By Chayanika Saxena*

Having passed through what can be claimed as two successful rounds of international parleys, the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States on Afghan Peace and Reconciliation process, and an informal but highly critical Doha Dialogue on Peace and Security in Afghanistan that could manage to get the political office of Taliban on board, it can be said that the process of reconciliation looks rather promising this time around. But even as the forces of peace and reconciliation might have been set in motion with greater effect than they had been in the recent past, a question that continues to riddle the current edition of talks is: how long will this round last?

The concern for ‘durable peace’ which is on the minds (or, let us believe that it is so) of all the participants who are a part of the renewed attempts, certainly sets a daunting challenge that requires more than just talking-shops to be instituted every now and then. Certainly, talks do lead to action, but the current round of ‘jaw-jaw’ might not be enough for a country that stares at another ‘spring offensive’ debilitating it further.

With a day to go before the third round of the Quadrilateral talks is held in Islamabad, it becomes critical to delineate what can possibly be the domestic accelerators and decelerators to the efforts underway. In doing so, it is critical to underscore that the peace and reconciliation process that has apparently got the whole world concerned is ultimately an Afghan enterprise. As the joint statement produced at the end of the first round of QCG (held on 11 January 2016) too had mentioned, the international bolstering is just that- a support; the process of reconciliation and the establishment of peace in Afghanistan has to be both Afghan-led and Afghan-owned. Thus, given the centrality of the domestic factors in the carving of this edition of peace talks, it becomes pertinent to focus on the enablers and challenges that the home-setup of Afghanistan can throw at the fragile peace process.

Faced by numerous challenges that are of national and trans-national nature, it would perhaps be comforting to be reminded that the desire for peace rides high among the common masses of Afghanistan.

Here it becomes instructive to note here that as a process, reconciliation is both top-down and bottom-up in its nature and that general local willingness and acceptance to the process matters as much, or perhaps, more in executing and sustaining the process of reconciliation. Affected by a fledgling economy, unabating political confusion and chaos and an international environment that is clamoring the quid-pro-quo principle on all its investments like never before, people of Afghanistan are convinced that it is high time that peace becomes not an intermittent but a permanent reality for them.

Despondent with the prevailing conditions and wanting a resolution, people of Afghanistan have arrived at what can be described in the literary metaphor as the ‘tipping point’. While the circumstances are on no scale small or minor, but they have certainly reached a stage from where a large change- and which is peace- appears to be the only development required and possible. In strict academic terms, this ‘tipping point’ has been called by William Zartman as ‘ripe moment’. A situation which sets in when a conflict is still going on, ‘ripe moment’ is essentially a stage of ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ when the parties to the conflict find themselves in a painful deadlock and where escalation of violence to achieve victory appears to be impracticable and even impossible.

But, where the masses are convinced that it is time to move out of the hurting stalemate that has set in, the question is whether the parties to the negotiation- the Afghan government and Taliban- see the prevailing situation as ripe enough for peace to be ushered in. The answer to this vexed question appears to be in both affirmative and negative at the same time.

Yes, the present edition of peace talks do speak in a tenor of confidence about giving peace a chance- after all, the third round would be underway very soon. But, where this confidence does take a blow are the domestic circumstances that may not be so much disposed in favor of arresting the spiraling violence affecting the country.

To begin with, the legitimate political front in Afghanistan, and which is the National Unity Government (NUG), is a divided house. While there is no denying that this dual-headed government does want to negotiate peace for the country and its people, just about how it wants to achieve the same has got it being pulled in opposite directions. Even as the regional and international forces are dissuading Kabul from keeping any preconditions to the talks, however the internal rumblings are of a kind that are not letting the two leaders look eye-to-eye on how to deal with Taliban. Although both, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah are convinced- as is the whole of Afghanistan- that Taliban will have to renounce violence to be considered as committed partners in the peace process, it is the terms of subsequent participation that have become the source of discord.

The Abdullah-led contingent within the government and the supporters outside are reluctant to cede any space to Taliban within the current political setup of the country. Believing that this insurgent movement is yet to prove its credibility and commitment towards abandoning its violent and parochial approach to dealing with the issues confronting the country, the CEO has consigned the possibility of a political negotiation with Taliban to the realm of future.

While not disagreeing with the description that the CEO-band has accorded to Taliban, the Ghani camp however, is not shying away from providing planks for political representation to this insurgent group right away. In fact, at the time when governmental infighting over the distribution of ministerial berths was at its peak- in the months after NUG was instituted (September 2014)- reports were rife about members of the political office of Taliban being given berths within the new establishment. Given that the process of reconciliation- at least theoretically- advises ‘reintegration’ for achieving sustainable results, the real practice of these tenets in the absence of agreement on political negotiations with Taliban makes it look like a far-off cry.

Apart from the friction between the two heads, those occupying the immediate (such as Gen. Dostum) and lower rungs within the national government and those wielding power the provinces (such as Ata Noor) might not be ready advocates for political reintegration of Taliban into the Afghan mainstream either.

Much like their ‘legitimate’ political challenger, the ‘shadow’ government of Taliban is now a show of many shadows. Ever since the death of its spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar was confirmed the last year, the war of succession within Taliban has come out in the open and so much so that the movement which had been known for its unity is now a fractured house within, with some 3-4 splinter groups contesting it ideologically and physically from outside.

While the new leader of Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour has been able to quell a lot of dissension – by force and otherwise – and has managed to score a lot of strategic victories – (temporary) re-capture of Kunduz, Musa Qala, etc. – it cannot no longer deny that they have just too many masters now. With each side calling itself the ‘true’ version of the Islamic Emirate – which is what Taliban calls its government-in-exile- the infighting within Taliban implies that there will be variety of responses to the peace process – from compliance to its outright discarding.

Apart from sieving the talking-Taliban from the shooting-Taliban – which in itself is a grave problem as reconciliation is not possible without getting everyone on the same page – one of the biggest obstacles that remain to the successful conduct and execution of the peace process are the preconditions Taliban have placed. From demanding that its name be pulled down from the list of internationally proscribed outfits, that its leaders’ assets be de-frozen and that they be granted freedom of movement, Taliban continues to be unyielding so far as the acceptance of international presence in Afghanistan and its current constitution are concerned.

Wanting that the international forces pack their bags and leave and that changes be made to the existing constitution to get it more in sync with its interpretation of the Sharia law, the Masour-led Taliban, while open to political negotiation with the current Afghan government, is almost adamant on the points mentioned above.

To add to an incorrigible Taliban, that now has some equally unrelenting offshoots which it does not have any control over, the rising threat of the Islamic State – which interestingly the former denounces as uncouth and alien – has made the peace process murkier domestically. With their ambitions that cross the current nation-state boundaries of many countries, including India, the envisaged vilayet (district) of Khorasan of the Islamic Caliphate will be a bigger hindrance for the peace process to materialize.

The time may be ripe for some and may not be for others, but peace in Afghanistan is certainly the need of the hour for every ordinary Afghan. The international prodding aside, it is the people of Afghanistan who can be the most effective force, forcing change on both the sides of the conflict, the Afghan government and Taliban, a conflict in which they have been the biggest casualty.

*Chayanika Saxena is a Research Associate at the Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. She can be reached at: chayanika.saxena@spsindia.in

Indian Foreign Minister Mrs. Sushma Swaraj said the government of India solidly thanks Sri Lanka for its policies behind the reconciliation and the development.

Swaraj said India admires the speech recently delivered by Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena in the Parliament, stating that he would take the country towards development while bringing about the peace and reconciliation among every community.

“The Indian government will give its fullest support to implement those policies mentioned in that statement,” Swaraj said.

Swaraj who called Saturday on President Sirisena at the Official Residence of the President stated that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government of India are fully satisfied with the program of the new government of Sri Lanka.

President Sirisena, who commended the support provided to Sri Lanka by India thanked the Indian government for its comprehensive assistance extended for the reconciliation process and economic proposals especially in this critical moment.

“India has been a friend of Sri Lanka for a long time. That is why I selected India for the first state visit after my election as the President,” said President Sirisena.

Responding to the President, the India Foreign Minister stated that India’s policy is to keep close friendships with the neighboring countries.

“The Indian government gives priority for Sri Lanka on this regard,” Swaraj said.

The Indian Foreign Minister who expressed her satisfaction about the decisions taken regarding the delayed activities during last few years defined by the Indo – Lanka bilateral discussions, said it was able to come to a new agreement about the technical cooperation.

President Sirisena requested the assistance of India for the comprehensive program to be launched by the Sri Lankan government to improve the health and education of the people of the estates. Swaraj ensured the support to be granted for health and technology through the ITECH Agreement.

The President explained the Indian Foreign Minister about the government’s policy on the establishing of reconciliation in the country, amendment of the constitution and the international relations of Sri Lanka.

Indian Foreign Secretary Dr. S. Jaishankar and the High Commissioner Y. K. Sinha also were present at this occasion.

*This article is based on a report by Samanmali Karunanayake published by the Sri Lanka’s President office

By Kalinga Senevratne*

Government statistics show that in this affluent Southeast Asian nation, one in three workers are migrants. They build the modern infrastructure, clean the buildings, cook and serve in restaurants, look after the children and elderly at home, while often being paid very poorly and treated shabbily and looked at suspiciously by the locals.

Beginning with the 2013 Little India riots where hundreds of Indian workers attacked police vehicles to the recent arrest of 27 Bangladeshi workers suspected of having links to Islamic terrorist groups, there has been much tension in the community with regards to migrant workers. As one law student put it: “We only find out about migrant workers through second hand sources which does not really say who they are.”

Though this is not a peculiar phenomenon to Singapore, yet, with one of the highest ratios in the world between migrant workers and the local population, and with most of these workers coming from neighbouring countries in Asia, ill treatment of foreign workers in the country could have regional diplomatic repercussions.

The weeklong Migrant Workers Awareness Week (MWAW) that started on January 31 was an initiative launched by the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2014 and expanded this year to include the Yale-NUS joint-venture university.

It was designed to expand the scope of law studies by getting the students to mingle with migrant workers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work with them to find out first hand about the workers, their hopes and aspirations that have brought them to Singapore to work. It was an initiative of the law school to especially sensitize the law students to the legal, social and political issues that encompass labour migration.

The five-day series of events brought together close to 400 students from the two elite universities with NGOs and up to about 130 foreign workers. It started with Bengali poetry reading on January 31 that reflected the loneliness of Bangladeshi workers here and ended with a “talk in the park” between students and migrant workers in a darkened area at night on February 5. In between there were panel discussions on the law and migrant workers, social issues dealing with domestic workers and trafficked sex workers.

“Many of our students come from rather affluent middle class backgrounds,” law student Victor David Lau, Vice President of Events at NUS Law School told IDN. “So we come from a position of privilege and we may overlook certain matters such as the rights of migrant workers.”

“Many of our students may have a domestic worker at home,” he added. “This person is a citizen of another country and needs to be respected.”

Though Lau believes that the changes in mind-set of law students may not come overnight and would take time to develop, the university’s out-of-class room education strategy is designed to address the problem of students having a stereotype view of migrant workers through second hand information obtained from the media that does not reflect the hardships workers go through, nor their hopes and aspirations that drives them to work overseas.

In addition to the panel discussions and meeting in the park, students were also taken on guided tours to a foreign worker dormitory and the “red light” Geylan area to observe sex workers at work.

Opening the weeklong education process, Dean of the NUS Law Faculty Prof Simon Chesterman said that there is an underbelly to Singapore’s prosperity and that is the rights of migrant workers. “Our students are encouraged to do pro-bono work to help migrant workers to deal with constant problems,” he noted. “I have seen at Changi airport foreign workers returning home without their legal grievances resolved.”

In the opening panel discussion of the MWAW under the theme of ‘Migrant Workers: Persons or Projects?’ there was much debate about the need to improve legal protection for the foreign workers. The panel’s moderator, senior law lecturer Prof Sheila Hayne, said that when she first came to Singapore she was warned that Singaporean law students were only interested in getting their grades and going on to make money. “But, I have found many are socially aware,” she noted. “Many migrant workers come to us and complain about the injustice.”

Prof Hayne believes that with socially aware law students there will be possibilities of making a difference working and networking with migrant workers, NGOs, community, government officials and the media.

Pointing out that there is a foreign domestic worker force of 227,000 in a population of 4 million in Singapore, Jolovan Wham, Executive Director of the domestic worker advocacy NGO HOME argued that there is a historical perspective about unpaid home care that tends to downplay the rights of domestic workers.

“There is no focus on human rights and labour rights of domestic workers, instead the relationship between the employer and the worker is based on loyalty and trust,” he noted. “By treating the domestic worker as part of the family, it reinforces that she is not an employee. So limits on working hours, holiday entitlements and union protection are not given.”

Wham argued that domestic workers have to be included in the Labour Act. But, fellow panellist, Tan Fang Qun, Deputy Director of Workforce Policy and Strategy of Ministry of Manpower (MOM) disagreed, arguing that the domestic workplace is very difficult to be included in a legal framework. He cited a recent foreign worker survey conducted by his ministry that found that only one in ten foreign workers were unhappy with working conditions in Singapore.

Alex Au from the NGO Transient Workers Count Too, another NGO that handles thousands of migrant worker complains each year, disagreed and in a passionate address to the students and academics, he argued that the structure of the Singapore economy need to be understood before healing the problem of exploitation of foreign labour. “Migrant workers are disposable, Singapore gives priority to corporate rights over human rights and workers’ rights,” he lamented.

Both Wham and Au pointed out that one of the biggest areas where migrant workers are exploited is by recruitment agents.

As of December 2014, there have been more than 1.3 million migrant workers in Singapore. 73% of these workers are work permit holders who are classified as unskilled or low-skilled workers and they come here through recruitment agents who charge them anything between $3,000 to $10,000 to find them a job that would pay you as little as $400- 600 a month.

Most of the workers who come under this category are from the Philippines, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Nepal and China, where these payments are not documented. Thus, even though such payments are outlawed in Singapore, MOM is unable to stop the practice.

Both Wham and Au believe that if the future lawyers are made aware of the problem they may be able to help to find legal remedies to this modern day scourge. “All the NGOs give plenty of opportunities for volunteers to participate in our work” said Au, adding that they take sometimes 100s of students at a time to help them to conduct surveys, to go out to the community and talk to workers and find out if they get proper salaries and so forth.

Wham pointed out that HOME has only 6 full time staff and the missing link is to translate awareness into action. He believes that law students in particular should be well equipped to help in this task.

“You need to go and talk to your MPs (member of parliament) about migrant worker rights,” he argues. “Let your MP know that we care about global issues – about rights of migrant workers”.

Law student Lau says that with the seminars involving the NGOs, they are trying to reach out to the academically oriented students. “Not only that these students will bring these issues into their assignments, but also need to incorporate it in their work as well,” he argues. “Education is not only about studying but also creating a social effect and if we can bring these social ideas to their work it will be great.”

*The author is a Sri Lanka born journalist and academic, who teaches regional communication issues at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

By Amulya Ganguli*

The conventional wisdom is that India must keep talking to Pakistan even if there are terrorist outrages by the supposedly non-state actors operating from the sovereign precincts of Pakistan. The believed-to-be ‘hardliner’ Narendra Modi, too, has accepted this line although he said before the last general election that a dialogue cannot take place against the sound of gunfire in the background.

As his latest initiatives show, he has changed his mind after assuming power. He is now ready to go more than halfway to accommodate Pakistan. It is possible that his motivation is the unstated ambition of Indian prime ministers, especially those of recent years, to write their names in history books via a permanent peace accord with Pakistan.

Although it is presumed that the Pakistan army is the main obstacle to such a settlement because it will rob them of their salience in the country’s political life, the Indians – and now apparently even Nawaz Sharif – appear to be keen on ignoring the Pakistani generals and continue the negotiations. This much is evident even as the Pathankot may have temporarily stalled the dialogue process. There is little doubt, however, that sooner or later, the talks will be resumed.

But are they necessary at all? Instead of persisting with the seemingly futile exercise of meetings at regular intervals at the level of foreign secretaries or national security advisers or even the prime ministers while the Pakistan army prepares to sabotage the talks by sending well-trained terrorists across the border, wouldn’t it be better if New Delhi offered a take-it-or-leave-it proposal to Islamabad and leave it at that?

The outline of the proposal will be to finalize the border question by a mutual acceptance of the Line of Control (LoC) as the international boundary. A deal on these terms was said to be nearly clinched in Manmohan Singh’s and Pervez Musharraf’s time.

Although it will be unacceptable to the Pakistan Army since an arrangement of this nature will nullify its dream of ‘conquering’ the whole of Kashmir and instead remain satisfied with only the moth-eaten ‘Azad’ Kashmir in a moth-eaten country – to use Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s description of Pakistan on the eve of partition – New Delhi can still insist that this is its final offer.

Its proviso will be: accept it or there will be no further talks. To Indians as also to the rest of the world, it will seem like a sensible solution after so many decades of bitterness and bloodshed if only because it will put an end to the unending tension in a region which is seen as a nuclear flashpoint.

India will also be able to tell the world that it is willing to forget the parliamentary injunction of recovering the “lost” portion of Kashmir for the sake of peace.

However, since the Pakistan army will be unwilling to accept the proposal as the unfinished business of the partition, in its eyes, will remain unfinished, its unflattering image of being the main hindrance to a settlement will be reinforced.

How will the average Pakistani respond? The jihadis are unlikely to stop sneaking across the border with the army’s and the ISI’s help to murder and create mayhem in India. But they will know, as will their patrons that their depredations will be in a vacuum, so to say, since their original purpose of snapping the lines of communication and thereby pressurizing India no longer exists.

Their acts of terror, therefore, will only bring further disrepute to the Pakistan army and the ISI – staining their name which will be disconcerting to the vast majority of Pakistanis, to whom the jehadi rampages are likely to seem increasing meaningless.

It will become obvious that the Pakistan army and the ISI have painted themselves in a corner by taking an uncompromising stand on Kashmir. At one time, their position may have made sense when the Americans and West in general wanted India to concede some unspecified ground on Kashmir.

But by encouraging terrorism virtually worldwide and harbouring Osama bin Laden in a safe house near an army cantonment, the Pakistan army has shot itself in the foot. It must now be aware that it is chasing a mirage in Kashmir. There is no way that it can wrest what New Delhi regards as its integral part (“atoot ang”) from India either by direct military action, as in Kargil, or by sending jihadis across the border.

India, on its part, has little to lose, except suffer occasionally from the terrorist attacks which will induce Washington to keep urging Pakistan to rein in the terrorists – both the “good” ones like the anti-India Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed and the “bad” anti-Pakistan ones like Tehreek-e-Taliban.

Having made its final offer, India can afford to wait and focus its attention on the economy. It can even urge Pakistan to facilitate greater trade between the two countries even as Islamabad mulls over the offer on Kashmir.

But there will be no more dialogues of the deaf, as the India-Pakistan talks have sometimes been called, with the two sides going over the same points over and over again with little hope of moving forward.

*Amulya Ganguli is an eminent writer on current affairs. He can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

By Dr. Saleh Al-Naami*

The Israeli, Cypriot, Greek summit held in Cyprus’s capital city, Nicosia, is another example of how Tel Aviv’s predictions regarding its gas discoveries on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were realized. Tel Aviv had predicted that its huge gas discoveries in what it claims to be its “economic waters” would reinforce its geostrategic position, as well as its regional status. It also predicted that it would enable Israel to deepen its strategic partnership with the countries forming the Arab “axis of moderation”.

Cyprus and Greece agreed in the summit to market Israeli gas in Europe by transporting it through a large pipeline that would link Israel’s gas fields to Greece. From there, it will reach countries interested in importing it.

According to media reports, the cost of establishing this pipeline, which will be started soon, is about $6 billion.

Further suggestion of the serious steps being taken by the three countries in the context of their cooperation is their agreement to link the Israeli, Cypriot and Greek electricity networks. This ultimately aims to allow all three countries to rely on a joint electric network.

The tripartite summit and the resulting historic agreement occurred after a series of bilateral meetings between Netanyahu, Nicos Anastasiades and Alexis Tsipras in Tel Aviv, Nicosia and Athens.

Despite the fact that the summit was held in Nicosia, it was clear that Tsipras, who represents the radical left-wing in Greece, was the keenest on strengthening relations with Israel, as he visited Tel Aviv twice in less than two months.

Some Israeli commentators believe that Netanyahu will use the tripartite summit as a means of pressuring Turkey to back down from some of its conditions to normalise relations with Tel Aviv, especially in terms of the conditions for the export of Israeli gas through Turkey.

Arad Nir, Israel’s Channel 2 international commentator, says that Netanyahu is telling Erdogan that Israel could get things done without Turkey and that the regional atmosphere for Tel Aviv is much better than the international atmosphere is for Ankara.

Professor Arye Mekel, a prominent researcher at Bar-Ilan University and former ambassador to Greece, said hostility towards Turkey is a common denominator amongst the countries that formed the alliance, which they announced last Thursday in Nicosia.

According to Mekel, Israel used the strategy of hinting to Cyprus and Greece that it would improve its relations with Ankara at their expense to convince the Cypriots and Greeks to strengthen their strategic cooperation with Israel.

It is clear that Israel used the fact that the Greek and Cypriot decision-making circles and political elites see Turkey as their top enemy to their advantage.

An indicator of Israel’s predictions being fulfilled in terms of its relations with Greece is the fact that the EU Greek representative led the opposition against the proposal to label goods produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank when selling them in Europe.

It is worth noting that the Israeli minister of defence met with his Greek counterpart, Panos Kammenos, in Athens last week, and that on Wednesday, the Greek and Israeli governments held a joint meeting in occupied Jerusalem under the leadership of Netanyahu and Tsipras.

The new regional alliance also includes countries that did not participate in the meeting, including Egypt. It is important to note that the Egyptian-Cypriot-Greek summits held over the past two years compliment the summits which Israel participated in.

It is clear that Israel is interested in isolating Turkey economically and politically after establishing this four-party alliance.

The question that arises here is: Will the Gaza Strip, once again, pay the price of regional considerations? Has the four-party alliance drawn the curtain on the possibility of lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip once and for all?

It is difficult to answer these questions because there are many people within the Israeli elite who believe that lifting the siege on Gaza is in Israel’s best interest, as it reduces the chance of a new confrontation.

(Translated by MEMO from Al-Resalah, on February 05, 2016.)

By Meenakshi Sood*

The execution of Shia religious scholar Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia set in motion a series of unfortunate events that have the potential to deepen instability in the volatile Middle East, and whose reverberations will be felt throughout the world.

Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic ties with Iran after an attack on its embassy in Tehran, and has been prodding its allies to do the same. The recent flair-up in the adversarial relations between the two archrivals comes at a time when the region, wracked by perennial conflict, is in need of Tehran and Riyadh to play a stabilizing role. This, however, seems unlikely as both are engaged in a power struggle for regional hegemony, which overlaps with the age-old tussle between Shias and Sunnis.

The present situation in the region presents a diplomatic dilemma for India which has maintained good relations with both the countries. India can no longer rely on the security umbrella provided by the West and will have to adopt a more proactive approach to the region. What will that entail? Will New Delhi have to pick sides and, in the process, isolate some of its old friends? Indian foreign policy is entering an unchartered territory where its diplomatic acumen will have to pass its most difficult test so far.

Saudi-Iran confrontation

The current standoff between Saudi Arabia, which claims to be the champion of the Sunni cause, and the Shia Iran, can have disastrous consequences for regional stability and international security. Both are involved in the most contentious regional issues, in some cases having the influence to affect outcomes. Regional tensions between Shias and Sunnis are already high and will play out in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. The renewed international efforts to halt the conflict in Syria could get derailed as friction increases and both become unwilling to concede ground.

Riyadh can be expected to take a hard stance on Assad regime’s patrons, Iran and Russia and will be inflexible on the composition of the opposition’s delegation at the planned talks later this month. The fledging efforts to counter jihadist outfits like Al-Qaeda and IS will be further complicated. In Lebanon, the political settlement after a twenty month long power vacuum can be derailed. The debilitating effect of the confrontation is already evident in Yemen where the collapse of truce coincided with Saudi-Iran standoff. Despite assurances from both sides that the drift is a bilateral issue and will not affect ongoing peace processes, world community’s concerns cannot be assuaged as both will be unwilling to make concessions.

Riyadh’s growing insecurity about the changing balance of power in the region, especially in the wake of rapprochement between Iran and the West, has nudged it to adopt a more muscular approach to foreign policy. The execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr was meant to send a message to Iran and the world that Saudi Arabia will resist Iran’s push for dominance in the region. The country is under stress from mounting domestic challenges- a battered economy over falling oil prices, demands for reforms and a divided House of Saud.

Under the leadership of Mohammed bin Salman, the young Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince, the country has shown a willingness to undertake unilateral steps to safeguard its interests, manifest in the 34 nation strong coalition of mainly Muslim countries – including powers such as Egypt and Turkey – to coordinate a fight against “terrorist organisations”. He is also believed to be the force behind Riyadh’s southern misadventure in Yemen. The Kingdom’s allies in the Arab world have been muted in their criticism. While Bahrain has broken off diplomatic ties, UAE and Kuwait have restricted their response to downgrading diplomatic relations.

Indian Predicament

The tug-of-war between Iran and Saudi Arabia presents a diplomatic dilemma for India. India is heavily invested in the Middle East and any instability in the region is to its detriment. An import-dependent country, more than 70% of India’s crude oil comes from the Middle-East. As its economy grows, Indian reliance on the GCC countries and Iran to meet most of its energy needs will only increase in the future. Its seven million strong expat community sends back $40 billion annually in remittances.

The conflict also presents a challenge for its bilateral relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia, both countries with whom it has maintained good relations. This has been possible due to its policy of staying neutral in regional conflicts. Many have argued that India should use its diplomatic capital to play a more proactive role in steeling disputes in the region. However, the fear of domestic repercussions has kept India away. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran are of strategic and commercial importance, making it imprudent for India to take sides in the conflict.

Saudi Arabia hosts the maximum number of Indian expatriates and is a major employer of Indian nationals. Economic and commercial links with the country have improved over the years, with the Arab Kingdom becoming India’s number four trade partner and a significant partner in the area of investments and joint ventures. It is a key security partner in an unstable region and shares India’s concerns over combating terrorism. Due to falling oil prices and mounting unemployment for people under 30 who constitute 70 per cent of the population, there are concerns that the Gulf Kingdom might not remain a key employment destination as it becomes more inward-looking.

New Delhi hopes to reinvigorate economic and strategic engagement with a resurgent Tehran. Iran, with the world’s second largest gas reserves and fourth largest oil reserves, is crucial for India’s energy security. India primarily imports oil from Iran but in the light of restrictions imposed by global powers over its nuclear program the relationship did not reach its potential. India will not find it easy to court Iran as in the changed environment a more assertive Iran will drive hard bargains as it will have a multiplicity of customers and partners to choose from.

Already China has become Iran’s largest trading partner. Iran and India share similar concerns over Afghanistan and future role of Pakistan in the country and have decided to hold ‘structured and regular consultations’. Iran can act as India’s entry point to Afghanistan and energy-rich Central Asian region, as has happened in the case of Chabahar port. Located 72km west of Pakistan’s Gwadar port, Chabahar port in Iran allows India to circumvent Pakistan and opens up a route to Afghanistan.

The challenges for India emanating from crisis in West Asia are multifold. Its eight million-strong community settled in the region remains vulnerable, as was evidenced during the crisis in Yemen. India had to undertake a massive rescue operation in April last year to evacuate 4,000 Indian nationals. An uninterrupted flow of energy is of crucial importance for energy-hungry India. On the domestic front, many fear that Shia-Sunni conflicts in the Middle East will flame sectarian conflicts in the country. More than 90% of Muslims in India are Sunni but opinion is divided on the extent of their allegiance to Saudi Arabia. Domestic consequences of conflicts in the Middle East will remain limited on the plural society of India.

Concerns over spillover effect of Shia-Sunni tensions on domestic security of India have kept India away from getting involved militarily in the region. Unlike in the past, however, India can no longer rely on the security umbrella provided by the West to safeguard its interests in the region. US’s approach to the region has been circumspect and its allies in the West have been unwilling to replace it. India has both the need and the resources to play a more active role in the region to safeguard its interests.

The region is witnessing the breakdown of the old order whilst the new order is still in formation, presenting India with the opportunity to insert itself in the region’s security architecture. The region wants to engage Asian countries and we need to take advantage of this by upgrading our bilateral relations with the stable states. Hence, India should focus on strengthening its bilateral, political, and economic and security ties with (relatively) stable countries within the region, diversifying its relations and moving beyond energy trade. India’s security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is a case in point.

India should also be willing to work in tandem with other Asian countries where their interests converge. Thinking ahead, India should develop contingency plans for potential fallout of conflicts in the region, like devising a viable plan to ensure the safety and security of Indian diaspora and countering the effects of falling remittances in case people choose to move back to India.

*Meenakshi Sood is a Research Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She can be reached at: editor@spsindia.in

For many Israelis, the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 marked a grim turning point for their country. In the words of the commission set up to investigate the murder, “Israeli society [would] never be the same again. As a democracy, political assassination was not part of our culture.”

In the eyes of most people, the murder ended all hope for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process through the Oslo Accords and altered the course of history.

I have been quite skeptical on the prospect of a lasting peace to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since at least 1977 when the Likud Party of Menachem Begin came to power. For peace to really work, it requires justice, something that has never been in the DNA of the Zionist founders and leaders of Israel. They saw Palestine as a colonial enterprise, which was to dispossess and rob the indigenous population, one way or another. Negotiations were only ploys to justify illegal annexation and used to hoodwink the world community, and nothing else.

The more I read about Zionism the more I felt hopeless realizing that the right-wing Likudniks would never go back to the pre-1967 border and would do everything possible to hold onto the Occupied Territories, the so-called Judea and Samaria. Without those occupied territories, the dream of an Eretz Israel is incomplete. The toxic influence of Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940) – the iconoclastic founder of Revisionist Zionism – loomed very high on the Likud Party.

And yet, in my heart I hoped for a miracle of sort that the bad Zionists would evolve into real human beings feeling the pain and suffering of the dispossessed Palestinians and would compromise so that the holy land can be shared by all its peoples amicably. Prime Minister Rabin presented himself as a person who seemed serious about a two-nation solution to the decades-old problem. But when he was assassinated on November 4, 1995, all such daydreams of mine faded away. I believed that the rightwing Likud politician Benjamin Netanyahu was not just a direct beneficiary of that assassination but that he had triggered the very event by creating an environment of hatred and animosity in which Rabin had to die for Bibi to shine in Israeli apartheid politics.
Recently, in early November, 20 years to the day after the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing religious extremist, Amos Gitai’s mesmerizing and disturbing new film “Rabin, the Last Day” premiered in Tel Aviv’s symphony hall — about 200 yards from the spot where Rabin was shot. According to movie reviewers, it’s no ordinary movie in the context of Israel today, not to mention the context of the Middle East and the world. It’s a mixture of drama, documentary and meticulous re-creation of Rabin’s life.

Gitai is both a living legend of Israeli cinema and a highly controversial cultural figure, and with “Rabin, the Last Day” he seized the third rail of Israeli politics with both hands. He set out to prove in his brave and provocative new film, Rabin’s assassination was not just the act of one fanatic Yigal Amir, an orthodox Jew. Rather, it was the culmination of a hate campaign that emanated from the rabbis and public figures of Israel’s far right, esp. the likes of Netanyahu.

As I have stated many times, Zionism has betrayed Judaism. It has created a breed of rabbis that are bigots and racists to the core. Without their blessings, Jewish terrorism or so-called vandalism against the unarmed Palestinians inside Israel would have been rare. Consider, for instance, the religious legitimacy for attacking Arabs given by the prominent rabbis at Od Yosef Chai to the hilltop youths. In their 2010 book, “The King’s Torah (Torat Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death between Israel and the Nations,” Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur declared, “The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’ applies only ‘to a Jew who kills a Jew’.” It is worth recalling that up until 2013, Od Yosef Chai yeshiva received government funding and support. It has also received money from American donors.

This should come as no surprise. After all, the Likud Party of Bibi Netanyahu upholds Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s principles. Jabotinsky organized Irgun Zvi Leumi, a terrorist military organization, which fought against the British and the Arabs in the pre-partition days. He died in 1940, eight years before the birth of the Israeli state. His legacy, however, was carried on by Israel’s Herut party, which merged with other right wing parties to form the Likud Party in 1973. It is also worth pointing out that Benzion Netanyahu, the current prime minister’s father, was Jabotinsky’s disciple and private secretary. The elder Netanyahu said as recently as 2009 that the Arabs’ existence “is one of perpetual war” and argued that Israel should beat back any hint of Palestinian nationalism with the threat of “enormous suffering.” He passed these poisonous beliefs on to his son Bibi Netanyahu, who like Jabotinsky, is a brutal, racist, territorial maximalist who allows no concession in his aspiration to guard the pariah Jewish state by crushing the Palestinians.

It is not difficult to understand why the peace process has been dead since Bibi came to power again. Netanyahu is opposed to the two-nation solution of the deadlock. Remember his election promise last year? He vowed to increase construction in the Occupied East Jerusalem, and said the city would never be divided. “We will continue to build in Jerusalem, we will add thousands of housing units, and in the face of all the (international) pressure, we will persist and continue to develop our eternal capital,” he said. He also vowed in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa (a Jewish settlement that Netanyahu helped to build during his first term as prime minister in 1997; the sprawling district now houses more than 20,000 settler residents) that Palestinian state would not be established if he was elected.

Recently, Netanyahu announced that the Israelis shall “forever live by the sword” – a Biblical phrase going back to the admonition of Avner, King Saul’s general, who cried out to King David’s general Yoav “Shall the sword devour for ever?”

Thus, under Bibi’s watch the illegal settlements for the Jewish settlers in the West Bank have become the norms rather than exceptions. As the apartheid Israeli state constructs new illegal colonies, it demolishes Palestinian homes forcing their eviction. Last Tuesday, for instance, the Civil Administration in the West Bank demolished 23 Palestinian homes and three outhouses in the southern Hebron hills villages of Jinba and Halawa. And surely, those crimes won’t be the last ones in the Jewish state!

Last month Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon approved the establishment of a new settlement inside a church compound in the West Bank, about which the U.S. state government was “deeply concerned”. Jewish vandals, likely religious right-wing extremists, vandalized Jerusalem’s Dormition Abbey. The Benedictine monastery abutting the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City has been the target of repeated anti-Christian vandalism and in February 2015. The vandals wrote anti-Christian slogans on the edifice’s walls and doors using red and black markers. These included: “Christians to Hell”, “May his name be obliterated” (a supposed Hebrew acronym of Jesus’ name in Hebrew), “Death to the heathen Christians the enemies of Israel”, etc.

Such hostile activities, of course, are discomforting to some highly placed friends of Israel. Even the U.S. ambassador had to confess that Israel has legal double standard in West Bank. Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conference in Tel Aviv, Dan Shapiro said “Too much Israeli vigilantism in the West Bank goes on unchecked,” adding that “there is a lack of thorough investigations… at times it seems Israel has two standards of adherence to rule of law in the West Bank – one for Israelis and one for Palestinians.”

The peace process has been deadlocked since a US peace mission collapsed in April 2014. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has been a failure to make a difference. He rightly said Friday that he was “ashamed” at the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “I feel guilty, ashamed of the lack of progress,” he told an event organized by the United Nations Association – UK in association with foreign affairs think-tank Chatham House in London. “Basically it’s up to the leadership of Israel and the Palestinians to put an end to the conflict,” he said.

UN diplomats say Ban is hoping to get peace talks moving again before he steps down as secretary-general at the end of the year.

I don’t see any hope of a peaceful solution as long as the dreamers of Eretz Israel continue to control the Israeli politics and have powerful international supporters. They know their strength and are willing to exploit such to extract further concessions from their backers. It was no accident that Jonathan Pollard, the American spy who leaked highly sensitive defense and national security info to Israel, had to be freed by President Obama in the days leading up to peace negotiations with Iran. He was serving a long prison term, until, of course, lately. And yet, Benjamin Netanyahu was not fully satisfied. He told the World Economic Forum in Davos that his country will need more US military aid because of the nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu, whose country is the sole nuclear power in the Middle East, though it has never declared it, strongly opposed the accord and labeled it a “historic mistake.”

Israel is currently negotiating a new 10-year military aid package with Washington that it says will need to grow beyond the $3.1 billion yearly currently provided by the United States. The figure excludes US spending on projects including Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Well, with the Israel-first ‘Amen Corner’ placed inside the Capitol Hill the pariah state does not need too much patting on the shoulders to get what it wants. And I am sure the US government will again comply with Netanyahu’s request, esp. coming as it does in an election year. All the presidential candidates in the major two parties – Republican and Democratic – from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump (let alone evangelicals and born-again Christian fundamentalist candidates) – are unabashed supporters of Israeli hegemony and Palestinian marginalization.

Thus, the prospect for a real peace in Palestine seems improbable. Truly, we may never see it in our lifetime. That is a sad commentary, but a realistic one.

By Father Jeroom Heyndrickx*

The China interview of Pope Francis must be seen as an integral part of the ongoing Sino-Vatican dialogue. The pope had restarted that dialogue — which had been cut off in 2010 — from the moment he became pope, even though not all his advisers agreed.

From the beginning Pope Francis revealed one of his own characteristics that mark this interview: namely his own strong belief in the need for friendly and frank dialogue.

Dialogue with China yielded its first fruits in 2015 when bishops for Zhouzhi and Anyang dioceses were recognized. Negotiations took place three times: in Rome in 2014, in Beijing last October and in Rome on Jan. 25-26.

No official announcements were made but the two recent rounds of negotiations have produced a positive atmosphere between Beijing and Rome that we have not seen in decades. An important step forward has, apparently, been taken this January in Rome. Only such a context made this China interview with the pope possible.

The interview comes across to me as a strong personal statement by the pope made in the midst of this quietly ongoing process of dialogue between the Vatican and Beijing.

As if he was sitting at the negotiating table, Pope Francis addresses himself to all Chinese, implicitly also to the faithful of the Catholic Church and even to people worldwide. His words are marked by friendship, admiration and empathy for the Chinese people.

He generously shares how he feels about China: “I have great respect” for your … “great culture with an inexhaustible wisdom.” He puts the Chinese people at ease referring to the Catholic Church having the duty to “respect all civilizations. … The church has great potential to receive cultures.”

The pope is aware of China’s own “wounds” and difficult moments in the past; to this he says: “every people must be reconciled with its history as its own path, with its successes and its mistakes … this reconciliation brings much maturity, much growth.”

The interview makes clear that the pope favors closer relations — an encounter — with China: “encounter is achieved through dialogue”, “we must find the way, always through dialogue, there is no other way” He even indirectly addresses a few words to people worldwide who might be afraid of China’s growing influence on the world scene, telling them: “Fear is not a good counselor … I would not be fearful”, “Let us walk together.”

And to those in the church who might be afraid of dialogue with China, he says: “Dialogue does not mean that we end up with a compromise”. Friends in China — Catholics as well as non-Catholics — feel confirmed and encouraged by this friendly attitude of the pope toward their country, culture and people. That’s the feedback we hear.

Dialogue pioneer

With this interview and his successful dialogue Pope Francis takes his place among his predecessors who were all pioneers of dialogue with China.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI went to the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization and pleaded in favor of China’s presence in the FAO, instead of Taiwan. Pope John Paul II showed great restraint and kept all doors for dialogue open even in the most dramatic situations as the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square incident.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter to the church in China, which is a blueprint for dialogue. With the China interview, Pope Francis now takes his place in the gallery of papal pioneers of China dialogue.

Where does it go from here?

So far there has of course not been any official statement from the Vatican nor from Beijing. But already in October, after the negotiations in Beijing, we could observe signals that clearly indicate that progress was being made.

The same is true after the recent round of negotiations in Rome. It seems that some thorny questions have been put aside for the time being and that progress has been made toward an agreement on the way of appointing bishops in the future. The pope is expected to appoint three bishops soon. That is important progress.

But a lot more needs to be achieved: what will happen to the eight illegal bishops among whom three are excommunicated? What about the bishops in prison: James Su Zhimin, Cosmas Shi Enxiang? How will the situation of Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin in Shanghai be resolved? Can we expect more good news during the months to come?

We can only guess. Is it possible that Pope Francis will make a gesture of mercy in the course of 2016 by legitimizing some illegal bishops in China? Again, nothing has been officially stated, but that seems to be quite possible in the logic of this Holy Year of Mercy. Many in China hope for it and if it happens, that would be a real breakthrough.

The old challenge has now become critical and actual: will all stand united behind Pope Francis’ decisions? Catholics — both inside and outside China — are confronted once again with an old challenge: will they be united in following Pope Francis?

Some who had suffered in the past called themselves hard-liners and were opposed to dialogue with Chinese authorities. Anybody knowing what happened in the past will understand their viewpoint. They received much sympathy and support from outside China.

Some of them responded positively to the call for unity and reconciliation in Pope Benedict’s letter. Others did not. But now Pope Francis has continued to walk the line of dialogue and reconciliation as recommended by Benedict because the pastoral situation inside the church in China calls for urgent decisions to appoint bishops.

Decisions apparently have been made. Will all be able to support the decision of the pope? This old challenge is now becoming even more critical than in the past. The “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” in China cannot afford to fail uniting behind the pope at this time.

*Father Jeroom Heyndrickx is the founder of the Taiwan Pastoral Institute and founding director of the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation at Leuven Catholic University in Belgium. The foundation is devoted to the promotion of a relationship of cooperation with China.

“America’s once shining beacon has somehow dimmed a bit, and the Red China I left 30 years ago is not as bloody red as it used to be. The two countries, capitalist and communist, actually have a lot in common: the rich and powerful could be greedy, hypocritical and morally corrupt,” writes Jennifer Sun, author of the recently published novel ‘Two Tales of the Moon’.

By Jennifer Sun*

On an August day in 1983, I went to a hospital in Shanghai to visit my father. He’d developed liver problems in the mid-1960s while being tortured and forced to do hard labor by the communist government on a labor camp. His crime was that he’d studied electrical engineering in a university run by American and British missionaries. For that, he was branded as “anti-government” and a spy for the capitalist West.

That day, his liver finally collapsed and he was dying. As I sat by his bedside, he said to me “Leave China if you can, and stay as far away as you can. Nothing good could ever come out of Red China.” He died the next day. Two years later, I left Red China for America, the shining democratic beacon of the world.

Today, the black-and-white contrasts between the democratic capitalist U.S. and the oppressive communist China have faded into grayish contradictions. By the time I began to write “Two Tales of the Moon,” my recently published novel, it was 2014 and China seemed to have convinced the world that it could grow a capitalist economy under a communist party-controlled regime. So, I decided to go back and to fact check China’s claim.

It’s true that the economic boom over the past two and a half decades has lifted many Chinese out of dirt-poor living conditions. However, it’s often the party members who have benefited most and become filthy rich. At least half of China’s 1.3 billion people are still toiling long hours under sometimes subhuman conditions for a dollar or two a day.

In Shanghai’s glitzy districts, beggars and unemployed migrants wandered the streets lined by Chanel and Prada stores. Ghosts only occupied the sky scraper-like luxury condos and apartments, and air pollution hovered over the futuristic-looking city like a concrete dome.

I discovered a direct contradiction to China’s claim of having successfully grown a capitalist economy under a communist party-controlled regime at a reunion dinner with my high school classmate. She told me she’d retired from an unprofitable State-owned glass bottle factory, where she’d worked all her life. But the government kept the factory open and poured subsidy money into it year in and year out.

“Why don’t they just shut it down?” I asked.

“To prevent social unrest. And there are thousands and thousands of such State-owned enterprises all over the country, and millions of jobs would be lost if they close them all down,” she said a matter-of-factly. Then she leaned closer toward me and lowered her voice, “You know we don’t like the communist government, but at the end of the day, everybody still has a bowl of rice to eat.”

To me, China has become a country of contradictions.

But on the opposite end of the world, here in the U.S., the contradictions related to China are no less prominent. I hear our government accusing China of human rights violations, currency manipulations and opaque financial and banking practices.

Yet, China is the largest holder of U.S. national debt. We worry about cyber security threats from China, yet high tech companies like IBM and Microsoft are willing to reveal their source codes to China in order to gain the privilege of doing business there. We say we are proud of products made in America, but we have exported our manufacturing infrastructure to China for many decades.

Just about every large corporation has rushed into China to chase a dream of profiting from the country’s 1.3 billion customers. Take Wal-Mart as an example: High flyers on Wall Street love Wal-Mart stock, but they seldom buy Wal-Mart products. Middle and working class Americans complain that companies like Wal-Mart have exported their jobs to countries like China, but they are the ones who love Wal-Mart’s inexpensive products.

By the time I finished writing “Two Tales of the Moon,” I realized that America’s once shining beacon has somehow dimmed a bit, and the Red China I left 30 years ago is not as bloody red as it used to be. The two countries, capitalist and communist, actually have a lot in common: the rich and powerful could be greedy, hypocritical and morally corrupt. That’s why financial markets collapse, companies go bankrupt and ordinary people get ripped off.

Communist China and capitalist America are now bound, and will be bound by dreams of money and profit for a long time to come, if not forever.

*Jennifer Sun has a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Fudan University in China. Jennifer has held several executive financial management positions at Fortune 500 companies in telecommunication and web technology industries. She currently writes full time and lives with her husband in Vienna, Virginia. For more information, visit http://www.jennifersunauthor.com.

Stars are born inside a rotating cloud of interstellar gas and dust, which contracts to stellar densities thanks to its own gravity. Before finding itself on the star, however, most of the cloud lands onto a circumstellar disk forming around the star owing to conservation of angular momentum. The manner in which the material is transported through the disk onto the star, causing the star to grow in mass, has recently become a major research topic in astrophysics.

It turned out that stars may not accumulate their final mass steadily, as was previously thought, but in a series of violent events manifesting themselves as sharp stellar brightening. The young FU Orionis star in the constellation of Orion is the prototype example, which showed an increase in brightness by a factor of 250 over a time period of just one year, staying in this high-luminosity state now for almost a century.

One possible mechanism that can explain these brightening events was put forward 10 years ago by Eduard Vorobyov, now working at the Astrophysical Department of the Vienna University, in collaboration with Shantanu Basu from the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

According to their theory, stellar brightening can be caused by fragmentation due to gravitational instabilities in massive gaseous disks surrounding young stars, followed by migration of dense gaseous clumps onto the star. Like the process of throwing logs into a fireplace, these episodes of clump consumption release excess energy which causes the young star to brighten by a factor of hundreds to thousands. During each episode, the star is consuming the equivalent of one Earth mass every ten days. After this, it may take another several thousand years before another event occurs.

Eduard Vorobyov describes the process of clump formation in circumstellar disks followed by their migration onto the star as “cannibalism on astronomical scales”. These clumps could have matured into giant planets such as Jupiter, but instead they were swallowed by the parental star. This invokes an interesting analogy with the Greek mythology, wherein Cronus, the leader of the first generation of Titans, ate up his newborn children (though failing to gobble up Zeus, who finally brought death upon his father).

With the advent of advanced observational instruments, such as SUBARU 8.2 meter optical-infrared telescope installed in Mauna Kea (Hawaii), it has become possible for the first time to test the model predictions. Using high-resolution, adaptive optics observations in the polarized light, an international group of astronomers led by Hauyu Liu from European Space Observatory (Garching, Germany) has verified the presence of the key features associated with the disk fragmentation model — large-scale arms and arcs surrounding four young stars undergoing luminous outbursts, including the prototype FU Orionis star itself.

The results of this study were accepted for publication in Science Advances – a peer-review, open-access journal belonging to the Science publishing group.

“This is a major step towards our understanding of how stars and planets form and evolve,” said Vorobyov, “If we can prove that most stars undergo such episodes of brightening caused by disk gravitational instability, this would mean that our own Sun might have experienced several such episodes, implying that the giant planets of the Solar system may in fact be lucky survivors of the Sun’s tempestuous past.”

By Ann Garrison*

If the Western press alone could overthrow a government, Burundi’s would be long gone. Anyone searching the Web for “Burundi” and “News” in the past year would have seen long lists of shrill press quoting shrill Western officials demanding that Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza step down, amidst street protests and armed insurgency, and make way for a “transitional government.” Nkurunziza’s crime? Winning a third term in office, after Burundi’s constitutional court ruled that he was constitutionally entitled to run for election by universal suffrage a second time. Nkurunziza is hugely popular with Burundi’s rural agricultural majority.

U.S. UN Ambassador Samantha Power, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon, the US State Department, the EU and Belgium, Burundi’s former colonial master, have fiercely advocated for the deployment of 5000 African Union (AU) troops in Burundi, whether Burundi agrees or not. They say the deployment is needed to protect civilians and prevent genocide. In her book Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power argues that Americans are obliged to protect civilians and prevent genocide with – what else? – our unprecedented military force. AU “peacekeeping” missions rely on the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) for weapons, training, intelligence, logistics, organization and command.

Nevertheless, on Sunday, 01.31.2016, the African Union’s Annual Summit of member nations dismissed the West’s proposal to deploy AU troops to Burundi without Burundi’s consent. The Burundian government has said that the fighting is taking place only in some neighborhoods in the capital, Bujumbura, that their own security forces are capable, and that they will respond to any AU deployment without their consent as an invasion. They also said that Burundi’s government, army and police all include members of both the Hutu and Tutsi groups and that there is therefore no imminent danger of genocide. In 1993, Burundi’s predominantly Tutsi army slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Burundian Hutus after assassinating the country’s first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, who was also its first democratically elected president.

RWANDA’S ROLE IN THE CONFLICT

Over two hundred thousand refugees have fled Burundi since the violence began in the capital in the last week of April. In November, Jeff Drumtra, a former UN official at Rwanda’s Mahama Refugee Camp, told Pacifica’s Flashpoints Radio that he had documented the Rwandan government’s conscription of Burundian refugees into a new rebel army to fight in Burundi. Drumtra said he had submitted his documentation to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, so neither the UN nor the major powers will be able to say, at a later date, that they were unaware of the recruitment. Rwanda denied Drumtra’s allegations, but Refugees International confirmed them in its December report, Asylum Betrayed: Recruitment of Burundian Refugees in Rwanda.

THE AFRICAN UNION ANNUAL SUMMIT

News reports quoted the presidents of Equatorial Guinea and Gambia, as they arrived at the annual African Union Summit on 01.29.2016, stating that they opposed the deployment of African Union troops to Burundi without Burundi’s consent. Senegalese diplomat Ibrahima Fall, the African Union’s Special Representative to the African Great Lakes Region, later told Radio France International that deploying AU troops without Burundi’s consent was “unimaginable.”

“It was never the intention of the African Union to deploy a mission to Burundi without the consent of Burundian authorities,” he said. “This is unimaginable. If the position of these two leaders [Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema and the Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh] is based on this misunderstanding, it is hoped that gradually more communication takes place and that dialogue may settle on these issues. Probably one of the conclusions – because currently these conclusions are tentative – one of the final conclusions of the meeting this Friday will be sending a high-level delegation to Burundi to speak with senior Burundian authorities and initiate a conversation on this issue.”

Opposition to the deployment was not even brought to a voice or roll call vote. AU member nations no doubt realized that if they authorized the deployment without Burundi’s consent, unwelcome AU troops might be sent across their borders as well. Article 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act provides that the AU has the right to intervene in a member state in “grave circumstances, namely, war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity,” but, had it been approved, the deployment to Burundi would have been its first use.

Charles Kambanda, Rwandan American lawyer and former Law professor at the National University of Rwanda, said, “The AU heads of states appear to have properly analyzed the situation in Burundi. It’s clear that the AU Peace and Security Council, pressed by the EU and US, who are desperate for regime change in Burundi, did not do serious research – legal and political – for their naive proposal to force AU troops on Burundi. Once again, President Kagame and his partners-in-crime, who sought to use AU troops to grab control of Burundi, have been defeated. The truth, not propaganda, will prevail.”

* Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Black Agenda Report, Black Star News, Counterpunch and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces forAfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News, KPFA Flashpoints and for her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com In March 2014 she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa through her reporting.

Featuring works by Dürer, Goya, Murillo, Ribera, Rubens, and more from the splendid palaces of the Alba dynasty in Spain, Treasures from the House of Alba: 500 Years of Art and Collecting will make its second and final stop in the U.S. at Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts from February 5 through May 1, 2016. Co-organized by the Meadows Museum and the Casa de Alba Foundation, the exhibition brings together more than 130 works of art, dating from antiquity to the twentieth century, drawn from one of the oldest and most impressive private collections in Europe, Art Daily said.

Exhibition highlights include masterpieces of Dutch, Flemish, German, Italian, and Spanish painting, such as Francisco Goya’s The Duchess of Alba in White (1795), along with four other major portraits by the great Spanish master, two of which are on loan from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. Several Christopher Columbus documents are on display, including his list of men who accompanied him on his 1492 Journey of Discovery and a drawing of the coastline of La Española (Hispaniola), the first island he encountered in the New World (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti). The illuminated Alba Family Bible (finished in 1430) is one of the earliest known translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into a Romance language. Prints and drawings, sculptures, historical documents, illuminated manuscripts, decorative objects, and tapestries provide further insight into the influential role of the Alba family in European history.

The two-city tour marks the first major exhibition outside Spain of works from the collection of the House of Alba—one of the most prominent noble families with ties to the Spanish monarchy since the fifteenth century.

“Today, the Alba name is most closely associated with the glamorous lifestyle of the 18th Duchess of Alba, doña Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, who died in 2014,” says Frist Center Curator Trinita Kennedy. “Charismatic and vivacious, Cayetana was one of Spain’s best-known and most recognizable public figures. She was a lifelong champion of the arts and understood the historical significance of her family and its art collection.”

Through commissions, acquisitions, and dynastic marriages, the family’s dukes and duchesses have assembled a collection whose objects tell a story that extends beyond Spain to include many cultural developments that have shaped Europe. From Renaissance Italy to the Dutch Golden Age, and from the courtly splendor of the Baroque to the high ideals of the Enlightenment, the collection offers an extraordinary window into European history.

The exhibition curator is Dr. Fernando Checa Cremades, former director of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, who also served as editor of the accompanying catalogue. The exhibition is organized in a manner that explains the historical development of the family and the collection from the end of the 15th century to the present day. Aside from selected works from other lenders such as the Prado Museum’s Goya portraits that were once part of the Alba collection, a majority of the objects in the exhibition originate from three of the splendid palaces that historically belong to the lineage. The first of them is the Liria Palace in Madrid, an 18th-century building influenced by Parisian architectural styles that was severely damaged during the Spanish Civil War and rebuilt under the 17th Duke of Alba and the 18th Duchess of Alba; the second palace is the Dueñas Palace in Seville, a magnificent Renaissance/Mudejar construction from the 16th century, the most important in this style preserved in Spain; the third is the Monterrey Palace in Salamanca, a masterpiece of the Spanish Renaissance.

The Alba family has formed part of the most important aristocratic lineages in Europe, not only because of its military, political, and social significance, but also due to the relevance of its cultural patronage and its art collecting. The Álvarez de Toledo family first rose to prominence in central Spain at the end of the Middle Ages with the political and cultural ascendancy of the 3rd Duke of Alba, don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo (1507–1582), a soldier and political adviser to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (reigned 1519–1556), and King Phillip II (reigned 1556–1598), and a devoted patron of the arts.

In regards to art collecting, the most important period for the family was from 1688 to1802, during which the marriage between the 10th Duke of Alba, don Francisco Álvarez de Toledo (1662–1739) and the 8th Marchioness del Carpio and 8th Countess of Monterrey, doña Catalina de Haro (1672–1733), resulted in the incorporation of a large part of the collection of the Marquis of El Carpio. With major works by Diego Velázquez, Jusepe de Ribera, and Raphael, the Marquis of El Carpio’s collection was one of the finest in Europe at the time.

A pivotal moment in the family history came in 1802 when Goya’s patron, the 13th Duchess of Alba, doña Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana (1762–1802), died without leaving any heirs, which resulted in the title of Duke of Alba, as well as the other titles in the lineage, passing to the Berwick family, direct descendants of James II, Stuart king of England (reigned 1685–1688). This was the start of the Alba-Stuart lineage, which is still in existence today.

Although a large part of the Marquis of El Carpio collection was lost during the change of family line, the 7th Duke of Berwick and 14th Duke of Alba, don Carlos Miguel Fitz-James Stuart (1794–1835) led a second period of strong growth. His purchases of works during his Grand Tour form one of the centerpieces of this exhibition.

The collection continued to expand during the 20th century with acquisitions and commissions by the 17th Duke of Alba, don Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart (1878–1953), who was a friend of artists such as Joaquín Sorolla, Ignacio Zuloaga, and John Singer Sargent. His daughter, the 18th Duchess of Alba, doña Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart (1926–2014), commonly known as Cayetana, continued the momentum by acquiring works by English, French and Spanish 19th- and 20th-century masters. Today Cayetana’s eldest son, don Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, 19th Duke of Alba, is the guardian of the Alba’s treasures for future generations.

“This is the beginning of the end of jihadi presence in Aleppo. After 4 years of war and terror, people can finally see the end in sight.” — Edward Dark, Twitter, Moon of Alabama

A last ditch effort to stop a Russian-led military offensive in northern Syria ended in failure on Wednesday when the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) backed by the National Defense Forces (NDF) and heavy Russian air cover broke a 40-month siege on the villages of Nubl and al-Zahra in northwestern Aleppo province. The Obama administration had hoped that it could forestall the onslaught by cobbling together an eleventh-hour ceasefire agreement at the Geneva peace talks.  But when the news that Syrian armored units had crashed through al Nusra’s defenses and forced the jihadists to retreat, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura suspended the negotiations tacitly acknowledging that the mission had failed.

“I have indicated from the first day that I won’t talk for the sake of talking,” the envoy told reporters, saying he needed immediate help from international backers led by the United States and Russia, which are supporting opposite sides of a war that has also drawn in regional powers.” (Reuters)  De Mistura then announced a “temporary pause” in the stillborn negotiations which had only formally begun just hours earlier. Developments on the battlefield had convinced the Italian-Swedish diplomat that it was pointless to continue while government forces were effecting a solution through military means.

After months of grinding away at enemy positions across the country,  the Russian strategy has begun to bear fruit. Loyalist ground forces have made great strides on the battlefield rolling back the war-weary insurgents on virtually all fronts. A broad swathe of the Turkish border is now under SAA control while the ubiquitous Russian bombers continue to inflict heavy losses on demoralized anti-regime militants. Wednesday’s lightening attack on the strategic towns of  Nubl and Zahraa was just the icing on the cake.  The bold maneuver severed critical supply-lines to Turkey while  tightening the military noose around the country’s largest city leaving hundreds of terrorists stranded in a battered cauldron with no way out.

For the last two weeks, the Obama team has been following developments on the ground with growing concern. This is why Secretary of State John Kerry hurriedly assembled a diplomatic mission to convene emergency peace talks in Geneva despite the fact that the various participants had not even agreed to attend. A sense of urgency bordering on panic was palpable from the onset. The goal was never to achieve a negotiated settlement or an honorable peace, but (as Foreign Policy magazine noted) to implement “a broad ‘freeze’ over the whole province of Aleppo, which would then be replicated in other regions later.” This was the real objective, to stop the bleeding any way possible and prevent the inevitable encirclement of Aleppo.

The recapturing of Nubl and Zahraa leaves the jihadists with just one route for transporting weapons, food and fuel to their urban stronghold. When loyalist forces break the blockade at Bab al Hawa to the northeast, the loop will be closed, the perimeter will tighten, the cauldron will be split into smaller enclaves within the city, and the terrorists will either surrender or face certain annihilation. Wednesday’s triumph by the Russian-led coalition is a sign that that day may be approaching sooner than anyone had anticipated.

It’s worth noting, that a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Michael O’Hanlon– whose plan to “deconstruct Syria” by using “moderate elements”  to “produce autonomous zones”–advised Obama and Kerry “not to pursue the failed logic of the current Syria peace talks but to explore a confederal model and seek buy-in from as many key players and allies as possible.”   In other words, the main architect of the US plan to break up Syria into smaller areas, (controlled by local militias, warlords and jihadists) thought the peace talks were “doomed” from the very beginning.

According to O’Hanlon the US needs to commit “20,000 combat troops” with  “the right political model for maintaining occupation”.   The Brookings analyst says  that “Any ceasefire that Kerry could negotiate…would be built on a foundation of sand” for the mere fact that the “moderate” forces it would support would be much weaker than either the SAA or ISIS. That means there would be no way to enforce the final settlement and no army strong enough to establish the authority of the new “unity” government.

O’Hanlon’s comments suggest western elites are deeply divided over Syria. The hawks are still pushing for more intervention, greater US, EU, and NATO involvement, and American and allied “boots on the ground” to occupy the country for an undetermined amount of time. In contrast, the Obama administration wants to minimize its commitment while trying desperately to placate its critics.

That means Syria’s troubles could resurface again in the future when Obama steps down and a new president pursues a more muscular strategy.  A number of  powerful people in the ruling establishment are as determined-as-ever to partition Syria and install a US puppet in Damascus. That’s not going to change. The Russian-led coalition has a small window for concluding its operations, eliminating the terrorists, and reestablishing security across the country.  Ending the war as soon as possible, while creating a safe environment for Syrian refugees to return home, is the best way to reduce the threat of escalation and discourage future US adventurism. But Putin will have to move fast for the plan to work.

Excerpts from:  “Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war“, Michael O’ Hanlon, Brookings Institute.

The government formed after the promulgation of the new constitution has just completed its first one hundred days. Has it produced anything that can be celebrated? The unfortunate fact is that it has not.

The general view is that this so called government has done nothing good for the nation except expand the cabinet, making it the largest in our history and placing more economic burdens on the country. The newspaper headlines are full of reports that earthquake victims are dying from lack of food, medicine and appropriate shelter. Ordinary people are suffering even more from shortage of daily essentials for their livelihood caused by the enduring Indian economic embargo against Nepal. The price of all goods has sky-rocketed and monopolies have flourished. No serious initiative is taken by the state in order to control and punish such perpetrators.  Law and order is being ignored, and the proverb ‘might is right’ pervades society. Nobody is fully aware of who is running this country at present.

The much discussed “disaster reconstruction project” is already been delayed and is being treated as a cruel joke for many. The Madhes agitation continues. Several dozen individuals have been killed by forces within the past few months. The PM has utterly failed to find a political solution. It seems as though this government is only defending the interests of the ruling class, those near and dear to persons in power and of course the mafia and syndicators. Who is actually benefiting from the present crisis? Illusive promises by the PM seem to dictate the everyday business. There is a strong feeling among ordinary people that our country is in a real sense lacking in government, law and order.

As in every crisis, there will be hardly any problem for the rich, the powerful and those who are politically well connected. Who cares about the millions of poor and vulnerable citizens who at the best of times struggle to earn enough to live from day to day? The poorest of the poor in our society including the bulk of ordinary citizens are the first to suffer whenever there is a national crisis. Where is the obligation on the state to respect, protect and fulfil the right of those millions to live in dignity? Where is the guarantee of the human right to access to food, fuels and other daily necessities for all? It is a gross human rights violation and the state seems to be running away from its absolute duty as required by our supreme law of the land and by various international human rights documents to which we are a party

Many questions must be asked today: is it not time to seek an alternative to this government? The problems seem to be enduring ones, but what is the existing government doing to address the present crisis? Cooking gas, kerosene, and oil are unavailable in the store and yet one could easily obtain them if ready to pay double or three times the usual price. There is no petrol or diesel available at the local pumps, but the streets seem very busy with all sorts of vehicles. Today, this country appears to be run by a few groups of established mafia. The state economy seems to be controlled by the black-market supported by the established state power. It appears to be a clearly undeclared policy of the present government. A recent report of the National Human Rights Commission accused the government of encouraging a black market in various essential items. Moreover, illegal trading in fuels has been taking place under the very eyes of security agencies and government officials in various parts of the country. Is that that what the present government wants to create? Where are the voices against these actions and omissions of the government? Is it not a time to break our long silence? How much longer should we close our eyes and minds?

Wake-up call

The government needs to act fast. Things cannot go on like this forever. How much longer can this government ignore the needs of the people? It must provide clear agendas, policies and programmes to end the enduring humanitarian crisis in a transparent and responsible manner. What political progress has been made and how exactly is the bilateral dialogue with India taking place? When will the blockade be ended?  People are already more than tired and they need clear explanations. Where is the accountability of the government? Why does it turn a blind eye to black-marketeering? The government is there to do things and it is paid to serve but nothing seems to go right. In a democratic society, no one has the right to hold on to power if they fail to meet the needs of the people.

Moreover, the government has failed to maintain an atmosphere of respect and toleration necessary for a diverse and pluralistic society. People are asking:  has it even begun to take seriously the Madhes issue? If so, what is happening? Why did the government fail to create a broad political understanding between the agitators and the state? If the government cannot function correctly, it has no constitutional, legal and moral right to hold on to power: it has two options: either do something positive or resign. This is the very charm of a democratic system. The nation may have to start looking for an alternative government in the sense that the country may demand a new PM who is a highly confident and competent individual with a broad understanding of the political forces at work.

Finally, what worries me most is that it is not only the government that seems to be blind to the current crisis: it’s as if nobody is aware that anything is actually going wrong.  For example, I wonder what those self-declared human rights activists and mushrooming NGOs are actually achieving while the country passes through this gross humanitarian crisis. What are the so-called human rights activists and human rights NGOs doing? Where are they?

They do not seem to hear the voices of the so-called civil society, the student unions or the pressure groups that normally speak aloud on these issues. Where are their voices? Why are we all so silent on such genuine matters of public interest? It seems as though we have all been muted by unknown forces. What is making every one of us so silent? It seems to me that we are immersed in a deep collective unconsciousness.

Can we just wait forever for things to happen? The answer is no. The collective unconsciousness must be halted. We must start speaking out and reacting against wrong values. This is our country. We have already suffered so much at the hands of incompetent political leaders. The time has come for a wake-up call to all of us. We all know that the mainstream politicians are insincere towards the people and the nation, but it is for us to change their minds set through our very deeds and reactions.  We need urgently to begins thinking beyond the political, ideological and partisan agenda. We must develop our capacity to differentiate between right and wrong in order to foster correct judgements and humanistic values. For this to happen, we must first break our silence.

Griffith University researchers are part of an international team of scientists that has announced the discovery of ancestors of Homo floresiensis – the enigmatic species of pygmy-like humans discovered more than a decade ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.

In September 2003, the partial skeleton of a primitive human adult female was excavated from Liang Bua, a limestone cave in the west of Flores. Known as LB1, this skeleton is the most extreme human ever discovered – astonishingly short, only about a metre tall, and with a brain smaller than that of a chimp, this tiny individual lived and died around 70,000 years ago.

Now, as reported in Nature this week, fossil remains of hominins that are similar in size but at least ten times older have been excavated at Mata Menge, a site in open grasslands 70 km east of Liang Bua, in Indonesia. A fragment of a hominin lower jaw and several isolated teeth were found in a layer of sandstone which had been deposited by a lakeside stream around 700,000 years ago.

Dr Adam Brumm from Griffith’s Research Centre of Human Evolution said this new finding is the most stunning breakthrough yet to help with our understanding of the origin of ‘hobbits’.

“We have unearthed fossils from at least three individuals, including two children, along with stone tools that are almost identical to those made by the much younger Homo floresiensis,” said Dr Brumm, an archaeologist who first commenced fieldwork at Mata Menge in 2004 along with colleagues from the Geology Museum and Geological Survey Institute in Bandung, Indonesia.

“There is a striking similarity in size and form between the Mata Menge hominins and the Liang Bua hobbit, which is surprising given the former are at least several hundred millennia older.

“This suggests the Mata Menge individuals belonged to a population of ancient hobbit-like hominins that gave rise to Homo floresiensis. They may even have been a very early form of hobbits, which would mean this species existed for far longer than anyone had anticipated.”

Ever since the first hobbit bones were discovered scientists have struggled to make sense of where the previously unknown species, Homo floresiensis, fits into the human family tree.

It is thought that these creatures evolved from an archaic branch of hominins that existed long before the emergence of our own species in Africa some 200,000 years ago. However, the experts are divided over just which member of the hominin group spawned the Flores hobbits.

The distinctive anatomy of Homo floresiensis has led to two intriguing hypotheses. The first is that hobbits descend from Asian Homo erectus, or ‘Java Man’, an early hominin that reached the island of Java to the west of Flores roughly 1.5 million years ago, and which was similar in height to modern humans. It is suggested a small group of these hominins may have become stranded on Flores and over time reduced in body size. This would be a unique case of hominins conforming to the ‘Island Rule’, whereby mammals cut off on islands with limited food and no predators become small if they were big (dwarfism) or big if they were small (gigantism).

The second possibility is that Homo floresiensis stems from far more ancient precursors, such as Homo habilis or even an ape-like australopithecine, primitive hominin forerunners currently known only from the early fossil record of Africa.

All of this speculation about the origin of Homo floresiensis had reached a standstill until the discovery of these latest fossils.

“While only a handful of fossils has been found at Mata Menge so far, characteristic features of the teeth strongly imply an ancestral relationship with Homo erectus,” Dr Brumm said.

“This lends weight to the theory that the hobbit was a dwarfed version of the famous Java Man, which somehow got marooned on the island. The fact that they were found with fossils of extinct pygmy elephants (Stegodon) and giant rats also supports the idea of an isolated group of Homo erectus undergoing a dramatic evolutionary change owing to the Island Rule.”

Until more complete hominin fossils are revealed, however, Dr Brumm says the mystery of the hobbit’s beginning has not yet been conclusively resolved.

“We were expecting a simple answer,” he said. “We didn’t get one: no one thought the ancestor of the hobbit would itself have looked like a hobbit. I do think Homo floresiensis was a dwarfed Homo erectus, but identifying the true ancestor requires more fossil evidence”.

The presence of fossils from multiple individuals at Mata Menge, however, does suggest additional skeletal remains are likely to be found, and the team is now searching for funds to expand the scale of excavations at this site and at other fossil localities on the island.

“Mata Menge is a goldmine,” said Dr Brumm. “I expect that further excavations at this site will eventually yield a hominin skull, which will finally allow us to put a face and a name to the hobbit’s ancestor. Then we will know how this experiment in human evolution got started”.

Tropical cyclone Roanu hit Sri Lanka on 15 May 2016 causing severe flooding and numerous landslides across the country. As Sri Lanka picks up the pieces and rebuilds, it is critical to evaluate the efficacy of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR) operations to better prepare the country in disaster management.

By Vishalini Chandara Sagar*

A depression in the Bay of Bengal caused tropical cyclone Roanu which triggered floods and landslides across the emerald isle. It left in its trail buried villages and homeless people. The floods have been described to be the worst disaster in the Indian Ocean since the 2004 Tsunami.

Authorities claimed that the torrential rains caused destruction in 22 out of 25 Sri Lankan districts including its capital, Colombo. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, an estimated 500,000 people were directly affected by the disaster and about 307,000 people were forced to flee their homes because of the floods. Most of them have now taken refuge in many safe locations such as schools, temporary camps and with friends and relatives. The disaster also claimed the lives of at least 104 people, with another 99 still missing. On 25 May 2016, the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) reported that a total of 128,000 houses have been affected by the cyclone, with 30,000 requiring reconstruction or rehabilitation.

Civil-Military Coordination in HADR

Many of the flood-affected areas, particularly in the mountainous regions, are still deemed too dangerous to access due to the possibility of more landslides.

The government, together with its tri-forces, the Sri Lanka Army, Navy and Air Force, the Police and the National Disaster Management Centre has led the country’s disaster operations. These national entities have coordinated with United Nations agencies, World Health Organisation, the Red Cross Red Crescent movement and other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to conduct immediate search, rescue and relief operations.

While the Army dug through rubble to find survivors, the Navy reinforced flood defences to reduce the impact of rainfall and the Air Force airdropped food and water in affected areas. UNICEF, the Sri Lanka Red Cross, Oxfam and other CSOs have coordinated with the government and each other to conduct rapid assessments and provide assistance in the form of relief items, transportation and WASH (water, sanitation and health) facilities in locations used to temporarily house those displaced.

Rebuilding Affected Communities

As the water level recedes, and people affected by the disaster gradually regain access to the Internet, some have turned to social media to express views on how the rescue operations could have been made more effective.

One of the key concerns echoed by many was the failure to relay crucial information effectively to people affected by the disaster. People claimed there were no early warnings despite days of heavy rainfall and that no evacuation orders were issued. When announcements were made, it was via loudspeakers and megaphones.

Agencies like the Sri Lanka Red Cross strongly relied on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to relay disaster warnings, relief and rescue information and weather alerts. Local agencies Road.lk and PickMe used social media to help flood-affected victims. For example, Road.lk with its 22,000 Twitter followers, allows users to broadcast information on road conditions to help people deal with the crisis and distribute relief items.

Such an initiative could have been done more effectively and in a more coordinated manner, with key information being disseminated to the public constantly through national agencies.

Lessons from 2004 Tsunami?

It would be prudent to reference the learnings from the 2004 Tsunami as the nation rebuilds itself, post-disaster. In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami, Sri Lanka received extensive international aid. However, as time passed, aid agencies withdrew, neglecting the medium and long-term needs of the people.

Reconstruction efforts in the capital, the economic hub of the country, have now begun and the government is looking at new policies to prevent current challenges from recurring. For instance, a new nationwide building code took effect on 1 June 2016 to protect drainage areas and prevent construction in areas susceptible to landslides.

While this is a good move, enforcement of earlier similar requirements was weak. Moving forward, it is imperative that relevant organizations are equipped with both resources and relevant enforcement powers to administer these laws.

Priority at this stage should be accorded to assistance in rebuilding of disaster-affected communities. Many flood-affected victims have returned to their hometowns as temporary shelters close, only to find themselves homeless as their houses are inundated by mud and floodwaters. Many of these properties have been constructed on bank loans or spending their entire savings. It is important to continue placing people at the heart of the crisis, and to empower them to rebuild their lives.

This will include cleaning up the rural areas, particularly water sources, providing grants to rebuild their homes, repairing transport and communication infrastructure, creating employment opportunities, ensuring remittances flow, fulfill the special needs of females and other disadvantaged groups, and to resurrect local businesses.

How Can the Region Contribute?

The Sri Lankan government had sought for international aid in the form of grants and loans and expertise in urban planning to prevent such flooding in the future. A crisis like this also presents itself as an opportunity for the country to elevate its economic status so that its people can lead better lives.

One way this can be achieved is for the government to make it easier for foreign companies to establish themselves in the country to help rebuild homes and infrastructure for the people. This would be an attractive and mutually beneficial way for countries in the Asia Pacific region to help Sri Lanka in return of providing more opportunities for its local businesses to expand.

This in turn, will breed local expertise through increased job opportunities. ASEAN is a potential platform to engage Southeast Asian businesses to invest in Sri Lanka. In conclusion, the recent floods in Sri Lanka provided fresh perspective on the symbiotic relationship between state and non-state actors in HADR operations and how aid from other countries can be beneficial to not just the recipient but the donor as well.

*Vishalini Chandara Sagar is a Senior Analyst at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

By Munish Sharma

Cyber has been one of the key discussion items during both Prime Minister Modi’s just concluded visit to the United States and President Xi Jinping’s visit to the US some nine months back. After Xi’s visit, China and the US signed a Cyber Agreement in October 2015. India and the US will ink a cyber agreement in the next sixty days. Notwithstanding these similarities, the intent of and expectations from these two agreements are fundamentally different; the former is an attempt to manage insecurity and the latter is a quest for security. An analysis of the joint statements issued at the end of the Modi and Xi visits to the US highlights the contrasting differences in India and China’s bilateral ties with the United States in the cyber realm.

China : US – Cyber and State Visit

Xi Jinping’s state visit to the US took place in the shadow of a massive cyber-attack on the Office of Personnel Management (December 2014), which compromised the fingerprint records of 5.6 million people and Social Security numbers and addresses of around 21 million former and current government employees. 1 The US has been accusing China of theft of intellectual property targeted against its defence industries, private sector and key governmental functions; amounting to economic espionage. Accusations in this regard go back to 2004, when a series of coordinated attacks – dubbed as Titan Rain – targeted the computer networks of Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA. Cyber espionage featured in every high-level talk and security report. The issue became more complex when the US Department of Justice indicted five officers of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on the charges of hacking and economic espionage directed at US entities in the nuclear power, metals, and solar products sectors. This was the first time that the US judicial system had accused state actors of hacking and hurting the national interest in the cyber domain.

When Obama and Xi met, the two countries already had a history of a decade and a half of cyber confrontation, accusing each other of hacking and cyber-attacks. Moreover, the discord in approach towards Internet governance is also distinctly visible at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), where China is contesting the US stand on multistakeholderism, which China believes to be an encroachment upon its cyber sovereignty, and instead advocating multilateralism. The states’ role is supreme in China’s notion of multilateralism, while multistakeholderism professes equal role for businesses, civil society, governments, research institutions and non-government organizations. Cyber sovereignty for China encapsulates the right to censor and restrict information2 as well as maintain control over infrastructure, while the US advocates internet freedom.

Given all this, the China-US Cyber agreement is better seen in the context of conflict management or risk mitigation, although the two nations accepting cyber as a key security issue between them is noteworthy. The US desperately wants China to put an end to industrial or economic espionage, carried out at the behest of the PLA, and the agreement was precisely intended to do that. Following the agreement, in principle, the US and China have agreed to refrain from conducting or knowingly supporting cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property.

India : US – Cyber and the Modi Visit

In contrast, India-US cybersecurity cooperation dates back to almost the same time as the beginning of China-US cyber confrontation. The India-US Cyber Security Forum was established in 2002. After slack activity for a decade, the dialogue on cyber between India and the US has gained considerable pace. The Fourth US-India Cyber Dialogue was held in August 2015, led by the US Cybersecurity Coordinator and Special Assistant to the President Michael Daniel and India’s Deputy National Security Advisor Arvind Gupta, encompassing a range of cyber issues including cyber threats, enhanced cybersecurity information sharing, efforts to combat cybercrime, Internet governance issues, and norms of state behaviour in cyberspace.3  These efforts have been further strengthened during Modi’s just concluded US visit when cyber was placed high on the agenda.

India : US – Converging Interests

For India and the US, the security of cyberspace emanates from a common threat perception, democratic values and growing dependence. Both have reaffirmed their commitment to an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable Internet, underpinned by the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.4 There are numerous non-government agencies in both countries that are working to support this cause. And the governments deem private sector to be a key partner in the governance and security endeavour primarily because most of the technology underpinning the Internet and critical information infrastructure, such as energy, transportation and financial services, lies in private hands. The private sector manufactures Information and Communication Technologies; designs, develops and deploys Information Technology solutions for governments as well; provides services such as Internet and Telecommunications and leads the research in cybersecurity. Therefore, India and the US reiterate the role of the private sector in Internet governance and cybersecurity, in contrast to China where the state retains control on critical information and Internet infrastructure.

Similar to the US, the Indian defence establishment and the ministries or agencies dealing with border security and foreign affairs have been key targets of hacking attempts originating from China. The emails of several high-ranking officials from the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were hacked into in 2013.5 India was a prime target of Ghostnet – a Chinese cyber espionage operation – unveiled in 2009. Cyber espionage operations and attacks of Chinese origin, aimed at India and the US, have been frequently termed as Advanced Persistent Threats, placing them high on the common threat perception, in addition to terrorism.

India and the US have been at persistent risk from terrorist attacks and the growing capabilities of terrorist outfits to conduct an array of operations in cyberspace, such as recruitment, fund raising, communication and coordination. This has given impetus for the two countries to share information and simultaneously persuade major players like Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook to swiftly respond to requests from Indian security agencies. As per the transparency reports from the second half of 2015, compliance with respect to information requests from Indian law enforcement agencies was only 42 per cent in the case of Twitter6 and 50.87 per cent for Facebook.7 And for the first half of 2015, Apple complied with only 19 per cent of device requests,8 one of the lowest in the world. As cooperation matures further, India would expect an increase in compliance from tech firms based in the US for legal information requests and prompt response to security related cases.

As the framework for Cyber security awaits formal inking, both India and the US have some wrinkles to iron out. The US would want India to join the Budapest convention, the legally binding mechanism to address cybercrime and develop norms for quick response. But India has some apprehensions in this regard especially given that it was not a part of the drawing process of the treaty. India, with the second largest Internet user base in the world, would certainly seek a larger role at ICANN. Moreover, given the American emphasis on military aspects of cyber, India and the US might not be on the same page on the question of applicability of international law to state conduct in cyberspace. Certainly, China would be watching this closely, as India and the US come forward in the cyber realm to address key security issues, discuss governance modalities, and forge cooperation over terrorism and crime counter-measures. China might learn that cooperation rests on trust, and trust would not fructify if it continues to intrude into other countries’ networks for espionage on economic and security issues.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India. Originally published by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (www.idsa.in) at http://idsa.in/idsacomments/india-us-china-us-cyber-and-bilateral-visits_msharma_090616

• 1. Andrea Peterson, “OPM says 5.6 million fingerprints stolen in cyberattack, five times as many as previously thought,” The Washington Post, 23 September 2015
• 2. Franz-Stefan Gady, “The Wuzhen Summit and the Battle over Internet Governance,” The Diplomat, 4 January 2016.
• 3. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, “Joint Statement: 2015 United States- India Cyber Dialogue,” 14 August 2015
• 4. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, “India-US Joint Statement during the visit of Prime Minister to USA,” 7 June 2016.
• 5. Manu Kaushik and Pierre Mario Fitter, “Beware of the Bugs,” Business Today, 17 February 2013.
• 6. Twitter, “Information Requests,”
• 7. Facebook, “India Requests for Data,”
• 8. Apple, “Report on Government Information Requests,”.

By Josh Hoxie*

It’s no secret that House Republicans don’t like the Internal Revenue Service.

They’ve once again proposed cutting the agency’s already beleaguered funding, and they recently held a hearing to impeach its commissioner, John Koskinen. Koskinen’s alleged misdeeds stem from the now four-year-old allegations that the agency singled out conservative groups’ tax-exemption applications for scrutiny.

While an exhaustive investigation of the “scandal” did show mismanagement — for which the former chief, Lois Lerner, eventually stepped down — it turned up no evidence at all that the IRS targeted conservative groups for political reasons. And Koskinen himself didn’t even work for the IRS at the time.

In all likelihood, Koskinen’s persecution is part of a larger push by House conservatives to discredit the tax collection agency and pare down its funding.

These cuts haven’t just hurt the agency’s customer service, as anyone who tried to call the IRS last year could have told you. It’s made it much harder for the federal government to collect the money it needs to function.

So what’s behind all the animosity?

The current effort to demonize the IRS has two main backers: conservative ideologues who wish to undermine the government’s ability to collect taxes for ideological reasons, and wealthy elites who wish to do the same thing for personal financial reasons.

Some, like Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) — who’s both the wealthiest member of Congress and a leading member of the impeachment effort — fit into both camps.

The financial argument is perhaps the simplest to understand: A weak IRS helps the wealthy avoid paying taxes.

A New York Times story late last year outlined how the richest Americans have spent millions shaping the tax code in their favor. Underfunding the IRS makes it easier for their accountants and lawyers to exploit loopholes and tax havens to ensure they don’t pay the full tax rate the law requires.

And it’s paid off. In the past 20 years, the Times reported, the wealthiest 400 families have seen their average effective tax bill drop by over a third.

These financial interests stand behind — and often sponsor — the ideological push to undermine the IRS for its own sake. Hedge fund titans like Daniel Loeb, Louis Bacon, and Steven Cohen have all both benefited from the weak tax enforcement, and invested in it through their political and charitable donations.

Grover Norquist, the tax-hating president of Americans for Tax Reform, has for decades led an effort to — in his words — “shrink government to where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” And the most effective method for shrinking government is to starve it of the necessary revenue to fund public programs.

This anti-tax faction, once a fringe movement, now makes up the mainstream of the Republican Party.

One telling sign: Nearly 1,400 elected officials — including nearly all the Republicans in Congress — have signed Norquist’s pledge to oppose any increase in taxes. They’ve won significant victories, not least of which has been to demonize the IRS to the point that it’s consistently ranked among the least popular federal agencies.

The impeachment effort against Koskinen is dead on arrival in the Senate, and the bill to strip more IRS funding won’t survive a veto if it makes it to President Obama’s desk. But the bigger fight over taxes — and the agency tasked with collecting them — appears here to stay.

As Norquist put it, “You win on the tax issue, you win all issues.”

*Josh Hoxie directs the Project on Opportunity and Taxation at the Institute for Policy Studies. Distributed by OtherWords.org.

Can the Chinese economic engine really be hit? It is going a transformational change currently from an investment-driven to a consumption-driven one, but that would still enable its engine to run at a decent speed.

But yes, there may be three distinct themes that can severely hit the Chinese engine in the years to come.

Where’s the money, honey!

China has been a bank-run economy, unlike the world where capital markets became the larger source of funds. The exposure in China is concentrated to 3-4 large banks, each of which has become so large that it is comparable to the entire banking sector of some nations. The size of the trust industry and shadow banking are significantly large. Pooling these together, its Debt to GDP ratio is estimated to be ~280% as per a Forbes report. At a GDP of US$11tn, it means its Debt is ~US$28-30tn. That is big! It is about half of the entire world’s Debt. But its economy is growing and its government is trying to reduce lending rates; hence servicing such a huge debt should not be a problem. But the problem is that China is already burdened by bad-loans, which many believe is much larger than is being let out. A Reuters report carried the news of China’s banking regulator saying that its non-performing loans (NPL) more than doubled in 2015 vs 2014, and that the total NPL was ~US$300bn. Moreover, overall NPLs have been increasing for 10 consecutive quarters, and commercial bank NPLs have been increasing for 17 consecutive quarters. US$300bn of NPLs means it is ~3% of its economy. But many in the world believe that this number is under-reported, and the actual NPL issue may be much larger if Western standards of calculating NPLs are used.

The problem is not whether the banks will fail. It cannot, since most banks are state-owned and most debt is local government debt, hence the government may bear liability. The question is – how? Where does it get the money? High growth rates due to a manufacturing boom helped China accumulate a foreign exchange surplus of ~US$3tn. This is an investable surplus, which it is using to flex its geo-political muscle by funding bilateral investment projects in countries across Asia and Africa. Even if these were used to capitalize the lenders for their NPL problem, it would eat 10% of its reserves. But this is based on China’s own NPL calculations. If the actual problem is larger or if the coming years accentuate NPLs further, then this would be significantly more than 10%. It would also reduce its investable surplus to fund projects in other countries, forcing those nations look elsewhere. Given that many of its investment projects abroad combine Chinese funding with contracts for Chinese engineering companies, any reduction in funding would impact business flows for the Chinese firms too. Its Budget is also constrained to capitalize the lenders for their NPL problem. Raising monies through higher taxes may also not be opportune right now since job creation for the millions of Chinese youth is a key challenge, as seen by the large crowds thronging job-fairs across Chinese cities. Any reduction is budget allocation to other sectors would hit its economy dear, at a time when it is slowing down. It also cannot fall into a circular chain of debt. Pakistan’s economy highlights the risk of moving into the circular debt conundrum. i.e. of raising fresh debt to repay old debt. So China’s banks and lenders will remain under pressure to capitalize themselves against its bad-loan problem, and the question remains how this money will be raised?

Concrete-concrete everywhere, but not a business to run!

When I was in college, we used to hear a term in context of China – “economies of scale”. Build a scale so large, that it brings down the average cost of production way below your competitors to enable you add market share. That was an admirable approach, which helped China become the manufacturing capital of the world. The issue is – they seem to have overdone it. News reports across media show how many factories across the country are facing the heat of low capacity-utilization. There is only that much the world can consume, and maybe even less so when the world is reeling under a continued economic slump. China’s factories are suffering from lower demand, which in turn impacts their ability to pay for the debt they raised from banks and local governments, bringing us back to the earlier challenge. Many factories across the country have shut shop. Over-capacity also runs into real estate, as there is not enough demand from property-buyers for the real estate units. This has led to ghost-towns scattered across the country, basically projects where takers are yet to be found.

Not only does over-capacity impact the ability to repay loans, it also impacts new job creation and delay of incomes. Job creation in a country of China’s size is a social challenge, and lack of adequate jobs might only fuel social unrest and dissatisfaction amongst the youth, something its leadership cannot afford right now. The solution – create more jobs despite businesses in many factories being down. Easier said than done! It might create more jobs in the military, something which goes along its ambitions to extend its military network across various parts of Asia. But that’s still not a commercial employment, i.e. it does not give a boost to business and commerce in the country directly. The other aspect is that while it is investing to build infrastructure in several countries across Asia through bilateral investment projects, even those countries will emerge as producers of some sort in upcoming years. Otherwise, what will the new infrastructure yield in those countries, and how will they repay any loans they would have taken now for these projects? Even soft-loans have to be repaid. Their local population will also expect creation of jobs and production activities, and would then become competitors with China. Intensified competition often means investing into innovations, since the innovative firm is able to garner market share then. But its current over-capacity might reduce its fiscal muscle to invest adequately in innovations.

The hand it feeds, might come back to bite it!

Remember the stories of Americans allegedly involved with Mujahedeen fighters to counter the Soviets in the 1980s, or Pakistan’s ISI allegedly involved with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in the 1990s. The irony is that these very fighters came back to haunt USA and Pakistan after a few years. Where this connects with China is if it handles the issue of terrorism selectively! China has significant investment interests in Pakistan. But several terror networks are allegedly based on Pakistani soil. Its military targets Taliban networks who bomb Pakistan but not terrorists who bomb India, like Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hafiz Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, etc. Countries across the world, and UN in some cases, have branded them as terrorists. But China vetoed an appeal of India against Azhar, citing UN provisions.

Ironically, the group headed by Azhar is declared a terrorist group by USA. Earlier, China blocked India’s demand for action against Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Taiba mastermind of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. While China may justify its actions saying it is as per guidelines, it must sound ironical that the whole world calls them terrorists, but not China. Either China is wrong, or the world is wrong! But this selective approach in branding terrorists may come back to bite China one day, like it did with USA and Pakistan. China is facing a challenge in its restive Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, which borders Pakistan and Muslim Central Asian states. Its relationship with neighbours is strong enough to ensure terror network are not exported into China. But who is to forecast the changes in regional geo-politics in the future? If these terror modules do spread in the next 20 years, China would face internal security challenges. Pakistan’s case shows how internal security challenges severely impede investment flows into the economy. Could America in the 1980s or Pakistan in the 1990s have thought the same elements would come back to bite them after 20 years? While China may say its actions with regards to Pakistan-based terror masterminds are as per guidelines, the whole world might say it is because it has billions of dollars of investments in Pakistan. Who is to say these men would not have resorted to bombing Chinese projects in Pakistan, in case China had said otherwise.

The tragedy would be if this selective approach towards global terrorists comes back some years later to cause severe internal security challenges to it, which would then impact economic growth by reducing the flow of capital into projects into those very restive areas, which is precisely where China needs to focus more in the coming years for development. Hopefully, such a situation should not occur.

Originally published in Foreign Policy News

By Dr. S.Chandrasekharan

Nepal’s PM Oli who had hopes to continue as the Prime Minister till the next General election in Jan or Feb 2018 is facing many problems and it is not certain whether he would continue for long. His own party leadership as well as his coalition partners are against him and he is being accused of having failed to resolve all the outstanding problems.

The irony is that Oli inherited most of the problems from the previous government. Issues like the constitutional impasse and the Madhesi agitation, delayed reconstruction and rehabilitation work and slow movement in transitional justice are not of his making. Yet he could have shown more sincerity, friendliness and a feeling of urgency in getting the issues resolved.

Governance has come to a standstill. Over 40 bills including some important ones like local self-government act and contempt of court bill are pending in Parliament with the concerned ministers or house committees showing no initiative to expedite the bills.

With worsening economy and a bloated budget more people appear to be running away from Nepal which by one count is said to be 1500 a day. In spite of a poor financial situation, the government employees have been given a hefty increase in their salaries recently thus adding to the prevailing inflationary trends!

Gentleman’s Agreement

It is said that when PM Oli was about to be toppled by the Nepali Congress with the help of the Maoists and a part of the Madhesi group for a “unity government” under Maoist Chief Dahal, he had no choice but to surrender to the Maoists. A nine-point agreement was thus signed between the two parties- the UML and the CPN (Maoist).

It was also widely reported that Oli had also agreed to step down soon after the budget is passed and let the Maoist Chief Dahal to take over and form the so called “unity government.”

The budget was presented on 29th of May and so Dahal was waiting for a call from Oli to take over as per their “Gentleman’s Agreement.” Meanwhile Dahal had also strengthened himself by getting most of the splinter Maoist parties under his chairmanship with a new name as Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Center.

Oli not only refused to step down but denied of having entered into any such agreement. Dahal on the other hand claimed that the deal was indeed reached.

In my view there is nothing like Gentleman’ agreement in politics. Even if Oli had agreed orally directly or indirectly to step down, he does not have to do so.

Dahal clarified that he was not really interested in becoming Prime Minister and that his only aim was to form a national government to ensure that the peace process is taken to its logical end.

It is good that Dahal who is a master in shifting goal posts was himself given a dose of his medicine and no one would believe that he was not interested in becoming the prime minister.

It is not clear how the Nepali Congress would benefit by getting Dahal in place of Oli as Prime Minister. They should not forget that most of the problems inherited by Oli was from the days when the Nepali Congress was in power. They were the ones who excluded and marginalised both the Madhesi groups and the Janajathis in rushing through the new constitution. K.P.Situala and company should share the blame for the Madhesi agitation where innocent lives were lost unnecessarily.

If the Madhesi groups think that by combining with the Nepali Congress and the Maoists they could topple Oli’s government to achieve their objectives, they are sadly mistaken!

The Maoists have their own agenda and so far, the Nepali Congress has not shown any sympathy for the Madhesi cause either.

The Madhesi Agitation

The Kathmandu centric agitation by the Federal Alliance- (a combination of Madhesi and Janajathi groups) is continuing in a low key. Except on the first day when a government vehicle was vandalised and police action elsewhere, the agitation has generally been peaceful.

It was surprising that the alliance was able to muster more than a thousand volunteers a day and it looks that the agitation may continue for some time until something definite is known about the continuance of Oli’s government.

On 20th of May, the meeting of the Council of Ministers urged the agitating parties to come for talks with the promise that the government would show “maximum flexibility.”

Deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa had also individually written to all the parties on 9th of May to come for talks at a mutually agreed date and time.

The agitating parties rejected the offer of meeting and said that would attend only if some of their ‘pre requisite’ conditions are met and a favorable environment is created.

The problem is that both the Prime Minister as well as the leaders of other ruling parties do not appear to be sincere. There is a huge trust deficit between the two and there appears to be immediate chance of one or other giving way for a mutually favourable agreement.

Luckily for India- “India bashing” has diminished- may be because Oli is too busy with his own problems- created by himself, his own party and other coalition partners.