Travis Kalanick’s forced resignation as the CEO of Uber is a great symbolic end to the adolescence of the “sharing” economy. Uber and other companies that claimed space in this invented arena may now have to acknowledge that they are not actually new and different from everything that went before them. And the rules that apply to their competitors also apply to them.

Uber under Kalanick was in many ways the poster child for the sharing economy. The company insisted that all the rules that governments had put in place to regulate the taxi industry — to protect workers and to prevent discrimination — didn’t make sense for the new model, because they were Uber.

The company’s effective motto, that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission, seemed to cry out for a swift slap to the face. Taxis are hardly new, but the Uber gang claimed that the whole set of regulations developed around the industry didn’t apply to them because they were an app-based “ride hailing” platform, not a taxi company.

This was, and is, garbage; as are most of the claims for the “newness” and “uniqueness” of the sharing economy companies. There is very little that is genuinely unique about this set of companies, but they insistently claim that they are reinventing everything but the wheel.

Take, for example, Airbnb, the other towering pillar of the sharing economy. What exactly is new and unique about renting out rooms in a house, or even about renting whole apartments? This one probably dates back to pre-historic times. Airbnb has people marketing this service over the Internet, in a single, easily organized directory. That is certainly newer, but the Internet has been around for two decades and so has been the practice of using it as a way to market rooms for rent.

The only thing that was really new about Uber, Airbnb and the other sharing economy companies was the claim that they should be exempt from longstanding rules and regulations.

Uber took this to the extreme, fighting all forms of regulation everywhere, whereas Airbnb and most of the other sharing economies have generally tried to reach accommodations with regulators. (Interesting exception: In New York City, though Uber flooded the market and undercut yellow cabs on pricing, they technically abided by the stringent rules of the Taxi & Limousine Commission. Airbnb, meantime, got its foothold enabling activity that was against the city’s hotel laws.)

Just to be clear, there were and are real problems with the regulatory structure in many sectors, especially the taxi industry. Uber performed a valuable service by directly challenging a framework that largely served to protect the incumbent industry. The structure limited supply and in this way had the predictable result of giving bad service and high prices.

This regulatory environment needs to be modernized — thoughtfully, not by a profit-making competitor, but by government.

But Uber forced the issue by plunging ahead with its service and completely ignoring the rules governing the taxi industry. It quickly gained a following of loyal customers, which made politicians in most cities reluctant to challenge the company.

One result was that the incumbent taxi industry had to quickly adapt to stay in business. Many bought new fleets of cars, began accepting credit cards and brought other aspects of their service into the 21st century.

This was certainly a positive outcome, but there are still many important regulatory issues that need to be addressed.

For example, it is a real public safety concern that some Uber drivers pose a risk to their passengers. City regulations usually require taxi drivers to be fingerprinted and undergo an FBI background check to be licensed to the drive a cab.

Uber said that we should just trust them to do adequate checks (again, New York City, where drivers undergo TLC background checks, is an exception). When the city council in Austin, Tex., decided that Uber’s word was not good enough, and put in place an ordinance requiring fingerprint checks for drivers, Uber then challenged it with a ballot initiative. The company, along with Lyft, spent a fortune to push its position. Both also threatened to leave the city if they lost the initiative.

Uber and Lyft followed through on their threat when the voters of Austin refused to be cowed. After they left the city, a contingent of upstart companies quickly filled the gap, and Austin’s cab-using population suffered no serious inconvenience.

Uber’s response was to run to the Texas state legislature and spend a fortune lobbying. It managed to buy itself a state law that took away the right of cities like Austin to regulate ride-hailing services.

This victory for the Uber boys shows everything wrong and contemptible about the sharing economy contingent. If the background checks required for taxi drivers are excessive, then the obvious solution is to modernize the system for all competitors so that it is sufficient to ensure passengers safety without imposing unnecessary burdens on drivers and their employers.

Uber decided to run roughshod over the rules, then try to get them rewritten around its own needs.

This is the same with many regulations. We want to make sure that the cars used by taxi companies and Uber are safe. The former have to undergo regular government inspections. This was not originally the case with Uber cars, although several cities have more recently required the vehicles to undergo a similar inspection process.

This modernization of safety rules should be the general practice. We also want to make sure that there is adequate insurance to cover passengers in the event of accidents. This is again an area where Uber has made concessions after originally insisting it was not its problem.

Taxis are also regulated in part to ensure universal access. This means that people without smartphones and credit cards also have to be able to use the service.

The same is true of people with disabilities. Taxi companies are usually required to ensure that a portion of their fleet is wheelchair accessible. If Uber is not going to serve this population, then perhaps they should be required to pay a fee so that they share with their competitors the cost of providing universal service.

This is also an issue that arises with other sharing-economy companies, most notably Airbnb. Hotels are required to ensure that a percentage of their rooms are accessible to people in wheelchairs. That means installing ramps, bathrooms with grab bars and the like.

Given its structure, it would be difficult for Airbnb to meet a similar requirement. However, it would not be difficult to assess a fee if a certain percent of its rentals are not accessible.

The same story applies to discrimination against racial or ethnic groups, where existing companies must comply with a strict set of rules. It may be difficult to determine if an individual Airbnb renter is discriminating. But it would not be hard to determine if African Americans or other groups have a more difficult time renting rooms on the service than whites. Assessing a penalty for this discrimination would give Airbnb an incentive to discourage its hosts from discriminating, even if it may not be able to prevent discrimination altogether.

Then there are the labor regulations. Uber, like many other “sharing economy” behemoths, insists that its drivers are independent contractors, nothing more. This means that they are not entitled to overtime pay, guaranteed the minimum wage or able to form unions. Nor are they covered by workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance.

While Uber is not the first company to try to classify workers as independent contractors, it is larger than most employers that attempt this trick.

Treating Uber drivers, as well as drivers of traditional taxis, as employees, with the rights of employees, should not be hard. Much smaller, less sophisticated companies have done it for decades. Of course Uber could not figure out payments for its drivers in New York and managed to cheat them out of millions, so perhaps treating drivers as employees would be too complicated a task for the company.

But perhaps the worst part of the story with Uber is its internal culture. Tales of gender-based discrimination are common in Silicon Valley, so it would not be surprising if Uber also had some issues with it.

But it seems Uber took discrimination and harassment to a new level. In the wake of the resignation of a former top-level female engineer over complaints of sexual harassment, Uber fired 20 employees for sexual harassment. This group probably followed the company motto of asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

This country has no shortage of sexist jerks. What was different about Uber is that these were jerks with money. And the money did not come from the profits Uber earned from providing a good service to customers. Uber has consistently lost money, and often large amounts.

The money that fueled the Uber games came — and continues to come — from venture capitalists who apparently believed they were sitting on the next Microsoft or Apple. It is not clear if Uber will ever be able to use its huge market share to become a profit-making company.

The Austin experience suggests that market entry is easier than many believed. If Uber upped its prices 20% to 30% so that it earned a profit, it might see many new entrants pulling away market share. The company has been pushing forward in developing technology for self-driving cars, which would certainly cut back on labor costs, but it hardly has this field to itself.

At its peak, Uber’s implicit market capitalization was almost $70 billion. (The company is privately traded, so the assessment of market capitalization is based on the small numbers of shares whose sale price is publicly known.) This is almost 40% higher than the market capitalization of General Motors, a huge company that actually does make a profit.

While a humbled Uber, as a company that actually follows the rules, may ultimately be able to earn a profit, it is unlikely to be large enough to justify its stratospheric valuation. This means that many of its venture capitalist sponsors may take a big hit.

That would be good.

In the future, perhaps the people who hold the money will put more value in that profit while obeying the rules, and work to get the rules changed where necessary. When a company’s road to profitability is a culture of bending if not breaking the laws, it should not be a good bet for investors.

This article originally appeared in the New York Daily News  and is reprinted with permission.

Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Chinese firm Alibaba, anticipates that in 30 years the workday will shrink to four hours. He cites as evidence the continual decline in the number of works hours of the average worker. But while average hours worked has declined, some people work 60 to 70 hours a week and more, and for many of them a reduction in hours worked isn’t likely.

Workers engaged in manual labor, or whose jobs involve following the instructions of their supervisors, a reduction in hours worked is feasible and perhaps desirable. For knowledge workers, hourly productivity is higher the more hours they work (up to some limit), because they accumulate knowledge as they work. People who want to get ahead in those professions have to work longer hours.

For cashiers and assembly line workers, an eight-hour shift could be shared by two individuals, each working four hours, with no loss in productivity. And if fatigue on the job was an issue, productivity might even rise. A job like corporate CEO could not be divided in two and remain anywhere near as productive. The CEO makes decisions that have huge impacts on the direction of the company, and the more time the CEO spends gathering information and assessing alternatives, the more productive the CEO will be.

The same idea holds for many knowledge workers. Even secretaries will be more productive in the afternoon if they understand what went on in the office in the morning.

Two factors are at work here. One is understanding what is happening in the immediate environment. Project managers, computer programmers, and knowledge workers more generally will have a higher hourly productivity when they see first-hand as much as possible about their work environment. A second factor, more important in the long run, is that knowledge workers learn on the job, so the more hours they work, the more productive they will be in the future.

Much of that knowledge is what economists refer to as tacit knowledge. It is difficult to communicate to others, so the person who has the knowledge has to be the person who uses it. Why is it that corporations pay huge sums to hire experienced CEOs who have been out of school for decades when they could hire a new Harvard MBA with the latest education for much less? The more experienced individual has accumulated decades of tacit knowledge that can’t be taught in school. A shorter workday would mean less experience and less human capital.

While it is feasible, and indeed likely, that the workday will continue to shrink for many workers, it is not really feasible for many knowledge workers. Those who want to get ahead will work longer hours because it gives them the advantage of more human capital, and employers of knowledge workers will prefer to hire those who work longer hours because they will be more productive than if those longer hours were subdivided among two or more employees.

For some jobs, a four-hour work day is very feasible, but in a knowledge economy, many jobs will require longer hours.

This article was published by The Beacon.

The twenty-seventh Plenary Meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an elite nuclear cartel to control nuclear commerce, which was held in Switzerland this month on 22 and 23 June, 2017 ended inconclusively on the issue of non-NPT state’s membership.

India was struggling to whittle away the resistance for paving way into the group, however the country’s print media headlines concluded the entry status as ‘stalled and awaited’. The outcome of this plenary session on the enlargement of cartel’s memberships does not come as a surprise because no major breakthrough for India’s accession to NSG was expected for foreseeable future, viewing no change in China’s position and blatant slant among the members of cartel over the criteria for accepting new or Non-NPT countries into its fold.

The stringent division was observed on the Grossi Proposal as well, which was presented last year and showed clear inclination in India’s favor as against Pakistan. Reportedly, more than twenty states are defying US pressure currently and insisting to adopt an objective and universal criteria for inclusion of non-NPT states in the cartel. The view from Pakistan maintains that persuasive diplomatic outreach by Pakistan spread the realization on international level about the possible repercussions of further exceptions for India. Conversely, the resilience from Indian side for NSG candidature was also manifested. However, notwithstanding U.S. efforts for India’s exceptional and unconditional entry, the stalemate still persist on offering an exclusive treatment to India.

So what was discussed in the recent plenary meeting and how it was significant? Other than highlighting the central role of NSG and its contribution to the international nuclear non-proliferation architecture with NPT at its centre, the member states of group reassessed stock of developments since last plenary meeting. Whilst NSG discussed the ‘technical, legal and political aspects of the participation of the non-NPT states of the NSG’, eight significant issues were focused in the discussion.

At first, diverse views were exchanged on the technical issues imperative for the implementation of the control lists and various proposals were considered to update the NSG control list. On next, the discussion took place to upgrade the NSG guidelines in order to keep pace with evolving global security landscape. Moreover, the policies regarding transparency were debated and information was exchanged for best practices on licensing and enforcement. In addition, the Participating Governments welcomed the growing number of states that have harmonized their national export control systems with the NSG guidelines and control lists.

Lastly and more significantly, NSG relationship with India was discussed and all aspects of the implementation of the 2008 statement on Civil Nuclear Cooperation with India were considered. India was granted special waiver from its rules governing civilian nuclear trade that paved the way for India-US nuclear deal.

Critics argue the problem with this exceptionalism is that a lot of fissile material that is being imported extensively for India’s civilian nuclear program is going into its civilian unsafeguarded stream and could possibly be using for its weapon program. Consequently there exists a big hole in India’s separation plan that keeps one guessing. This is a critical issue that has also been highlighted in recent literature and a number of countries are also aware of this concern.

It is also clear from the recent Belfer Center report by Mansoor Ahmed, titled “India’s Nuclear Exceptionalism”, that the ability for India to import its fissile material for civilian purpose has enabled it to use its indigenous stock of fissile material exclusively for weapon purpose. So India’s ability to increase the inventory of nuclear weapons has gone up tremendously. Akin apprehensions were raised in King’s College report titled “India’s Strategic Nuclear and Missile Programmes”. This depicts that negative narrative about Pakistan as the fastest growing nuclear program is a deception and debatable.

The fact of the matter is that the number of nuclear facilities and fissile material stocks in Pakistan are much lesser as compared to India’s especially after it was given the waiver in 2008. Hence it is impossible for Pakistan to have a nuclear program that is growing faster than that of India.

Consequently, the debate about India’s growing nuclear program and exceptional treatment rekindled lately and probably the issue will be discussed again in next meeting as NSG members decided to meet again to discuss the issue of non-NPT state’s candidature in November.

This is yet to see that what consensus Participating Governments will reach on admission of new states into its fold, however Pakistan feels encouraged by the increasing number of states supporting neutral formula and realizing Pakistan’s concerns about India’s exceptional treatment. It is hoped that NSG members would adopt an impartial criteria for all non-NPT countries in future. Otherwise another exemption for India would accelerate arms race in South Asian region by infuriating Pakistan to expand its nuclear capabilities and will also question international efforts to curb proliferation.

To conclude, criteria-based NSG membership is a mutually beneficial proposition because it will benefit the strategic restrain, the stability in South Asia, the Non-proliferation regime, NPT and NSG.

Despite India being a piece of jigsaw for the USA to counterbalance China, Chinese media was upbeat on the Modi-Trump summit. Chinese leading media, Global Times, hogged the headline with “China Could benefit from Trump-Modi summit”. It is puzzling. The think tanks and analysts were bogged down by suspense with the Chinese overtone. The Atlantic Council, a top US think tank in a paper, “Transforming India from a balancing to leading power’, urged US President Donald Trump to prioritize its ties with India to counter Beijing’s growing influence.

This paradoxical convulsion in Chinese diplomacy raised several eyebrows on the Trump-Modi summit. The logic of the Chinese media to chant the summit was not, however, baseless. China’s positive expectations were polarized on opening of market access and dilution of HI Visa regulations. As a resultant, a new synergy was expected to be evolved from the summit, which could have a cascading impact on China’s trade and investment relation with India.

The Chinese media highlighted two reasons for the benefits of the summit. First, Trump’s “America First”, a non-rhetoric campaign, was expected to mount pressure on India to open the gate more widely for US market access. Presumably, this would unleash a benefit to Chinese trade and investment opportunities in India. China is the biggest trade partner of India, despite roiling under severe trade restrictions , such as anti-dumping and security concerns. Secondly, in the pursuit of Trump treating Modi a “Good Friend”, the Chinese was hopeful for a dilution in the H1Visa, which could help China too, since a large number of Chinese immigrants are using this visa gate.

But, the Joint Statement picked up one of the Chinese hopes, that is, opening the marketing access exercises and left the visa issue in silence. The Joint Statement categorically prioritized USA and India to “undertake a comprehensive review of trade relations with a goal for expediting regulatory processes and increasing marketing access.”

USTR highlighted six major barriers in the Indo-USA trade. They are import licensing, standard, testing, labelling and certification, anti-dumping and countervailing measures, export subsidies and domestic support, government procurement and service sector barriers.

It says that though India has eliminated the licensing restrictions for most of the consumer goods, it requires special import license for certain goods, such as motor cycles and vehicles. It focused on barriers with regard to government procurement with price preferences to the domestic manufacturers. It was critical on export subsidies, such as export earnings are exempt from taxes, both corporate and domestic manufacturing taxes and the complex custom procedures.

According to Indian official, some of the concerns were being addressed and custom procedures would fall in line with the Trade Facilitation Agreement. Government procurement is being addressed, aligning with Make in India campaign.

Government procurement has been reinvented, with an eye to push Make in India. For example, Ministry of Urban Development made it mandatory to procure railway equipment for metro projects from domestic sources. According to the policy, a minimum of 75 percent of metro coaches and critical signaling equipment are to be procured from domestic sources by the Central and State level metro project authorities.

Currently, no domestic company is manufacturing metro coaches. All four manufacturers in the country are foreign investors. Chinese state run company, China Railway Stock Corporation (CRSC), has decided to set up manufacturing facilities for metro rail coaches and equipment in Nagpur .
China is emerging a big ticket investor in India. In 2015, Chinese investment in India leapfrogged eight times and became the eighth biggest foreign investor in India. During 2016, Chinese companies proposed US $ 2.3 billion worth of investment in the country.

In mobile manufacturing, China has already made a strong footprint In India. More than half a dozen mobile manufacturing companies are from China. Just before Chinese telecom giant Huawai announced for shifting plant to India, Xiami had revealed plan to set up two manufacturing plants in the country. The upstart brands like Goinee, LeECo, Oppo, Vivo, Meizu, One Plus and Coolpad have also announced their facilities in the country.

Trade relations between India -USA and Sino-India are diagonally opposite to each other. While India has trade surplus with USA , it has trade deficit with China, with higher magnitude. While India woos American investors for advancement of technology and innovation, India urges China to invest to counterbalance the trade deficit. In the Joint Statement, both Trump and Modi pledged for deepening defense cooperation, recognizing India as a “Major Defense Partner”. The emphasis was for working together for advanced defense equipment and technology. This refers to a significant take way by Modi to woo the USA investors in defense, which was greatly opened for the foreign investors during his regime.

Foreign Direct Investment has ballooned during the Modi tenure. With the summit extrapolating an upturn in the Indo-US relation, foreign investment from USA is likely to surge, given the Indian side ensuring to address the trade and investment barriers.

The important point of US President Donald Trump is his inconsistency. He is unpredictable and naïve in diplomacy. Even though his isolationist policy “ American only“ was the driving force to let him win the unexpected battle of election, his warm greetings and roll out of red carpet to Modi, treating him a Good friend, will further advance Indo-US relations, which was built during the three years period of Obama regime.

Before election, according to Chinese media, Global Times, Trump will pay little attention to Asia Pacific, unlike Obama and Hillary Clinton, in the wake of his assertion on “America only”. This may prove benign to India-China economic relation.

Therefore, the summit has trilateral impact on Indo-US-China relation. Interestingly, the upturn in Indo-US relation is unlikely to impact the Chinese binge in investment in India or growing Sino-India economic relation.

Views are personal

Article 370 of the Constitution of India provides special autonomous status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir. The erstwhile Article 238, pertaining to Part B states or former princely states was repealed by the 7th Constitutional Amendment in 1956 after the reorganisation of states.

However, Article 370 overrode the provisions of Article 238 as special provisions to the state of J&K. The provisions of Article 370 have been controversial right from inception, with Dr BR Ambedkar as the principal drafter of the Constitution, having refused to draft the article owing its bias and unequal dispensations within the framework of a free India. The drafting was eventually done by Gopalaswami Ayyangar, who was a former Diwan to the Maharaja of J&K. It was initially meant to be temporary in nature, hence it was included in the Temporary and Transitional Provisions in Part XXI. This paper intends to examine the Article and the validity of the politics attached to it, based on four specific arguments, these being as under:

First, how the very Genesis of Article 370 spawns conditions for inequality in India. Second, how the Retention of Article 370 implies festering of contentious issues. Third, how the Ramifications of Article 370 forge inequality within the state of J&K. Fourth, how the Politics over Article 370 only seek limited leverage from it.

The above arguments have been examined through an engagement with primary and secondary sources, and attempt to address the views presented in sources representing different traditions. Article 370 has been examined using the points of views across a spectrum of opinion, an interpretivist approach tries to classify this debate in the larger context of its continuation or revocation.

Was Article 370 used for the delegation of power as it was originally intended to do for a vulnerable population who were insecure about their identity and their culture? Did Article 370 recreate power structures as it was intended to, or did it just add another level of subterfuge to extant biases in society? Did Article 370 indeed increase the level of accountability in the institutions of the state that were meant to protect the rights of the people and therefore empower them? Has Article 370 improved social mobility in any manner, or has it in fact served to only curb it further? Is there an underlying and inherent contradiction in the debate about whether the state wants to be a part of India or its quest for self governance? Finally, has Article 370 worked in the manner it was envisaged to, or has it succeeded in aggravating inequality within the state and in the larger context of India? The analyses of these arguments would seek to answer the question whether Article 370 should continue or be revoked, and whether it is related to the growth of conflict in J&K. (The research paper can be accessed online at: http://grdspublishing.org/index.php/people/article/view/474)

Argument 1: The Genesis of Article 370 itself created inequality in the Indian context

The Instrument of Accession for the state of Jammu & Kashmir was signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26th October 1947, making the state an integral part of the Union of India, and marking the culmination of the longest standing conflict in South Asia. In these the most desperate of circumstances, in an act signifying sheer despondency, the wily Maharaja still managed to insert  clauses  in to the agreement to ensure Indian jurisdiction remained confined to defence, external affairs and communications. Effectively, these clauses were meant as safeguards to his own sovereignty1 (Akbar 2008: 135). It also signified in some ways the Maharaja’s difficulty in swallowing a situation wherein he not only had to deal with Nehru, Prime Minister of India, but also Sheikh Abdullah, who had consistently opposed him for over twenty years2 (Schofield 2010).

Despite some opposition from the Constituent Assembly of India, the issue never drew the kind of vehement opposition that would have ensured its timely burial, and ultimately it became the effective precursor to Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Due to the opposition of Dr BR Ambedkar in drafting the article, owing its bias and unequal dispensation within the framework of independent India’s Constitution, the task was entrusted to Gopalaswami Ayyangar, trusted by Prime Minister Nehru, and a former aide of the Maharaja. Ayyangar argued that the special article governing J&K was a fallout of the special conditions of its accession to India coupled with the military conflict that had overtaken it immediately. Further, with the involvement of the United Nations, it was seen as a positive projection of the nascent Indian republic trying to base such issues on the ‘will of the people’.

Thus, Article 370 confers special status to the state of J&K, which is one of the vexing conundrums of contemporary Indian politics; in fact the inherent inequality gave rise to the entire debate about a special status given unlike other princely states which acceded to India in 1947. Had it not been for this special status, certain realities may not have changed even in this case, and the quandaries may have still remained as complex. It would still be a Hindu Maharaja ruled state with a dominant Muslim population. Post the accession, the opposition to the imbalance between the two would still have been palpably present; in fact, possibly more so, given the imposition of a social and democratic order (as per the Constitution of India). Post Independence India would still see a churn in terms of its social outlook, policies, laws giving some manner of equality to its diverse population, of which the people of J&K would partake equally.

Wherein Sheikh Abdullah as a popular leader may not have changed, but the differences between him and the central government may never have arisen. Even if they had, the differences may have been of the nature that political differences arose with leaders such as JP Narayan. Yet the yearning of the people for equality, for development, for justice, would have existed. It may have resulted in J&K taking a route akin to the other Indian states of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh; extant differences in various regions (whether based on identity or religion) may have seen the division of the state into simpler administrative units (as has been the case with Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh or Uttarakhand). Individual states and/or union territories of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh being formed to cater to the aspirations of the distinct people of each of these parts may have sprung up in due course.

Given the nature of social conflicts, unequal terms will invariably create conditions for the conflict to take a destructive turn. The inexorable nature of conflict would not necessarily mean unbridled violence, provided the conflict is moulded or turned towards a positive and constructive turn. The choice to make the social conflict in J&K constructive in nature was within the grasp of the Indian government, as Sheikh Abdullah initially professed his fidelity to India and its Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru3 (Akbar 2008). He propagated the cause of joining India, especially in terms of the peasant reforms he intended to usher in, which would never reach fruition in a feudalism protected Pakistan. This would also have proved to be the death knell of an unequal and controversial Article 370. However as history bears us out, events turned in a different direction.

Therefore in its very genesis, Article 370 sought to create unequal terms for people who were citizens of the same country, living in different regions. This was also a precursor to the unequal development of people in J&K itself and in comparison to the rest of the country. The multiple cause and effect of the Maharaja’s bid to safeguard his own sovereignty, Nehru’s bid to invalidate Jinnah’s Two Nation Theory, and Sheikh Abdullah’s bid to ascend to power; all of these have only resulted in effecting an unequal playing field and creating roots for future disharmony.

Argument 2: The Retention of Article 370 allowed the contentious issue to fester beyond reasonable limits

Under Part XXI of the Constitution of India, special autonomous status is granted to the state of J&K4 (Constitution of India Updated 2015). Part XXI of the Constitution deals with the Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions. Some of these provisions also exist for tribal areas in India, such as Arunachal Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Nagaland. However the special status granted to J&K after accession has been retained as such due to the ongoing dispute at the UN Security Council between India and Pakistan.

Despite the grant of special status to the state of J&K, it remained mired in controversy and political intrigue right from accession itself. Conflicting interests of the main protagonists resulted in a series of differences on a number of key issues. Needless to say, it set the tone for the future as well. For instance, India and Pakistan were at loggerheads on the legality of accession, both making claims and counter claims. With the issue being raised before the UN, the question of a plebiscite became more complex. This complexity was owed to Pakistan’s refusal to concede the territories annexed by it and ostensibly named Azad Kashmir or free Kashmir. India on the other hand used this as an argument against the conduct of plebiscite; plebiscite after all was meant for the complete state of J&K, and not just the portion which remained under Indian control. A special United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) intended to negotiate the withdrawal arrangements as per the Security Council resolution and made three visits to the subcontinent between 1948 and 1949, trying to find a solution agreeable to both India and Pakistan. A resolution was passed in August 1948 proposing a three-part process, which was accepted by India but  rejected by Pakistan5.

India insisted that Pakistan withdraw first, and Pakistan contended that there was no guarantee that India would withdraw afterwards; this resulted in a stalemate.

Within India, the veracity of a special status was being heatedly debated. Sheikh Abdullah had his own vision of a new Kashmir, and was frequently conflicting with the Maharaja on issues of command and control, including the future of the state forces. This got further exacerbated by the absence of the Maharaja from the seat of power in Srinagar, making any communication between the two even more minimal. With the Sheikh enjoying the patronage of Nehru, in May 1949, the Maharaja was eventually asked to take a holiday away from the state, a euphemism for advising him abdication of the throne6 (Singh 1982).  It was less than two years since the accession. In some ways this emboldened Sheikh Abdullah, as was seen in later years.

In the next few years, the Sheikh was seen making repeated flip- flops in his stance towards the future status of J&K. While publicly proclaiming allegiance to India, he was seen dallying with the establishment in Pakistan, as well as exploring the option of an independent Kashmir. In 1948 at the United Nations (UN), Abdullah spoke in favour of the Accession,   but in a private meeting with Warren Austin the United States (US) representative to the UN, he discussed this third option of independence, with British and American aid to help develop the new  country7 (Bhattacharjea 1994).

In the same instance there were reports of his discussions with the Pakistani delegation wherein he assuaged their fears by the argument that an independent Kashmir would naturally tilt towards Pakistan.  This was viewed with suspicion by the government of India amidst growing political din on the issue of a continued special status. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Home Minister of India was indeed very worried about the Sheikh being in constant communication with his erstwhile comrades across the Cease Fire Line, especially Ghulam Abbas. The same has has been noted with some concern in his correspondence with Nehru8 (Patel 1948, 1950). The constituent assembly of J&K which had 100 seats, continued to retain 25 seats for the members from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK)9.

In the areas of Jammu and Ladakh, other reasons for dissent were fermenting. In Jammu, the sudden shift from a Jammu based Hindu ruler to a Kashmir based Muslim rule, was cause for tremendous heartburn, as were the issues of a separate flag, a separate constitution and a separately elected governor (not nominated by the centre in Delhi). Similarly, in Ladakh, it soon became evident that Sheikh Abdullah was far removed from the Ladakhis and their way of life.

As early as 1949, they wrote to Nehru to ask for integration with Jammu or East Punjab, as separate from the valley. The enormous wealth of Buddhist monasteries was threatened by the land reforms of Sheikh Abdullah, setting off a religious friction, as also the fear of eventual accession to Pakistan. Further, the Shia Muslim population of Kargil did not harbour any intentions of joining up with a cause largely championed by Sunni Muslims as also a Sunni dominated Pakistan. All these issues served to make the question of Article 370 even more vexed and contentious.

In 1953, Sheikh Abdullah was arrested and almost continuously for the next 20 years continued to be detained by the Government of India. The intervening years saw the rise of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and later GM Sadiq, with the worst of political manoeuvring to stay in power keeping Article 370 artificially propped. After the Sheikh was finally released in 1973, detailed discussions were conducted between him and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, with the focus on a self rule by a democratically elected government. Accordingly, the Indira Gandhi- Sheikh Abdullah accord of 1974 committed itself to continue status quo under provisions of Article 370.

Thereby the Centre’s jurisdiction extends to Defence, External Affairs, Communications and Finance. J&K can be placed under the Governor’s Rule in a state of Emergency only under certain conditions. The state has its own Constitution, titled Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, which was ratified in law by the Centre in 1957, after its adoption by the state in November 1956. The two main bones of contention that have emerged as part of the narrative are:

• Why two constitutions? This is considered unequal with the rest of the country. Even if the special status is justified by the special circumstances surrounding the accession of J&K to India, the second point becomes difficult to answer in logical terms. Further, in the other parts of the country which were given special status owing various reasons, a separate constitution has not been sought. This exacerbates the bias, and qualifies the argument in favour of inequality.
• Why have an article in the Indian constitution that leaves so much room for continued misinterpretation, which has been repeatedly proved by events over the intervening years. Whether it was Abdullah citing the special status to justify his dalliance with Pakistan, or the inciting of violence by Pakistan, or the creation of an unequal platform within India, all these are indicative of the kind of misinterpretation of Article 370.

A counter argument offered is the gradual erosion of Article 370 by a series of Presidential orders which have left only a shadow of the original article; the only substantial differences pertain to the rights of permanent residents, emergency provisions and name and boundaries of the state10 (Mattoo 2014). This has been viewed as a cause for an ideological clash. However, the nationalists perceive this as only a lame excuse to justify the ongoing conflict. In any case history bears out the fact that the very people responsible for the political and constitutional erosion are now assuming the moral high ground of autonomy. The mainstream polity and intelligentsia profess that the continued retention of Article 370 has allowed contentious issues to fester beyond reasonable limits. Had the Article been time bound or incorporated in a manner to allow its lapse in due course of time, a very high probability of the contentions being resolved would have existed. Integration in to the mainstream of society and polity have normally been seen as equalizers. The flow of liberal opinion, people and ideas does not reduce the autonomy or the identity; to the contrary they only serve to secure.

Argument 3: The Ramifications of Article 370 seek to create inequality even within the state of J&K

Although J&K was adopted as the 15th state of of India, the special status conferred on the state under Article 370, limits the jurisdiction of the Centre over the state. Despite this, Sheikh Abdullah considered the inclusion of the article under Temporary and Transitional Provisions of the Constitution dubious, and insisted on iron-clad guarantees. Notwithstanding the guarantees offered by the Constitution which result in severe restrictions on the Centre Abdullah used these as the underlying (mis)interpretations for his historical shift from a pro-India stance to one of Independence/ self determination. It got him arrested in 1953, as well as dismissal of his government – the start to what would be nearly 20 years in detention.

Under Emergency Provisions, the Centre can only declare emergency in J&K in case of war/ external aggression. It cannot declare financial emergency or an emergency on the grounds of internal disturbances without state government concurrence. It remains the only state to not have to account for the monies flowing in and out of the state. Further, Fundamental Duties and Directive Principles of State are not applicable to J&K. The Constitution of J&K cannot be amended in respect of the provisions of Article 370 by the state legislature. The Centre cannot revoke Article 370 without the recommendations of the Constituent Assembly of J&K. The Constituent Assembly ceased to exist in 1957 hence the revocation of Article 370 cannot be done without an amendment of the Constitution of India. (It is pertinent to note here that this convoluted state of affairs is largely attributable to the political opportunism embraced by the leaders of the state and their inter-se relationship with the polity and the political thought at the Centre).  If the Indian Parliament amends the Constitution of India in order to remove Article 370, apart from the political machinations required for such an exercise, such an act may be subject to judicial review. Opinion is divided on whether such an occurrence will be able to stand up to judicial scrutiny.

Certain issues which stand out in the context of inequality in the state are being highlighted in the argument. Firstly, inequality pertaining to religion. Secondly, inequality of resident status. Thirdly, deprivation of rights to underprivileged sections. Last but not the least, gender bias inherent to the provisions of Article 370.

Inequalities pertaining to religion have been persistent since accession of J&K to the Indian state. At the time of accession, J&K had about 4 million people, 76.4% being Muslim, 20.1% Hindu, and 3.49% Others, mostly Sikh and Buddhist. Srinagar had 208,000 people (78.4% Muslim, 20.7% Hindu, 0.9% Others), and Jammu had 50,000 people (60.7% Hindu, 31.6% Muslim, 7.8% Others, mostly Sikh). Demographics changed on account of the occupation of almost one third of the territory by Pakistan, called PoK, then by the Chinese occupation of Aksai Chin, and then by the ceding of Sakshgam by Pakistan to China. As a result a census in J&K is not complete; yet if the Line of Control (LoC) were to become the de-facto International Boundary (IB), the demographics would be very different than what is being claimed as a Muslim majority state. Areas of Jammu and Ladakh are not demographically similar to those of Kashmir; also, large tracts of J&K are Shia dominated, such as Kargil in India and Gilgit- Baltistan on the Pakistani side of the LoC. Historically, Shias have largely not been a part of the separatist demand, and more so since Pakistan is Sunni dominated and has a long and bloody history of Shia persecution in its occupied territories.

As per records, approximately 525,000 people migrated from Indian J&K to Pakistan and PoK in 1947- 48, as against about 226,000 from PoK to India (Snedden, 2013). Since the 1990s, about 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been displaced from Kashmir as per analyses by various agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In the larger context of the scenario today, Article 370 seems to be unjustly tilted in favour of the Muslim population of (only) Kashmir, whereas it seemingly neglects the aspirations of Shia Muslims in other parts of J&K, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. These communities have close links with their brethren in other parts of the country. For instance, Hindus, largely Dogras, in Jammu are closer to the Dogras in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, Sikhs have ties with the Sikhs of Punjab and north India, and even the Buddhists are closely linked to the Buddhist communities settled in Himachal Pradesh and other parts of north India.

Therefore, is it fair to impress Article 370 on these communities, who may want to maintain and further their ties within their respective ethno- cultural religious communities in other parts of the country, but are invariably restricted by the issue of losing their rights as citizens of J&K by doing this.

This argument can be further carried forward if one were to include the occupied territories of PoK. It is well known and documented that Pakistan has followed a single point agenda in PoK, wherein it has encouraged large scale migration by its Punjabi population in to these areas in order to change the demographic profile in the long run. It hopes to upset the plebiscite vote in its favour in the (remote) eventuality of that event taking place. Over the years, it has sought to do the same with Gilgit- Baltistan by way of its maturing relationship with China, the ceding of Sakshgam valley, and lately the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that runs smack through the middle of disputed territory. Rising protests from the local population for economic, political and demographic reasons have been highlighted in the media and have been documented in another paper by the author.

Therefore, the facts as mentioned above point directly to a positive correlation of Article 370 with promoting religious inequality in the state. Pertinent here is that the issue of religion has crept in to J&K politics only recently, and that too, likely at the behest of Pakistan to further its own aims. If J&K were to be amalgamated in to India, even with certain provisions relating to protection of its autonomy in Article 370, there need not be any insecurity on account of religious denomination. This is especially so given the secular fabric of India. On the other hand, this continued retention of the article is creating unnecessary religion based rifts owing its tilt to one community.

Inequalities pertaining to resident status have been existing since the accession of J&K to India in the aftermath of partition. The rights of Permanent Residents (PRs) as brought out earlier, extend to property, citizenship etc. Effecting this was seen as a means to protecting the identity of the Kashmiris, but the state saw a migration of almost 525,000 people towards the territories under Pakistani control and about 226,000 towards India. In PoK, no such concern was exhibited towards protection of the Kashmiri identity, and over the last six decades, a massive influx of people from other parts of Pakistan has been encouraged, for settlement in the region. In the early 1980s, the Sheikh Abdullah government passed the Resettlement Bill (now Act and under judicial review of the Supreme Court), to resettle those who migrated to Pakistan and their descendants to return and reclaim property and citizenship rights in J&K.

This matter was taken to the Supreme Court, after massive protests by both the Congress and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). Though under judicial review, the Act exists, and does gross injustice to the cause of Kashmiri identity, because the demographics in PoK are no longer what they were sixty years ago. And indeed, if this were to be implemented, then what about the rights of those who came in from Pakistan, or the Kashmiri Pandits in exile? Ironically, a Pakistani woman getting married to a Kashmiri will get this status. On the other hand those who migrated from West Pakistan, and despite living in the state for more than six decades, are denied their fundamental rights as citizens of the state11. In addition, there is the Kashmiri Pandit community which has seen mass exodus 1990 onwards; very legitimately, their concerns about their resident status remain one of the biggest questions facing any settlement of the J&K issue.

Here again, what does the vexatious Article 370 have to offer? If we were to assume PoK being a foregone conclusion, then the state of J&K as it stands today on the Indian side of the LoC can no longer justify the provisions of this article, because the fundamental rights of a large section of people residing in the state or having been forced to leave, both have to be ensured and restored. However, if we optimistically hope to see the state of J&K in its original form, then those who argue in favour of Article 370 will not have any means to justify the change in demographic patterns in PoK.

For those who argue about the erosion of Article 370, it is important to remember that Presidential Orders have served to provide the same benefits that underprivileged sections in India enjoy. Herein the inequalities arising due to deprivation of rights to such underprivileged sections come in to play. If Article 370 were to be restored to its original form, the entire gamut of reservations to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in education and employment would get rolled back. Would that not be a regressive move? Without entering any debate about reservations as such, it suffices here to agree that certain sections of society need some reservation to enable them to reach some semblance of equality with the more privileged lot.

In the run up to the Parliamentary Elections of 2014, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi made some remarks about the lack of status afforded to women in J&K12. Though factually inaccurate, and which was gleefully pointed out by his opponents, the fact remained that his remarks raised the bogey of Article 370 once again. In this instance, it was at the national level, opening up a debate about whether it was time for Article 370 to be revisited and possibly revoked13 (Joshi 2014).

Certain special rights have been granted to the citizens of the state pertaining to permanent settlement, acquisition of property, employment, scholarship and forms of aid. For instance, only permanent residents of the state are allowed to acquire property. Though both males and females are PRs, females lost their PR status upon marriage, till as late as 2002. In that year, a J&K High Court judgement by a full bench, one judge dissenting, forced the government to rescind this unequal provision, making women eligible to remain PRs and continue to enjoy the various rights of a PR14 (Puri nd). Yet a measure of the resistance to any change can be found in the then People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government introducing a Bill titled PR (Disqualification) Bill 2004, which even found political backing from its arch rival the National Conference party. The Bill was passed in the lower house of the Assembly; fortunately it did not see fruition in the upper House. This gives rise to a debate on gender bias inherent within the provisions of the article.

The positive correlation between Article 370 and the inequality in the state is evident from these ramifications of the article. What was incorporated to ostensibly protect the rights of the people of J&K, seems to have evolved in a way to create the mythical hydra. In its present form, Article 370 seeks to create inequality in a society which is already reeling from its effects.

Argument 4: Politics over Article 370 are only a manifestation of seeking limited political leverage from the ongoing debate.

Due to the politically charged atmosphere, Article 370 finds a mention in various fora. These can largely be viewed as bids to gain political ground or create political space for parties seeking media attention. Alternatively, with a mention of Article 370, political parties try to popularise their respective agendas and polarise their respective constituencies.

Usually such political statements are made without reference to the fact that J&K is not a homogeneous entity; Jammu has a majority Hindu population and Ladakh comprises Buddhists and Shia Muslims. That Article 370 is grossly incompatible with the full integration of J&K with the rest of India tends to get overlooked by political rhetoric. The fact that a concurrence is required for every decision of the Centre by the state government effectively serves as a veto. Other facts such as Article 352 and 360 (declaration of national and financial emergency) not being applicable to J&K, citizens having dual citizenship etc are all lost in the political din. Article 356 for imposition of President’s rule cannot be enforced in J&K without the consent of the Governor.

To get an idea of the extent to which Article 370 is misinterpreted to suit the interests of the state government (and not the people), a landmark judgement by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the case of the custodial death of a rickshaw puller, Mohan Lal in police custody due to torture, highlights the issue very well. In an  order dated 19th August 2009 the NHRC directed the State Government to pay a sum of Rupees Five Lacs (500,000) to the next of kin of the deceased rickshaw puller Mohan Lal. However, the state government refused to comply with this order. On 28th October 2010, the state government answered, challenging the jurisdiction of the NHRC to pass such orders due to Section (2) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 which specifically excludes the operation of the said Act in J&K because it relates to entries enumerated in List II of the VII Schedule of the Constitution of India. On 27th December 2010, the NHRC set this contention of the state government aside, with a detailed justification of its order15.

The facts mentioned above indicate the level to which Article 370 is deliberately misinterpreted. However this gets covered up in the political rhetoric which accompanies any mention of the article. As brought out in the Argument 3 above, the mere mention of Article 370 by the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, set in to motion a cacophony of voices across the political spectrum16.

Immediately after the Parliamentary elections, with the BJP now in power, statements both in the print and digital media set the issue afire. Having promised the abrogation of Article 370 in its pre-election promises, the BJP found itself answering these statements. Official positions of various parties were now solidified keeping in view the upcoming state elections in J&K. The ruling NC which stood on the wrong side of an anti-incumbency wave sought to right some of the wrongs perceived during its six year term by reiterating its stand on Article 370 being a matter of faith to its party ethos.

The NC’s Omar Abdullah (then Chief Minister of J&K, and grandson of Sheikh Abdullah) had a veritable war of words including over social media with the Minister of State, Dr Jitender Singh as also Ram Madhav, senior leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing organisation and considered to be the hand behind the success of the BJP with its right wing Hindu agenda1718. Much before this round of war-of-words started, the BJP had been expressing the fact that Article 370 was being used as an excuse to stop gainful legislations of India to the common man in J&K19. Not to be left behind, the Congress too put forth its point of view via Dr Karan Singh (son of the erstwhile Maharaja, and now Member of Parliament from the Congress), desperately trying to balance the political equation as well as the opinion on the street20.

A stark example of how politics makes for strange turn of events, unfolded thereafter. Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the PDP, daughter of now late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, is now the Chief Minister of J&K, after the demise of the Mufti. In an interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the Tribune, Mehbooba Mufti categorically denied any possibility of an alignment with BJP in the elections21 (Chengappa 2014). In another part of the same interview, she was asked about the issue of abrogation of Article 370 being raised by the Modi government. Her reply was in the negative, saying, “I do not think they can do it…this is the relationship on which accession is based…feel that there is no place or space in this huge and great democracy for the people of Jammu and Kashmir to live with dignity and honour, and we are being disrobed, then we may have to revolt”.

As things stand, post the elections, the PDP aligned itself with none other than the BJP, and this coalition is still governing the state. The BJP has not changed its stance after the coalition being formed; indeed it still seems to be waiting to get its majority in parliament before taking the abrogation of Article 370 to the next level22 (Firstpost 2015).

July 2016 onwards the state has been virtually afire, with massive protests and stone pelting taking a vicious turn. The main political parties both at the state and the Centre are still busy doing lip service while the man on the streets is left to fend for himself. No one is discussing the nuances of what Article 370 has done to the state. There is no mention of the status of refugees, mere political posturing on issues of rights of the people, and generally a procrastinatory feeling in the air. Hence the argument that Politics derived from Article 370 are merely seeking to gain leverage from the debate-of-the-month, polarise constituencies, and create political space. It means nothing to any of them beyond that.

Conclusion

Article 370 was envisaged as an instrument to protect a vulnerable people who were unsure of their identity and culture; in the same instance it intended to assure autonomy to create space in governance and empower people to decide their future. As can be seen from the arguments above, this delegation of power has remained mired in the clutches of only a few and the very basis of the autonomy granted is challenged due to the lack of accountability in public life.

In the larger context of India, whether it is the refugees from Poonch, Mirpur and Muzaffarabad, or the case of Kashmiri Pandits in exile, the state has failed to provide a mechanism for redress23. The extreme case of discrimination cannot be justified in terms of any reasoning offered by Article 370 or those who advocate it. Instead of empowering the people to decide their own future and fate, the article risks this very underlying reason for its incorporation in the first place, and has been abused without any qualms24. Therefore, the argument that it is the erosion of Article 370 and not its creation that is helping separatism bloom, stands without merit. It is these factors which make a strong case for revocation of Article 370 to be taken at the highest levels without further delay and discord.

References and Bibliography
Akbar, M J, 2002. “Clause 7, Article 370 and a Three Nation Theory” in Kashmir: Behind the Vale, Roli Books, New Delhi, First Edition, pp 135-137.
Bhattacharjea, Ajit, 1994. Kashmir: The Wounded Valley, South Asia Books, p. 181.
Chengappa, Raj, 2014. “Lifting Article 370 will further alienate valley”, in The Sunday Tribune, Bathinda Edition, 15th June 2014, p.13. Editor-in-Chief interview with Mehbooba Mufti, Member of Parliament and President of People’s Democratic Party (then), currently Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir.
Constitution of India, accessed from https://india.gov.in/my-government/constitution-india/constitution-india-full-text . Also read Constitution of India (Updated up to One Hundredth Amendment 2015), accessed from  http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/welcome.html .
Evans, Alexander, 1st March 2002. “A Departure from History: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001” in Contemporary South Asia. 11 (1), pp 19–37.
Joshi, Arun, 2014. “What’s the Politics behind Article 370”, in The Sunday Tribune, Bathinda Edition, 1st June 2014, p.9.
Korbel, Josef, 1953. “The Kashmir dispute after six years”, Cambridge University Press, pp. 498–510.
—-. 1966. Danger in Kashmir, Oxford University Press, Pakistan, p.153.
Mattoo, Amitabh, 2013. “Understanding Article 370”, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/understanding-article-370/article5426473.ece , posted on 6th December 2013, updated on 29th May 2014, accessed on 1st July 2016.
Patel, Sardar Vallabhbhai, 1948. Patel Correspondence, correspondence to Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol X, Doc 250, 3rd July 1948.
—-. Vol X, Doc 247, 27th June 1950.
Puri, Balraj, nd. “Analysis of J&K PR Bill”,  http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Law/2004/jk-pr-bill.htm , accessed on 1st July 2016.
Schofield, Victoria, 2010. “Special Status” in Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War, IB Tauris and Co Ltd, First South Asian Edition, 2010, pp 73-78.
Singh, Karan, 2003. Heir Apparent- An Autobiography, Oxford University Press, India, Paperback Edition.
Snedden, Christopher. “What happened to Muslims in Jammu? Local identity, ‘”the massacre” of 1947’ and the roots of the ‘Kashmir problem'”, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 24 (2), pp 111–134.
—-. 2013.  Kashmir – The Unwritten History, HarperCollins Publishers, India.
Thapliyal, Major General Sheru, 2011. “Article 370: The Untold Story”, in Indian Defence Review, Issue Vol.26, Jan-Mar 2011.
Varshney, Ashutosh, 1992. “Three Compromised Nationalisms: Why Kashmir has been a Problem” in  Perspectives on Kashmir: The Roots of Conflict in South Asia, Westview Press, pp.191–234.

Websites/ Online web archives
http://www.achrweb.org/ihrrq/issue2/order_extraordinaire.html
http://www.achrweb.org/ihrrq/issue2/Abuse.html
http://www.achrweb.org/ihrrq/issue2/hindu_and_sikh_refugees.html
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-03/news/44710557_1_article-370-jammu-and-kashmir-jk
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-05-29/news/50182311_1_article-370-jk-mehbooba-mufti
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/pakistan-refugees-seek-domicile-in-jammu-and-kashmir/articleshow/54486629.cms
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/will-work-towards-removal-article-370-enough-numbers-parliament-bjp-2260292.html
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/article-370-issue-omar-abdullah-jammu-and-kashmir-jawaharlal-nehru/1/364053.html
http://www.tehelka.com/2013/12/do-women-enjoy-equal-rights-in-jk/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Integral-review-of-Article-370-overdue-but-needs-cooperation-not-confrontation-Congress-leader-Karan-Singh/articleshow/35733023.cms

Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, could soon give rise to a new internet era even more disruptive and transformative than the current one, according to a white paper, Realizing the Potential of Blockchain, published by the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.

The paper says that blockchain’s ability to generate unprecedented opportunities to create and trade value in society will lead to a generational shift from an internet of information to a new-generation internet of value.

This ability is based on the way blockchain leverages a global peer-to-peer network to guarantee integrity of the value exchanged among billions of devices without the need for trusted third parties.

The key to enabling this transition, the paper argues, is the formation of a multistakeholder consensus on how the technology functions, its current and potential applications and how to create the regulatory, cultural and organizational conditions it needs to succeed.

The paper further argues that without such a cooperation, its potential could become seriously stalled, side-tracked, captured or otherwise sub-optimized.

Don Tapscott, co-author of the paper and Executive Director of the Blockchain Research Institute, said: “A smooth future for the Internet of Value won’t just happen; it will be achieved. Today, most stakeholders are focused on building their own companies, organizations or platforms and are paying little attention or devoting little effort to the challenges of building a healthy ecosystem. But no organization can succeed in an ecosystem that is failing. Every organization should assign resources, however small, to participate in community self-governance.”

The white paper provides a structured analytical framework and taxonomy for use by industry, technical, governmental, civil society and other stakeholders in considering how they might collaborate to resolve problems and unlock opportunities beyond the reach of any single entity. It argues that the model that evolved in the 1990s and 2000s to govern the internet also serves as a model for how to govern this new resource: through a multistakeholder approach involving business, government, civil society and the technical community.

Richard Samans, Head of the Global Challenges Team and Member of the Managing Board at the World Economic Forum, said: “This report helps us to understand that a distributed blockchain ecosystem need not be a disorganized one, and improved governance need not imply formal governmental legislation or regulation. A cooperative process of multistakeholder dialogue and stewardship could go a long way in improving trust and helping this exciting new technology develop in a socially beneficial manner. This is the broader purpose of the Forum’s new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: to provide an international platform for public-private dialogue and cooperation that supports the constructive, inclusive stewardship and agile governance of new technologies.”

Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of Hyperledger at the Linux Foundation, said: “Blockchain technology is governance technology. It’s an engine of automated self-regulation for communities, markets and society. No matter the application – currencies, settlement networks, provenance tracking or identity management – these networks still need us humans to come to consensus on how they shall work and what they shall do on our behalf. This report articulates the need for multistakeholder collaboration and a framework for achieving that.”

“This lucid report shows that collaboration and cooperation in the blockchain ecosystem are essential. The Tapscotts clarify how such collaboration can take many forms and, in doing so, give us valuable tools to harness this powerful technology for the benefit of all,” said Jamie Smith, Global Chief Communications Officer of The Bitfury Group, Co-chair of the Blockchain Global Future Council of the World Economic Forum, and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Blockchain Business Council.

“The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance was established to meet the governance needs of large enterprises, who face regulation, significant reputational risk and stringent IT requirements without impinging the pace of innovation and open-source collaboration. Governance is critical to accelerate mainstream adoption of blockchain technology, and the work of World Economic Forum, along with Don and Alex, is a most welcomed – not to mention comprehensive and thoughtful – review of the key issues in the space today,” said Jeremy Millar, Founding Board Member of The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Chief of Staff at Consensys.

The World Economic Forum’s 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions is taking place on 27-29 June in Dalian, People’s Republic of China.

China’s One Belt, One Road initiative offers a powerful vision for connectivity and growth across multifarious borders and dimensions – one that will touch the lives of millions excluded from the global economy, participants heard Wednesday at the 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian.

The most ambitious infrastructure and connectivity project to date, China’s One Belt, One Road development vision could see up to $8 trillion invested across 68 countries in the next two decades.

“One Belt, One Road offers a powerful vision in today’s world,” noted Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning and Development of Pakistan. In a country where the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of One Belt, One Road, is expected to generate $57 billion in investment, the effects are already being felt with significant capital flows in the energy and telecommunications sectors – and with Mandarin Chinese now the most studied language in the South Asian nation.

Minister Iqbal noted that as One Belt, One Road connectivity is actualized, the process will stimulate inclusive growth that will “touch the lives of millions of people who are cut off from the mainstream.”

In a world that feels increasingly fragmented, Zhang Tao, Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington DC, reckoned: “The bottom line is that the Belt and Road initiative has the potential to strengthen cross-border dialogue and foster multinational cooperation. This is very important in today’s increasingly interconnected world, and more important than ever in the next few years.”

Danny Alexander, Vice-President and Corporate Secretary of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Beijing, observed that China’s vision will enable developing countries in Asia to “leapfrog” and that the ambitious framework has the potential to secure the region’s economic security for decades to come.

“The success of these strategies, to invest in infrastructure and promote connectivity, will be key in determining the prosperity of Asia over the next 20-25 years,” he said, before offering a caveat: “The stakes are high, so it matters that we work in partnerships.”

Encompassing more than 60% of the global population and 30% of GDP, and facilitating deepened trade and logistic links, particularly among landlocked countries, Harld Peters, Senior Adviser, Asia-Pacific Region, UPS, People’s Republic of China, said he is also bullish on the One Belt, One Road framework, but cautioned that small and medium-sized enterprises should not be left behind.

“It would be a shame if we were to have all this infrastructure established, only to see goods stop at borders,” noted Peters, “We need to combine both infrastructure with trade facilitation. Only when we combine the two will we be successful.”

Describing the One Belt, One Road vision as mutually beneficial, Ann Sim, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry of Singapore, said approaching the exciting potential of connectivity in the spheres of infrastructure and finance and deepening people-to-people links will require strong policy-steering and coordination, but also a degree of flexibility. “In the case of Singapore, I would say that we see a value in having frameworks,” she said, “But, at the same time, we see the value in moving ahead with experiments and demonstration projects.”

The World Economic Forum’s 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions is taking place on 27-29 June in Dalian, People’s Republic of China.

The Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have severed its ties with the small, but oil-rich Arab state, Qatar, by accusing the later of supporting Saudi arch rival Iran and proliferating terrorism and extremism in the region. This diplomatic deadlock in Arabian Peninsula leaves hard choices for the only Muslim de facto nuclear state and Pakistan’s neighboring country, Iran. Pakistan’s rule is important in this crisis and how it will impact Pak-Qatar, Pak-Saudi and Pak-Iran relations.

Pakistan relations with Qatar

Qatar got independence from the United Kingdom on September 3, 1971. Arab states were among the first to recognize Qatar, and the country gained admittance to the United Nations and the Arab League in the same year. Soon after independence Pakistan and Qatar developed bilateral relations. Pakistan has an embassy in Doha; Qatar maintains an embassy in Islamabad and a consulate-general in Karachi. Relations between the two are shaped by Pakistan’s generally close relations with the Arab world. Like other nearby Gulf States, there is a large Pakistani community in Qatar which numbers over 50,000. They work in diverse fields and send remittances each year. During the 2010 Pakistan floods, Qatar provided timely assistance to the country.

The relations between Pakistan and Qatar were deep rooted further when Pakistan signed a 15-year gas supply agreement with Qatar. Islamabad would import 3.75 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually and add 2,000 megawatts of power to the national grid. Not only was the agreement with Qatar gas-2 – the largest LNG producer globally – going to singlehandedly almost halve the country’s electricity shortfall and amount for over 85 percent of Pakistan’s LNG import capacity, it also diversifies Pakistan’s energy mix time-tested and the leadership and people of both brotherly Muslim countries have immense love and respect with each other as Qatar Government has played key role in providing timely assistance and rehabilitation to flood victims. People of Pakistan and Qatar are associated with each other in diversified fields, religion and both countries are enjoying cordial relations.

The deal, Pakistan’s biggest, will help the country add about 2,000 megawatts of gas-fired power-generating capacity and improve production from fertilizer plants now hobbled by a lack of gas, a government official said.

Pak-Saudi Relations

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have sought to develop extensive commercial, cultural, religious, political, and strategic relations since the establishment of Pakistan in 1947. Pakistan affirms its relationship with Saudi Arabia as their most “important and bilateral partnership” in the current foreign policy of Pakistan, by developing closer bilateral ties with Saudi Arabia, the largest country on the Arabian peninsula and host to the two holiest cities of Islam i-e Makkah and Madina, the destinations of Muslim pilgrims.

Additionally, Pakistan maintains close military ties with Saudi Arabia, providing extensive support, arms and training for the Saudi Arabian military. Fighter Pilots of the Pakistan Air Force flew aircraft of the Royal Saudi Air Force to repel an incursion from South Yemen in 1969. In the 1970s and 1980s, approximately 15,000 Pakistani soldiers served in KSA. Saudi Arabia has negotiated the purchase of Pakistani ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. It is also speculated that Saudi Arabia had secretly funded Pakistan’s atomic bomb program and seeks to purchase atomic weapons from Pakistan to avoid possible threats posed by its regional rival Iran, Iraq and Israel. Both nations have received high-level delegations of scientists, government and Saudi military experts of seeking to study the development of a Saudi nuclear program.

Policy challenges for Pakistan

This diplomatic deadlock in Arabian Peninsula leaved hard choices for Pakistan foreign policy makers either to join KSA or satisfy Iran. The policy makers of Pakistan are pondering on hard available options.

Firstly, available options for Pakistan is to bandwagon itself with Arab states in the leadership of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) against Qatar and invite the wrath of Iran.

Secondly, the blatant support of Arab isolated Qatar and showing soft approach for Iran can be more problematic for heterogeneous Pakistan, as its massive Sunni population and plethora of pro Saudi Wahabi leaders potentially create an internal instability by giving it the sectarian colour in the already terrorism victim country. So these horrifying consequences will not allow Pakistani policy makers to even think about on this option. Pakistan enjoys friendly relations with both Saudi Arabia and Qatar, however the diplomatic stalemate in the Gulf countries, has leaved only the hard choices for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s present government to back either Riyad and Doha.

The intellectuals and civil society of the country rightly demand from pro Saudi Sharif to stay practically nonaligned with Riyadh in the escalating Gulf crisis, as his unconditional support to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could probably intensify the Sunni-Shiite conflict in already sectarian fragile South Asian nation.

Pakistan’s neighbor Iran is also unhappy with Islamabad’s active role in Saudi led Islamic Military Alliance (IMA) of 41 Muslim nations, in which former Chief of Pakistan army assigned a leading role. Furthermore, Tehran’s Ambassador to Pakistan conveyed their grievance to Sharif government.
Finally, Pakistan’s civilian government and the military establishment, which enjoys a significant share of Saudi funding, Islamabad is more inclined towards Saudi Arabia. As it is noticeable that Islamabad is hardly doing anything that would be taken as support for Doha.

In short, the fresh diplomatic crisis between Riyadh and Doha may not effect Pakistan adversely soon, but Islamabad’s blatant announcement of alignment with any of conflicting party will be interpreted against by another opponent. The recently adopted neutral, unbiased approach of Pakistan can save it for time being, but the apparent fear of prolong tensions in Gulf would bring adverse consequence for Islamabad. Rationally, the fruitful diplomacy between the conflicting parties is the most viable and demanding solution of Saudi-Qatar severed relations, which Pakistan can facilitate by taking Tehran and Riyadh into confidence.

*The writer is a Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute and he can be reached at babarkhanbozdar@yahoo.com/babar@thesvi.org.

A bungee jump instructor has been found guilty of accidental homicide after a teenage Dutch girl misunderstood his “terrible English” and leapt to her death before the rope was attached was a secure point.

Vera Mol, 17, was killed instantly in August 2015 after leaping off a bridge in northern Spain during an organized bungee jump.

She was wearing the bungee harness, but the cord was not yet secured when she jumped off the bridge over a gorge in Cabezon de la Sal in Cantabria.

An appeal court in Cantabria heard that she had made the leap on hearing the instructor say “No jump” but his pronunciation was so bad that she likely thought he said: “Now Jump”, the judge wrote in a ruling reported by Europapress.

In fact, the misunderstanding would have been avoided had the instructor used the phrase “Don’t Jump” which is the correct protocol in such circumstances, said the written ruling which rejected an appeal by the company that organized the jump.

The appeal judge said the instructor’s level of English was not of a sufficient standard to allow him to guide foreigners in “something as precarious as jumping into the void from an elevated point”.

The “misunderstanding derived from the incorrect use and pronunciation of English”, the ruling said.

The ruling also said that the unnamed instructor, who was employed by Flowtrack adventure company, should also have checked the girl’s ID to check that she was over the age of 18 before taking part.

It also noted that the company did not have permission to operate jumps from that particular bridge where such activity was prohibited because it was a highway.

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has discovered that a marked decrease in summer cloud cover during the last 20 years has significantly accelerated melt from the Greenland ice sheet.

The new findings, published today in Science Advances, show that less cloud cover and more summer sunshine allows increased solar radiation to reach the surface providing more energy for melting.

Using data from earth-observing satellites and high-resolution climate models, the authors found a consistent decrease in summer cloud cover since 1995.

The research shows that a one percent reduction in summer cloud cover is equivalent to 27 gigatons of extra ice melt on the Greenland ice sheet – this is roughly equivalent to the annual domestic water supply of the USA or 180 million times the weight of a blue whale.

Since 1995, researchers found that Greenland has lost a total of about 4,000 gigatons of ice, which has become the biggest single contributor to the rise in global sea levels. PhD student, Stefan Hofer, from the University’s School of Geographical Sciences and member of the Black and Bloom and GlobalMass projects is the lead author of the study.

He said: “The impact of increased sunshine during summer is large, it explains about two-thirds of Greenland’s melting signal in recent decades.

“Until now we thought that the recent Greenland melt is caused almost exclusively by higher temperatures and the resulting feedbacks.

“Our study shows that there is more to the story than the local increase in temperatures and the change in cloud cover isn’t just a blip, it’s been happening for the last two decades. That was a big surprise.”

The team also reported that climate change has found a second pathway to increase melt over Greenland, adding to the effect of higher temperatures:

Co-author Professor Jonathan Bamber, based at the University of Bristol, and President of the European Geoscience Union (EGU), added: “We are seeing changes in the large-scale circulation patterns, which leads to more frequent sunshine and higher amounts of solar energy reaching the surface of the ice sheet.

“These changes in large-scale circulation patterns during summer are especially pronounced over the Arctic and the North Atlantic.

“The state shift in atmospheric circulation is unprecedented in the observational record, which goes back as far as 1850.

“This highly unusual state of the atmosphere has been linked to record low sea ice cover during summer over the Arctic Ocean. This highlights the coupled nature of the climate system and the consequences of changes in one component on another.”

By Die Morina

The United Nations Development Program, UNDP, on Wednesday published analysis on prevention of violent extremism in Kosovo, reporting an increase in the influence of extremist groups during the last two decades in Kosovo.

The report says the main “push” factors include disappointment with current systems, corruption, unemployment, poverty and other socio-economic factors, a weak educational system, an identity crisis, religious indoctrination, stigmatisation – and a general sense of isolation from the world.

Female-specific factors include the obligation of married women to join their husbands and indoctrination through informal or religious teachings on the internet and by radicalised relatives.

The main “pull” factors identified by the focus groups are personal convictions and philosophical commitment, the expectation of material and spiritual rewards, and the influence of some Middle Eastern-educated imams and Middle Eastern humanitarian organisations active in Kosovo after the 1999 conflict.

According to the analysis, the threat of terrorist attacks in Kosovo remains permanent, unpredictable and long term, and should not be judged only by the number of people joining terrorist organisation such as ISIS.

The study suggests that cooperation between police and imams is necessary, while more importance should be given to rehabilitation programs and solutions sought by engagement at local levels.

Education and cooperation between institutions and communities at all levels is the key for sustaining long-term approaches to preventing violent extremism.

The key actors that must engage in preventing violent extremism, according to the findings, are municipalities, civil society and religious communities.

This analysis is complemented by the findings from three focus groups organized in January 2017, in Prishtinë/Pristina, Gjilan/Gnjilane and Hani i Elezit/Elez Han.

This study analysed the perceptions of Kosovo citizens about violent extremism and the resilience of society vis-à-vis internal and external pressures conducive to the penetration of extremist religious ideologies and the ways in which institutions can increase their resilience.

Around 100 people have been arrested in Kosovo since September 2014 on charges of active membership of, or affiliation to, Islamist groups including ISIS and Al-Nusra.

More than 50 are on trial. The authorities estimate that about 300 Kosovo Albanians have joined ISIS and Al Nusra in total.

As BIRN previously reported, the EU’s annual Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, released June 15, says terrorists are still joining the conflict in Syria from the Balkans, which remains a route to and from the conflict zones in the Middle East.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina, the so-called Sandzak region [between Serbia and Montenegro], Albanian-speaking territories in Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania until recently were considered the main hotspots for radicalisation, recruitment, and facilitation activities of FTFs destined for Syria,” the report added.

Undercover police in Cambodia have placed a temple in Battambang province under surveillance after activist monks based there demanded the release of a fellow monk arrested last week for posting a photo of himself on social media with a gun.

Lonh Sokchea, of the Independent Monk Network for Social Justice, told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that “several plainclothes police” have been “spying” on the temple since he and 50 other members of the group stages a protest outside the Battambang Provincial Court on June 22 to demand the release of Horn Sophanny.

“We feel that our efforts to advocate peacefully for the release of our fellow monk Venerable Horn Sopanny are hamstrung and frustrated,” he said, adding that he and other monks feel “intimidated and worried” by the police presence.

Senior provincial police officers denied the spying allegation.

Deputy provincial police chief of Battambang Cheth Vanny on Tuesday dismissed Lonh Sokchea’s claim that police officers had been deployed to monitor monks at the temple.

“It’s not true — I haven’t been informed of this,” RFA quoted Battambang’s deputy provincial police chief, Cheth Vanny, as saying.

Horn Sophanny, 24, posted a photo of himself in his monk’s robes with a gun on Facebook in April.

He also criticized the government, adding that the gun was real and would be used if Prime Minister Hun Sen’s civil war threat — had his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) lost recent elections — came true.

The monk was arrested on June 21 for illegal possession of a weapon, according to authorities, but his fellow monks insist the gun was a toy and that Horn Sophanny was being targeted because of his political activism.

By Jim Garamone

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the United States will continue to build on the legacy of George C. Marshall and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to NATO’s system of collective defense during his speech Wednesday at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

“The U.S. commitment to our NATO Article 5 security guarantee is ironclad,” Mattis said during his speech, part of an event marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Marshall Plan – a plan that saved millions of Europeans from starvation and Soviet domination. Under Article 5, an attack on one NATO partner nation is considered an attack on all.

The Marshall Plan initiative, named after American statesman and soldier George C. Marshall, provided more than $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild western European economies after the end of World War II.

George C. Marshall: U.S. Statesman, Soldier

Marshall was born on Dec. 31, 1880, and died on Oct. 16, 1959. He was commissioned an Army officer out of the Virginia Military Institute and fought in World War I. He served in the Army through the 1920s and saw the effects of the Great Depression on his countrymen.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, beginning the European portion of World War II. Marshall became Army chief of staff the same day. He was one of the architects of victory in the war, building and deploying a 10-million-man Army that worked in conjunction with the Allies to defeat dictatorships that brought untold suffering to the world.

After Marshall left active duty, he served as the Secretary of State, and in that capacity he proposed his Marshall Plan, which he announced during a commencement speech at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1947.

The war had ravaged Europe. Fully 14 percent of the pre-war population was dead or displaced, Mattis noted. “Our nations experienced the horrors that can happen when freedom is imperiled, when peaceful pursuits of civilized life are suspended, when deterrence fails and our societies are engulfed in total war,” the secretary said.

Under the plan, the United States spent $13 billion to feed the continent and invest in building the economies of these shattered nations so they could provide for their citizens.

Marshall’s vision saw a Europe that was “a peaceful, industrious, and prosperous continent, free from tyranny, possessing the military strength to defend itself from aggression,” Mattis said.

Security in Europe

But it was more. It was the American realization that security in Europe — indeed around the world — was in the country’s best interests.

“Longing for a safer future, the Greatest Generation saw their own security in the security of others, the secretary said. “They had the courage to recognize all collective efforts had to be taken to avoid repeating mistakes that open the door to war.”

He added, “And, should freedom be threatened and war truly unavoidable, then all efforts must be taken to bring war to a decisive end as swiftly as possible.”

The post-World War II generation saw the need for collective defense; they saw the need to work with allies, and they saw the interconnected aspects of diplomacy, economics and military power to shape the world, Mattis said.

“Marshall knew history swings on a hinge,” the defense secretary said. “The Marshall Plan permitted hundreds of millions to keep their humanity, confident of basic social order: food, security, rule of law and essential political freedom.”

By 1967, the per capita gross domestic product of Britain, France, Italy and Germany had more than doubled, he noted.

European Partnership, Leadership

The plan required European partnership and leadership — it could not be imposed by the United States or international organizations, Mattis said.

And they did, building on the Marshall Plan to create the institutions that have underwritten stability and peace in Europe since World War II, the defense secretary said.

“Europe transformed from a security consumer into a security provider, something Marshall ardently desired, for he never envisioned that America would carry this burden alone,” Mattis said. “He knew from experience it had to be shared, both its benefits and its burdens.”

In the 72 years since the end of World War II, America’s European allies have contributed to large-scale, U.S.-led global operations, he said.

“At peak contributions, 39,000 allies fought with the United States in Afghanistan, and 59,000 allies fought with us in Iraq,” Mattis said. “We must not allow the years passed since 1947 to blind us to reality. For those of us who grew up with freedom from fear, starvation and the burden of world war, we cannot turn away from our responsibility to pass these same freedoms intact to the next generation.”

Berlin Airlift

Shared history and commitment mean something, the secretary said, and spoke of the solidarity of the allies when the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin in 1948. He spoke of the sacrifice of a young U.S. Air Force officer — Capt. Billy Phelps — who died when his plane crashed delivering food and coal to the beleaguered city.

“A German boy named Wolfgang Samuel saw it happen,” Mattis said. “Wolfgang wrote that Phelps’ plane, ‘Fell like a rock out of the sky.’”

The two American pilots were killed, the secretary said.

“And then, the child had a flash of insight: ‘Only three years ago they were fighting against my country, and now they were dying for us. I wondered what made these people do the things they did?’” Mattis said.

He added, “Captain Phelps knew he owed future generations the same freedom he had. And, what young Wolfgang, a little German kid, saw that cold December night in 1948 we can see — clearly — today in 2017: We can see foreigners putting their lives on the line for others; whether Captain Billy Phelps of the Berlin Airlift, or the men and women of NATO’s enhanced forward presence.”

European Reassurance Initiative

The secretary mentioned the U.S. commitment to the European Reassurance Initiative, which grew to $4.8 billion in the fiscal 2018 budget request and the continuation of the U.S. participation in NATO’s forward presence through 2020.

“Beyond any words in the newspapers, you can judge America by such actions,” he said. “This is who we are. We — America, Germany, Europe, the West — we risk life so a child in Berlin can eat; we hunt terrorists in the dark so they cannot murder innocents at concerts. Our nations stand together, democratic islands of stability in a world awash with change.”

The Marshall Center’s faculty, staff, students and alumni carry the legacy of this center’s namesake, Mattis said. “For you students, when you return home, you have a golden opportunity to operate history’s hinge to close the door to war, exercising your moral authority and your generation’s responsibility to protect freedom,” he said. “Western values — respect for a rules-based international order and for national sovereignty, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the dignity of the human person are worth defending.”

Those values are under attack on the continent. Russia is trying to assert itself to undermine the goal of a continent whole, free and at peace, the secretary said.

Relations With Russia

“The United States seeks to engage with Russia. So does the NATO alliance,” he said. “But Russia must know both what we stand for and, equally, what we will not tolerate: we stand for freedom and we will never surrender the freedom of our people or the values of our alliance that we hold dear.”

The secretary said there are millions of discouraged people in Russia in need of inspiration. “Their leader making mischief beyond Russian borders will not restore their fortunes or rekindle their hope,” he said.

While the NATO allies will meet aggression with determination, deterrence and purpose, the alliance will leave the door open for a Russia that changes its stripes and “honors its people enough to abide by international law and so win for them the peace we all offer,” Mattis said.

NATO is doing its part, he said, deploying troops to the frontline states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to demonstrate the alliance’s resolve.

“This is a profound example of a united NATO,” Mattis said. “Our alliance has long been a stabilizing force in Europe. It helps preserve the rules-based international order. And it serves to keep the peace and defend the shared values that grew out of the enlightenment.”

The world is at another hinge of history, Mattis said.

“Our hands rest purposefully on history’s door and it depends on us to push it in the right direction,” he said.

Israel rose to the heights of world power in an era of conflict, but today seems to be settling into a misleading lifestyle of comfort and false dominance. Today it seems to be enjoying more Arab acceptance and unprecedented levels of Western support, and tightening its grip not just on the lands of 1948 Israel but on those it occupied in 1967.

Maybe it is enjoying itself too much, as it is creating an ominous future for itself through its arrogant refusal to reach a genuine peace with the Palestinians. Israel’s inability to accept peace based on two states, and its policy of confiscating Christian and Muslim lands, will be its ultimate undoing. The key to its downfall is the illegal and racist settlement movement.

Once touted as a security strategy to preserve Israel’s survival, settlements are an impending security threat that will lead to worse violence than either side has ever experienced. Their expansion is nurturing extremism in Israel, among settlers and among Palestinians.

Under the facade of Israel’s harmony is a brewing crisis. Its religious fanatics, the backbone of the settler movement, not only threaten non-Jews living in the occupied territories but also secular Israeli Jews. Pressures between religious and secular Israelis frame the problem their country faces. The problem is slowly boiling, so many do not pay attention to it because it is overshadowed by larger problems with Palestinians and the occupation.

Inflating the bubble more are unstable demographics and the fast-growing non-Jewish population. Eventually, Jewish immigration to Israel will peak. As violence continues, many Jews, mostly secular ones, will leave and the Palestinian population will grow even faster.

Israel was tolerable for Jews during its first 20 years because it managed the non-Jewish population through a series of racist laws, oppressive policies and an erosion of civil rights. It stifled Israel’s Arab population growth, although Arab Israelis increasingly see the power of the vote as an equalizer in an unequal society.

The population imbalance was tolerable. Arab population growth in Israel was stunted compared to the Jewish population. Yet 25 percent of the population is not Jewish, meaning the pressures on Israeli Jews to maintain control will only increase.

Gaza’s fast-growing Arab population of nearly 2 million remains under military check, but anger is festering against Israel’s harsh oppression. You can blame the ongoing problems in Gaza on the endless rivalry between Hamas and Fatah, but Israel controls the territory’s destiny, at least for now, via its military stranglehold and brutal embargo.

As settlement growth continues and security worsens, the costs to Israel will increase significantly, impacting its economy. Israel will need to spend more and more money to maintain the occupation. Eventually, subjugating a faster-growing, non-Jewish population will become intolerable and extend beyond economics.

A more ominous threat to Israel is the dynamics of having two populations living together in the occupied West Bank. The flashpoints will become more intense as the Palestinian and settler populations grow. The violence today seems tolerable, but it will only take one ghastly act to push both sides over the edge into a downward spiral.

Average Israelis do not see it coming because they live detached from most of their non-Jewish citizens, and even further from the settler and Palestinian populations in the occupied territories. As Israel expands its settlements, imposing harsher policies on non-Jews, there will be a dilution of separation between settlers and Palestinians.

There will be a form of conflict assimilation where two communities exist in the same space and time, but struggle to live separately. That struggle, in a tighter and tighter space, will become more violent, emotional and uncontrollable. Israel would lose control because Jewish settlers are more violent, more extremist and incapable of restraint.

Israel will have to increase its oppression even more. What is now apartheid-like will become real apartheid. Crackdowns on non-Jews will become pogroms. The Palestinian population in Israel’s prison gulag system will swell. This environment will bring Israel to the brink of disaster even faster.

It is hard to predict what single event might spark this explosion. But the current situation cannot last forever, especially as extremists such as Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett and “Justice” Minister Ayelet Shaked gain more and more influence.

Israelis are headed down an ugly road that is not very hopeful. This violent instability will be punishing for Palestinians too, but nearly 70 years of oppression have taught Palestinians how to survive and adapt far better than Israelis.

By Alan Crosby

(RFE/RL) — Ukraine’s heavy reliance on Russian technology impairs its ability to adequately defend against cyberattacks such as the Petya virus ravaging computers around the world and has helped make the country ground zero on the front lines of the global cyberwar.

The “unprecedented” June 27 attack started in Ukraine, which hit government computer networks and websites of banks, major industrial enterprises, the postal service, Kyiv’s international airport, and its subway system — before spreading to other countries and international companies around the world.

Ukraine bore the brunt with more than 60 percent of the attacks, with the virus even hitting radiation-monitoring systems at the shuttered Chernobyl power plant, site of the world’s worst-ever nuclear accident. Engineers were forced to use manual operating plans after the virus locked up its computer system.

Analysts from Microsoft and the Slovakian-based cybersecurity company ESET both said the attack targeted M.E.Doc, a Ukrainian tax-accounting software company, before the ransomware quickly spread to at least 64 other countries.

M.E.Doc first admitted its systems had been compromised, though it later denied being “patient zero” in the attack.

‘A Test Bed For Attacks’

While the source of the attack using the Petya virus is still not clear, it was not the first to originate in Ukraine and probably won’t be the last to start there.

Petya is a version of the WannaCry virus, which also used the EternalBlue exploit to infiltrate systems and shut down more than 200,000 computers in some 150 countries in May. The hackers that launched it demanded that users pay hundreds of dollars to regain access to their computer and not lose data.​

Ukraine “is considered a test bed for attacks on major infrastructure. Targets over the years include the national power grid, national railway system, one of their major stock exchanges, and Boryspil, Ukraine’s busiest airport,” said Ryan Brack, a senior vice president at Mercury Public Affairs and the co-organizer of the Global Cybersecurity Summit (GCS) held in the Ukrainian capital earlier this month.

Kyiv, which has repeatedly accused Russia of orchestrating attacks on its computer systems and critical energy infrastructure since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, has blamed the Kremlin for previous cyberattacks, including one on its power grid at the end of 2015 that left part of western Ukraine temporarily without electricity.

Ukraine has also seen a number of cyberattacks on private companies and government systems, while a number of hacked government documents have appeared on the Internet.

Most notably, Russian hackers tried to influence Ukraine’s 2014 elections targeting voting infrastructure and using fake news reports to try to sway the outcome in what is widely seen as a precursor to tampering attempts in recent elections in the United States and France.

Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, said there were signs of Russian involvement in the June 27 cyberattack, though he did not give any direct evidence. Several large Russian companies were also hit in the attack.

Cyberattacks on Ukrainian infrastructure “should serve as a wake-up call for all those responsible for the security of critical systems around the world,” according to Anton Cherepanov, a senior malware researcher at ESET.

A Saudi-led bloc of Arab nations is considering new economic sanctions against Qatar and may ask trading partners to choose between them or Doha, the UAE’s ambassador to Russia has said.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt ended diplomatic relations with Qatar earlier this month, and enforced a blockade on Doha from land, sea and air.

A 13-point list of demands was then issued by the states, giving Qatar ten days to comply.

“There are certain economic sanctions that we can take which are being considered right now,” UAE ambassador to Moscow Omar Ghobash told The Guardian newspaper in an interview in London.

“One possibility would be to impose conditions on our own trading partners and say you want to work with us then you have got to make a commercial choice,” he said.

The expulsion of Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was “not the only sanction available”, the UAE ambassador added.

Signalling Washington’s mounting frustration at Riyadh’s role in the crisis, US state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert recently called on the parties to settle their differences.

She called into question whether Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism is the true cause of the crisis or whether there is an underlying political dispute.

Original source

By Elise Harris

After years of fighting allegations of sexual abuse and negligence in handling abuse cases, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s top finance man, will be charged on multiple counts of abuse, Australian police announced Wednesday.

Pell, who has fervently denied the allegations, will be charged on summons, and will be required to return to Melbourne in July order to answer the charges.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Victoria police were the ones who decided to charge the cardinal. In a June 29 statement, Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said Pell is facing “multiple charges in respect to historic sexual offenses,” which multiple complaints in each of the charges.

Due to heavy media speculation surrounding the investigation, Patton clarified that “the process and the procedures that have been followed in the charging of Cardinal Pell have been the same that have been applied in a whole range of historical sex offenses whenever we investigate them.”

“There has been no change in any procedures whatsoever,” he said, noting that Pell has been treated the same as anyone else.

The deputy commissioner stressed the importance of remembering that “none of the allegations that have been made against Cardinal Pell have, obviously, been tested in any court yet.”

“Cardinal Pell, like any other defendant, has a right to due process and so therefore it’s important that the process is allowed to run its natural course,” he said.

“Preserving the integrity of that process is essential to all of us, so for Victoria police it’s important that it’s allowed to go through unhindered, and its allowed to see natural justice is afforded to all the parties involved, including Cardinal Pell and the complainants in this matter.”

Pell has been summoned to appear before the Melbourne Maginstrate’s court July 18 for a filing hearing to face the charges, which were served to his legal team Wednesday (Thursday Australian time).

The charging of Cardinal Pell, who in 2013 was tapped to oversee the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy and is a member of the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis, makes him the most senior Vatican official to ever be charged with abuse.

Cardinal Pell was ordained in the diocese of Ballarat in 1966, where he served as a priest and later as a consulter to Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who oversaw the diocese from 1971-1997. Pell was appointed auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese of Melbourne in 1987, and was named archbishop in 1996.

In February 2016, he testified for the third time before Australia’s Royal Commission regarding claims that surfaced in 2015 accusing the cardinal of moving “known pedophile” Gerald Ridsdale, of bribing a victim of the later-defrocked priest, and of ignoring a victim’s complaint.

Established in 2013, the Royal Commission is dedicated to investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Despite having testified before the commission twice before on the same charges, Pell was again summoned to return to Australia for deposition in December. However, the cardinal’s doctor advised against the long flight, due to health issues.

As a result, Cardinal Pell volunteered to appear by way of video conference from Rome. His proposal for the video conference was accepted, and he gave his testimony again with abuse survivors present, who crowd-funded in order to attend the hearing in person.

Shortly before the hearing, abuse allegations surfaced accusing the cardinal of multiple counts of child sexual abuse dating as far back as 1961, which he fervently denied at the time.

In a statement released after the accusations arose, Pell said “the allegations are without foundation and utterly false.”

At the close of the hearing, the cardinal admitted that he should have done more to protect the children of Australia during his time as a bishop.

“One of the things I regret as a Catholic priest is the damage that these crimes do to the faith of survivors, of the victims, and their friends and family, and generally throughout the society,” he said, and voiced his willingness to work with authorities.

In a June 29 statement following the announcement of the Victoria police department’s decision to charge him, Cardinal Pell’s office said he has “again strenuously denied all allegations.”

The statement said Pell would return to Australia as soon as possible “to clear his name” after consulting with his doctors, who will advise him on his travel arrangements, and that he looks forward to “vigorously” opposing the charges in court

Pell is set to give a statement to journalists in Rome at 8:30a.m. local time in the Holy See Press Office regarding the announcement of the charges.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, will most likely have the chance to talk at next week’s G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“We assume that contact will take place, since the two presidents will be at the same time in the same city, the same building, the same hall. It won’t be right, I guess, if they aren’t able to talk there and to discuss a lot of issues,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his German counterpart, Sigmar Gabriel, in Krasnodar on Wednesday.

The situation in Syria and Ukraine would not be the only issues Putin and Trump might discuss, Lavrov said, adding that the main focus should be on the “normalization” of US-Russia relations.

“First of all, we should try to achieve normalization of dialogue, so that the dialogue is based on the fundamental interests of both Russia and the US,” the Russian foreign minister said.

The German foreign minister hailed the possibility of a Putin-Trump meeting.

“The [German] Federal Government and I would hail a meeting between the presidents of Russia and the US in the G20 framework,” Gabriel said.

Anti-Russian sentiments which persist in Washington are harmful to the US itself and prevent the untangling of important global issues, according to Lavrov.

“We currently see a distorted picture, formed in Washington under the influence of Russophobic sentiments shared by many politicians,” Lavrov said.

“It harms the US itself, in my opinion, and definitely doesn’t help to solve international issues, which both Russia and the US could contribute to.”

Russia will ‘respond with dignity’ to possible US ‘provocation’ in Syria

The Russian foreign minister confirmed that his American counterpart, Rex Tillerson, had indeed told him about an alleged upcoming chemical attack by phone.

“A leak on what we’ve been exactly discussing, by the way, happened again on the American side,“ Lavrov said.

Russia’s foreign minister dismissed as “uninteresting” the US claims that it was impossible to declassify information on an alleged upcoming chemical attack in Syria.

“Hearing every time that there is 100 percent solid evidence, which could not be shared, as it was obtained through intelligence means and is secret – you know, it’s somewhat uninteresting for me already, since similar arguments are used to accuse Russia of organizing hacking attacks at the state-level, similar arguments of inability to reveal information are used in numerous other circumstances, be it Syria, or Libya, or something else,” Lavrov said.

The US statements on the allegedly upcoming chemical attack, already attributing them to the Syrian government, benefit only terrorist groups, as they might use them as a background for provocations, Lavrov said.

“The experts [in the US] openly write, that most likely, Washington’s warning will be used by extremists, who might organize a provocation and blame the Syrian Army for everything,” Lavrov warned.

“I’ll remind you also that the information on the April 4 alleged chemical attack in Khan-Sheikhoun emerged from eyewitnesses, seen by no one, but who allegedly were members of the White Helmets organization. They are notorious provocateurs, professional provocateurs, working only in territories controlled by terrorists. No one has seen them in government-held areas.”

If the information on the upcoming attack is used as a pretext for the US to attack Syrian troops, Russia will respond “with dignity,” Lavrov stated.

“We’ll react with dignity, in proportion to a real situation which might develop,” Lavrov said.

Emma Morano passed away last April. At 117 years old, the Italian woman was the oldest known living human being.

Super- centenarians, such as Morano and Jeanne Calment of France, who famously lived to be 122 years old, continue to fascinate scientists and have led them to wonder just how long humans can live. A study published in Nature last October concluded that the upper limit of human age is peaking at around 115 years.

Now, however, a new study in Nature by McGill University biologists Bryan G. Hughes and Siegfried Hekimi comes to a starkly different conclusion. By analyzing the lifespan of the longest-living individuals from the USA, the UK, France and Japan for each year since 1968, Hekimi and Hughes found no evidence for such a limit, and if such a maximum exists, it has yet to be reached or identified, Hekimi said.

“Far into the foreseeable future“

“We just don’t know what the age limit might be. In fact, by extending trend lines, we can show that maximum and average lifespans, could continue to increase far into the foreseeable future,” Hekimi said.

Many people are aware of what has happened with average lifespans. In 1920, for example, the average newborn Canadian could expect to live 60 years; a Canadian born in 1980 could expect 76 years, and today, life expectancy has jumped to 82 years. Maximum lifespan seems to follow the same trend.

It’s impossible to predict what future lifespans in humans might look like, Hekimi said. Some scientists argue that technology, medical interventions, and improvements in living conditions could all push back the upper limit.

“It’s hard to guess,” Hekimi added. “Three hundred years ago, many people lived only short lives. If we would have told them that one day most humans might live up to 100, they would have said we were crazy.”

By Husanjot Chahal*

In May 2014, the newly elected Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi kickstarted his tenure by inviting the heads of all SAARC countries for his swearing-in ceremony, suggesting that contacts with neighbours should be made a matter of routine than treated as exception. This has held true most aptly for Sri Lanka, with seven bilateral state visits on record between the two sides in three years. Inheriting an unfortunate legacy of three difficult decades of mistrust between India and Sri Lanka, PM Modi’s commitment to restructure ties with its island neighbour deserves credit. A closer look at specific deliverables on four key issues of deliberation between the two sides will give a fuller picture.

The Tamil Question: Moving Beyond

Before the 2014 Indian general election, a common perception in Sri Lanka, mostly of the Sinhala community, was that India’s policy toward the island nation is largely dictated by Tamil Nadu politics. A perceived Indian intrusiveness, riding on concerns of the Tamil question, had been a significant itch that overshadowed most Sri Lankan debates on India. With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) securing an absolute majority and the subsequent turn of events, including arrests of political leaders from Tamil Nadu (some were even BJP allies) while protesting former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s New Delhi visit, the perception among most sections of the Sinhala nationalists has gradually been recalibrated.

The same events, on the other hand, caused the Sri Lankan Tamils to worry about loss of leverage vis-à-vis Tamil Nadu. The Modi government, however, carefully addressed this concern early on through discussions with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) delegation and gave assurances to relevant stakeholders that India and Tamil Nadu will not be at variance with regard to their political needs.

What PM Modi has achieved is sort of a careful balance in assuaging the Tamils’ concerns while lowering the Sinhala nationalists’ criticism. He clearly stated India’s supports for a “united” Sri Lanka, but also stressed the need to go beyond the Thirteenth Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution for the political empowerment of the Tamil minority; while New Delhi backed the UNHRC Resolutions that give Sri Lanka more time to protect Tamil interests, PM Modi made a symbolic visit to the Tamil-dominated Jaffna stressing ethnic reconciliation and rehabilitation.

The implications of these moves on the Tamil problem aside, by establishing this balance, PM Modi has been successful in moving India-Sri Lanka relations away from the prism of the Tamil question.

Cultural diplomacy: Renewed Focus

The Sri Lankan outreach provides an immediate and clearest example of Modi’s use of cultural diplomacy as the regional trump card. Moving past the baggage of Tamil politics, PM Modi has perpetually sought to place India-Sri Lanka relations within the ambit of cultural unity – a move that was initiated by the predecessor, the UPA government, but got a personal push from Modi.

From cooperation in development of the “Ramayana Trail” in Sri Lanka and the “Buddhist Circuit” in India to the unveiling of the statue of Anagarika Dharmapala in Sanchi by incumbent Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, almost every state visit between India and Sri Lanka since 2014 has prominently featured an emphasis on cultural ties. At the height of this trend was PM Modi’s May 2017 visit to Sri Lanka earmarked solely to attend the ‘Vesak’ Day celebrations with no formal talks.

Political commentators view this as Modi government’s strategy to counter China’s growing imprint in the island. Notwithstanding this motivation, cultural diplomacy has undoubtedly become a crucial part of India’s engagement in Sri Lanka.

Economic Engagement: All Talk No Action

The single most important agenda that has spanned most political engagements between India and Sri Lanka in the past three years is economic cooperation. The two countries have discussed ways to promote Indian investments, proposed ambitious economic partnerships such as the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) and the South India-Sri Lanka sub-regional cooperation, and have listed a range of opportunities to work together, albeit very little has been achieved on ground.

Indian investments in Sri Lanka dipped significantly in 2016-17 compared to the previous two years. The ETCA appears far from being finalised, despite Sri Lankan PM Ranil Wickremesinghe’s announcement that it would be signed by end of 2016. In fact, both sides are yet to resolve issues related to the Free Trade Agreement that was operationalised in 2000. Cumulatively, the only significant economic arrangement realised by India and Sri Lanka in the past three years is the ‘Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation in economic projects’ signed during PM Wickremesinghe’s April 2017 visit. The significantly delayed MoU is essentially a “roadmap for the future” that outlines a few broader agendas and agreements, which are unlikely to materialise given, for instance, the present trust deficit and resistance to Indian presence on the island.

Fishermen Issue: Awaiting Results

Another issue that clouds India-Sri Lanka bilateral ties is the long-festering problem of fishermen straying into each other’s territorial waters. Renewed calls from the Modi and Sirisena governments to find a permanent solution to this issue of “highest importance” has ensured sustained diplomatic negotiations and engagement of fishermen communities on both sides. In particular, 2016 saw the establishment of a Joint Working Group (JWG) on fisheries and a hotline between the Indo-Lanka Coast Guards. The JWG is expected to meet every three months while the Ministers of Fisheries on both sides would meet every six months beginning January 2017 along with the Coast Guard and naval representative to discuss the protracted issue.

The proposed meetings have ensued, but the setup has failed to achieve much. Only two months after the first meeting of the JWG, tension escalated after the Sri Lankan Navy allegedly shot at six Indian fishermen near the Katchatheevu islet resulting in one death. The incident snowballed into a diplomatic row after the Indian Coast Guard arrested ten Sri Lankan fishermen one day later. While high-level discussions managed to bring down tension, the fact remains that many fishermen continue to be arrested and the measures so far have not been able to address this problem. Perhaps one positive development that has come about pertains to the practice of bottom trawling, which New Delhi now officially acknowledges as an environmentally harmful practice that needs to end. However, without actual time-bound measures and healthy alternatives, status quo would remain.

In sum, the Modi government warrants merit for taking India-Sri Lanka relations away from a discourse dominated by Tamil politics, placing it in the ambit of cultural engagement and orienting it toward questions of economic development. However, the government’s implementation front is severely lacking, as is their determination to strike effectively at the core of contentious issues like the fishermen dispute.

* Husanjot Chahal
Programme Director, SEARP, IPCS
E-mail: husanjot.chahal@ipcs.org