Category: National

China-India Border LAC announced in the 1950s, and the international community including India are also clear about it

The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is a notional demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the Sino-Indian border dispute. The term is said to have been used by Zhou Enlai in a 1959 letter to Jawaharlal Nehru. It subsequently referred to the line formed after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, and is part of the Sino-Indian border dispute.

China’s Foreign Ministry had earlier told India’s Hindustan Times that it abides by the version of the LAC which was proposed by its then premier Zhou Enlai to then Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru in a letter dated November 7, 1959.

“Firstly, China-India border LAC is very clear, that is the LAC on November 7, 1959. China announced it in the 1950s, and the international community including India are also clear about it,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said last week in a statement released in Mandarin.

“However, ever since this year, the Indian Army has continued to arrive and illegally cross the border, unilaterally expanding the scope of actual control. This is the source of tension on the border issues. The key to disengagement between the two armies is India’s withdrawal of all illegal cross-border personnel and equipment,” it added.

There are two common ways in which the term “Line of Actual Control” is used. In the narrow sense, it refers only to the line of control in the western sector of the borderland between the Indian union territory of Ladakh and Chinese Tibet Autonomous Region. In that sense, the LAC, together with a disputed border in the east (the McMahon Line for India and a line close to the McMahon Line for China) and a small undisputed section in between, forms the effective border between the two countries. In the wider sense, it can be used to refer to both the western line of control and the eastern line of control, in which sense it is the effective border between India and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

In the 1959 letter, Zhou had written to Nehru: “In order to maintain effectively the status quo of the border between the two countries, to ensure the tranquillity of the border regions and to create a favourable atmosphere for a friendly settlement of the boundary question, the Chinese government proposes that the armed forces of China and India each withdraw 20km at once from the so-called McMahon Line in the east, and from the line up to which each side exercises actual control in the west.”

LAC of 7 November 1959

The date of 7 November 1959, on which the Chinese premier Zhou En-lai alluded to the concept of “line of actual control”, achieved a certain sanctity in Chinese nomenclature.

Scholar Margaret Fisher states that the Chinese maps had over the years shown a steadily advancing line in the western sector of the Sino-Indian boundary, each of which was identified as “the line of actual control as of 7 November 1959”.

On 24 October 1962, after the initial thrust of the Chinese forces in the Sino-Indian War, the Chinese premier Zhou En-lai wrote to the heads of ten Afro-Asian nations outlining his proposals for peace, a fundamental tenet of which was that both sides should undertake not to cross the “line of actual control”. This letter was accompanied by certain maps which again identified the “line of actual control as of 7 November 1959”.

Fisher calls it the “line of actual control as of 7 November 1959” as published in November 1962. Scholar Stephen Hoffmann states that the line represented not any position held by the Chinese on 7 November 1959, but rather incorporated the gains made by the Chinese army before and after the massive attack on 20 October 1962. In some cases, it went beyond the territory the Chinese army had reached.

This line was not acceptable to India as the depiction of an actual position,^[14] but it was apparently acceptable as the line from which the Chinese would undertake to withdraw 20 kilometres. Despite the non-acceptance by India of the Chinese proposals, the Chinese did withdraw 20 kilometres from this line, and henceforth continued to depict it as the “line of actual control of 1959”.

In December 1962, representatives of six Afro-Asian nations met in Colombo to develop peace proposals for India and China. Their proposals formalised the Chinese pledge of 20-kilometre withdrawal and the same line was used, labelled as “the line from which the Chinese forces will withdraw 20 km.”

India has officially rejected this unilateral interpretation of the LAC by China.

With inputs from Times Now News | Wikipedia

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This is roughly a 10-fold jump in numbers from the first ICMR sero-survey conducted across 70 districts in 21 States that sought to estimate the likely number of infected until early May.

Around 7% of India’s adult population may have been exposed to the coronavirus till the last fortnight of August, according to the second national sero-survey by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

This is roughly a 10-fold jump in numbers from the first sero-survey conducted by the Council across 70 districts in 21 States that sought to estimate the likely number of infected until early May. The people tested in the second survey were drawn from the same villages and clusters as the first, in which the scientists said that 0.73% of adults — or about 6.4 million — across the country were likely infected.

No figures were shared on the likely number of infections by ICMR Director General, Dr Balram Bhargava, in his presentation on the sero-survey on Tuesday. But 7% of the population works out to about 62 million persons.

Sero-surveys are conducted by drawing blood samples and checking for a specific class of antibodies called IgG that appear within two weeks of an infection. Because it is yet unclear how long antibodies to the coronavirus detectably persist in the body, their presence only indicates past exposure to — and not presence of — the virus.

During the first survey, it emerged that there were 82-130 infections for every confirmed COVID-19 positive case. That number has now dropped to 26-32 infections, which according to Dr. Bhargava, was the result of ramped up testing and early case detection.

In September there were 29 million tests, compared to 23 million in August, 10.5 million in July and 30,000 in March according to Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan.

However, the numbers also suggest that the country still has an overwhelming majority of its population yet to be exposed to the virus and therefore, is far from any peak’ or ‘herd immunity’ levels. These refer to approximate estimates that show what percentage of the population needs to be exposed to the virus so that the its spread is curtailed.

Urban slums at risk

“The risk of being exposed to the virus is real and we have to continue with our measures. Risk in urban slums is twice that of non-slums and four times that in rural settings,” said Dr. Bhargava.

One in fifteen individuals above 10 were exposed to the virus by August and there was no difference by age group and gender.

“In light of upcoming festivities, winter season and mass gatherings, inventive containment strategies need to be implemented by States,” Dr. Bhargava emphasised.

The country wide prevalence of the virus was similar to that seen in the United States, which was around 9.3%. Brazil and Spain had a prevalence of 2.8% and 4.6%, the ICMR said.

A scientist connected with the survey but who declined to be identified, said the final peer-reviewed version of the study was likely to be available in a month. The lower rate of confirmed cases to true infections was due to an increase in testing as well as the large scale deployment of rapid antigen tests (these are quick tests to determine the presence of virus but also tend to substantially miss infections).

“The opening up of the country has no doubt seen the virus spread and it is quite likely that these numbers will increase in the coming months. There needs to be a consistent decline for several weeks before we can think of having reached a peak,” said the scientist.

The average prevalence in major cities in India ranged from 50% in Mumbai to 29% in New Delhi, 22% in Chennai and 7.8% in Indore. The sero-survey, because it aims to capture national prevalence, samples many more from rural India than cities to reflect the population spread in the country. On May 3, there were 49,720 confirmed cases in India and 3.7 million ones by September 1 — a 74-fold increase. As of Tuesday, India has recorded 6.1 million confirmed infections, of which about 9,50,000 are active cases.

With inputs from The Hindu

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The government defended its actions and said Amnesty International is in “clear contravention” of Indian law

A view of Amnesty International India office at Indiranagar, in Bengaluru, Karnataka on September 29, 2020. | Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar

Expressing “concerns” about the government’s investigation into Amnesty International (AI), the European Union said it hopes the global human rights agency can continue its work in India.

However, the government defended its actions and said AI is in “clear contravention” of Indian law.

The action against AI including freezing their funds, followed a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) enquiry, and is part of the government’s scrutiny of more than 20 international NGOs including Greenpeace, Compassion International, and Ford Foundation, over the past few years.

“We have already raised the issue with our Indian interlocutors in New Delhi and in Brussels, expressing our concerns and the expectation that these issues will be solved, and we will continue to do so,” EU spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security policy Nabila Massrali said, in a response to The Hindu.

“Not prejudging the outcome of any investigation or judicial proceedings, the European Union highly values the work of Amnesty International worldwide and hopes that the matter will be resolved, allowing Amnesty to continue its activities in India without interruption,” Ms. Massrali added.

The Ministry of External Affairs declined to comment on the EU’s comments.

However, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a broad defence of actions by various agencies against AI for the past decade, calling it a “bipartisan and purely legal approach towards Amnesty”, which has now suspended its India operations, claiming a “witch-hunt” by the government.

“In order to circumvent the FCRA regulations, Amnesty UK remitted large amounts of money to four entities registered in India, by classifying it as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). A significant amount of foreign money was also remitted to Amnesty (India) without MHA’s approval under FCRA. This malafide rerouting of money was in contravention of extant legal provisions,” said the MHA in a rare public statement on the NGO entitled “Human Rights cannot be an excuse for defying the law of the land”.

“India, by settled law, does not allow interference in domestic political debates by entities funded by foreign donations,” the MHA added, in a pointed reference to AI’s reports on alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as its reference to Delhi Police investigations into the February riots in Delhi where 53 people were killed.

The government said the enquiry into Amnesty International had been undertaken by both the UPA and the NDA regimes over the past decade which, it said, showed that the “entire fault lies in the dubious processes adopted by Amnesty to secure funds for its operations.”

The Congress-led UPA government had blocked over ₹5 crore foreign funds to Amnesty between 2010 and 2013 after receiving allegedly adverse intelligence reports. In 2014, the Modi government blocked Amnesty’s request to receive a ₹3 crore foreign donation as well.

Since Amnesty International Foundation and its three subsidiaries — Amnesty India Private Limited, Indians for Amnesty International Trust and Amnesty International South Asia Foundation — are not registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010 (FCRA), a pre-requisite for civil society groups, associations and NGOs to receive foreign donations, it used the “prior permission” route, which meant applying to the government each time it wanted to accept a foreign donation. In 2019, the Enforcement Directorate also served a show-cause notice to Amnesty for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) involving ₹51.72 crore.

In the past five years, the government has taken action against several foreign donors including U.S.-based Compassion International, Ford Foundation, World Movement for Democracy (WMD), Open Society Foundations (OSF) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Ford Foundation was taken off its watchlist after protests from several U.S. Congressmen and the Obama administration.

The same year, the registration of Greenpeace International was cancelled on the premise that it compromised the “economic security” of the country by allegedly orchestrating protests at coal plants and at other developmental projects.

With inputs from The Hindu

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

It says freezing of accounts by the Centre is the latest in the “witch-hunt” of human rights organisations

Amnesty International India on Tuesday said the government had frozen all its bank accounts, leading to all of its work in the country coming to a halt.

“The complete freezing of Amnesty International India’s bank accounts by the Government of India which it came to know on September 10, 2020, brings all the work being done by the organisation to a grinding halt. The organisation has been compelled to let go of staff in India and pause all its ongoing campaign and research work,” a statement by the human rights organisation said.

The freezing of accounts was the latest in the “witch-hunt” of human rights organisations, the statement said.

“The continuing crackdown on Amnesty International India over the last two years and the complete freezing of bank accounts is not accidental. The constant harassment by government agencies including the Enforcement Directorate is a result of our unequivocal calls for transparency in the government, more recently for accountability of the Delhi Police and the Government of India regarding the grave human rights violations in Delhi riots and Jammu & Kashmir. For a movement that has done nothing but raise its voices against injustice, this latest attack is akin to freezing dissent,” Amnesty International India executive director Avinash Kumar said.

Amnesty added that it had complied with all applicable international and Indian laws. For its work in India, it said it raised funds domestically and around 1 lakh Indians had contributed financially in the past eight years.

“These contributions evidently cannot have any relation with the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. The fact that the Government is now portraying this lawful fundraising model as money-laundering is evidence that the overbroad legal framework is maliciously activated when human rights activists and groups challenge the government’s grave inactions and excesses,” the statement said.

The release further said that Amnesty International India stood in full compliance with all applicable Indian and international laws and for human rights work in India, it operates through a “distinct model of raising funds domestically”.

The release further states that “attacks” on Amnesty International India and other human rights organisations, activists and human rights defenders are “only an extension of the various repressive policies and sustained assault by the government on those who speak truth to power.”

“Treating human rights organisations like criminal enterprises and dissenting individuals as criminals without any credible evidence is a deliberate attempt by the Enforcement Directorate and Government of India to stoke a climate of fear and dismantle the critical voices in India. It reeks of fear and repression, ignores the human cost to this crackdown particularly during a pandemic and violates people’s basic rights to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, and association guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and international human rights law,” said Mr. Kumar.

With inputs from The Hindu

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The officials had called the woman to the railway station on the pretext of offering a job.

The Government Railway Police (GRP) have arrested two Railways officials on the charge of raping a 22-year-old woman at a rest house on the Bhopal station premises on Saturday.

The GRP had arrested Rajesh Tiwari, security counsellor and in-charge of disaster management with the Bhopal railway division, and Senior Section Engineer Alok Malviya, the GRP said.

The survivor from Uttar Pradesh had informed the police that Mr. Tiwari befriended her on the social media, and called her to Bhopal on the pretext of offering a job. She arrived here on Saturday morning, said Bhopal Superintendent of Railway Police (SRP) Hitesh Choudhary.

The accused booked a rest room for her on the first floor of platform number one at the Bhopal railway station. And later both the accused gave her drinks laced with sedatives and raped her, her complaint to the police said.

The woman, after regaining consciousness, approached the GRP, who registered a case under sections 376D (gang rape), 328 (Causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence) and 323( Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code.

With inputs from The Hindu

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REUTERS

The British telecom giant moved the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2016.

Vodafone Group Plc said on Friday that it had won an international arbitration case against the Indian government, ending one of the most high-profile disputes in the country involving a $2 billion tax claim.

An international arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that India’s imposition of a tax liability on Vodafone, as well as interest and penalties, were in a breach of an investment treaty agreement between India and the Netherlands, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

India had claimed a total of ₹279 billion ($3.79 billion), including about $2 billion in tax, as well as interest and penalties, one of the sources said.

The tribunal, in its ruling, said the government’s demand is in breach of “fair and equitable treatment” and it must cease seeking the dues from Vodafone. It also directed India to pay 4.3 million pounds ($5.47 million) to the company as compensation for its legal costs, one of the sources added.

Vodafone said in a statement the amount of the award was confidential. Shares in the company’s India unit, Vodafone Idea , ended 13% higher on Friday.

“The tribunal held that any attempt by India to enforce the tax demand would be a violation of India’s international law obligations,” Vodafone said in its statement.

India’s Finance Ministry said it would carefully study the award, together with its lawyers. “After such consultations, the government will consider all options and take a decision on further course of action including legal remedies,” the Ministry said in a statement.

“Vodafone has finally got justice, first from the Indian Supreme Court and now from an international arbitral tribunal,” said Anuradha Dutt, senior partner at DMD Advocates, an Indian law firm representing the company.

The ruling brings an end to one of the most controversial disputes in India under international treaty agreements that it enters into with countries to protect foreign investments.

India is entangled in more than a dozen such cases against companies, including Cairn Energy, over retrospective tax claims and cancellation of contracts. The exchequer could end up paying billions of dollars in damages if it loses.

To reduce future arbitration claims, India has ended such agreements with over 50 countries and is working on a new law to protect foreign investors by offering relief from possible policy changes even as it upholds the right to tax them, Reuters reported.

Vodafone’s tax dispute stems from its $11 billion deal to buy the Indian mobile assets from Hutchison Whampoa in 2007. The government said Vodafone was liable to pay taxes on the acquisition, which the company contested.

In 2012, India’s top court ruled in favour of the telecom provider but the government changed the rules to enable it to tax deals that had already been concluded.

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Srinagar: A Boston University doctor says a sufficient amount of vitamin D can cut the risk of catching coronavirus by 54%.

“People have been looking for the magic drug or waiting for the vaccine and not looking for something this simple,” said Dr. Michael Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine.

Holick and his colleagues studied blood samples from Quest Diagnostics of more than 190,000 Americans from all 50 states and found that those who had deficient levels of vitamin D had 54% higher COVID positivity compared to those with adequate levels of vitamin D in the blood.

The risk of getting coronavirus continued to decline as vitamin D levels increased, the study, published in the Public Library of Science One peer-reviewed journal shows.

Kashmiris still waiting for fulfilment of UN commitments: Pakistan

PTI

In a scathing attack on Pakistan, India has said that if there is an “unfinished agenda” at the UN, it is that of tackling the scourge of terrorism and the country, a globally-recognised epicenter of the menace, which harbours and trains terrorists and hails them as martyrs.

Exercising India’s right to reply on Monday, First Secretary in the country’s

Permanent Mission to the UN Vidisha Maitra said: “Pakistan is a country which is globally recognised as the epicenter of terrorism, which by its own admission harbours and trains terrorists, and hails them as martyrs and consistently persecutes its ethnic and religious minorities”.

She was referring to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s remarks in the country’s Parliament where he had termed former al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden as a “martyr”.

“We reject the malicious reference made to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral part of India. If there is an item that is unfinished on the agenda of the UN, it is that of tackling the scourge of terrorism,” Maitra said.

As the UN member states marked 75 years of the United Nations in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday raked up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir during his address to the high-level meeting on the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the world organisation.

Qureshi said Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine were the UN’s “most glaring and long-standing disputes” and the people of Jammu and Kashmir still await the fulfillment of the commitment made to them by the UN to grant them their “right to self-determination.”

With Pakistan yet again raising the Kashmir issue at a UN platform, Maitra said India had hoped that during this solemn commemoration of a shared global milestone, the General Assembly would be “spared another repetition of the baseless falsehoods that have now become a trademark of Pakistan’s interventions on such platforms”.

“However, for a nation that is bereft of milestones, one can only expect a stonewalled and stymied approach to reason, diplomacy and dialogue.

“What we heard today is the never-ending fabricated narrative presented by the Pakistani representative about the internal affairs of India,” she said.

Strongly rejecting the reference made to Jammu and Kashmir, Maitra said Pakistan “will do well to turn its attention inwards to immediately addressing these pressing concerns instead of diverting attention from them by misusing the UN platforms.”

(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

PTI

New Delhi: Opposition parties led by the Congress criticised the farm bills tabled in Rajya Sabha on Sunday, saying they will not sign on the “death warrant” of farmers

The opposition charged that the two bills are aimed at benefitting big corporates and ending the minimum price based procurement by the government.

Rajya Sabha took up the discussion on The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill that have already been passed by Lok Sabha.

K K Ragesh (CPI-M), Derek O’Brien (TMC), Trichi Siva (DMK) and K C Venugopal (Congress) moved resolutions for sending the two bills to a select committee of the House for consideration before they are taken up for passage.

Initiating the discussion on these two bills, Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa, who hails from Punjab, described the proposed laws as “ill-conceived and ill-timed” and said his party “completely rejects” them.

He said the bills are against land owners across the country, especially those of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.

“We will not sign on death warrants of farmers”, he said.

With agriculture being a state subject, he said the bills are against the federal cooperative spirit.

“We do not want any tinkering in APMC and the minimum support price ( MSP),” he said, and wondered what was the need to bring these bills during COVID-19.

Bajwa said farmers are on streets to protest against these two bills. “Those whom you want to benefit are on the streets”.

The Congress leader said that the BJP’s alliance partner Akali Dal has already opposed the Bills and Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Union Cabinet.

Bajwa said the bills have been brought with an “intention of ending the MSP (minimum support price) operations”.

“Slowly, the government will come out of this and then Ambani, Adani and big corporate houses will enter (market),” he alleged.

The Congress leader said the two bills are against the economic interest of Punjab, which has contributed a lot in making India self-sufficient in foodgrain production.

Defending the two Bills, Bhupender Yadav of the BJP charged that the Congress was doing politics over this issue and misleading farmers.

He asked the Congress why the farmers’ income did not increase in the last 60-70 years even as the country become self-sufficient in farm production.

These two important bills are the biggest agriculture reform in the country and will give justice to farmers by increasing their income, Yadav said.

He rued that food processing level is still very low in India and said the new age agriculture bills will boost processing, marketing, and exports of farm produces.

Yadav said a report of working group of agriculture production in 2010 suggested similar reforms. “Today, you (Congress) is doing politics. You are doing injustice with farmers because of politics,” he said.

However, he said the country and farmers are understanding the “politics” of the Congress. Farmers are a vote bank for the Congress, he said.

He highlighted various schemes and programmes launched by the prime minister in the last six years for the growth of the agriculture and allied sectors while noting that the budget for the agriculture sector has been enhanced.

Yadav said the government will continue to purchase crops at the minimum support price (MSP), which will prove the “falsehood” spread by the Congress.

“Opposition should stop doing politics and also misleading farmers,” he said.

Yadav also said the contract farming already exist in many states including Punjab and Haryana.

“We are not taking away land of farmers,” he said, and added that the two bills are only meant to harness the huge potential of the agriculture sector.

TMC leader Derek O’Brien demanded that the Bills should be send to a select committee.

“These bills need to be debated in Parliament. You have the numbers to have your way and we have the right to have our say and to keep you on track of Parliamentary democracy. This is very very dangerous trend we are following. Select committee is not a hand break…it is there to contribute. I am going to move select committee,” he said.

The TMC leader said the States have not been consulted on these Bills and questioned the government’s tall promises and its credibility.

“The PM said the opposition is trying to mislead the farmers. Let us see what credibility you have to make these speeches. You promised to double farmers’ income by 2022. At current rate, the farmer incomes would not double till 2028. I can also give big talk,” he said.

“You gave big lecture on ‘notebandi’. what has happened? After 50 minutes of announcing ‘notebandi’, Mamata Banerjee said withdraw this draconian decision. We told you but you did not listen,” he added.

Noting hat the government promised two crore jobs every year, he said: “Now you have the highest unemployment. You credibility is low to make promises.”

SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav said there seems to be some compulsion that the ruling party does not want to discuss the bills and is in a hurry to pass them.

He asked how farmers would find corporations to sell their produce.

“It appears that this bill has not been drafted by you. A son of a farmer cannot draft such a bill. When you go back to your native place, the youth would ask you what were you doing when our death warrants were being issued in Parliament,” he asked.

With inputs from PTI

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

PTI

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday expressed anguish at the loss of lives in a building collapse at Bhiwandi in Maharashtra

Seven children were among ten people killed and 11 others rescued after a three-storeyed building collapsed in Bhiwandi town on Monday, police said.

“Saddened by the building collapse in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra. Condolences to the bereaved families. Praying for a quick recovery of those injured. Rescue operations are underway and all possible assistance is being provided to the affected,” Modi said.

With inputs from PTI

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