India betraying Palestinians? Modi carries forward Narasimha Rao's policy to establish full-fledged relations with Israel

By Sheshu Babu

After Independence, India adopted the policy of non-alignment under the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. While the prime motive was non-interference, India always supported the cause of Palestinians in UN and also in WHO till 2016. It voted in favour of Palestine in almost every resolution. The year 2017 was the first occasion when India abstained from voting on the Palestine issue clearly from the orders of New Delhi, given the Government's current growing strategic and economic relation with Israel.
India was among 20 countries, which abstained during a vote on 'draft decision' on May 23, proposing to support Palestinians in their endeavor to provide health services in the present conflict ridden situation. Discussion on the issue was part of the agenda in World Health Assembly, the WHO annual global level event in Geneva taking place this year (May 21 -26).
The draft decision titled 'Health conditions in the occupied Palestine Territory including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan' was proposed by Algeria, Bahrain, Cuba,Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, Venezuela (Bolivian Republic of) and Yemen, etc. (May 28, 2018, www.kracktivist.org).
Discussieons on the health conditions of Palestinians draft was put to vote. 90 countries voted in favour and 6 against (Australia, Canada, US, UK and Guatemala). Twenty nations abstained. At a time when Israelis massacred about 60 civilians in Gaza, India's abstaining is regrettable. Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, the Indian chapter of people's health movement, said that this is shocking (Down to Earth). This comes at a time when Israel is violating human rights consistently.
The seeds of relationship with Israel were laid during the rule of Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. The visit of Arafat in 1992 had some indications of India abandoning its four decade policy of 'no relations' with Israel. According to PR Kumaraswamy (JNU) , the Rao-Arafat meet removed the last hurdle in normalisation of relations with Israel, and Arafat had no option but to agree that India had the right to decide its own foreign priorities ("Modi Redefines India's Palestine policy", May 18, 2017, https//idsa.in).
Modi, who admires Rao, has carried the policy forward and established full-fledged relations with Israel. Thus,the India right wing has 'backstabbed' the people of Palestinians. Their support to Israel has become an integral part of India's Middle-East policy. Palestine people have been left in the lurch.
People of India should vociferously protest this abstention and force the government to take proactive stance in support of the people of Palestine. The Zionist Israeli rule backed by US and its allies must be sternly opposed. Human rights activists should see that the traditional support to oppressed people like Palestine should not be deviated by the government. Mass mobilisation to protest the indifferent attitude should be stepped up. Indians should firmly denounce atrocities by Israel and its allies.

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Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Rushdie, Pamuk, 260 writers tell Modi: Aatish episode casts chill on public discourse

Counterview Desk
As many as 260 writers, journalists, artists, academics and activists across the world, including Salman Rushdie, British Indian novelist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist, have called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision to strip British Indian writer Aatish Taseer of his overseas Indian citizenship.

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

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