CounterCurrents: Obama’s Fakery, ‘News’ Media’s Suckery, Illegitimate Biometric Identification Projects Compromise Sovereignty Of Nations In South Asia, Pakistan’s Military Expands Its Power In Wake Of Lahore Terror Attack, Rape And Institutional Murder Of A Minor Dalit Girl In Rajasthan

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Binu Mathew
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www.countercurrents.org

Rape And Institutional Murder Of A Minor Dalit Girl In Rajasthan
By The Bangalore coalition for Justice for Delta Meghwal

http://www.countercurrents.org/jdm010416.htm

On March 29th,2016 the dead body of Delta Meghwal, a 17 year old Dalit girl from a village in Barmer district of Rajasthan was found in the water tank of the Jain Adarsh Teacher Training Institute for girls in Nokha, Bikaner where she was studying. According to the FIR filed by her parents, there were only 4 girls at the hostel as all the other girls had gone home and had not returned by then. On the evening of 28th, at 8 pm, she called her father and told him that their Warden Priya Shukla had sent her to the PT Instructor Vijendra Singh's room, with the excuse of cleaning the hostel (this shows the clear collusion of the warden in the case). There, Delta was raped by Vijendra Kumar Singh, the PT teacher. The Institute , in an attempt to cover up the incident, took written apology from both her and the PT Instructor with a statement that this happened with mutual consent. The usual strategy of victim blaming was used in the most brutal manner against a 17 yr old girl


Pakistan’s Military Expands Its Power In Wake Of Lahore Terror Attack
By Sampath Perera

http://www.countercurrents.org/perera010416.htm

Pakistan’s military has seized on last Sunday’s terrorist atrocity in Lahore to implement its longstanding plans for an “antiterrorism” offensive in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, and to further strengthen its authority over the country’s civilian government


The Wounded Phoenix Of Palmyra 
By Franklin Lamb

http://www.countercurrents.org/lamb010416.htm

Eyewitness accounts from the scene this morning (3/30/2016) confirm that the Syrian Army has liberated all parts of the city of Palmyra (Tadmor) including all of the ancient city, from 10 months of occupation and destruction by ISIS. The Syrian army spokesman explained that the city, home to some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman Empire, would now become a “launch pad” for operations against ISIS strongholds in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, further east across a vast desert. Syrian state media announced yesterday that Palmyra’s military airport was again receiving air traffic


New Veteran-Led Campaign Challenges Islamophobia
By Brian Trautman

http://www.countercurrents.org/trautman010416.htm

Violence against American Muslims is growing faster than at any time since 9/11, with assaults on Muslim individuals and their places of worship having tripled since the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks. The hate propaganda and political demagoguery observed in the current presidential election season has fueled Islamophobia and contributed to the sharp rise in hate crimes. Many public figures, social commentators and members of the media tragically conflate terrorism with Islam, despite the lack of credible evidence pointing to any connection between the two. Sadly, it is quite possible that the anti-Muslim responses to the terror attacks in Brussels from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and others may have incited more Islamophobia and put Muslims at greater risk of victimization


Brussels 2016: Fall-Out For Europe’s Muslims 
By Iftikhar H. Malik

http://www.countercurrents.org/malik010416.htm

Muslim media, mosques, family structures and certainly the institutional hierarchies have to assume fresher and dynamic steps to help Muslim majorities become stake holders rather than turning into suspects, or mere onlookers. Most Muslims know that the perpetrators are often the criminal elements that, for their own retribution, seek radical laybys and in the process may undertake extreme and brutal means to ventilate their own personal frustrations. Apart from issues related with identity and of generational nature, a recourse to proactive and non-coercive policies—both domestic and external—will certainly go a long way in deterring some younger Muslims from self-flagellation and its attendant human costs


Obama’s Fakery, ‘News’ Media’s Suckery 
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse010416.htm

How can it be that the same news-medium that reported, on 22 April 2015, that the Obama Administration allows countries it signs trade-pacts with to murder their trade-union organizers and insists upon continuing to permit those murders, has now also reported on 24 March 2016, "The Obama Administration Just Took A Huge Step On Worker Safety: It’s known as the silica rule, and it’s a big frigging deal”? This new Obama-Administration ‘rule’ won’t even be enforceable, but that ‘news’ medium failed to notice that this ‘big frigging deal’ is actually only a con by Obama — nothing more than empty words and promises, nothing at all that’s likely to be enforceable


Why The Supreme Court Of India Should Enlarge Prof. G.N. Saibaba On Bail
By Dr. P.S. Sahni

http://www.countercurrents.org/sahni010416.htm

On 4th of April, 2016, the Supreme Court of India is scheduled to hear the bail plea of Prof. G.N. Saibaba, lecturer, Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University and who is presently lodged at Nagpur jail.There is an apparent apprehension that if enlarged on bail, Prof. Saibaba would jump bail and flee the country or otherwise influence material witnesses – both these assumptions are unfounded. Far from fleeing in the physical sense Prof. Saibaba is wheelchair bound and is not even able to stand on his own feet. Besides there is not even an allegation against him that he has ever tried to influence witnesses


Stop Harssing Bela Bhatia
By William Nicholas Gomes

http://www.countercurrents.org/gomes010416.htm

On 26 March 2016, death threats were made against human rights defender Ms Bela Bhatia during a demonstration close to her home in Jagdalpur. Participants in the demonstration demanded that the human rights defender be put to death, accused her of being a Naxal terrorist and questioned her landlady and neighbours


Crying For Bharat Mata 
By Swapnil Dhanraj

http://www.countercurrents.org/dhanraj010416.htm

The recent imposition of the slogan “Bharat Mata Ki jai” is another attempt to ignite deep communal tension and separatism in the name of nationalism. The shocking suspension of a MLA , Waris Pathan in Maharashtra for not chanting “Bharat Mata Ki jai” indicates that communal nationalism is in play. Such kind of enforcement for chanting particular slogans or forceful nationalism has ended up creating schism rather than uniting people for the so called cultural nationalism of the BJP. To quote Romila Thapar nationalism has to be inclusive of all communities and it has to be secular. It cannot be determined by any single identity such as religion, language. So what we need today is creation of egalitarian conditions where every person can think and speak fearlessly without any governmental imposition


Jashn-e-Azaadi By Whom And For Whom 
By Anoop Patel

http://www.countercurrents.org/patel010416.htm

An open letter to Organisers and speakers of the event “Jashn-e-Azaadi” on 28th March, 2016 on the birth anniversary of Prof. Bipan Chandra...


A Deeper Look At Manusmriti To Understand
Why Students At JNU Burned It In Protest
By P Radhakrishnan

http://www.countercurrents.org/radhakrishnan010416.htm

On 8th March this year, a few students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, including former and current members of ABVP (AkhilBharatiyaVidyarthiParishad) burnt a copy of the Manusmriti to “protest against ‘derogatory verses‘ in the Hindu religious text”. After being served a show-cause notice by the Vice-Chancellor of the University, three of the students have stated that there was nothing wrong in their actions. In response to the VC’s question, the author has presented an excerpt from his book ‘Religion, Caste And State’


Gender Bias And Discrimination: Modernity VS Tradition 
By Dr. Fayaz Ahmad Bhat

http://www.countercurrents.org/bhat010416.htm

I do not want to give an impression that in traditional and simple societies women had no issue and there were no gender bias and discrimination. However, my point is that modern western ideologies are not free from gender bias and discrimination and any blind follow and copy paste may result loss of space which women were occupying in traditional societies


A Beginning, Not The End! 
By Mohammad Ashraf

http://www.countercurrents.org/ashraf010416.htm

Sometimes accidents in life do not end it but rather give a new beginning for a more active and purposeful life

31 March , 2016


Illegitimate Biometric Identification Projects Compromise Sovereignty Of Nations In South Asia
By Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties

http://www.countercurrents.org/pr310316.htm

Is it a coincidence that the similar schemes are unfolding in South Asia? Isn’t there a design behind persuading and compelling developing countries to biometrically profile their citizens? Is it too early to infer that international bankers, UN agencies and western military alliances wish to create profiles in their biometric and electronic database for coercive use of social control measures? Is it not true that uninformed citizens, parliamentarians and gullible government agencies are too eager to be profiled and tracked through an online database? Would freedom fighters have approved of mass surveillance by any national or transnational agency? Is it not clear that UN agencies, World Bank Group, transnational intelligence companies and military alliances are working in tandem to create the bio-electronic database of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshi as per their pre-determined design? Is this design structured to safeguard the interest of present and future generation
?


Intifada For Dummies: Why A Popular Uprising Is Yet To Take Off? 
By Ramzy Baroud

http://www.countercurrents.org/baroud310316.htm

This might be the most difficult Intifada yet; for never before did Palestinians find themselves so leaderless, yet so ready to break free. The outcome of this tension, will not only define this whole generation, as it defined my generation of the 1987 Intifada, but it will define the future of Palestine altogether