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Man in Blue
The Asian Age – Why governance fails in India’s tribal areas
A Cabinet Committee on Tribal Affairs was meant to constantly review the policy
Mohan Guruswamy
Op/Ed 28 September 2021. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules under Article 244 of the Constitution of India in 1950 provided for self-governance in specified tribal majority areas.
In 1999 the Government of India even issued a draft National Policy on Tribals to address the development needs of tribal people. Special emphasis was laid on education, forestry, healthcare, languages, resettlement and land rights.
The first NDA government even established a tribal affairs ministry. The draft was meant to be circulated between MPs, MLAs and civil society groups. A Cabinet Committee on Tribal Affairs was meant to constantly review the policy. Little has happened since.
Even though the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were carved out of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, real tribal issues relating to their culture, way of life and aspirations were not addressed.
Not to be left behind, the UPA government drafted the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill in 2005 but did not act upon it due to pressure mounted by self-styled wildlife activists and the wildlife tourism lobby.
Even before Independence, on 16 December 1946, welcoming the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly, the legendary adivasi leader, Jaipal Singh Munda, stated the tribal case and apprehensions explicitly.
Jaipal Singh, after a childhood herding cattle, was educated at St. Paul’s School, Ranchi, and at St. John’s College, Oxford University, where he studied economics. He was an Oxford Blue in hockey and played for India in the Olympics.
He entered the ICS but resigned a year later, in 1935. Jaipal Singh told the Constituent Assembly: “As a jungli, as an adivasi, I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the resolution.
But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march in that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated, it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years.
The history of the Indus Valley Civilisation, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the newcomers — most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned, it is the newcomers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness.
The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of Independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”
The resolution, to Jaipal Singh, was simply a modern restatement of his own people’s point of view. In adivasi society, there was no discrimination by caste and gender.
Thus “you cannot teach democracy to the tribal people; you have to learn democratic ways from them”. The adivasis paid dearly for taking Jawaharlal Nehru at his word.
There are some 573 communities recognised by the government as Scheduled Tribes and therefore eligible to receive special benefits and to compete for reserved seats in legislatures and schools.
The biggest tribal group, the Gonds, number about 7.4 million; followed by the Santhals with about 4.2 million. Central India is home to the country’s largest tribes, and, taken as a whole, roughly 75 per cent of the total tribal population live there.
Tribal people account for 8.2 per cent of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s states and Union territories.
Even so, they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations.
These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.
The Central Indian adivasis belong to this grouping. The other two major groupings are the Caucasoid and Sino-Tibetan or Mongoloid tribal people of the north and northeast regions who migrated at later periods.
The other two broad tribal groupings have fared better in the post-Independence period. In Odisha, over 72 per cent of all adivasis live well below the poverty line. At the national level, 45.86 per cent of adivasis live below the poverty line.
Incidentally, the official Indian poverty line is a nothing more than a starvation line, which means that almost half of India’s original inhabitants go to bed every night starving.
Several anthropometric studies have revealed that successive generations of adivasis are actually becoming smaller, unlike all other people in India who benefit from better and increasingly state-subsidised nutritious diets.
There are 332 tribal majority tehsils in India, of which 110 are in the Northeast and the rest in Central India. These areas lend themselves for the implementation of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution that provided for self-governance in specified tribal majority areas.
But there are several paradoxes that must also be dealt with first. The most important of these is to provide good government in the worst of law and order environments. A better civil administration structure must come up in place of the one present.
This means the best officers drawn from across the country. Perhaps it is time to constitute a new All India Service, similar to the former Indian Frontier Administrative Service. The IFAS was an eclectic group of officers drawn from various arms of the government to administer the tribal districts of the Northeast. Unfortunately, it was merged into the IAS.
All tribal majority areas must be consolidated into administrative divisions whose authority must be vested with democratically chosen leadership. This body could be called the Adivasi Maha-panchayat and must function as a largely autonomous institution.
All laws passed by the state legislatures must be ratified to the satisfaction of the Maha-panchayat. Instead of the state capital-controlled government, the instruments of public administration dealing with education, health, irrigation, roads and land records must be handed over to the local government structures.
The police must also be made answerable to local elected officials and not be a law unto themselves. The lament of the adivasi about their role in their government is well known. It is the subject of many a folk song.
“And the Gods were greatly troubled/ in their heavenly courts and councils/ Sat no Gods of Gonds among them./ Gods of other nations sat there/ Eighteen threshing-floors of Brahmins/ Sixteen scores of Telinganas/ But no Gods of Gonds appeared there/ From the Glens of Seven Mountains/ From the twelve hills of the valleys.”
Mohan Guruswamy :
The writer, a policy analyst studying economic and security issues, held senior positions in government and industry. He also specialises in the Chinese economy.
The Tribune – Navjot Singh Sidhu’s ‘meeting’ with Bhagwant Mann creates a buzz
AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal is scheduled to visit the state on Wednesday
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh – Panjab – India, 28 September. The political circles are abuzz with the talk of a purported meeting between AAP state unit chief Bhagwant Mann and Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday.
Though no one from AAP confirmed it, sources say that just as Sidhu was upset with his party, Mann too was unhappy over AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s reluctance to name him as the party’s Punjab CM candidate.
Interestingly, the reports have emerged at a time when Kejriwal is scheduled to visit Punjab on Wednesday.
Hindustan Times – Akal Takht jathedar returns from Pakistan, says ETPB will restore neglected gurdwaras
The Akal Takht jathedar had been invited to Pakistan to attend functions being held at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur, to mark Joti Jot of Guru Nanak; he also visited other historic gurdwaras.
HT Correspondent
Amritsar – Panjab – India, 28 September 2021. Akal Takht acting jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh on Tuesday returned from an eight-day tour to Pakistan. After crossing over to India through the Wagah-Attari border, he told the media, “The visit went well and we were blessed to have darshan of historic gurdwaras in Pakistan.”
“I also held a meeting with the top brass of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), which is custodian of properties of minority communities, Hindus and Sikhs. Here, I requested them to pay attention to historic gurdwaras which are in a dilapidated condition. I demanded the restoration of the buildings of these gurdwaras, instead of replacing them with new one,” the jathedar added.
He added that the specifically mentioned that the conditions of Shaheedi Asthans of Bhai Mani Singh and Bhai Taru Singh, and the Diwan Khana associated with the 5th Sikh master Guru Arjan Dev in Lahore was not good.
“Officials of the ETPB were receptive to our demands and told us that were are already restoring some of the shrines, and will now focus on the places we suggested,” the jathedar added.
The Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC) had invited Giani Harpreet Singh, along with his family, to Pakistan to attend functions being held at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur, to mark Joti Jot (immersion in the eternal light) Gurpurb (day) of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religion, on 22 September.
Firstpost – US military generals say they advised Biden to retain 2500 troops in Afghanistan
The top military authorities during a six-hour Senate hearing also said that the 20-year war was a ‘strategic failure’
Washington DC – USA, 29 September 2021. The top United States military officer called the 20-year war in Afghanistan a “strategic failure” and acknowledged to Congress on Tuesday that he had favoured keeping several thousand troops in the country to prevent a collapse of the US-supported Kabul government and a rapid takeover by the Taliban.
Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee pointed to the testimony by General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as evidence that President Joe Biden had been untruthful when, in a television interview last month, he suggested the military had not urged him to keep troops in Afghanistan.
Milley refused to say what advice he gave Biden last spring when Biden was considering whether to comply with an agreement the Trump administration had made with the Taliban to reduce the American troop presence to zero by May 2021, ending a US war that began in October 2001.
Testifying alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also refused to reveal his advice to Biden.
Milley told the committee, when pressed, that it had been his personal opinion that at least 2,500 U.S. troops were needed to guard against a collapse of the Kabul government and a return to Taliban rule.
Defying US intelligence assessments, the Afghan government and its US-trained army collapsed in mid-August, allowing the Taliban, which had ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, to capture Kabul with what Milley described as a couple of hundred men on motorcycles, without a shot being fired.
That triggered a frantic US effort to evacuate American civilians, Afghan allies and others from Kabul airport.
General Frank McKenzie, who as head of Central Command was overseeing US troops in Afghanistan, said he shared Milley’s view that keeping a residual force there could have kept the Kabul government intact.
“I recommended that we maintain 2500 troops in Afghanistan, and I also recommended early in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time, those were my personal views,” McKenzie said. “I also had a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government.”
The six-hour Senate hearing marked the start of what is likely to be an extended congressional review of the US failures in Afghanistan. The length and depth of the hearing stood in contrast to years of limited congressional oversight of the war and the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars it consumed.
“The Republicans’ sudden interest in Afghanistan is plain old politics,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, who supported Biden’s decision to end US involvement there.
Austin and Milley are scheduled to appear on Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee to review the war.
The hearing at times was contentious, as Republicans sought to portray Biden as having ignored advice from military officers and mischaracterized the military options he was presented last spring and summer.
Several Republicans tried unsuccessfully to draw Milley, McKenzie and Austin into commenting on the truthfulness of Biden’s statement to ABC News on 18 August, three days after the Taliban took control of Kabul, that no senior military commander had recommended against a full troop withdrawal when it was under discussion in the first months of Biden’s term.
When asked in that interview whether military advisers had recommended keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, Biden replied, “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.” He also said the advice “was split.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden was referring to having received a range of advice.
“Regardless of the advice, it’s his decision, he’s the commander in chief,” she said.
In a blunt assessment of a war that cost 2,461 American lives, Milley said the result was years in the making.
“Outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that is a strategic failure, the enemy is in charge in Kabul, there’s no way else to describe that, that is a cumulative effect of 20 years,” he said, adding that lessons need to be learned, including whether the USA military made the Afghans overly dependent on American technology in a mistaken effort to make the Afghan army look like the American army.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked Milley why he did not choose to resign after his advice was rejected.
Milley, who was appointed to his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump and retained by Biden, said it was his responsibility to provide the commander in chief with his best advice.
“The president doesn’t have to agree with that advice,” Milley said. “He doesn’t have to make those decisions just because we are generals. And it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to resign just because my advice was not taken.”
Austin defended the military’s execution of a frantic airlift from Kabul in August and asserted it will be “difficult but absolutely possible” to contain future threats from Afghanistan without troops on the ground.
Milley cited “a very real possibility” that Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate could reconstitute in Afghanistan under Taliban rule and present a terrorist threat to the United States in the next 12 to 36 months.
It was Al Qaeda’s use of Afghanistan as a base from which to plan and execute its attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, that triggered the US invasion of Afghanistan a month later.
“And we must remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist organisation and they still have not broken ties with Al Qaeda,” Milley said. “I have no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power or if the country will further fracture into civil war.”
Austin questioned decisions made over the 20-year course of the US war in Afghanistan. In retrospect, he said, the American government may have put too much faith in its ability to build a viable Afghan government.
“We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation,” he told the Senate committee. “The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise. It would be dishonest to claim otherwise.”
Asked why the United States did not foresee the rapid collapse of the Afghan army, Milley said that in his judgment the USA military lost its ability to see and understand the true condition of the Afghan forces when it ended the practice some years ago of having advisers alongside the Afghans on the battlefield.
“You can’t measure the human heart with a machine, you have to be there,” Milley said.
The Statesman, Russia says it’s in sync with USA – China – Pakistan – Taliban, China, Pakistan on Taliban
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said the four countries are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government.
United Nations – New York – USA, 26 September 2021. Russia, China, Pakistan, and the United States are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading, Russia’s foreign minister said Saturday.
Sergey Lavrov said the four countries are in ongoing contact. He said representatives from Russia, China, and Pakistan recently traveled to Qatar and then to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to engage with both the Taliban and representatives of “secular authorities”, former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ousted government’s negotiating council with the Taliban.
Lavrov said the interim government announced by the Taliban does not reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society – ethno-religious and political forces – so we are engaging in contacts. They are ongoing.”
The Tribune – Bharat Bandh: Farmers block highways – squat on railway tracks at many places in Punjab – Haryana
A complete shutdown is observed in Punjab, with transport services suspended during the bandh period, while shops and other commercial establishments remain shut at most places
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh – Panjab – India, 27 September 2021. Normal life was hit as farmers blocked highways, roads and squatted on railway tracks at many places in Punjab and Haryana on Monday in view of a Bharat Bandh called by farm unions against three agriculture laws of the Centre.
In Punjab, the ruling Congress said it firmly stands by the farm unions’ Bharat Bandh call against the three laws.
A complete shutdown was observed in the state, with transport services suspended during the bandh period, while shops and other commercial establishments remained shut at most places.
National and state highways in several districts, including Amritsar, Rupnagar, Jalandhar, Pathankot, Sangrur, Mohali, Ludhiana, Ferozepur and Bathinda were blocked by the protesters.
In neighbouring Haryana, the protesters blocked highways in Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Hisar, Charkhi Dadri, Karnal, Kaithal, Rohtak, Jhajjar and Panchkula districts.
The protesting farmers squatted on railway tracks at many places in the two states.
Ferozepur’s Divisional Railway Manager Seema Sharma told PTI that some passenger trains had been cancelled while some other services had been rescheduled.
With the protesters squatting on railway tracks, she said as far as possible, the railway authorities tried to halt the trains at a station so that the stranded passengers could get some facilities.
Several trains were held up due to this.
Phagwara Station Superintendent Devinder Singh said the Amritsar-bound 03005 Up Howrah Mail coming from Kolkata was stopped by the railway authorities at 6.35 am, while the Jammu-bound 08237 UP Begampura Express had to be halted at Phagwara at 6.46 am. He said though the Begampura Express had no scheduled halt at Phagwara, it had to be stopped due to track blockade near Jalandhar.
The Amritsar-Katihar Express, the Saharsa-Amritsar Express and the Uchahar Express trains were halted at the Ambala Cantonment railway station, while the Ambala-Saharanpur passenger train was halted at the Jagadhri railway station.
At the Karnal railway station, the Swaraj Express train headed to Jammu was halted. Three trains were also halted at the Kurukshetra railway station, officials said.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi urged the Centre to repeal the three “anti-farmer” laws.
“#I Stand With Farmers & appeal the Union Govt. to repeal the three anti-farmer laws. Our farmers have been struggling for their rights since more than a year & it is high time that their voice is heard. I request the farmers to raise their voice in a peaceful manner,” he said in a tweet.
State Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu said the PPCC firmly stands by the farmer unions’ Bharat Bandh call.
“Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee firmly stands by Farmer Unions demand for Bharat Bandh on 27 Sept 2021. In the war of right and wrong you can not afford to be neutral!!
We urge every Congress worker to fight with all their might against the three Unconstitutional Black Laws!!” he tweeted.
Hundreds of farmers blocked the Ambala-Delhi National Highway. They put barricades on the roads leading up to the Shambhu border near Ambala and squatted in the middle of the road. The traffic towards Delhi was diverted to alternative routes.
A large number of trucks and other vehicles were stranded on both sides of the highway.
A number of farmers gathered at the new grain market in Ambala city, from where they marched towards various city markets to request the shopkeepers to keep their shops closed.
Most of the grain markets of Ambala district, the wholesale cloth market, Sarafa bazaar, educational institutes and several commercial establishments remained closed.
Shops also remained shut at some other places in Haryana, including in Karnal and Kurukshetra.
In Amritsar, a large number of farmers held a protest near the Golden Gate, the entry point of the holy city.
Farmer’s leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said the Centre should repeal the “black farm laws” without further delay.
Sputnik – India’s Congress Party Still Has Good Scope in Punjab State Polls, Says Expert
24 September 2021. Congress-governed Punjab state, headed for assembly polls early next year, has been witnessing political turmoil for six months due to infighting within the party.
State chief Captain Amarinder Singh has stepped down from his post, paving the way for the first Dalit leader, Charanjit Singh Channi, to become the new chief.
Punjab state chief Captain Amarinder Singh recently resigned from his position after the Congress party asked him to step down.
The step came against the backdrop of his months-long rift with Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Congress party head in Punjab, just months ahead of the state assembly polls.
Sidhu accuses Singh of not fulfilling his election promises made to the public and delaying bringing the perpetrators of a 2015 sacrilege case to justice, in which the Sikhs’ holy book, “Guru Granth Sahib”, was desecrated in Faridkot District.
As a result of the tensions, on 20 September, the Congress party appointed Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi as the new state chief of Punjab.
Replacing the state chief just before the election evoked mixed responses from experts and opposition parties, and Sputnik has dug into the current political situation in the Indian state of Punjab.
Professor Ashutosh Kumar, a political expert and head of the Department of Political Science at Punjab University, spoke to Sputnik, sharing his analysis of the Congress party’s performance in the state and other related developments last week.
Sputnik: How do you look at a popular senior leader like Amarinder Singh being made to make way for others by the Congress party, just ahead of the upcoming state assembly polls?
Prof. Kumar: The whole situation is not merely a power tussle between Captain Amarinder Singh and the Congress party’s Punjab state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Amarinder Singh failed to deliver electoral promises, including investigating allegations of corruption taking place under the previous government (headed by the rival Shiromani Akali Dal – Bharatiya Janata Party alliance), taking action on the sacrilege issue, ending illegal sand mining, and cracking down on the drug mafia, among other issues.
The Singh government ignored these concerns despite frustrated legislators frequently flagging it to the party leadership.
In the past 18 months, the captain (Amarinder Singh) was surrounded by a coterie and retired bureaucrats. He kept giving extensions to these bureaucrats for being his friends.
With time Singh (as a state chief and top Congress leader in Punjab) turned more confident and arrogant. He thought that central leadership would not dare to challenge him, and he’s invincible. And he miscalculated the situation.
Sputnik: How do you view the party’s move to choose Charanjit Singh Channi as the new state chief over Navjot Singh Sidhu, the current head of Congress party in Punjab?
Prof. Kumar: Astute. There are two-three factors that went in favour of Channi. First, Sidhu had no administrative experience, whereas Channi was a Cabinet minister and knew all the bureaucrats and their working styles.
As of now, Sidhu is seen as a marvellous orator and a successful former cricketer, but the election is hardly six months away. No ruling party wants to try an inexperienced face over an experienced one.
Sputnik: But a few discomforting voices within the Jat Sikh Community of Punjab sound as if these people are not happy that a Dalit face has been elected as the state chief. Why?
Prof. Kumar: Dalits constitute at least 32 percent of the population in Punjab, whereas Jat Sikhs are only 22 percent, they are the single largest caste in the state.
Dalits may be one-third of the total population, but they are not a homogenous entity. They vote mostly on the basis of religion, not for caste.
Jats are not happy with Channi being appointed as the Punjab state chief.
Punjab is undergoing lots of changes, and all changes are negative.
It’s an agricultural state that is not making money, has no IT industry, or migrating most of the talents. So now, those who want to start their own business or shops, etc., Jats need a political lobby.
The community to which the state chief belongs matters a lot. This reality does not hold truth about Punjab, this matters in most of the Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and others.
Sputnik: Punjab is just six months away from witnessing the legislative assembly election, which party, Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal, BJP, or AAP, has a better chance to win at this point in time?
Prof. Kumar: It is too early to discuss the scope of any party. But the Congress party can still do good in elections.
For some reason, Punjab is not a state for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Their best was 19 seats out of the total 117. Now, when farmers are protesting against the BJP-led federal government against three contentious farm laws, there is not much hope for them.
Former ruling party Shiromani Akali Dal never got less than 24 percent, they can deliver good results during polls, but right now they are being criticised by farmers for being the BJP’s ally and supporting Narendra Modi’s farm laws (in the past).
The state’s main opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also has a good chance, given how they plan out the election campaign and who will be their election face. Punjab voted for them during the last state and national elections. Let’s see (this time).
The Hindu – Social Democrats beat Merkel bloc in German elections
Berlin, 27 September 2021. The center-left Social Democrats have won the biggest share of the vote in Germany’s national election, beating outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Union bloc in a closely fought race.
Election officials said early 27 September that a count of all 299 constituencies showed that the Social Democrats won 25.9% of the vote, ahead of 24.1% for the Union bloc.
The environmentalist Greens came third with 14.8% followed by the pro-business Free Democrats with 11.5%.
The two parties have already signaled that they are willing to discuss forging a three-way alliance with either of their two bigger rivals to form a government.
The far-right Alternative for Germany came fourth with 10.3%, while the Left party took 4.9%. The party, known by its German acronym AfD, failed to get its core issue, migration, onto the campaign agenda this year.
Despite the projected outcome, party co-leader Tino Chrupalla said he was “very satisfied” by the result and welcomed the heavy losses for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Union bloc.
AfD said four years ago that it would “hunt” Ms. Merkel who said in 2018 that she would not run for a fifth term. Other parties have ruled out any cooperation with AfD.
For the first time since 1949, the Danish minority party SSW was set to win a seat in parliament, officials said.
Germany’s Left party has scraped into Parliament, despite failing to meet the required 5% threshold.
The Left, which is partly rooted in the communist party that ruled East Germany for decades, managed to win three constituencies outright in the September 26 election. Had it failed to win those constituencies it would likely have been kicked out of the Bundestag, as it is currently projected to receive only 4.8% of the vote.
Another party, the South Schleswig Voters’ Association, looks set to win its first seat in Parliament since 1949, German public broadcaster ARD reports. Election officials said that the party is exempt from the 5% rule because it represents a national minority group, the Danes in northern Germany.
Voters in the German capital have backed a proposal for the Berlin regional government to take over nearly 2,50,000 apartments worth billions from corporate owners to curb rising rents. A nearly complete count of the September 26 referendum showed 56.4% of voters in favor of the measure, and 39% opposed.
The non-binding referendum forces the Berlin government to consider expropriating big landlords in a radical move to cool one of Germany’s hottest real estate markets, where rents have become unaffordable for many residents in recent years.
Also on September 26, the center-left Social Democrats appeared to have defended their hold of the mayoral post in the capital. Initial projections indicated that the Greens had won, but subsequent counts showed them falling behind with 18.8% of the vote compared to the Social Democrats’ 21.4%.
In a second regional election held in parallel to the national vote on 26 September, the Social Democrats were set for a strong win in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania. The party was projected to get 39.6% of the vote, ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany with 16.7%.
Exit polls showed the Social Democrats’ current coalition partners, the Union bloc, coming third in the state with 13.3%.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Parliament seat has gone to a candidate from the rival Social Democrats for the first time since 1990.
Ms. Merkel won the country’s most northeasterly constituency in the first free elections after German reunification, and then defended the seat in seven subsequent elections.
The long-time leader announced in 2018 that she would not run for office again. Nationwide in the September 26 election, Merkel’s Union bloc saw its worst result since 1949, coming second behind the center-left Social Democrats. The latest projections give it 24.1% of the vote, a drop of almost 9 percentage points from 2017.
The far-right Alternative for Germany has come out top in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. The party, which is under scrutiny from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency due to its extremist links, received 24.6% of the vote in Saxony and 24% in Thuringia.
It also won 17 constituencies in the two States and neighboring Saxony-Anhalt. The party’s nationwide share of the vote stood at 10.5%, down 2 percentage points compared to 2017, when it first entered parliament.
The candidate for German Chancellor of the center-left Social Democratic party has defeated the Greens’ Chancellor candidate in the contest to represent Potsdam outside Berlin.
Social Democrat Olof Scholz won the seat with 34% of the votes, while Green candidate Annalena Baerbock got 18.8%, according the German news agency dpa. However, Ms. Baerbock will still make it into the German parliament via the Green’s party list.
Both the Social Democrats and the Greens made gains in the elections, but the Greens had hoped for better results.
Projections from public television, based on exit polls and early vote counting, put voters’ support at around 26% for the Social Democrats and about 14% for the Greens.
The mood was subdued at the headquarters of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union as the building began to empty following the party’s poor showing in the election.
One of the few people remaining at the headquarters was 34 year-old Salahdin Koban, a party member from Berlin. Trying to explain the CDU’s losses, Mr. Koban said too many mistakes had been made during the campaign by candidate Armin Laschet.
He also said that in general, it was hard for anyone to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor.
Merkel announced in 2018, that she would not run again in this election. Mr. Koban called Merkel ‘simply an icon” and for anyone “to follow in her footsteps is difficult.”
Social Democrats supporters waved the party’s red flags, broke into chants and burst into long party candidate Olaf Scholz walked onto the stage at the party’s headquarters in Berlin.
Mr. Scholz thanked the crowd, voters and campaigners across the country. saying on 26 September that the party managed to pick up vote in three separate elections,nationally, in Berlin and in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State elections.
Michael Mueller, the outgoing mayor of Berlin who ran for a seat in the country’s national Parliament, said as he stood in the crowd: “I couldn’t be happier tonight.”
The candidate from outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Union bloc says the party will do “everything we can” to form a new government. Mr. Laschet said Germany will likely have its first national government composed of three parties.
He said that “we will do everything we can to form a government under the Union’s leadership, because Germany now needs a coalition for the future that modernizes our country.” Mr Laschet was surrounded by his party’s top brass, including Ms. Merkel, as he spoke at its headquarters in Berlin.
Hundreds of people burst out in spontaneous chants of “Olaf, Olaf”- the first name of the Social Democrats’ candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz, when exit poll results flashed acroos TV screens at the party’s Berlin headquarters.
A cheering Renée Röske from Cologne said she had been telling everyone that Scholz was the “best candidate” and that it’s now reflected in the exit polls.
The 42 year-old said she noticed over the summer that once people realized that Ms. Merkel isn’t running again, they became more interested in politics and started to inform themselves about the three main candidates.
She said people noticed that Mr. Scholz “did the right things” during the pandemic and “that’s why the SPD in now leading, because Scholz is good.”
Germany’s election authority made it clear that center-right chancellor candidate Armin Laschet’s votes will be valid although they could be seen as he put his ballot paper into the ballot box.
German election rules state that ballot papers should be folded in such a way that it’s not possible to see how the person voted. It wasn’t immediately clear whether election officials in Mr. Laschet’s constituency in Aachen had noticed that his paper was folded wrongly, a moment that was caught by cameras.
Without explicitly naming Laschet, the election authority tweeted that “a nationally known politician voted for his own party, as expected.” It said that couldn’t be seen as an attempt to influence voters.
It said if the ballot paper is folded wrongly, election officials are supposed to issue a new ballot paper. But if the wrongly folded ballot gets into the ballot box, it can no longer be screened out and is valid. Mr. Laschet’s paper went into the ballot box.
The Nation – Indian Americans protest outside White House over Modi’s visit
Washington DC – USA, 26 September 2021. A large number of Indian Americans gathered at Lafayette Square, the park in front of the White House, to protest against the visit of Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to the USA.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the protestors were chanting slogans and holding placards that read “Save India from fascism”. They also castigated Modi over human rights violations, persecution of Muslims and other minorities, new farm laws and Indian brutalities in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
In Geneva, Tehreek-e-Kashmir, Europe, staged a unique protest outside the UN Human Rights Council headquarters against the forced burial of the veteran Kashmiri Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Geelani by Modi-led fascist Indian government in Srinagar.
The activists wearing coffins and holding pictures of Syed Ali Geelani in their hands laid themselves down on the ground and chanted slogans like “We want an end to the massacre in IIOJK” and “Wake up wake up, UN wake up”.
https://nation.com.pk/26-Sep-2021/indian-americans-protest-outside-white-house-over-modi-s-visit
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