Skip to main content

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. 

Comments

TRENDING

The “Dr” debate masks a larger crisis in allied-health education

By Dr P K Gupta*  India’s allied-health professions have long operated in a fragmented landscape of universities, hospitals, State authorities and private institutions, each with its own nomenclature, curriculum and standards. The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021 was meant to correct this by creating a unified national framework for education, professional regulation and institutional recognition. Few dispute the need for such oversight. The real question is whether standardisation is quietly becoming synonymous with longer courses, additional internships and new professional titles—changes that risk masking deeper gaps in clinical training, institutional capacity and affordability.

Pilgrimage or pollution? The waste crisis of Indian faith

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  In today's times, there are certain issues that are constantly talked about and discussed, yet no visible impact seems to be made. Beyond water, soil, and pollution, one crisis that continues to be overlooked is waste. Like other life-threatening problems, waste too is gradually moving toward burying and obliterating us. After the Kanwar Yatra in Haridwar, approximately 8,000 tonnes of waste were left behind on the riverbanks, including bottles filled with urine. 

Can cow dung become a source of income? Durga Maida shows the path to self‑reliance

By Vikas Meshram*  In the Sailana block of Ratlam district lies the small village of Govardhanpura. This is where Durga Maida lives with her husband and four daughters. Their livelihood depended on just one bigha of land—far too little to feed a family of six. Growing enough grain for the year was impossible, and even meeting daily expenses was a constant struggle. Alongside farming, Durga kept livestock and took up wage labour whenever she could. Hard work was never lacking, but income always was. Month after month, the accounts failed to balance, forcing her to borrow. Looking back, Durga says those days felt heavy and hopeless; farming offered no promise, and there was no sign of change. Her story mirrored the reality of almost every small farmer in the area.