The BRICS Summit taking place in Kazan, Russia, from October 22 to 24 is a pivotal gathering in global geopolitics. The summit brings together the original BRICS members – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – along with five new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Then, dozens of other countries are attending as well:
Russia is hosting the BRICS+ summit with many world leaders attending, including Indiaâs Narendra Modi & Xi Jinping of China, the two largest populations on EarthâŠ
Along with representatives from even more countries, yet CNN claims Putin is isolated. You canât make this⊠pic.twitter.com/3r0OgtXxP9
This includes the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, as well as leaders from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Indonesia, and Mexico. There is even a possibility that UN chief AntĂłnio Guterres may appear at this BRICS Summit.
This expansion marks a significant step in the group’s evolution as a counterbalance to Western influence.
Dedollarization. Whoops.
The first day of the summit, October 22, was marked by formal opening ceremonies and a dinner hosted by Russian president Vladimir Putin. This day set the tone for discussions on a broad array of topics, including economic cooperation, multilateralism, and security.
Russian officials emphasized BRICS’ role in reshaping global governance, promoting multipolarity, and addressing economic disparities.
One of the most significant discussions will centre on dedollarization – the effort to reduce global reliance on the U.S. dollar in international trade and finance.
This topic is particularly important for Russia and China, both of which have been vocal about creating alternatives to the dollar-dominated financial system. In line with this, BRICS introduced BRICS Pay, a payment system designed to facilitate transactions among member countries, bypassing Western-dominated systems like SWIFT.
Additionally, the summit will address the integration of new members, which represent significant geopolitical and economic forces. For instance, Saudi Arabia’s inclusion as a full member is seen as a notable development, given its substantial influence in global energy markets.
The creation of a “partner country” model will probably also be discussed, which could further expand BRICS reach by offering other nations limited membership in the future.
Why the BRICS Summit matters
This year’s summit carries a deeper significance than past meetings. It marks Russiaâs largest diplomatic event since the Ukraine conflict began, positioning BRICS as a platform for Russia to demonstrate that it is far from isolated on the global stage.
Hosting the summit allows Russia to underscore its continued influence despite efforts by Western countries, particularly NATO members, to marginalize it.
Moreover, the summit serves as a crucial platform for member states to advocate for a more equitable global order. Since its inception, BRICS has sought to challenge Western hegemony, particularly the dominance of the US and its allies in global governance institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Over the years, BRICS has worked to establish alternative institutions, such as the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, though these efforts have met with mixed success.
In 2024, the summit has renewed focus on reducing reliance on Western financial structures, particularly in light of sanctions imposed on Russia and Iran. Many of these nations are eager to develop their own systems to protect their economies from potential punitive measures by the West.
The addition of powerful economies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE only strengthens BRICS ability to challenge Western financial dominance.
The West and NATO will NOT be happy
For Western and NATO countries, the growing influence of the group presents a challenge. BRICS Summit’s push for dedollarization and the creation of alternative financial and political structures could erode the West’s economic leverage.
The US dollarâs status as the world’s reserve currency is central to American financial and geopolitical power. So, efforts at BRICS Summit to reduce its role could have long-term implications for global financial markets.
While the West may downplay the significance of BRICS as a geopolitical competitor, it is closely watching developments, especially the group’s increasing appeal to countries in the Global South.
Nations like Turkey, a NATO member, have expressed interest in closer ties with BRICS, indicating that even countries traditionally aligned with the West are looking to diversify their diplomatic and economic relations.
Moreover, the summit occurs against the backdrop of heightened geopolitical tension, particularly concerning the war in Ukraine and the broader rivalry between the U.S. and China.
For countries like India and Brazil, both of which have sought to maintain a careful balance between the West and BRICS, this summit underscores their desire to pursue a multi-aligned foreign policy that maximizes their strategic autonomy without alienating either bloc.
BRICS Summit: a pivotal moment whether the West likes it or not
The 2024 BRICS Summit is a landmark event in the evolving global power dynamics – whether the West likes it or not.
By expanding its membership and advancing its goals of financial independence from the West, BRICS is positioning itself as a formidable force in international relations.
For the West, this signals the emergence of a more multipolar world, where Western dominance is no longer taken for granted, and alternative powers are increasingly asserting their influence on the global stage.
Human rights defender and former professor at the University of Delhi, Gokarakonda Naga(G.N.)Saibaba passed away on 12 October 2024 due to a cardiac arrest at the Nizamâ Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital at Hyderabad, India. On 7 March 2024, G.N. Saibaba was released from the Nagpur Central Jail after nearly a decade of imprisonment. In March 2024 he was acquitted of all charges by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, after being falsely accused of having links with banned Maoist organisations, and charged with serious offences including under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
G.N. Saibaba suffered from severe health conditions which worsened during his time in prison. These health conditions included polio related disabilities, a heart condition, a brain cyst, hypertension and breathing difficulties. While in prison, the human rights defender G.N. Saibaba was held in solitary confinement in a windowless cell and kept under constant CCTV surveillance. He contracted COVID-19 twice whilst in prison, in January 2021 and in February 2022, leading to further deterioration of his health condition. In a letter to his wife, G.N. Saibaba had spoken about his ill-treatment in prison stating that he had received no treatment for his ailments despite recommendations by doctors at the Government Medical College Hospital that he receive immediate medical attention. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders had previously called for his release on medical grounds, calling on the âIndian authorities to immediately ensure that G.N. Saibaba has continuous and unrestricted access to health care, including adequate treatment and rehabilitation.â
Even though G.N. Saibaba was released prior to his demise, the ill-treatment suffered by the human rights defender and denial of healthcare during his imprisonment contributed to his already severe health issues. G.N. Saibaba never fully recovered from his time in prison which had prevented him from receiving urgent medical intervention. Front Line Defenders believes that his wrongful imprisonment is at least partially responsible for his untimely demise. It calls on Indian authorities to revise draconian counter-terrorism laws such as the UAPA and ensure that the legitimate work of human rights defenders is not criminalised.
Front Line Defenders holds the Indian authorities accountable for the death of G.N. Saibaba and calls for adequate monetary compensation to be awarded to his family.
Plant-based meat and egg alternatives in India meet the government’s standards for ‘high-protein’ products, a new analysis has shown.
In a country where food attitudes are driven as much by health as they are by religion, and four in five citizens are protein-deficient, a new analysis is aiming to reinforce the potential of plant-based meat and eggs to meet India’s consumption needs.
Comparing over 100 meat and egg alternatives with their animal-sourced equivalents, researchers found that most vegan products have an equivalent or higher amount of protein. And those that combine two or more sources of plant proteins have a balanced amino acid composition.
The study, titled Decoding Smart Protein Nutrition, was conducted by the Good Food Institute (GFI) India, and aims to provide nutritional information to Indians while listing out recommendations for plant-based companies and the government based on its findings.
âThis analysis underscores the nutritional strengths of plant-based alternatives, particularly in terms of protein and fibre content,” said Padma Ishwarya, science and technology specialist at GFI India, and the report’s author. “By offering consumers healthier, sustainable options, we can chart a path toward nutrition security and a more resilient food system.”
Plant-based meat and eggs show impressive nutritional results
Courtesy: Good Dot Foods/Green Queen
The study was conducted in two phases. The first reviewed the nutritional labels and ingredient lists of meat and egg products, both conventional and plant-based, and this was followed by a quantitative analysis of amino and fatty acid composition to determine their nutritional quality.
In total, 112 meat analogues in 11 categories and eight egg substitutes in four categories were analysed. The researchers found that in the Indian market, 30% of meat alternatives feature soy as their sole protein source, while 20% use a blend of soy and wheat gluten, and 16% feature pea protein. A quarter of the vegan egg offerings are also made from a soy and pea mix, with the rest being a combination of various other proteins.
GFI India found that the average protein content in plant-based meat ranged between 9% and 21%, with products using a combination of sources exhibiting higher levels of the nutrient. All products fall under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) minimum requirements for a ‘source of protein’, the average protein content in formats except nuggets, sausage, momos, and biryani are classed as ‘high-protein’ foods under the regulator’s definition.
All of the plant-based egg formats similarly fell under the high-protein classification, with levels ranging from 8-50%. These products also have lower fat and saturated fat content than chicken eggs across the four formats (scramble, egg powders, omelette pre-mix, and scramble pre-mix). The egg powder and scramble products also fulfil the requirements for sources of omega-3 fatty acids.
In meat analogues too, all formats barring samosas have a lower or comparable amount of average fat than animal-derived meat, with chunks, curry and strips showing lower mean saturated fat too.
The one metric where plant-based products outperformed conventional meat and eggs was fibre. The FSSAI considers foods with at least 3g of fibre as a source of the nutrient, with products containing over 6g classed as high-fibre foods.
None of the animal-derived products met either criteria, but 10 of the 11 plant-based meat formats (except biryani) and all the egg analogues are considered high-fibre foods. This is important considering nearly 70% of Indians consume less fibre than recommended.
What government funding efforts should focus on
Courtesy: Greenest Foods
There are still several strides plant-based meat producers can make to enhance their products’ nutritional value to India’s consumers. For example, meat analogues need improvements to fulfil the nutrient content claims on unsaturated fats (specifically, the energy derived from them), as well as omega-3 fatty acids.
Ishwarya also pointed to the need to reduce sodium and saturated fat levels, and increase micronutrient profiles. “This could be achieved by upstream strategies such as crop optimisation for enhanced nutritional content and quality, ingredient diversification, and functionalisation, besides science-based product reformulation efforts,” she said.
GFI India suggested India’s smart protein sector can develop more effective communication and marketing strategies to educate consumers, and explore more unconventional plant protein sources with better amino acid composition. Manufacturers can also tweak plant protein blends to get the best out of their products, and formulate novel fat alternatives with superior fatty acid content.
Instead of using a trial-and-error approach to reduce fat and sodium levels, product reformulation efforts should be evidence-based, the report noted.
It also left some recommendations for government investment bodies, urging them to direct funds towards new plant-based product development focused on achieving nutritional parity, and ingredient optimisation and salt reduction for healthier meat and egg alternatives.
Public sector capital should also go into R&D projects that leverage Indigenous crops to diversify the “ingredient basket” of the vegan sector, as well as those exploring novel structuring approaches like microgelation and oleogelation to reduce the dependency on texturisers and enhance the application range of current lipid offerings.
Finally, the government should also support investigations into the protein digestibility and nutrient bioavailability of plant-based analogues. The report argued that understanding the long-term benefits of vegan diets on gut health and mitigating diseases would bolster the category’s strength.
“With support from the public and private sectors, the continued development and improvement of these products has the potential to enhance nutritional benefits for individuals while also protecting public health and the environment,” said Ishwarya.
For some critics, if one firm tops a league table for anti-people, anti-nature business practices, it is Bayer (although there are many other worthy candidates). Nevertheless, the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) signed a memorandum of understanding with Bayer in September 2023. Â
Bayer’s approach to agricultural development involves promoting a model of industrial agriculture dependent on corporate products, including its toxic chemicals and genetically modified crops, and advocating for precision, data-driven agriculture that relies heavily on its proprietary technologies and software.Â
Simon Wiebusch, Country Divisional Head of Crop Science for Bayer South Asia, recently stated that India cannot become a âdeveloped nationâ with ‘backwardâ agriculture. He believes India’s agriculture sector must modernise for the country to achieve developed nation status by 2047.Â
Bayer’s vision for agriculture in India includes prioritising and fast-tracking approvals for its new products, introducing genetically modified (GM) food crops, addressing labour shortages (for weeding) by increasingly focusing on herbicides and developing herbicides for specific crops like paddy, wheat, sugarcane and maize.Â
Government institutions like the ICAR seem likely to allow Bayer to leverage the agencyâs infrastructure and networks to pursue its commercial plans.Â
Wiebuschâs comments have received much media coverage. There is a tendency for journalists and media outlets to accept statements made by people in top corporate jobs as pearls of wisdom never to be critically questioned, especially in India when there is talk of the country achieving âdeveloped statusâ. But people like Wiebusch are hardly objective. They are not soothsayers who have an unbiased view of the world and its future.   Â
Bayer has a view of what agriculture should look like and is gaining increasing control of farmers in various countries in terms of having a direct influence on how they farm and what inputs they use. Its digital platforms are intended to be one-stop shops for carbon credits, seeds, pesticides and fertilisers and agronomic advice, all supplied by the company, which gets the added benefit of control over the agronomic and financial data harvested from farms. Â
As for carbon credits, the non-profit GRAIN argues that, like digital platforms per se, carbon trading is about consolidating control within the food system and is certainly not about sequestering carbon. Â
So, what does Wiebusch mean when he talks about modernisation of a backward agriculture in India? All of what is set out above and more. Â
Like Wiebusch, corporate lobbyists often refer to âmodern agricultureâ. Instead, we should say: a system that produces healthy food for all while sustaining farming communities and livelihoods. Because the term âmodern agricultureâ is deliberately deceptive: it means a system dependent on proprietary inputs and integrated with corporate supply chains. Anything other is defined as âbackwardâ. Â
According to Bayer, Wiebusch is a star player who can drive market share and create business value for the company. On the Bayer India website it says: Simonâs key strengths include unlocking business growth, redefining distribution strategies, driving change management and building diverse teams that drive market share and create business value. Â
Stripped of the corporate jargon and any talk of âhelpingâ India, the goal is to secure control of the sector and ensure corporate dependency.Â
India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and has ensured there is enough food (in terms of calories) available to feed its entire population. It is the worldâs largest producer of milk, pulses and millets and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnuts, vegetables, fruit and cotton.Â
So, we might ask: who needs Bayer?Â
Bhaskar Save certainly did not on his impressively bountiful organic farm in Gujarat. In 2006, he described in an eight-page open letter (along with six annexures) to M S Swaminathan (widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution in India) how the type of chemical-intensive agriculture that Bayer promotes and the urban-centric model of development favoured by the government has had devastating environmental economic and social consequences for India. Â
Save offered agroecological alternatives to address the problems, including solutions to boost farmer incomes and rural communities, cultivate a wider range of nutrient-dense crops, build soil fertility, improve water management, enhance on-farm ecology and increase biodiversity. Â
Vandana Shiva recently posted on X:Â Â
India’s agriculture was sustained over 10,000 years because it was based on nature’s laws of diversity, recycling, regeneration & circularity. Albert Howard spread organic farming worldwide learning from Indian peasants. Working with nature is sophistication, not backwardness.Â
Bayer calling India’s agriculture backward is a new toxic colonisation. Bayer/Monsanto, the poison cartel whose roots are in war, has driven biodiversity to extinction with monocultures, spread cancers with glyphosate & herbicides, destroyed democracy.
Companies like Bayer present their technologies and products as fixes for the problems created by the model of âgrowthâ and âdevelopmentâ they promote. âScientific innovationâ is touted as the answer. The proposed solutions often create new problems or worsen existing ones. This leads to a cycle of dependency on corporate products and technologies. Monsantoâs failed Bt cotton in India being a case in point.Â
Problems created by corporate-led development become opportunities for further corporate inputs and the commodification of knowledge and further âexpertâ interventions. The primary motivation is financial gain rather than genuine societal improvement.Â
Corporate-driven âdevelopmentâ is a misnomer, especially in agriculture, as it often leads to regression in terms of health, environmental sustainability and rural community resilience, while perpetuating a cycle of problems and âsolutionsâ that primarily benefit large corporations.Â
But the type of agroecological solutions presented by the likes of Bhaskar Save run counter to Bayerâs aims of more pesticides, more GMOs, more control and corporate consolidation. For example, the industry seeks to derail the EUâs farm to fork strategy (which involves a dramatic reduction in agrochemical use), and Bayer spends record amounts to shape policies to its advantage, courtesy of its entrenched lobbying networks.Â
Of course, Bayer presents its neocolonial aspirations in terms of helping backward Indian farmers. A good old dose of Western saviourism.Â
To promote its model, Bayer must appear to offer practical solutions. It uses the narrative of climate emergency to promote a Ponzi carbon trading scheme that is resulting in land displacement across the world. And Bayer says that labour shortages for manual weeding in Indian agriculture are a significant challenge, so the rollout of toxic herbicides like glyphosate are a necessity.Â
But there are several approaches to address this issue beyond relying on herbicides like glyphosate (it will kill all plants that do not have the herbicide tolerant trait), which is wholly unsuitable for a nation comprising so many small farms cultivating a diverse range of crops. Â
Mechanical weeding using animal-drawn or tractor-powered implements for larger farms is one solution, and there are several agronomic techniques that can help suppress weeds and reduce labour needs: crop rotation disrupts weed lifecycles, higher planting densities shade out weeds, proper fertilisation gives crops a competitive advantage and use of cover crops and mulches can suppress weed growth.Â
Even here, however, there are cynical attempts to get farmers to change their cultivation methods (with no tangible financial benefits) and move away from traditional systems. Â
In the article “The Ox Fall Down: Path Breaking and Treadmills in Indian Cotton Agriculture,” for instance, we see farmers being nudged away from traditional planting methods and pushed towards a method inconducive to oxen ploughing but very conducive for herbicide-dependent weed management. That article notes the huge growth potential for herbicides in India, something companies like Bayer are keen to capitalise on. Â
Wiebusch talks of India reaching âdeveloped statusâ. But what does the type of âdevelopmentâ he proposes entail? Â
We need only look around us for the answer: decision-making centralised in the hands of government and corporate entities, traditional local governance structures weakened and standardised, top-down policies and corporate consolidation through mergers and acquisitions with local independent enterprises struggling to compete.Â
Consolidated corporations have greater lobbying power to shape regulations in their favour, further entrenching their market position. In other words, political centralisation and corporate consolidation are often intertwined. Centralised political structures tend to align with the interests of large, consolidated corporations, and both centralised governments and large corporations exert greater control over resources. Â
This dual process has led to reduced economic diversity and resilience, weakened local communities and traditions, increased vulnerability to systemic shocks and diminished democratic participation. Â
âDeveloped statusâ also means accelerated urbanisation, land amalgamations for industrial-scale farming and depopulation of the countryside. Â
It has been estimated that between 2016 and 2030, globally, urban areas will have tripled in size, expanding into cropland and undermining the productivity of agricultural systems. Around 60% of the worldâs cropland lies on the outskirts of cities. This land is, on average, twice as productive as land elsewhere on the globe.  Â
As cities expand, millions of small-scale farmers are displaced. These farmers produce the majority of food in the Global South and are key to global food security. Â
A combination of urbanisation and policies deliberately designed to displace the food-producing peasantry will serve to boost the corporate takeover of Indiaâs agrifood sector. Â
But none of this is inevitable. Many of us know what the response should be: prioritising sustainable, locally appropriate solutions and restoring food sovereignty and the economic vibrancy of rural communities; focusing on holistic human well-being rather than narrow economic metrics of âgrowthâ; preserving traditional knowledge that underpins highly productive  farming practices for the benefit of farmers, consumer health and the environment; and empowering communities through localism and decentralisation rather than creating state-corporate dependency.Â
Such solutions are markedly different from those characterised by rural population displacement, the subjugation of peoples and nature, nutrient-poor diets, degraded on-farm and off-farm ecosystems and corporate consolidation. Â
There are alternative visions for the future, alternative visions of human development. But these do not boost corporate margins or control and do not fit the hegemonic narrative of what passes for âdevelopmentâ.Â
The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has committed to acquiring up to 31 medium-altitude long endurance (MALE) uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) from the United States to enhance the long range intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities of the Indian Armed Forces, the ministry announced on its social media account on 15 October. The contract will […]
For the first time, BrahMos Aerospace (BAPL) displayed at the ADAS event a model of the BrahMos mobile launcher that will be operated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The model of the mobile BrahMos launcher showed the missiles being carried on a Czechoslovakian Tatra 6×6 vehicle and, more importantly, the twin-missile launcher […]
The South Africa based defence manufacturer, Milkor showcased a scale model of its armed Milkor 380 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for the first time at the ADAS, defence exhibition in Manila. In addition to the Milkor 380, the company also exhibited its land and naval systems at the show. Milkor is eyeing inroads into the Philippine market, to add […]
India will set up a trade promotion office in Sydney to act as a single-front door for investors and businesses as the two countries look to double two-way trade to $100 billion by 2030. The office, part of a wider push by the worldâs fastest growing economy to deepen investment ties in South-East Asia, will…
On August 21, the Japan Ministry of Defense (JMOD) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) indicated that further progress had been made to transfer to India a number of Japanâs indigenously-developed âUnified Complex Radio Antennaâ (UNICORN). The move would mark Japanâs first transfer under a bilateral defense equipment and technology agreement signed by the two […]
China has built a new heliport in Tibet near the Indian border, satellite photos show, a move that experts say would allow Beijing to rapidly deploy troops to remote areas during an armed clash with India.
According to satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence experts, China has quickly constructed a heliport that features a 600-meter runway and multiple hangars in Nyingchi, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the disputed border with India.
It is in Tibetâs Zayul county near the strategically sensitive âfishtail sectorâ of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
The heliport is the latest addition to Chinaâs extensive network of military installations in the southern part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, underscoring Beijingâs concerns over security along the border area. It follows Beijingâs practice of building model villages near contested areas, which then double as surveillance outposts.Â
Heliports in Tibet. (Takshashila Geospatial Bulletin)
China and India have competing claims on territory along the disputed 1,130-kilometer (700-mile) border between Tibet and Indiaâs Arunachal Pradesh state. They still observe the McMahon Line, a colonial boundary between Tibet and British India dating back to 1914, with China claiming areas south of the McMahon Line.Â
2021 clash
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nyingchi in 2021, a year after thousands of Indian and Chinese troops clashed in the western Himalayas after Beijingâs forces intruded into Indian territory. Deaths were reported by both sides in the fighting.
âThe key importance of this newly built heliport is its proximity to the Indian border,â said Tenzin Younten, a strategic and open source intelligence analyst. âChina has been steadily strengthening its military presence in the region, with a particular focus on helicopters.âÂ
The heliport, near the banks of the Khangri Kabu Chu river, was cleared of thick vegetation for construction in early October 2023, said Dr. Y. Nithiyanandam, professor and the head of the Geospatial Program at the Bengaluru, India-based Takshashila Institution.
Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he arrives at the airport in Nyingchi in western Chinaâs Tibet Autonomous Region, July 21, 2021. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
Helicopters enhance the Chinese militaryâs high-altitude operational capability, and heliports like the one in Nyinchi could serve as logistics hubs and allow for rapid troop and equipment movement, he added.Â
âAccelerating its effortsâ
Younten, an associate fellow at the India-based Centre for Contemporary Studies in Security and Technology, noted that India has significantly more heliports along the India-China border than the Chinese military.
âChina is aware of this and may be accelerating its efforts to expand its air force infrastructure, including heliports, in the area,â he said. âHeliports built near the Indian border are primarily for military use rather than tourism.â
By 2035, China plans to construct around 59 general aviation airports and approximately 200 helipads in Tibet, Younten said.
Itâs likely that India will soon counter-develop in the area of the new heliport, said Dr. Atul Kumar, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force nearly 70 years ago, after which Tibetâs spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 uprising against China.
Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetansâ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment and extrajudicial killings.
Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tashi Wangchuk and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan.
Thousands of Adivasi (Indigenous) people across India have rallied against forced evictions in the name of tiger conservation. They held mass protests at several of the country’s most famous tiger reserves.
Tiger reserves: forced evictions
As the Canary previously reported, 2023 marked the 50 year anniversary of Project Tiger. This is a government-funded scheme to establish tiger reserves across the country. It initially covered nine reserves across nine Indian states.
To date, the government has sponsored state authorities to set up 55 of these protected areas across 17 states. State governments have designated these areas to protect tiger populations from significant threats which have caused their numbers to plummet.
Specifically, deforestation, poaching, and human encroachment on habitats have purportedly decimated tiger populations across Asia. In 1900, 100,000 tigers roamed the planet. However, that fell to a global record low of 3,200 in 2010.
But these reserves also represent a legacy of violence and human rights abuses against the Indigenous communities living in them.
According to the World Rainforest Movement, as of 2019, NTCA data showed that state governments have evicted 56,247 families for tiger conservation across India since 1972. These families were from 751 villages across 50 tiger reserves.
Of course, since then, state governments have threatened many more Indigenous communities with eviction. Reports by human rights advocacy and research charity the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) underscore this. The charity produces annual reports on forced evictions in India. According to its latest report, in 2023 and 2022 alone, authorities evicted at least 417 families in two separate tiger reserves.
Hundreds of thousands face eviction for tiger conservation
Throughout 2024, this state-sponsored colonial conservation has only continued apace.
In July, a letter from the director of Indiaâs National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) sparked outrage among Indigenous communities. A Right to Information request revealed that he had written to Chief Wildlife Wardens in 19 states urging them to evict more Adivasis from tiger reserves. Close to 400,000 Adivasis face eviction from tiger reserves across India.
Given this, Indigenous people facing, or already evicted, have mounted a wave of protests. The week commencing 9 September, they gathered at a number of notable tiger reserves. These included Nagarhole, Udanti-Sitanadi, Kaziranga, Rajaji, and Indravati. Many more protests are planned.
Almost 700 Adivasi people from 25 villages protested at the entrance gates of Nagarhole in Karnataka state. It is one of Indiaâs most infamous tiger reserves. There, in 2007, the state government designated the reserve.
However, it imposed this, without seeking consent, on the ancestral land of the Jenu Kuruba. The reserve was also home to other Indigenous communities, such as the Beta Kuruba, Yarava, and Pania tribes.
Leading Adivasi activist JK Thimma said at the protest:
ââDeclaration of tiger reserves on our lands is a violation of the law as our people neither consented to it nor were consulted in the process. Today they have put up signs on our lands declaring them national parks and tiger reserves. NTCA is a trespasser on our lands.
This violation of Indigenous rights must immediately stop and the conservationist cartels (including NGOs like WWF, WCS & WTI) who are involved in doing this must be punished according to the law.
A legacy of ‘deep-seated racism’
The lives of hundreds of thousands of Adivasis in Indian tiger reserves are being destroyed in the name of tiger conservation. The Indian government is illegally evicting them from the land where they have always lived, land which they have always protected.
The big conservation organizations such as WWF and WCS never speak out against the evictions, and claim that ârelocationsâ of tribal people are âvoluntary.â But the ârelocationsâ are almost always, in fact, forced evictions.
The Indian authorities seem hellbent on sticking with a totally outdated and discredited colonial model of conservation, one still backed by the likes of WWF and WCS, which views Indigenous peoples as trespassers on their own lands, and brutally evicts them.
Thereâs a deep-seated racism at work here â the government and conservation organizations view the Adivasis as second-class citizens at best.
These evictions are unlawful according to both national and international law, and donât work â the forest, the Indigenous people and the tigers canât survive without one another. Conservation organizations and tour operators are complicit in this scandal â once the people have been cleared out of their ancestral forests, tiger reserve tourism is big business.
Feature and in-text images via Survival International
A revised version (September 2024) of the open-access e-book Food Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order (2022) by Colin Todhunter is now available.
A brand-new concluding chapter, “The Violence of Development”, rounds off a book that presents a scathing critique of the global industrial agriculture system and its proponents. The book takes aim at the Green Revolution and its modern equivalent (genetically modified organisms), the displacement of traditional farming practices, and the devastating impacts of a neoliberal agenda that is conveniently passed off as âdevelopmentâ.
By critically examining the concept of âdevelopmentâ and how it has been implemented globally, the new chapter argues that dependency and dispossession remain core elements of the global economic system. Those who are sacrificed on the altar of plunder in the countryside, in the forests or in the hills become regarded as the price worth paying for âprogressâ.
The chapter frames conventional development as based on Western hegemony, imposing certain ideals on the rest of the world and cites post-development theorist Arturo Escobar’s critique of development as a top-down, ethnocentric approach.
The violence of development takes the form of outright brutality and an ideological hegemony: a power play concerned with redefining who we are or what we should be, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.
As Escobar notes:
Development was and continues to beâin theory and practiceâa top-down, ethnocentric, and technocratic approach, which treated people and cultures as abstract concepts, statistical figures to be moved up and down in the charts of ‘progress’.
By challenging the notion of a unilinear path to development, the chapter argues that historical outcomes were often shaped by chance and conflict rather than following a predetermined course. If history teaches us one thing, it is that humanity has ended up at its current point due to a multitude of struggles and conflicts, the outcomes of which were often in the balance. There is no unilinear path to development and no fixed standard as to what it constitutes.
In other words, we have ended up where we are as much by chance as design. And much of that design was based on colonialism and imperialism. The development of Britain owes much to the $45 trillion that was sucked from India alone, according to economist Utsa Patnaik.
And that situation, in the name of âdevelopmentâ, is happening again, as noted by the prominent campaigner Aruna Rodrigues. In discussing the book, she said the following about the chapters on India:
The new conclusion advocates for reestablishing humanity’s connections to the land, drawing inspiration from Gandhi’s philosophy and his concept of a ânon-interventionist lifestyleâ. It frames food justice and food sovereignty as part of a larger struggle against social, economic and environmental injustice and brutality disguised as âdevelopmentâ.
Overall, this new concluding chapter provides a comprehensive critique of the global development paradigm, connecting it to the book’s themes of food, dependency and dispossession.
The revised version of Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order can be read for free at Academia.edu (pdf), Heyzine (flipbook) and Global Research.
Mahankali Parvati (left), Moturu Udayam (middle), and Chintala Koteshwaramma (right) perform an anti-war song during World War II with the group they led, Burrakatha Squad. Credit: Praja Natya Mandali Photography Archives
Mallu Swarajyam (1931â2022) was born with an appropriate name. From deep within the mass movement against British colonialism that was initiated by Indiaâs peasants and workers, and then shaped by M.K. Gandhi into the movement for swaraj (self-rule), Bhimireddy Chokkamma drew her baby daughter into the freedom movement with a powerful name that signalled the fight for independence. Born into a house of reading, and able to get books through the radical peopleâs organisation Andhra Mahasabha, Mallu Swarajyam obtained a Telugu translation of Maxim Gorkyâs Mother (1907). The book was one of many titles that were translated in the Soviet Union, part of that countryâs great gift to the cause of literacy around the world and circulated by the communists in India. Gorkyâs novel revolves around a mother, Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova, and her son, Pavel Vlasov. The mother works in a factory, the brutal father dies, and the son eventually becomes involved in revolutionary activities. The mother worries for her son but soon begins to read the socialist literature that he brings home and also immerses herself in revolutionary activities. This book had a marked impact on Mallu Swarajyamâs life, which she recounted in her 2019 memoir (as told to Katyayini and Vimala), Naa Maate. Tupaki Tuta (âMy Word Are Like Bulletsâ).
Having read this book at the age of ten, Mallu Swarajyam was inspired the next year to join the call by the Andhra Mahasabha to fight against bonded labour. She decided to break the barriers of caste and to distribute rice to bonded labourers in her town. âMy own uncles were against my giving rice to bonded labourersâ, she recounted. âBut I was firm that they deserved their share. And my gesture set a precedent in the entire area where bonded labourers started to demand pay for their workâ. Her mother supported these efforts, much like Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova supported Pavel Vlasov in Mother. These early experiences prepared Mallu Swarajyam for the rural uprising that would shake the Telugu-speaking region of India between 1946 and 1951 and is known as the Telangana movement.
Mallu Swarajyam, a communist revolutionary hero (left), with other women fighters of the armed struggle in the late 1940s. Credit: Sunil Janah
Mallu Swarajyamâs radicalisation took her into the emergent peasant movement and the attempt to build the communist party. She threw herself into the work of organising the peasantry in her district and soon across the entire region. When the uprising began, she was named as commander of a dalam (a fighting force), her speeches known as fired bullets. The landlords gathered to place a bounty on her head, offering a reward of Rs. 10,000 â a regal sum of money at the time. But she was undaunted, becoming one of the most beloved young leaders of the armed struggle.
Years later, Mallu Swarajyam recounted her experiences in the organisation of the peasants during the 1940s. Women and oppressed-caste Dalits would fill the village air at night with songs of the oppressed as they worked to de-husk rice. The songs were about god and their lives. âUnder the moonlightâ, Swarajyam recalled, the singing was so beautiful that even âpeople who were asleep enjoyed these songsâ. These songs were derived from folk art traditions prevalent in Telugu society such as various forms of storytelling that use song and theatre to re-enact performances of Harikatha (the Hindu mythology of Lord Vishnu), Pakir patalu (a trove of Sufi songs), Bhagavatam (stories from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata), as well as non-religious practices such as Burrakatha and Gollasuddulu, both of which tell stories of workers and peasants with two drums accompanying the singer. It was in these musical forms that the workers and peasants contested the worldview of the dominant castes. And it was in this part of the popular imagination that the Left intervened very early in the struggle for social transformation. When Mallu Swarajyam went to at least thirty villages to start the revolt, she said, âI started a revolutionary fire in the people with the song as our vehicle. What more did I need?â.
Left: Gummadi Vithala Rao, popularly known as Gaddar, one of the most influential Telugu-speaking revolutionary songwriters, performs for spectators, first by singing and dancing to a line in his songs and then pausing to explain its political and historical significance. Credit: KN Hari
Right: Telugu poet Srirangam Srinivas Rao, popularly known as Sri Sri, reads a poem from his anthology Maha Prasthanam (Forward March), yellow cover featured on the bottom right, to marchers joining the struggle to fight for another under the red flag (back right). Credit: Kurella Srinivas, 2009
At the heart of our most recent publication â The Telugu Peopleâs Struggle for Land and Dreams (dossier no. 80, September 2024) â is the relationship of culture to peasant and working-class radicalism. In areas of high illiteracy and colonial education systems, it was impossible to transmit a new world view only through the written word or through cultural forms that were alien to the world of the people. Songs and theatre became the forms for political conversation in places such as India, China, and Vietnam. In Vietnam, the Communist Party formed propaganda teams (Doi Tuyen Truyen Vo Trang) that went amongst the people and through plays and songs mobilised the villages to participate in the liberation struggle. In China, the history of taking plays into rural areas goes back to the 1930s; during the Yanâan decade (1935â1945), the Communist cultural troupes began to perform âliving newspaperâ concerts, a practice developed by the Soviets in the 1920s, in which the actors would improvise plays based on events in the news. Street theatre, songs, wall paintings, magic lantern shows: these became the textbooks of revolutionary activity. Our dossier attempts to highlight the world of songs as a part of the history of socialist culture.
The songs of these revolutionaries, built on peasant ballads and forms, crafted the elements of a new culture: in their words, they rejected the hierarchies of the countryside and in their rhythm, they allowed the peasantry to lift up their voices louder than they often did in the presence of the landlords. Both the content and the form of these songs encapsulated the boldness of a new world.
Praja Natya Mandali performs a street play. Credit: Praja Natya Mandali Photography Archives
The histories of these cultural actions and the transformations they engendered are often forgotten â the suppression of these histories plays a political role in our time. It was clear that the communist artists of the 1940s closely studied the earlier peasant songs and the history of rebellion embedded in them; they then took that history and developed it further, frequently using new, vibrant rhythms to recount the revolutionary history of the peasants and workers. Songs of the history of resistance build on the past to create their own, new histories. This is the dialectical spiral of culture, a lifting up of memories of past struggles to inspire new struggles, whose memory in turn stimulates newer struggles; each set of struggles pushing the cultural forms to the edge of their own possibility, building new confidence in the people whose sense of themselves has been diminished by old hierarchies and by old poverty.
Our dossier hopes to bring part of that history to light, which is indeed very much along the grain of the work of our art department (for more of this kind of archival and theoretical work, I recommend that you subscribe to the Tricontinental Art Bulletin, initiated in March and published on the last Sunday of each month).
This collage includes photographs of the street play Veera Telangana (Heroic Telangana) taken in the 2000s by Praja Natya Mandali and photographs of a troop (dalam) of the armed struggle marching in the late 1940s taken by Sunil Janah.
Khalida Jarrar (born 1963) is a Palestinian leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. A brave and kind person, Jarrar has been in the crosshairs of the Israeli military occupation forces for decades. She has been frequently arrested and held in administrative detention, often with no charge (the first time was in 1989 when she was arrested at an International Womenâs Day march in Palestine). Since 2015, she has spent as much time in prison as she has outside of it, with increasingly longer terms behind bars. In prison, Jarrar became an important voice for women prisoners and organised political schools for her fellow inmates. In 2020, from Israelâs Damon prison, Khalida Jarrar smuggled out a letter which was delivered as a speech by her daughters at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival; it speaks about the importance of cultural work amongst the inmates:
Books constitute the foundation of life in prison. They preserve the psychological and moral balance of the freedom fighters who view their detentions as part of the overall resistance against the colonial occupation of Palestine. Books also play a role in each prisonerâs individual struggle of Will between them and the prisonsâ authorities. In other words, the struggle becomes a challenge for Palestinian prisoners as the jailors seek to strip us from our humanity and keep us isolated from the outside world. The challenge for prisoners is to transform our detention into a state of a âcultural revolutionâ through reading, education and literary discussions.
When I read Jarrarâs speech, I was struck by one sentence. She wrote: âMaxim Gorkyâs novel Mother became a comfort to women prisoners who are deprived of their mothersâ loveâ. That Jarrar and other Palestinian woman prisoners would experience in 2020 the same sort of sentiments that Mallu Swarajyam experienced in the 1940s with the reading of Mother is extraordinary. It reminds us of the power of certain kinds of fiction to lift the spirits and inspire us to act in ways that we could otherwise not easily imagine.
On 11 July 2021, during one of Jarrarâs periods of confinement in Israelâs prisons, her daughter Suha died. The Israelis rejected Jarrarâs application to attend Suhaâs funeral. Grief-stricken, Jarrar wrote a poem to mourn her child,
Suha, my precious.
They have stripped me from giving you a final kiss.
I send you a flower as a goodbye.
Your absence pains me, sears me.
The pain is excruciating.
I remain steadfast and strong,
Like the mountains of beloved Palestine.
Poems, songs, novels, plays: fiction that in the dialectical spiral inspires us to act and then to depict our actions, which in turn inspires others to act and then to write their stories.
Since October 2023, the Israelis have hardened their treatment of Palestinian prisoners, and brought in thousands of new Palestinian political prisoners into already overcrowded prisons. The conditions are now deadly. Khalida Jarrarâs most recent words from prison, published on 28 August, are heartbreaking. During a visit from lawyers of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Society Prisonersâ Club, she sent the following message:
I am dying every day. The cell resembles a closed small can. There is a toilet in the cell and a small window above, which was closed after one day. They left us no way to breathe. There is a narrow vent that I sat next to most of the time to breathe. I am really suffocating in my cell, waiting time to pass, hoping to find oxygen to breathe and stay alive. The high temperature increased the tragic condition of my isolation, as I feel myself existing in an oven. I canât sleep due to the high temperature, and they intended to cut off the water in the cell, and when I asked to refill my bottle of water, they bring it after four hours at least. They let me out to the prisonâs courtyard only once after eight days of isolation.
We stand in full solidarity with Khalida Jarrar. We will translate our latest dossier into Arabic and send it to her so that she can read the songs of the Telangana heroes and take inspiration from them.
Invention is the mother of necessity, and Russiaâs response to largely Western-imposed economic and trade sanctions has shown the extent of that inventiveness. While enduring attritive punishment in its Ukraine campaign, the war remains sustainable for the Kremlin. The domestic economy has not collapsed, despite apocalyptic predictions to the contrary. In terms of exports, Russia is carving out new trade routes, a move that has been welcomed by notable powers in the Global South.
One of the chief prosecutors of sanctions against Moscow was initially confident about the damage that would be caused by economic bludgeoning. US President Joe Biden, in February 2022, insisted on the imposition of measures that would âimpair [Russiaâs] ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.â The Council of the European Union also explained that the move was intended to weaken Moscowâs âability to finance the war and specifically target the political, military and economic elite responsible for the invasion [of Ukraine].â
In all this, the European Union, the United States and other governments have ignored a salient historical lesson when resorting to supposedly punitive formulae intended to either deter Russia from pursuing a course of action or depriving it of necessary resources. States subject to supposedly crushing economic measures can adapt, showing streaks of impressive resilience. The response from Japan, Germany and Italy during the 1930s in the face of sanctions imposed by the League of Nations provide irrefutable proof of that proposition. All, to a certain extent, pursued what came to be known as Blockadefestigkeit, or blockade resilience. With bitter irony, the targeted powers also felt emboldened to pursue even more aggressive measures to subvert the restraints placed upon them.
By the end of 2022, Russia had become Chinaâs second biggest supplier of Russian crude oil.  India has also been particularly hungry for Russian oil. Producing only 10% of domestic supply, Russia contributed 34% of the rest of Indian oil consumption in 2023.
Trade routes are also being pursued with greater vigour than ever. This year, progress was made between Russia and China on a North Sea Route, which straddles the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, running from Murmansk on the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait and the Far East. The agreement between Russiaâs state nuclear agency Rosatom and Chinaâs Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co Ltd envisages the joint design and creation of Arctic-class container vessels to cope with the punishing conditions throughout the year. Rosatomâs special representative for Arctic development, Vladimir Panov, confidently declared that up to 3 million tonnes of transit cargo would flow along the NSR in 2024.
While that agreement will operate to Russiaâs frozen north, another transport route has also received a boosting tonic. Of late, Moscow and New Delhi have been making progress on the 7,200-kilometre International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which will run from St. Petersburg in northwestern Russia to ports in southern Iran for onward movement to Mumbai. While the agreement between Russia, Iran and India for such a multimodal corridor dates back to September 2000, the advent of sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the Ukraine War propelled Moscow to seek succour in the export markets of the Middle East and Asia.
As staff writers at Nikkeipoint out, the shipping route will not only bypass Europe but be âless than half as long as the current standard path through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal.â One calculation suggests that the time needed to transport cargo to Moscow from Mumbai prior to the initiation of the corridor was between 40 and 60 days. As things stand, the transit time has been shaved to 25-30 days, with transportation costs falling by 30%.
Much progress has been made on the western route, which involves the use of Azerbaijanâs rail and road facilities. In March, Azerbaijanâs Ministry of Digital Development and Transport revealed that rail freight grew by approximately 30% in 2023. Road freight rose to 1.3 million tonnes, an increase of 35%. The ministry anticipates the amount of tonnage in terms of freight traffic to rise to 30 million per year. In June this year, the Rasht-Caspian Sea link connecting the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea via rail was opened in the presence of Russian, Iranian and Azerbaijani dignitaries.
A further factor that adds worth to the corridor is the increasingly fraught nature of freight traffic from Europe to Asia via the Suez Canal. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been harrying vessels in the Red Sea, a response to Israelâs ferocious campaign in Gaza. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk suggested back in January that the âNorth-South [corridor] will gain global significanceâ given the crisis in the Red Sea.
Despite the frightful losses being endured in the Russia-Ukraine war, it is clear, at least when it comes to using economic and financial weapons, that Moscow has prevailed. It has outfoxed its opponents, and, along the way, sought to redraw global trade routes that will furnish it with even greater armour from future economic shocks. Other countries less keen to seek a moral stake in the Ukraine conflict than pursue their own trade interests, have been most enthusiastic.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and SAFHAL Helicopter Engines Pvt. Ltd. (SAFHAL) have signed an airframer contract, to commence joint design, development, manufacture, supply, and support of a new generation high power engine named Aravalli for the 13-ton Medium Lift class, Indian Multi-Role Helicopter (IMRH) and the Deck-Based Multi-Role Helicopter (DBMRH), being designed & developed by […]
A 40-second video is viral across social media platforms with the claim that it shows Muslim children purposefully sabotaging train tracks in a bid to cause railway accidents in India. Some users on X have tagged this as an instance of ‘Rail Jihad.’ In the video, three children, dressed in kurtas, appear to be tampering with the railway tracks. One of them can be seen loosening the bolts of a fish plate with a large spanner, while another child can be seen collecting the bolts in a sack.
@SureshChavhanke, the editor-in-chief of propaganda outlet Sudarshan News, tweeted the video and urged the Railway Minister to give orders to RPF to shoot people indulging in such acts. (Archive)Â
â Dr. Suresh Chavhanke âSudarshan Newsâ (@SureshChavhanke) August 30, 2024
X-verified user @XSecular_ posted the video, using expletives to refer to Muslim children, and urging the railway minister to take action against Muslim slum dwellers near railway tracks. At the time of this article being written, the post has managed to accumulate more than 6 Lakh views and has been re-shared more than 9,500 times. (Archive)Â
â đ đđđđźđ„đđ« (@XSecular_) August 29, 2024
X-verified user @TheSquind, with its long history of peddling disinformation and Islamophobic content on social media, tweeted the video, alluding to the Muslim children as being instrumental in railway accidents. (Archive)
We ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video, and came across a Facebook video uploaded by a profile named ‘Pakistani Trains‘ on December 5, 2023. Therefore, it is evident that the Facebook video is at least eight-month old. Further, the caption of the video, when translated from Urdu to English, reads: “Near Sartaj Khan Phatak, Boat Basin Chowki, the valuable goods of railway line are being stolen a lot. P.S. Boat Basin is requested to take this action.” Further, the bio of the profile attributes its administration to a certain Fahad Asif, whose YouTube channel is also linked in the page. On examining the channel, we found several videos on Pakistani railways. Â
Taking a cue from the translated caption of the video linked above, we ran another relevant keyword search on Facebook, and came across this Facebook post by the Media Cell – DIG South Zone, from December 5, 2023. The caption, which is in Urdu, reports on a case of theft of track nut bolts from the Sartaj Khan Phatak railway line, near Boat Basin Chowki. In the latter part of the video, starting from the 29-second mark, three children are interrogated as to their participation in the theft. On account of all three of them being juveniles, one of the children’s father also appears in the video and takes accountability of the theft in which his son had participated. They can be seen admitting that they had stolen bolts and screws from between train tracks from a location they disclose as ‘Shireen Jinnah’.
Further, we came across another YouTube video which presents a concise report on the theft. The voice-over narration adds that the three children had been taken into police custody by the Boat Basin police, where they were questioned by the officer in-charge, named in the video as ‘Shahzad’.
To sum up, the video which is viral with the claim that Muslim children are purposefully sabotaging railway tracks in order to cause accidents in India is actually a clip from December 2023. On investigating, Alt News found that this video is from Karachi, Pakistan, and depicts three children stealing nuts and bolts from railway tracks.
On 8 August 2024, a 31-year-old doctor at the RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata (West Bengal, India) finished her 36-hour shift at the hospital, ate dinner with her colleagues, and went to the collegeâs seminar hall to rest before her next shift. The next day, shortly after being reported missing, she was found in a seminar room, her lifeless body displaying all the signs of terrible violence. Since Indian law forbids revealing the names of victims of sexual crimes, her name will not appear in this newsletter.
This young doctorâs story is by no means an isolated incident: every fifteen minutes, a woman in India reports a rape. In 2022, at least 31,000 rapes were reported, a 12% increase from 2020. These statistics vastly underrepresent the extent of sexual crimes, many of which go unreported for fear of social sanction and patriarchal disbelief. In 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published an extensive study of violence against women using data from 161 countries between 2000 and 2018, which showed that nearly one in three, or 30%, of women âhave been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner or bothâ. What this young doctor faced was an extreme version of an outrageously commonplace occurrence.
Nalini Malini (India), Listening to the Shades, 2007.
Not long after her body was discovered, RG Kar College Principal Dr Sandip Ghosh revealed the victimâs name and blamed her for what had happened. The hospital authorities informed the young doctorâs parents that she had committed suicide. They waited hours for the authorities to allow a post-mortem, which was done in haste. âShe was my only daughterâ, her mother said. âI worked hard for her to become a doctor. And now she is goneâ. The police surrounded the family home and would not allow anyone to meet them, and the government pressured the family to cremate her body quickly and organised the entire cremation process. They wanted the truth to vanish. It was only because activists of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) blocked the ambulance that the family was able to see the body.
On 10 August, the day after the young doctorâs body was discovered, the DYFI, Students Federation of India (SFI), Communist Party of India (Marxist), and other organisations held protests across West Bengal to ensure justice. These protests grew rapidly, with medical personnel across the state, and then across India, standing outside their workplaces with placards expressing their political anger. The womenâs movement, which saw massive protests in 2012 after a young woman in Delhi was gang raped and murdered, again took to the streets. The number of young women who attended these protests reflects the scale of sexual violence in Indian society, and their speeches and posters were saturated with sadness and anger. âReclaim the nightâ, tens of thousands of women shouted in protests across West Bengal on 14 August, Indiaâs independence day.
Rani Chanda (India), The Solace, 1932
The most remarkable aspect of this protest movement was the mobilisation of medical unions and doctors. On 12 August, the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA), with whom the murdered doctor was affiliated, called upon all doctors to suspend non-emergency medical services. The next day, doctors in government hospitals across India put on their white coats and complied. The head of the Indian Medical Association, Dr RV Asokan, met with Union Health Minister JP Nadda to present five demands:
hospitals must be safe zones;
the central government must pass a law protecting health workers;
the family must be given adequate compensation;
the government must conduct a time-bound investigation; and
resident doctors must have decent working conditions (and not have to work a 36-hour shift).
The WHO reports that up to 38% of health workers suffer physical violence during their careers, but in India the numbers are astronomically higher. For instance, nearly 75% of Indian doctors report experiencing some form of violence while more than 80% say that they are over-stressed and 56% do not get enough sleep. Most of these doctors are attacked by patientsâ families who believe their relatives have not received adequate healthcare. Testimonies of female doctors during the protests indicate that women health workers routinely experience sexual harassment and violence not only from patients, but from other hospital employees. The dangerous culture in these institutions, many of them say, is unbearable, as is evidenced by the high suicide rates among nurses that are committed in response to sexual and other forms of harassment â a serious problem that received little attention. An online search using the keywords ânursesâ, âIndiaâ, âsexual harassmentâ, and âsuicideâ brings up a stunning number of reports from just the past year. This explains why doctors and nurses have reacted with such vehemence to the death of the young doctor at RG Kar.
Dipali Bhattacharya (India), Untitled, 2007.
On 13 August, the Calcutta High Court ordered the police to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. On the night of 14 August, vandals destroyed a great deal of campus property, attacked doctors who were holding a midnight vigil, threw stones at nearby police, and destroyed evidence that remained on the scene, including the seminar room where the doctor was found, suggesting an attempt to disrupt any investigation. In response to the attack, FORDA resumed its strike.
Rather than arrest anyone on the scene, the authorities accused leaders of the peaceful protests of being the culprits, including the DYFI and SFI leaders who had initiated the first protests. DYFI Secretary for West Bengal Minakshi Mukherjee was one of those summoned by the police. âThe people who are connected to the vandalism of a hospitalâ, she said, âcannot be from civil society. Who, then, is protecting these people?â
The police also summoned two doctors, Dr Subarna Goswami and Dr Kunal Sarkar, to the police station on the charge of spreading misinformation about the post-mortem report. In fact, the two are vocal critics of the state government, and the community of doctors saw the summons as an act of intimidation and marched with them to the police station.
There is widespread discontent about the West Bengal state government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress, a centre-right party formed in 1998 that has been in power since 2011. A particularly salient example of the source of this lack of confidence in the state government is its decision to hastily rehire Dr Ghosh after his resignation from RG Kar to be the principal of the National Medical College in Kolkata. The Calcutta High Court rebuked the government for this decision and demanded that Dr Ghosh be placed on extended leave while the investigation continued.
Dr Ghosh not only grossly mishandled the murder case of this young doctor: he is also accused of fraud. Accusations that the murdered doctor was going to release more evidence of Dr Ghoshâs corruption at the college are now spreading across the country alongside allegations that sexual violence and murder were being wielded to silence someone who had evidence of another crime. Whether the government will investigate these accusations is unlikely given the wide latitude afforded to powerful people.
Sunayani Devi (India), Lady with Parrot, 1920s.
The West Bengal government is defined by its fear of the people. On 18 August, the stateâs two iconic football teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, were set to play for the Durand Cup. When it became clear that fans intended to protest from the stands, the government cancelled the match. This did not stop the teamsâ fans from joining with fans of the third-most important West Bengal football team, Mohammedan Sporting, to mobilise outside the Yuva Bharati Stadium to protest the match cancellation and the young doctorâs murder. âWe want justice for RG Karâ, they said. In response, they were attacked by the police.
Shipra Bhattacharya (India), Desire, 2006.
Many years ago, the poet Subho Dasgupta wrote the beloved and powerful poem Ami sei meye (I Am That Girl), which could very well be the soundtrack of these struggles:
I am that girl.
The one you see every day on the bus, train, street
whose sari, tip of forehead, earrings, and ankles
you see everyday
and
dream of seeing more.
You see me in your dreams, as you wished.
I am that girl.
âŠ
I am that girl â from the shanty Kamin Basti in Chai Bagan, Assam
who you want to abduct to the Sahibi Bungalow at midnight,
want to see her naked body with your eyes intoxicated with the burning light of the fireplace.
I am that girl.
âŠ
In hard times, the family relies on me.
Motherâs medicine is bought with my tuition earnings.
My extra income bought my brotherâs books.
My whole body was drenched in heavy rain
with the black sky on his head.
I am an umbrella.
The family lives happily under my protection.
âŠ
Like a destructive wildfire
I will continue to move forward! And on either side of my way forward
numerous headless bodies
will continue to suffer from
terrible pain:
the body of civilisation
body of progress
body of improvement.
The body of society.
Maybe Iâm the girl! Maybe! MaybeâŠ
The paintings in this newsletter are all done by women who were born in Bengal.
India’s new BioE3 policy puts alternative proteins and future food in sharp focus â what does the biomanufacturing strategy mean for this sector?
On Saturday, India announced a biotechnology policy focused on the economy and climate, with smart proteins and functional foods â as well as climate-resilient agriculture â among six pillars of the strategy.
With BioE3 (which stands for Biotechnology for Economy, Employment, and Environment) being approved by the Union Cabinet, India is aiming to foster “high-performance biomanufacturing”, with a focus on accelerating tech development and commercialisation by getting up biomanufacturing hubs and biofoundries.
The policy is designed to strengthen the country’s net-zero goal of 2070 and its Lifestyle for Environment strategy (which encourages green behaviours), and speed up ‘green growth’ by promoting a circular bioeconomy. The government aims to position India as “a potential leader in the fourth industrial revolution”, science and tech minister Jitendra Yadav said in a press conference yesterday.
The administration defined “high-performance biomanufacturing” as the ability to produce products from medicine to materials, promote advanced biotech processes for the manufacturing sector, as well as address farming and food challenges.
The six focus areas are high-value bio-based chemicals, biopolymers and enzymes; smart proteins and functional foods; precision biotherapeutics; climate-resilient agriculture; carbon capture; and marine and space research.
That alternative proteins have been highlighted as an economic pillar of the world’s most populous nation is a big deal for the industry. Here’s how it happened, and what comes next.
How alternative proteins became part of India’s BioE3 policy
It all started in July 2023, when the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Advisory Council met to identify key areas of scientific importance for high-performance biomanufacturing, explains Sneha Singh, acting managing director of the Good Food Institute (GFI) India.
The secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, Dr Rajesh Gokhale, presented smart proteins as part of the initiative. Since then, the department has been holding closed-door meetings with an expert committee to identify a strategic roadmap and period goals for the alternative protein industry.
Courtesy: Blue Tribe Foods
GFI India â a think tank focused on alternative proteins, which include plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived proteins â was part of these meetings. “The inclusion of smart protein as part of the BioE3 policy is the governmentâs signal to the world that India is looking to be the hub for R&D and cost-efficient manufacturing in this emerging sector,” Singh tells Green Queen.
She adds that other agencies have been engaging on smart proteins too. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has been working on regulatory clarity, while the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) showcased plant protein technology at the World Food India event.
The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council has also backed entrepreneurs through early-stage ignition grants, and the Department of Science and Technology has led calls to promote translational R&D.
How will smart protein startups profit from BioE3?
The biomanufacturing policy “acts as a catalyst” for alternative protein’s growth in key foundational areas, according to Singh.
“By providing dedicated R&D and innovation support, the policy will accelerate the development of new technologies and processes that can pave the way towards the nutrition, price, and taste parity of smart protein products, making them a truly competitive alternative to their animal-derived counterparts,” she explains.
Meanwhile, the establishment of manufacturing hubs and biofoundries will offer “crucial support” for large-scale commercialisation. “This increased production capacity can significantly improve the accessibility and affordability of smart protein products, enabling them to reach a wider consumer base,” she says.
Courtesy: Perfect Day/Zydus Lifesciences
“Smart protein startups will gain significant momentum through dedicated R&D and innovation support, greater investments, and a nurturing ecosystem,” she adds. “The policy will foster a collaborative environment, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and resources between industry and academia, and encouraging public and private partnerships, leading to faster development and commercialisation of smart protein technologies with biohubs and biofoundries.”
Agriculture accounts for 15% of Indiaâs emissions, and two-thirds of this comes from livestock farming. Singh believes the circular bioeconomy focus resonates with the goals of food sustainability: “By reducing reliance on animal farming, alternative proteins address environmental concerns, further strengthening the smart protein sector’s appeal.”
Who else stands to benefit?
But it’s not just companies that benefit from India’s new policy. “With the growing demand for millets, chickpeas, and other indigenous crops for smart protein end-products, farmers and crop-producing communities can explore new avenues with these resource-efficient crops to create a robust supply chain and contribute to rural economic development,” outlines Singh.
“The policy’s commitment to expanding the skilled workforce is another vital aspect, as it aligns perfectly with the sector’s rapid growth and immense economic potential,” she adds. This will “open several doors for students and the nascent workforce”, who’d be able to enter a fast-growing industry through dedicated coursework and multidisciplinary roles.
This is something Gokhale touched upon in the press conference too. â[BioE3] is expected to generate substantial employment opportunities, particularly in tier-II and tier-III cities, where biomanufacturing hubs will be set up,” he said. “These hubs will leverage local biomass sources, thereby enhancing economic development in these regions.â
Looking at things longer-term, all these efforts will combine to bring benefits to consumers. They will “gain access to a wider array of better-quality, tastier, and more nutritious smart protein products, catering to their diverse preferences”, notes Singh.
Courtesy: GFI India
At around 20%, India has the largest vegetarian population in the world. A report by GFI India last year found that one in four early-adopter consumers would consider giving up conventional meat, seafood, dairy or eggs in the future, with issues like hygiene, ease of cooking, animal welfare, and planetary impact top of mind.
Meanwhile, a perceived âunnaturalnessâ, lack of clarity on health benefits, and taste and price are among the major consumption barriers for alternative proteins in India. People over 45 feel these products are not relevant to them and possess a synthetic taste, while product availability is a key hurdle for many Indians. The amped-up focus on biomanufacturing would help address many of these challenges.
Looking to the future
India’s bioeconomy has grown immensely in the last decade, going from $10B in 2014 to more than $130B in 2024, according to figures cited by Gokhale. This trajectory is set to continue, with forecasts valuing the sector at $300B by 2030.
“Notably, the once fledgling pharmaceutical industry is now a $50B behemoth, fulfilling a significant portion of global demand for medicines and vaccines,” says Singh. “Today, a similar opportunity awaits in the smart protein sector. India’s robust biopharmaceutical and bioprocessing industries have already laid a strong foundation, establishing us as a key player in R&D, innovation, and the large-scale manufacturing capabilities needed for the smart protein sector globally.”
Courtesy: Seaspire
Singh references the government’s Make in India initiative, the propulsion of entrepreneurial ventures, skilled talent generation, and technological advancements as markers of India’s potential to become a global manufacturing hub for smart proteins.
“Leveraging its biomanufacturing capabilities, India can innovate and scale up production of crucial equipment and ingredients cost-competitively, leading the way for technological breakthroughs to produce high-quality and low-cost food manufacturing while fostering robust bioeconomy growth,” she says.
Just earlier this month, the central government introduced 109 new climate-resilient crop varieties for the country’s farmers â for Singh, this is a sign India is “fully committed to making our food systems more productive while also being more cognisant of the impacts of climate change”.
This effort also shares synergies with alternative proteins. “Many of these climate-positive crops, such as pulses, legumes, and beans, have applications for plant-based proteins,” she says. “Beyond climate resilience, government support for research on crop breeds with higher protein content and reduced off-flavours can be hugely impactful in increasing the commercial potential of these crops through plant protein value chains.”
Courtesy: Narendra Modi/X
India has also launched a joint climate-smart agritech accelerator programme with Australia. And last week, Mumbai-based Zydus Biosciences agreed to buy a 50% stake in biomanufacturer Sterling Biotech from Californian precision fermentation pioneer Perfect Day â they plan to open an animal-free protein factory to supply to global markets.
“Climate-resilient agriculture is not solely about safeguarding food systems from the effects of climate change â it is also about reducing their contribution to this global challenge,” says Singh.
âWe always start with a question â thatâs where everything begins,â says Himalini Varma, the director of AJWS grantee Thoughtshop Foundation. Her organization, co-led with her partner Santayan Sangupta in 1993, has transformed the lives of thousands of young women across West Bengal, India, by approaching change through this lens: opening up space to …
India’s Zydus Lifesciences has agreed to take a 50% stake fermented protein manufacturer Sterling Biotech from Perfect Day, with an animal-free dairy facility in the works.
Californian precision fermentation startup Perfect Day has agreed to sell 50% of its stake in Mumbai-based Sterling Biotech â a leading manufacturer of pharmaceutical gelatin and fermentation-derived ingredients â to Zydus Lifesciences for âč550 crore ($66M), with the business now becoming a joint venture.
The move will give both companies equal representation on the board, and shift Sterling Biotech’s focus towards animal-free protein production, according to local media. Perfect Day and Zydus are now planning a dedicated precision fermentation facility to supply to global markets.
It comes two years after Perfect Day â which makes precision-fermented whey protein for use in animal-free dairy â bought Sterling Biotech from bankruptcy in a $78M deal. Zydus’s purchase comes at a 70% premium, on the back of record revenues for the manufacturer in 2023.
The joint venture “sends a strong signal to the broader biopharma sector”, according to Aiyanna Belliappa, senior innovation and entrepreneurship specialist at the Good Food Institute (GFI) India, who called Zydus’s strategic partnership with Perfect Day “extremely encouraging”.
“Aligning with the Indian government’s forward-thinking BioE3 policy, this development further solidifies India’s position as a global leader in biomanufacturing for healthcare, food, and nutrition,” he told Green Queen.
Perfect Day, Zydus look to tap India’s manufacturing prowess
Courtesy: Perfect Day
Sterling Biotech, one of the world’s largest pharma gelatin producers, was admitted into insolvency in 2018, and went into liquidation a year later. After an auction process, Perfect Day emerged as the winning bidder, signalling its interest in India’s precision fermentation sector and manufacturing capabilities.
It gave Perfect Day access to two facilities in Gujarat and another in Tamil Nadu (which seems to have closed now). The new state-of-the-art factory as part of the joint venture will allow Sterling Biotech to speed up production of planet-friendly proteins and cater to the growing consumer demand for fermentation-based products and ethical nutrition, the announcement said.
The transaction marks Zydus’s entry into specialised biotech products for health and nutrition, meeting demand from consumers who “prefer animal-free protein or suffer from lactose intolerance”.
Nutrition and health are among the top purchase drivers for alternative proteins in India. The demand for animal-free proteins can be gauged from consumer sentiments on plant-based dairy: a 2023 report by GFI India revealed that 43% of Indians would try plant-based dairy products for their health benefits (second only to the importance of protein content).
The new structure of Sterling Biotech will enable Perfect Day to “significantly enhance” its tech capabilities in India as part of an emerging market growth strategy, while Zydus will continue to leverage its manufacturing and commercial expertise.
âWe are dedicated to promoting growth through partnerships and are consistently exploring new collaborations to position India as a premier global supply chain hub,” said Zydus managing director Sharvil Patel. “We are excited to join forces with Perfect Day and create a win-win combination that leverages both our strengths and expertise to create value for the consumers.â
Highlighting India’s manufacturing prowess, Michal Klar, investor and funding partner at Better Bite Ventures, told GFI India in its report last year that the country is “uniquely positioned” to be an alternative protein innovation and manufacturing hub thanks to world-class talent and cost-efficient scale-up opportunities.
âThis is especially relevant for technologies like precision fermentation that can benefit from talent and equipment currently used for biomedical research and production,” Klar added.
A rollercoaster year for Perfect Day
Courtesy: Perfect Day
Whether the move accelerates Perfect Day’s interest in the Indian market remains to be seen â the startup already obtained premarket approval for its animal-free whey protein from the Food Safety Standards and Authority of India, following its purchase of Sterling Biotech.
âThis partnership allows Perfect Day to significantly boost its capabilities to meet the demands of the fast-growing global market. We deeply value our collaboration with Zydus and believe this joint venture will allow both parties to benefit from each other’s expertise,” said TM Narayan, interim CEO of Perfect Day.
The premium valuation of its initial takeover â Perfect Day bought Sterling Biotech for $78M in 2022 ($83M after adjusting for inflation), and has sold half of it for $66M â represents a win in a topsy-turvy year for the Californian alternative protein player.
In July 2023, it laid off 15% of its workforce (134 employees) as it shifted focus to B2B and its tech-led offshoot Nth Bio. In line with that, it sold its D2C subsidiary The Urgent Company â which comprised Coolhaus, Brave Robot, Modern Kitchen and California Performance Co. â to food tech company Superlatus in September on a promissory note of $3.15M, according to SEC filings.
Then in January, it raised $90M in a Series E round â taking total funding to $840M since its inception in 2014 â but this coincided with the exit of founders Ryan Pandya and Peramul Gandhi (with Narayan taking over). And it was the subject of a $134M lawsuit in April by manufacturing partner Olon, which accused Perfect Day of a breach of contract. The dispute is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Perfect Day’s whey protein appeared in Unilever’s lactose-free chocolate ice cream under the Breyers brand; Strive Nutrition announced it’s developing products with Perfect Day and TurtleTree’s whey proteins; and Bored Cow â Tomorrow Farms’ animal-free milk range that uses Perfect Day’s protein â rolled out into Target stores across the US.
The premium valuation of Sterling Biotech worried analysts, however, with Zydus’ share price plummeting by 5.9% when the stock market opened on Monday. According to brokerage firm Nomura, Sterling Biotech recorded âč450 crore ($53.6M) in revenue in 2023, with annual sales up by 10% since 2021.
Perfect Day did not respond to a request for comment.
Noam Chomsky (95) famous dissident and father of modern linguistics, considered one of the worldâs leading intellectuals, is recovering from a stroke he suffered at age 94 and now living with his wife in Brazil. According to a report in Amy Goodmanâs Democracy Now d/d July 2, 2024, this past June Brazilian President Lula personally visited Chomsky, holding his hand, saying: âYou are one of the most influential people of my lifeâ personally witnessed by Vijay Prashad, co-author with Noam Chomsky, The Withdrawal (The New Press).
Indeed, Noam Chomsky is established as one of the most influential intellectuals of the 21st century.
A pre-stroke video interview with Chomsky conducted at the University of Arizona is extraordinarily contemporary and insightful with a powerful message: What Does the Future Hold Q&A With Noam Chomsky hosted by Lori Poloni-Staudinger, Dean of School of Behavioral Sciences and Professor, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona.
Chomsky joined the School of Behavioral Sciences in 2017 and taught âConsequences of Capitalism.â
This article is a synopsis of some of Chomskyâs responses to questions, and it includes third-party supporting facts surrounding his statements about the two biggest risks to humanityâs continual existence.
What Does the Future Hold?
Question: geopolitics, unipolar versus multipolar
Chomsky: First there are two crises that determine whether it is even appropriate to consider how geopolitics will look in the future: (1) threat of nuclear war (2) the climate crisis.
âIf the climate crisis is not dealt with in the next few years, human society is essentially finished. Everything else is moot unless these two crises are dealt with.â
(This paragraph is not part of Chomskyâs answer) Regarding Chomskyâs warning, several key indicators of the climate crisis are flashing red, not green. For example, nine years ago 195 nations at the UN climate conference Paris â15 agreed to take measures to mitigate CO2 emissions to hold global warming to under 1.5°C pre-industrial. Yet, within only nine years of that agreement amongst 195 nations, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in human history for a 12-month period from February 2023 to January 2024 and now fast approaching danger zones. Obviously, nations of the world did not follow their own dictates, and if not them, who will?
Paleoclimatology has evidence of what to expect if the âclimate crisis,â as labeled by Chomsky, is not dealt with (The following paragraph is also not part of Chomskyâs answer): âWhile todayâs CO2-driven climate change scenario is unprecedented in human history, similar circumstances existed in the geological record that give us an idea of what to expect in the way of global sea level rise, and the process that will get us there. About 3.2 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, CO2 levels were about 400 ppm (427 ppm today) and temperatures were 2-3°C above the âpre-industrialâ temperatures of 1850-1880. At the same time, proxy data indicate global sea level was about 52 feet (within a 39-foot to 66-foot range) higher than today.â (Source: The Sleeping Giant Awakens, Climate Adaptation Center, May 21, 2024)
Maybe that is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) strongly suggests keeping temperatures ideally below 1.5°C and certainly not above 2.0°C pre-industrial.
Chomsky on World Power: Currently the center of world power, whether unipolar or multipolar is very much in the news. This issue has roots going back to the end of WWII when the US established overwhelming worldwide power. But now the Ukraine war has the world very much divided with most of world outside of the EU, US and its allies calling for diplomatic settlement. But the US position is that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia.
Consequently, Ukraine is dividing the world, and it shows up in the framework of unipolar versus multipolar. For example, the war has driven the EU away from independent status to firm control by the US. In turn the EU is headed towards industrial decline because of disruption of its natural trading partners, e.g., Russia is full of natural resources that the EU is lacking, which economist have always referred to as a âmarriage made in heaven,â a natural trading relationship that has now been broken. (footnote: EU industrial production down 3.9% past 12 months)
And the Ukrainian imbroglio is cutting off EU access to markets in China e.g., China has been an enormous market for German industrial products. Meanwhile, the US is insisting upon a unipolar framework of world order that wants not only the EU but the world to be incorporated within something like the NATO system. Under US pressure NATO has expanded its reach to the Indo-Pacific region, meaning NATO is now obligated to take part in the US conflict with China.
Meantime, the rest of the world is trying to develop a multipolar world with several independent sectors of power. The BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, South Africa, want an independent source of power of their own. They are 40% of world economy thatâs independent of US sanctions and of the US dollar.
These are developing conflicts over one raging issue and one developing issue. Ukraine is the raging issue; the developing issue is US conflict with China, which is developing its own projects in Eurasia, Africa, Middle East, South Africa, S9uth Asia, and Latin America.
The US is determined to prevent Chinaâs economic development throughout the world. The Biden administration has âvirtually declared a kind of war with Chinaâ by demanding that Western allies refuse to permit China to carry out technological development.
For example, the US insist others do not all0w China access to any technology that has any US parts in it. This includes everything, as for example, Netherlands has a world-class lithographic industry which produces critical parts for semi-conductors for the modern high-tech economy. Now, Netherlands must determine whether itâll move to an independent course to sell to China, or not⊠the same is true for Samsung, South Korea, and Japan.
The world is splintered along those lines as the framework for the foreseeable future.
Question:Â Will multinational corporations gain too much power and influence?
Chomsky suggests looking at them right now⊠US based multinationals control about one-half of the worldâs wealth. They are first or second in every domain like manufacturing and retail; no one else is close. Itâs extraordinary power. Based upon GDP, the US has 20% of world GDP, but if you look at US multinationals itâs more like 50%. Multinationals have extraordinary power over domestic policy in both the US and in other capitalistic countries. So, how will multinationals react when told they cannot deal with a major market, like China?
How does this develop over future years? The EU is going into a period of decline because of breaking relationships in trade and commercial business with the East. Yet, itâs not sure that the EU will stay subordinate to the US and willingly go into decline, or will the EU join the rest of the world and move into a more complex multipolar world and integrate with countries in the East? This is yet to be determined. For example, Franceâs President Emmanuel Macron (2017-) has been vilified and condemned for saying that after Russia is driven out of Ukraine, a way must be found to accommodate Russia within an international system, an initial crack in the US/EU relationship.
Threat of nuclear warquestion: Russia suspended the START Nuclear Arms Treaty with the US and how important is this to the threat of nuclear war?
Chomsky: It is very significant. It is the last remaining arms control treaty, the new START Treaty, Trump almost cancelled it. The treaty was due to expire in February when Biden took over in time to extend it, which he did.
Keep in mind that the US was instrumental in creating a regime which somewhat mitigates the threat of nuclear war, which means âterminal war.â We talk much too casually about nuclear war. There canât be a nuclear war. If there is, weâre finished. Itâs why the Doomsday Clock is set at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest itâs been.
Starting with George W. Bush the US began dismantling arms control. Bush dismantled the ABM Treaty, a missile treaty very significantly part of the arms control system and an enormous threat to Russia. So, the dismantling allowed the US to set up installations right at the border of Russia. Itâs a severe threat to Russia. And Russia has reacted.
The Trump administration got rid of the INF Treaty, the Reagan-Gorbachev treaty of 1987 which ended short-range missiles in Europe. Those missiles are now back in place on the borders of Russia. Trump, to make it clear that we meant business, arranged missile launches right away upon breaking of the treaty.
Trump destroyed the Open Skies Treaty which originated with Eisenhower stating that each side should share information about what the other side was doing to reduce the threat of misunderstanding.
Only the new START Treaty remains. And Russia suspended it. START restricts the number of strategic weapons for each side. The treaty terminates in 2026, but itâs suspended by Russia anyway. So, in effect there are no agreed upon restraints to increasing nuclear weapons.
Both sides already have way more nuclear weapons than necessary; One Trident nuclear submarine could destroy a couple hundred cities all over the world. And land based nuclear missile locations are known by both sides. So, if there is a threat, those would be hit immediately. Which means if thereâs a threat, âyouâd better sendâem off, useâem or loseâem.â This obviously is a very touchy, extraordinarily risky situation because one mistake could amplify very quickly.
The new START Treaty thatâs been suspended by Russia did restrict the enormous excessive number of strategic weapons. So, we should be in negotiations right now to expand it, restore it, and reinstitute the treaties the US has dismantled, the INF Treaty, Reagan-Gorbachev treaty, ABM Treaty, Open Stars Treaty should all be brought back.
Question: Will society muster the will for change for equity, prosperity, and sustainability?
Chomsky: There is no answer. Itâs up to the population to come to grips with issues and say we are not going to march to the precipice and fall over it. But itâs exactly what our leaders are telling us to do. Look at the environmental crisis. It is well understood that we may have enough time to control heating of the environment, destruction of habitat, destruction of the oceans which is going to lead to total catastrophe. Itâs not like everybody will die all at once, but weâre going to reach irreversible tipping points that becomes just a steady decline. To know how serious it is, look at particular areas of the world.
The Middle East region is one of the most rapidly heating regions of the world at rates twice as fast as the rest of the world. Projections by the end of the century at current trajectories show sea level in Mediterranean will rise about 10 feet.
Look at a map where people live, it is indescribable. Around Southeast Asia and peasants in India are trying to survive temperatures in the 120s where less than 10% of population has air conditioning. This will cause huge migrations from areas of the world where life will become unlivable.
Fossil fuel companies are so profitable that theyâve decided to quit any sustainable efforts in favor of letting profits run as fast and as far as possible. Theyâre opening new oil and gas fields that can produce another 30-40 years but at that point weâll all be finished.
We have the same issue with nuclear weapons as with the environment. If these two issues are not dealt with, in the not-too-distant future, itâll be all over. The population needs to âhave the willâ to stop it.
Question: How do we muster that will?
Chomsky: Talk to neighbors, join community organizations, join activistâs groups, press Congress, get out into the streets if necessary. How have things happened in the past? For example, back in the 1960s small groups of women got together, forming consciousness-raising groups and it was 1975 (Sex Discrimination Act) that women were granted the right of persons peers under US domestic law, prior to that weâre still back in the age of the founding fathers when women were property  Look at the Civil Rights movement. Go back to the 1950s, Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat on a bus that was planned by an organized group of activists that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, big change⊠in 1960 a couple of black students in No. Carolina decided to sit in at a lunch counter segregated. Immediately arrested, and the next day another group came⊠later they became organized as SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinated Committee. Young people from the North started to join. Next freedom buses started running to Alabama to convince black farmers to cast a vote. It went on this way, building, until you got civil rights legislation in Washington.
Whatâs happening right now as an example of what people can do? The Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA. Itâs mostly a climate change act. The only way you can get banks and fossil fuel companies to stop destroying the world is to bribe them. Thatâs basically our system. But IRA is not the substantial program that Biden presented. It is watered down. The original came out of Bernie Sanderâs office. As for the background for that, young people, from the Sunrise Movement, were active and organizing and sat in on Congressional offices. AOC joined them. A bill came out of this, but Republican opposition cut back the original bill by nearly 100% They are a denialist party. They want to destroy the world in the interest of private profit. The final IRA bill is nowhere near enough.
Summation: Chomsky sees a world of turmoil trying to sort out whether unipolar or multipolar wins the day with the Ukrainian war serving as a catalyst to change. Meanwhile, the EU carries the brunt of its impact. Meantime, nuclear arms treaties have literally dissolved in the face of a tenuous situation along the Russia/EU borders with newly armed missiles pointed at Russiaâs heartland. In the face of this touch-and-go Russia vs. the West potentially explosive scenario, the global climate system is under attack via excessive fossil fuel emissions cranking up global temperatures beyond what 195 countries agreed was a danger zone.
Chomsky sees a nervous nuclear weapons-rattling high-risk world flanked by unmitigated deterioration of ecosystems that global warming steadily, assuredly takes down for the count, as global temperatures set new records. He calls for individuals to take action, do whatever necessary to change the trajectory of nuclear weaponry and climate change to save society. Chomsky offered several examples of small groups of people acting together, over time, turning into serious protests and ultimately positive legislation.
âNever doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.â (Margaret Mead, Anthropologist)
This story uses screenshots and not actual tweets in view of the graphic nature of the video being fact-checked. Â
The political unrest that erupted in Bangladesh following the student protests over reservation descended into a disturbing path marked by escalating violence. In the wake of this turmoil, Sheikh Hasina was compelled to step down from her position as Prime Minister and flee the country on August 5. This was followed by several incidents of attacks on the minority Hindu community. Against this backdrop, numerous videos and images related to the violence began circulating widely on Indian social media platforms.
One such video shows a girl being beaten up and harassed by a mob. The clip has been widely shared with the claim that the girl is a Hindu and that she was being targeted and harassed by individuals from the Muslim community. The footage reveals women dressed in burqas and men wearing caps that are commonly associated with the Muslim community.
Ashwini Shrivastava, a Right-wing social media user, tweeted the video with similar claims. At the time this article being written, the video has received more than 9 Lakh views. (Archived link)
Lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay also tweeted this video and wrote that the biggest enemies of Hindus were converted Hindus. (Archived link)
Many more X users have posted this video with the same claim.
Alt News observed that Shohanur Rahman, a fact-checker from Bangladesh-based outlet âRumor Scannerâ, had replied to Ashwini Srivastavaâs tweet. Commenting on the alleged incident, he clarified that the woman seen in the video was not a Hindu as claimed, but a member of the Muslim community. Alt News, respecting the sensitivity of the situation, has chosen not to disclose the name of the victim in this report. The incident in question occurred on August 7 in the Tanker Par area of the Brahmanbaria district. The woman is reportedly a worker of the Mahila Chhatra League, a student wing of Sheikh Hasina’s political party, the Awami League. It appears that her association with this organisation was the reason she was targeted by the mob.
Â
Based on this information, we performed a keyword search in Bengali on Facebook, which led us to a 6:48 second long related video. In one of the frames from this footage, we identified the words ‘Loknath Tank, B Baria’ inscribed on a wall. The caption of this Facebook post also corroborated this location, mentioning ‘Brahmanbaria Tank’ and ‘Chhatra League leader.’
It is important for readers to note that in both this longer Facebook video and the shorter viral video, a girl dressed in a black salwar suit with a red dupatta can be seen standing beside the victim. This individual appears prominently in both videos.
While investigating, Alt News found two Facebook videos of this incident. (Link 1, Link 2) After carefully analysing both videos, we observed a pink purse that was present in both. In the first video, the victim is seen clutching this pink purse. In the second video, the girl wearing the black suit and red dupatta is shown retrieving documents and other items from this pink purse.Â
In this second Facebook video, the girl wearing the black suit takes out the victim’s ID card and shows it to the camera, which is from the Upazila Parishad elections. After seeing this ID card, it becomes clear that the victim girl is a Muslim. Below is a Google-translated version of the ID card which is in Bengali.Â
To sum it up, a woman seen being harassed by a mob in this viral video is actually not a Hindu, but a Muslim. She was attacked due to her association with the Awami League.
Alt News debunked two similar false claims in the recent past where attacks on student leaders of Awami League in educational institutions were passed as targeted attack on Hindus. (1, 2)
New Delhi, August 15, 2024âThe Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Indian government to ensure proper consultation with media publishers before enacting a broadcast regulation bill that journalists fear will give authorities sweeping powers to control online content.
âIndiaâs planned broadcast bill could have a chilling effect on press freedom,â CPJâs Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi said on Thursday. âWe are extremely concerned by the opacity surrounding the proposed law and its enactment process, and urge the Indian authorities to be transparent to ensure the bill is not tantamount to online censorship.â
They would also have to set up internal vetting committees at their own expense to approve content before it is posted online. Failure to comply could result in imprisonment and fines.Â
The provisions in the bill came after Prime Minister Narendra Modiâs ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lost support in a national election earlier this year â a development that supporters blamed partly on social media influencers for boosting the oppositionâs chances.
Following criticism, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on X, formerly Twitter, that a fresh draft bill will be published and it would extend the deadline for stakeholder comments until October 15, 2024.
The ministry did not respond to CPJâs emailed requests for comment.
Thousands took to the streets of Kolkata in India early Thursday to condemn the rape and murder of a local doctor. Protests have swelled as people demand justice for the victim, and an end to violence against women more broadly. The discovery of the 31-year-old woman’s brutalised body last week at a state-run hospital has sparked nationwide protests.
She cannot be named in accordance with India’s laws that protect the identity of rape victims. Large crowds marched through the streets of Kolkata in West Bengal to condemn the killing, with a candlelight rally at midnight coinciding with the start of India’s independence day celebrations on Thursday.
The protesters in Kolkata, who marched under the slogan “reclaim the night”, called for a wider tackling of violence against women and held up handwritten signs demanding action.
“We want justice,” read one sign at the rally. Marcher Monalisa Guha told Kolkata’s the Telegraph:
The atrocities against women do not stop.
Another marcher, Sangeeta Halder, told the paper:
We face harassment almost on a daily basis. But not stepping out because of fear is not the solution.
‘Anger in the nation’
Doctors are also demanding swift justice and better workplace security in the wake of the killing. Many doctors in government hospitals across several states on have chosen to halt elective services “indefinitely” in protest.
Protests have since occurred in several other hospitals across the country, including in the capital.
Dhruv Chauhan, from the Indian Medical Association’s Junior Doctors’ Network, told the Press Trust of India news agency:
Doctors nationwide are questioning what is so difficult about enacting a law for our security.
The strike will continue until all demands are formally met.
The Telegraph on Thursday praised the “spirited public protests” across India. In an editorial it said:
Hearteningly, doctors and medical organisations are not the only ones involved. The ranks of the protesters have been swelled by people from all walks of life.
Institutional mishandling suspected
Indian media have reported the murdered doctor was found in the teaching hospital’s seminar hall, suggesting she had gone there for a brief rest during a long shift.
An autopsy has confirmed sexual assault, and in a petition to the court, the victim’s parents have said that they suspected their daughter was gang-raped, according to Indian broadcaster NDTV.
Shockingly, hospital administrators at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, where the murder took place, initially claimed the woman’s death was a suicide. As the Conversationreported, this was in spite of the postmortem report which found that:
the killed medical trainee had a broken collar and pelvic bones and severe genital injury.
In the early hours of Thursday, a mob of some 40 people angry at authorities’ handling of the case stormed the grounds of the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, the site of the murder. The men smashed property and hurled stones at police, who fired tear gas in response.
Though police have detained a man who worked at the hospital helping people navigate busy queues, officers have been accused of mishandling the case.
Kolkata’s High Court on Tuesday transferred the case to the elite Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to “inspire public confidence”.
Reminiscent of Delhi bus rape
Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem with an average of nearly 90 rapes a day were reported in 2022 in the country of 1.4 billion people.
For many, the gruesome nature of the attack has invoked comparisons with the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus.
The woman became a symbol of the socially conservative country’s failure to tackle sexual violence against women.
Her death sparked huge demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere. Under pressure, the government introduced harsher penalties for rapists, and the death penalty for repeat offenders. Several new sexual offences were also introduced, including stalking and jail sentences for officials who failed to register rape complaints.
Long fight
Indian women have long campaigned – via work in human rights organisations, protests, and much more – to stamp out violence against women. But, the problems are embedded in institutional and social norms. For example, New Internationalistreported that:
Marital rape is still not a crime in India, despite the fact that it is disturbingly common. Among married women aged 18-49 who have experienced sexual violence, 83 per cent reported their current husband â and 13 per cent their ex-husband â as the perpetrator.
Violence against women is a global problem, and eradicating it requires widespread confrontation of sexist and patriarchal attitudes that uphold male violence as a fact of life.
The Indian government has introduced over 100 high-yielding, climate-resilient varieties of crops for farmers, a group among the country’s most vulnerable to global warming.
India has unveiled 109 future-facing varieties of crops for an agricultural sector ravaged by climate change and extreme weather events.
The new biofortified varieties â spanning a total of 61 field and horticultural crops â are said to be high in yield and resilient to the effects of climate change. They were introduced at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (commonly known as the Pusa Institute) in New Delhi, delivering on a promise made in the finance ministry’s 2024-25 budget last month.
Prime minister Narendra Modi â who has long had a tetchy relationship with India’s farmers â released seeds and planting material at three sites in the demonstration fields of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which funds the Pusa Institute.
In an address to scientists, the recently reelected head of state said experts from the ICAR, agricultural universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (local farm science centres) should âproactively interact with farmers and inform them about new varieties and technology every month”.
Climate-resilient crops now need to be produced on larger scale
Courtesy: Narendra Modi/X
India, the world’s most populous nation, is responsible for 10% of the global agricultural output. The sector contributes to 15% of its GDP, and employs between 43% and 65% of its population. It is the world’s leading producer of pulses, and second-largest producer of wheat, rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnuts, vegetables, fruits and cotton.
The new seeds are variants of 34 field crops and 27 horticultural crops. The former includes various cereals like millets, forage crops, oilseeds, pulses, sugarcane, cotton and fibre, while the latter involves fruits, vegetables, plantation crops, tuber crops, spices, flowers and medicinal crops.
Modi met with a group of farmers and told them that the new varieties would benefit them immensely, since they would cut expenditures, add crop value and diversity, have a positive impact on the environment, and withstand the impacts of climate change.
The ICAR scientists who developed the varieties said their brief was to bring underutilised crops to the mainstream. Among the new innovations were rice that can withstand submergence or flooding, climate-resilient guava, a green gram variety customised for the National Capital Region surrounding Delhi, heat-tolerant durum wheat, high-calcium finger millet, and a superior mango variety, according to local media.
Modi outlined the need for higher-nutrition foods in India, and suggested that people have begun demanding and consuming more organic foods â the country expanded its organic farmland by 145% between 2012 and 2022.
Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan highlighted the central government’s âlab to landâ approach in a way that âscience reaches the farmer directlyâ. He added that the seeds of the new varieties will now need to be produced on a large scale, and will reach farmers in three years.
Why India’s agriculture needs more action on climate change
Courtesy: Narendra Modi/X
Climate change has dealt devastating blows to India’s agriculture sector. The country is the largest consumer of groundwater, since farmers depend on a heavily stressed water supply for irrigation. And 65% of its farmland depends on rainwater, but inconsistent rainfall and increasing temperatures are decimating crops.
While it is the second-largest wheat producer, every 1°C increase in temperature brings about a decline in wheat production by four to five million tonnes, according to ICAR. Temperatures have steadily grown in India over the last few decades, with extreme heatwaves sweeping through different parts in recent years. This year has already seen an area in New Delhi record the country’s hottest temperature ever, reaching 52.3°C, while some of its deadliest floods have occurred in the last decade or so.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the nation has lost nearly 70 million hectares of crops due to excessive rainfall or drought. Agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to the climate crisis in India, and was among several industries that suffered a combined $159B in economic losses in 2021 due to lost working hours from extreme weather events.
The Modi government’s rollout of the climate-resilient crop varieties would be welcomed by farmers, and would represent a rare win for the prime minister among this group. During Covid-19, hundreds of thousands of farmers protested against Modi’s move to open up more private investment in agriculture, which they believed would make them vulnerable to low prices.
Farmers were already facing crippling debt â since Modi first took office in 2014, estimates suggest over 100,000 farmers have taken their lives. The sector’s contribution to the GDP has fallen from 35% in 1990-91 to less than a sixth now, and 82% of it is made up of small or marginal farmers.
With climate change exacerbating the financial strains on Indian farmers, the mood has continued to sour. It was touted as an important factor in the surprising national election results this year, where Modi’s party had to rely on a coalition to form a government, following two terms built upon landslide victories.
That said, more needs to be done. Agriculture accounts for 15% of India’s emissions, but two-thirds of this comes from livestock farming. Given it is the leading producer of milk globally, a shift towards plant-based analogues would drastically reduce the country’s climate footprint â if the milk lobby allows, that is.
Residents in western Myanmar who rely on trade with India said they are experiencing food shortages due to the closure of some border crossings with India amid Myanmarâs civil war.
People in Chin state, western Sagaing region and northern Rakhine state said their supplies of rice, cooking oil, salt, fuel and medicine are dwindling because of the trade disruption following the border gate closures.
Indian authorities cited the need to check the flow of illegal goods from Myanmar as the reason, according to local sources.
But Reeta Meena, an Indian Embassy diplomat in Yangon, told Radio Free Asia that the Indian government permits movement through designated border crossing points, including ones at Tamu-Moreh, Rikhawdar-Zokhawthar and Zorinpui-Paletwa.
Any restrictions might have been imposed by Myanmar or local authorities, she told Radio Free Asia.
But those who have stayed behind have struggled to get goods from India amid periodic border closures due to fighting in their areas, while communication blackouts have cut them off from key cities in Myanmar.Â
Myanmar permits legal international trade with India via the two crossings at Tamu-Moreh in Sagaing region and Rikhawdar-Zokhawthar in Chin state.
The Moreh-Tamu border gate has remained closed on the Indian side since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
‘Severe difficulties’
But the recent closures of other crossings have led to shortages of basic food items, said a Tamu resident.
âIndian products, such as food and basic consumer goods, are no longer available to local residents living along the border, creating severe difficulties for them,â the resident said. âJob opportunities are scarce, making it increasingly challenging for them to afford basic necessities.â
Indian authorities announced that the Myanmar-India border gate, which connects Rikhawdar in Chin state with Indiaâs Mizoram state, would be closed from July 25 to Aug. 7, though Myanmar residents say it is unlikely to reopen until Aug. 12. Â
As a result of this closure, prices of goods in Rikhawdar have surged, with people paying twice as much for goods as they did before, Myanmar locals said.
Since November 2023, Rikhawdar has been under the control of Chin defense forces who oppose Myanmarâs ruling military junta and have jointly established a public administration focused on the India-Myanmar border trade, public security and regional stability.
A spokesman for the Regional Defense Force-Hualngoram, the other organization involved in setting up the townâs administration, expressed hope that the Mizoram state government would take measures to help locals obtain essential supplies from India.
âThe closure of the bridge, which we rely on for the flow of goods, has made things more difficult,â he said. âWe are currently facing a crisis.â
Because Mizoram residents rely on produce from Myanmar, a prolonged border crossing closure would negatively impact both sides, said Salai Van Sui Sang, deputy director of the Institute of Chin Affairs.
It also could lead to tensions between residents of Mizoram and their state government, he added.
Arakan Army
Some internal trade routes, which run directly between towns in India and western Myanmar, have been cut off because of fighting between junta soldiers and resistance forces in Chin stateâs Paletwa and in Rakhine state â areas controlled by the rebel Arakan Army. As a result, Myanmar residents must rely on products from Lawngtlai in Mizoram state.
But since June 24, the Central Young Lai Association, an influential NGO in Lawngtlai, has banned the export of goods. Though it allowed some items, including basic foodstuffs, to be transported again in July, restrictions on fuel and fertilizer remain in place.
On Aug. 7, the organization warned it would take action against the transport of prohibited fuel and fertilizer from Lawngtlai, but did not provide specifics.
Goods transported from Lawngtlai have been banned because the Arakan Army said they were being used to supply junta forces attacking Chin armed groups.
Translated by Kalyar Lwin for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
The days of tactical vehicles being manufactured solely for the military are declining. Commercial off-the-shelf have been favoured by many nations, but do they really fit the brief? Light tactical vehicles are a staple of any military and, because of their relative simplicity to build, they are widely manufactured in the Asia-Pacific region. However, when […]
Bangladesh was plunged into an unprecedented crisis with erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ousted on August 5 after a month-long nationwide student protest. An interim government led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is expected to be sworn in on August 8.
Against this backdrop, a video has gone viral on social media which users claim shows the looting of a shopping outlet in Bangladesh owned by a Hindu. Several Right-wing accounts have shared the video with the same claim. User @VoiceofHindu71, who has been fact-checked several times by Alt News, shared the video and garnered over 670000 views. (Archive)
â Voice of Bangladeshi Hindus (@VoiceofHindu71) August 6, 2024
@visegrad24, another verified account which frequently amplifies misinformation, also tweeted the video with the same claim. This tweet garnered over 200000 views. (Archive)
Islamists in Bangladesh incite a crowd to loot a Hindu-owned store in the Chittagong Market.
Hindus are losing lives, homes and property due to the Islamist attacks against them after the government was overthrown yesterday.
In the viral video, we also noticed a shop named ‘On Fire’. Using Google Maps, we geo-located the incident to Mohammadpur, Dhaka. The store being looted was one of the many outlets of a luxury Bangladeshi brand named Yellow.
YELLOW, whose parent brand is BEXIMCO, has 19 stores across Bangaldesh and an online platform serving Bangladesh and Canada. Their products include clothing, fragrances, accessories, home textiles, ceramics, paintings, and books. The Bangladesh Export Import Company Limited or BEXIMCO Group is the largest private sector group in Bangladesh founded in the 1970s by two brothers – Ahmed Sohail Fasihur Rahman and Salman Fazlur Rahman.
Salman Fazlur Rahman held the position of an adviser (private industry and investment) to former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, with the status of a cabinet minister.
Before Hasina resigned on Monday, August 5, Rahman fled the country on Sunday. Rioters reportedly broke into the home of Salman F Rahman, Hasinaâs financial adviser, looting artwork and household items and setting vehicles on fire. In the video, a woman is heard saying, “Take whatever you can. Take everything. You are doing great work. Very good, very good.”
Several Yellow stores across the country were attacked. In Dhanmondi, protesters set a YELLOW showroom on fire. According to eyewitnesses, even fire service personnel were initially deterred by the protesters. Later in the evening, they returned and attempted to extinguish the fire. Another Facebook post showed a Yellow outlet in Halishahar being looted.
Hence, a viral video of a YELLOW store in Mohammadpur, Dhaka, being looted is falsely amplified as visuals of a Hindu-owned establishment being looted. In reality, Yellow is a brand owned by Bangladeshi billionaire and Sheikh Hasina’s aide, Salman Fazlur Rahman.
is hosting the BRICS+ summit with many world leaders attending, including Indiaâs
Narendra Modi & Xi Jinping of China
, the two largest populations on EarthâŠ
 
(@VoiceofHindu71) 