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John Allen Chau

Leave them alone

North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The death of a young American man has led to dangerous lines of debate.
Some have called for the Sentinelese to be convicted and punished and others have urged that they be integrated into modern society.
Having lived in isolation in an island in the Bay of Bengal for thousands of years, the Sentinelese have no immunity or resistance to even the commonest of infections.
Various degrees of protection are in place for the indigenous people of A&N Islands, but it is complete in the case of the Sentinelese.
Their language is so far understood by no other group and they have traditionally guarded their island fiercely, attacking most intruders with spears and arrows.
Arrows were fired even at a government aircraft that flew over the island after the 2004 Tsunami.
According to the 2011 Census, their population was just 15 — though anthropologists like T.N. Pandit, who made contact with them in the 1960s, put the figure at 80-90.

Ahead on malaria

• World Malaria Report 2018: World Health Organisation.
We can cut the number of new cases and deaths globally by at least 40% by 2020, and to end the epidemic by 2030.
Sustained public health action can achieve good results.
High levels of morbidity and death.
Odisha is a good example to end malaria.
WHO report: sharp drop in Odisha. Most endemic states Recruiting accredited social health workers Large-scale distribution of insecticide-treated bednets Encourage health-seeking behavior
Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry: in 2017, malaria cases in Odisha at 3,52,140
One issue that requires monitoring in India is resistance to combination therapy using artemisinin.
Recent reports indicate that some patients in West Bengal became resistant to the treatment protocol used for the falciparum parasite, which causes debilitating cerebral malaria and leads to a high number of deaths.
Given that emerging resistance to treatment has been reported in Myanmar, among other countries in this belt, there is a need for a coordinated approach to rid southern Asia of malaria.

Ten years after the Mumbai attack

Pakistan carried out one of the most heinous of terror attacks perpetrated anywhere in the world.
In 1993, over 250 people were killed in Mumbai in a series of coordinated bomb explosions attributed to Dawood Ibrahim, reportedly as reprisal for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
2001 : attack on the Indian Parliament
In July 2006: train bomb killed over 200 people
Tactics of asymmetric warfare, and the practice of violence. U.S. Madrid London
The tactics employed may vary, but the objective is common, viz. achieving mass casualties and widespread destruction.
It is difficult to recall any recorded instance in modern times where a state and its various agencies were directly involved in carrying out a terror attack of this nature.
The involvement of the Pakistani Special Forces in preparing the 10-member fidayeen group was confirmed by one of the conspirators, Abu Hamza, arrested subsequent to the 26/11 terror attack.
Seldom has a terrorist incident lasted this length of time, since the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972. • In the wake of the terror attack, several steps were initiated to streamline the security setup.
Coastal security was given high priority, and it is with the Navy/Coast Guard/marine police.
A specialised agency to deal with terrorist offences, the National Investigation Agency, was set up and has been functioning from January 2009.
The National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) has been constituted to create an appropriate database of security related information.
Streamlining security
Four new operational hubs for the NSG have been created to ensure rapid response to terror attacks.
The Multi Agency Centre, which functions under the Intelligence Bureau, was further strengthened and its activities expanded.
The Navy constituted a Joint Operations Centre to keep vigil over India’s extended coastline.
Terrorist have made the world less safe.
Lone wolf attacks are most dangerous.

Pursuing Lashkar-e-Taiba

Let us consider how U.S. policy towards the Lashkare-Taiba (LeT) has evolved over the last decade.
The conventional wisdom is that the Afghanistan war has compelled Washington to give more attention to Afghanistan-focussed militants in Pakistan than to the LeT and other India-oriented jihadists.
Jason Blazakis, a top State Department counterterrorism official between 2008 and 2018, recently wrote of U.S. attempts to get the UN to designate individual LeT members as terrorists. Such efforts fell short, given China’s opposition.
Early this year, however, the Financial Action Task Force penalised Islamabad for failing to curb the finances of the LeT-affiliated Jamaat-ud-Dawah.
Additionally, China has signed on to BRICS and Heart of Asia declarations condemning the LeT.
True, such moves have done little to address the fundamental problem: the LeT, its various front organisations, and many of its top leaders enjoy relative freedom in Pakistan, and Pakistani legal action against the Mumbai perpetrators remains limited.
Recent bilateral deals have paved the way for more intelligence sharing, arms sales, and technology transfers.
Rumours persist that America may soon provide India with drone technologies.

Along the new Silk Roads

Paris Peace Forum commemorating the end of World War I.
Here, WB & IMF made the case for a more inclusive multilateralism.
They warned against the temptation of a divisive globalisation which could only benefit the wealthiest.
China’s BRI is building upon the same inclusive project now led by a non-Western and nondemocratic superpower.
The BRI is included in the Constitution of an officially socialist China.
CPEC is perhaps the most controversial
The BRI indeed develops without any dedicated law, nor is it a comprehensive trade or economic partnership.
The only legal texts one could refer to are to be found in the network of foreign trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and other international investment agreements China is a party to.
China is a party to numerous state-sponsored business contracts between Chinese firms, including state-owned companies, and foreign business partners, public or private.
This non-legal yet rather domineering proposal is not a surprise.
The institutional setting of the BRI is also rather light.
Joint committees are put in place and the existing institutions mobilised
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Again, the BRI’s dispute resolution will be predominantly on commercial disputes, involving either projects or contractual obligations.
World trading system passing through a turmoil and this is an opportunity for a concept like BRI.

Important News

6 ultras, soldier killed in Shopian
VHP raises temple pitch in Ayodhya
Pakistan invite: Punjab CM says no, Minister Sidhu yes
Employee has right to resign, says Supreme Court
An employee cannot be compelled to serve in case he is not willing “until and unless there is some stipulation in the rules or in the terms of appointment or disciplinary proceedings is pending or contemplated which is sought to be avoided by resigning from the services.”
RIMES terms Titli cyclone ‘rarest of rare’
The Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) for Africa and Asia, a 45-nation international organisation on disaster warning, has termed ‘Titli’, the severe cyclonic storm that devastated Odisha in October, as ‘rarest cyclone’.
“More than 200 years of cyclone track history in the Odisha coast reveals that the Titli cyclone is the rarest of rare in terms of its characteristics such as recurvature after landfall and retaining its destructive potential after landfall and recurvature away from the coastal areas for more than two days,” says RIMES in its latest report.
RIMES is a UN-registered organisation