Pakistan rejects U.S. report on religious freedom

Mumbai, Jan 15: Michael Debabrata Patra took over as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday.

He was an Executive Director of India's central bank before being elevated to the post of Deputy Governor.

An RBI release said that as Deputy Governor, Patra will look after Monetary Policy Department including Forecasting and Modelling Unit (MPD/MU), Financial Markets Operations Department (FMOD), Financial Markets Regulation Department.

He will also look after Market Intelligence (FMRD/MI), International Department (Intl. D), Department of Economic and Policy Research (DEPR), Department of Statistics and Information Management (including Data and Information Management Unit) (DSIM/DIMU), Corporate Strategy and Budget Department (CSBD) and Financial Stability Unit.

Patra, a career central banker since 1985, has worked in various positions in the Reserve Bank of India.

As Executive Director, he was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of RBI, which is invested with the responsibility of monetary policy decision making in India. He will continue to be an ex-officio member of the MPC as Deputy Governor.

Prior to this, he was Principal Adviser of the Monetary Policy Department, Reserve Bank of India between July 2012 and October 2014.

He has worked in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Senior Adviser to Executive Director (India) during December 2008 to June 2012, when he actively engaged in the work of the IMF's Executive Board through the period of the global financial crisis and the ongoing Euro area sovereign debt crisis.

The release said that his book "The Global Economic Crisis through an Indian Looking Glass" vividly captures this experience.

He has also published papers in the areas of inflation, monetary policy, international trade and finance, including exchange rates and the balance of payments.

A fellow of the Harvard University where he undertook post-doctoral research in the area of financial stability, he has a PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

He will hold the post for three years or until further orders. The post fell vacant after Viral Acharya resigned on July 23 last year.

New Delhi, 17: Tensions on the Indo-China border have spiked to the highest since 1962 after over 20 troops, including an Indian commanding officer, were killed in the face-off in Galwan valley that has seen a six-week long standoff underway with the Peoples Liberation Army.

The Army said that the soldiers – including the Commanding Officer of 16 Bihar regiment in charge of the area – died while a `de-escalation process’ was underway. Sources said that this death toll could rise up as some soldiers are currently not accounted for after PLA troops attacked with spiked sticks and stones in the Galwan valley.

Chinese side also has casualties but the number is still not known. The Indian death toll is perhaps the worst single day loss in decades and has come at a time when thousands of troops are forward deployed in Eastern Ladakh.

ET was the first to report on May 12 about a massive troop build up in the Galwan valley, which is an old flashpoint that had seen action in the 1962 war as well.

There have been reports of casualties on the Chinese side in the clash but numbers are currently not available. Worryingly, information from the ground suggests that several Indian soldiers, including four officers, are missing and could have been taken captive by a vastly larger Chinese force. Their status is still not known.

“During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday night with casualties. The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers. Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation,” an Indian Army statement reads.

The Ministry of External Affairs said that the clash occurred when the Chinese side violated the LAC. “On the late-evening and night of 15th June, 2020 a violent face-off happened as a result of an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there. Both sides suffered casualties that could have been avoided had the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side,” a statement reads.

The loss of the Commanding Officer is especially devastating and he had been directly involved in de-escalation talks with the Chinese side, including one hours before the clash took place. Sources said that the talks on Monday morning had led to an agreement for Chinese forces to withdraw from Indian territory as part of the disengagement.

According to one version, the CO had gone to the standoff point with a party of 50 men to check if the Chinese had retreated as promised. As the Indian side proceeded to demolish and burn illegal Chinese structures on its side of the LAC, including an observation post constructed on the South bank of the river, a fresh stand off took place as a large force of Chinese troops returned back.

Sources said that a Chinese force in excess of 250 quickly assembled near Patrol Point 14 and were physically stopped by Indian soldiers from entering Indian territory. Soldiers from both sides did not use firearms but the Chinese soldiers carried spiked sticks to attack.

Given the terrain of the region, a part of the standoff and clash took place in the middle of the Galwan river that is currently flowing at full spate, leading to high casualties as injured soldiers got swept away. Indian soldiers have to cross the Galwan river at atleast five points to reach PP 14, which marks the LAC.

Chinese media reports on Tuesday quoted the spokesperson from its Western Theatre Command as laying claim over the Galwan valley region and blaming the Indian side for the clash. Reports quoted Col Zhang Shuili as saying that India has violated the consensus made during Army commander level talks.

As reported, Galwan river area has a painful history with China, with Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers surrounding a freshly set up Indian Army post in July 1962, in what would be one of the early triggers to the Sino-Indian war. At an Army post that was overrun at Galwan, 33 Indian soldiers were killed and several dozen taken captive in 1962.

In the past, the Doklam crisis in 2017 saw tensions building up along the Pangong Tso lake as well with soldiers engaging in a fight with sticks and stones. However, the Eastern Ladakh standoff is of a much more serious nature, with over 6000 Chinese troops lined up with tanks and artillery, faced off with a larger Indian forces. Troop build up has also been reported across the borders in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal.

Feb 26: Looking out over the world’s largest cricket stadium, the seats jammed with more than 100,000 people, India’s prime minister heaped praise on his American visitor.

“The leadership of President Trump has served humanity,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday, highlighting Trump’s fight against terrorism and calling his 36-hour visit to India a watershed in India-U.S. relations.

The crowds cheered. Trump beamed.

“The ties between India and the U.S. are no longer just any other partnership,” Modi said. “It is a far greater and closer relationship.”

India, it seems, loves Donald Trump. It seemed obvious from the thousands who turned out to wave as his motorcade snaked through the city of Ahmedabad, and from the tens of thousands who filled the city’s new stadium. It seemed obvious from the hug that Modi gave Trump after he descended from Air Force One, and from the hundreds of billboards proclaiming Trump’s visit.

But it’s not so simple.

Because while Trump is genuinely popular in India, his clamorous and carefully choreographed welcome was also about Asian geopolitics, China’s growing power and a masterful Indian politician who gave his American visitor exactly what he wanted.

Modi “is doing this not necessarily because he loves Trump,” said Tanvi Madan, the director of the India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. “It’s very much about Trump as the leader of the U.S. and recognizing what it is that Trump himself likes.”

Trump likes crowds — big crowds — and the foot soldiers of India’s political parties have long known how to corral enough people to make any politician look popular. In a city like Ahmedabad, the capital of Modi’s home state of Gujarat and the center of his power base, it wouldn’t take much effort to fill a cavernous sports stadium. It was more surprising that a handful of seats remained empty, and that some in the stands had left even before Trump had finished his speech.

For India, good relations with the U.S. are deeply important: They signal that India is a serious global player, an issue that has long been important to New Delhi, and help cement an alliance that both nations see as a counterweight to China’s rise.

“For both countries, their biggest rival is China,” said John Echeverri-Gent, a professor at the University of Virginia whose research often focuses on India. “China is rapidly expanding its presence in the Indian Ocean, which India has long considered its backyard and its exclusive realm for security concerns.”

“It’s very clearly a major concern for both India and the United States,” he said.

Trump isn’t the first U.S. president that Modi has courted. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama was the first American chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade, a powerful symbolic gesture. Obama also got a Modi hug, and the media in both countries were soon writing about the two leaders’ “bromance.”

Trump is popular in India, even if some of that is simply because he’s the U.S. president. A 2019 Pew Research Center poll showed that 56% of Indians had confidence in Trump’s abilities in world affairs, one of only a handful of countries where he has that level of approval. But Obama was also popular: Before he left office, he had 58% approval in world affairs among Indians.

The Pew poll also indicated that Trump’s support was higher among supporters of Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.

That’s not surprising. Both men have fired up their nationalist bases with anti-Muslim rhetoric and government policies, from Trump’s travel bans to Modi’s crackdown in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.

And Trump’s Indian support is far from universal. Protests against his trip roiled cities from New Delhi to Hyderabad to the far northeastern city of Gauhati, although those demonstrations were mostly overshadowed by protests over a new Indian citizenship law that Modi backs.

Modi, who is widely popular in India, has faced weeks of protests over the law, which provides fast track naturalization for some foreign-born religious minorities — but not Muslims. While Trump talked about ties with India on Tuesday, Hindus and Muslims fought in violent clashes that left at least 10 people dead over two days.

In some ways, Modi and Trump are powerful echoes of each other.

They have overlapping political styles. Both are populists who see themselves as brash, rule-breaking outsiders who disdain their countries’ traditional elites. Both are seen by their critics as having authoritarian leanings. Both surround themselves with officials who rarely question their decisions.

But are they friends?

Trump says yes. “Really, we feel very strongly about each other,” he said at a New Delhi press briefing.

But many observers aren’t so sure.

“The question is how much of this is real chemistry, as opposed to what I’d call planned chemistry” orchestrated for diplomatic reasons, said Madan. “It’s so hard to know if you’re not in the room.”

Certainly, Modi understands America’s importance to India. While the two countries continue to bicker about trade issues, the prime minister organized a welcome that impressed even India’s news media, which have watched countless choreographed mass political rallies.

“There is no other country for whose leader India would hold such an event, and for which an Indian prime minister would lavish such rhetoric,” the Hindustan Times said in an editorial.

“The spectacle and the sound were worth a thousand agreements.”