Category Archives: International Opinion.

Modi engineered a vigilante-police state, one in which the righteous were punished and perpetrators rewarded.

The New Face of India Is the Anti-Gandhi

The violence, insecurity, and rage of Narendra Modi.

Modi cannot be held solely responsible for such rage and despair, even if he amplifies it.

His supporters, at home and in the West, the West itself, which chooses to ignore the violence in India, and a complaisant liberal intelligentsia, concerned more with its career prospects than with standing up to Modi, have to share the responsibility.

There is also much continuity between Modi’s India and what preceded it, including the way in which the Congress stood aside during the 2002 massacres and their aftermath, selectively exploiting the culpability of Modi and his government but never genuinely interested in justice; nurturing Hindu majoritarianism under the guise of nationalism; promoting the enrichment of a select few.

From this hollowed-out form of success, bereft of love, spirituality, and justice, meaning can only emerge from banality and hatred.

Modi’s contradictions and lies channel the confusions of his supporters perfectly. In a manner reminiscent of the vanguards of China’s Cultural Revolution.

they accuse the old elites of holding back the nation and the culture from true greatness. They attack those responsible for the ruined past, the uncertain future, and the endless present.

They assail the “anti-nationals” who stand in their way, beating and molesting people while shouting, “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.” They demand people say it to prove they are not traitors, emboldened by a meeting of the BJP in March, led by Modi, that declared a refusal to use the slogan as tantamount to disrespecting the Indian constitution.

They hammer, with swords and guns and smartphones and double-digit growth, at the doors of the beef-eaters, the environmentalists, the university students, the feminists, the Dalits, the leftists, the dissenting writers, the skeptics, the “anti-nationals”—anyone who will not declare, both fists clenched, “Bharat Mata Ki Jai!” They have a rage that must burn itself out, and all that stands between them and the ashes of their rage is the astonishing, amazing phenomenon of a world that can still produce, from the crushed bottom layers of Indian society, people who, with every bit of the dignity and courage they can muster, resist the lure of their silent, lonely, aloof, admired, and unloved leader

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Death Of Passenger During Flight

Death Of Passenger During Flight

20191106_113333.jpg6 Nov 019

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Myanmar police to free journalists working for Turkish broadcaster

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar police says they will drop pending charges against two journalists working for Turkey’s state broadcaster, their interpreter and driver, who were jailed in November for violating an aircraft law by filming with a drone.

Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore, reporter Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, Aung Naing Soe – a local journalist who was interpreting for the pair – and driver Hla Tin were detained by police on Oct. 27 near Myanmar’s parliament building in the capital Naypyitaw.

They are currently each serving a two-month prison sentence under a colonial-era aircraft law, but all four still face further charges for importing the drone. The two foreign nationals have also been charged with an immigration offence.

Police Lieutenant Tun Tun Win and an immigration officer – the complainants – appeared in a Naypyitaw courtroom on Tuesday and asked that the court drop the charges.

Tun Tun Win told the foreign media higher police officials had ordered the case dropped because the four did not mean to endanger national security by flying the drone.

Additionally, he said, the decision was intended “to forward the relationship between countries”, referring to the two journalists’ home countries, Singapore and Malaysia.

A law officer – the government’s prosecutor in the case – was expected to tell the court the charges were formally dropped in another hearing set for Thursday, defense lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told.

“The higher authorities already instructed to terminate with good intention, but the procedure can only be accomplished on that day (Thursday),” the lawyer said.

The four are set to complete their sentences under the aircraft act on Jan. 9, but may be released earlier for good behavior, he added.

The case had raised concerns over freedom of the press in Myanmar, where a civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took power last year but the military retains control of security matters, including the police.

Two journalists were arrested on Dec. 12 after they went to meet police officers for dinner on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city Yangon. Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, have now been in detention for two weeks with no access to visitors or to a lawyer.

They had covered the crisis in western Rakhine state that has driven 655,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims across the border to Bangladesh since August.
The reporters are being investigated under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act.

Indian President may join Pakistani leaders to attend TAPI event

New Delhi: Indian President Ram Nath Kovind may visit Turkmenistan in February 2018 and attend a ceremony to mark the completion of the construction of first part of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, Indian media reported.

Kovind has been invited by Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to attend the ceremony at Turkmenistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Berdimuhamedov extended the invitation when he recently called Kovind. The two presidents reviewed “issues of common interest and expressed satisfaction at growing bilateral relations”.

The TAPI gas pipeline project was announced in May 2002. India joined the consortium in 2008. The TAPI Pipeline Company Limited (TPCL) was incorporated in 2014.

Common blood pressure drug tied to increased risk of skin cancer

COPENHAGEN: People who take a certain water pill prescribed to control fluid retention and treat high blood pressure may be more likely to get skin cancer than other individuals, a Danish study suggests.

While the drug, hydrochlorothiazide, has long been linked to an increased risk of sunburns, the current study offers fresh evidence that this commonly prescribed medication may also make people more likely to develop two types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.

For the study, researchers examined national prescription registry data on hydrochlorothiazide use from 1995 to 2012 as well as cancer registry records on skin malignancies diagnosed from 2004 to 2012.

Overall, people who took hydrochlorothiazide daily for at least six years were 29 percent more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma and almost four times more likely to get squamous cell carcinoma than individuals who didn’t take this medication, the study found.

“We already knew that hydrochlorothiazide makes the skin more vulnerable to damage from UV light of sun or sunbeds,” said senior study author Anton Pottegard of the University of Southern Denmark.

“However, we did not know that hydrochlorothiazide use also appears to translate into an increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer,” Pottegard said by email.

The study included more than 71,000 people with basal cell carcinoma, 8,600 patients with squamous cell carcinoma, and a control group of more than 313,000 people in the Danish population who didn’t have these malignancies but were otherwise similar to the cancer patients.

About 2.7 percent of patients with basal cell carcinoma and 2.1 percent of the control group were high users of hydrochlorothiazide, with a lifetime cumulative dose of at least 50,000 milligrams, or roughly six years of daily use.

Ten percent of squamous cell carcinoma cases were high users, as were 2.8 percent of people in the control group.

With the highest cumulative hydrochlorothiazide exposure – approximately 24 years of daily use – patients were 54 percent more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma and more than seven times more likely to get squamous cell carcinoma.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how hydrochlorothiazide might cause skin cancer.

Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on two main factors that influence the risk of skin cancer: ultraviolet light exposure and skin type, the study authors note in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

“There may be a relationship between taking hydrochlorothiazide and risk for skin cancer,” said Dr. Aaron Farberg of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

“However, the relationship may not be directly causative,” Farberg, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

Even so, the findings add to the evidence suggesting that patients taking hydrochlorothiazide should take extra precautions to protect their skin from damage caused by the sun, said Dr. Elizabeth Martin, president of Pure Dermatology & Aesthetics in Hoover, Alabama.

“Everyone can reduce their skin cancer risk by avoiding unprotected exposure to UV light,” Martin, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Don’t use indoor tanning devices, and protect yourself from the sun by seeking sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher.”

Patients taking hydrochlorothiazide shouldn’t stop without first seeing a doctor, Pottegard cautioned. While there are other safe, affordable options to manage high blood pressure, patients already taking hydrochlorothiazide won’t meaningfully alter their skin cancer risk by staying on the drug for a few months until a physician can advise them, he said.

“If you are at an increased risk of skin cancer, due to high exposure to sunlight, have already experienced skin cancer, or are otherwise predisposed to skin cancer, you should consider consulting your physician regarding a potential therapy shift,” Pottegard said.