Mountains and well-being world’s population

 

Vladimir Norov

December 11 is International Mountain Day established by the UN General Assembly in 1992 and adopted by Agenda 21 during the UN Conference on Environment and Development.

The main purpose of this holiday was to educate the general public about the need to effectively use and protect mountain ecosystems and biodiversity in order to solve global environmental problems in mountain areas and rural development besides to strengthen the achievements of mankind in this sphere.

International Mountain Day is celebrated in many countries around the world, where people care about mountainous areas. Each year is dedicated to a new theme. The theme for this year’s celebration is mountain biodiversity. On this day the UN General Assembly encourages the world community to organize conferences, seminars, round tables, and other events at all levels.

Mountains, including mountain ranges and mountain systems, occupy nearly one-fourth of the planet. It includes a huge part of the world’s freshwater reserves and endangered species of fauna and flora. Mountains are also a popular destination for hiking and mountain climbing.

Half of the world’s biodiversity areas are located in mountains and mountainous areas, where more than 15% of the world’s population lives. About half of the world’s population depends on the water, food, and energy resources that mountains contain.

Most of the people of the Earth inhabiting mountain valleys live below the poverty line, constantly suffering from natural disasters. In the absence of developed infrastructure, they are at risk of food security and employment opportunities, as well as has no access to adequate health care, education, and quality public services.

As a rule, the inhabitants of these areas, feeling their insecurity in the face of modern challenges, are forced to migrate to the cities.There is a decline of agriculture, degradation of arable land and loss of cultural diversity, knowledge, and dying national traditions and historical heritage.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization fully supports the celebration of International Mountain Day. With the continued degradation of life-sustaining natural resources of mountains: water, land, biological, mineral, recreational, and others, their protection and rational use are at the forefront of the national security system of the SCO countries.

Undoubtedly, mountain systems in the SCO area are an invaluable source of water, energy, and biological diversity. Our countries contain vast uplands, the main mountain systems of the Earth, where large glaciers are located.

In recent decades, there is an increasing trend of melting of mountain glaciers and their catastrophic reduction, which may lead to their disappearance in many areas of the world. The melting of glaciers has become particularly noticeable in the Tibetan Plateau. Glaciers in the Himalayas are losing up to 8 billion tons of ice annually, and the rate of melting is increasing at an alarming rate.

The glaciers of the Tien Shan mountain system, which stretches from east to west across China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, have lost about 27% of their mass and more than 18% of their area in the last half-century. Of the 8,200 glaciers in the Tien Shan, more than 2,000 have melted in the recent past. The international experts using the newest methods of climate forecasting have pointed the fact that half of the ice cap of Tien Shan will melt by 2050.

According to scientists, global warming will melt the ice caps of all mountains and glaciers in the next hundred years. Scientists note that the melting of many glaciers has accelerated in recent years. For example, the Jacobswan Glacier on Greenland Island has doubled its rate of melting after six years and is now shrinking at a rate of about 12 km per year.  A group of European scientists said that Everest could lose up to 96 percent of its glaciers by 2100. Such scientific research was published in the journal “The Cryosphere”. All this is due to the development of industrialization, the neglect of human nature, expressed by an increase in emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere, drying up of rivers and reservoirs, as well as deforestation, which is a natural shield against pollution.

Scientists and environmentalists are seriously concerned about these phenomena, since such destruction of the ice cover may contribute to other environmental problems throughout the region, including a significant reduction in freshwater supplies.

It is also worth mentioning that one of the most well-known and at the same time major environmental problems – the drying up of the Aral Sea, which is closely related to this phenomenon. Scientists note that the salt from the bottom of the Aral Sea is carried by wind currents towards mountain ranges and settles on glaciers, thereby accelerating melting of the glaciers. Restoration of the Aral Sea ecosystem is a very difficult task, requiring financial investment and considerable efforts on the part of the world community.

The disappearance of glaciers can completely change the climate of the region, which will have a negative impact on the animal and plant life, as well as on many aspects of the socio-economic life of the population of mountainous areas.

Member States attach great importance to the integrated solution of mountain development problems. In particular, at the plenary session of the UN General Assembly, which was held on December 19, 2019, a resolution “Sustainable Mountain Development” presented by Kyrgyzstan and Italy was adopted. The resolution was also co-sponsored by 80 UN Member States including the SCO countries. The resolution stresses the importance of preventing glacier melting, reducing biodiversity and environmental degradation to ensure and maintain an acceptable standard of living for the residents whose economic activities depend entirely on the natural resources of mountain ecosystems.

The resolution also mentions initiatives of UN Member States to promote sustainable development of mountain areas, such as the proclamation, on the initiative of Kyrgyzstan, of the International Mountain Day in 2003 and the International Year of Mountains in 2002, the establishment of the Group of Friends of Mountain Countries, created in August 2019 in New York.

Considering the need to intensify work on systematic monitoring of mountain glaciers in 2009 at the conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Tajikistan initiated the establishment of the International Fund for the Protection of Glaciers and invited developed countries and international organizations to provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries to monitor and protect glaciers. The importance of this initiative was also noted during the meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of SCO Member States held on November 30, 2020.

It is important for our Organization to comprehensively study the interconnectedness of environmental problems, exchange information and experience between specialized institutions, take conservation and restoration measures, diversify mountain economies, preserve specific mountain ecosystems, conduct scientific environmental research in mountain and hilly areas, and identify vulnerable mountain areas. In this context Kazakhstan’s initiative to make a register of environmental problems in SCO is timely.

An undoubted priority for the preservation of mountain ecosystems and the improvement of the well-being of the local population of mountainous areas is the use of environmentally safe technologies.  The parties are considering Uzbekistan’s initiative, the SCO Green Belt Program, which is designed to unlock our countries’ potential for the use and priority implementation of modern resource-saving and environmentally friendly technologies, exchange experience in manufacturing, installation, operation, and maintenance of modern energy-saving equipment, use of environmentally friendly technologies, creating new jobs, and improving the quality of life of the citizens.

Currently, one of the main normative documents of the Organization is the Concept of Cooperation of SCO Member States in Environmental Protection, which contributes to maintaining the ecological balance, ensuring environmental safety, promoting “green” development, and financing environmental projects and programs.

It should be noted that in 2019, for the first time, the SCO launched a mechanism for the Meeting of Heads of Ministries and Agencies of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States Responsible for Environmental Protection

During the meeting held in Moscow on September 27, 2019, the member states discussed a wide range of environmental issues and agreed on the possibility of establishing thematic Expert Groups of SCO Member States in the field of biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and mitigation, waste management. The parties stressed the need to raise the level of environmental education and awareness at all levels, and to carry out environmental research, including in mountainous areas.

The SCO is interested in interacting with the UN Environment Programme to jointly implement the environmental component of sustainable development. The organization will promote integrated management and protection of mountain ecosystems, taking into account the activities of relevant international and regional organizations.

Global climatic changes, widespread warming, are posing a direct threat to the ecosystem of mountains which urgently require the activation of efforts of the world community to adopt a set of socio-political, environmental, economic, and other measures to mitigate the consequences of this phenomenon.

To address these problems, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, together with the international community, will contribute to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Writer is the Secretary General of SCO.

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COURTESY DNA NEWS

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Sheikh & Shaikh

 

IT works every time: whenever in doubt, shuffle the deck. This time around however, judges may have forced the politicians’ hands.

Sheikh Rashid has won the lottery by bagging the powerful interior ministry while jettisoning his Railways baggage. Retired brigadier Ijaz Shah finds himself in an un-envious position of being ‘demoted’ from interior to narcotics control ministry, while Azam Swati, who has braved the vicissitudes of temporary cabinet wilderness, chugs into the railway portfolio belching grand plans. But it is Hafeez Shaikh who has hit the real jackpot. From an adviser under a perceived cloud, he has been elevated to a full-fledged federal minister for finance and in all likelihood will also become a senator because as an unelected person he can only serve as a minister for six months.

So how did Sheikh and Shaikh hit the bullseye?

There were multiple reasons being whispered about the PM’s need to change his batting order.

Islamabad had been abuzz about a cabinet reshuffle for weeks. There were multiple reasons being whispered about Prime Minister Imran Khan’s need to change his batting order in the face of a mounting political run rate. The hapless information ministry had experienced the effects of a revolving door for ministers and advisers and if this were a harbinger of what portfolio mayhem was in store, many ministerial occupants, hopefuls and probables were bracing for their boss’s verdict.

There was also hushed talk that the prime minister would wait till the Senate elections to reshuffle the federal cabinet. These elections are expected to see a large number of new PTI faces becoming senators from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. The lobbying for the ruling party’s ticket is already under way.

The prime minister has always maintained he wants more people with expertise in the cabinet. In a meeting with columnists earlier this week, he reiterated this priority by saying that ministries like petroleum, power, IT, tourism and agriculture needed ministers who had specific knowledge of such areas. His grief was that people who won elections weren’t necessarily qualified to lead specialised ministries and therefore a talent pool of people had to be brought into the cabinet from outside the electoral reservoir.

However, the judgement of the Islamabad High Court threw a spanner in his works. It clearly stated that unelected advisers and special assistants could not run the functions of a ministry or division. The judgement explained that the elected minister was responsible for policymaking of the ministry while the federal secretary was the ministry’s principal accounting officer and exercised all executive functions. Advisers and special assistants could only advise the prime minister on the affairs of the ministry whose portfolio they were assigned.

The judgement created serious problems for the unelected ‘specialists’ who the prime minister had brought into the cabinet. Something had to give.

On Friday, it did.

Finance, interior and foreign ministries are generally perceived as the most important ones in the federal government. When PTI won the 2018 elections, all eyes were on who would bag these three ministries, plus of course the coveted posts of chief minister of Punjab and KP. It was Islamabad’s worst-kept secret that Pervaiz Khattak wanted interior, Shah Mahmood and Fawad Chaudhry wanted the CM Punjab slot and Atif Khan was the perceived choice for CM KP. In addition, Arif Alvi was almost finalised as speaker of the National Assembly and Asad Umar was a foregone conclusion as the finance minister.

In the end, Pervaiz Khattak was shunted to defence, Shah Mahmood grumbled his way into the Foreign Office, Fawad Chaudhry was parcelled off to information, Atif Khan was sacrificed to retain remote control, and Arif Alvi was laddered up into the presidency. Most of these choices have not aged well in terms of potential wasted or overestimated.

The interior ministry works very closely with the establishment for obvious reasons. It commands law enforcement and investigation agencies like Rangers, Islamabad Police, FIA and Frontier Constabulary. The interior minister has traditionally been someone who the establishment is comfortable with, and vice versa. The holders of this portfolio in previous years have included Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Aftab Sherpao, Rehman Malik and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. It is a well-known fact that retired brigadier Ijaz Shah was recommended as interior minister in the Imran Khan cabinet by the establishment.

But then some complications crept in.

Ijaz Shah was unable to get a grip on the affairs of the ministry. Senior officials acknowledge that he was unable to develop a close relationship of trust with the prime minister even though he came recommended from very high places. When the prime minister appointed his confidant Barrister Shahzad Akbar as adviser on interior with the status of a federal minister, it was clear who would hold sway over the affairs of the ministry. With the opposition breathing down the government’s neck and threatening a long march to Islamabad, and with Shahzad Akbar hamstrung by the IHC judgement, an elected, active, trusted, and establishment-friendly interior minister was needed. Sheikh Rashid fit the bill.

Hafeez Shaikh was also an establishment-approved replacement to Asad Umar as finance minister. However, the IHC judgement had locked him out of key forums including as chair of the National Finance Commission. It was too late in the five-year term, and too deep in the IMF programme to appoint a new finance minister. Although Hafeez Shaikh was under a cloud of uncertainty, the government figured he was the best bet at this stage — when the state of the economy is almost measured in existential terms for the government — and therefore was worth saving. This saving has translated into a full federal ministership and a likely Senate seat. This means this Shaikh could outlast the government he serves.

The force of circumstances have favoured Sheikh and Shaikh. Question is: can they carry the burden of their luck?

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.

Twitter:****@fahdhusain

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COURTESY DAWN NEWS

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China’s nuclear aspirations

 

Muhammad Omar Iftikhar

In an attempt to achieve a competitive advantage in the domain of nuclear technology, China recently launched its nuclear sun. According to sources, the HL-2M Tokamak reactor will provide a source of clean energy. The reactor is run on magnetic fields that combine hot plasma.

It is reported that the temperature of the core of this reactor can reach over 150 million degrees Celsius. China’s ambitions to work on nuclear fusion energy and now making the first successful stride in this regard will gain global attention. China is planning to collaborate with France, where the scientists are already working on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

While China has been striving to produce a smaller-scale nuclear reactor since 2006, the HL-2M Tokamak reactor will be a step forward in China’s plans to create a clean energy source. In the years to come, the world’s natural recourses will be depleted beyond measure. They are already being consumed at a rapid pace. An alternate clean source of energy was required to pursue micro and macro level operations related to trade, commerce, transportation, manufacturing, and other fields.With the mammoth costs of creating and running the  HL-2M Tokamak reactor, China has teamed up with several countries.

They include the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, the United States, and India. With nuclear fusion energy, the world will harness another source of energy that may replace natural alternate energy sources.The humans’ dependency on the sun may as well become a secondary concept when most or all of the commercial needs to produce energy will be fulfilled by the HL-2M Tokamak reactor.

This may represent a daunting futuristic reality where humans are capable of producing clean energy that can facilitate them to live on isolated areas on Earth or transfer the same technology to the Moon, in case there is a plan to create a research and residential base on the Moon.

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Government hospitals are giving death instead of life!

 

Attiya Munawer

In a civilized society, the importance of human life in general and in Islam in particular is immense. Islam says, whoever saves the life of one person, it is as if he saved the life of all humanity and whoever kills one person, it is as if he has killed the whole humanity. Our society is very demanding of the implementation of Islamic teachings, but the consciousness of Islam is not common here, that is why human lives are being mistreated in hospitals, and the recent example of which is the tragic incident of Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar where seven patients, including five COVID-19 patients, died due to lack of oxygen in the hospital. The management seems to be negligent in this incident, but the management is placing the entire responsibility on the oxygen supply company to save itself.

It is very unfortunate that irreparable loss of seven precious lives has taken place, but instead of being ashamed, those responsible are blaming each other, it is beyond comprehension that the incident took place in the hospital and the oxygen supply company is being held responsible. While the company’s job is to provide oxygen, it is the job of the hospital administration and doctors to provide oxygen to the patients and take care of them. The incident took place at night and the administration is being informed about it the next day at noon. 

It entirely shows the negligence of the administration, even knowing that the Coronavirus pandemic has engulfed the entire country. How can such shortcomings be tolerated in the treatment of patients? Although the hospital’s board of governors has set up a committee to investigate the incident, there is a need for those found responsible to be severely punished rather than replaced or fired, but we do not have a tradition of punishment.

The management of Khyber Teaching Hospital seems to be clearly responsible for the incident. However, the entire responsibility is being shifted to the oxygen supply company to save itself. According to the preliminary investigation, on December 4, a company called Pakistan Oxygen had supplied 3,700 cubic meters of oxygen, while the hospital tank could store up to 7,000 cubic meters of oxygen. 

In this regard, the General Manager Administration of Oxygen Company has clarified that the same hospital needed 30,000 cubic meters of oxygen in October, which they supplied. While in November, when the hospital asked for more supply, they provided about 60,000 cubic meters, which is about 2,000 cubic meters on a daily basis. The oxygen company had supplied the hospital with excess oxygen on December 4, keeping in view the November average supply, while the hospital management has been claiming after the incident that the company’s vehicle was delayed due to oxygen problem. 

The oxygen company has termed this claim as ‘false’ and said that the hospital administration was saying it to cover up its incompetence. The hospital administration called when the supply ran out and we immediately sent a vehicle, which can be checked from hospital records.

The management of this hospital did not extend the contract of Oxygen Company in a timely manner and did not even inform the company about the timely supply as per its requirement. Due to this irresponsible behavior, seven precious lives were lost but the administration is showing great shamelessness and arrogance. This is not the first case of death of patients in the country. Numerous such incidents have filled the history of government hospitals, which shows how bad the condition of all government hospitals in the country is. From the hospital administration to the staff, their irresponsible attitude towards people has not been hidden from anyone. 

So, the incidents that happen to the patients on a daily basis demand special attention of the government. The same will happen after the investigation into the Teaching Hospital Peshawar incident, as it has been happening before, because in hospitals across the country, from the management to the doctors and staff, there is a mafia wreaking havoc on government hospitals that guarantees the development of private hospitals. Unless this mafia is stopped, there will be no positive change in the condition of government hospitals.

The PTI government is taking most of the steps to provide health facilities to the people, but the common man is deprived of the fruits of the government’s measures. The government ministers seem to be dynamic as far as statements are concerned, but in practice the performance is zero. On the other hand, from the construction of hospitals to the purchase of modern equipment, corruption has reached its peak, but there is no one to hold it accountable. There is an extreme indifference in government hospitals that death is being given instead of giving life and these death dealers are none other than their own Messiah who is depriving the patients of the right to breathe by not giving them oxygen. 

The government will have to take steps to improve the performance of the hospital management. The presence and continuity of oxygen supply in the hospitals is a must, in which case any kind of negligence will result in the said incident. In view of the dangerous situation of the hospital, it should be made possible to provide oxygen to the patients from time to time in the hospitals, so that the patients could not be put to death as a result of any negligence in the future.

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RSS-BJP Stampedes Basic Rights of Indian People

 

Iqbal Khan

Police in northern India have arrested 10 men for allegedly compelling women to change their religion after getting married, under a new controversial anti-conversion law satirically called the “Love Jihad” law. Last month, Uttar Pradesh state became the first Indian province to pass the law. 

At least four other Indian states are drafting laws against “love jihad”. The law has prompted outrage, with critics calling it Islamophobic.

Indiaunder the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is destroying the remnants of secular democracy, crushing Muslim rights and placing Kashmir under a vicious brutal rule, Professor Noam Chomsky, one of the greatest living intellectuals, stated on December 07. India is a natural member of the “reactionary international” most bitterly attacking and destroying democracy,” Chomsky said.He warned that the world at the moment is at confluence of four severe crises: threat of nuclear war; environmental catastrophe, deterioration of democracy worldwide;and, Covid-19.

Due to obstinate and eternal Human Rights violation, anti-India sentiment runs deep in Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K).Reports by a number of Human Right Watchdogs, over the recent years, have significantly helped in highlighting the gross human rights violations in Kashmir, including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. 

After the UN Human Rights Commission reports of 2018 and 2019, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, European Parliament and the All-party Parliamentary Kashmir Group of the UK Parliament have also issued separate reports on human rights violations by the Indian troops in occupied Kashmir. Most of these reports acknowledge that Indian army is using rape as an instrument of war against the Kashmiri women.

Moreover, in violation of the United Nations resolutions, India is settling Indian Hindus in the internationally recognized disputed territory of Kashmir in order to turn the Muslim majority state into a Hindu majority region.India has deployed more than half a million military troops in Kashmir – home to 12 million people – making it one of the most militarised zones in the world.

New Delhi says its troops are stationed to quell the ongoing popular indigenous armed rebellion, whose latest spell erupted in 1989.

Most recently, the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) has also condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the human rights violations perpetrated by Indian occupation forces in the occupied territory alongside other numerous instances of Indian State sponsored terrorism that have been the source of unspeakable suffering for the innocent Kashmiri people.

The OIC is the second largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations, with 57 members and five observer states spanning over four continents.

The OIC resolution also deplored the state-sponsored terrorism and crimes against humanity by Indian occupation forces against the people of IIOJK. This alliance of Muslim countries censured extra-judicial killings during fake ‘encounters’ and ‘search-and-cordon’ operations and demolition of homes and private properties “as a form of collective punishment.” It denounced the renewed use of pellet guns by the Indian occupation forces against innocent civilians and condemned the harassment of Kashmiri women by the Indian troops.

The OIC condemned that India has callously exploited the current Covid-19 pandemic to intensify its military crackdown for further advancing its unlawful occupation in IIOJK. The resolution also appreciated the visit of OIC Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). 

It also reaffirmed the sentiments expressed in the unanimously adopted Communiqués of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir in its Ministerial meetings held on 25 September 2019 and 22 June 2020.This indicates that the OIC countries remain steadfastly committed to the Kashmir cause.

The meeting of foreign ministers of Muslim countries have urged India to adhere to its international human rights obligations and allow the OIC special representative on Jammu and Kashmir and the OIC Fact-finding Mission to visit IIOJK. It also “strongly” urged India to implement recommendations of the two Reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Jammu and Kashmir and called upon international community to review their engagements with India— the occupying power— as it is violating and disregarding the international law, the international humanitarian law, and international resolutions.

The OIC emphasised that the question of Kashmir is of utmost importance for the Muslim Ummah and recognised that Jammu and Kashmir is the core dispute between Pakistan and India, and its resolution indispensable for realisation of the dream of peace in South Asia.

Indian Army has violated the ceasefire line and targeted the civilian population along the Line of Control (LoC) more than 2,700 times during the current year alone. As a consequence, dozens of people, mostly non-combatants,mostly innocent women and children, were martyred, scores were injured, and the civilian house-hold properties damaged/destroyed. Pakistan Army in response to India’s aggression, targeted only Indian military positions while avoiding the Kashmiri brethren living on the other side of the LoC.

The OIC in its resolution categorically rejected illegal and unilateral actions taken by the Indian government in occupied territory since August 5, 2019. “The [OIC] Resolution demands that India cancel the issuance of domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris as well as other unilateral and illegal actions, including ‘Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Order 2020’, ‘Jammu & Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate Rules 2020’, ‘Jammu and Kashmir Language Bill 2020’ and amendments to the landownership laws”,said the resolution passed during a session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of the OIC held in Niamey. Rejecting the draconian policies being pursued by the ruling RSS-BJP regime, the OIC asked India to refrain from taking any steps to alter the existing demographic structure of the disputed territory.

Saudi Arabia has always supported Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir from the platform of OIC. In Niger, the KSA once again robustly explained its stand on the dispute and helped highlight it on the global level. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan, in his address to the Niamey conference, stated in unequivocal terms that peace and security of South Asia was not possible without the settlement of the Kashmir conflict.

 Statement by Prince Faisal assumed more significance because Saudi Arabia is the current chair of the OIC. The people of Pakistan, and Jammu and Kashmir had expected that the brotherly country of Saudi Arabia would adopt a strong position on the situation of Kashmir, KSA obliged. Though UAE representative did not speak much, however, with KSA back on track, return of the UAE to its traditional stance on Kashmir is only a matter of time.

As usual, New Delhi has rejected the OIC’s unanimous resolution. Nonetheless, the OIC Resolution is further proof that India can neither hide its gross and systemic violations of human rights of the Kashmiri people and denial of their inalienable right to self-determination nor can it escape international censure about its egregious behaviour.

RSS-BJP is certainly on the wrong side of history, with a snowballing India-wide farmers’ revolt, it’s hey days may already be over. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several American congressmen recently voiced support for the peaceful farmers’ protests in India, the first of which elicited a strong condemnation from the Indian government. It remains to be seen whether New Delhi will lash out at Washington as well. More than likely, India will not do so. Modi knows well which side of the bread is buttered. He does not have the choice of getting on the bad side of Biden.

Writer is a freelance columnist; e-mail: Iqbal.khan9999@yahoo.com

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