High resolution images by top San Francisco lab "suggest" India didn't inflict damage on Jaish camp

By A Representative
High-resolution satellite images, which are claimed to have been reviewed by a top US expert, are said to suggest that "a religious school run by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in northeastern Pakistan appears to be still standing days after India claimed its warplanes had hit the Islamist group's training camp on the site and killed a large number of militants."
Referring to these images, top news agency Reuters says, "The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike", adding, "Until now, no high-resolution satellite images were publicly available. But the images from Planet Labs, which show details as small as 72 cm (28 inches), offer a clearer look at the structures the Indian government said it attacked."
According to Reuters, "The image is virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility. There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack."
It underlines, "The images cast further doubt on statements made over the last eight days by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the raids, early on February 26, had hit all the intended targets at the madrasa site near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province."
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, who has 15 years' experience in analyzing satellite images of weapons sites and systems, is quoted as confirming that the high-resolution satellite picture showed the structures in question. "The high-resolution images don't show any evidence of bomb damage," he said.

Beyond the 'silent relocation' narrative in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts

By Dr. Mohammad Asaduzzaman* In recent years, a narrative has emerged from the rugged and forested terrain of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), portraying the region as the site of a “silent relocation” — a mass forced migration of Bangladesh’s non-Muslim ethnic communities into neighboring India and Myanmar.

Ram, Bam and Bengal: Memories of a Left turn toward the Right

By Rajiv Shah The BJP ’s massive electoral win in West Bengal is being interpreted across political persuasions — except, of course, by the BJP itself — as the result of the alleged deletion of around 90 lakh voters from the electoral rolls during the controversial intensive revision process. This may well be true, given my own experience in Gujarat regarding the shoddy manner in which electoral revisions have often been conducted. In West Bengal, there also appeared to be a political angle to the exercise. But I am not interested in discussing that here, as enough has already appeared in the media on the subject.

The farmer's burden: How oil, war, and climate are rewriting the price of food

By Vikas Meshram The scorching flames of the Middle East conflict are now slowly reaching the kitchens of ordinary people. The true price of this war is paid in daily markets, vegetable shops, and in the shattered minds of farmers. Expensive crude oil, skyrocketing fertilizer prices, and rising agricultural costs are together creating the conditions for global food inflation — and this crisis is directly tied to what people eat and drink every day.

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