The party will present a comprehensive report to the national leadership based on the insights gathered from these meetings…reports Asian Lite News
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched an in-depth analysis of its defeat in the recently-held Jharkhand Assembly elections, conducting four marathon meetings at its state office in Ranchi, under the leadership of national General Secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santhosh, over the weekend.
The party will present a comprehensive report to the national leadership based on the insights gathered from these meetings. A high-level review meeting, chaired by BJP President J.P. Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, is scheduled to be held in New Delhi on December 3.
During the two-day deliberations held on Saturday and Sunday, defeated candidates, district presidents, in-charges, and leaders of party fronts shared their inputs and deliberated upon the reasons for the poll defeat.
Several participants attributed the loss to vote erosion caused by the Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JKLM), which impacted BJP candidates in several constituencies.
The Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha made a strong debut in this election and secured around 10.51 lakh votes in the 69 constituencies it contested though it won one seat only. Party chief Jairam Mahato even defeated JMM’s heavyweight candidate Baby Devi by about 11,000 votes. The participants also flagged the presence of rebel candidates and infiltrators in key constituencies as a significant challenge.
The “Maiya Samman Yojana”, a scheme introduced by the Hemant Soren government to transfer money to women’s accounts just before the elections, was also cited as a factor which swayed voters.
Successful candidates also shared campaign insights, which will aid in identifying areas for improvement. Santhosh encouraged party members to treat the defeat as a lesson, emphasising the need to address weaknesses with greater energy. He stressed that organisational growth and policy promotion must be prioritised.
He also announced a strategic relaunch of the party’s membership drive in Jharkhand, which had been on hold due to the elections. While acknowledging the disappointment, Santhosh highlighted a silver lining — the BJP’s vote share increased in the elections. He urged party workers to thank voters at the grassroots level and use upcoming municipal elections as an opportunity to redefine organisational strategies.
The review meetings were chaired by Jharkhand BJP President Babulal Marandi. Key leaders including state in-charge Laxmikant Bajpai, acting state President Ravindra Kumar Ray, Regional Organisation Secretary Nagendra Nath Tripathi, and Jharkhand General Secretary Organisation Karmveer Singh actively participated.
Other attendees included Vice-President Balmukund Sahay and office minister Hemant Das, along with core committee members. In the recently held elections, the JMM-led INDIA bloc secured a resounding victory securing 56 seats, while the BJP-led NDA managed to win just 24 seats in the 81-member House.
Further slamming the ruling party, he said The BJP only talks about morality but “repeatedly engages in unethical behaviour.” …reports Asian Lite News
Launching a scathing attack on the BJP-led central government, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “leaving no stone unturned to break our unity.”
Addressing the ‘Samvidhan Bachao’ rally at Ramleela Maidan, Kharge said,”Modi ji leaving no stone unturned to break our unity… They leave behind the common man because they hate them. Our fight is against this hatred. For that, political power is essential…”
Further slamming the ruling party, he said The BJP only talks about morality but “repeatedly engages in unethical behaviour.”
“They steal your votes using EVMs… steal MLAs, as seen in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, and Manipur. They also steal elected governments and steal your pensions. Conduct fair elections, don’t steal votes. I’ve received complaints from many places, where people claim that 1,000 votes were cast within an hour. Battery (EVM) runs out, later it shows 60-70% battery life,” he alleged.
He accused the BJP of attempting to undermine the country’s unity.
“We cannot achieve anything unless we are united. As long as we remain divided–from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and Bengal to Gujarat–we cannot achieve our goals. Every organisation in the country wants to protect the Constitution, which is the foundation of our nation. If we protect the Constitution, we will be able to protect ourselves.”
He underscored that the Constitution does not belong to any single individual but to everyone, calling for a nationwide movement to safeguard it.
“After independence, women can now become the Prime Minister, the President, MPs, MLAs, Zilla Panchayat Chairpersons, and Mayors. All of this is possible because of the Constitution. That’s why the movement to protect the Constitution should be universal–it is not just yours or mine; it belongs to everyone,” he added.
Kharge criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), remarking, “They say, ‘Ek raho, safe raho,’ but they do not let anyone stay safe. ‘Batenge toh katenge’–the ones who divide and the ones who harm are the same people.”
On being asked by a reporter if a Congress delegation will visit Sambhal, Kharge said “Jayega, jayega…”
On the repeated adjournments in Parliament, Kharge said, “They (the government) allege that we do not allow the House to function. So many elected representatives are present and want to participate in discussions, but the House is adjourned before that, with the claim that we are creating disruptions. This is their responsibility, not ours.”
On Friday, Parliament was adjourned until December 2 due to ongoing protests by Opposition MPs.
Both houses of Parliament held only brief sessions in the past week amid disruptions, as the Opposition demanded discussions on the Adani issue and the violence in Manipur and Sambhal.The winter session of Parliament began on November 25 and is scheduled to conclude on December 20. (ANI)
More than a week after the Mahayuti clinched a massive victory in Maharashtra polls with the BJP emerging as the single largest party with 132 seats, the new government is yet to be sworn in …reports Asian Lite News
The name of Devendra Fadnavis has been finalised as the new chief minister of Maharashtra who will be elected as the legislature party leader in a meeting to be held either on December 2 or 3, a senior BJP leader said on Sunday night.
Earlier in the day, outgoing Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said he would support the BJP’s decision to pick the new chief minister. “The name of Devendra Fadnavis has been finalised as the new chief minister of Maharashtra. The meeting to elect the new BJP legislature party meeting will be held on either December 2 or 3,” a senior BJP leader said.
Amid speculation that his son Shrikant Shinde might get the deputy CM’s post and Shiv Sena is keen on the Home portfolio, Eknath Shinde said the Mahayuti allies- BJP, NCP, and Shiv Sena- will decide the government formation through consensus after sitting together.
More than a week after the Mahayuti clinched a massive victory in Maharashtra polls with the BJP emerging as the single largest party with 132 seats, the new government is yet to be sworn in. The oath-taking ceremony of the new Mahayuti government is scheduled for December 5 evening at the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend it.
The BJP is moving cautiously as aspirations of its allies, especially Shiv Sena, grew after the massive poll victory. Despite Shinde’s insistence on Mahayuti unity, some leaders of allies spoke in different voices.
Former Union minister and BJP leader Raosaheb Danve said if the undivided Sena and BJP had contested the elections together, they would have won more seats.
Separately, Shiv Sena MLA Gulabrao Patil claimed that the Eknath Shinde-led party would have won 90-100 seats in polls had Ajit Pawar’s NCP not been part of the alliance, drawing a sharp reaction from the Ajit Pawar-led party.
The BJP legislature party meeting to elect the leader, who will be the party’s chief ministerial pick, is yet to be held even though Shiv Sena and NCP have elected Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar as their legislature party leaders, respectively.
A senior Mahayuti leader said the allies will jointly decide whether only the chief minister and deputy CMs will take oath on December 5 or ministers will also be sworn in. Shinde had left for his native village in Satara district on Friday amid speculation that he was not happy with the way the new government was shaping up.
Talking to reporters in his village on Sunday before leaving for Mumbai, Shinde said, “I have already said the decision on CM’s post taken by the BJP leadership will be acceptable to me and Shiv Sena and will have my full backing”.
On speculation that Shrikant Shinde will be made a Deputy CM in the new government and whether Shiv Sena has staked the claim for the home portfolio, Shinde replied, “Talks were on”.
“A meeting took place in Delhi last week with (Union home minister) Amit Shah, and now we three alliance partners will discuss the nitty-gritty of government formation after sitting together,” he said. Responding to a query on his health, the Shiv Sena leader said he was fine now and had come to his native village to get some rest.
Shinde reiterated that there are no differences among Mahayuti allies and pointed out that the BJP is yet to announce its legislature party leader. “There are no ifs and buts. My health is fine now. The work of our government will be written in golden words in the history,” he said. Shinde landed in Thane on the late Sunday afternoon.
Though the oath-taking ceremony of the new government just four days away, there seems no clarity on the schedule of the much-awaited BJP legislature party meeting. A BJP leader claimed the party’s MLAs have not been informed yet regarding the timing of the legislature party meeting.
A day earlier, BJP leaders confirmed that the meeting will be held on December 2. Maharashtra NCP chief Sunil Tatkare said,”We will sit together and decide whether only chief minister and deputy chief ministers will take oath or ministers will also be sworn in”.
Differences among Mahayuti allies, meanwhile, came out in the open on Sunday. “Had Shiv Sena not split into two, and contested assembly elections with the BJP, our victory would have been bigger than what we achieved today. We had also won comfortably in the 2019 assembly elections,” Raosaheb Danve said.
He claimed the Shiv Sena split because of Sanjay Raut, a close aide of Uddhav Thackeray. “You wait for six months, and Raut will cause a rift between Uddhav and his son Aaditya as well,” he added.
Trump called those rioters who were convicted political prisoners and “hostages” who he claims were wrongfully prosecuted and has said he would pardon them…reports Asian Lite News
President-elect Donald Trump has taunted President Joe Biden for pardoning his son Hunter, asking if the pardon includes his supporters serving prison terms for participating in the January 6 riots when Congress was attacked
In a post on Truth Social on Sunday night. he called the pardon “such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice”!
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years,” he asked using a shorthand for the January 6, 2021 riots.
After Trump held a rally claiming he had won the 2020 election and it was “stolen” from him, some of his supporters invaded the Capitol threatening then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress as they were certifying Biden’s election.
Trump called those rioters who were convicted political prisoners and “hostages” who he claims were wrongfully prosecuted and has said he would pardon them.
Trump had himself indicated that he was open to pardoning Hunter Biden “despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what, and Hunter’s a bad boy”.
Hoping to put a sordid family case behind him as he leaves office, Biden pardoned his son Hunter who was convicted of gun and tax evasion charges sparing him the possibility of prison sentences.
Announcing the pardon, Biden said that “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice” in his son’s case.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” he said.
Biden’s claims about the selective prosecution of his son because of political pressures echo Trump’s assertion that he was tried and convicted for political reasons by prosecutors who weaponised the justice system.
The president asserted that others who committed the same offences as his son and under similar circumstances were not prosecuted like him unless there were other circumstances or were given non-criminal deals.
Trump and his supporters have made the same arguments — politically motivated selective prosecution — in his two convictions in New York.
The 34 criminal convictions that the Democrats touted in the campaign were for mislabeling payments in his account books and each cheque was made into separate offences.
In the civil case where he was fined $354 million, he was accused of inflating his net worth in applying for bank loans, although the loans were repaid and the banks did not complain.
Both cases were brought by elected Democratic Party prosecutors.
Before Biden announced the pardon, a Representative from his party, Jamie Raskin cited Trump’s claims to make the case for Hunter Biden.
“There is a defence called selective prosecution if you can show that the government has a set of cases that all look alike, but they pick one person out to prosecute based on, say, a political animus towards the person, which essentially is the claim that Donald Trump has been making about why he was targeted,” he said.
Trump’s Spokesperson Steven Cheung said without referring to Biden’s pardon, “The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ (Department of Justice) and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponising the justice system.”
“That system of justice must be fixed and due process must be restored for all Americans, which is exactly what President Trump will do as he returns to the White House with an overwhelming mandate from the American people,” he said.
Other Republicans piled on, attacking the pardon.
Senator John Barrasso posted on X, “Tonight’s pardon is wrong. It proves to the American people that there is a two-tier system of justice”.
Rep. Wesley Hunt posted, “Joe Biden just did the thing he told us he would never do, PARDONING his son for crimes he and the majority of the media told us he never committed.”
And Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Truth Social, “This pardon is Joe Biden’s admission that Hunter is a criminal”.
She added that Biden’s “FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and DOJ (Department of Justice) raided Barron’s bedroom and Melania’s closet at Mar-a-Lago”, referring to Trump’s son and wife.
Biden had said, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision” to pardon his son.
Senator Tom Cotton conceded in his X post, “Most Americans can sympathise with a father’s decision to pardon his son, even if they disagree”, but he added, ”What they can’t forgive is Biden lying about it repeatedly before the election.”
Hunter Biden played a central role in Trump’s first impeachment in which he was accused of pressuring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged business irregularities in order to impair Biden’s bid for the presidency.
A Ukrainian gas company had appointed Hunter Biden as a director with monthly payments even though he had no experience in the energy field.
While the House of Representatives impeached Trump, the Senate did not convict him.
The Economic Freedom Fighters and African Transformation Movement want the Constitutional Court to overrule a vote by Parliament in late 2022 that saved Ramaphosa from impeachment hearings …reports Asian Lite News
Two South African opposition parties asked the country’s top court Tuesday to revive impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa over a scandal where more than half a million dollars in cash was stashed in a couch at his ranch and then stolen.
The leftist Economic Freedom Fighters and African Transformation Movement want the Constitutional Court to overrule a vote by Parliament in late 2022 that saved Ramaphosa from impeachment hearings.
Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party used its parliamentary majority to stop an impeachment vote by lawmakers. But the opposition parties say Parliament did not fulfill its constitutional duty to hold the president to account after a preliminary investigation found some evidence of misconduct by Ramaphosa and recommended a full probe.
The opposition parties want a full parliamentary investigation.
Ramaphosa was cleared of wrongdoing by financial authorities, by a public watchdog and by police after a two-year criminal investigation.
The case threatened Ramaphosa’s leadership after it was revealed in June 2022 that around $580,000 in U.S. banknotes was stolen from a couch at his game farm. The theft happened in early 2020 but came to light two years later.
Ramaphosa was accused of money laundering and breaching foreign currency laws, and of covering up the theft. He said the money came from the legitimate sale of animals at his ranch but has not explained why it was hidden in a couch.
The opposition parties pushed that question again at Tuesday’s court hearing.
“There needs to be an explanation,” said Anton Katz, a lawyer for the ATM party.
Ramaphosa’s long-ruling ANC lost its parliamentary majority in May’s election. Any revival of impeachment hearings could be risky for the leader of Africa’s most advanced economy, who was reelected for a second term in June with the help of coalition partners. However, the EFF and ATM are small parties and would ultimately need support from others who joined the ANC-led coalition government to impeach Ramaphosa, which is seen as unlikely. The Constitutional Court typically takes weeks and sometimes months to deliver a ruling.
‘We are committed to ending poverty ‘
South Africa is committed to ending poverty in the country through collective actions and far-reaching social and economic reforms, said President Cyril Ramaphosa.
He remarked while delivering his annual address to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), the upper house of parliament, in Cape Town, the legislative capital of South Africa.
The address and the debate on it were held under the theme “Dedicating Our Efforts towards Reducing Poverty and Tacking the High Cost of Living.”
“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings,” Ramaphosa declared, invoking the words of Nelson Mandela. He noted that poverty in South Africa has deep roots, including centuries of colonial and apartheid humiliation, dispossession and exclusion.
“The end of poverty and inequality in South Africa therefore requires nothing less than the fundamental social and economic transformation of our country,” he said.
Ramaphosa also outlined the government’s progress in lifting millions of South Africans out of absolute poverty. According to him, in 1993, 71 per cent of South Africans lived in poverty, by 2010 the poverty rate had dropped to 61 per cent and in 2020, it was at 56 per cent.
Ramaphosa acknowledged that challenges remain, given nearly a quarter of the population experiences food poverty, and unemployment, particularly among young people, persists as a pressing issue.
To address these challenges, “our focus is on the actions we must take — boldly and with urgency — to implement our electoral mandate,” he said. “Our actions must make a real difference in people’s lives now. Our actions must also build an inclusive economy that will continue to reduce poverty into the future — and ultimately eradicate it.”
According to the president, key reforms are underway in strategic sectors such as energy, water, telecommunications, and transport. For example, he highlighted the restoration of commuter train services, which he said is the most affordable mode of transport, as part of efforts to ease the financial burden on low-income households.
Ramaphosa specifically emphasised the importance of education, describing it as “the most powerful instrument we have to end poverty.” “By investing in the skills and capabilities of young people, we will be able to break the cycle of poverty that is handed down from one generation to the next.”
He also noted that as South Africa assumes the G20 presidency in December under the theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability,” the country will use the opportunity to advocate for global partnerships to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring “no one is left behind” in the fight against poverty.
“Poverty, unemployment and inequality are so pervasive and so persistent that we sometimes fear we may never overcome them,” said Ramaphosa. “And yet, we overcame apartheid. We overcame slavery and colonialism. Through our collective actions, we will be able to end poverty in our country.”
Violence has reemerged in one of the world’s most protracted conflicts in eastern Congo, where Congo’s government accused the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group of “ethnic cleansing”
East African heads of state made another push for peace in eastern Congo on Saturday but its prospects remained bleak following a regional summit that was marked by the Congolese president’s absence and an early departure of his Rwandan counterpart.
A communique read at the end of the closed-door meeting of the East African Community in Arusha, Tanzania, only stated the need to combine regional and broader peace initiatives for sustainable peace in eastern Congo.
Violence has reemerged in one of the world’s most protracted conflicts in eastern Congo, where Congo’s government accused the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group of “ethnic cleansing” in mineral-rich areas close to Rwanda’s border.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame left shortly after the closed-door meeting in Arusha. There was no official explanation for Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi’s absence at the summit.
Congo alleges that Rwanda has been involved in war crimes in the east, and U.S. and U.N. experts accuse it of giving military backing to M23. Rwanda denies the claim, but in February admitted that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border. U.N. experts estimate there are up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in Congo.
A July truce brokered by the United States and Angola has reduced the fighting between Rwandan and Congolese forces, but fighting between M23 and other militias continues.
Other leaders at the summit were Presidents Salva Kiir of South Sudan, Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, William Ruto of Kenya, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia. Burundi was represented by its vice president. Ruto was elected as the new chairperson of the EAC Summit, succeeding Kiir.
“Our focus must be on increasing competitiveness, promoting value-added production and boosting intra-regional trade to create jobs and transform our economies,” Ruto said.
He also urged member states to remain committed to the timely disbursement of statutory contributions to sustain the bloc’s operations.
Africa’s internally displaced population triples in 15 years
The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Africa has tripled to 35 million by 2023 since the adoption of a landmark treaty 15 years ago to address the issue, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC). The report noted that this figure accounts for nearly half of the world’s total IDPs.
IDMC Director Alexandra Bilak said the displacement situation in Africa is absolutely critical, but not hopeless. “There are many good examples on the continent of governments working to address its root causes. It’s important for them to keep ownership of this issue and the international community to support their efforts.”
The report, titled “Internal Displacement in Africa: An Overview of Trends and Developments (2009-2023),” acknowledges progress by African governments but concludes that these efforts remain insufficient. Rising conflict and violence continue to drive the majority of displacement, with disasters also contributing to an increasing number of forced displacements.
According to the report, out of Africa’s 35 million IDPs, 32.5 million were displaced by conflict and violence, with 80 percent concentrated in just five countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan.
The IDMC said the adoption of the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, or the Kampala Convention, in 2009 marked a milestone in addressing internal displacement. When it entered into force on Dec. 6, 2012, it became the first and only legally binding regional treaty addressing all causes and phases of internal displacement.
Bilak said addressing displacement and helping people rebuild their lives require not only short-term relief but also long-term investments. “To reverse the trends and keep the promise of the Kampala Convention alive for the next 15 years, governments must redouble commitments to addressing displacement’s underlying drivers through peace-building, climate action, and sustainable development,” he said.
While some African countries have developed national policies and invested significantly in protecting and assisting IDPs under the convention, the report pointed out that escalating conflicts and a changing climate have made it difficult for governments to keep pace.
“Helping them find solutions to their displacement is part and parcel of reaching a country’s development goals,” added Bilak.
This year has become the worst year on record for deaths of aid workers, with 281 deaths globally, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday.
“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. “This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations. States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity.”
OCHA said record fatalities also were recorded in 2023, with 280 aid workers killed across 33 countries. Stephane Dujarric, Chief Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, lamented last year’s record was topped, “and it isn’t even December”.
Jaishankar noted the “adverse” effects of Tipu Sultan’s rule in the Mysore region…reports Asian Lite News
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Saturday attended the launch of Indian historian Vikram Sampath’s book ‘Tipu Sultan: The Saga of the Mysore Interregnum’ at the Indian Habitat Centre here in Delhi. Jaishankar described Tipu Sultan as a “very complex figure in history,” highlighting both his resistance to British colonial control and the controversial aspects of his rule.
Speaking at the event, Jaishankar said, “Tipu Sultan is actually a very, very complex figure in history. On the one hand, he has the reputation as a key figure who resisted the British colonial control over India, and it is a fact that his defeat and death can be considered a turning point when it came to the fate of peninsular India.”
However, Jaishankar also noted the “adverse” effects of Tipu Sultan’s rule in the Mysore region. “At the same time, he evokes strong adverse sentiments even today in many regions, some in Mysore itself,” he added.
Jaishankar further emphasized that Indian history has focused more on Tipu Sultan’s battles with the British, and “underplaying” or “neglecting” other aspects of his rule. “Contemporary history writing, certainly at the national level, has focused largely on the former, and underplaying, if not neglecting the later. Let’s be honest, this was not an accident,” he said.
Asserting that History is complicated, Jaishankar said that “cherry-picking of facts” in the case of Tipu Sultan has led to the advancement of a “political narrative”.
“Histroy, in all societies, is complicated, and politics indulges in cherry-picking the facts. This has happened in the case of Tipu Sultan. By highlighting the Tipu-English binary, to the exclusion of a more complicated reality, a particular narrative has been advanced over the years,” he said.
Jaishankar reaffirmed that under PM Modi’s government, India has seen the emergence of alternative perspectives.
“In the last 10 years, the changes in our political dispensation have led to the emergence of alternative perspectives. We are no longer prisoners of a vote bank, nor it is politically incorrect to bring out inconvenient truth,” he added.
Speaking further about the book, Jaishankar said, “As someone from the diplomatic world, I was really struck by info and insights which are provided in this volume on Tipu Sultan. We in India have tendered to mainly study post-independence foreign policy — perhaps this too was a conscious choice. But the fact is that many of our kingdoms and states forayed into international affairs in previous centuries in pursuance of thier particular interests, and some, by the way, continued to do so even till independence. The interaction of Tipu’s missionary with their French and English counterparts is really fascinating.”
Jaishankar concluded by saying that open-minded scholarship and genuine debate are central to India’s evolution as a pluralistic society and vibrant democracy. (ANI)
At around 9:20 am, the concentration of harmful PM2.5 pollutants in Karachi’s air was 27.4 times above the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended guidelines…reports Asian Lite News
Amid the ongoing pollution crisis, smog continues to engulf various parts of Pakistan, with Karachi’s air quality reaching a “very unhealthy” level for the first time in a month.
On Saturday morning, the port city’s air quality index (AQI) surged to 212, making it the most polluted major city globally, according to the Swiss group IQAir’s rankings as reported by The News International.
At around 9:20 am, the concentration of harmful PM2.5 pollutants in Karachi’s air was 27.4 times above the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended guidelines.
The air quality monitor indicated a sharp decline in the city’s air quality, with the AQI briefly surpassing the 200 mark considered “very unhealthy” for humans for the first time in a month. After a slight improvement, the AQI in Karachi fell to 194.
IQAir attributes Karachi’s air pollution to factors such as the large number of vehicles on the roads, the burning of waste and garbage, and emissions from factories.
According to the report, Lahore remained the second-most polluted city, with an AQI of 298, just two points away from the “hazardous” category. As Punjab continues to suffer from severe smog, Lahore has frequently appeared among the most polluted cities in the world for nearly two months.
As Punjab continues to battle severe smog, its capital has consistently ranked among the most polluted cities in the world for nearly two months.
Despite recent fluctuations in the AQI, which included significant improvements from the unprecedented spike earlier this month, persistent smog continues to shroud the city, leaving residents struggling with dangerous air quality and health risks. Each winter, a combination of low-quality fuel emissions from factories and vehicles, compounded by seasonal crop burning by farmers, blankets parts of Punjab, with cooler temperatures and stagnant winds trapping the pollution.
According to IQAir, an AQI between 201 and 300 is deemed “Very Unhealthy,” while an AQI from 0 to 50 is considered “Good” and from 51 to 100 is categorized as “Moderate.” An AQI ranging from 101 to 150 is “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups,” and an AQI from 151 to 200 is labeled as “Unhealthy.” IQAir considers an AQI of 301 and above to be “Hazardous.”
Inhaling toxic air has devastating health effects, with the WHO warning that prolonged exposure can lead to strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory illnesses. (ANI)
Sreenath Sreenivasan is an expert and scholar in digital communications based in New York city. He is CEO and co – founder of Digimentors. He has also served as the Chief Digital Officer of New York City. He also served as a Professor at the Columbia University graduate school of journalism from 1993 – 2013. In an interview with Abhish K. Bose he discusses India’s descent into a post truth era, the decadence in Indian politics and other related issues.
Excerpts from the interview:
Abhish K. Bose: What are the underlying drivers and consequences of India’s descent into a ‘post-truth’ era, characterised by widespread fact-denial and reality distortion in politics and media, and how specifically has the corporate culture and proliferation of social media platforms since the late 1990s and 2000s contributed to this phenomenon, undermining the foundational principle of ‘facts are sacred, comments are free?”
This is something that we are seeing not just as an India problem, but a global problem. In the United States, we saw the election results. We’re a direct result of the number of lies and misinformation, disinformation, that were directed at American voters. And one of the things we have learned through history is that the more you can convince people that some things are lies, but are not lies, they think that some things are lies, the more they are going to believe everything is a lie.
Everything is not accounted for. Not everything is real. And that’s something that we have to change. If you don’t change it, it means that we’re going to see tremendous damage continue to be done in India and around the world. A lot of this has to do directly with social media and the advent of the internet and WhatsApp in particular. There are so many things that are in fact, uh, become more plausible and possible because of WhatsApp. Good things, but also bad things. And the good things are instant communication, uh, social media. Small businesses using WhatsApp for sales and business, where we’ve seen people keeping in touch. There’s so many good things on WhatsApp, but also so much poison in WhatsApp because of the way that it has been used for misuse. Misinformation, disinformation, and just not understanding what the facts are. And during COVID, we saw Indians pay for this with their lives. And therefore, we must pay more attention and do everything we can to help. India will not be caught up like America and so many other places.
Abhish K. Bose: How can fact-based discourse be revitalized through strengthened fact-checking, media literacy, and transparency measures? What role did the corporate media’s pursuit of profit and influence and social media’s amplification of misinformation and polarization and erosion of trust in institutions played in this?
Sreenath Srinivasan: I’m a big fan of boom, boom, boom. all live and other such efforts in India. Then, they are in fact role models for what should happen in the U S having this quick, rapid response to lies that are circulated is really going to be even more important as we go forward. In elections around the world and just functioning as a civil society, we need to pay more attention to the problem that the ecosystem itself is corrupted and in India we see that there is so much corruption. Attention given to mainstream media outlets that just make so much noise and people shouting at each other and all of this has caused a breakdown in what is truth and what is real in, and that’s, that’s, that’s something that we are going to continue to struggle with as we look at everything that’s happening.
Abhish K.Bose: What are the underlying drivers of the alarming moral decay in politics where leaders sacrifice principles for power and parties compromise?
Sreenath Sreenivasan: Compromise values for electoral gains. I can tell you that, again, this is a global phenomenon and we have seen the question of country over party. Is that something that politicians are willing to do? There was a time when politicians were willing to have high standards and would, in fact, consider putting their country over their party and their narrow, narrow political, uhm, options and narrow political gains. But that is not the case. We have lost more than moral clarity. We have lost, uh, what are the standards of what makes something right and what makes something for right now. And that’s something we have, we’re missing in global politics and we need to fix that. Unpacking the Moral Guidelines Bankruptcy of Politics,
Abhish K. Bose: What symbiotic relationships between political ideology, social media, institutional decay have normalised the prioritisation of power over principles?
Sreenath Sreenivasan: We have seen this again and again in so many parts of India and how politics works. That, what we have seen, we also want to say that on top of everything else, we have added the issue around, uh, around business interests, infecting the media. Media has become so successful in making so much profit, that it thrives on division. It thrives on anger. And we are seeing that on, of course, on Indian television every night. But also on social media. There’s an old saying about American television, that it makes so much money doing its worst, that it has no incentive to do its best. And therefore, the worst aspects of American television, uh, always come to the forefront. But there was something, as this was said, in the 1950s and 60s, not today. So it has all just become much much worse in the time since this was said.
Abhish K. Bose: What accounts for the alarming erosion of accountability in Indian politics ? Could you explain about the change in culture that trickled this transition?
Sreenath Sreenivasan: I want to be very careful that I’m not an expert on Indian politics, Kerala politics, beyond what I read and what I understand, but I am paying very, very close attention to the Indian politics, and I need for all of us to be thinking about how do we fix this, and we want to do that by saying that journalists need to go back to their, to the basics. What is real? How do people understand it? And how does it feel? How does it affect people’s lives? Uh, the kind of things that get attention, uh, have always been a problem. There’s an old saying, by the time the truth puts on its pants, the lies have gone around the world. Right? That’s how quickly things move. And this is, again, before, The internet. The internet has just accelerated all of this. On top of this, we need to add the problem of AI. AI is going to make things more real-looking and real-sounding, and that will, therefore, cause more chaos in everyday everything we see. So, how do we adjust the way we think? What is the obligation of journalists and other members of civil society to deal with these issues?
Abhish K. Bose: What are the implications of India shifting democratic landscape on the intersectionality of social justice, economic development and cultural identity? How can policy makers balance competing interests and values to foster inclusive growth and social cohesion?
Sreenath Sreenivasan: I want to say that this is such a refreshing set of questions because I never get questions like this. Thinking about intersectionality, for example, is a new concept, new-ish concept in, uh, uhm, you know, that came in the U.S. It’s been around for a while, but came to the U.S., uh, uh, for people to understand after seeing what happened with the pandemic, that you have, you know, in, uh, there’s an intersectionality of race and class in the health story of the pandemic. America had such deep problems. 5% of the world’s population, 20% of the world’s death, deaths, deaths in COVID. We saw that problem in India as well, that if you aren’t given the right information at the right time, you will suffer. We saw this in the United States, in successive hurricanes that came, uh, just before the election, and because the hurricanes, because so many people in the U.S. Keep saying the governments are bad, politics is bad, don’t trust the government, don’t trust the government, then when the government tells you there’s a hurricane coming, you’re not going to listen. That is one of the issues that we have seen, and we are paying the price for that. Thousands of people are unnecessarily affected by these issues.
Abhish K. Bose: To what extent has the neoliberal economic order contributed to the commodification of politics in India? And how is this impacting the representation of marginalised groups and the delivery of public services?
Sreenath Sreenivasan: I think, India and America, this is one way in which things are different. In America, there are so many regional and local news outlets that cover these issues. Just a town, a city, a neighborhood, uh, a state in very tight, very, uh, intentional terms so that people can understand what’s happening. Accountability journalism is big in the U.S. now. India, as we know, has such a strong media system, but so much of it is national, so much of it is regional, but it isn’t accountability journalism, and that’s one of the things we’ve lost. There’s some, but nothing to the extent we need. In America, we have those things, and have also seen 2,900 newspapers fold in the last 25 years. Just think about that. 25,000 journalists have lost their jobs in the 21st century. Imagine the chaos that would be there in India if those were the rates at which these publications were closing. So we need to be paying more attention to that. All of this is directly tied into politics as well.
Abhish K. Bose: How has the digital revolution reconfigured the relationship between citizens, the state, and information in India? What are the trade-offs between digital governance, surveillance, data privacy?
Sreenath Sreenivasan: These are such important items, and India needs to be a leader in this, to say that we are going to make sure that our, there’s better hygiene in our information ecosystem. That itself will help. So thank you very much. Uh, so is the problem with seedless dates? So, if you buy a date and it’s seedless, there’s a good chance that in a factory somebody chewed the seed out and then put it into the system to sell these dates. Now, let’s presume for a moment that somehow this happens, that people are biting, putting it in their mouth. It is so unlikely that this is happening, but let’s say it’s happening. If you, as a consumer, cannot distinguish between a chewed version of a date or a pre-chewed version of a date, no matter how lightly chewed, then that’s on you. So, these ways in which things are sent out, and they are sent to divide, they’re sent to cause anger, they’re sent to hurt. They’re sent to trouble. And we need to check every time before we hit forward on WhatsApp, is this true? Do I trust this? And will my circulating this further help my family, my neighborhood, my city? My country, or will it just make things worse? My philosophy about this has been true since the year 2000. If it’s too good to be true, or it’s too bad to be true on the internet, it probably is. Because the more it inflames, the more unlikely it is to be accurate. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems that should be reported on and should be shared, but what is your role in that? And that’s one of the questions we need to ask much more in India and elsewhere. Thanks.
Addressing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Ali said: “Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts…reports Asian Lite News
A Labour MP has asked the British government for a new law to protect “religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions” from “desecration.”
Tahir Ali, MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, spoke during Prime Minister’s Questions in Westminster, bringing into focus issues around hate crimes against the UK’s Muslim communities as part of Islamophobia Awareness Month.
Addressing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Ali said: “Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts, including the Qur’an, despite opposition from the previous government.”
He added: “Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society. Will the prime minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?”
Starmer did not rule out the possibility of new legislation, saying: “I agree that desecration is awful and should be condemned across the House. We are, as I said before, committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all its forms.”
After the session, Ali wrote on X: “As November marks Islamophobia Awareness Month, it is vital the Government takes clear and measurable steps to prevent acts that fuel hatred in society.”
The UK has seen a rise in reported cases of anti-Muslim prejudice in recent years, exacerbated by the Gaza war. Since Oct. 7, 2023, the charity Tell Mama UK has recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate, the highest number in 14 years.
