by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Muslim World, Women Entrepreneur
(Image -Twitter / Sidhant Sibal)
New Delhi : Reforms in the traditional education system and empowering women are the two major agendas Morocco is following in its efforts to counter terrorism and radicalisation, a top diplomat of the North African nation has said.
“We still have the problem of dealing with the traditional education system,” Assia Ben Salah Alaoui, Ambassador at large for Moroccan King Mohammed VI said in a speech on “Morocco’s Security Strategy: Preventing Terrorism and Countering Extremism” organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) think tank here on Wednesday.
“We are trying to reform the system,” Alaoui said, adding that education is very important to shape young minds.
She said that families were being engaged to ensure that children were not radicalised at a young age.
She also pointed to her country’s empowering of women to engage in business.
Alaoui said that the idea that women and Islam are incompatible, just as democracy and Islam are incompatible, should be revoked.
“Women business organisations are being helped in our country,” she stated.
According to Aaloui, religion today has become a very minor factor in the radicalisation of people for terrorism.
She said that those being targeted were from poor and malnourished backgrounds and were being paid on a monthly basis by the terrorist organisations like the Islamic State.
She said that religion still retains a role in this global menace because of people in Europe.
“These people have lost touch with their culture. They do not know religion, they don’t know the origin of their culture,” the Ambassador stated. “The terrorists are promising them dreams of going to paradise.”
Aaloui said that in her country imams are being trained to propagate moderate Islam.
“In Morocco, we have created the Foundation of African Ulema that is working hard to spread moderate Islam.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Manish Sisodia
New Delhi : Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday said the solution to the menace of terrorism and global warming will be found through education only.
“The time has come when all Education Ministers put their heads together to assure the country that they will bring a solution to terrorism through education,” Sisodia said while addressing the 65th meeting of Central Advisory Board for Education at Vigyan Bhavan here.
He said the Ministers should assure the country that they will impart such education to children that ensures that no educated individual under any circumstances chooses terrorism.
Sisodia lauded the central government for focusing on ‘learning outcomes’ across the country.
At the same time, he said that learning outcomes cannot be achieved by merely drawing up such lists.
He asked on National Council of Educational Research and Training, Central Board of Secondary Education and all state governments to promptly reduce syllabi in all subjects by 50 per cent so that teachers shift their attention to learning outcomes.
“As long as the sword of syllabi completion hangs over teachers they can never shift their attention to learning outcomes,” he said.
Sisodia said the Delhi government was speeding up the process of installing closed-circuit televisions in every classroom of state-run schools and to provide all teachers with tablets.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By C. Uday Bhaskar,
Almost 16 years to the day since the US embarked upon its war on terrorism against the Afghan Taliban on October 7, 2001, as reprisal for the enormity of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it appears that a White House administration is again issuing dire warnings to Rawalpindi (GHQ of the Pakistan Army) while still dangling the familiar “carrot”.
At a congressional hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington DC on Tuesday (October 4), General Joseph Dunford, Chairman, US Joints Chiefs of Staff, observed candidly: “I think it’s clear to me that the ISI has connections with terrorist groups.” This is not the first time that an incumbent in his chair has come to such a determination.
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis had a similar assessment, adding that while Pakistan may have come down on terrorism, “the ISI appears to run its own foreign policy”. This is an unusually unambiguous assertion by a senior US offical but General Mattis added the caveat too: “We need to try one more time to make this strategy work with them; by, with and through the Pakistanis. And if our best efforts fail, the President (Trump) is prepared to take whatever steps are necessary.”
The war in Afghanistan, where Pakistan was accorded the status of a major non-NATO ally, has been expensive for the US both in terms of blood and treasure. A study by the Brown University estimates that, as of 2016, the US may have spent up to $ 2 trillion towards the Afghan campaign, which still remains inconclusive and messy.
As a benchmark, it may be relevant to note that India’s GDP in 2016 was estimated to be $ 2.26 trillion. The total number of people killed since the US led war against terror began in October 2001 has crossed 370,000 and the number displaced is upwards of 800,000. And the violence continues.
Will the latest warning by the Trump team have the desired effect on the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and the “deep-state” in that country? It is difficult to be optimistic.
Three high-level political visits in end September frame the intractable nature of the Afghan war. They were dramatically illustrated by events in Kabul. Mattis arrived in Kabul from Delhi (September 26) and a few hours later the airport was subjected to rocket fire by the local Taliban. This attack on the Kabul airport led to a delay in the visit of Abdullah Abdullah, CEO of Afghanistan, to Delhi.
It is pertinent to note that in their public remarks in Kabul and Delhi, the two men reiterated the imperative of closing down safe havens and sanctuaries for terror groups and dismantling the infrastructure in the region that supports such bloodshed.
The not-so-subtle reference was to Pakistan and its deep-state that continues to support groups such as the Haqqani network, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its affiliates.
This brings us to the third visit — that of Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in end September to the US, where he asserted that charges of Pakistan sheltering terrorists were “untrue”, and that the only cross-border movement of terrorists was “from Afghanistan to Pakistan”!
Abbasi went further and categorically ruled out any role for India in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, adding, “Zero, we don’t foresee any political or military role for India in Afghanistan.”
This inflexible veto that Pakistan has accorded unto itself in relation to the internal affairs of Afghanistan and the brazen manner in which it continues to deny the role being played by Rawalpindi in supporting terror groups lies at the core of the political and military challenge for the US, India and Afghanistan.
This was reiterated during the Mattis-Nirmala Sitharaman (India’s Defence Minister) meeting in Delhi. A highly respected US marine corps general, Mattis has first-hand experience of the war in Afghanistan and is deeply aware of Pakistani duplicity, wherein the US taxpayers money is being spent to attack and kill US military personnel.
The (George W.) Bush and (Barack) Obama administrations were aware of this fundamental contradiction — that in September 2001 — before 9/11, Pakistan was one of just three nations in the world who recognised the Afghan Taliban and their regime in Kabul at that time.
Yet the White House chose to overlook this contradiction and allowed Pakistan to become a non-NATO ally in the global war on terror. Further ironies followed, for in October 2001, when the US and its allies were bombing Afghanistan, the wily General Pervez Musharraf was able to strike a deal with the Pentagon and safely withdraw Pakistan army personnel in Afghanistan who were assisting the Taliban.
The metaphor hunting with the (US) hounds and running with the (Taliban) hare could not be more apt.
But the more relevant question that many US citizens ask in anger is how the world’s lone superpower could allow such perfidy to continue for years. This is the question that President Trump is seeking to answer and introduce a much needed corrective to the US South Asia policy.
India, which is also a stakeholder in the war against terror, is a major development partner in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and has provided aid in excess of $2 billion. During the Mattis visit Defence Minister Sitharaman confirmed that while Delhi would not send any troops to Afghanistan, it would enhance its training role for security and police personnel.
The critical military equipment that the Afghan military needs is a complex matter and India is constrained by its own military inventory gaps and the dependence on Russian-origin equipment that cannot be supplied without involving Moscow in the deliberations.
The sub-text of the three visits illuminates both the nature of the Afghan conundrum and the difficulties inherent in crafting policy options that will be more effective than what has been the cost-benefit analysis of the last 16 years. To add to the complexity, Beijing has also become an interlocutor.
Even as the Mattis-Abdullah visits were taking place, the second meeting of the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan (CAP) Practical Cooperation Dialogue was held in Kabul (September 26, 27).
Weaning Rawalpindi away from supporting terror groups will not be a swift binary choice and the White House has considerable experience in the matter. Whether President Trump will be able to cut the Gordian knot remains moot.
(C. Uday Bhaskar is Director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. He can be contacted at cudayb@gmail.com. The article is in special arrangement with South Asia Monitor)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Eenam Gambhir
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : In a sharp escalation of its attack, India slammed Pakistan at the UN for its support to terrorism, calling it “terroristan”.
“In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror,” Eenam Gambhir, First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN, said on Thursday exercising India’s right of reply after Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi’s virulent attack that “the struggle” of the people in Kashmir was being “brutally suppressed by India”.
Gambhir, who stole the show last year when she verbally pummelled former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and delivered the memorable line: “The land of Taxila, one of the greatest learning centres of ancient times, is now host to the Ivy League of terrorism”, packed equally powerful punches against Abbasi this year.
Pakistan’s “contribution to the globalisation of terror is unparalleled”, she declared.
“The quest for land of pure has actually produced a ‘land of pure terror’.
“Pakistan is now ‘Terroristan’ with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism,” Gambhir added.
In his speech, Abbasi warned of the possibility of a “dangerous escalation” in the subcontinent and clamoured for intervention by the global organisation.
Accusing New Delhi of frequently violating the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, he said that “if India does venture across the LoC, or acts upon its doctrine of ‘limited’ war against Pakistan, it will evoke a strong and matching response”.
“The international community must act decisively to prevent the situation from a dangerous escalation,” he said.
Abbasi also admitted that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is directed against India.
“Confronted by a hostile and increasingly militarized neighbour, Pakistan has been obliged to maintain the capability for credible deterrence,” he said. “Our strategic assets are vital to deter oft-threatened aggression.”
Abbasi spent almost a third of his General Assembly address of about 12 minutes attacking India.
Abassi also accused India of war crimes over the use of pellet guns by law enforcement personnel and warned of a “dangerous escalation” on the subcontinent.
Lampooning Abbasi’s claim of fighting terrorism, she said: “This is a country whose counter-terrorism policy is to mainstream and upstream terrorism by either providing safe haven to global terror leaders in it military towns or protecting them with political careers.”
“It is extraordinary that the state which protected (former Al Qaeda leader) Osama bin Laden and sheltered Mullah Omar should have the gumption to play the victim.
“By now all Pakistan’s neighbours are painfully aware of these tactics of creating narratives based on distortions, deception and deceit,” the diplomat said.
She also said that the current state of Pakistan could be gauged from the fact that Hafiz Saeed, leader of the UN-designated terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, was now seeking to be legitimised as a leader of a political party.
Stating that nothing can justify Pakistan’s avaricious efforts to covet territories of its neighbours, Gambhir said: “In so far as India is concerned, Pakistan must understand that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is and will always remain an integral part of India.
“However much it scales up cross-border terrorism, it will never succeed in undermining India’s territorial integrity.”
Ridiculing Pakistan for its complaints about the consequences it faced for its counter-terrorism efforts, she said: “Having diverted billions of dollars in international development aid towards creating a dangerous infrastructure of terror on its own territory Pakistan is now speaking of the high cost of its terror industry.
“The polluter in this case is paying the price,” she added.
Gambhir got the backing of an Afghan diplomat, who spoke after her, also exercising his right of reply to Abbasi’s allegations about terrorism coming to Islamabad from Kabul.
The Afghan diplomat asked where did Osama, Mullah Omar and his successor Mullah Akhtar Mansoor die, and answered they were locations in Pakistan.
“That was the country from which more than 20 international terrorist organisations came to Afghanistan and even Abbasi had admitted that those who carried out the May 31 bomb attack in Kabul that killed more than 150 people may have come from his country,” he added.
None of the 112 other countries that have spoken so far in the annual high-level General Assembly debate has even mentioned the Kashmir issue, and last year none other than Pakistan did during the entire session.
Earlier on Thursday, Abbasi met Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Pakistani media reported that he handed over to Guterres a dossier of “Indian atrocities in Kashmir”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: The Knives; Author: Richard T. Kelley; Publisher: Faber & Faber; Pages: 497; Price: Rs 499
There is no shortage of security challenges — terrorism, radicalism, illegal immigration (and the backlash it causes) — for modern nations, particularly in the West. Now imagine you had the responsibility to tackle these. How effective could you be against a backdrop of budgetary cutbacks, political intrigue and a sensationalist media ready to pounce on any lapse?
In the hot seat as Home Secretary, British soldier-turned-Conservative politician David Blaylock discovers being tough himself is not enough, his ministerial colleagues — who include two of Indian-origin — and his bureaucrats can be as devious and covert as his adversaries, whatever he does or doesn’t will invite criticism and there are no easy or evident choices. And his fierce temper that is never below the surface isn’t really helpful.
In his third novel, author Richard T. Kelly serves up an engrossing but portentous tale of modern security challenges in Britain and the political considerations and costs of tackling them.
Opening with a interlude from the Bosnian war, which brought Islamist fundamentalism into Europe with a vengeance and where peacekeeper Blaylock discovers the limitations of armed force, it begins formally 17 years down the line in 2010 when he has abandoned his uniform for a politician’s dark suit.
Entrusted with handling one of the toughest government jobs in a terrorism-menaced milieu, he finds that army life, while dangerous, was better supported. As he thinks one morning that whenever he said anything to his colleagues, “they smiled and nodded, as if they would follow him into the thick of any fight. Somehow, though, whenever he glanced back over his shoulder, he didn’t see them there”.
In course of the next few months, we see our protagonist trying to avoid political pitfalls like being seen as a leadership challenger, fending off ambitious colleagues or subordinates, seeking to win over an obdurate bureaucracy and police miffed over budget cuts, and braving the press which would rather focus on his peccadilloes.
At the same time, Blaylock has to prevent any more terrorist outrages, move forward his desired proposal for a national identity card, which has drawn adverse reaction from various sections, and take flak for “normal” crimes caused by laxity/shortage of law enforcement personnel. Then, to his dismay, the illegal immigration figures are still unacceptably high despite all action as an independent report notes.
Alongside he has to rule on extradition and refugee matters, especially those that have gained wide media coverage, field all sorts of demands from the Americans and identify moderates who can counter radicalism — not only of the Islamist sort.
Adding to the complications are his relations with his ex-wife and children — as she dashes hope of getting back again by disclosing a new love, while Blaylock suspects his boy is linked with a group of anarchist protesters. Then someone close to him is leaking information to media.
It is an uphill fight for someone who is not naturally a part of the establishment, can’t keep his temper in check or surely identify whom he can trust or not.
And as betrayals and setbacks, both personal and political, amass and his temper surges, there can only be one outcome — and it is triggered by what happens around Christmas when Blaylock is not able to meet his children to give them his gifts. But there are still twists ahead as the story comes to its shocking climax.
While Kelly seeks to disclaim his story is based any real circumstances, he does note that “it reflects some matters of public interest in the time it was written” and he has drawn on conversations with politicians, bureaucrats and other stakeholders described here to lend it greater verisimilitude.
Accordingly its pulsating action, suspense and drama is complemented by the political gambits and deal-making and administrative foot-dragging and cost calculations to give a rare, real — but not very comforting — feel of how modern governments operate and face their challenges.
An unparalleled political thriller with a flawed hero, it is a much better representative of its genre than the other sensationalised and over-the-top stuff we are accustomed too.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
