Policies will be put in place to strengthen Assamese culture and civilisation’
Guwahati – Assam, 26 March 2021. Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the BJP will enact laws to tackle the “menace of love and land jihad” in Assam if it is voted to power.
Addressing an election rally, Shah said appropriate laws and policies will be put in place to strengthen Assamese culture and civilisation.
The manifesto also promised it will enforce a deradicalisation policy to identify and quash organisations and individuals fanning communal exclusion and separatism.
“The Congress manifesto is merely a tool for election campaign but the BJP manifesto is meant for implementation,” he asserted.
He also accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of describing AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal as representative of Assam’s identity. “He (Gandhi) does not understand Assam and its identity,” he said.
Assam’s identity is linked to Vaishnav saints Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva, brave Ahom general Lachit Barphukan who saved the state from Mughal invasion and Bharat Ratnas Bhupen Hazarika and Gopinath Bordoloi, he said.
“We will not allow Ajmal to become a symbol of Assam’s identity notwithstanding Congress’s efforts to do so. Can the Congress and AIUDF save the state from illegal infiltration?” he said.
“Rahul baba should remember that it was their chief minister Tarun Gogoi who was once dismissive of the AIUDF chief and had asked ‘Who is Ajmal?’ And now it is the Congress which has joined hands with Ajmal to gather votes,” he added.
Calling Gandhi a “tourist”, Shah said the Congress leader was seen in the state only for 2-3 days during the elections and then vanishes for the next five years.
There are only three images before the people of Assam, that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development and service to people, of Rahul Gandhi’s tourism and Ajmal’s agenda of infiltration.
The people of Assam have to decide what they want, Modiji’s double engine for development or Congress-AIUDF’s double infiltration, he said.
Addressing the 9th Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar highlights that it requires harmonising the interests of all, both within and around Afghanistan
Dushanbe – Tajikistan, 30 March. India on Tuesday underlined that for ensuring durable peace in war-torn Afghanistan, genuine “double peace”, peace within the country and peace around it, was essential.
Addressing the 9th Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also highlighted that it requires harmonising the interests of all, both within and around Afghanistan.
For a durable peace in Afghanistan, what we need is a genuine “double peace”, that is, peace within Afghanistan and peace around Afghanistan. It requires harmonising the interests of all, both within and around that country, Jaishankar tweeted.
“If the peace process is to be successful, then it is necessary to ensure that the negotiating parties continue to engage in good faith, with a serious commitment towards reaching a political solution,” he wrote.
“Today, we are striving for a more inclusive Afghanistan that can overcome decades of conflict. But that will happen only if we stay true to principles that Heart of Asia has long embodied.
Collective success may not be easy but the alternative is only collective failure,” Jaishankar tweeted on the three key points he suggested at the meeting, also attended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
Last week, Jaishankar said that India would like to clearly see a sovereign democratic and inclusive Afghanistan that takes into account the interests of its minorities.
“There is something called the peace and reconciliation process and everybody else is saying that the Taliban is reaching out and changing etc. Let us wait and watch,” he had said.
During his visit, Jaishanakar is also expected to meet leaders of other participating countries on the sidelines of the two-day conference.
Policemen, Vandalism Outside Sikh Shrine in India – Video
A viral video showed the sword-wielding mob barging out of the gurdwara, breaking the barricades put up by police and attacking the policemen.
Nanded – Maharashtra – India, 30 March 2020. A mob of sword-wielding Sikhs on Monday attacked policemen, injuring at least four of them, after being denied permission to hold a public procession in Nanded due to the coronavirus pandemic, an official said.
A viral video showed the sword-wielding mob barging out of the gurdwara, breaking the barricades put up by police and attacking the policemen.
The gurdwara committee was informed and they had assured us that they would abide by our directives and hold the event inside the gurdwara premises,” Nanded Range DIG Nisar Tamboli told PTI.
“However, when the Nishan Sahib was brought at the gate around 4 pm, several participants started arguing and over 300 youth stormed out of the gate, broke the barricades and began attacking the policeman,” he said. Tamboli said the condition of one of the four constables was serious.
He said six vehicles of police were damaged by the mob. Tamboli said a FIR will be registered against at least 200 people under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntary causing hurt with dangerous weapons), 188 (Disobeying the order of public servant), 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and for rioting.
“Those involved in violence will be arrested,” he added.
Nishan Sahib is a triangular saffron-coloured flag furling outside a gurdwara on a steel pole covered with a saffron-coloured cloth. The flag also has an insignia called Khanda in the middle, which includes two swords and a chakra.
Hola Mohalla (Hola) is a Sikh festival that comes a day after Holi. Unlike Holi, when people sprinkle the coloured powder on each other, Hola Mohalla is an occasion for Sikhs to demonstrate their martial skills.
Nanded is an important Sikh pilgrimage centre as it is home to a sacred shrine, the Takht Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchal Nagar Sahib. It was here that the 10th and last Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), anointed the holy book Guru Granth Sahib as the eternal Guru of Sikhism and spent the last 14 months of his life.
[PPP – PML-N – JUI-F] The internecine war of words inside the PDM has intensified. Even though the initial ilzaam tarashi (allegations) between between Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari didn’t last long, the PPP’s decision to go it alone on the issue of the leader of the opposition in the Senate seems to have led to a fresh round over the weekend.
And unlike the earlier indirect tu-tu main-main, or mutual recrimination, this time around the gloves have come off.
The friction had begun, as previously, with the issue of resignations. Let’s recap quickly some recent key events.
After having delayed the decision around December, the PML-N and the JUI-F were once again clamouring to upend the government through resignations when the Senate election for the chairman didn’t go the planned way. But for obvious reasons, the PPP was far from interested.
The issue came to a head when Asif Zardari’s speech at a PDM meeting was leaked to the media — the leaks were far from kind about Nawaz Sharif.
It is important to remember that similar remarks about why Nawaz Sharif was not returning to Pakistan were also made in the December meeting of the party’s central executive committee, according to media reports, but the party refused to confirm or deny them.
All of them insisted that the discussions during a party meeting were confidential. However, this time around, the party did not hesitate to own up to the leaked reports. The difference is significant.
Apparently, the speech by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari didn’t go down well either, though little has been said about it publicly. Nonetheless, the spat it provoked was stopped before it went too far.
But even so, behind the scenes, the tussle over the Senate leader of the opposition had begun. Having lost the Senate chairman position, the PPP now wanted the leader of the opposition in the forum despite having agreed to the PML-N filling it, assuming that Yousuf Raza Gilani’s winning streak would continue.
The PPP found a ready excuse in the candidate the Noonies chose because of his choice of clients to defend.
But the Noon was no longer in the mood to be generous; they saw no reason to undo the allocations made earlier and soon the private spat became public.
In between, it is said the PPP’s effort to call and speak to the Noonies in London didn’t go too well and the former went its own way, winning over government support to secure the leader of the opposition.
Since that decisive Senate action, tensions have spiked and many have written the PDM’s obituary.
But it is worth noting that despite the rising tensions, the senior politicians of the party — Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, have not been heard from. Could this be deliberate?
Is it possible that they still feel there is reason enough to distance themselves from the back and forth between their heirs because there may be some moment when they will have to play nice?
After all, both parties gain by keeping the PDM alive, with all its components. If the PPP quits, it would simply lend credence to the voices that accuse the alliance partners of only being those who have been left out in the cold and hence are kicking up a fuss.
Without the PPP, it will be hard for Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Nawaz Sharif to dispel this impression that they have become inquilabi (revolutionary) only because they were deprived of power. And/or that this was simply a war led by the PML-N for Punjab.
Also, there is the niggling issue of the resignations, it may be easy to make an announcement that everyone will quit the assemblies but it’s hard to ensure the entire party follows suit.
(The PTI learnt this the hard way in 2014 with far fewer seats.) Had the PPP not pulled away when it did, there is a chance the PML-N would have had to concede this isn’t a feasible option.
But with the PPP obviously in no mood to bid farewell, the Noonies can claim the moral high ground and say they gave up on the idea for the greater good.
On the other hand, the PPP also needs the opposition parties.
It can’t afford to appease the PTI and the establishment to the extent of aligning with them publicly; while it may have a government in Sindh to protect, it also faces the pressure of accountability, and in order to manage both, a tight juggling act is required.
The PPP is not out of the accountability woods, yet. And to ensure it is not engulfed by the process, the best bet is to be part of the opposition alliance, which is big enough and national enough to keep the government and NAB under pressure.
In other words, there is still much to be gained by both the PML-N and the PPP putting their differences aside and keeping the PDM intact; let’s see if they can pull this off.
Postscript: Despite all the gloating over the coup pulled off by the PPP, it seems the party has paid a heavier price for this fiasco.
It is now widely believed the PPP has squandered many a principle for the sake of power, from the reports about which party was buying votes during the Senate election to the recent gossip about why the PPP had ditched the PDM.
All parties make politically expedient choices. Consider the PTI’s allies in power or the PML-N’s quick decision to agree to a ‘selection’ of senators in Punjab with the very forces it insists it is fighting against.
However, the PPP seems to have thrown caution to the wind when it comes to the pretence that politics includes a dash (or more) of ethics.
Its decision-making seems devoid of this ‘hypocrisy’. Is this because its politics is completely amoral or because of Asif Zardari’s image or something else?
A little bit of introspection may be needed to explain why it is now seen as the party which is always willing to sacrifice principle at the altar of expediency.
Srinagar – J&K – India, 29 March 2021. Former Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said that she was denied a passport and termed a “threat to the nation” on the basis of a report by Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Criminal Investigative Department (CID).
Mufti posted the letter of the regional passport officer, Srinagar, on her Twitter account, and said, “Passport Office refused to issue my passport based on CID’s report citing it as ‘detrimental to the security of India.
This is the level of normalcy achieved in Kashmir since August 2019 that an ex Chief Minister holding a passport is a threat to the sovereignty of a mighty nation.”
The letter mentioned that additional director general of police, Jammu and Kashmir CID, has not recommended the issuance of passport to Mufti.
Mufti had already moved the high court for issuance of the passport as she had applied for the document last year.
Last week, the PDP president was also questioned by Enforcement Directorate officials in Srinagar.
Op/Ed, 23 March 2021. When the offices of the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association supported the Indian peasants’ right of peaceful protest and assembly, they were reminding the Indian government of its general human rights obligations under the UN treaties that India has ratified and voluntarily undertaken to enforce at the national level.
These top UN diplomats were cognisant of India’s response to the largely peaceful and unprecedented peasant protests in the form of disproportionate and impermissible law and order measures.
Such measures are tantamount to criminalising the current peasant protests and are prohibited by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (the UNDROP).
It took more than seventeen years of campaign by the La Via Campesina, a global network campaign of peasants and rural workers organisations, to reach the milestone of the UNDROP’s adoption by the UN General Assembly on December 17, 2018.
At this time, the Indian government has committed to follow the UNDROP which it not only voted for but actually proactively co-sponsored and campaigned for at the UN General Assembly.
The UNDROP brought peasant rights within the ambit of human rights and aimed to strengthen intergovernmental coordination and transnational agrarian solidarity.
It is the first ever international law instrument that grants human rights to the majority rural population of global society and provides guidance to the governments on guaranteeing these rights.
The UNDROP provides a framework for countries and the international community to strengthen the protection of the human rights of peasants and other rural people and to improve their living conditions.
The UNDROP’s fundamental premise is that the peasant and rural workers constitute 80% of the world’s population and are often victims of human rights violations and suffer from poverty.
Peasant and rural landless workers, especially women, do not have equal control over land and other natural resources, or access to education and justice.
It recognises the dignity of the world’s rural populations, their contributions to global food production, and their ‘special relationship’ to the land, water and nature, as well as their vulnerabilities to evictions, hazardous working conditions and political repression.
The UNDROP is a blueprint for potential national legislation dealing with the rights of peasants and rural workers.
Although currently it is technically non-binding in a strict sense, it uses the term “shall” implying legal obligations of the countries and is an honour code that all UN members have agreed to uphold and incorporate in their national policy framework.
Until it becomes a treaty with its own independent enforcement mechanism, the UN has deferred the UNDROP’s monitoring and instead asked all countries including India to include the UNDROP implementation measures in their periodic reports to the other UN human rights mechanisms.
Importantly, the UNDROP prohibits criminalisation of peasants and rural workers protests and calls upon all countries including India to ensure that it shall not subject them to arbitrary arrest, detention, torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments when they exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly.
It also recognises the peasants and rural workers’ right to life, security of persons, freedom of movement, thought, opinion and expression, as well as association.
Despite India’s commitment at the UN not to criminalise any peasant struggle, the government introduced drastic measures in response to current protests such as interrupting access to water and electricity, limiting access to protest sites, barricading and fortifying protest sites, deploying paramilitary forces, disrupting internet services, registering criminal cases, arbitrarily detaining, torturing, and inflicting custodial and sexual violence against the protest leaders, protesters, supporters, and journalists.
From the beginning, the government acquiesced to the ruling party’s political propaganda apparatus that has engaged in a systematic vilification and dehumanisation campaign about the protests.
It failed to publicly condemn all off and online attacks, and the use of hateful and misogynistic language against those connected with the protest.
The UNDROP requires India to ensure the primacy of peasants’ rights specified in the UNDROP over all international agreements, including those regulating trade, investments and intellectual property rights.
For that purpose, it further mandates India to take legislative, administrative measures with full consultation of its rural populations.
The government in drafting three farm laws has not made good faith efforts to facilitate the peasants’ right to actively participate in the legislative process.
The UNDROP states that India is obliged to take measures to favour peasants selling their products in markets and allow their families to attain an adequate standard of living.
The measures enshrined in the three farm laws including the government’s unwillingness to give statutory power to the Minimum Support Price (MSP), adversely affecting the peasants fair access to the market and adequate standard of living, thereby breaching its commitment to the UNDROP.
Without any philosophical or ideological shift at government level or its explicit reservation to the implementation of the UNDROP, India’s volte face reveals its apparent intent to not comply with the UNDROP’s key provisions.
The Indian governmental leadership understands the gravity of the situation about the agrarian crisis and protests, and understands its obligations to the peasants, yet it is making a strategic decision that dispute resolution and conflict prevention efforts are not worth the political costs.
A very simple understanding of the holistic configuration of the current protest dynamics indicates various imminent warning signs for the protests spiraling into a larger unmanageable crisis, with devastating consequences for peasants, rural workers, police and armed forces, their families, and the whole social fabric.
Even now, a staggering number of protesters continue to die.
The government’s continuous failure to resolve the farm bill dispute, may result in one or more different scenarios, such as aggressive law enforcement actions or incidents of random and scattered violence or even a prolonged low-intensity rural armed conflict, with unimaginable human and material loss.
The protest has gradually reached a monumental juncture nationally beyond the strategic encampments at various entry points to New Delhi, with increasing global support.
It is slowly starting to receive attention from the UN human rights processes.
On February 11, 2021, the La Via Campesina representative spoke at a high-level special event of The UN Committee on World Food Security and said that “thousands of farmers in India are on the streets for over [the past] 75 days demanding a fair support price for their harvest.
They are worried because of the entry of big agribusinesses and contract farming models that will push down their incomes further and they will have no chance to bargain.”
Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in her oral updates on the global human rights situation in more than 50 countries at the 46th session opening of the UN Human Rights Council, provided much needed and belated impetus to protests when she highlighted that “continued protests by hundreds of thousands of farmers [in India] highlight the importance of ensuring laws and policies are based on meaningful consultations with those concerned.
I trust that ongoing dialogue efforts by both sides will lead to an equitable solution to this crisis that respects the rights of all.
Charges of sedition against journalists and activists for reporting or commenting on the protests, and attempts to curb freedom of expression on social media, are disturbing departures from essential human rights principles…”
Given the global attention the protest is receiving, it is likely that peasants and rural workers globally may observe the forthcoming International Day of Peasant’s Struggle on April 17, 2021, in support of the Indian protests.
This day commemorates the massacre of the peasants and landless workers by armed forces in 1996 in Brazil while protesting for comprehensive agrarian reform.
If the government had been more transparent nationally during the drafting of the three farm bills, upheld its commitments under the UNDROP, and discharged its ethical responsibility and legal obligations to diligently implement them, it could have averted this crisis that continues to bring immense pain, suffering, and trauma to all, and that also has inflamed a toxic socio-political culture of intolerance.
Xenophobia in US can be traced back to Trump who made no secret of his worry that US would lose its white identity.
Shahid Javed Burki
Lahore – Panjab – 29 March 2021. Asians now numbering some 20 million people or about 6.5% of America’s population have been in the country for more than a century and a half. There were several distinct waves of migration from various Asian countries to the United States.
Workers from China came in to build the trans-continental railway system in the late 1800s. A number of “Chinatowns” were founded to cater to the needs of the Chinese people. Once the railway work was done, the workers did not return to their homeland.
This led to the promulgation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Sikh workers from what was then the province of Punjab in the British Indian colony came in late 19th and early 20th century to bring under cultivation large tracts of virgin land in the American northwest.
Like the Chinese railway workers before them, the immigrant Sikhs also lost their welcome once the work for which they were brought in was done. Instead of going home, they moved north into Canada where they founded Sikh communities in cities such as Vancouver in British Columbia.
The first wave of professionals from South Asia arrived in the US when the country was faced with skill-shortages in a number of areas. Medical workers came from both India and Pakistan while India provided large numbers of people with expertise in information technology.
These peoples’ exports were possible since both countries had institutions that could turn out skilled workers in excess of domestic needs.
There remained a fairly strong sentiment in the US against immigrants from Asia. It remained mostly under the surface until the arrival of Donald Trump on the political scene.
He made no secret of his disdain for people of colour and also for non-Christians, in particular Muslims. The sentiment became open and pronounced when the US was hit by the coronavirus, a virus first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Trump called the disease-spreading element the “China virus” and Covid-19, the disease it caused, “kung flu”.
The use of these names for the virus and the disease it caused bred a strong anti-Asian bias among the white supremacists in the country and resulted in several acts of violence committed against the members of the community.
On 16 March 2021, Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man attacked four massage parlours in Atlanta, and shot dead eight people, seven of them women. Of the seven killed, six were of Asian origin.
“They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed. They’ve been verbally assaulted, killed,” President Joe Biden lamented after meeting with leaders of Atlanta’s Asian-American community that he described as heart-wrenching to be part of.
“It’s been a year of living in fear for their lives. Because our silence is complicity, we cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act.”
President Biden had by his side Kamala Harris, the nation’s first vice-president of Asian descent, juts through her presence, a powerful symbol of efforts to reject racial animosity and bias.
Standing by the president’s side, Harris did not mince her words. “Racism is real in America, and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America and it has always been. Sexism too.”
In a clear reference to former president Donald Trump she said that “for the last year, we’ve had people in positions of incredible power scapegoating Asian Americans. People with the highest pulpit spreading this kind of hate.”
The Biden administration, she said, would not “stand by” in the face of racial violence.
Anti-Asian attacks have soared during the past year, part of a pattern President Biden called “wrong” and “un-American” the week before the Atlanta killings in a speech at the White House.
In the speech at the site of the murders, he, too, appeared to blame Trump and his supporters without naming them directly, saying “we’ve always known that words have consequences.
During his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive order directing his government to work toward stopping “anti-Asian bias, xenophobia, and harassment.”
During the Atlanta visit, he urged Congress to pass the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act which he said would “expedite the federal government’s response to the rise of hate crimes exacerbated during the pandemic.” The legislation was sponsored by two congressmen of Asian origin.
Biden’s personal losses, of his wife and a daughter in a car accident and much later that of a grown-up son who died of cancer while serving as attorney general of the state of Delaware, made expression of empathy come naturally to him.
A newspaper report commented that “the president’s ability to project empathy towards those who are suffering stands in contrast to Mr Trump, who struggled to convey a sense of somber support at such moments.
His grinning thumbs-up photograph at a hospital after a mass-shooting in El Paso generated a backlash of angry commentary about his visit.
During a campaign played out against a backdrop of the pandemic, Mr Biden often accused his opponent of having no real empathy for those who were suffering.”
The prevailing xenophobia in the US can be traced back to Trump who spent four years in the White House making no secret of his worry that his country would lose its white identity.
He was and remains anti-people of colour and anti-immigration. He once used abusive language to refer to the people who were coming in from predominantly black countries expressing a strong preference for immigrants from white countries such as Norway rather than from Haiti.
Amongst the policies his administration adopted was to start work on a wall that would run along the entire border with Mexico, a sharp reduction in the number of refugees the US would be willing to admit and to make the process of issuing “green cards” extremely complicated.
His successor, Biden, had no problem suggesting that by having relatively open borders the US would gain rather than lose.
Within a few days of taking office the new president issued a number of executive orders that included cancelling the ban on admitting people from some Muslim-majority countries, abandoning the work on the wall, significantly increasing the number of refugees that would be allowed into the country, and ending the ban on the issue of green cards.
Trump had used the arrival of Covid-19 as an excuse for severely limiting the entry of non-citizens into the country. An analysis by the Migration Policy Institute estimated that Trump’s ban on issuing green cards would affect 660,000 people.
In addition to cancelling the ban, allowing more refugees to enter the country, President Biden proposed a more far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws that would provide an eight-year path to citizenship for most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country.
In March, less than two months after assuming office, he drafted a major legislation on immigration reform. If approved, it will legalise millions of immigrants who were living illegally in the country.
Security forces opened fire and used tear gas to push back thousands of protestors, some of whom allegedly attacked trains and ransacked mandirs.
Scroll Staff
At least 10 were killed and dozens were injured on Sunday as protests continued against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh as part of celebrations for the country’s 50th anniversary, Reuters reported.
Modi was on a two-day visit to the country between March 26 and March 27.
Security forces opened fire and used tear gas to disperse thousands of protestors who were enforcing a countrywide general strike they called to denounce violence at a previous protest against Modi’s visit.
At least one man was shot in Sanarpara in Narayanganj district after thousands blocked a major highway, Mohamamed Zayedul Alam, the area’s police superintendent, told AP.
Sunday’s violence followed days of tensions. In recent weeks, demonstrators in Muslim-majority Bangladesh had urged Modi not to visit and criticised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for inviting him.
At least four people were killed and scores injured on Friday when clashes between protestors and security officials first began in three cities, capital city Dhaka, Brahmanbaria and Chittagong.
An Islamist group called Hefazat-e-Islam, which has a network of Islamic schools across Bangladesh, led the proccessions. The group accused Modi of discriminating against Muslims in India.
Hefazat-e-Islam had announced the countrywide general strike for Sunday, to protest Friday’s events, in which its members were blamed for attacking government structures.
The main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia did not support the strike directly, but said the call for it was logical, according to AP.
On Sunday, activists of the Hefazat-e-Islam group attacked a train in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria, resulting in 10 people getting injured.
“They attacked the train and damaged its engine room and almost all the coaches,” one police official told Reuters. “Brahmanbaria is burning.”
Hefazat members allegedly ransacked Brahmanbaria’s biggest temple, Sree Sree Anandamayee Kali Mandir, where they broke idols, and looted the temple’s donation box, The Daily Star reported.
“We were performing prayers for Dol Purnima, when 200-300 armed men broke the temple gate and barged into our ceremony,” said Ashis Paul, president of Anandamayee Kalibari Temple Festival Celebration Committee, which runs the temple.
“We tried to protect the idol of goddess Kali, but they shoved us aside and vandalised the idol.”
The protestors allegedly also set alight two buses in the western district of Rajshahi, while hundreds of protesters clashed with the police in Narayanganj, pelting them with stones, police said.
Protestors used timber and sandbags to block roads, as police retaliated with rubber bullets and tear gas, leaving dozens injured in Narayanganj.
Various government offices were also set on fire indiscriminately, according to Reuters. Even the press club was attacked and many injured, including the press club president.
“We are in extreme fear and feeling really helpless,” Javed Rahim, a journalist in the Brahmanbaria town, told the news agency.
‘Will not tolerate anarchy’: Bangladesh home minister
Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said the government was going to take strict action to “prevent all kinds of anarchy and secure people’s lives and properties”, Dhaka Tribune reported.
“I’m requesting them to stop,” he said while speaking to the media outside the Bangladesh Secretariat, adding that “otherwise the government will take stern action.”
Kamal said “some rowdy people and groups, spurred on by religious fanaticism, are destroying public properties in Chittagong, Brahmanbaria,” and other parts of the country.
“In some places, small children and orphans were victimised,” the minister added. “This is anarchism.”
The killing of at least 100 anti-coup protesters in Myanmar has drawn global outrage, with defence ministers of 12 nations condemning the military.
The US accused the security forces of a “reign of terror” on Saturday, the deadliest day since last month’s coup.
Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing and his generals still threw a lavish party that night for Armed Forces Day.
On Sunday, funerals were held, with some reports the military had tried to intervene in the mourning.
More than 400 people have now been killed in the suppression of protests in Myanmar since the 1 February coup.
The military seized control of the South East Asian country after an election which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide.
What has the international response been?
The defence chiefs of a dozen nations, including the UK, on Sunday issued a rare joint statement condemning the military’s violent actions.
The US, Japan and Australia were also among the signatories of a statement that said: “A professional military follows international standards for conduct and is responsible for protecting, not harming, the people it serves.”
Security forces opened fire in more than 40 locations on Saturday. The commercial centre, Yangon, saw dozens of deaths, but killings were recorded from Kachin in the north to Taninthartharyi in the far south.
Demonstrators flash the three-finger salute while holding an image of detained leader Aung San Suu Ky. The US said it was “horrified” by the killings. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the military of “sacrificing the lives of the people to serve the few.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply shocked” by the violence, and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called it a “new low”.
UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews called for an international emergency summit.
China and Russia have not joined the criticism, which means taking action through the UN Security Council – where they have vetoes – could be difficult.
Why did the generals attend a gala?
The luxury military party on Saturday was held to mark the annual Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the start of Myanmar’s military resistance against Japanese occupation in 1945.
Images from state TV shared on social media showed military officials, including Min Aung Hlaing, wearing white uniforms and bow ties, walking along a red carpet smiling, and seated at large tables for dinner.
The event drew an angry response from some on social media, including Burmese activist Maung Zarni.
The Congress leader listed the difference in prices of the various commodities between the two nations
Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh – Panjab – India, 28 March 2021. Punjab Former Cabinet Minister and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday hinted at the resumption of trade talks between India and Pakistan.
Sharing a video of his old clippings, including the ones from his Pakistan visit, the Congress leader listed the difference in prices of the various commodities between the two nations on Twitter.
“Welcome step – possibility of opening trade relations – Unlocking infinite potential – Way forward for Farmers and Profitable Business (sic)” the Congress leader tweeted.
India – Pakistan
Rice Rs3200 Rs7000
Tomato Rs20 Rs150
Wheat Rs1700 Rs2900
Peas Rs5 Rs25
Ginger Rs22 Rs150
Is there a better market for farmers?,’ his tweet concluded.
The Congress leader’s tweet comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote a letter to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to extend greetings on Pakistan Day.
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