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The United States and Canadian governments are alleging that Indian government agents plotted assassinations of Sikh dissidents on their soils. Their investigations paint a shocking picture of how recklessly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government operates.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Home Minister Amit Shah |
The criminal charges announced by Washington and Ottawa are backed by Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the remaining three countries that make up the 5-nation intelligence sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes. Revelations made by the US Justice Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) indicate that the authorization for Sikh assassinations came directly from the top Indian government officials, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man Amit Shah. International criminal gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi is listed among the people tasked with carrying out the murders. These allegations are based on intelligence gathered from multiple communication intercepts among Indian government officials in New Delhi and Indian diplomats posted in Canada.
Sikh Leaders Targeted in Assassinations Campaign by Modi Government |
RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme has warned of widespread violence, homicides and a public security threat linked to agents of the Indian government. Duheme said the RCMP has charged “a significant number” of people with direct involvement in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts of violence over the past few years and is aware of more than a dozen threats to members of the south Asian community and the pro-Khalistan movement, according to the Canadian news media.
Meanwhile, the United States Justice Department (US DOJ) has charged a former Indian intelligence agent Vikash Yadav for allegedly orchestrating a foiled plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen living in New York City. Last year, the DOJ first announced charges in the case, indicting an Indian national and alleged drug and weapons trafficker, Nikhil Gupta. That indictment also referred to an unnamed Indian government official whom prosecutors said directed the scheme.
New Delhi is responding very differently to almost identical allegations made by the US and Canadian governments. While the Canadians are treated with total disdain, the Americans are being taken very seriously. The behavior of the Modi officials toward Canada is just as hostile as it has been toward Pakistan which has also documented a campaign of assassinations of Sikhs and Kashmiris orchestrated by Indian agents on its soil.
Reacting to the report of Canadian allegations against the Indian government, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi said: “We are aware of the nature of our eastern neighbor, we know what they are capable of … so it is not a surprise for us. “We caught [one of their] serving naval intelligence officers on our soil. He (Kulbhushan Jadhav) is in our custody and admitted that he came here to create instability and spread evil,” he added.
Last year, Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said her country remained a “target of a series of targeted killings and espionage by (Indian Intelligence Agency) RAW". “In December last year, Pakistan released a comprehensive dossier providing concrete and irrefutable evidence of India’s involvement in the Lahore attack of June 2021. The attack was planned and executed by Indian intelligence,” she said, adding that in 2016, a high-ranking Indian military officer Kulbhushan Jadhav confessed to his involvement in directing, financing and executing terror and sabotage in Pakistan.
The US government has openly bracketed Mr. Modi with several murderous dictators. Speaking about the US decision to grant immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in 2022, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that it was “not the first time” that the US government has designated immunity to foreign leaders and listed four cases. “Some examples: President Aristide in Haiti in 1993; President Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001; Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014; and President Kabila in the DRC in 2018. This is a consistent practice that we have afforded to heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers,” he said.
Modi has a long history of murdering minorities in his country. After the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, Narendra Modi made the cover of India Today magazine with the caption "Hero of Hatred". Modi was denied a visa to visit the United States. The US visa ban on Modi was lifted in 2014 after he became prime minister. Since then, Narendra Modi's image has been rehabilitated by the West as the US and Western Europe seek allies in Asia to counter the rise of China. However, Modi's actions on the ground in India confirm that he remains "Hero of Hatred" and "Divider In Chief" at his core. A two-part BBC documentary explains this reality in significant detail. The first part focuses on the 2002 events in Gujarat when Modi as the state chief minister ordered the police to not stop the Hindu mobs murdering Muslims and burning their homes and businesses. The second part looks at Modi government's anti-Muslim policies, including the revocation of Kashmir's autonomy (article 370) and a new citizenship law (CAA 2019) that discriminates against Muslims. It shows the violent response by security forces to peaceful protests against the new laws, and interviews the family members of people who were killed in the 2020 Delhi riots orchestrated by Modi's allies.
Here's Indian National Security Advisor on how to use Taliban to attack Pakistan:
https://youtu.be/eYRuk8H5M9E?si=ZB1c7Dd8ntQdKeFi
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Shrinking middle class hitting FMCG firms
https://www.financialexpress.com/business/industry-shrinking-middle...
The FMCG sector is facing sluggish demand as it is becoming polarised with the middle class shrinking but simultaneously there being high demand for premium products, Nestle India chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan said on Tuesday. He added that in bigger cities, a channel shift is also being noticed with people preferring e-commerce and quick commerce.
Speaking to a select group of reporters at the company’s Samalkha facility, Narayanan said, “there used to be a middle segment which used to be the segment most of us FMCG companies used to operate in, which is the middle class of the country. That seems to be shrinking. And there is a completely, purely price-quality-be-damned-led segment, which also seems to be doing reasonably well”. As a result, companies offering fair to reasonable value in the middle segment are finding their fortunes temporarily shrinking, he added.
Nestle’s demand pattern also reflects this. Narayanan said that the company’s chocolate business was among the worst hit due to the slowdown. Yet, its premium chocolates were among the best performers in terms of growth.
He said that earlier this situation used to last for a quarter and then bounce back, but now it has lasted for two-three quarters.
Last week, Nestle India, reported its slowest quarterly growth in eight years. The company said it was primarily due to weak demand and high raw material costs.
“The pressure points are coming from mega cities and metros,” Narayanan said. “It is almost like we operating in two Indias,” he added.
The categories that have taken the biggest hit are milks & nutrition, and chocolate and confectionery. However, its core products like Maggi, KitKat and Milkmaid continue to grow at double digits.
‘Not sure how GDP numbers coming’: Asian Paints CEO points to disconnect with sectoral performance
https://theprint.in/economy/not-sure-how-gdp-numbers-coming-asian-p...
He went on to question whether the GDP data correlated with the “actual GDP” being produced by the underlying sectors of the economy.
“So, even if you look at the core sectors, whether it is steel, cement, so on and so forth, no where it is correlating with the kind of possibly overall GDP growth in terms of what we are kind of talking of,” he said.
“So, we are also looking at ways and means in terms of finding out what is the real GDP,” Syngle added.
His comments come at a time when India’s FMCG sector spent the financial year 2023-24 struggling to increase sales. Asian Paints saw its revenue grow 2.6 percent in the financial year 2023-24, significantly slower than the 19.4 percent revenue growth it saw in the previous financial year.
Hindustan Unilever, India’s largest FMCG company by market capitalisation, reported an anaemic 2 percent growth in revenue in 2023-24. This is down from a 15.5 percent revenue growth in 2021-22.
ITC, too, saw only a 2 percent growth in its revenues in the third quarter of FY24, the latest period for which it has declared results.
Simultaneously, the government is estimating that India’s GDP would have grown 8 percent over the course of 2023-24.
This number doesn’t really represent the growth in India when looking at particular regions or sectors of the country, according to Syngle.
“The correct GDP in terms of what would really be applied to a certain sector is something which I think we need to work and find out,” he said. “Because the GDP is also varying from region to region. If you look at possibly certain regions in the country, some regions are growing faster, some regions are growing slower, but when you get the GDP number overall, that’s a conglomeration of a full number.”
India makes it clear it's not interested in a Western alliance
As the dispute over assassination plots lingers, the Modi government rebuffs U.S. attempts to woo India
Evan Dyer · CBC News · Posted: Oct 25, 2024 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: October 25
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/india-china-canada-u-s-nijjar-pann...
A meeting Wednesday between India's Narendra Modi and China's Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia, was the first in five years, and will likely be viewed with dismay in Washington, Ottawa and other Western capitals.
While it probably doesn't mark the beginning of a new Beijing-New Delhi axis, it does seem to signal that India is not about to sign on to an anti-Beijing Western alliance either, despite the best efforts of the U.S. and some other countries to persuade it to do so.
"Would the U.S. be disappointed? I imagine," said Sanjay Ruparelia, a close observer of the Modi government who teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University. "I don't think publicly they would express it, but privately."
Ruparelia said U.S. relations with India have always been complicated, and that complexity has always required the U.S. to split the relationship into silos.
"On the one hand, ties have grown despite many disagreements, and quite serious ones. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, most importantly," he said.
"But you know, we've seen in the last year a new agreement on critical emerging technologies. You've seen growing defence and security partnerships. [U.S.] President Biden was reportedly the third leader in history to have his Indian counterpart at his own private residence. And that was this year — after the FBI foiled the plot to allegedly kill Mr. (Gurpatwant Singh) Pannun."
Most recently, the U.S. signed a deal to sell India Predator drones, the primary weapons used by the U.S. in its own campaigns of extraterritorial killing targeting such groups as al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
"And I'm not surprised by that," said Ruparelia. "I mean, the U.S. is the great power and they practice realpolitik more than any other power in the world."
Ruparelia said that while he takes the RCMP's statement that they have evidence linking agents of the Indian government to homicides and other acts of violence in Canada "seriously," the U.S. government clearly has "compartmentalized the issue" in order to continue working with India.
Murder claims may take a back seat to larger issues
There are multiple factors at work in Modi's decision to seek rapprochement with China. But the tensions with the West over India's alleged program of assassinating dissidents in Canada and the U.S. could not have helped to sell him on the idea of ditching India's traditional non-alignment and jumping into an alliance with the countries that have accused him.
At the same time, the geopolitical stakes between nations as large and powerful as the U.S., India, China and Russia all but ensure that the assassination allegations will end up taking a back seat to other, bigger considerations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, host of this year's BRICS summit, will be delighted with the meeting between Xi and Modi in Russia and may seek to take some of the credit.
Putin was careful to seat himself between the Indian and Chinese leaders, offering a visual symbol of his role as facilitator of their coming-together, said Prof. Ho-fung Hung of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
"This kind of photo-op meeting, in which Putin is showing up side by side with all these world leaders, is a win for Putin because it's a kind of defiance of the U.S. attempt to isolate Russia," he said. "Putin can show to people back home that actually [he has] friends, and Russia has friends, despite all these U.S. efforts. So the U.S. is failing in isolating Russia."
Top India Minister Authorized Crimes in Canada, Official Alleges - Bloomberg
Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah authorized a wave of violence across Canada that included extortion and homicides, said a senior Canadian government official. David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign minister, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed the identity of Shah in a newspaper report earlier this month.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-29/top-modi-ministe...
Arjun Sethi
@arjunsethi81
Confirmation from Canada today:
Amit Shah, Modi’s second in command, authorized the assassination program targeting Sikhs in North America.
India is a serial human rights abuser run by authoritarian strongmen who are exporting violence across the world.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-29/top-modi-ministe...
https://x.com/arjunsethi81/status/1851554632583053816
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Bloomberg Economics
@economics
Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah authorized a wave of violence across Canada that included extortion and homicides, said a senior Canadian government official
https://x.com/arjunsethi81/status/1851554632583053816
Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah authorized a wave of violence across Canada that included extortion and homicides, said a senior Canadian government official. David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign minister, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed the identity of Shah in a newspaper report earlier this month.
KJ
@Kabal_Jee
India is emerging as a cyber threat to Canada 🇨🇦.
From the time when PM stood in the house of commons, there was mis/disinformation coming from ppl who works for India 🇮🇳
https://x.com/Kabal_Jee/status/1851856825257189831
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Canada-India tensions could escalate cyber threats, hinder immigration | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-india-tensions-could-escalate-...
Canada accuses Indian Minister Amit Shah of masterminding violence against Sikhs
Cyber espionage by India against Canada likely to increase, says Canadian intelligence
Trade relations between Canada and India remain unaffected despite diplomatic tensions
The Canadian signals intelligence agency that monitors foreign-based cyber threats said New Delhi was most likely already conducting threatening cyber activity against Canadian networks for spying purposes.
"As Canada and India potentially may have some tensions, it is possible that we may see India want to flex those cyber threat actions against Canadians," Caroline Xavier, head of the agency, known as Communications Security Establishment Canada, told a Wednesday press conference. The agency has previously described India as an emerging threat.
Ashok Swain
@ashoswai
Canada deputy foreign minister confirms Modi’s henchman cum home minister Amit Shah has ordered the killing of Sikh activists in Canada. Shah does all the dirty jobs for Modi, so Modi is the prime culprit and both of them will be dragged to ICC soon.
https://x.com/ashoswai/status/1851705273175478595
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India's population has aged faster than expected while its economic growth has slowed over the last decade. This raises the obvious questions: Will India get old before it gets rich? Is India getting poorer relative to its peers in the emerging markets? …
Posted by Riaz Haq on October 29, 2024 at 12:30pm — 1 Comment
The United States and Canadian governments are alleging that Indian government agents plotted assassinations of Sikh dissidents on their soils. Their investigations paint a shocking picture of how recklessly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government operates. …
Posted by Riaz Haq on October 19, 2024 at 4:43pm — 7 Comments
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