http://www.pmindia.nic.in/write.htm

New Delhi, July 25 (IANS) China has formally invited United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and her “family members” to attend the August 8 inaugural ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Sources said Chinese ambassador to India Zhang Yan called on Gandhi Thursday at her 10, Janpath residence and handed over a formal invitation from the Communist Party of China (CPC).

“The Chinese ambassador took the opportunity to congratulate her on the UPA government winning a confidence vote in parliament and also handed over the invitation to attend the inaugural function of the Olympic Games,” the sources said.

A number of heads of states and governments, including US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and French President Nikolas Sarkozy have already confirmed their participation at the Olympics’ inaugural.[link]

While China has taken care to invite the formal heads of State and Government from all other countries. In the case of India it has deliberately decided to not invite either the President or the Prime Minister of the country and has instead extended an invitation to Sonia Gandhi and her “family members”. While it is common knowledge that she is indeed the power behind the throne in the current ruling setup and the PM is a mere puppet of hers. This arrangement is India’s internal matter and for all official purposes Sonia Gandhi and her “family members” who hold no official position as ministers or cabinet members are to be considered as private citizens.

China has to go through the official procedures and invite the formal heads of state and government of India which is only when it will be considered as an invitation to India. Inviting a private family is not the same as inviting India to the opening ceremony.

It is unfortunate that nobody either in Parliament or the Media has raised this issue and it is even more unfortunate that the Indian government and the MEA have remained quite in the face of this deliberate snub by the Chinese and have not lodged a formal protest with the Chinese.

He also wonders why Indian politicians who practice the worst form of realpolitik in the domestic arena shy away from power politics when it comes to the international arena.

A fundamental quandary that has long dogged India in the realm of foreign affairs and that has become even more acute with India’s ascent in the international order is what Sunil Khilnani has referred to as India’s lack of an “instinct for power”.

Most recently, this ambivalence was expressed by the Indian minister of commerce in a speech when he said: “this word power often makes me uncomfortable”. Though he was talking about the economic rise of India and the challenges that India continues to face as it continues to strive for sustained economic growth, his discomfort with the notion of India as a rising power was indicative of a larger reality in Indian polity. This ambivalence about the use of power in international relations where any prestige or authority eventually rely upon traditional measures of power, whether military or economic is curious as the Indian political elites have rarely shied away from the maximization of power in the realm of domestic politics, thereby corroding the institutional fabric of liberal democracy in the country. It was Indira Gandhi who long back, while addressing a foreign audience, suggested that India doesn’t believe in power (apparently only when it came to foreign policy it might seem).

Well the reality is actually quite down to earth. This is because most Indian politicians and bureaucrats and so called “intellectuals” included do not understand the outside world the way it is. They are more comfortable politicking in a domestic arena where they can easily recognize themselves with their opponents, rivals, supporters and other assorted cast of characters and even second guess them. On the other hand the rest of the outside world is indeed very foreign to them. They do not understand the ideologies, the fears, the ambitions and the desires that animate those outside India and thus their instinct since the last six decades has been to stick to a formula, that of professing its peaceful intentions and goodwill towards the outside world and hoping that they will leave them alone so that they can continue to indulge all their politicking energies in the domestic arena.

And one cannot blame them since they are the product of a culture that has been very insular and did not seek to know very much about the outside world until very recently. Only in modern times perhaps since the mid-nineteenth century have Indians traveled abroad in significant numbers. Until then it was even a religious taboo to travel abroad and those who did faced social ostracism on their return.Nowadays it is becoming more and more common and the globalization process means that more and more Indians are coming in direct contact with the outside world in some way or form.

And resultantly the current generation is much more aware of the outside world and India’s place in it. So it is largely a matter of a generation gap and once the current generation of politicians and bureaucrats who had their young formative years back in the era when the dinousaurs roamed the earth retire and ride into the sunset over the course of the next decade and the new generation takes over India will begin to engage with world in a significantly more assertive manner.

After 10 years of steady effort, both India and China have made significant qualitative changes in their navies. In terms of submarine capabilities – the construction of SSNs and SSBNs – China is now far ahead of India, however.

China has built two 094 SSBNs and two 093 SSNs, along with JL2 and JL1M submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that are ready to go into service in the PLA Navy, if they have not already done so.

In contrast, India is only preparing to receive one Russian-made Akura SSN for testing purposes by the end of 2008. In February 2008, the Indian Navy also launched from under water a 700-kilometer-range K-15 ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Nonetheless, India’s pace in the construction of large-tonnage surface battleships and an aircraft carrier is faster than China’s. Thanks to the 290-kilometer-range BrahMos supersonic multirole missile jointly developed by India and Russia, the overall technological standard of the Indian Navy’s ship-to-ship missile is superior to that of China’s PLA Navy. India’s surface battleships currently being built will all be fitted with BrahMos SSMs, according to the plan of the Indian Navy.

Ships added to the PLA Navy over the past 10 years include two 051C DDGs, two 052B DDGs, two 052C DDGs, four 956E/EM DDGs and one 051B DDG, all of which have a full-load displacement of over 6,000 tons. Six additional ships, 054 and 054A FFGs, have also been built. These surface battleships are the flagships of the modern Chinese navy.

In the Indian Navy over the past 10 years three Delhi Class DDGs and three 4,000-ton class Type 1135.6 FFGs have been commissioned, with the latter armed with 300-kilomter-range Club-N surface-to-surface missiles. The Indian Navy has also received three Type 16A FFGs with full-load displacement of 4,500 tons and armed with 16 units of H-35 surface-to-surface missiles.

As a result, in terms of the construction of surface battleships above 6,000 tons, China is temporarily ahead of India, while in the building of 4,000-ton class missile frigates, India and China are about equal, with India slightly ahead in technology.

The Indian Navy is also armed with one Hermes aircraft carrier with a full-load displacement of 28,000 tons as well as 12 Sea Harrier FRS Mk 51 fighters. Obviously, the Indian Navy’s experience in the use of an aircraft carrier is surely superior to that of the PLA Navy.

Regarding the surface battleships under construction right now, India seems to be much more ambitious than China. Since 2007, the only large surface battleship China has been building is the 054A FFG. In contrast, the Indian Navy has started to build three P-15A DDGs at its Mazagon Shipyard. This is an upgraded variant of the Delhi Class DDG, with drastic changes. So far one P-15A has already been launched.

A source from the Mazagon Shipyard told the author in New Delhi that the P-15A construction program is now giving way to the Shivalik, or P-17 FFG. The first P-17 will be delivered to the Indian Navy within this year, and the second and third will be delivered in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

The two types of surface battleships mentioned above will all be fitted with a vertical-launched version of the BrahMos SSM. The P-15A will be armed with 16 such missiles. The P15A DDG has a full-load displacement of 7,000 tons, and still uses the Shtil-1 ship-to-air missile. The P-17 is India’s indigenous stealthy FFG and has a full-load displacement of 5,300 tons. It is also armed with Shtil-1 ship-to-air missiles. [link]

Andrei Chang writing in his column Military might on UPIAsiaOnline has this to say about a possible Indo-China conflict after the Beijing Olympics.

Should China-India relations deteriorate to the verge of military confrontation and the riots in Tibet spread extensively, the first combat units of the PLA to be called to action would be the No. 52 and No. 53 Mountain Brigades under the Tibet Military Region.

The No. 52 Brigade, stationed at Linzhi, is highly mechanized and armed with T-92 wheeled armored vehicles and HJ-8/9 anti-tank missiles. National highway 318 directly connects Linzhi and Lhasa; thus it is logical to conclude that the T-92 wheeled armored vehicles on the streets of Lhasa were from this brigade. The No. 52 Mountain Brigade is stationed at Milin and is also the PLA combat unit stationed closest to the city of Lhasa.

National highway 318 is in fact the southern route of the Sichuan-Tibet highway. In the event of war or future large-scale riots in Tibet, the highway will be the key passageway for combat troops from the Chengdu Military Region to enter Tibet.

However, this key highway runs across the Minjiang River and the Daduhe River in a region with an average altitude of 4,250 meters (around 14,000 feet) above sea level, and thus is very susceptible to attack by the Indian Air Force or assault by organized rioters. Most of the highways within the Tibet region will be within striking range of the Su-30MKI fighters soon to be deployed in the No. 30 Squadron of the Indian Air Force at Tezpur.

If the T-90/89 armored personnel carriers used in Lhasa were indeed from the 149th Mechanized Rapid Reaction Division of the Chengdu Military Region, they were most likely transported first from Chongqing to Xining, then to Golmud to connect to the Qinghai-Tibet railway and continue on to Lhasa. The whole journey would take about 48 hours.

Such troop movements would be much faster and cheaper than before. Calculated on the basis of being able to transport most of the heavy equipment of a whole mechanized division within 48 hours – it is unlikely that all the division’s equipment would be moved – the PLA would be able to transport approximately 10 light mechanized divisions and some heavy mechanized divisions through the railroad to Tibet from the Lanzhou and Chengdu Military Regions within 30 days.

Of course, should there be a military conflict between China and India, the Qinghai-Tibet railway would be a prime target for air strikes by the Su-30MKI fighters of the Indian Air Force’s No. 30 Fighter Squadron, the MiG-27 fighters of the No. 22 Squadron at Hashimara and the “Jaguar” attackers of the No. 5 Squadron at Ambala.

The only obstacle to this mass movement of regular armed troops and equipment would be the capacity of Qinghai-Tibet railway and the number of available trains. China once claimed that the annual transport capacity of the railway was 5 million tons, an average of 13,888 tons per day.

The average load capacity of one Chinese train car is normally 60 tons, with about 20 cars in each cargo train. This would mean that each train could transport 1,200 tons, and thus 11 trains traveling both ways would be enough for each day. In time of war, the actual number of trains running on the railroad could double to roughly 20 trains both ways each day.

Suppose the total weight of the equipment and combat material needed for one rapid reaction division of the Chinese army was around 15,000 tons, the Qinghai-Tibet railway could transport a whole rapid reaction division on one average day. In other words, within every one-and-a-half to two days, China could move one rapid reaction division from the Chengdu Military Region or one rapid reaction division from the Lanzhou Military Region to Tibet.

China’s air transport capability also needs to be taken into consideration. Additional airborne troops, rapid reaction troops and armed police could be directly delivered to Lhasa from the air. Since airdrop operations would take place in the Tibet region, there would be no need for ground-based air defense firepower. Thus, the No. 15 Airborne Division could be airdropped to Tibet, and equipment such as airborne fighting vehicles could be put to use.

In recent years, China has made great effort to revamp the Qinghai-Tibet highway and the Sichuan-Tibet highway. National highways 214, 317 and 109 – the shortest routes into Tibet by land – are now all asphalted. If China were to have a military confrontation with India, highway transport could be more reliable should the Qinghai-Tibet railway be damaged.

The railway would allow the 61st Plateau Rapid Reaction Motorized Division of No. 21 Group Army under the Lanzhou Military Region and the 149th Rapid Reaction Motorized Division of the Chengdu Military Region to quickly enter Tibet.[link]

Notice the number of times that the Chinese writer emphases the critical role to be played by Air-Power. If the Indian Air Force comes to the party in a big way the Chinese will lose the ability to launch and sustain an offensive deep into Indian territory or find themselves unable to hold onto any marginal territorial gains made at the borders. Hopefully Indian military planners will take notice of it and not repeat the mistake of 1962 when they foolishly held back the IAF from involving itself in combat. This time the IAF should be handed over a carte blanche on the Tibetan plateau to wreck the Chinese military logistics and supplies there.

Because of the presence of U.S. military troops in Afghanistan and the escalating independence activities in the southern part of Xinjiang – northwest China’s primarily Muslim Uyghur ethnic region – the Xinjiang Military Region and the Lanzhou Military Region are now the key forces to guard against internal riots in that part of the country. This is why the forces of the Chengdu Military Region were the first to be deployed in Tibet.

In addition, the riots in Tibet quickly spread to Gansu province, which borders Xinjiang; therefore the Xinjiang and Lanzhou Military Regions may face the new mission of cracking down on Tibetan independence movements as well as Muslim riots and the traditional Uyghur independence activities.

Once the Uyghur separatist movement in Xinjiang and the independence activities in Gansu and Tibet intensify, the 61st Rapid Reaction Division stationed at Tianshui in Gansu province will be the first one to be called upon in the crackdown. In addition, the No. 12 Armored Division stationed at Zhangye in Gansu province may also be mobilized.

The 4th Motorized Infantry Division of Xinjiang Military Region was the first local combat unit to receive new equipment in the region, including the T-92 100-mm wheeled assault cannons. Obviously, this division is now transforming into a rapid reaction unit and will probably be used to deal with any riots in southern Xinjiang. Besides, this division is also quite close to the Afghanistan border.

The 6th Motorized Infantry Division stationed at Kashi is the only mechanized combat unit in the Xinjiang Military Region. It is also close to Afghanistan and is located right in the heart of southern Xinjiang. Should Uyghur independence activities break out of control, the above two divisions would be the first to be dispatched.

As for the Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, it is covered by the 11th Brigade. As is widely known, the 63rd Division of the original No. 21 Group Army and the 7th Division of the Xinjiang Military Region have been restructured into the Armed Police No. 63 and No. 7 Divisions, and are stationed at the cities of Pingliang and Ili, respectively.

The Chinese are also concerned about having to fight the Indian war while having to look behind their backs at the same time. If the Indian side manages to put an impressive aerial show on display in the Tibetan plateau. It could inspire the Tibetans and Uighurs to take up arms or riot against the Chinese yoke and even indulge in sustained guerilla activities. This could tie up substantial Chinese forces and energy in trying to control the rebellion and help the Indian war effort in a crucial manner if planned properly.

That has left the Indian side including both the MEA and MEdiA quite confused and they are trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.The current leadership shows no inclination to meet him while at the same they arrange a meeting with the supposed future leadership.

Well let me help them out of their stupor. In one short sentence- It is a BAD thing and it is a straightforward diplomatic slap in the face.

Xi Jinping might be the chosen successor of Hu Jintao slated to succeed him in 2012. but the CCP history is littered with the corpses of such “chosen ones”. from President Lin Biao to Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang there are many who one day were on the path to superstardom only to find themselves in a dark dungeon the next day holding their intenstines in their hands and begging for mercy from the red guards just because of one small real or perceived misstep.

Xi knows this very well. So all that Pranab can expect from this encounter is more homilies, platitudes, joint declarations ad hominem but nothing of substance.

And one more thing that has missed the notice of most Padmashri Shri Pranab should have chosen a better day to make his trip to Beijing than preferring to go on the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in an Olympic year when the whole world is trying to use the Olympics as a leverage to pressure Beijing to improve its record on human rights. It is said that diplomacy is a lot about symbolism. The posturing matters just as much as the substance. It is unlikely that the either Pranabda or the babus of the MEA were unaware of the significance of the day.

Now the timing is definitely not an issue between India and China. Most certainly the Chinese would have been just as boorish as they have been today even if the Indian foreign minister had landed on June 6th, 7th or 8th or whenever. it wouldn’t make a dime of a difference.

But where it will come to matter is in the court of International opinion which the Indian diplomats are trying to woo for myriad reasons and especially for their coveted permanent security council seat. For a country that is drumbeating its credentials as the largest democracy in the world to gain a seat at that supposed high table. It matters what message each of its words and actions sends to the rest of the world. This unfortunately has only sent the message that India really doesn’t have any courage of conviction to act on its own professed principles and again when they see the craven attitude of Mukherjee and his ministry in the light of Chinese boorishness it doesn’t raise their confidence that India has the ability to even stand up for its own self. No wonder governments in most world capitals do not take the Indian diplomats seriously.

Maoist chairman Prachanda, expected to lead the next government in Nepal, has warned the media against criticising his party, saying that “we will no longer tolerate criticism as we have already been elected by the people”.

Addressing a rally to celebrate the declaration of republic in Kathmandu Prachanda said his CPN-Maoist will not tolerate further criticism by the media and warned of serious consequences if it continued to criticise the party.

Targeting the Kantipur publication that brings out the largest circulated dailies Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, the former rebel leader said, “You journalists did well to continuously criticise the Maoists before the constituent assembly polls, otherwise the election would not have taken place at all.”

“Now we will no longer tolerate criticism as we have already been elected by the people,” he said, adding that the other newspapers criticising the Maoist will also meet the same fate.[link]

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that it didn’t take him long to start operationalising the standard operating procedures manual used by the communists worldwide to incrementally seize absolute power by first threatening the Free and thriving Nepali media. simply because a free media with its ability to scrutinise their working is what the Communists universally dislike. since it is a huge obstacle in executing the next step of their manual, viz blowing off the heads of all the opposition leaders and supporters, subverting the autonomous institutions of the state such as the Judiciary, the Election commission and the Nepali Army, and installing a banana republic in place where a small privileged elite called the politburo led by himself ofcourse get to dictate the lives of millions of Nepalis.

and all this While the left-liberal Indian and Western media go gaga over Prachanda’s charm offensive and give him and his band of thuggies a free pass and look the other way while they get down to the work of destroying Nepal and terrorising its people into submission.

It is therefore imperative on all free thinking people both in Nepal and the rest of the world to frustrate the dubious Maoist-Communist agenda in Nepal. The Nepali people unfortunately conceded far too easily on the Maoist demands to abolish the monarchy which was a very big mistake. I believe they should have instead replaced Gynanedra with a more acceptable individual and retained the institution as a constitutional monarchy which would have been a symbol of stability for Nepal.

But now that the deed has been done it is doubly important that they do not concede ground on the Right to freedom of speech and expression. Prachanda’s contention that the Media should not criticise him and his party because now they have been elected by the people is laughable. if that is the case then no one should criticise George bush or Gordon brown or Manmohan singh or any of the parties they belong to since even they were elected by the people.

The Nepali mediamen did the right thing by immediately condemning Prachanda’s statement and asking him and his party to demonstrate their commitment to the democratic process.

On India’s part it is absolutely imperative that the Indian government should openly come out in support of the Right to Freedom of Speech and association in Nepal and roundly condemn this statement by Prachanda and demand that he disarm his militia and submit to the democratic political process in Nepal.

Update: Nepal’s newly minted Propoganda minister seems to have disappeared and is suspected to have gone to China on an all expenses paid trip sponsored by the Chinese embassy ostensibly perhaps for some advanced training on the nuances of terrorising the Nepali media into toeing the party line. coincidentally at the same time as his boss Prachanda has begun to threaten the Nepali media of “serious consequences” if they continued to hold him and his motley crew accountable for their actions.

One of the first acts of the Maoists after seizing power in the recently held elections was to dictate the end of Nepal’s 240 year old monarchy thus removing a sizeable thorn in the way of their ultimate aim of seizing absolute power in Nepal in incremental steps. They haven’t yet disbanded their militia and reports are that they used them extensively to intimidate opposition party candidates and supporters in the recent elections.

In the meanwhile the Maoist leader is on a charm offensive. In an interview with Karan Thapar on Devil’s Advocate he has laid out his vision for the future course of Indo-Nepal relations. It is a very charming interview where Prachanda or Pushpa Kumar Dhamal has tried to make all the right noises and lull his enemies into a false sense of security. In that he has learnt from the example of his predecessors from across the globe ranging from Stalin to Mao to Castro and others on how to charm the gullible left-liberals and use the enemy’s own free media against him. that in itself begs the need to keep an eye out for this hooded serpent.

In his interview he holds forth on the need to renegotiate the Indo-Nepal treaty of 1950 on his terms, very diplomatically ofcourse, the future recruitment of Nepal’s Gorkhas into the Indian Army, the trade and cultural exchanges with India and his relation with the Naxalites operating in many remote districts within India.

Karan Thapar: Let me discuss some problems that may arise. You said that you want to abrogate the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty and you want to renegotiate it. What are the aspects of the treaty that you don’t like?

 

Prachanda: Our people have put forward this concern that they feel that the treaty lacks inequality and that it is not beneficial for Nepal. We thus want to review all the points of the 1950 treaty. And we want to revise it according to new necessity.

 

Karan Thapar: The 1950 treaty guarantees the open border with Nepal and it also says that people of Nepal have national citizen status in India. Do you want to revise it and rework that?

 

Prachanda: Not exactly right now. There are other provisions that we want to discuss in detail.

 

Karan Thapar: So you want to retain the open border and you want to retain national citizen status of people, but there are other provisions?

 

Prachanda: There are others which I don’t want to discuss right now in detail.

In plain language he wants to have his cake and eat it too. And it would be very foolish on our part to take his pretensions of maintaining a so called “equidistance” from both India and China at face value. It is merely another way of admitting that he is taking and will continue to take orders from the Chinese politburo.

India’s options are now to

1) work to help strengthen institutional democracy and rule of law in Nepal and prevent the Communists from degenerating it into a Banana republic where they hold the country and its people hostage under the threat of terror.

2) Work with the international community and concerned Nepali citizens to disarm and disband the Maoist militia and ONLY then support its attempt to remove its name from the list of terrorist organisations of the world.

3) Help maintain the autonomy and independence of institutions like the Nepali Army, the Election commission and the Judiciary and make sure that they swear allegiance to the constitution of Nepal and not to any individual or political outfit.

4) Keep channels of communication open with all other political parties, organisations, and Media within Nepal and make sure that their freedom of speech and association is not curtailed in anyway by the Maoists.

That should severely under cut the standard operating procedures of the Communists if at all they nurse any ambitions to make a bid to seize absolute power.

NEW DELHI: In a strange move, at a time when the government is promoting “Come to India — Walk with the Buddha” to attract foreign tourists to Buddhist circuit in the country, five foreigners have been given Quit India notice to leave the country within seven days “for participating in a religious activity”.

James Petersen, Lex Pelger and David Huang from US, Maryla Cross from UK and Paul Christians Buntz from Norway were given the notices for “violating the visa rules” by Pithoragarh SP Puran Singh Rawat on Friday as they reached Banspatan in Uttarkhand’s border district with the Tibetan marchers who have been walking towards Tibet since March 10.[source- Quit India notice to five foreign marchers]

As is obvious from the above passage these men were detained for participating in a peace march- a political activity. and maybe just maybe even that is a violation of the rules of the tourist visas issued to them. but the haughty idiots that man India’s foreign policy citadels simply cannot be bothered to even refer back to the very rulebook under which they claim to be operating.

The government insists that the five have violated visa rules. “On tourist visa, you cannot take part in a religious activity. If we allow that, you will have people coming here to propagate their religion. It’s only for travelling and sightseeing, etc. So, they have violated the visa rule by participation in the march,” said Ashim Khurana, joint secretary (Foreigners) in the ministry of home affairs.

Well the concerned MEA joker in this case doesn’t even seem to have the talent or the learned ability to make his case properly.Some diplomat he is.

First and foremost these people were engaged in a political activity which may also be a violation if only he had bothered to check the rulebook.but the dead giveaway is against whom their political activity was aimed at- the MEA’s ideological motherland ofcourse.

The five were detained 70 km before the military zone — the Inner Line (near) Banspatan in Uttarkhand’s border district with the Tibetan marchers who have been walking towards Tibet since March 10.

While Petersen has been covering the march for a US magazine, Buntz works for a Norwegian TV channel and Huang, a California-based photographer, has been taking pictures of the march that has covered some 1,000 km already.

Does the profile of any of the above sound like that of a missionary? they sound more like journalists to this blogger.

If the MEA was really serious about tackling the menace of foreign missionaries violating visa permits and engaging in “religious activities” they would have more than their hands full. Such blatant violations seems to have become the norm rather than the exception and has been going on for a long, long time.

Yet, visa rules have never been strictly enforced in India and as in the case of several other foreign missionaries involved in religious activities in India, Cooper too was on a tourist visa. The latest visit was his 14th to Kerala and he has been spending about four months each year in India for the last 10 years. [source- the oh so "secular" CPM mouth piece Frontline]

HYDERABAD: Police on Thursday questioned 26 American tourists on a visit to the city after residents of a slum in Baghlingampally complained that the foreigners were trying to convert the locals.According to the Chikkadpally police, a group of 53 foreigners had come to India on tourist visas.

The tourists were accompanied by three pastors, Sudhakar, Soulu and Srinivas who acted as translators for them.The tourists are reported to belong to a group, Youth Wing Mission and went to the slum in vehicles provided by Bethel Gospel church.

The police let off the tourists, mostly comprising women, after questioning them. While no case was booked, police officials said that it would be done after another round of questioning of the slum dwellers and the tourists.[source- the classical liberal tabloid- ToI]

Not even a case booked even in the face of a specific complaint! let alone a deportation order and the Policeman in this case is even on record in the above report saying that even engaging in such missionary activities is not against the existing law(which ofcourse it is. he is just another ignorant bureaucrat).Needless to say no one from the MEA turned up to do any investigation or take action in either of the above cases of blatant violation of visa rules.

so what really is the end goal of the MEA which seems to have suddenly woken up to its responsibility here?

The truth of the matter is that the MEA has become just another pinko junkie institution like the JNU and the assorted human rights NGOs and cannot tolerate anyone who speaks out against their beloved People’s Republic of China. Added to that is the fact that its current minister owes his very political existence to humouring the CPI(M) to retain his LS seat in West Bengal. In this case therefore it can be clearly seen that it is merely abusing a law to meet its own goal of not making things too hot for its ideological masters in Beijing.

The pattern is obvious from the start, from the issuing of gag orders against the Dalai lama and instructing him to engage only in religious activity (notice the incongruity) and appointing minders to watch him 24/7, and asking the Tibetans not to engage in protests against a “friendly country”, to its ambassador in Beijing turning up on a late night call at the doorstep of the Chinese foreign ministry, to facilitating the establishment of China-friendly government in neighbouring Nepal, and now blatantly violating Indian law by aiming to suppress the right to freedom of speech it appears that the MEA has consciously decided to engage on a course to make India a subaltern state of China.

It is therefore imperative on the part of the people of India to reign in this rogue institution which though setup and fattened up on Indian tax payer money has consciously engaged on a path that is inimical to India’s national interests and against the aspirations of the Indian people who want their nation to be proudly Independent and hold its head high in the comity of nations.

At that time much of the media and officialdom had gone on an overdrive peddling the line that this was being done because China had finally recognised Sikkim as an integral part of India, in exchange for the India’s unequivocal recognition of Tibet as a part of China.

But since then though countless Indian officials, mediamen and politicians cutting across party lines have many times chanted the mantra that India recognises Tibet as an integral part of China without the slightest provocation, no Chinese leader has ever made a similar statement on Sikkim even when asked pointed questions in that regard. The closest that they ever came was when Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in his April 2005 visit to India in reply to a pointed question tactfully replied “It is well known that the issue of Sikkim is no longer the problem between China and India. This is the common consensus reached by the leaders of both countries.”

The Indian side unfortunately did not push this matter forcefully enough with the Chinese side and extract a unambiguous written statement from the Chinese declaring that they accepted that Sikkim was an integral part of India and chose to be content with the Chinese statement that “Sikkim was no longer a problem between China and India”.

Well now they have decided to make it a problem. A year after they demolished a makeshift bunker on the Indian side comes the news that they have now laid claim to a piece of land in North Sikkim.

China has surprised India by laying claim on a small tract of land in North Sikkim, even threatening this week to demolish existing stone structures there. India has strongly rebutted these claims, lodged an official protest and barred Chinese troops from entering the area.

Referred to as the “Finger Area” by Indian armed forces, this territory falls north of Gyangyong in Sikkim and overlooks a strategically important valley known as the Sora Funnel. It contains several stone cairns, which are essentially heaps of stones that can be used for shelter. The area is in the northernmost tip of Sikkim, north of a place called Gyangyong, and appears like a protruding finger on the map — hence the name Finger Area.[link]

The bottomline is that the Indian side brought this upon itself by not extracting a written and unambiguous statement from the Chinese side that they regarded Sikkim as an integral part of India and lulling themselves into complacency. The Media is not entirely blameless in this episode as it had back then shirked its duty of playing the role of a vigilant watchdog and allowed itself to be taken in by the government line that the absence of an unambiguous statement from the Chinese side was not a big deal at all. so this despairing statement at the end of the article in the Indian express appears quite disingenuous.

But clearly, what was considered a settled issue once China recognized Sikkim as part of India is now making an uncomfortable re-entry into the boundary settlement discourse.

can we hear that collective refrain from the Indian establishment and the media- oh! the wicked Chinese not respecting the “spirit” of that “settlement” .

got news for you guys with Communist China even the letter doesn’t matter. but it would have atleast made you guys look less stupid now if you had only managed to get it.