CounterCurrents: Modi’s New Year Eve Speech: What Comes Next?

Dear Friend,

2017 is here. India's cashless woes are not going to go away. On New Year's eve, an apologetice Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, appeared on national television and gave a speech. Your's truly looks at what he said and left unsaid and analyse what it portends for India.  

The US government has begun requesting foreign travelers to submit their social media information to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before traveling into the country. The practice is claimed to be part of broader efforts to identify potential “terrorist threats.” The request is part of the online Electronic System for Travel Authorization, a visa waiver application that many visitors must complete. The choices include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, as well as additional space for applicants to volunteer other lesser-known platforms.

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Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org



Modi’s New Year Eve Speech: What Comes Next?
by Binu Mathew 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/01/modis-new-year-eve-speech-what-comes-next/

After 52 painful cashless days, I was not going to miss what Prime Minister had to say this time. The whole nation glued to the TV sets to hear Prime Ministers speech. Prime Minister also had said ‘wait for 50 days or hang me in public if I’m proved wrong’. What did he say? Nothing! Nothing? Not yet, but Everything!




Demonetisation: Bhasmasur’s Dance Of Death
by Vijaya Kumar Marla 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/01/demonetisation-bhasmasurs-dance-of-death/

Indians are known to take any injustice in to their stride, with our all powerful karma siddhanta teaching us that your sufferings are the result of your own sins in your past janam. Let us hope that people will wake up before this Bhasmasur wreaks total havoc with the economy and ruins the lives of the 1.28 billion Indians.





Digital Finance Must Be Humane If It Is To Succeed
by Moin Qazi 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/01/digital-fiance-must-be-humane-if-it-is-to-succeed/

We will have to sign off 2016 with a cultural baggage of a new vocabulary which elderly  and illiterate  Indians   may not be comfortable with , but have to embrace it    in order to honour the government since  the new rules of democracy leave them with little choice. . Most of the conversations in the new year we   will have much to do with the   phrase “digital finance that  has suddenly acquired a magical nuance. Amazingly even the laity has started tapping into the buzz of digital finance. Specialist phrases like “cashless economy” and “plastic money” are now being   freely tossed   in everyday conversations.





US Government Collecting Social Media Accounts Of Visitors To Country
by E.P. Milligan 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/01/us-government-collecting-social-media-accounts-of-visitors-to-country/

The US government has begun requesting foreign travelers to submit their social media information to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before traveling into the country. The practice is claimed to be part of broader efforts to identify potential “terrorist threats.” The request is part of the online Electronic System for Travel Authorization, a visa waiver application that many visitors must complete. The choices include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, as well as additional space for applicants to volunteer other lesser-known platforms.






Taiwan: Ignorance, Danger Of War And A High School Nazi Parade
by Andre Vltchek

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/01/taiwan-ignorance-danger-of-war-and-a-high-school-nazi-parade/

At the end of December 2016, both Taiwan and the world were shaken to the core, when images appeared in the local press and online, depicting students parading in Nazi uniforms proudly raising their hands in salute, an act banned in most of countries of the world






A Response To The Fallback Argument Of Likudniks
by Jeffrey Rudolph

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/01/a-response-to-the-fallback-argument-of-likudniks/

As Israel’s myriad human rights abuses and contraventions of international law have become impossible to deny, one argument that apologists for Israel routinely fall back on is: While Israel has engaged in human rights and other abuses, other countries commit far worse abuses. Therefore, it is wrong – and possibly indicative of anti-Semitism – to focus excessively on Israel’s wrongs. As someone who has worked at information tables dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the following is my systematic response to this fallback argument.





“Babu Hatao, Fauji Bachao”: Trifling With The Fauj And National Security
by S G Vombatkere 

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/31/babu-hatao-fauji-bachao-trifling-with-the-fauj-and-national-security/

Civil-military relations are today at an all-time low and although the decades-long continuity of the bureaucratic hand is obvious in the current NDA-2 dispensation, there is also evidence of the political leadership humiliating the military. Let us begin with CBI’s arrest of Air Chief Marshal S.P.Tyagi, India’s former air chief, in connection with the Agusta Westland helicopter purchase deal. It raises some questions not only about the functioning of the political leadership and the bureaucrat-police network, but also about hidden motivations and unintended compromise of national security due to its effect on the morale of India’s military.