Pranab Mukherjee Foundation Clarifies That It Is Not Collaborating with RSS in Haryana

“It is categorically clarified that there is neither any existing collaboration, nor is there any such move in the offing,” a statement released by Pranab Mukherjee’s office says.

New Delhi: After an Economic Times reported on August 1 claimed that the Pranab Mukherjee Foundation and the former president appeared “keen” to “extend a relationship” with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Pranab Mukherjee issued a statement to deny the story.

“It is categorically clarified that there is neither any existing collaboration, nor is there any such move in the offing,” the statement reads.

The former president is due visit Gurgaon on September 2 and visit some villages with Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar to inaugurate a few projects. The statement clarifies that while Mukherjee was the president of India, he had adopted several villages under the Smartgram Project started in Haryana in 2018.

In its story, Economic Times says that it spoke to a member of the RSS and confirmed that Mukherjee “has invited over 15 senior and junior level RSS workers for the event” and that “this group had met the former president at his residence a few days ago, when he talked to them about his foundation’s efforts to provide clean drinking water in Haryana villages it has adopted”.

“The RSS members assured him of all grassroots help and presented him a coffee table book on the history and struggles of the RSS,” reads the Economic Times report.

The story goes on to say that an associate of the former president confirmed that such a meeting took places but “nothing had been formalised about the RSS and Mukherjee working together on any project”.

“He has always been a proponent of inclusiveness. And for the work he is doing, he would want to include everyone,” the source reportedly said.

In response to the news report, Mukherjee states that he is visiting Gurgaon on September 2 “at the invitation of the government of Haryana”.

Just a couple of months ago, Mukherjee’s decision to accept an invitation by the RSS to address its new recruits at an event in Nagpur on June 7 had caused an uproar.

At the time, many claimed that the RSS had managed to “appropriate” the former president. Mukherjee, once on the dais, gave a speech that expounded on the many facets of Indian nationalism after watching the freshly trained members of the organisation in action.

“We know what we are. And we are moving towards our goal with all conviction. We invite everyone to come and form their own opinion about RSS,” he had said, in a speech that was telecast live on most news channels.

The statement release by the Pranab Mukherjee Foundation.

‘Jan Gan Man Ki Baat’ Episode 298: Why is PM Modi Silent on Demonetisation?

Vinod Dua discusses how demonetisation failed to achieve its goals and why Prime Minister Narendra Modi should personally take responsibility for it.

Petition Filed in SC Against Arrest of Surendra Gadling and Four Others

Calling the arrests “unconstitutional and done with a malicious intent”, the petition has been filed following the Supreme Court’s recent intervention in the Pune police’s attempt to jail five other lawyers and activists.

Mumbai: Calling the arrest of senior advocate Surendra Gadling and four others activists and academic as “unconstitutional and done with a malicious intent”, a petition was moved before the Supreme Court today. The petition was filed seeking specific direction to be given to Maharashtra government against the ongoing “witch hunt” of the human rights defenders like Gadling, Dalit rights activist Sudhir Dhawale, forest rights activist Mahesh Raut, Delhi-based activist Rona Wilson and associate professor from Nagpur University Shoma Sen.

Advocate Nihalsingh Rathod, who filed the petition in the apex court, said that the hearing is scheduled for September 6 along with the ongoing petition filed on August 29 against the arrest of five activists a day earlier. The petition, Rathod says, was filed following the Supreme Court’s intervention in the Pune police’s attempt to jail five other lawyers and activists in to its custody. The petition on behalf of the arrested activists – filed by historian Romila Thapar, Prabhat Patnaik, Devaki Jain, Satish Deshpande and Maja Daruwala – was mentioned for urgent hearing before a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and heard eventually by a bench comprising the CJI, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. The Supreme Court ordered all the arrested activists to be kept under house arrest at their own homes until September 6.

“There has been a clear pattern of threat and attempts to implicate Gadling in false cases. Several times in the past, the police had resorted to unveiled threats and had tried to trap him in false cases. Similar attempts were also made to implicate Mahesh (Raut) too who has been working on the implementation of the PESA act in the Adivasi region of central India,” advocate Rathod told The Wire. Raut was one of the youngest students of TISS to be selected for the most coveted Prime Minister Rural Development (PMRD) fellowship. He on completion of his fellowship continued to work in the region and had been actively raising voice against the indiscriminate mining work carried out in Gadchiroli.

Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen and Sudhir Dhawale. Credit: PTI/Twitter/Facebook

The petition also states that Dhawale who was one of the organisers of the Elgar Parishad that was organised a day before the 200th anniversary of the Bhima Koregaon battle is not involved in any unlawful activities. Dhawale, who was arrested in 2011 for his purported naxal links has already languished in Gondia prison for 40 months. He was acquitted of all charges by the sessions court in 2014.

Gadling and four others were arrested on June 6 and have been since then lodged at the Nagpur Central Prison. Gadling, soon after his arrest, had complained of chest pain and had to subsequently undergo angioplasty. In his over two decade long legal career, Gadling has handled several cases of illegal killings, police excesses, fakes cases, and atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Along with his legal practice, Gadling was an active member of Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) and CRPP.

He was, until his arrest, handling the case of G.N. Saibaba, a wheelchair-bound Delhi University professor jailed for alleged Naxal links. Rathod said ever since Gadling decided to defend Saibaba, the police allegedly decided to make him a target.

The Pune police have named 17 persons in the FIR so far and have arrested 10 of them. All accused have been booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The police is expected to file the chargsheet against the first five arrest sometime next week.

India Hits 8.2% GDP Growth in June Quarter On Back of Manufacturing Boost And Base Effect

With the adverse effects of GST and demonetisation wearing off, the economy appears to be staging a recovery, although 8%-plus growth for the next three quarters does not seem likely.

New Delhi:India’s GDP growth rate jumped to 8.2% in the first quarter of the current fiscal ( April-June 2018) from 5.7% a year ago, driven by strong performance of the manufacturing and construction sectors but also helped by a lower base.

The robust GDP numbers are likely to boost the morale of the Modi government, which faces general elections next year.

“The robust GDP numbers are partly due to momentum in growth and partly because of the low base effect,” DK Joshi, chief economist, Crisil, a rating agency, told The Wire.

But even more important is the fact that growth has bounced back in the manufacturing and construction sectors, which are considered critical for employment generation. 

“The recovery in the manufacturing and construction sectors has raised hope that jobs will be created,” he added.

GDP growth for the April-June quarter last year (FY’18) came in at 5.6% (revised downward from 5.7%). The favourable base effect this time around has prompted economists to caution that 8%-plus growth doesn’t seem likely for the net three quarters.

“The numbers are pretty solid and mostly driven by public investment and higher consumption, especially, in the rural-end with this being a pre-election year,” said Shashank Mendiratta, India Economist, ANZ Bank told Reuters.

“This is probably the best GDP trend we have seen in the first half helped by a favourable base. Going ahead, I expect the growth rate to be moderate as private investment is unlikely to grow at a faster rate due to stressed assets. Private consumption grew at its fastest rate since demonetisation,” Mendiratta added.

In the fourth quarter of 2017-18, GDP growth was at 7.7%. 

Axis Bank chief economist Saugato Bhattacharya, who correctly predicted 8.2% growth, has also indicated that this “high growth is unlikely to sustain”.

“This high growth is unlikely to sustain, and will fall to around 7.2%  in the remaining three quarters of FY’19. Much of the deceleration is also due to base effects. FY’19 growth forecast is 7.4%,” he said in a note on Friday morning.

Manufacturing, construction and agriculture boost

Another measure of  growth, this one in gross-value added (GVA) terms, showed the Indian economy growing at 8% compared to 5.6% last year. As The Wire has pointed out, GVA has over the last few years become a more important measure of economic growth as it removes the impact of subsidies and indirect taxes.

While a positive base effect has helped growth, other key economic parameters on a GVA basis showed strength as well, especially in sectors such as manufacturing and construction.

For instance, the manufacturing sector grew at 13.5% in the June quarter compared to -1.8% last year.

The agriculture sector grew at 5.3% compared to 3%  last year, while construction also saw a healthy bump (8.7% compared to 1.8% last year).

Of particular importance is also a key growth factor called ‘private consumption expenditure’, which grew at 8.5%, the fastest in any quarter since demonetisation.

Private and government expenditures together contributed nearly 67% of the GDP during the April-June quarter.

Another important metric to watch for private investment – gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) – accounted for 31.6% of GDP during the quarter, higher than 31% in the same period last year.

A Voice of Freedom from ‘Beyond the Margins’

Vinayak Lashkar’s poem explores the meaning of freedom for denotified tribes in India and concerns about social stigmatisation even after independence.

ऐका हो ऐका
आम्ही पण स्वतंत्र झालो बरका…
सेटलमेंटच्या तारा तोडून
३१ ऑगस्ट १९५२ ला
पण आजही भेदताच आली नाहीत
इथल्या चिरेबंदी मनातली कुंपनं आम्हाला…
आजही गाव तुडूनच पडतो आमच्यावर
गोऱ्या ब्रिटीश अधिकाऱ्या सारखा
पण आम्हाला कधी न्यायच
मागता आली नाही
गांधारीच सोंग घेतलेल्या न्यायव्यवस्थेला…
आम्ही पण लढलो स्वातंत्र्य मिळवण्यासाठी
पण आम्ही कधीच सापडणार नाही
स्वातंत्र सैनिकांच्या यादीत
सीबीआयने शोधलं तरी
कारण आम्ही कधीच परागंदा झालोय
पोलिसाच्या गाडीतून…
राहायला घर नाही कि सांगायला गाव
पण इतिहास कोरावा तसा
आमच्या जातीचं कोरून ठेवलय
सुवर्ण अक्षरात नाव
स्टेशनाच्या डायरीत अन
एफआयआरच्या यादीत
नव्या गुन्हेगारांची ओळख न होवु देण्यासाठी…

-विनायक लष्कर (१५ ऑगस्ट २०१८)

Listen O World, Listen
We too got our ‘freedom’ supposedly
Breaking the shackles of ‘settlement’
On August 31, 1952
But even today, we could not break
The barbed wires of the minds and hearts
Even today, the Village attacks us
Just like the white British officer

We could never ask for justice
Rather we couldn’t comprehend their ‘justice’
A judiciary that plays
The role of self-blindfolded Gandhari

We too fought for our freedom
But we shall never be found
In the list of freedom fighters
Even CBI cannot find us
We are absconded in History
In a police van

Neither do we have an address
Nor a village
But history has a place for us
In Police Station diaries
And FIRs from centuries
So that the ‘real’ culprits remain safe.

Written by Vinayak Lashkar
Translated by Rutuja Deshmukh

Vinayak Lashkar is assistant professor and head, department of sociology at Tuljaram Chaturchand College, Baramati, Pune. He has written several journal articles on denotified tribes of Maharashtra and published two books in Marathi – Wadar Samaj: Ek Samajshastri Abhyas and Bhaktkyanche Swatantra. He has also worked as an expert with the National Commission on Denotified Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, Ministry of Social Justice. His poem explores the meaning of freedom for denotified tribes in India and concerns about social stigmatisation even after independence.

Though Dalit identity was able to capture some space in Marathi cultural sphere of folklore, literature and other performing arts, the question of tribal identity has largely remained elusive. Dalit consciousness remained at the forefront of politics and found space in culture and to a certain extent, in Marathi films, but tribal representation remained largely ignored. The reason for this can be attributed to the politics of Dalit identity, which consciously or unconsciously, seemed to ignore the tribal identity or appropriate it as ‘caste’, whereas it is noteworthy to take into account that caste does not exist amongst the tribes.

The ‘denotified’ tribes also known as vimukta jati were the tribal communities who were listed/notified in the colonial Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. In 1952, post-independence, this Act was repealed, hence ‘denotified’. However, they were categorised as ‘habitual offenders’ and put under the Habitual Offenders Act. In 2007, UN’s anti- discrimination body asked India to repeal the habitual offenders Act. In 2008, National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes recommended equal reservations as available to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

In her book Dishonored by History, Meena Radhakrishna reveals how the apparent purpose of the 1871 Act, which criminalised entire communities, was to suppress ‘hereditary criminals’ of Indian society. However, the notion of crime and criminality was changing throughout the nineteenth century and problematic, differing notions of criminality arose in an industrialising European society and mainly in England.

Rutuja Deshmukh Wakankar is currently pursuing masters in South Asian Area Studies at SOAS, London. She is a former journalist with The Indian Express. She has taught cinema studies at Allahabad University. She is currently working on representation of denotified tribal identity in Marathi cinema. Twitter: @rut28

As Centre Gets Cold Feet, SC Defers Hearing of Petitions Challenging Article 35A

The matter now stands adjourned to the second week of January 2019.

New Delhi: The petitions challenging Article 35A of the constitution, which the Supreme Court deferred hearing on August 31, are unique as their very listing and the likelihood of their hearing by the court makes Jammu and Kashmir very tense. The provision enables the state government to create a class of “permanent residents”, and confer on them special rights and privileges in public employment, acquisition of immovable property, settlement, and access to scholarships in education. The petitioners have challenged the provision on various grounds, including gender disparity and absence of endorsement by parliament.

The apex court, which was at one stage keen to hear the petitions and dispose of them before the tenure of the current Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, ends on October 2, found the Centre seeking an adjournment on August 31. The bench of CJI Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud was more than willing to agree to the Centre’s suggestion that they should be heard only next year after the conclusion of the panchayat and municipal polls in the state. The matter now stands adjourned to the second week of January 2019, well after the Justice Misra’s term is over.

To the agitated counsel of the petitioners, who urged the court not to adjourn the case, the CJI asked what the urgency was when there has been no challenge to the provision all these years since its insertion in the constitution in 1954. When senior counsel and former solicitor general, Ranjit Kumar, representing one of the petitioners, countered the CJI, asking what was the urgency in hearing the petitions challenging the restrictions on menstruating women from worshipping at Sabarimala, even though the practice remained unchallenged for 300 years, Justice Misra underlined the distinction between the two, as in Article 35A, the challenge was to a Constitutional provision, inserted through a presidential order. 

Interestingly, similar concerns over possible unrest in Kerala in the event of the court striking down the restriction on entry of menstruating women into the Sabarimala temple, were expressed by counsel arguing for respondents during the hearing of the Sabarimala case. The constitution bench, which heard the matter, did not respond to such concerns.

But the CJI’s explanation on Friday failed to convince the petitioners. They claimed that many stood excluded from getting into professional colleges in the state despite living in the state for 60 years, and that Kashmiri women who marry non-Kashmiris are prevented from buying property because of Article 35A. 

There were five writ petitions before the court. The petition filed by We the Citizens, an NGO, is the lead petition, having been filed in 2014. The second is the one filed by West Pakistan Refugees Action Committee Cell-1947, which was filed in 2015. The third was filed by one Dr. Charu Wali Khanna, in 2017. The remaining two have been filed by Kali Dass and Radhika Gill in 2017 and this year respectively. Both the Centre and the state government have been arraigned as the respondents.

Also read: Time to Clear Up the Fallacies Around Kashmir’s Article 35A

It is not as if the schedule of the panchayat elections in the state of Jammu and Kashmir was not known to the Centre earlier. The real reason for the Centre’s seeking an adjournment appears to be that it did not anticipate the scale of protests in the state which greeted the listing and the preliminary hearing of the case in the Supreme Court earlier. On August 6, according to many reports, life in the Kashmir valley came to a standstill due to the shutdown called by separatists and the mainstream regional parties against the hearing of the case.

Today, Justice Misra asked the advocates in the state of Jammu and Kashmir not to go on strike, as they did earlier in anticipation of the apex court’s hearing of the case.

Previous hearings

On July 17, 2017, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the two-judge bench of the then CJI, J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud that the Centre has taken a conscious decision not to file any counter affidavit in this case, because the issues which are raised for adjudication, are pure questions of law. Following this, the bench concluded that pleadings in the case “shall be deemed to be complete”. The bench then directed the listing of the case before a three judge division bench, after six weeks “for final disposal”, giving liberty to the counsel to file additional documents in the meantime.

On October 30, 2017, when the case came up for hearing before a three judge bench led by the CJI, the Centre sought an adjournment of the hearing for 12 weeks. 

On May 14 this year, the bench noted in its order: “Let the matter be listed at 2 p.m. on August 6, and pleadings from all angles shall be completed in the meantime.”

On August 6, as Justice Chandrachud was absent, the two judge bench of the CJI and Justice Khanwilkar, who heard the counsel, noted: “Let these matters be listed in the week commencing 27.08.2018 to test the preliminary arguments of the petitioner.”

Today, both the Centre and the state of Jammu and Kashmir, sought adjournment of the case, because of the implications for law and order situation during the panchayat elections, a ground which could have been obvious on August 6 too. The AG submitted to the bench that a large number of paramilitary forces are deployed in the state for the purpose of elections, and in the event the court hears the matter, the law and order situation will be difficult to contain, reports Bar and Bench

Also read: Sangh Outfit Challenge to Kashmir’s Special Status Could Change State’s Demography

When the additional solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, representing the state of Jammu and Kashmir, told the bench the panchayat elections will be held in phases, and are scheduled to end in December, the bench was of the view that it would not like to precipitate the matter ahead of the elections. Mehta also emphasised that the elections to the local bodies ought to be held on schedule, as otherwise the Finance Commission’s grant of over Rs 4,500 crore would lapse, reports LiveLaw.

It will now depend on the next Chief Justice of India, succeeding Justice Dipak Misra, to decide the composition of the bench to hear the case in January, if at all the Centre is keen on the hearing. Given the fact that a state like Jammu and Kashmir is likely to be tense on the eve of every hearing of the case by the apex court, the prospects of the case being heard and concluded at all appear to be very grim. 

The adjournment of the case, on the ground that its hearing by the bench even on the question of its reference to a constitution bench would worsen the law and order situation in the state, is likely to show the court in a poor light. In a catena of cases, the Supreme Court has refused to avoid hearing a case because it would involve dealing with political issues, and had shown a willingness to rise above politics and other extraneous factors which would influence public opinion outside the court so that it could consider and resolve disputes objectively. Today’s decision has set a bad precedent in that it has willingly made its cause list amenable to the influence of non-state actors, who threaten violence and unrest, apprehending an outcome unfavourable to them. The Centre’s vacillation over the issue is, of course, a contributory factor for the court’s reluctance to hear the matter.  

If the court were to conclude, after the hearing, that the petitions were without merit because of the state’s unique position in India’s federal set-up, it would have been a vindication of the people of the state, and also the majesty of the court.

The protests in the state against the hearing of the case stem from genuine concerns that the court may be deprived of the case for retention of Article 35A in view of the tacit support of the Centre and state government to the petitions, especially after the exit of the PDP-led government.

Iran Moves Missiles to Iraq in Warning to Enemies – Sources

Any sign that Iran is preparing a more aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and Washington, already heightened by Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Paris/Baghdad: Iran has given ballistic missiles to Shi’ite proxies in Iraq and is developing the capacity to build more there to deter attacks on its interests in the Middle East and to give it the means to hit regional foes, Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources said.

Any sign that Iran is preparing a more aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and Washington, already heightened by US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

It would also embarrass France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the three European signatories to the nuclear deal, as they have been trying to salvage the agreement despite new US sanctions against Tehran.

According to three Iranian officials, two Iraqi intelligence sources and two Western intelligence sources, Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to allies in Iraq over the last few months. Five of the officials said it was helping those groups to start making their own.

“The logic was to have a backup plan if Iran was attacked,” one senior Iranian official told Reuters. “The number of missiles is not high, just a couple of dozen, but it can be increased if necessary.”

Iran has previously said its ballistic missile activities are purely defensive in nature. Iranian officials declined to comment when asked about the latest moves.

The Iraqi government and military both declined to comment.

The Zelzal, Fateh-110 and Zolfaqar missiles in question have ranges of about 200 km to 700 km, putting Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh or the Israeli city of Tel Aviv within striking distance if the weapons were deployed in southern or western Iraq.

The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has bases in both those areas. Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani is overseeing the programme, three of the sources said.

Western countries have already accused Iran of transferring missiles and technology to Syria and other allies of Tehran, such as Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Iran’s Sunni Muslim Gulf neighbours and its arch-enemy Israel have expressed concerns about Tehran’s regional activities, seeing it as a threat to their security.

Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the missile transfers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that anybody that threatened to wipe Israel out “would put themselves in a similar danger”.

Missile production line

The Western source said the number of missiles was in the 10s and that the transfers were designed to send a warning to the United States and Israel, especially after air raids on Iranian troops in Syria. The United States has a significant military presence in Iraq.

“It seems Iran has been turning Iraq into its forward missile base,” the Western source said.

The Iranian sources and one Iraqi intelligence source said a decision was made some 18 months ago to use militias to produce missiles in Iraq, but activity had ramped up in the last few months, including with the arrival of missile launchers.

“We have bases like that in many places and Iraq is one of them. If America attacks us, our friends will attack America’s interests and its allies in the region,” said a senior IRGC commander who served during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The Western source and the Iraqi source said the factories being used to develop missiles in Iraq were in al-Zafaraniya, east of Baghdad, and Jurf al-Sakhar, north of Kerbala. One Iranian source said there was also a factory in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The areas are controlled by Shi’ite militias, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the closest to Iran. Three sources said Iraqis had been trained in Iran as missile operators.

The Iraqi intelligence source said the al-Zafaraniya factory produced warheads and the ceramic of missile moulds under former President Saddam Hussein. It was reactivated by local Shi’ite groups in 2016 with Iranian assistance, the source said.

A team of Shi’ite engineers who used to work at the facility under Saddam were brought in, after being screened, to make it operational, the source said. He also said missiles had been tested near Jurf al-Sakhar.

The US Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon declined to comment.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Tehran over the last few months has transferred missiles to groups in Iraq but could not confirm that those missiles had any launch capability from their current positions.

Washington has been pushing its allies to adopt a tough anti-Iran policy since it reimposed sanctions this month.

While the European signatories to the nuclear deal have so far balked at US pressure, they have grown increasingly impatient over Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

France in particular has bemoaned Iranian “frenzy” in developing and propagating missiles and wants Tehran to open negotiations over its ballistic weapons.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday that Iran was arming regional allies with rockets and allowing ballistic proliferation. “Iran needs to avoid the temptation to be the (regional) hegemon,” he said.

In March, the three nations proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran over its missile activity, although they failed to push them through after opposition from some member states.

“Such a proliferation of Iranian missile capabilities throughout the region is an additional and serious source of concern,” a document from the three European countries said at the time.

Message to foes

A regional intelligence source also said Iran was storing a number of ballistic missiles in areas of Iraq that were under effective Shi’ite control and had the capacity to launch them.

The source could not confirm that Iran has a missile production capacity in Iraq.

A second Iraqi intelligence official said Baghdad had been aware of the flow of Iranian missiles to Shi’ite militias to help fight Islamic State militants, but that shipments had continued after the hardline Sunni militant group was defeated.

“It was clear to Iraqi intelligence that such a missile arsenal sent by Iran was not meant to fight Daesh (Islamic State) militants but as a pressure card Iran can use once involved in regional conflict,” the official said.

The Iraqi source said it was difficult for the Iraqi government to stop or persuade the groups to go against Tehran.

“We can’t restrain militias from firing Iranian rockets because simply the firing button is not in our hands, it’s with Iranians who control the push button,” he said.

“Iran will definitely use the missiles it handed over to Iraqi militia it supports to send a strong message to its foes in the region and the United States that it has the ability to use Iraqi territories as a launch pad for its missiles to strike anywhere and anytime it decides,” the Iraqi official said.

Iraq’s parliament passed a law in 2016 to bring an assortment of Shi’ite militia groups known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) into the state apparatus. The militias report to Iraq’s prime minister, who is a Shi’ite under the country’s unofficial governance system.

However, Iran still has a clear hand in coordinating the PMF leadership, which frequently meets and consults with Soleimani.

(Reuters)

Discovering the Magic of Activity-Based Learning

Rote learning divorced from practical hands-on experience not only kills curiosity and joy in children but also effectively robs them of useful knowledge, self-confidence and genuine skills.

This article is part of a bimonthly series that will address early child development.

Vijay, the boy who lives upstairs from me, asked me to help him prepare for his computer exam. Handing me his notebook of questions and answers, he asked me solemnly to quiz him.

“You’ve got it all down?” I asked. “You know all about computers?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” he said. Totally confident.

“What is a CPU?” I asked him.

Vijay’s eyes glazed over and he got an intense look of concentration on his face. “A CPU is the central processing unit of a computer.” His voice rang out sing-song style, sounding very strange and un-Vijay like. “The CPU is the hardware within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer programme by performing the basic arithmetical, logical and input/output operations of the system.”

Wow, I thought to myself. I didn’t know that.

“Very good!” I said. What else could I say? He had it down to a word-for-word perfection. “What is a printer?”

Glazed look again. He drew a deep breath, then plunged in: “A printer is a machine which produces a representation of an electronic document on physical media such as paper or transparency film.”

Really? I mean, Vijay, really?

“Vijay, have you ever seen a printer?” I had to ask.

“No, Ma’am.” he admitted.

Yet he knew that a printer was a machine which produced a representation of an electronic document on physical media such as paper or transparency film.

How many children in our Indian school system are like Vijay? A recent video on YouTube interviewed children in low-income Indian schools who could count up to 20, 30 and 100 perfectly, never missing a single number. But the children were baffled when asked to select the largest number, out of an array of numbers.

It is not their fault. We “teach” them complex concepts in abstract ways, which children’s brains are not yet equipped to make sense of. So all they are actually learning are songs: ‘The Alphabet’. ‘The 7 Times Table’. ‘The Days of the Week’. ‘The Hit Parade!’

Children are hard-wired to learn. It is a survival instinct. They will do whatever it takes to make their way through the world alive. Unfortunately, the world we have created for them (and many countries, including developed ones like the US, have this problem) demands that they passively sit in classrooms, memorising facts and passing tests. So that is what they master.

The Annual Status of Education Report 2017 is a stark revelation of the perils of rote learning:

“In our sample, more than 75% of youth can read a Std II level text fluently. But only a little over half (54%) could answer at least 3 out 4 questions based on the written instructions on an Oral Rehydration Solution packet.”

We send children to school so that they will be able to deal with the ordinary problems of real life. But while 75% of children (aged 14 and above) surveyed could read at a 2nd standard level (the bar being that low should give us pause), only half could use that skill effectively.

Activity-based learning – learning through doing – is one answer. This is not to say that rote learning has no place. Learning the times tables by heart, for example, is an efficient investment in later problem-solving and and is totally worth doing. Knowing the alphabet makes it possible to use a dictionary as well as to complete routine tasks of sorting, filing and classifying.

But rote learning divorced from practical hands-on experience not only kills curiosity and joy in children but also effectively robs them of useful knowledge, self-confidence and genuine skills.

“Vijay,” I asked. “Shall we find out what a printer actually is?”

The glazed look vanished. “Yes, Ma’am!”

“OK.” I said. “Can you write a letter on the laptop? How about if you write a letter to Lakshi? And then we’ll print it…”

With a little help, Vijay found ‘Word’ on my laptop, opened it and sat down to compose a note to Lakshi. Carefully, painstakingly, he figured out how to do capital letters, how to leave a space between words, and how to scroll down to the next line:

Dear Lakshi,

Tomorrow I have a computer test.

Will you help me study?

Your brother,
Vijay

“That’s a great letter,” I said. “Would you like to print it?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, beaming.

“So how do you think you can do that? Can you find a way to send a message to the printer?”

I swear I would never have figured it out as quickly as he did. He scanned the computer screen and located an image of a printer. He clicked on it and the dialogue box immediately came up. Vijay can read well enough to figure out the intricacies of that particular box.

“I just click ‘Print’?” he asked.

“Try it and see.”

He did.

“Now run to my bedroom,” I told him. “See what you find.”

Vijay ran.

His excitement was palpable. He stood transfixed as the paper emerged, bearing his own words.

“That’s a printer.” I told him. “That’s what printing means.”

“I am so exciting!” he said. “I mean, I am so excited! Thank you for teaching me.”

Over the next ten minutes he thanked me again and again.

Activity-based learning is magic.

Never have I seen anything so amazing, so compelling, so convincing. We learn by doing.

Jo McGowan Chopra is American by birth and a writer by profession. A mother of three, she has lived in India for the past 34 years with her Indian husband. She is co-founder and director of the Latika Roy Foundation, a voluntary organisation for children with disability in Dehradun. She blogs at www.latikaroy.org/jo.

China Using Fake LinkedIn Accounts to Access US Government Secrets: US Spy Catcher

The Chinese campaign includes contacting thousands of LinkedIn members at a time with access to government and commercial secrets.

Washington: The top spy catcher of the United States said that Chinese espionage agencies are using fake LinkedIn accounts to try to recruit Americans with access to government and commercial secrets, and the company should shut them down.

William Evanina, the US counter-intelligence chief, told Reuters in an interview that intelligence and law enforcement officials have told LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft Corporation, about China’s “super aggressive” efforts on the site.

He said the Chinese campaign includes contacting thousands of LinkedIn members at a time, but he declined to say how many fake accounts US intelligence had discovered, how many Americans may have been contacted and how much success China has had in the recruitment drive.

German and British authorities have previously warned their citizens that Beijing is using LinkedIn to try to recruit them as spies. But this is the first time a US official has publicly discussed the challenge in the United States and indicated it is a bigger problem than previously known.

Evanina said LinkedIn should look at copying the response of Twitter, Google and Facebook, which have all purged fake accounts allegedly linked to Iranian and Russian intelligence agencies.

“I recently saw that Twitter is cancelling, I don’t know, millions of fake accounts, and our request would be maybe LinkedIn could go ahead and be part of that,” said Evanina, who heads the U.S. National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center.

It is highly unusual for a senior US intelligence official to single out an American-owned company by name and publicly recommend it take action. LinkedIn boasts 562 million users in more than 200 countries and territories, including 149 million U.S. members.

Evanina did not, however, say whether he was frustrated by LinkedIn’s response or whether he believes it has done enough.

LinkedIn’s head of trust and safety, Paul Rockwell, confirmed the company had been talking to the US law enforcement agencies about Chinese espionage efforts. Earlier this month, LinkedIn said it had taken down “less than 40” fake accounts whose users were attempting to contact LinkedIn members associated with unidentified political organizations. Rockwell did not say whether those were Chinese accounts.

“We are doing everything we can to identify and stop this activity,” Rockwell told Reuters. “We’ve never waited for requests to act and actively identify bad actors and remove bad accounts using information we uncover and intelligence from a variety of sources including government agencies.”

Rockwell declined to provide numbers of fake accounts associated with Chinese intelligence agencies. He said the company takes “very prompt action to restrict accounts and mitigate and stop any essential damage that can happen” but gave no details.

LinkedIn “is a victim here,” Evanina said. “I think the cautionary tale is, ‘You are going to be like Facebook. Do you want to be where Facebook was this past spring with congressional testimony, right?'” he said, referring to lawmakers’ questioning of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Russia’s use of Facebook to meddle in the 2016 U.S. elections.

China’s foreign ministry disputed Evanina’s allegations.

“We do not know what evidence the relevant US officials you cite have to reach this conclusion. What they say is complete nonsense and has ulterior motives,” the ministry said in a statement.

Small toy figures are seen between displayed U.S. flag and Linkedin logo in this illustration picture, August 30, 2018. Credits: Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Small toy figures are seen between displayed U.S. flag and Linkedin logo in this illustration picture, August 30, 2018. Credits: Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Ex-CIA officer ensnared 

Evanina said he was speaking out in part because of the case of Kevin Mallory, a retired CIA officer convicted in June of conspiring to commit espionage for China.

A fluent Mandarin speaker, Mallory was struggling financially when he was contacted via a LinkedIn message in February 2017 by a Chinese national posing as a headhunter, according to court records and trial evidence.

The individual, using the name Richard Yang, arranged a telephone call between Mallory and a man claiming to work at a Shanghai think tank.

During two subsequent trips to Shanghai, Mallory agreed to sell US defence secrets – sent over a special cellular device he was given – even though he assessed his Chinese contacts to be intelligence officers, according to the U.S. government’s case against him. He is due to be sentenced in September and could face life in prison.

While Russia, Iran, North Korea and other nations also use LinkedIn and other platforms to identify recruitment targets, the US intelligence officials said China is the most prolific and poses the biggest threat.

US officials said China’s Ministry of State Security has “co-optees” – individuals who are not employed by intelligence agencies but work with them – set up fake accounts to approach potential recruits.

They said the targets include experts in fields such as supercomputing, nuclear energy, nanotechnology, semi-conductors, stealth technology, health care, hybrid grains, seeds and green energy.

Chinese intelligence uses bribery or phony business propositions in its recruitment efforts. Academics and scientists, for example, are offered payment for scholarly or professional papers and, in some cases, are later asked or pressured to pass on U.S. government or commercial secrets.

Some of those who set up fake accounts have been linked to IP addresses associated with Chinese intelligence agencies, while others have been set up by bogus companies, including some that purport to be in the executive recruiting business, said a senior U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the matter.

The official said “some correlation” has been found between Americans targeted through LinkedIn and data hacked from the Office of Personnel Management, a U.S. government agency, in attacks in 2014 and 2015.

The hackers stole sensitive private information, such as addresses, financial and medical records, employment history and fingerprints, of more than 22 million Americans who had undergone background checks for security clearances.

The United States identified China as the leading suspect in the massive hacking, an assertion China’s foreign ministry at the time dismissed as ‘absurd logic.’

FILE PHOTO: The logo for LinkedIn Corporation, is pictured in Mountain View, California February 6, 2013. Credits: Reuters/Robert Galbraith/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: The logo for LinkedIn Corporation, is pictured in Mountain View, California February 6, 2013. Credits: Reuters/Robert Galbraith/File Photo

Unparalleled spying effort  

About 70 percent of China’s overall espionage is aimed at the US private sector, rather than the government, said Joshua Skule, the head of the FBI’s intelligence division, which is charged with countering foreign espionage in the United States.

“They are conducting economic espionage at a rate that is unparalleled in our history,” he said.

Evanina said five current and former US officials – including Mallory – have been charged with or convicted of spying for China in the past two and a half years.

He indicated that additional cases of suspected espionage for China by US citizens are being investigated, but declined to provide details.

US intelligence services are alerting current and former officials to the threat and telling them what security measures they can take to protect themselves.

Some current and former officials post significant details about their government work history online – even sometimes naming classified intelligence units that the government does not publicly acknowledge.

LinkedIn “is a very good site,” Evanina said. “But it makes for a great venue for foreign adversaries to target not only individuals in the government, formers, former CIA folks, but academics, scientists, engineers, anything they want. It’s the ultimate playground for collection.”

(Reuters)

China Issues Flood Alert to India Over Rising Water Level in Siang River

While 30 people stranded on an island in Arunachal have been airlifted, locals’ worries are far from over as China has said that the water level is likely to rise further.

New Delhi: The concerns of those residing by the Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh over the changing nature of the river that enters from China have only risen following the sighting of stiff waves in the otherwise placid river. Latest media reports have stated that heavy rains recorded across the border in the last few days have triggered the unusual development, leading the neighbouring country to send an alert note to the Indian government about possible floods in the downstream areas, which include not just a part of Arunachal but also neighbouring Assam.

China shares hydrological data with India on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers every year as per a 2006 agreement and a set of memorandum of understandings signed between the two countries in 2013 and 2015. A meeting in this regard was also held between the two nations in 2016.

According to reports quoting a circular issued by the deputy commissioner of East Siang, Tamiyo Tatak, a hydrological data report received from China said heavy rainfall led to the rise in water level of river Tsangpo (Siang is known by that name in Tibet) with an “observed discharge of 9,020 cumec” (equivalent to around 9.02 million litres of water per second) as of 8 am on August 29. A report in The Asian Age said: “This is stated to be the highest discharge in the river in 50 years.”

Also read: What Is Happening to the Siang River in Arunachal Pradesh?

The Arunachal Times reported on August 31, “Some 30 people, mostly cattle farmers, are stranded on an island in the Siang river in Jampani, under Sille-Oyan circle of East Siang district, even as the water level of the Siang river is rising.” The report said the DC “has written to the station commander of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Dibrugarh station, requesting for air-evacuation of the stranded people at the earliest possible to save their lives.”

On August 30, East Arunachal Pradesh MP Ninong Ering, who represents the area, tweeted a video of the surging river, requesting Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman to airlift the stranded people.


Ering, who has been tweeting about the changing features of the river since the end of 2017, told The Wire on August 31, “The defence ministry has acted on my request. All the 30 people have been airlifted this morning.” He, however, added, “But the worry of the local people is far from over as the Chinese government’s alert to the India government said that the water level is likely to rise further.”

On August 29, the district administration advised people living in low-lying areas on both the river banks “including Jarku, Paglek, SS Mission, Jarkong, Banskota, Berung, Sigar, Borguli, Seram, Kongkul, Namsing and Mer to remain alert, but said there was no reason to panic.”

Local reports said the district administration of Dhemaji in Assam bordering Arunachal has also alerted the local population in the flood-prone areas about the rising water levels in river Brahmaputra (Siang merges into Brahmaputra after entering Assam), besides the national and state disaster relief forces.