together are the dominant European economies in the EU and NATO.

The Irish, as in EIRE, are also part of the EU, and are probably acting in solidarity with the Germans as far as this survey goes.

Nevertheless, the Welt Hunger Hilfe survey is not doing Germany’s image any good. And Concern Worldwide, the Irish outfit, which sounds quite Church really, may like to rethink their career at spreading malicious misinformation too.  But who is funding both?

(1,512 words)

October 18^th, 2022

For: Syama Prasad Mookerjee Foundation

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Wild West Wanted Poster For Murderers In WSJ Advert Mocks Global Magnitsky Act

There was a full-page advertisement on October 13^th in the US Wall Street Journal (WSJ) got up to look like a Wanted Poster from The Old West. These old-time ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’ posters were used to locate gunslingers, stage-coach bandits, railway strong-box dacoits, serial killers, cold-blooded murderers, all quintessential outlaws, often with lucrative bounties on their heads.

To use one such format to accuse 11 Indian government functionaries doing their jobs over a fairly mundane business dispute that they inherited from an earlier dispensation, that too in terms of the perfectly serious Global Magnitsky Act 2016, is patently absurd.

The WSJ, a more-or-less reputable business newspaper, must be financially hard-up to publish such an advertisement. Or it is out to malign the Government of India along with its dubious advertiser in this silly fashion?

The Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 is a successor of the 2012 Magnitsky Act, originally designed to target important and influential Russians and others in their orbit, such as the former Uzbek president’s eldest daughter, apparently running a criminal cartel, a crooked Ukranian police chief accused of custodial murder and the like. That the Russians and others have similar blacklists of their own goes without saying.

And in these days of softening and damaged economies all over Western Europe and America because of Covid and the Ukraine War, can hubris like this really stick? Even Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, let alone Iran and China, do not listen to Western dictation.

Most of those who fall afoul of the Global Magnitsky Act that allows The US and other copycats to sanction individuals, including Chinese who have committed atrocities on the Uigurs, are accused on multiple counts.

These include extortion, influence-peddling, money laundering, corruption, bribery, fraud, involving Western companies and big-wigs or their relatives, operating always in the ballpark of billions of dollars.

The broader global act has, for example, indicted a human body-parts trader from Pakistan, and several military men from Myanmar who allegedly brutalised the Rohingyas.

Several other countries have their own versions of the Magnitsky Act such as Britain and Canada. Australia, and some 30 other small countries are either working on, or have similar legislation.

The person the first law of 2012 was named after, Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, died after a savage beating in a Russian prison in 2009, at the age of just 37. He was accused of being involved in the very same massive tax fraud scheme he first discovered. He was absolved of wrong-doing a full 10 years after his death by the European Court of Human Rights.

The law remembering Magnitsky in 2012 was spearheaded by American financier Bill Browder who has been feted and flounced for his efforts to a degree.

In terms of India, it is being cited increasingly by Islamist organisations out to portray India as a human rights violator involving persecution of minorities. Nothing comes of it in a season when America regards India not only as a valued QUAD member, but a strategic partner on a bilateral basis, but the ugly noise created is still bad publicity.

And to an extent it is being amplified by Left leaning media in the US including the New York Times, the Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon and perhaps now the WSJ too. It is curious why Jeff Bezos is keen on maligning India given the considerable business his company does here.

To some extent it must be assumed that such biased media in America, Britain, Germany, Spain, are seen to be supporting the Opposition in India against a perceived Hindu majority government. One that is showing sufficient strength to win the next five year term in 2024 as well.

It would appear that the Western media, tacitly backed by its governments, prefers a more malleable and corrupt opposition, instead of the patriotic and financially incorruptible government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As a whole, the Western powers may be interested in curbing Chinese influence and supply chains post Covid, but they are not comfortable with an independent-minded India either. They are not used to an erstwhile third world brown peopled country following its own national interest as it sees fit.

The recent neutrality vis a vis Russia in the Ukraine conflict, under considerable Western pressure, is a case in point.

That India will become the third biggest economy in the world by 2028 as per the IMF is worrisome to the West. They would like to slow this down by siding with the opposition that they feel are much more controllable. The Leftist media preferred our emphasis on Socialism rather than growth. Even though it served us badly, with GDP figures never crossing more than 2% for fifty years, they found it more inclusive and India easier to manipulate.

The promotion of an anti-Hindu narrative is therefore part of this put-the- brakes-on-India’s-rise movement.

Sanctioning individuals in India under the Global Magnitsky Act 2016 would be a dream come true not only for those sniping at India from the perch provided by the West, but also the Indian opposition who tend to back the narrative domestically.

However, it probably cannot be done on flimsy grounds, with neither murder, nor mayhem, or financial skulduggery, let alone fondly hoped for genocide, to cite. Human Rights abuses are too numerous and consistent at the US, British, European end of the stick, both domestically and abroad, for it to get anywhere judicially, in a pot calling the kettle black move. After all, the Human Rights Court in Europe did take 10 years to declare Sergei Magnitsky innocent probably when it was safe to say so.

There was an attempt to have the American Biden administration to indict some four Hindu individuals under the Global Magnitsky Act by an outfit called Justice For All, basically a Muslim NGO in America, after the Delhi Riots of February 2020, but it has come to nought.

Other efforts by little known NGOs like the Guernica 37 Centre,  to indict Indian government officials and politicians are also not gaining any traction in America or in Britain,  or in the EU for that matter, except for generating hostile publicity via  Islamist, Chinese, Leftist and Activist circles inimical to India.

The only indictments under the Global Magnitsky Act 2016 that actually go through are the ones initiated at the highest echelons of government in the US and elsewhere. President Trump initiated a few. None have been aimed at Indians so far.

And when done, the sanctions have little actual effect except to queer the pitch in business negotiations, visa denial, some imposition of fines, and seizure of assets that may lie in the accuser countries.

This is just as well, given the often hypocritical self-importance that animates many NGOs funded by lobbies with various self-interest at work. And to avoid a chaos of bogus human rights actions that can vitiate the atmosphere in bilateral and multilateral relationships, particularly between allied countries.

In this subject instance however, the advertisement was put in allegedly by one Ramachandran Vishwanathan, a disgruntled would-be supplier of multimedia content via satellite in India.

He released the advertisement under the guise of yet another NGO called Frontiers For Freedom, founded by a Republican Party Senator George Landrith.

Vishwanathan, a US citizen, is the former CEO of Devas Multimedia of Bengaluru, a company that was to lease capacity from Antrix Corporation, the marketing arm of India’s department of space. He was to do this on two primary satellites in the S-band. This was in 2005, during the scandal ridden rule of the Manmohan Singh led UPA government.

The deal may have involved an up-front payment of $ 20 million as a capacity reservation fee, though the statement is that it was only ‘agreed to be paid’.

It was ostensibly for a 12 year lease, with an option for a further 12 years thereafter, plus a payment of $ 9 million to 11.25 million per annum for each year of the lease actually operated on the satellite. The entire deal smacks of payola and kickbacks of course, and probably involves the seamier side of Antrix and Devas officials as well. Subsequent court and investigative actions have turned up money-laundering and other offences.

However, in 2011, the Cabinet Committee on Security, still under the UPA, probably panicked by the bad news leaked, banned any commercial exploitation of the S Band, and cancelled the orbital slot for Antrix.

This is standard procedure adopted by the UPA time and again to achieve plausible deniability.

The two companies, Devas and Antrix, have been locked in a legal battle ever since. The Indian courts have found in favour of Antrix, and the US courts in favour of Devas, including the permitting of seizure of some Antrix assets and allegedly, even Government of India assets under the Airports Authority of India in America.

On the Wild West style poster advertisement, there are eleven people pictured and accused. The Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Antrix Corporation Chairman Rakesh Sasibhushan, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, two Supreme Court judges V Ramasubramanian and Hemant Gupta who wound up Devas Multimedia for massive fraud, a CBI officer, Enforcement Directorate Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra and Assistant Director R Rajesh and other officials investigating the case.

The sting that Vishwanathan is reacting to after all this time is based on Delhi High Court setting aside, in August 2022, a $ 1.3 billion arbitration verdict in favour of Devas Multimedia that had been passed in 2015 by the International Chamber of Commerce. In addition, the Indian government has sought Vishwanathan’s arrest on charges of corruption. It has also frozen Devas accounts in Mauritius through the use of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) and requested an Interpol red corner notice for his extradition from the US.

In turn Devas Multimedia  seized $ 87, 457.47 in cash from Anrrix Corporation’s account in the US, and a property in Paris  after getting favourable orders from US, French and Canadian Courts on the basis of the ICC award.

If it was not potentially libellous, the advertisement could be considered farcical. It was designed to embarrass the finance minister during her visit to Washington to meet with the World Bank, the IMF and others. Will the Government of India react officially? Probably not, at least they haven’t done so yet.

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Adviser Kanchan Gupta however tweeted condemning the ‘fraudsters’. Several other patriots have also chimed in.

(1,742 words)

October 17^th, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Structural & Policy Reforms Made Most Populous India Better Governed Than Small Population West

Westerners, particularly the once mighty and ruling British, used to say, with a complacent and patronising air, that if India realised its potential, someday, it would be unstoppable.

Little did the West think that this day could arrive so quickly, just 75 years after an impoverished independence. That is why, even as significant parts of it professes to be allied to India as fellow democracies etc., it often fails to recalibrate its superior tone when speaking to, or about us.

After all, it takes a lot of getting used to, when an erstwhile member of the chronically deficient, if talkative, third-world, claims its chair at the high table and starts looking at one in the eye.

Hegemony has gone awry in a purportedly liberal Europe and America. Both are a little uncomfortable with the New India, with ingrained White racism that won’t stay down, and hope to subtly retard the rate of India’s progress wherever possible.

A junior and dependent partner is acceptable because it conforms to the Gunga Din image they have in their minds, but probably not one that has developed leverage and negotiates every point with nuance and variety.

India’s new attitude has influenced Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to also stand its ground and favour its national interests. Indeed West Asia, including Western-ally Israel, has understood the new and emerging situation rather better, and has been quick to engage bilaterally, and with regional groupings and free trade agreements, with the New India.

Now the IMF President Kristalina Georgieva, perhaps a little out of Bulgarian South Slavic warmth towards India, but mostly from hard-boiled analysis just said: ‘India deserves to be called a bright spot on this otherwise dark horizon because it has been a fast-growing economy, even during these difficult times, but most importantly, this growth is underpinned by structural reforms’.

Her Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, looking ahead with Gallic aplomb, called India ‘a bright spot’. He thought India’s goal of becoming a $ 10 trillion economy by 2030 was certainly achievable. He suggested more structural reforms on top of what has been done already. He wants better health and education facilities, more social spending, digital literacy and access, investment in human capital.

Without striking a note of triumphalism, justified as it might be, it is most creditable that a country with a population of 1.44 billion is food surplus. It is able to export wheat and rice to those who are suffering because of supply disruptions occasioned by the Ukraine -Russia War. We have come a long way from the days of Nehruvian India even in the 1960s, when we gratefully took in PL-480 food-aid from America.

India has become the 5^th largest major economy, overtaking Britain, at over $ 3.50 trillion in GDP now. It will be the third by overtaking Germany and Japan. This will happen, it is estimated, by 2030.

Though India may not succeed in lifting 50% of its massive population into the middle class by 2030, unless the growth rate accelerates to near double-digits, a measure of unprecedented well-being will nevertheless be experienced on a per capital basis as well.

The World Bank estimated in 2018 that India is growing its per capita income at 5.5% annually, on a sustained basis, particularly since first stage reforms were carried out in 1991.

Figures of national GDP projected by 2030 are slated to be upwards of $ 10 trillion, a trebling of present circumstance. India will grow at a minimum of 6.1% as per the IMF, contrasted with a recession bound West in 2024, and 6.8% in 2023. It is expected to close 2022 fiscal with 7.2% growth in GDP.

India will grow at similar percentages compounded over at least the next decade, more likely three. These growth figures are the highest in the world, and far higher than China’s currently.  China has little hope of reviving to its once spectacular double-digit growth. Its economic problems are in fact mounting by the minute even though it is a $ 15 trillion economy.

Its manufacturing and export led growth for three decades from the 1980s has become an important illustrator and part of India’s present strategic thinking. India may have had a services sector led growth of over 50% of its GDP pre-covid as per 2019 figures but it cannot sustain without the underpinning of manufacture.

India wants to seize the big manufacturing opportunity as the world wants to reduce its dependence on the Chinese supply chain. It is this emphasis in defence manufacturing, our largest import bill after fuel, plus a plethora of other products that will be largely consumed domestically, and be available for export, that will underpin India’s success going forward.

India is the 4th largest consumer of automobiles and two-wheelers in the world. It consumes millions of smart phones domestically, and is turning into the new export hub as well.

The World Bank noted in 2018 that India already manufactured a wide array of goods, and that this insulated it from adverse effects in turbulent times such as the 2008 financial meltdown in Europe and America, and when the GST was introduced in India. Today GST, which is still evolving and being fine-tuned, is a proven success, and a long awaited major structural reform.

The West will experience little or no growth and even a sharp contraction in many instances for several years going forward. This, mainly because of its gargantuan debt, grown unsustainable except through an even wider fiscal deficit, when growth grinds to a near halt. Two back-to-back Black Swan events, Covid and the Ukraine War have exposed  the fragility of its economies.

China is scuppered also by massive debt, and the drastic slow-down in its overseas projects and exports. Its domestic market is oversold in multiple areas to the point of unrest.

In India, government funded Covid vaccination inoculation for over a billion people was made possible not only by Indian manufactured vaccines, but an efficient, government designed digital delivery and monitoring system, that reached every eligible person. This eventually, over the two year plus period, meant not only adults above 18 and senior citizens, but also children above the  age of twelve.

China is still experiencing Zero Covid Lockdowns of great severity. America, the richest country in the world, could only vaccinate 68% of the target groups. Efficacy of various expensive Western made vaccines were also found to be woefully low in many cases.

India refused to import these Western vaccines and used its own manufacture and the Astro Zeneca vaccine made here under licence. It also donated millions of doses along with other India-made medicines to many countries that requested it. This included medicines sent to America.

Though misinformation has been directed at India by the China controlled WHO and other motivated quarters, it is clear that no country could match the scale and success of India’s Covid response.

Corruption free Welfare payments have been made a reality from much before the hardships of the Covid lockdowns. This was done by a massive drive to bring in the unbanked poor into the banking system. Millions of new accounts were opened with almost zero balances, and the campaigns to cover the population with the ubiquitous Aadhar Card made sure they were authentic and not duplicated.

The Income Tax payments and verifications have been almost totally digitised and operate exclusively online.

Water to every tap in the country, electricity to every dwelling, toilets in every home, LPG  cylinders to cook with, rural roads, digital mandis, solar power, ethanol production to blend with petrol to the extent of 30% and soak up the sugarcane surplus too, liquid urea and neem-infused urea, are some of the many structural initiatives.

5G services have been launched in five cities and will ramp up quickly to 11 even as communication towers are being built so that the entire rural hinterland is covered rapidly. The government has already announced its intention to introduce 6G services. Internet connectivity,digital access and knowledge is a key thrust area for empowerment of the population, speed and efficiency.

More and more cities are now being connected with Metro services. The Indian Railways, its rolling stock, stations, and all infrastructure is modernising and being qualitatively bettered to match international standards in front of our eyes. Almost all of the immense railway network, replete with new bridges and tunnels wherever required, has now been electrified. With extensions in the network to hitherto unserviced areas, it is well on its way to becoming the largest in the world. Most of the related manufacturing takes place here in India. Exports of Railway expertise and hardware are also rapidly growing.

The aviation sector is growing both in terms of new and revived airports as well as more airlines. India is now also manufacturing a small 19 seater passenger aircraft based on Dornier designs. This is servicing areas that do not need larger passenger services such as Arunachal Pradesh.

The thrust towards electric vehicles and buses is growing afoot along with the charging infrastructure.

ISRO is now launching its heaviest satellites, and routinely launches private and international payloads on a commercial basis.

The defence sector is manufacturing fighter planes, helicopters, howitzers, tanks, armoured vehicles, rocket-launchers,  a variety of missiles, bullet-proof vests, night-sight equipment, ammunition in revamped production facilities, radars, machine-guns, aircraft carriers, submarines, frigates, patrol boats. A full 68% of the defence purchase list is being manufactured or developed in India currently both by the private and public sectors. Talks are on with several countries for joint development of high technology naval and aircraft engines that can be upgraded to keep up with the times. Quite a lot of what India makes is already evincing export queries and sales.

Infrastructure by way of highways, bridges, high-altitude tunnels for all weather connectivity, and ports, inland waterways, ro-ro shipping, are being developed at a frenetic pace. Special railway freight corridors crisscrossing the nation are being commissioned.

Logistics via multi-modal connectivity are being improved to cut some 5% off the 14% costs it accounts for. The Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal thinks it will cut Rs. 10 lakh crores in expense in short order.

The government’s target overall is to arrive at a $ 30 trillion economy by 2047 when the Republic of India will be a 100 years old.

  Of course, like China, India will have to drastically ramp up its investment in fixed assets, partially in association with its partners such as Japan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, all keen to work with India now.

The semi-conductor industry, replete with machines that make machines, while being both capital intensive and extremely high tech will bring relations with Taiwan and South Korea into tighter relief. A first is about to be made with the multi-billion dollar Vedanta/Foxconn project in Gujarat.

India wants to create 100 million skilled new manufacturing jobs by 2025 and double the contribution of the manufacturing sector in due course, with 25% of  GDP from around 16%  in 2019. This should be doable given the geopolitical breezes that are blowing in India’s favour.

India’s young work-force will surpass China’s in just another couple of years, based on 2019 statistics.

Indian output per worker is currently very low, and this is a great minus point, but with accelerated skilling and higher education access this will improve.

Urbanisation of the population will increase to 43% by 2035, almost half, increasing income levels and consumption of more middle-class goods and services.

India is concentrating on supply-side reforms said Economics Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth recently. ‘India is focusing on infrastructure led capital spending aimed at enhancing productivity and employment while ensuring fiscal prudence’.

This fiscal prudence, particularly on external borrowings which are both modest and manageable, as opposed to India’s large domestic debt, is another reason why it is ahead of the developed country pack and still growing decently.It is also what has sunk both Sri Lanka and Pakistan to  the point of bankruptcy. India was tempted to borrow more extensively from the much cheaper international market but didn’t overdo it.

Meanwhile, UPI transactions, representing a triumph of India’s digital payments policy, have hit an all-time high of Rs. 10.7 lakh crores in August 2022.

Who would have imagined such a modernist can-do outlook in India even a decade ago?

(2,045 words)

October 14^th, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee