K.N. Pandita
Belatedly Pakistan army has launched “comprehensive military operation” in North Waziristan.  Justifying the action, army spokesman accused TTP leadership of stalling secret talks held in a Gulf State for resolving the logjam. Two conditions of TTP were not acceptable to Islamabad; namely unconditional release of all TTP prisoners and declaring Pakistan Islamic theocratic state where sharia law would prevail.
For many years, Pakistan army remained non-responsive to US’ insistence on military action against the terrorist strongholds in North Waziristan where jihadis from other countries were concentrating.
How come that now the Government in Islamabad and the GHQ both have made loud announcement of impending action in volatile Waziristan?
The effective pressure and prompting have come not from Washington but from   Beijing. It is interesting.
Just two days after Islamabad announced military action in North Waziristan, 13 Uighur activists of Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) indicted for involvement in Urumqi railway station attacks and killing of Han Chinese, were executed after summary trial.  The timing is interesting.
Way back in 2012, the then Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi  told his  Pakistani hosts in Islamabad to take action against ethnic Uighur Islamic militants present in Pakistan’s lawless tribal area where they said the fighters are being trained before they cross into Xinjiang to carry out militant attacks.
Thereafter, Chinese Ministry of Public Security published a list of six terrorists with their profiles, saying they were operating in Pakistan. According to the Chinese list, Nurmemet Memetmin, described as the “commander of the ETIM”, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Pakistan, but he escaped in 2006 and has been planning new attacks against China, including the late July 2012 attacks on civilians in Kashgar. After the Kashgar attacks, Chinese authorities had invited the then Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence Chief Lt. Gen (r) Ahmed Shuja Pasha to Beijing in August and told him the militants had allegedly been trained in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
In March 2012, Xinjiang Governor, Nur Bekri warned that China was facing a network of militants entrenched in neighboring countries. Asked about the ETIM’s Pakistan connection, Bekri said: “We have certainly discovered that East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) activists and terrorists in our neighbouring state have a thousand and one links”.
In the past, China blamed Xinxiang’s violence on ETIM, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), and World Uighur Congress leader Rebia Kadeer. But it never implicated other countries, especially not its all-weather friend Pakistan. This thinking has changed.
In the most serious incident of violence in decades, 197 people were killed and about 1,700 others injured on July 5, 2009, when riots between Uighur and Han ethnic groups erupted in the regional capital of Urumchi.
Experts on militancy confirm the presence of militants of the ETIM in Pakistan’s North and South Waziristan regions, where several other foreign and international militant groups, such as the Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Army of Great Britain and Ittihad-e-Jihad Islami also operate.
Analysts assert that after Al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the ETIM is the third strongest foreign militant outfit operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas. According to one estimate, the number of Uighur militants in FATA was 50 to 300 during 2007-08. But today the number is said to be in the neighbourhood of 1000.
The influence of ETIM among jihadi groups is very strong so much so that the movement’s leader Abdul Shakoor Turkistani was rumoured to be Osama bin Laden’s successor after his death in May 2011.
Two days after TTP attack on Karachi International Airport, US drone attack on the hideouts of terrorists in North Waziristan successfully killed at least 16 terrorists including two important leaders, one of Uzbek and the other of Uighur origin as they were suspected to be the persons who had prepared the blueprint for Karachi airport attack.
As early as the month of May last, most of the foreign militants based in Waziristan area of Pakistan, had been noticed leaving the Machis Camp and Dattakhel village near Miranshah. They were also withdrawing from the villages of Musaki, Hurmaz, Hassankhel and Api. Those leaving these places included Chechens, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Tajiks and Uighurs all connected with one or the other Islamic radical organizations.
According to Reuters’ Pakistani security sources, hundreds of Uighurs moved to the unruly North Waziristan region on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border after China cracked down in Xinjiang following the July 2009 riots in Urumqi. China-Pakistan’s closest military, economic, and strategic ally-has been putting increased pressure on the Islamic Republic to root out Uighur separatists, and their numbers in the region.
Obviously, Pakistan Army’s military operation against the terrorists in North Waziristan is a sequel to two very clear perceptions. One is that Islamabad is under mounting pressure from China not to allow jihadi organizations converge on North Waziristan where they have the capability of providing terrorist training to recruits from other parts of the region including the Uighur youth of Xingjian. The second perception is that the powerful Pakistani Theo-fascist groups aiming at disintegrating Pakistani State and its military structure are not allowed to carry forward their agenda.
How deep will Pakistan army go into Waziristan in pursuit of the enemy and what will be the quantum and nature of its thrust is anybody’s guess. Side by side with the men in olive green inching deeper into the treacherous region of North Waziristan, ISI is in full motion to bring about cleavage in the rank and file of the enemy. Ultimately, it appears, a deal may be made with the remnants of TTP.
Our policy planners and strategist in New Delhi are debating the consequences of US-NATO pullout from Afghanistan on Kashmir security scenario. Now that Pakistan has launched comprehensive attack on the jihadis in Waziristan, it is going to be a long drawn battle which neither Pakistan army nor the TTP can endure.
But with the opening of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) front in Iraq, Islamic resurgence worldwide is adopting entirely new and unprecedented dimension. Scores of big or small Pakistan-based jihadi organizations are already geared to the philosophy of ISIS. Will the ISIS movement and fresh crisis in Iraq lead to polarization of Indian Muslim community also? That question is far more crucial than the immediate security scenario in Kashmir.

Shiban Khaibri
For more than a week say June 2 to June 11, many TV Channels ran stories, programmes, debates, discussions and more time slots in numerous very frequent “small breaks” laden news bulletins about “Delhi main batti gul”, “severe power crisis in Delhi” with such a high pitch as if it was Delhi alone in the country where power shortage was felt more intensely.  Those of us who must have watched such lavish coverage of the “plight of Delhietis” on the TV screens must have felt quite sympathetic for residents of some parts of Delhi “battling against the twin scourges” of the “heat wave and the power crisis” but also must have not approved of the trend of such channels whether for selected TRP or for unspecified objective to focus on Delhi alone. The channels were in a marketing competition to be “we were the first” to project “increased plight” of the residents who could be seen complaining about a cut of 2 to 4 hours. Power problem faced in certain localities of Delhi is not disputed or the right to have 24×7 uninterrupted power supply to the residents but why so much hue and cry only about some Delhi localities and not about Jammu ?
The stories ran as “the condition of the sick pitiable” the “elderly and the children worst sufferers” and “the students studying under candle lights”. More “heart rending” visuals were shown from the rooms of the affected residents with old conventional but time tested hand fans beating the heat or the fridges unable to keep milk and veggies cool.  Most of these residents ostensibly must be having invertors but for TV shooting of the moment, they must have been advised to rest their invertors to “project a wholesome pitiable condition”. One of the activists of the junior most political party which tried to build its fortunes in Delhi by focusing on the issue of electricity , even by its Chief climbing the electric poles to illegally connect the legitimately snapped supply wires for non payment of dues was shown as saying, ” most of the residents spent their night on roads”. Somnath  Bharti of AAP speaking unbelievably, ” Delhi residents are not tired eulogizing the unprecedented work done by us during 49 days of our government but what has happened to the BJP?” However, the people were not reminded that this was the Party which had confused the whole issue and given an unjustified  call to Delhi residents not to pay electricity bills resulting in  thousands  not paying and  making thousands of those ones rue for their moral decision to pay and pay in time under the maxim of “use and pay”.
We in Jammu continue to suffer on account of frequent load shedding, power curtailment for long hours, low voltage and the associated problems much more than the residents of Delhi but we do not get similar coverage on these TV channels? Why this selective discrimination? It may be recalled that no due response is shown by the state government to the problem of power in Jammu in this scorching unbearable heat even though the residents resort to demonstrations on the streets? Jammu residents are the first among those who pay the power bills in time and duly contribute towards state revenues but continue to reel under the electric erratic supply. Assurances from time to time about the elusive “self sufficiency” in power and exporting the surplus by the state government are heard but nowhere seen fructifying in reality.  Delhi is instantaneously projected even at the drop of a hat? Are non Delhi people including Jammu residents all comfortable and face no problems? A slight increase in the price  of milk,  onions etc; in  Delhi is widely  projected on TV channels  or in case of a temporary short  supply , Delhi alone is shown as suffering area and when subsidized onions and other items are to be distributed, again Delhi comes first, why? Is the projection on account of Delhi being the capital and most of the TV stations being in Delhi or in NCR areas?
This writer being in Delhi during this “critical period” casually shared this point with a few persons, one of them was more vocal saying how could so much of “ha ha kar” as portrayed by those TV anchors and news readers be accounted for when in scorching temperature of 46 plus they were seen attired in three piece suiting – which normally is worn in winter months. It seems ludicrous in a way to describe the chill around a snow peaked hill in harsh winter by just wearing there a thin cotton half sleeved shirt and a shorts? He  however knew how the inner temperatures of TV studios are manually maintained by air conditioning devices etc to enable the TV faces wear the non – light “heavy” suiting in western style in India, protection of the costly equipment, cameras etc not wholly as an alibi . Weather report cards are   usually read by the TV crew in attires not in tangency with the actual level of mercury just outside their studios.  That being a lighter part of the story, let it be analyzed as to why should there be so much of hype by some electronic media about a problem that is there usually during peak summer days and due to host of reasons.  The actual “defaulters” of the problem of electricity – the old Congress (currently struggling for LOP) and the junior most Delhi based AA Party (struggling for survival) taking to streets demonstrating and raising slogans against the BJP and even breaking pitchers and burning effigies outside the ruling Party office, is non comprehensible. Such cheap politicking of the issue is both redundant as well as ridiculous.
The power load of Delhi is more than 5038 MW , while the generation is merely 1207 MW. There is, as per reports, no power shortage in Delhi but the lacuna is in the distribution system. Why power generation capacity has not all these years increased poses a question on the way the Congress governments in Delhi functioned. For full 12 years, lack of proper decision making capacity has made the problem ticklish but  the central government plunged into defusing the crisis of not a bigger magnitude as it is projected and the Power Minister himself personally visited power houses and the system improved a lot. Rains brought a respite to Delhi , the temperature dipping from 45’c to 30 and even at places to 27’c. But a TV Channel was cautioning the people that the respite was only for a few days where after the heat wave was going to remerge. It is beyond comprehension as to why such fears are aired, if not spread, by TV correspondents from “the field” when Delhities are enjoying the unexpected cool breezes in otherwise hard core scorching summer, perhaps, again to claim by the concerned channel that “We were the first to report” or foresee the factual position.
Most of our cities, semi urban and urban areas where our fellow country men live, reel under severe power crisis but the problem is not blown out of proportion as in the case of Delhi. Likewise, we have here, in Jammu, especially during hot humid summer, the conventional power problem, unexpected and unspecified cuts, the usual time table of load shedding popularly called in simple parlance as “Baari” or turn. The cuts range from 4 to 6 hours or even more when an ordinary dust storm or a downpour visits Jammu. As regards water supply, less said the better but none runs stories or conducts debates and panel discussions about us on private (national) TV Channels which perhaps appears to be the exclusive right of the residents of Delhi .Is it because   we are governed under Article 370 or is it because most of our leaders in government are more busy in politics of the sorts than in caring for the welfare of the people ?

On the morning that I read in my morning newspapers that Preity Zinta had filed a case of ‘molestation’ and abuse against her former boyfriend I also read that a young mother in Madhya Pradesh had been gang-raped and paraded naked in front of her 10-year-old son. A famous actress charging the great grandson of Mohammad Ali Jinnah with ‘molestation’ is a sensational story while brutality against rural women is routine in India that is Bharat. So barely anyone noticed the story of the woman from Khandwa district who, incidentally, was also forced to drink urine to make it absolutely clear to her that in the eyes of her rapists (who included her husband) she was just garbage. Nothing but a piece of trash. This woman from the Bhil tribe had the courage to go to the police and luckily for her the police actually helped her instead of raping her again as often happens in our police stations.  Her rapists were arrested and she was taken to hospital. Blurry shots of her frail, shivering body lying in a green sari on a hospital bed with her little son sitting beside her appeared on some news channels but much more attention was devoted to Preity Zinta’s alleged molestation.
According to the actress her ex-boyfriend, Ness Wadia, abused her physically and verbally in the Wankhede Stadium in full public view and this made her feel shamed and violated.  Compared to what happened to the woman in Madhya Pradesh and to what happened to those two girls in Badaun and to the thousands of other horror stories we hear every day what happened to Preity did not in my view merit the attention it got. The alacrity with which the Mumbai police acted made me angrier still because I know, from personal experience, how reluctantly they respond to complaints of children being trafficked to the brothels in this city. So I tweeted that it was wrong of Preity Zinta to turn a spat with an ex-boyfriend in a packed stadium into a police case. I had no idea that this would result in me being abused on Twitter in unprintable language.
Then Shobha De who has moved seamlessly from writing soft porn to social commentary decided to attack me in a column she wrote for NDTV and I found myself at the centre of a row that played out on national television.  More vicious abuse on Twitter followed  from arm chair feminists who have never raised their voices in support of their less privileged sisters who are routinely subjected to acid attacks, trafficking and rape. What interested me most about the attack on me from these enraged ladies was that it brought out the divisions between India and Bharat more starkly than I have ever noticed them before.
Shobha De and her twittering sisters live in a world that Ms De described as ‘polite society’ on one of her TV appearances lifting her bejeweled fingers to indicate the quotes around those two words. What incenses them are the sort of things that happen in that supposedly polite society where women do not dare talk about verbal and physical attacks from husbands, lovers and exes. Many would like to go to the police as Ms Zinta did but dare not because they are often dependent financially on their abusive spouses. Many have noticed when they try to take their problems before courts of law that judges take an unsympathetic view of women who demand maintenance from divorced husbands.
These are problems that India shares with most developed western countries and although they are problems they are not nearly as serious as the daily horror of being a woman in Bharat. To have to take public transport late at night as Nirbhaya had to on that horrible night in Delhi two years ago or to have to work late nights in a job and face the prospect of being raped by your taxi driver is something that the twitterers who attacked me have never experienced. Nor do they know what it is like to be raped in a village on the orders of a panchayat simply because you exercised the right to choose your own husband. The twittering ladies have no idea what it is like to be tormented and brutalized by husbands just because you have produced daughters instead of sons.  That is what happens in Bharat dear ladies and it is for those very vulnerable women that the law was made more stringent after what happened to Nirbhaya.
When a famous actress uses it to defend herself against an alleged ‘molestation’ in a packed public stadium it amounts in my view to misusing the law. The police will always react with readiness to a complaint such as Ms Zinta’s because in addition to the ease of bringing charges against a well-known businessman there is the thrill of being on national television. But, in a country in which it will take an estimated 300 years to clear the backlog in our courts is it fair to add a case such as this one? Could Ms Zinta not have complained to stadium security and settled the matter? Could she not have shamed her former boyfriend by complaining to IPL officials about his behavior? Could she not have used the protection of going public with her complaints in interviews that the media would have lapped up greedily?
As someone who has often had to report on horrific and much more serious crimes against women and little girls I find it hard to feel sympathy for Ms Zinta.  If the Twitter sisterhood who I have so offended had seen just the ravaged body of the two-year-old girl who died from being raped by her mother’s boyfriend in a Delhi slum.  She was left in the charge of this monster and his friend because her mother had nursing night duty in a hospital. When they found her the next morning she lay dead between her two rapists who had not noticed that she had died and lay on either side of her in a drunken stupor.
This was long ago in the days before Twitter but it is a story that has haunted me ever since. So forgive me dear sisters if I have no time for your ‘feminist’ tantrums and your ‘feminist’ causes. My advice to you is take a deep breath and find out what happens every day in that country called Bharat that is next door to the India in which you live.