Rolling South Asia News Thread

28 dead and hundreds injured in protests / riots related to caste quotas in India:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35638161

A proportion of government jobs are allocated to "Backwards Castes" - a designation that currently excludes Jats. The Jats want in, Congress had indicated they would agree but the move has subsequently been blocked on the grounds the community is too privileged to qualify.

This was interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35809798

Someone hacked into the Bangladesh Central Bank and started sending transfer requests to the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, tapping into the country's foreign currency reserves. NY eventually cottoned on, noticing a combination of higher-than-average traffic and elementary spelling mistakes, but not until the hackers had pinched $100m. Had it all gone to plan, they would have received $1bn.

https://newrepublic.com/article/133014/new-face-india-anti-gandhi

Long, detailed profile of Modi and the allegations against him in The New Republic.

Terrible-sounding hostage situation in Dhaka. Two RAB officers killed and at least 20 people being held hostage, supposedly by a group claiming some kind of affiliation with ISIS. It's in the fancy Gulshan district and a lot of the hostages are thought to be Italian.

ISIS' own claims are that 24 have died already though that is obvs unconfirmed.

28 dead including 20 hostages. This was right in the middle of the embassy district and a stone's throw from the Australian High Commission i've been to. Looks like it was chosen as a relatively soft target (would probably still have armed guards) in an area guaranteed to have lots of foreigners.

There are lots of western commentators saying 'well, of course - Bangladesh has failed to crack down on militants' but you can't really go more than a day reading the local papers without seeing "RAB kills three resisting arrest" or "two killed as RAB search hideout" tucked away in a small column on page seven. Sheikh Hasina (who incidentally is the aunt of the British Labour MP Tulip Siddiq) has led a deeply authoritarian, militarised campaign against Jamaat-e-Islami, the local equivalent of something like the Muslim Brotherhood which may have inflamed things even more. It looks like some are switching to 'ISIS' instead, which Hasina has always played down.

It is looking like a majority of Italians and Japanese amongst the fatalities. I don't know if this is just propaganda: "Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper said the gunmen tortured anyone who was unable to recite the Koran. They provided meals overnight for only the Bangladeshi captives, it said."

obviously this is trivial but i can't imagine any cricket teams visiting bangladesh for the next...indefinite period (see pakistan)

i say trivial but it must be these goons' partial intention to cut bangladesh off from the world

England are touring in October. Wouldn't be enormously surprised to see it switched to UAE but the World Cup went ahead without any problems .

what is the likely policy response to this do you think

Probably even more of a crackdown on generic 'Islamists' targeting both Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen who have been responsible for most of the bombings / attacks not attributed to ISIS and Jamaat-e-Islami who form a fair proportion of the political opposition. 3000 people were arrested last month, hundreds of them opposition political activists not linked to militant activity. It'll probably be used as a tool to consolidate power. The interesting thing will be whether Hasina acknowledges that ISIS is proliferating as a brand. She has been extremely reluctant to do so.

The Bangladeshi government has rejected ISIS' claim of responsibility for the cafe attack and decided it was the work of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and a former army major who has supposedly been trying to organise a coup.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/bangladesh-names-two-masterminds-behind-dhaka-attack/story-nOurUyHk2j3uUAe5r7zcwM.html

Nine 'suspected militants' were killed by the police in a recent raid.

The Canadian 'mastermind' of the cafe attack was killed alongside two other people in a police raid yesterday:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/bangladesh-police-kill-main-dhaka-cafe-attack-suspect-160827050800585.html

Which is arguably quite handy if you don't want anyone contradicting the government line that it wasn't ISIS.

Someone hacked into the Bangladesh Central Bank and started sending transfer requests to the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, tapping into the country's foreign currency reserves. NY eventually cottoned on, noticing a combination of higher-than-average traffic and elementary spelling mistakes, but not until the hackers had pinched $100m. Had it all gone to plan, they would have received $1bn.

The language training institute i went to see today ran a series of ads last week along the lines of "had you learned your English with us, you'd have got the full $1bn!", which went down very badly with the government but was pretty funny.

obviously this is trivial but i can't imagine any cricket teams visiting bangladesh for the next...indefinite period

They're staying at the same hotel as me rn!

The government announced yesterday that they'd killed 33 militants since the cafe attack, which given that they killed 11 this week, seems a pretty conservative estimate. It's BAU at the moment, though. The only change is that if you're standing outside an office block the armed guards will casually wander across to stand in front of you in case you get shot.

Myanmar say nine police officers were killed on the Bangla border this week during clashes with Rohingya rebels:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/10/myanmar-nine-police-killed-insurgents-bangladesh-border

India / Pakistan is heating up again with Modi more or less putting the country on a war footing over Kashmir. He has ordered arms manufacturers to stand by to ramp up production and has suggested that Indian troops will move into Pakistan if they feel the need to go looking for terrorists there - having bombed Pakistani Kashmir last month.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Will-breach-LoC-to-hunt-terrorists-India-tells-Pakistan/articleshow/54774376.cms

This is...bold.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37906742

Modi announced earlier today that 500 and 1000 Rupee notes are being withdrawn from midnight, will cease to be legal tender for transport or state business from Friday and may not be accepted for bank deposits after December the 31st. There are varying estimates but around half of all daily cash transactions (by value) are in those denominations and over 80% of cash wealth is held in them - which for a lot of families, will be how they keep their savings.

It's a bit like saying all US notes over $10 are being cancelled at the end of the week and anyone with $100 or more in cash will have to swap it for new bills and explain its origins. It could bring a lot of cash into the system or it could go horribly wrong. The big complaint from Indian capitalist reformers has often been that too many people keep their money in cash or gold and banks don't have enough liquidity.

man do all the announcements have pictures of him on them? that's kind of weird.

Nawaz Sharif has just been ordered to resign by Pakistan's Supreme Court! He was linked to corruption exposed in the Panama Papers. Unanimous 5-0 verdict.

This seems like it could be huge and a bit surprising to me, coming from Modi/BJP. The fact that they seem to have no detailed plan on how to pay for it is a little worrying.:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/business/india-modi-health-care.html?emc=edit_th_180202&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=64660325&referer

Nepal's ruling coalition partners CPN-UML and CPN Maoist Centre unify to form Communist Party of Nepal, with Marxism and Leninism as the governing ideology: https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/uml-maoist-centre-unify-party-named-communist-party-nepal/

This seems like good news. Aiui they’ve never really gotten along well and merging the parties is designed to put barriers in the way of one or the other pulling out of the coalition.

The move to bring Maoist parties into the democratic process as been legit impressive and seems to have a much better prospect of long term success than the fairly fragile peace in Colombia.

That all makes sense. I'm interested to see what this government can achieve.

Congrats to the Awami League on winning, uh, 96% of the seats in the Bangladeshi election:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-46718393

Er...

https://scroll.in/article/902177/no-hindi-hindu-hindustan-implemented-fully-bjps-hindutva-renaming-will-wipe-out-a-lot-of-india

interesting piece on the BJP's current renaming drive. reminds me of efforts to purge english of latinate and greek words like percy grainger's 'blue eyed english'. quaint can turn to fascist p quick.

Ugh, yeah, they also renamed Ross, Neil, and Havelock islands after Subhash Chander Bose (independence leader who conflicted with Gandhi and teamed up with WW2-era Germany and Japan to form the Free India Army): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/01/india-strips-islands-british-colonial-names-renames-freedom/

This story is really fascinating to me: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/02/indian-women-form-620km-human-chain-in-support-of-lifting-of-temple-ban

A recent Supreme Court ruling overturned a proscription on pre-menopausal women entering the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala. The priests and Hindu traditionalists have been (physically) fighting against the change, with BJP support, and have blocked many women from entering, with feminists and the Communists (who rule Kerala at the state level) fighting on the other side, including the formation of a 620 km human chain. Two women have entered and prayed now, which has been followed by protests and 'purification' of the temple by priests.

Some quality Indian English in some of the quotes btw:

“Have the Communists desecrated Sabarimala shrine by facilitating entry of women of restricted age group into the temple? Devastating, if true.”

Nationwide strike; five states basically shut down. Is this getting any Western coverage outside extreme left rags?

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/m.timesofindia.com/india/trade-unions-strike-evokes-mixed-response-on-day-1-complete-bandh-in-kerala/amp_articleshow/67440537.cms

Not that I’ve seen - perhaps there is a perception that hartal/ bandh is so common in India it no longer qualifies as news.

They still cover French protests but yeah. This does seem big; idk how it will play out. Violence is worrying but unsurprising.

We will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha, Hindus and Sikhs: Shri @AmitShah #NaMoForNewIndia

— BJP (@BJP4India) April 11, 2019

https://thewire.in/rights/assam-nrc-may-campaign-marginalise-muslims

Rolling further towards open religious fascism.

Are they really excluding anyone whose name does not appear on the Mar 1971 electoral rolls and is not a descendant of someone who does (or an Indian citizen who moved to Assam)? Sounds nuts.

Good news for Gautama at least.

What's a reliable source for Indian news? Not knowing the media landscape there, I tend to only read about it in the Guardian.

Ha, yeah, "except for Buddha" jumped out for me too.

Awful news from Sri Lanka. Three hotel and three churches bombed, it looks like. Reporting at least 137 dead.

Horrible. Forgive my ignorance, but have there been significant tensions between religious and/or ethnic communities lately?

Not as far as I know, it seems comparatively out of the blue.

How awful.

My quartier has a large Sri Lankan population, mostly Tamils. Many go to mass with us, and people were lamenting this Easter morning.

I read somewhere that the police were warned of an imminent church attack last week, but I'd imagine it wouldn't have been the first time. Lots of predictable Islamophobic shit coming from the usual suspects and I'm reading it might have been committed by Bodu Bala Sena - the Buddhist extremists.

Another explosion.

2 police officers confirmed dead in 7th blast.

8th blast. Fucking hell.

wtf.

there is going to be a nationwide curfew that begins in 3 hrs and a shutdown of all social media and messaging services.

The seventh and eighth bombs seem to have been set off as the attackers were being chased down by the police. They were not high-profile targets like the others.

death toll up to 207 now.

So awful

Is there a reason why Bodu Bala Sena would want to kill tourists? Serious question.

it probably wasn't them. But lots of ppl seemed quite sure who was responsible literally 20 mins after the first few blasts occurred. The usual suspects though.

Jesus. All my Sri Lankan colleagues seem to be ok but someone from our US office visiting them was killed at the Cinnamon Hotel.

With this and his Kashmir actions I believe Modi's solidly in the lead and pulling away from the field as the most horrible authoritarian elected president right now. When you consider the field includes Duterte and Bolsinaro, that's quite an achievement.

leading the vanguard of never-letting-a-crisis-go-to-waste, uttar pradesh suspends almost all labour laws for 3 years to spur investment https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/up-govt-to-exempt-businesses-from-all-but-three-labour-laws-for-3-years-120050701531_1.html

Tesla should move it's factory over there

Haven't brought myself to read the last story yet but this story seems to put the rest of the world to shame: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-health-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19

It's fantastic! I posted that on the UK pols thread

Yeah, I thought of putting it on Canadian politics, esp as Kerala has basically the same population size as Canada (and is more dense). Our handling of this doesn't seem as satisfactory anymore.

Impressive!

Three Indian soldiers killed in a clash with the Chinese Army in Galwan Valley.

So this situation has been going for a while?

Since independence, i guess, but this is apparently the first time anyone has been killed in 45 years.

There was a Chinese 'incursion' about three weeks ago, i think, that kicked things off again.

Actually, to be more accurate, i think the incursion came as part of the Chinese response to India building a new bridge across the valley, against China's objections.

apparently now it's up to 20 casualties

The report I heard mentioned hand to hand combat, rocks and clubs used, it sounds as brutal and deadly as army combat gets without shots being fired.

I saw that too. 20 soldiers beaten to death strains credulity imo, but obvs it's too early to know anything concrete

yeah the subtext probably is shots were fired but neither side can admit that.

The two armies jostled and hand-to-hand fighting broke out – neither side armed in line with decades of tradition supposed to ward off the possibility of escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Then an Indian commanding officer was pushed, fell from the narrow ridge and plunged to his death in the gorge below.

Reinforcements from the Indian side were summoned from a post about 4km away and eventually about 600 men were fighting with stones, iron rods and other makeshift weapons in near-total darkness for up to six hours, Indian government sources said, with most deaths on both sides occurring from soldiers falling or being knocked from mountain terrain.

jfc!

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-52990324?

Not even the well connected middle-class are being saved. The BJP will be ramping up their culture war etc. to max levels to get auntie voting for bigotry at the next election.

afaict the main control in place to combat COVID is a 9pm - 5am curfew. idk what what's meant to do other than curb potential disorder.

xpost
ok wow I hadn't realized the insanity of fighting in that kind of terrain

It's off-the-scale crazy. These are two advanced, nuclear-armed superpowers fighting with sticks in the dark for six hours.

Looks like Modi has blinked. Says there was no incursion into Indian territory. China has subsequently reiterated that the valley is within their LAC.

Good to see it de-escalate.

Indian government proceeding with criminalizing intermarriage: https://t.co/3hdeBSMXpL

— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) December 5, 2020

Genuinely interested to see how far he can push stuff like this and still have Western leaders pal around with him.

In a country where love was meant to be a celebration, Narendra Modi has criminalised interfaith love because it is a regime that has survived and sustained on hate. My take on legitimising the dangerous and fictitious Love Jihad theory in @PostOpinionshttps://t.co/agSPBTm7vF

— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) November 29, 2020

Wtf? No way this is constitutional?

Likely not, but it will have to go to court first

Kerala High Court did rule this way: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/all-interfaith-marriages-not-love-jihad-court/articleshow/61147349.cms

Heartbreaking and believable: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/pollution-killed-nearly-17-million-people-in-india-in-2019-study

why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest https://t.co/obmIlXhK9S

— Rihanna (@rihanna) February 2, 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/18/indian-mosque-bulldozed-in-defiance-of-high-court-order

Ugh, that seems shockingly brazen, even for the BJP.

In other shockingly brazen, even for the BJP news...

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have been put on notice in India and may cease to exist for failing to comply with Centre's new I-T Act. New social media rules to come into effect on May 26. @maryashakil shares more details with @ridhimb pic.twitter.com/wLvsSbbOqH

— News18 (@CNNnews18) May 25, 2021

The short version seems to be that they forged some documents suggesting Congress was planning to run a campaign that would ‘tarnish the image of the country’ over COVID, Twitter labelled it as ‘manipulated media’ when senior politicians posted it, the police raided Twitter’s offices yesterday and now they, and Facebook, have 24 hours to comply with new laws or face closure.

Wow.

I got a FB msg from a cousin in India today so I'm guessing they either complied or the rules aren't being enforced?

some follow up here: https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/india-silicon-valley-twitter-google-censorship.html

Finally read this; it's as depressing as I feared.

Went back to it after reading this: https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-nsa-for-45-days-over-cow-posts-in-manipur-its-not-unusual/684133/

Sometimes writing editorials is not required. Just the placement of news is enough pic.twitter.com/9tyP9JkMym

— Ghazala Wahab (@ghazalawahab) June 28, 2022

o_O

more on Zubair and Alt News: https://restofworld.org/2021/fact-checking-modis-india/

Protesters occupy President's residence, burn down PM's and force both to resign in Sri Lanka: https://www.nytimes.com/article/sri-lanka-president-protests.html

While I don't question that there are good reasons to want a revolution in Sri Lanka, it's v unclear to me what will come next and nothing I've seen suggests that the protesters have a clear idea themselves. Also, one thing I've not seen addressed anywhere yet is whether Tamils or Muslims are represented among the protesters.

Indian government accused of attack on democracy as 141 MPs suspended:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/19/indian-government-accused-attack-democracy-mps-suspended-modi-bjp

Really grim

Modi has done so many fascist things over the years, it’s so expected