Friday, 30 March 2018
Thursday, 29 March 2018
India begins process of selling ‘enemy properties’
By: The National
The Indian government plans to raise billions of rupees by auctioning off “enemy properties”, houses and land left behind by people who moved to Pakistan or China in the wake of India’s wars with those countries.
Roughly 9,280 such properties were abandoned, or given to relatives, by people who became Pakistani nationals after wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971. Similarly, people who went to China during or after the 1962 war left behind around 126 properties.
On Monday, the home ministry issued guidelines to govern the sale process, and it asked the Custodian of Enemy Properties (CEP), a government agency, to submit a list of assets within three months.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
District-level committees will assess the precise values of the properties, based on real-estate prices in the area. But Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, the junior home minister, had told parliament last year that the government’s estimate of the properties’ aggregated value ran to 1 trillion rupees.
But the government’s classification of these properties is not without controversy, and some lawyers claim it discriminates against Indian Muslims.
When the Enemy Property Ordinance was issued in 1968, India had already fought wars with India and China. The CEP took over management of these properties, essentially to ensure that they could not be used to aid hostile powers, said Aishwarya Pandit, who teaches at Jindal Global Law School in Sonipat and who studies laws dealing with enemy properties.
“There was precedent in international law for this kind of measure,” Ms Pandit told The National. “The US and the UK did the same thing during the Second World War, with properties owned by those who went to the Axis countries.”
The premise of such laws has always been that properties would be returned after hostilities end, Ms Pandit said, but in reality, that has never happened.
Successive Indian governments renewed the ordinance after 1968. Last year, however, India’s parliament — dominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — replaced the ordinance with an act that made the original stipulations even more stringent.
The law now recognises as enemy property any land or house that a person lawfully transferred to heirs or relatives before moving to Pakistan or China. A father who chose to relocate from Delhi to Karachi, for instance, may have passed on his Delhi residence to his son before doing so. But even if the son continued to live on in Delhi as an Indian citizen, never even setting foot in Pakistan, his house can be considered enemy property.
The new law did not go unchallenged. In parliament, while debating over this provision, the senior Congress politician Shashi Tharoor argued that it tries to “explicitly create two kinds of Indian citizens … If somehow there are two categories of Indian citizens and one category does not have the rights of the other, that is a very dangerous practice”.
Last year, another Congress parliamentarian, Husain Dalwai, filed a petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the law. Mr Dalwai’s lawyer, Anand Grover, told Reuters that the law’s purpose “seems to be to deprive Muslims of their right to ancestral property that the state seized”.
The guidelines issued on Monday suggest that while vacant enemy properties may be auctioned directly or converted to government use, properties occupied by heirs may be sold back to them for “a percentage of the valuation”.
Mr Dalwai’s petition was dismissed. But another still-pending petition, filed by Mohammad Amir Khan, may hold a ray of hope for those who hope to hold on to their ancestral property.
Mr Khan’s father, the former king of the Mahmudabad region of Uttar Pradesh, went from India to Iraq in 1947, and then on to Pakistan, where he became a citizen in 1957. Mr Khan inherited the title of “Raja” and also the royal properties: 936 of them, across north India.
When the CEP took over these properties — against the letter of the previous ordinance — Mr Khan sued and fought that lawsuit for decades. In 2005, the Supreme Court confirmed that Mr Khan, as an Indian citizen, was entitled to regain his properties.
But they were never returned to him. Further, the new law — which Mr Khan called “dictatorial” and “arbitrary” — precludes any possibility that he will ever get back his properties. His petition, filed in the Supreme Court, hopes to persuade judges that the new law contradicts the 2005 court decision in his favour.
Ms Pandit said she did not hold much hope for Mr Khan. “In most court cases about enemy property, the property hasn’t been returned,” she said. “I don’t think this can be challenged with any success.”
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
India shoots down US proposal for communications secrecy pact to maintain distinction with latter's NATO allies
Original Source: Click Here
By: New Indian Express
India has shot down a US proposal for an “umbrella” communications secrecy pact to maintain a distinction with the US’ NATO allies but it has also requested Washington DC to examine an “ideal” cross-posting of army, navy and air force officers at its Central and Pacific Commands, the two theatres that largely determine military-to-military relations.
“The US will have to tailor the arrangements”, a highly-placed security official said, emphasizing the word, and explaining Indian policy to The New Indian Express on Wednesday. “We do not want to be described as a NATO ally”. Famously, President George Bush (the second) had described Pakistan as a Major Non-Nato Ally (MNNA) in 2004.
Proposals for more mechanisms in the defence relationship have been renewed in weeks leading to the first joint meeting of the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries likely in April. The Indian defence and foreign secretaries have recently concluded talks with their counterparts in the run-up to the inaugural ‘2+2’ ministerial.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
“We will seek equipment-specific pacts,” the official said. He also went on to explain what that means after describing the importance of having liaison officers of all the services of the militaries in the US’ Central Command (CENTCOM) and the Pacific Command (PACOM), headquartered in Hawaii, that covers the rest of Asia and what is increasingly called the Indo-Pacific.
The area of responsibility of CENTCOM, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, in the US, covers Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of West Asia including the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden.
Though it has been of India’s interest to interact with CENTCOM, India-US military-to-military relations are the responsibility of PACOM at the theatre-level. Centcom and Pacom are only two of the US’s unified military combatant commands that span the globe. Pacom is the largest.
Explaining the significance of COMCASA, the official said “we might find it restrictive but a NATO ally of the US may not view it as such”.
The Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) is a re-naming of what was the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA). The US agreed the change of nomenclature as an exception to make it India-specific. A change in nomenclature was also agreed by the US to the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) that was signed in 2016 after more than a decade of negotiations and was renamed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA).
But the official in the security establishment says that New Delhi does not favour an agreement that will cover all military platforms, equipment and components that India could source from the US that may compromise information. At the same time, India recognized that ‘non-disclosure’ clauses were part of many contracts. The US insists that signing such arrangements will enable the sale or transfer of advanced military technologies to India.
Instead, the official said, it may be more prudent for India and the US to go the path of an End-User Verification Arrangement that was agreed in the past.
US’ military leaders describe the CISMOA, the EUMA, a Basic Cooperation Agreement on Geospatial Arrangements as “foundational documents” on which rest the US’ military alliances.
In New Delhi, the view is that these arrangements are from a time and context that have changed since the Cold War when countries of the US-led NATO and the erstwhile Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact were eyeball-to-eyeball. NATO still operates while the Warsaw Pact was disbanded.
Current relations need to reflect that changed context, the official explained to TNIE. Instead of an arrangement that will cover all military transfers, India could consider “freezing a standard text” and then making that equipment and country-specific. That was roughly the process followed for the EUMA over years that India could otherwise find intrusive.
Under US law, inspectors from the Pentagon are required from to verify that military equipment exported from the US were being used for the purposes they were meant.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
“The US will have to tailor the arrangements”, a highly-placed security official said, emphasizing the word, and explaining Indian policy to The New Indian Express on Wednesday. “We do not want to be described as a NATO ally”. Famously, President George Bush (the second) had described Pakistan as a Major Non-Nato Ally (MNNA) in 2004.
Proposals for more mechanisms in the defence relationship have been renewed in weeks leading to the first joint meeting of the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries likely in April. The Indian defence and foreign secretaries have recently concluded talks with their counterparts in the run-up to the inaugural ‘2+2’ ministerial.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
“We will seek equipment-specific pacts,” the official said. He also went on to explain what that means after describing the importance of having liaison officers of all the services of the militaries in the US’ Central Command (CENTCOM) and the Pacific Command (PACOM), headquartered in Hawaii, that covers the rest of Asia and what is increasingly called the Indo-Pacific.
The area of responsibility of CENTCOM, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, in the US, covers Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of West Asia including the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden.
Though it has been of India’s interest to interact with CENTCOM, India-US military-to-military relations are the responsibility of PACOM at the theatre-level. Centcom and Pacom are only two of the US’s unified military combatant commands that span the globe. Pacom is the largest.
Explaining the significance of COMCASA, the official said “we might find it restrictive but a NATO ally of the US may not view it as such”.
The Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) is a re-naming of what was the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA). The US agreed the change of nomenclature as an exception to make it India-specific. A change in nomenclature was also agreed by the US to the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) that was signed in 2016 after more than a decade of negotiations and was renamed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA).
But the official in the security establishment says that New Delhi does not favour an agreement that will cover all military platforms, equipment and components that India could source from the US that may compromise information. At the same time, India recognized that ‘non-disclosure’ clauses were part of many contracts. The US insists that signing such arrangements will enable the sale or transfer of advanced military technologies to India.
Instead, the official said, it may be more prudent for India and the US to go the path of an End-User Verification Arrangement that was agreed in the past.
US’ military leaders describe the CISMOA, the EUMA, a Basic Cooperation Agreement on Geospatial Arrangements as “foundational documents” on which rest the US’ military alliances.
In New Delhi, the view is that these arrangements are from a time and context that have changed since the Cold War when countries of the US-led NATO and the erstwhile Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact were eyeball-to-eyeball. NATO still operates while the Warsaw Pact was disbanded.
Current relations need to reflect that changed context, the official explained to TNIE. Instead of an arrangement that will cover all military transfers, India could consider “freezing a standard text” and then making that equipment and country-specific. That was roughly the process followed for the EUMA over years that India could otherwise find intrusive.
Under US law, inspectors from the Pentagon are required from to verify that military equipment exported from the US were being used for the purposes they were meant.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
Indian army can maintain preparedness within existing budget: Bipin Rawat
Original Source: Click Here
By: Indian Express
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday asserted that the Indian Army could maintain its operational preparedness within the existing defence budget by prioritising and readjusting. He also said the process of modernisation of the armed forces had begun, but would not happen overnight.
His comments come after a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence presented a report earlier this month, highlighting the lack of budget for the armed forces. The panel had asked the Prime Minister’s Office to take note of the crisis.
The report was based on testimonies of the vice-chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, who had painted a dismal picture of defence modernisation and stalled projects due to lack of budgetary support in financial year 2018-19. The defence budget was increased by a mere 7.81 per cent to Rs 2.95 lakh crore for the current fiscal against last year’s Rs 2.74 lakh crore.
“Some more budget, if it is given to us, we will be happy. But we can balance the budget to meet our operational requirements,” General Rawat said. He said the government was giving more approvals and if contracts were finalised, more funds would be made available.
“It is possible to reprioritise and readjust the budget within the existing money available, by giving the operational preparedness a higher priority. This is not to say that accommodation for families are not needed, but they can take some time. We are balancing the budget to focus on operational preparedness,” he said.
The Army chief said that infantry weapons, surveillance devices for the infantry and security of Army bases was his highest priority. The requirements of the mechanised forces, artillery and air defence will be taken up in subsequent years, he said. To balance the budget, the Army has now identified need for different types of weapon systems for infantry soldiers in active operations, and another weapon system for other soldiers, Rawat said.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
His comments come after a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence presented a report earlier this month, highlighting the lack of budget for the armed forces. The panel had asked the Prime Minister’s Office to take note of the crisis.
The report was based on testimonies of the vice-chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, who had painted a dismal picture of defence modernisation and stalled projects due to lack of budgetary support in financial year 2018-19. The defence budget was increased by a mere 7.81 per cent to Rs 2.95 lakh crore for the current fiscal against last year’s Rs 2.74 lakh crore.
“Some more budget, if it is given to us, we will be happy. But we can balance the budget to meet our operational requirements,” General Rawat said. He said the government was giving more approvals and if contracts were finalised, more funds would be made available.
“It is possible to reprioritise and readjust the budget within the existing money available, by giving the operational preparedness a higher priority. This is not to say that accommodation for families are not needed, but they can take some time. We are balancing the budget to focus on operational preparedness,” he said.
The Army chief said that infantry weapons, surveillance devices for the infantry and security of Army bases was his highest priority. The requirements of the mechanised forces, artillery and air defence will be taken up in subsequent years, he said. To balance the budget, the Army has now identified need for different types of weapon systems for infantry soldiers in active operations, and another weapon system for other soldiers, Rawat said.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
Pak Army warns India of response in case of any "misadventure"
Original Source: Click Here
By: ET
Pakistan Army today warned India of a response in case of any "misadventure" across the border and said nobody should underestimate the capability of the country's armed forces.
"If India tried for any misadventure, then it will be responded," Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said at a press briefing.
He was responding to a question about the state of preparedness in case of a surprise attack by India.
"Nobody should underestimate our capability vis-s-vis India. Our response capability in case of any threat from India is absolutely ready," he said.
Ghafoor also accused India of killing of 30 Pakistani civilians in 2018 in firing along the Line of Control.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
"Pakistan has played a positive character for peace in the region. If India promotes instability in Pakistan through Afghanistan or the Line of Control it will not be in India's best interests either," he said.
To a question, the spokesman said that Indian diplomats were also invited to witness the Pakistan Day parade on March 23 along with diplomats from other countries.
"We wanted to show the world that we have invited them (Indian) despite what they are doing to our diplomats...We also wanted to show them our capability and resolve," he added.
"If India tried for any misadventure, then it will be responded," Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said at a press briefing.
He was responding to a question about the state of preparedness in case of a surprise attack by India.
"Nobody should underestimate our capability vis-s-vis India. Our response capability in case of any threat from India is absolutely ready," he said.
Ghafoor also accused India of killing of 30 Pakistani civilians in 2018 in firing along the Line of Control.
Watch Video: India's Super Sukhoi will technologically out match China's latest Su-35 jets
"Pakistan has played a positive character for peace in the region. If India promotes instability in Pakistan through Afghanistan or the Line of Control it will not be in India's best interests either," he said.
To a question, the spokesman said that Indian diplomats were also invited to witness the Pakistan Day parade on March 23 along with diplomats from other countries.
"We wanted to show the world that we have invited them (Indian) despite what they are doing to our diplomats...We also wanted to show them our capability and resolve," he added.
US Air Force releases video of the future sixth-generation fighter jet, expect these features
By: ENS
The US Air Force on March 22 released a video showcasing the abilities of its conceptual sixth-generation fighter jet, which is also hailed as the Next-Generation Air Dominance or Penetrating Counter Air. In the video we can see the sixth-generation fighter jet, also known as F/X, firing a high energy laser that cuts another fighter in half.
The power of the jet is still unclear, however, it is speculated that it will have longer range, larger payload and will be able to switch between a manned and an unmanned aircraft. The fighter is estimated to travel at hypersonic speeds, and can also be loaded with hypersonic weapons.
The US Air Force is yet to decide on who’s going to develop such a highly-specified aircraft, but officials expected its services to likely start around 2030. A statement released by Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) website, read, “In order to defend America, we need your help to innovate smarter and faster…Our warfighters depend on us to keep the fight unfair and we will deliver.”
The statement also added that the AFRL community will hold several events at universities across the US this spring and summer, where it will interact with various scientific communities, higher education and business professionals.
The video released by AFRL also features the Air Force’s “Loyal Wingman” initiative, in which a manned fighter jet can undertake and control a swarm of attack and surveillance drones. The video also contains DARPA’s “Gremlin” program and the Air Force’s Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, a missile potential of causing an electronic blackout.
Since 2015, the US Air Force has been suggesting ideas about mounting lasers on planes and jets, such as AC-130s, and F-15s and F-16s. As per a report in the Business Insider, the US government recently awarded a $26.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin for developing lasers for fighter jets.
Wednesday, 28 March 2018
Stepping back from Maldives, India tells China
Original Source: Click Here
By: Indian Express
India has told China it will not intervene in the Maldives and expects it to reciprocate this measure of “strategic trust” by not crossing certain “lines of legitimacy” even as the two countries size each other up in the aftermath of the Doklam crisis last year when they faced off on the plateau.
“The days when India believed that South Asia was its primary sphere of influence and that it could prevent other powers, such as China, from expanding its own clout are long gone,” a senior government official told The Indian Express.
“India cannot claim sole proprietorship of the region. We can’t stop what the Chinese are doing, whether in the Maldives or in Nepal, but we can tell them about our sensitivities, our lines of legitimacy. If they cross it, the violation of this strategic trust will be upon Beijing,” the official said.
So as India gets ready to welcome Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli for a three-day visit on April 6, it is keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the neighbourhood.
Despite some harsh words about India during his election campaign and his overtures to China, Oli is making his first foreign trip to India — and Delhi is taking some comfort on that score.
Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale is expected to travel to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh soon.
Sources said he will not go to the Maldives, despite Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen’s messages of peace.
But the senior government official pointed out that the Doklam crisis is an opportunity for both India and China to re-evaluate each other, notwithstanding the widening economic differential between them.
Embarking on a “reset” of its relationship with Beijing in the run-up to the meeting in June between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting — this includes tamping down of its public affection for the Dalai Lama as well as visits to Beijing by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the coming weeks — it is clear that Delhi expects Beijing to reciprocate.
For example, India Monday refrained from issuing a joint statement between the Indian and Chinese commerce ministers at the end of their 11th Joint Economic Group (JEG) meeting, because the Chinese side refused to seriously address India’s massive $51-billion trade deficit with it.
Officials said Indian companies “have been knocking on China’s doors at least for the last decade,” but the Chinese, for one reason or another, have refused access.
“India has in this intervening decade exported billions of dollars of goods to the rest of the world, including the US. There is surely something the Chinese want to buy from us,” one official said.
At the end of the JEG meeting, Delhi issued its own statement in which Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu “exhorted” his counterpart, Zhong Shan, to provide greater market access to farm produce such as rice, soybean and sugar, India’s “high quality pharmaceutical products,” as well as “export of (its) IT and IT-enabled services to China”.
Zhong, meanwhile, only “promised” to address the trade deficit, and laid out yet another roadmap on how this could be done.
The senior Indian official maintained that China must recognise Indian sensitivities, even as Delhi acknowledged Beijing’s rising power worldwide, especially in South Asia.
On the Maldives, for example, the unusual overture to China was made by none other than Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale during his trip to Beijing in February, after the imposition of emergency on the island nation by President Yameen and Delhi’s own statement that “all countries can play a positive role, instead of doing the opposite”.
Delhi’s decision “not to militarily intervene” against Yameen’s emergency is said to be backed by the US and the European Union, both of whom are believed to have left it to India to take a call on next steps. But Delhi seems content to ride out the political storm until at least September when general elections are slated there.
On Beijing building new roads on the Doklam plateau to short-circuit “disputed” Bhutanese territory and come closer to India through the Chumbi valley, the official didn’t seem unusually concerned.
“I don’t think the Chinese will attempt to change the status quo in this area again. They have understood that this region is sensitive for us. In any case, as long as what the Chinese do doesn’t prejudice the India-Bhutan-China trijunction, it doesn’t materially change anything,” the official said.
“The days when India believed that South Asia was its primary sphere of influence and that it could prevent other powers, such as China, from expanding its own clout are long gone,” a senior government official told The Indian Express.
“India cannot claim sole proprietorship of the region. We can’t stop what the Chinese are doing, whether in the Maldives or in Nepal, but we can tell them about our sensitivities, our lines of legitimacy. If they cross it, the violation of this strategic trust will be upon Beijing,” the official said.
So as India gets ready to welcome Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli for a three-day visit on April 6, it is keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the neighbourhood.
Despite some harsh words about India during his election campaign and his overtures to China, Oli is making his first foreign trip to India — and Delhi is taking some comfort on that score.
Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale is expected to travel to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh soon.
Sources said he will not go to the Maldives, despite Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen’s messages of peace.
But the senior government official pointed out that the Doklam crisis is an opportunity for both India and China to re-evaluate each other, notwithstanding the widening economic differential between them.
Embarking on a “reset” of its relationship with Beijing in the run-up to the meeting in June between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting — this includes tamping down of its public affection for the Dalai Lama as well as visits to Beijing by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the coming weeks — it is clear that Delhi expects Beijing to reciprocate.
For example, India Monday refrained from issuing a joint statement between the Indian and Chinese commerce ministers at the end of their 11th Joint Economic Group (JEG) meeting, because the Chinese side refused to seriously address India’s massive $51-billion trade deficit with it.
Officials said Indian companies “have been knocking on China’s doors at least for the last decade,” but the Chinese, for one reason or another, have refused access.
“India has in this intervening decade exported billions of dollars of goods to the rest of the world, including the US. There is surely something the Chinese want to buy from us,” one official said.
At the end of the JEG meeting, Delhi issued its own statement in which Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu “exhorted” his counterpart, Zhong Shan, to provide greater market access to farm produce such as rice, soybean and sugar, India’s “high quality pharmaceutical products,” as well as “export of (its) IT and IT-enabled services to China”.
Zhong, meanwhile, only “promised” to address the trade deficit, and laid out yet another roadmap on how this could be done.
The senior Indian official maintained that China must recognise Indian sensitivities, even as Delhi acknowledged Beijing’s rising power worldwide, especially in South Asia.
On the Maldives, for example, the unusual overture to China was made by none other than Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale during his trip to Beijing in February, after the imposition of emergency on the island nation by President Yameen and Delhi’s own statement that “all countries can play a positive role, instead of doing the opposite”.
Delhi’s decision “not to militarily intervene” against Yameen’s emergency is said to be backed by the US and the European Union, both of whom are believed to have left it to India to take a call on next steps. But Delhi seems content to ride out the political storm until at least September when general elections are slated there.
On Beijing building new roads on the Doklam plateau to short-circuit “disputed” Bhutanese territory and come closer to India through the Chumbi valley, the official didn’t seem unusually concerned.
“I don’t think the Chinese will attempt to change the status quo in this area again. They have understood that this region is sensitive for us. In any case, as long as what the Chinese do doesn’t prejudice the India-Bhutan-China trijunction, it doesn’t materially change anything,” the official said.
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