Comment by Riaz Haq on October 7, 2022 at 4:58pm

@suhasinih
Former Ambassador Katju dissects EAM Jaishankars speech at the UNGA
"Strong statements of a nationalistic flavour may win brownie points and popularity at home — facts, reason and logic as guides should never be overlooked."

https://twitter.com/suhasinih/status/1578286330987282432?s=20&t...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 7, 2022 at 5:10pm

From Indian News Agency ANI:

America upgrades Pakistani F-16 fighter jets, experts weigh in | Latest News

https://youtu.be/QSgU_cYzR08

Sep 8, 2022 US has approved F-16 fleet sustainment programme to Pakistan. The deal is valued at up to $450 million. This program essentially means structural and software upgrades, leading to additional usable flight hours. Pakistan Government requested to include US Government for follow-on support of Pakistan’s F-16 fleet to include an F-16 Aircraft Structural Integrity Program. The country has also requested to consolidate and include logistics services for support of Engine Management Program and software support. This program essentially means structural and software upgrades. It will lead to additional usable flight hours on existing F-16 aircraft and better air-to-ground precision capability. Defence Expert PK Sehgal reacted to President Biden’s millions dollar deal by saying that the initiative has been taken by US in order to resist the global Chinese hegemony.

Comment by Akhtar Hussain on October 8, 2022 at 4:27am

Riaz Sb,

I just read your posts on floods in Pakistan.  I wanted to share the following article as I live in The Netherlands.  I believe the Dutch has provided expertise in this matter to the city of Karachi before.

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/dutch-masters-netherlands-exp...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 8, 2022 at 6:17pm

Abhishek Jha
@abhishekjha157
Germany calls for UN's role in Kashmir issue.

German FM
@ABaerbock
said:

"Germany also has role and responsibility with regard to the situation in Kashmir, Therefore we support intensively the engagement of the United Nation, to find the peaceful solutions in the region."

https://twitter.com/abhishekjha157/status/1578427598165532672?s=20&...

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German call for U.N. role in J&K is injustice to terror victims: India - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/german-call-for-un-role-in-j...


The government took strong objection to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s call for the “engagement of the United Nations” in the situation in Jammu and Kashmir in response to a question during a joint press conference with Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto in Bonn on Friday. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) called such comments a “grave injustice” to victims of terrorism.

In her remarks, Ms. Baerbock said Germany supports U.N. role in resolving the Kashmir dispute, praised the LoC ceasefire agreement of February 2021, and also called for a “political dialogue” between India and Pakistan.

“Germany has a role and responsibility with regard to the situation of Kashmir. Therefore, we support intensively the engagement of the United Nations to find peaceful solutions in the region,” Ms. Baerbock said after bilateral talks with Mr. Bhutto in the German capital, where he said he had raised the Kashmir issue.

“There are tensions as [Mr. Bhutto] described, so we encourage Pakistan and we encourage India to follow the track of the ceasefire, to follow the track of the United Nations, and to intensify the political dialogue, and also the political and practical cooperation in the region,” she added.

Reacting sharply to the wording of Ms. Baerbock’s comments, the MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Saturday said that the “role and responsibility” of any “serious and conscientious member of the global community” was to call out international, cross-border terrorism.

“The Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has borne the brunt of such a terrorist campaign for decades. This continues till now,” Mr. Bagchi said referring to the unfinished prosecution of Pakistan-based terrorists involved in the Mumbai 26/11 attacks. “When states do not recognise such dangers, either because of self-interest or indifference, they undermine the cause of peace, not promote it. They also do grave injustice to the victims of terrorism,” he added.

Agreeing with Ms. Baerbock on the U.N. role, Mr. Bhutto said that peace in South Asia is not possible without the “peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, in accordance with the U.N. resolutions, in accordance with international law,” and even sought to draw a parallel between “unilateral actions in Ukraine” and “unilateral actions in Kashmir”, in reference to the government’s August 2019 reorganisation of the State.

The comments came a day after a speech by Home Minister Amit Shah in Baramullah in Kashmir, where he ruled out a dialogue process with Pakistan, saying the Modi government would not talk to Pakistan, but to “the people of Kashmir” only.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 8, 2022 at 6:17pm

German call for U.N. role in J&K is injustice to terror victims: India - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/german-call-for-un-role-in-j...


Earlier this week, New Delhi had also conveyed objections to Washington over the visit of the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan to Muzaffarabad, and the U.S.’s reference to the area under Pakistani occupation as “Azaad Jammu Kashmir”, indicating concern within the government about global references to the Kashmir dispute. In June, during a visit to Islamabad, Ms. Baerbock had also spoken about supporting the United Nations role, which India rejects, and the need to ensure that “human rights are being guaranteed” in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the MEA had not responded to the comments at the time.

Background
Since the Simla Agreement of 1972, when India and Pakistan agreed to resolve their disputes bilaterally, New Delhi has not recognised the role of the United Nations in Jammu and Kashmir, and the issue has remained largely dormant at the U.N. On August 16, 2019, days after the government’s move to reorganise Jammu and Kashmir and amend Article 370, the U.N. held its first discussion on Kashmir in decades, albeit behind closed doors, where the U.N. Secretary-General had called for “restraint” from India and Pakistan. Ms. Baerbock’s comments on the U.N. role, made twice this year, have hence raised concerns and met with objections from New Delhi.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 10, 2022 at 12:03pm

Russian imports | West did not supply weapons to India for decades: Jaishankar

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/west-did-not-supply-weapons-...

Western countries saw military dictatorship in the region as its preferred partner, EAM Jaishankar said
India has a substantial inventory of Soviet and Russian-origin weapons because the Western countries opted a military dictatorship in the region as its preferred partner and did not supply weapons to New Delhi for decades, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on October 10, in an apparent reference to Pakistan.

During a joint press meet with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong in Canberra, Mr. Jaishankar also said that India and Russia have a long-standing relationship that has certainly served New Delhi’s interests well.

--------------------


Sameer P. Lalwani Tweet 

Claims the US/West denied defense equipment to India seem unfair & incomplete. All parties made choices. Price & tech leakage were factors, as were political strategies. The USSR sought to foil Indian diversification to keep it on the hook & Delhi sought to appease Moscow. 

https://twitter.com/splalwani/status/1579503327376990208?s=20&t...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 10, 2022 at 6:15pm

IAF's Balakot Disaster Two Years On

By Kaiser Tufail, ex PAF fighter pilot

http://kaiser-aeronaut.blogspot.com/


Induction of the Rafale in IAF has created considerable media interest, and the impression has been created that with immediate effect, IAF will rule the Indian skies. It must, however, be remembered that it will be at least two years before the Rafale achieves anything close to Full Operational Capability[2]. PAF, on the other hand, has been flying F-16s for 37 years, including hot scenarios during the Afghan War, in local counter-insurgency operations, and the latest Operation ‘Swift Retort,’ downing half a dozen enemy fighters in these operations. The JF-17 has been fully operational for over a decade, and is expected to replace the legacy fighters over the next five years. These combat-proven PAF fighters are fully integrated with the air defence system (e.g. AWACS), and are mutually data-linked, alongside all AEW and ground sensors. Such capabilities are not achieved overnight, and it will be several years before the Rafales can be considered a threat in any real sense. Any immediate impact of the Rafale on IAF’s air power capabilities is, thus, simply overhyped. This inference, however, must not be dealt with lightly, as there is a distinct possibility of the Indian Prime Minister using the Rafale for a false-flag operation in a surreptitious manner, to prove his point that, “with the Rafale, the results would have been different,” from those of 27 February 2019.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 11, 2022 at 10:06am

US Army secretary looks to 2040 to scale key tech


https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2022/10/11/us...

“To be able to win the fires fight; to be able to take dispersed forces and have them converge together to engage the enemy; to be able to see farther, more persistently, longer than our adversaries; to be able to protect ourselves; to be able to share data and communicate, not just with each other but with the other services and our allies; and then to sustain that whole joint force, we’re going to need systems, capabilities,” (US Army Secretary Christine) Wormuth said. “That is really where you get into a lot of the programs that we always talk about in our six modernization portfolios.”

-----------

The war games took into account efforts currently under development — including those on weapons systems, concepts and the new multidomain operations doctrine — in order to determine “the next set of concepts” and the requirements that will drive them, Wormuth explained.

“I can’t think of an area that we’re not doing anything in right now,” she said. “We’ve got work underway looking at networks, at AI, at autonomy, at … biotechnology. Those are the things that I think we want to have the labs focused on, so I don’t think there’s a wholly uncovered area at this time.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 12, 2022 at 10:30am

Gen Bajwa in DC, US envoy, German FM statements on Kashmir, show why Pakistan can’t be isolated.

By Shekhar Gupta

https://youtu.be/NuXd4d_clf4

The US ambassador visits Pakistan occupied Kashmir & refers to it as ‘Azad Jammu & Kashmir’, German foreign minister says UN could play a role in Kashmir & Pakistan’s Army Chief spends nearly a week in Washington. In episode 1093 of Cut The Clutter Shekhar Gupta explains why Pakistan cannot be isolated or ignored and where it stands right now.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 13, 2022 at 10:37am

Pakistanis Perceive China as Their ‘Best Friend’
While perceptions of China have soured in many parts of the world, very few Pakistanis have anything but positive sentiments toward Beijing.

https://thediplomat.com/2022/10/pakistanis-perceive-china-as-their-...

As part of the Sinophone Borderlands public opinion survey in Pakistan in June 2022, over 1,200 Pakistani respondents were asked two open-ended questions about their perception of China. Respondents were drawn from all regions of Pakistan and included a representative sample of age groups and genders. The same questions have also been asked in many other countries and very rarely have the answers been as significantly positive as in Pakistan.

The first survey question asked what first came to people’s minds when thinking of China. The most common answers, as the word cloud reveals, were “friend,” “best friend,” “good friend,” and even “trusted friend.” Chinese people were perceived as friendly and hardworking. The country itself was seen as being strong, and developed, with many respondents labeling it a superpower. Also, China was seen as helpful and supportive of Pakistan. The connection between the two countries was described as a “brotherhood” and many people celebrated it by saying “long live Pak-China friendship.”


The second question asked whether people’s general view of China got better or worse during the previous three years and why. An overwhelming majority of the Pakistani respondents (85 percent) gave a positive answer. Only 9 percent indicated a worsening of their perception, and 6 percent stayed neutral. Those who indicated seeing China in a worse light than before identified reasons like COVID-19, China working only for its own benefit, and China’s treatment of Muslims (this was the most common answer among the negative answers). People whose perception got better focused mostly on China’s support to Pakistan in the form of CPEC, Chinese investment, or even China’s COVID-19 support.

The results prompt an important question: Why are the attitudes of Pakistanis so overwhelmingly positive toward China, and why so much more so than in other countries? The answer is that their positive attitudes are linked to China’s long-term support for Pakistan, especially through CPEC, and Pakistan’s otherwise rather isolated position in South Asia, where it lacks other firm allies.

In particular, the positive attitude correlates with Chinese investments flowing into the country under the label of CPEC, which was frequently mentioned by the respondents. Although the CPEC investment program has progressed more slowly than expected, especially with regard to the development of Gwadar port in Balochistan province, there have been notable successes. Transport and energy infrastructure, so badly needed in Pakistan, have been built. New power plants have added energy to Pakistan’s power grid. Roads and railways are being constructed. The ML-1 connection linking Karachi with the northern city of Peshawar is the most significant project under construction by Chinese companies. ML-1 is employing an estimated 24,000 workers and will ultimately cost around $6.8 billion. However, more work needs to be done, especially with regard to energy, since Pakistan is still prone to blackouts.

Nevertheless, what drives China’s popularity among the citizens of Pakistan is that China is really Pakistan’s one and only stalwart ally. It is the only country that is currently willing to invest in Pakistan on a large scale. India is a mutual enemy, while the United States has clearly given up on Pakistan since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The U.S. is also China’s geopolitical rival. As far as other possible candidates for aid are concerned, Russia is supplying arms to India, and Pakistan has mixed relations with its other neighbors such as Iran and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, even though there are problems with the CPEC megaproject, it is the only game in town. China also continues to supply Pakistan’s military with the majority of its arms imports.

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