Month: August 2021

What Happens to Afghans’ Right to Internet Under the Taliban?

The Taliban say that they want to ensure internet access in Afghanistan, but they could face substantial technical and financial challenges to keep it running. Afghans say they fear more surveillance and censorship. 



“The Taliban have started to turn the internet on and off in some parts of Kabul,” said Habib Khan Totakhil, an Afghan journalist and founder of the Afghan Peace Initiative.

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, losing internet access has become a  major worry for Afghans, especially among the middle class.

“There is concern among journalists and activists that once the Taliban consolidates power, they will also turn off internet connectivity,” Totakhil told DW.

Citing local sources, BBC journalist Yalda Hakim tweeted on Sunday that internet and telecom services were disrupted by the Taliban in Panjshir province.


However, except for a small dip in the few days before and after the Taliban swept into Kabul, overall internet traffic in Afghanistan appears to have remained steady.

Access to social media sites including Twitter and Facebook, as well as messaging apps like WhatsApp, remain unblocked.

Since the internet was introduced to Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago, the World Bank estimates that 13.5% of Afghans currently have access.

Most users live in urban centres and are connected by an infrastructure built largely with foreign aid from the US and the World Bank and investment from foreign companies.

‘Taliban 2.0’ goes online

Many Taliban officials seem to be embracing the internet by joining Twitter and opening communication channels on WhatsApp. A few high-level officials have been photographed wearing Apple Watches.

A report by the Atlantic Council last week said that the Taliban weaponised social media during their campaign to take over Afghanistan. Other observers labeled the resurgence of the militant group as “Taliban 2.0.”

But for many, it was a shock that a group known for banning televisions and radios in the late 1990s was now not only allowing Afghans to access technology but also utilising it themselves.

Kabir Taneja, a fellow with the Strategic Studies program at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, sees the Taliban’s internet strategy as part of a broader approach to revamp the group’s image in the eyes of the Afghan people and the international community.

“The Taliban is still known for blowing up the Bamiyan Buddha statues, for public floggings,” Taneja told DW.

“The task of changing their image is really massive, so banning something like the internet would just add to that problem,” he added.

An Afghan man uses his mobile phone in Herat December 11, 2009. Photo: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl

Can the Taliban keep the internet running?

Taneja believes that the Taliban’s military success in retaking the country and their online media campaign does not mean they will be able to keep service up and running for Afghanistan’s millions of internet users.

“It was easy to waltz into Kabul with Kalashnikovs on their shoulders,” he said. “But when it comes to running power stations, when it comes to running internet ecosystems, these are things that we have not seen the Taliban be able to do.”

Last week, the Taliban met with officials from the Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA), and said they would be working together to ensure that internet access remains active.

This comes only a few months after ATRA reported that the Taliban had destroyed 28 telecommunication towers around the country.

Two of the largest providers of mobile communications in Afghanistan are Etisalat based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and South Africa’s MTN Group. MTN announced last year that it would be leaving the Afghan market. Etisalat has not made any public comments on whether or not they will halt operations.

“Right now it seems like the internet in Afghanistan is running on autopilot,” said Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at Kentik, a company that monitors global networks.

“It will be a few weeks before we will see if the Taliban have the capacity to keep the internet running, whether they have the manpower and the equipment to fix any internet outages or even just to keep the power on,” he told DW.

Afghanistan is connected to the rest of the internet through a series of fiberoptic cables that run north through Tajikistan, east through Pakistan and west through Iran.

The Taliban will have to keep paying for the broadband the country sends through the cables. With their assets in the US frozen, and foreign aid halted, it is unclear whether they will have the resources to keep the information flowing.

“The companies that are providing international bandwidth to Afghanistan, they are charging by the volume of traffic,” said Madory. ” And when the bill comes, if they don’t pay it, then they’re going to cut them off.”

Can the Taliban monitor online activity?

Afghans are also concerned that the militant group will begin monitoring content and traffic.

SensorTower, a site that tracks the top downloads from the Google Play store (the majority of people in Afghanistan use Android phones), shows internet security apps like virtual private networks (VPNs) and secure messaging apps like Telegram are gaining users.

“A lot of people are changing their handsets as well as their contact numbers,” said journalist Totakhil.

“Many are also switching to using [the encrypted messaging app] Signal because they believe that WhatsApp is compromised.”

Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, has taken steps to block the Taliban from using the service, for example, by shutting down a complaints line that the group had set up.

The company also joined Twitter and LinkedIn in making changes to their social media platforms in Afghanistan so that users’ digital histories and social connections are better protected.

Analysts Madory and Taneja believe the Taliban have the technology in place to shut down the country’s internet and block certain websites and services to halt opposition to their power. But both noted that it would be difficult for the Taliban to set up an online censorship system based on the ideologies of Sharia law.

“I’m guessing they don’t have the high level of sophistication that it would take to implement something like the ‘great firewall’ in China,” said Madory.

The Taliban have continued to insist that certain rights to free expression and women’s rights will be respected.

But local media has reported that in the southern city of Kandahar over the weekend, the Taliban banned music and women’s voices from being played over the radio.

Taneja believes that the internet will also soon be subject to similar bans that will start in the provinces before moving to Kabul.

“Let’s not forget,” said Taneja. “This is the Taliban.”

This article first appeared on DW.

Reggae Legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Who Revolutionised Dub, Passes Away

The ‘mad genius’ leaves behind six decades of groundbreaking musical innovation.



“Music is the only comforter, I’m telling you the truth,” said reggae producer and musical light seeker Lee Scratch Perry with preacher-like gusto at the time when he was revolutionising a new dub sound. Central to the evolution of rocksteady and reggae music — a sound he developed with Bob Marley and the Wailers — Perry later pioneered electronic dub beats that continue to color the contemporary musical landscape to this day.

Following the passing of reggae legend Bunny Wailer in March, news of Perry’s death on August 29 at the age of 85 in Jamaica signalled the end of a musical epoch. But the outpouring of tributes indicate that the mad genius’ star will continue to shine brightly.

Mike D of the band Beastie Boys, who collaborated with Perry in the 1990s, wrote on Instagram: “We are truly grateful to have been inspired by, worked with and collaborated with this true legend. Let us all listen to his deep catalogue in tribute.”

“Few people were as weird or cast as long a shadow as Lee Perry,” tweeted rock producer Steve Albini, who worked with bands like the Pixies and Nirvana. “His records were shocking and became talismans for anybody who ever tried to manifest the sound in their head.”

Kingston reggae roots

Born Rainford Hugh Perry on March 20, 1936 in a poor rural district of Jamaica, the musical prodigy was still a teen when he moved to the capital, Kingston, and began an apprenticeship at Studio One, the label dubbed the Motown of Jamaican music.

There he produced near 30 songs until interpersonal conflicts saw him move to various studios and finally establish his own label in 1968, Upsetter Records — a play on his own nickname, Upsetter, which stuck after his hit song “I Am the Upsetter,” released in ’67.

His first single on the label, released under the name Lee Perry, was “People Funny Boy,” which employed a groundbreaking sample (a crying baby) and a distinctive beat that would become known as reggae.

It sold over 50,000 copies and set Perry on the path to stardom, especially after he built his legendary Black Ark studio and began to collaborate with Bob Marley and the Wailers — the band that would make an obscure Jamaican reggae sound a global phenomenon.

The ‘mad genius’ of dub music

As a producer for acts from The Wailers to The Heptones, Perry often worked with his own studio band, The Upsetters.


This continued as reggae’s founding father developed his inimitable dub sound in the 1970s by employing revolutionary remixing techniques that would later influence hip hop and electronic dance music — exemplified by his 1976 album, “Super Ape.”

In this halcyon decade, Perry’s increasingly eccentric persona began to mirror his musical experimentation.

As author David Katz wrote in his Perry biography, “People Funny Boy”: “He has claimed to come from Jupiter, once said he was born in the sky, and has often named Africa as his true birthplace; Perry has additionally suggested that his empty body was taken over by space aliens after his undocumented death.”

The iconoclastic Perry was known to enjoy smoking large marijuana cigarettes at concerts around the world as he rose to global fame. In 1980, his pro-pot advocacy was aimed at the Japanese government when he protested the arrest of Paul McCartney for marijuana possession.

Exile from Jamaica

But Perry’s personal demons caused his work to suffer. He fell out with Bob Marley, and later claimed that he himself had laid the fire which destroyed his Black Ark studio in 1979 in a fit of rage.

He left Kingston and went into a long exile, living mostly in Switzerland. His career bottomed out until a revival in the 1990s, when he worked with acts such as the Beastie Boys, performing vocals on the song “Dr Lee, PHD,” and collaborating with the British dub music producer and protege, Mad Professor.

Then in 2002, Perry’s album Jamaican E.T. won a Grammy for best reggae album. He was nominated another four times as he toured the globe.

Perry described his music as “rhythm from the ghetto and music from the streets,” and he stayed true to his Jamaican roots, ultimately returning to and dying in the place where his musical odyssey began — and no doubt will continue.

This article first appeared on DW.

Robbers in Brazil Stage Brazen Bank Raids, Taking Hostages; At Least 3 Dead

Experts believe a COVID-19 pandemic welfare programme for poorer Brazilians has encouraged robbers to plan bold raids in sleepy regional cities where bank branches are storing more cash.

Rio de Janeiro: Armed robbers hit several banks in a small Brazilian city on Monday, using locals as human shields, leaving a trail of explosive devices and shooting at police in an assault that killed at least three people, a senior state security official said.

The brazen attack around midnight in Araçatuba, a city of roughly 200,000 people in the interior of Sao Paulo state, is the latest in a series of increasingly violent recent bank heists in Brazil. Experts believe a COVID-19 pandemic welfare programme for poorer Brazilians has encouraged robbers to plan bold raids in sleepy regional cities where bank branches are storing more cash.

More than 20 heavily armed men carried out the attack, using 10 cars, Alvaro Camilo, the executive secretary of Sao Paulo’s military police, said at a news conference. As the criminals made their getaway, they used locals as human shields, and burned cars, while leaving a trail of explosive booby traps across the city, the military police said in a statement.

The attackers used drones to monitor the streets as they entered the city, hit the banks, and made their getaway, the statement said.

Camilo urged people not to leave their houses until the explosives have been found and deactivated.

There were two separate firefights with police, and three people died, Camilo said. Two of the fatalities were local residents, while one of the alleged assailants was also killed.

The statement said two attackers had been arrested. One passerby who was injured by an explosion had his leg amputated, it added.

There were more than 350 police in the city, using two helicopters to track down the attackers, Camilo said.

He added that a Banco do Brasil SA branch in Araçatuba was a repository to store cash – something state officials were not aware of.

Late last December, there were two similar bank raids on consecutive days in the cities of Cametá and Criciúma, targeting Banco do Brasil branches in both cases.

Camilo said it was too early to tell where the most recent raid was related to other recent attacks.

Brazil has a long history of bank heists, and major lenders have struggled with a wave of violent robberies in recent years.

(Reuters)

Podcast: Ram Madhav’s Statement About Moplahs Is Entirely Political, But Religion Does Not Work in Kerala Politics

In conversation with historian and author Manu Pillai.

Recently, Ram Madhav of the RSS said that the Moplah Rebellion in Kerala in 1929 was a “manifestation of a Taliban mindset”. This was yet another attempt to rewrite history in a communal, polarising way.

Historian and author Manu Pillai, who has written books on the history of South India, says it is a “disappointing statement” and a political one. But in Kerala, he says, religion does not work in politics. In an interview on a podcast with Sidharth Bhatia, he says that since the Taliban is in the news, this statement is designed to appeal to ‘certain kinds of people.’

Minor Dalit Girl From Delhi Raped, Killed in Gurgaon Allegedly By Landlord’s Relative

The father has alleged in the FIR that landlady’s brother Praveen Verma, along with others, has killed his daughter.

Gurgaon: A 13-year-old Dalit girl from north Delhi’s Narela was allegedly raped and killed at neighbouring Gurgaon by a relative of her landlord, officials said Tuesday.

They said the landlady’s brother Praveen Verma has been arrested on the complaint of the girl’s father who made a PCR call when the accused allegedly tried to force the family to cremate the body.

In an FIR filed with the police, the girl’s father has said, “On July 17, my landlord’s wife said that her sister-in-law has given birth to a child and she was taking my daughter along with her to her brother’s home in Gurgaon. She also said that my daughter would stay there and could play with the daughter of her brother.”

However, around 3 pm on August 23, the father was informed by his landlord that his daughter has died, the FIR states. Around 7 pm, they took the body in a private ambulance to the girl’s Narela residence for cremation, it added.

When the father got suspicious, he made a PCR call and Narela police station staff reached the spot, and took the body to the Babu Jagjivan Ram hospital in Jahangirpuri, the FIR stated.

The father has alleged in the FIR that landlady’s brother Praveen Verma, along with others, has killed his daughter.

The Gurgaon Police said it has registered a case under Sections 302 (murder) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and SC/ST Act.

They said further sections were added in the FIR after the postmortem report confirmed sexual assault, and Verma was arrested.

Earlier this month, a nine-year-old Dalit girl was alleged rape and killed in Delhi Cantt area.

The girl died under suspicious circumstances even as her parents alleged that she was raped and forcibly cremated by a crematorium’s priest in southwest Delhi’s Old Nangal village.

The Afghan Catastrophe Is a Moment of Reckoning for the ‘Women, Peace and Security’ Agenda

Uncertainty hangs over whether the clock will turn back to the dark, misogynist past or if the assurance of a less cruel, more diverse politics prevail.

The Afghanistan catastrophe is a moment of reckoning for many global agendas — Empire and ‘war on terror’; top down modernisation and globalising “liberal” values; the western “saviour” trope of liberating and reclaiming brown women’s rights and the UN Security Council’s “women, peace and security” (WPS) obligations. 

Uncertainty hangs over whether the clock will turn back to the dark, misogynist past or if the assurance of a less cruel, more diverse politics prevail. Will geopolitical deal-making, which enabled the Taliban’s “soft landing”, deliver the inward-looking politics of a coalition government or precipitate the contagion of extremist ideologies and violent politics across borders? Will the reconfigured alignments of power in the region produce stability or get sucked into proxy struggles in a conflict-scape of state collapse with floods of refugees? 

In the fog of these collective anxieties is young Waziha Tokhi, the feisty university student from Zabul, Kandahar province, who I met at the Afghan National Women’s Peace Assembly in Kabul in 2017.  

Even then, as the Taliban’s power grew in rural areas and in the vicinity of cities and local commanders monitored buses leaving rural Zabul for Kandahar, Waziha remained undaunted. Resourceful, she used a subterfuge. Three times a week she travelled two hours by bus, often the sole woman, to study law and politics at Kandahar University. She wore a burqa one day, a hijab the next and a tightly wrapped chaddar on the third day. 

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan would mean a flattening of differences between urban and rural areas. It was in the cities that significant advances were made in women’s rights to education, health, mobility, livelihood and public office. But in Zabul, as elsewhere in the conflict-scarred south and east, more than 60% of girls were out of school because of insecurity, displacement and poverty. 

Waziha was one of the 23% of women enrolled at a university in Afghanistan. Even as an adolescent, she had run a school in her home for scores of girls unable to go to school. Today, was she among the melee of thousands at Kabul airport desperate to flee or was Waziha still determined to live her dream in an Afghanistan where Zarifa Ghafari (26) had become mayor in Maidan Shahr in central Wardak Province. 

Already, reports have been thick of women in the neighbouring Herat showing up at the university and being turned away, women working in banks in Kandahar told to go home and journalists with the public broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan stopped from working at the station’s offices till further notice. 

Waziha had been a vocal member of former President Ashraf Ghani’s Youth Parliament and like many gender equality activists, she had not questioned the cronyism and corruption of the Ghani regime. Like many urban Afghan “feminists” who focused on liberal values of freedom and not on the 2017 loosening of regulations on air strikes which killed civilians and wasted land, Waziha supported the foreign forces. 

Would her name be on the black lists that were said to be circulating of those the Taliban deemed ‘transgressors’ and targeted in house-to-house searches? 

Also read: UNSC Urges Taliban Not to Allow Terror Groups and to Ensure Safe Passage for Afghans

A general “amnesty”, declared the urbane Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid at the armed group’s first press conference, which was addressed as much to the international community as to Afghans. On women’s rights, Mujahid was emphatic; they would be contingent and conditional upon Islamic rights and worrisomely, women’s participation would be limited to the essential fields of education, ‘prosecution’ and health. 

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan August 17, 2021. Reuters/Stringer/File Photo

Equivocation on the question of women’s right to work in the media heightened uneasiness about freedom of the press amidst reports by the Committee to Protect Journalists of threats and killings of journalists since the Taliban surge. 

The newly emergent Women’s Collective of Muslims was not reassured. In a statement, they warned, “Given the Taliban’s well-documented track record of gender-based oppression, this arbitrary interpretation of what work will be available to women ‘within the framework of Islam’ is a worrisome indicator of what may unfold in the coming months and years. We cannot forget that their previous interpretation of religious texts has chosen to privilege misogynistic legal regimes masquerading as ‘shariah law’.”  

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), a radical Afghan women’s group, was most sceptical of any change in the Taliban’s mentality. RAWA had opposed both Soviet and US occupation as well as Taliban rule. In an interview to the Afghan Women’s Mission, RAWA said, “…the Taliban spokesperson declared that there is no difference between their ideology of 1996 and today. What they say about women’s rights [are] the exact phrases used during their previous dark rule: implementing Sharia law…. The Taliban will still be Islamic fundamentalists: misogynist, inhuman, barbaric, reactionary, anti-democracy and anti-progressive”.

The leading women’s organisation in Afghanistan, the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), struck a conciliatory note, presenting themselves as potential partners working with the Taliban to end the war. AWN board member Mehbouba Seraj was not going to quibble about what Afghanistan’s governing system would be – an Islamic Emirate. What was important was that the Taliban must talk to the women of Afghanistan. “Taliban cannot ignore 18 million women of Afghanistan,” she declared. 

Plaintively, she pinned her hopes on the logic that “the world is watching“ and the Taliban’s need to ward off isolation. Seraj lashed out at the US, the international community and Ghani’s government for failing to work out an interim power-sharing arrangement months ago and for vaulting the people into a void-like situation, rife for the many criminal elements to take advantage of. 

“Why? Because the West did not consider the Afghan people as equal. [US special envoy] Zalmay Khalilzad decided. Pakistan decided. The World decided. We, the Afghan people, didn’t decide. If we had been involved we would have worked out our own solution,” she said. 

Also read: UNSC Drops Language on Opposing Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, Singling Out Taliban on Terrorism

In an interview with Munizae Jahangir on Aaj TV, Seraj expressed outrage at US President Joe Biden’s deprecating comment that the Afghan national forces lacked “the will to fight”.  

“Their will to fight was killed the day when they discovered deals were being made, [to hand over power to Taliban]” she said, exasperated.  She would have wholly concurred with the bitter observation made on a Women’s Regional Network (WRN) podcast by Fionnuala Ni Aoláin, UN Special Rapporteur the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism that “our friends are not our friends”.   

In the geopolitical playbook of Afghanistan, players like Hamid Karzai – the US’s choice for piloting Afghanistan after the 2001 foreign intervention – figured in the 1994 deal that brought the Taliban back to Afghanistan after their incubation in Pakistan’s qawmi madrasas under the tutelage of Pakistan’s ISI and US agencies. This revelation was made by adoptive Kandahari and former consultant with US forces, Sarah Chayes. 

Karzai is back, coordinating the talks for an interim coalition governing structure. At the table is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an anti-Soviet warlord notorious for his human rights record. Hekmatyar was bought back by Ghani in 2017 in a controversial amnesty agreement to broker an understanding with militia groups and the Taliban, with the backing of the US. 

As the fog of war clears, confusion over the Taliban’s lightning sweep of the country gives way to evidence that the takeover was years in the making. A former colleague, Malalai Wardak, in Kabul, 2017 had warned of the deep disconnect between the government’s western directed modernisation project in the cities and the majority of people in the countryside under the thrall of regressive warlords. 

Between the collateral damage of the drone bombings and night raids for insurgents and the sackfuls of mismanaged American money that fed corrupt elites, even a female beneficiary of a USAID programme, quoted in a SIGAR military audit report admitted, “I believe if the US leaves Afghanistan, it will be better for people as a whole, as the only reason for war is the presence of the US in Afghanistan.” 

Involved in overseeing this metamorphosis in Afghanistan were the regionally proximate actors, Pakistan, China, Iran and Russia. Strategic analyst Alastair Cooke claimed that a “consensus with the Pashtun Taliban on the future was reached” and that these external powers “have brought their Afghan allies [i.e. other Afghan minorities, who are almost as numerous] to the negotiating table alongside the Taliban.” 

Whatever the strength of this argument, the Taliban has seemingly reinvented itself as a multi-ethnic, sophisticated coalition. 

None of these actors, including India, a latecomer in opening a back channel with the Taliban, is interested in defending women’s rights. The moral agenda of “liberating Afghan women”, used to justify a war for revenge against a criminal attack by a non-state actor, died when it was dropped from the US-Talib exit talks at Doha as an “inconvenient liability”. 

In Afghanistan, the UN Security Council’s “women, peace and security” agenda was militarised and women’s rights instrumentalised in pursuit of goals of “countering violent extremism”.  

Dismayed at the tragedy of states’ betrayal of the obligation to protect and promote human/women’s rights, Ni Aolain retorted, “We’ve had 20 years plus of the WPS agenda. And if that agenda doesn’t mean something now, it’s worthless.” 

 The UN mandate-holder for balancing fundamental freedoms with countering terrorism was determined that states cannot be allowed to be expedient and relative on human/ woman’s rights. “What women and women activists have to do is cease to show up to meetings on WPS. If the Security Council will not act on that agenda in the moment where it matters, we [will] withdraw from talking to you about WPS.” 

Ni Aoláin, in the WRN podcast, spoke of the Afghanistan catastrophe as a moment of reckoning, not only for governments, but also for women and the networks of women activists across the world who have rallied around, promoted and, in a way, seen themselves as defined by WPS agenda. 

Afghan women will work out their own equation with the Taliban but they need the moral pressure of the world to be watching. The alternative dystopia is too dark to reimagine. 

Rita Manchanda is a scholar and activist and the author of Difficult Encounters with WPS Agenda in South Asia, Bristol 2020.

Noida: SC Directs Demolition of Supertech Emerald’s Twin 40-Storey Towers in 3 Months

The apex court directed that the entire amount of homebuyers be refunded with 12% interest from the time of booking, and the cost of the entire demolition exercise has to be borne by Supertech.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday directed demolition of twin 40-storey towers of Supertech’s Emerald Court project in Noida for violation of building by-laws.

The apex court directed that the entire amount of homebuyers be refunded with 12% interest from the time of booking and the Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) be paid Rs 2 crore for the harassment caused due to the construction of the twin towers.

A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah said that April 11, 2014 verdict of the Allahabad high court, which directed demolition of twin towers, does not deserve any interference.

It said the construction of Supertech’s twin 40 storey towers having 915 flats and shops was done in collusion with Noida (New Okhla Industrial Development Area) authority and the Allahabad high court was correct in holding that view. The high court had passed the judgement while hearing a writ petition of the Emerald Court Owners RWA, which alleged that the approval and construction of the two towers was “in complete violation of the UP Apartment Acts”.

“This construction dilutes safety standards (and) illegalities have to be dealt with strictly. (The) sanction given by Noida authorities is violative of building regulations… goes against minimum distance requirements between towers… fire safety norms have been violated… garden area was violated to construct the towers,” the apex court said, as per an NDTV report.

Also read: Can a New DFI Fill the Vacuum of Long-Term Infra Financing and Revive the Indian Economy?

However, Vikas Singh, the lawyer representing the firm, had said, “We have followed the minimum distance criteria, followed the fire safety norms and all other parameters. There was no illegality as canvassed by the home buyers.”

The top court bench said that the demolition exercise of the twin towers be carried out within three months under the supervision of Noida Authority and an expert agency, and the cost of the entire exercise has to be borne by Supertech Ltd.

The top court said that recently it has seen rampant unauthorised construction in metropolitan areas in collusion with planning authorities and it has to be dealt with sternly.

According to the report, in the previous hearing, the top court had also demanded to know why and how the Noida authorities, in their “eternal wisdom”, permitted large construction projects such as this in a designated ‘green area’.

(With inputs from PTI)

Taliban Celebrate ‘Complete Independence’ as Last US Troops Leave Afghanistan

As the US troops departed, they destroyed more than 70 aircraft, dozens of armoured vehicles and disabled air defences that had thwarted an attempted Islamic State rocket attack on the eve of the US departure.

Celebratory gunfire echoed across Kabul as Taliban fighters took control of the airport before dawn on Tuesday following the withdrawal of the last US troops, ending 20 years of war that left the Islamic militia stronger than it was in 2001.

Shaky video footage distributed by the Taliban showed fighters entering the airport after the last US troops took off a minute before midnight, marking the end of a hasty and humiliating exit for Washington and its NATO allies.

“The last US soldier has left Kabul airport and our country gained complete independence,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf said, according to Al Jazeera TV.

The US Army shared an image taken with night-vision optics of the last US soldier to step aboard the final evacuation flight out of Kabul – Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

US Army Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, steps on board a C-17 transport plane as the last US service member to leave Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 30, 2021 in a photograph taken using night vision optics. Photo: XVIII Airborne Corps/Handout via Reuters

America’s longest war took the lives of nearly 2,500 US troops and an estimated 240,000 Afghans, and cost some $2 trillion.

Although it succeeded in driving the Taliban from power and stopped Afghanistan being used as a base by al Qaeda to attack the United States, it ended with the hardline Islamic militants controlling more of the country than they ever did during their previous rule from 1996 to 2001.

Those years were marked by the brutal enforcement of the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, and the world is now watching to see whether it forms a more moderate and inclusive government in the months ahead.

Thousands of Afghans have already fled fearing Taliban reprisals. A massive but chaotic airlift by the United States and its allies over the past two weeks succeeded in evacuating more than 123,000 people from Kabul, but tens of thousands who helped Western countries during the war were left behind.

A contingent of Americans, estimated by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as under 200 and possibly closer to 100, wanted to leave but were unable to get on the last flights.

General Frank McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command, told a Pentagon briefing that the chief US diplomat in Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, was on the last C-17 flight out.

“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we’d stayed another 10 days, we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out,” McKenzie told reporters.

As the US troops departed, they destroyed more than 70 aircraft, dozens of armoured vehicles and disabled air defences that had thwarted an attempted Islamic State rocket attack on the eve of the US departure.

“National disgrace”

President Joe Biden, in a statement, defended his decision to stick to a Tuesday deadline for withdrawing US forces. He said the world would hold the Taliban to their commitment to allow safe passage for those who want to leave Afghanistan.

“Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended,” said Biden, who thanked the US military for carrying out the dangerous evacuation. He plans to address the American people on Tuesday afternoon.

Biden has said the United States long ago achieved the objectives it set in ousting the Taliban in 2001 for harbouring al Qaeda militants who masterminded the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The president has drawn heavy criticism from Republicans and some of his fellow Democrats for his handling of Afghanistan since the Taliban took over Kabul earlier this month after a lightning advance and the collapse of the US-backed government.

Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the US withdrawal a “national disgrace” that was “the direct result of President Biden’s cowardice and incompetence.”

But Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse tweeted: “Bravo to our diplomats, military, and intelligence agencies. An airlift of 120,000 people in that dangerous and tumultuous situation is something no one else could do.”

Blinken said the United States was prepared to work with the new Taliban government if it does not carry out reprisals against opponents in the country.

“The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support. Our position is any legitimacy and support will have to be earned,” he said.

The Taliban must revive a war-shattered economy without being able to count on the billions of dollars in foreign aid that flowed to the previous ruling elite and fed systemic corruption.

The population outside the cities is facing what UN officials have called a catastrophic humanitarian situation worsened by a severe drought.

A Taliban official in Kabul said the group wants people to lead an Islamic way of life and get rid of all foreign influences.

“Our culture has become toxic, we see Russian and American influence everywhere, even in the food we eat. That is something people should realise and make necessary changes. This will take time but will happen,” he said.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Stephen Coates; Editing by Lincoln Feast & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Paralympics: Debutant Singhraj Adana Claims Bronze in Men’s Air Pistol

With Adana’s win, India’s tally stood at eight medals.

Tokyo: Indian shooter Singhraj Adana, who took to the sport just four years ago, on Tuesday won the Paralympics bronze medal in the P1 men’s 10m air pistol SH1 event here.

The 39-year-old, who has polio and was making his Games debut, shot a total of 216.8 to finish the event in third place after qualifying for the eight-man final as the sixth-best shooter.

This is India’s second medal in shooting. Avani Lekhara won the women’s 10m air rifle standing finals (SH 1) on Monday. India has now won eight medals at the Tokyo Games, including two golds.

Hovering around the top three, Adana dropped out of contention with his poor 19th shot but managed to get back in the reckoning with his 20th attempt as China’s Xiaolong Lou got 8.6.

China, though, dominated the finals with defending champion Chao Yang (237.9, a Paralympic record) and Huang Xing (237.5) winning the gold and silver medals respectively.

Before his 9.1 saw him slip to fourth, Singhraj had moved up to the third place as the Chinese shooter endured a low series.

The shooter from Haryana’s Bahadurgarh took to the sport only four years ago and had served as the chairman of the Sainik School in Faridabad.

His grandfather was part of the country’s freedom movement and served in the British Indian Army during the second world war.

Adana was coming into the Games after winning gold at the 2021 Para Sport World Cup held in Al Ain, UAE, where he upstaged 2016 Rio Paralympics bronze medallist Server Ibragimov by 2.8 points to claim the top spot.

As the pistol is held with one hand only, athletes in SH1 category have an impairment affecting one arm and/or the legs, for example resulting from amputations or spinal cord injuries. P1 is a classification for the men’s 10 air pistol competition.

Some shooters compete in a seated position, while others take aim in a standing position as defined in the rules.

The other Indian shooter in the event, Deepender Singh finished 10th.

Rubina Francis finishes seventh

Earlier in the day, fancied Rubina Francis finished seventh in the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 final.

Rubina was on 128.1 points when she was eliminated in seventh place at the Akasa Shooting Range.

As the pistol is held with one hand only, athletes in SH1 pistol have an impairment affecting one arm and/or the legs, for example resulting from amputations or spinal cord injuries.

Iran’s Sareh Javanmardi won the gold medal with a world record score of 239.2. Rubina held the previous world record with 238.1.

It was always going to be an uphill task for Rubina after she shot 6.6 in the first series.

Still, she was placed fourth after the end of the 1st competition stage with 93.1 points, as the elimination rounds began.

She could not regain lost ground and was the second shooter to be eliminated in the eight-women final.

Earlier, she started off well in the qualifications to finish seventh with 560 points and make the final.

At the end of the first series, Rubina was in 13th place with 91 points but the Indian shooter moved into sixth place after a total of 187 at the end of the second series.

Rubina then moved to third place with 282 points at the halfway stage of the qualifications.

In the next two series, Rubina recorded scores of 93 and 93 respectively and slipped to the seventh spot.

The 22-year-old from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh had set the world record in the finals at the World Cup in Lima, Peru in June.

She was born with an impairment in her leg.

In May, she had contracted COVID-19 while at the national training camp.

She was unable to train for more than a month, until days before the World Cup event in Lima, Peru, where she won gold in the women’s SH1 10m air pistol and secured a quota place for Tokyo.

Nine New Judges Administered Oath of Office, Raising SC’s Strength to 33

Three of the elevated judges could become chief justices of India in the future.

New Delhi: Nine new judges, including three women, were on Tuesday administered oath of office as judges of the Supreme Court, taking its strength to 33.

This is the first time that nine judges took oath of office as Supreme Court judges in one go.

The appointments end a 21-month impasse in the Supreme Court collegium, which did not make any new recommendations since then CJI Ranjan Gogoi’s retirement in November 2019. The impasse was apparently caused by disagreements over the elevation of Tripura high court Chief Justice Akil Kureshi.

Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana administered the oath of office to the new judges in a swearing-in ceremony held in the auditorium of the Supreme Court’s additional building complex.

With the swearing-in of the nine new judges, the Supreme Court is just one short of its sanctioned strength of 34.

The nine new judges are Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Jitendra Kumar Maheshwari, Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B.V. Nagarathna, Justice C.T. Ravikumar, Justice M.M. Sundresh, Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice P.S. Narasimha.

Justice Nagarathna, the daughter of former CJI E.S. Venkataramiah, is in line to become the first woman CJI in September 2027.

Justices Nath and Narasimha are also in line to become CJIs.

Narasimha was a senior advocate and former additional solicitor general.

Traditionally, the oath of office to new judges is administered in the CJI’s courtroom, but the swearing-in ceremony was shifted to the auditorium keeping in view the need for strict adherence to COVID-19 norms, a press release issued by the apex court’s public relations office on Monday had said.

Before the administration of the oath of office, the warrant of appointment issued by President Ram Nath Kovind was read during the swearing-in ceremony.

Three future CJIs elevated

Justice Nath is in line to become the CJI upon the retirement of sitting apex court judge Justice Surya Kant in February 2027.

Justice Nath would be succeeded by Justice Nagarathna, who would have a tenure of just over a month as the head of the judiciary.

Justice Narasimha would succeed Justice Nagarathna as the CJI and would have a tenure of over six months.

The apex court collegium had on August 17 recommended these nine names for appointment as judges of the top court.

Later, the president had signed the warrants of their appointment as apex court judges.

The top court, which came into being on January 26, 1950, has seen very few women judges since its inception and in the last over 71 years has appointed only eight lady judges starting from M. Fathima Beevi in 1989.

Until Tuesday, Justice Indira Banerjee was the lone serving woman judge in the apex court. She was elevated on August 7, 2018 from the Madras high court, where she was serving as the chief justice.

While high court judges retire at the age of 62, the retirement age of Supreme Court judges is 65.

The recommendation of these nine names by the five-member collegium headed by CJI Ramana at its meeting on August 17 had put an end to the 21-month-long logjam over the appointment of new judges to the top court.

The impasse over the appointment had led to a situation in which not a single name for the judgeship in the apex court could be recommended after the superannuation of then CJI Ranjan Gogoi on November 17, 2019.

Exclusion of Justice Kureshi?

The appointments have not been without controversy as Tripura high court Chief Justice Akil Kureshi was not among those picked by the Supreme Court collegium for elevation to the top court. This was surprising, as he was the senior-most high court chief justice after Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, who was elevated.

The BJP government at the Centre scuttled Justice Kureshi’s elevation as chief justice of the Madhya Pradesh high court in 2019. He was later sent to the Tripura high court. The current government’s opposition to Justice Kuresh apparently stems from the judge’s 2010 decision to send Amit Shah, who was then the Gujarat home minister, to police custody in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

Analysts, therefore, suspect that the five-member Supreme Court collegium has been reticent to recommend Justice Kureshi’s elevation to the top court, since the Union government is unlikely to approve it.

The 21-month impasse was apparently caused by Justice R.F. Nariman, who was part of the collegium before his retirement on August 12, 2021, who took a stand that he would oppose any recommendations if Justice Kureshi was excluded. As LiveLaw pointed out, it is noteworthy that the nine names were cleared by the five-member Supreme Court collegium immediately after Justice Nariman’s retirement.

Also Read: Justice Akil Kureshi Elevation: Should Token Gender Empowerment Trump Fairness?

LiveLaw‘s Manu Sebastian also noted that the collegium’s focus “appeared to have been more on diversity than seniority, as four puisne judges – two women and two persons from marginalised communities – have been elevated”.

However, this still does not explain why Justice Kureshi was excluded, as the Supreme Court still has one vacancy. “If the collegium chooses not to stand by the judges and opts to toe the executive line in judicial appointments, there can’t be a bigger threat to judicial independence,” Sebastian wrote in LiveLaw.

(With PTI inputs)