Republic Day reminds of sacrifices by great freedom fighters

Vinod Chandrashekhar Dixit

India is celebrating its 71st Republic Day. First Republic Day

of India was celebrated in 1950. India is a country having
people of different cultures, societies, religions and languages
who interplay with each other harmoniously. Republic
Day is the symbol of true spirit for the independent India where
military parades, exhibiting military equipments, salute to the
national flag by the Indian president and variety of events are take place at this
day. Republic Day represents the true spirit of the independent India. In his autobiography,
Jawaharlal Nehru recalled how “Independence Day came, January 26th 1930, and it
revealed to us, in a flash, the earnest and enthusiastic mood of the country.

It was also the reason why January 26 was designated Republic Day when the Constitution
was finalised in 1950. The Constitution of India was drafted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar which
helped to replace the existing Government of India Act, 1935. The Constitution of India
which was drafted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was actually passed on 26th November, 1949. It
was mainly Nehru’s idea to have an impressive parade on Republic Day every year to
strengthen the nation’s unity in diversity, and demonstrate its military might, economic and
social progress as well as its vast cultural heritage. An official draft by Mahatma Gandhi
said: “The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their
freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses and has ruined India
economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. Therefore, India must sever the British
connection and attain ‘purna swaraj’ or ‘complete independence’. ”

Mahatma Gandhi’s mission to wipe every tear from every eye still remains unfulfilled.
We have to work harder to provide food security to our people and to make the
agriculture sector resilient to the vagaries of nature. We have to provide better
amenities and opportunities to our people in villages to ensure a decent quality of life.
The fundamental rights and duties of the people of the Republic in India have been laid
down in our constitution. Every citizen of India is equal in the eye of law, and no one is
to suffer because of religion, creed, caste, colour or race.
Youth today are brimming with hope and aspirations. They pursue their life goals, which
they perceive will bring them fame, success and happiness, with single-minded devotion.
They consider happiness as their existential objective, which of course is understandable.

The anniversary of India becoming a republic has come and gone. Fireworks, salutes to the
tiranga, distribution of awards, parades, display of our military might and what not. But the
real issue amid the festivities seems to have been lost somewhere.

Democracy has helped only our politicians. Many of them got an opportunity to become
billionaires after a decade or so in politics. Our criminal justice system is all but ineffective in
curbing corruption, which starts with the ballot box and ends in Swiss banks.

Let us make a great promise that we would be live together in peace and happiness as the
people of the same nation. It creates feeling of patriotism among the people. It reminds us
of the supreme sacrifices made by great freedom fighters. Republic Day also realizes us our
responsibilities towards our country.
How an army of data labellers are behind
India's AI boom

Roshni Majumdar

The AI boom has been a long time coming, and it may finally be here. In Noida’s Sector 2, just
30 minutes from the heart of Delhi on a good day, at Cogito Tech, a data-annotation firm,
hundreds of young girls and boys are patiently using digital tools to identify and label the images
on their screens. They’re mostly graduates from universities around Delhi, and they’re working
in tandem with an American company, Labelbox, which creates data labelling software for
companies looking to train their machines to perform AI-related tasks.

And they aren’t the only ones. In Kerala’s Palakkad district, Mujeeb Kolasseri, founder of
Infolks, a firm that labels images for companies in the United States and Europe, is constantly
thinking about how to hire more college graduates from his village. Mujeeb had long been an
independent 'crowdworker' for Mechanical Turk  —  Amazon’s crowdsourced marketplace,
where dozens of remote workers annotate data (among other things) for very little money. In
2016, he founded his own company, beginning with just six people. Today, he employs 350, and
in the next two years, hopes to take that number to more than 2,000.

Data labellers at work in Infolks.

But what, exactly, is data labelling? It is the manual classification of information  —  labelling  —
 which allows machines to make sense of the data and perform the task it has been given. Since
machines have no understanding of the natural world, humans have to 'teach' them to recognise
patterns by giving them data that has already been labelled. Labelling some kinds of data is easy 
—  when you mark an email as important on Gmail, you’re teaching Google to recognise the kind
of emails that are important to you. Going forward, Google will flag similar emails for you.
Other tasks are more complex  —  say, for example, when a company is looking to develop AI for
autonomous vehicles. In this case, a car has to be taught what a tree or a person looks like. This
process — which involves humans — is known as humans-in-the-loop machine learning.

Consider an example to gain a sense of why humans are so crucial in the process. In 2016,
Russian operatives had bought a large number of political ads on Facebook, paying for them in
Russian rubles. The scale of this effort was massive  —  Russian-backed content directly reached
nearly 126 million Americans, about half those eligible to vote. But Facebook algorithms  —  that
can process billions of data points  —  entirely missed the signal. They weren’t able to connect
the dots between rubles being spent to buy American political ads and foreign interference in the
US election. How did this happen? Part of the reason for this was that the algorithms had not
been taught to look for such interference, while another reason was the fact that algorithms were
working with information that involved lots of unlabelled, or noisy, data floating on the platform.

That is why human data labellers are so important  — they not only provide machines with
labelled data but provide the machine with just the right amount of data. In the world of big data,
there is always going to be more data. What becomes so important then is, labelling the right
data. “If you don’t find a grey shirt in Flipkart, you can go to Myntra,” explains Ajinkya
Malasane, co-founder of Playment, a data-labelling platform based out of Bengaluru. In other
words, humans are the only ones who can provide companies with high-quality, or accurate, data
sets. There are numbers to prove that the sector is growing.

Over the past five years, the Indian AI sector accounted for $150 million worth of investments in
more than 400 companies. Though this number pales in comparison to comparable investment in
the US or Europe  —  which runs into the billions  —  the domestic AI sector is growing by leaps
and bounds. Investment really kicked off after 2016, when the figure nearly doubled from $44
million that year to $77 million in 2017. Data analytics firms were a major component of the
1,200 new tech startups in the country in 2018. Data labelling business is expected to reach $1.2
billion by 2023. Plus, AI has the potential to add $957 billion to India’s economy in 2035 if the
sector receives the right kind of support.

Industry leaders and the youth are holding out hope for that result. Many college graduates at
Cogito Tech are entirely happy with their jobs, hoping to scale up their skills to meet the
demands of future work. If the sector does see the kind of support it is hoping for, there is room
for a new kind of AI revolution in India that Malasane calls “Tech 3.0.” Rohan Agrawal, the
founder and CEO of Cogito Tech, who formerly ran a BPO, agrees. "At least we’re going to
eliminate the whole ordeal of talking to people who’re yelling at us," he says, referring to the
hellish work scenario at call centres. Data labellers are quietly teaching machines to do the work
instead, and they’re perfectly happy.

Are We Missing Woods for Trees?

Brig. Anil Gupta (Retd.)

A recent statement of newly appointed Chief of Defence Statement Gen Bipin Rawat is being
blown out of proportion. Like any concerned Indian, Gen Rawat had expressed his disquiet
against growing radicalisation in the country which is targeted, particularly, at the youth for the
obvious reasons. He had suggested that no time should be wasted in instituting measures to free
them from radical ideas.

Radicalisation is an instrument of political warfare or more in the realm of hybrid warfare

unleashed on us by our hostile theocratic neighbour state. Since it falls in the sphere of warfare
and the armed forces of the nation are mandated to secure the nation against all types of military
and non-military threats, it is well within the domain of the CDS and other heads of the armed
forces to express their concern about increasing radicalisation and suggest counter measures to
combat the menace.

Hence, those pseudo-liberals who blame the CDS or other senior military officers of dabbling in
politics when they express concern about issues that fall in their domain as well only display
their ignorance and antipathy. A loud-mouthed politician even went to the extent of terming it as
“undermining the civil supremacy.”

Gen Rawat had said girls and boys as young as 10 and 12 years are being radicalised in the
Valley which he described as a matter of concern. “These people can still be protected from
radicalisation in a gradual way. But there are numerous youth who have been completely
radicalised. These people need to be identified, possibly taken to some de-radicalisation camps,”
Gen Rawat had said.

To any sensible mind there is nothing wrong in what the General said. In fact, his assessment and
suggestion was seconded by none other than the Director General of Police, J&K Dilbag Singh,
another professional who is deeply concerned with the problem. He said, “In recent times there
have been a lot of efforts from Pakistan and its agencies to spur radicalisation in this area, some
of our young minds have been affected by it and have gone astray. If such a facility comes up it
should be welcomed.”

But manipulative politicians in our country whose sole aim is to stir controversies wasted no
time in converting this also into a controversy. Manvendra Singh, a Congress leader said, “The
Indian Army makes accommodations for soldiers from all faiths by setting up a ‘Sarva Dharma
Sthal’ (a prayer hall). Here, there are holy books from all religions so that soldiers can come
together and pray. This is the ethos of the Indian Army and it is a reflection of the country’s
diversity.

General Bipin Rawat’s comment on radicalised youths in Kashmir violates this ethos. What he
said questions the ethos of the Army and is beyond the brief that he holds. De-radicalisation
camps are completely un-Indian and the assumption that they are needed for a certain age group
in one area of the country is clearly a fantasy. It’s not the duty of the state to teach citizens the
‘right’ or ‘moderate’ kind of religion.”

Expectedly the statement also drew flak from Pakistan, the perpetrator of the entire menace. The
opposition tried to create the controversy on three issues, dabbling into politics; secondly giving
it a communal angle and thirdly, use of the term ‘de-radicalisation camps.’ To any independent
mind all the three issues are trivial and amount to ‘missing woods for the trees’.

Gen Satish Dua, an experienced Kashmir hand and ex- Chief of Integrated Staff has this to say,
“Weeding out radicals is a concern for most countries across the world. Countries like Indonesia
have de-radicalisation centres in Bali and Jakarta. Even Muslim-majority countries that have
experienced the wrath of ISIS are suffering due to radicalisation.

Therefore, it’s not a community-centric problem, and Gen BipinRawat’s statement should not be
seen through the lens of minority persecution. In my view, radicalisation refers to violence that is
perpetrated in the name of religion. It can be seen among the youngest of civilians in Kashmir.
Terrorists vehemently oppose, like Zakir Musa did, the Indian state and desire their own
‘Caliphate’ — a goal similar to ISIS.

Having served as a Corps commander in Jammu and Kashmir, I have seen stone-pelting become
more and more violent in the last decade. Radicalised teenagers would come out on the streets
and raise slogans in support of terrorists, start violent protests and would pelt stones at the Indian
security forces when they tried to contain the situation.

After Burhan Wani’s death in July 2016, younger and younger children became radicalised. This
is because young, impressionable minds are most vulnerable. Therefore, there is a great need to
teach young children the right path of Islam and effectively de-radicalise their minds. Rawat was
right to speak on this issue because it is a matter of national security.”

There are only two options. Either take effective measures to stem the process or turn a blind eye
to it. Any self-respecting nation will not allow the situation to drift. Notwithstanding what the
politicians or pseudo-liberals say there is no denying the fact that de-radicalisation is need of the
hour.

Gen Rawat may have made the mistake of using the term ‘De-radicalisation Camp’ which
ignited the otherwise fertile minds of this class who started comparing it with Nazi Camps or the
camps being used by China to bring the Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang province into the
mainstream. Inadvertent use of wrong terminology cannot diminish the import of the issue. What
the General meant was De-Radicalisation Centres or even ‘sadhbhavana centres’.

The situation is fast becoming scary and gloomy. If the nation does not act fast and swift to
address the root cause which is spreading like cancer, a very major surgery will be needed to
avoid amputation of the affected part. Rather than taking the statement of Gen Rawat seriously,
the politicians as usual are trivialising the problem which has an international dimension. Call it
by any name Camp/ Centre/ Clinic/ Reformatory, but move ahead to catch the bull by the horn in
order to save our precious wealth the youth from flight to “gun from pen.”

De-radicalisation is like detoxification and is not a simple process. There is no single solution to
detox a radicalised mind. It would need a herculean and sustained effort by all to include, the
administration, politicians, clergy and the civil society. Since, the actions of military and central
police forces are perceived to be the contributory cause of the radicalisation, it would be
advisable to not use their services to de-radicalise because it may turn out to be counter-
productive. Rehabilitation is as important as de-radicalisation to ensure that de-radicalised youth
is not re-cycled into militancy due to lack of job opportunities or means of livelihood.

The administration has to take lead by establishing de-radicalisation clinics and modernising the
education system in Madrassas. The Madrassas have to be converted as centres of excellence
producing future religious scholars rather than to be perceived as a nursery of extremists. All
Madrassas should be brought under the control of the state and closely monitored and controlled
by a Madrassa Education Board comprising eminent administrators and scholars as well as
eminent members of the society.
Fiscal reforms also need to form part of the modernisation of Madrassas. Another, problem
facing Kashmir is lack of a visible youth icon and due to absence of terrorist like Burhan Wani
has emerged as a role model for many disenchanted youth. There is no dearth of achievers in
Kashmir but the government/administration has failed to project them to the extent that the other
youth gets attracted to them.

Kashmir badly needs youth icons to motivate them. Apart from achievers one can straight way
think of Maqbool Sherwani of yester years and Lt Ummer Fayaz, Dy SP Pandit, Inspector Feroz
Dar and Sepoy Aurangzeb among the present generation.

Citizen warriors have to take the lead in carrying forward the mission of de-radicalisation. There
are many learned clerics and Maulvis who are willing to help in this noble cause of getting the
misguided youth back to the mainstream. The clerics-politicians combine has a major role to
play in de-radicalisation campaign. They also have to become resource persons in de-
radicalisation clinics.

In the meanwhile, using the powerful tool of social media they need to appeal to the youth to not
be misled and present the correct interpretation of Holy Scriptures as well as address their
political grievances.

Without the active participation of civil-society, the process of de-radicalisation will not get the
necessary boost it needs. Youth in any society is a very precious commodity. The society has to
decide the path youth must follow. Society needs to give direction and create an environment for
holistic growth of its youth because today’s youth is the leadership of tomorrow.

There is need to promote indigenous identity & culture which is much older than the alien Arabic
Muslim identity &culture. De-radicalisation is not J&K specific but a national cause. There is a
need to have a policy-based, result oriented plan rather than a patchwork like approach.

P6
Injured Dhawan & Ishant shake the ‘settled’
structure of team
By Ayaz Memon
In the bad old days in Indian cricket, there were two things cricketers dreaded on the eve of a
series/tour: selectors being nepotistic or getting unexpectedly injured when in very good form.

The first aspect, I’d like to believe, doesn’t have much currency these days. Sure, team selection
remains a contentious issue even now. But accusations of bias in selection have whittled down
substantially.

This is largely because there has been a profusion of rich talent in Indian cricket in recent years.
The spread of cricket maps virtually the entire country, and players now emerge not only from
traditional centres, but also from the smallest cities and remotest areas.

After India won the inaugural T20 World Championship in 2007, and the humungous success
thereafter of the IPL, cricket has taken an even stronger hold over the national psyche. The
supply of players from all corners of the country is in abundance.

Consequently, selecting teams has become a challenge for the selectors.

But this also means greater jostling for places. For instance, only Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and
Jasprit Bumrah can be said to be certainties in all three formats of the game.

So, while there is intense debate on the choice of players every time the Indian team is chosen, it
is hardly based on the malafide intent of selectors as would be the case on the bad old days.
Mohinder Amarnath’s famous caustic admonition when he was dropped in 1989, that ‘selectors
are jokers’, does not really hold true now.

Today, the greater debate is not about favouritism, rather about which player suits a particular
position best. This might suggest that swapping players would be easy or without great peril. But
such premise does not contend with team and dressing room dynamics and strategies.

A lot of time and effort is invested in getting the balance and composition of the team, and the
chemistry between players right, to ensure consistently good results. This is where injury to
settled players in a team can be a serious setback.

Misfortune has fallen on Shikhar Dhawan without respite in the past 6-7 months. During the
World Cup last year, he fractured his hand while scoring a century against Australia and had to
miss not only the rest of the tournament, but quite a few matches thereafter. He lost his Test
place to Rohit Sharma who has shown such wondrous form after being promoted in the order
that it would be impossible to dislodge him now. This meant that Dhawan, otherwise a regular
fixture in all three formats, had to contend now with only T20s and ODIs.

He made a successful return to both these formats against West Indies and Australia in the home
season and was virtually on the flight to New Zealand with the Indian team earlier this week
when he fell on his shoulder in the final ODI against the Aussies and hurt himself so badly that
he was forced to stay at home.
Dhawan and Rohit make for a splendid left-right opening combination. A great deal of India’s
batting tactics would revolve around this fact. Also, the two have worked splendidly as partners
over a period of time that gives them mutual confidence.

This has value in something as basic as running between wickets. Given their seniority, they also
understand match situations extremely well. Losing Dhawan at such a late stage disrupts the
plans and tactics of the Indian team as it goes straightaway into the T20 series.

While Dhawan misses the first leg of the New Zealand tour where India play 5 T20s and 3 ODIs,
Ishant Sharma, who was a certainty for the 2 Test matches which follow, injured his ankle in a
Ranji Trophy match against Vidarbha and seems unlikely to recover in time. Ishant, who got a
second wind 2-3 years back, is a seasoned hand whose experience and strike power now makes
him the bulwark of the fast bowling attack. With Bumrah and Shami he forms a troika that is
currently rated the most deadly in the world.

While there is a plethora of fast bowlers to choose from currently, Ishant’s absence would rob
the team of not only its most capped player, but also compel a revision in strategies on how to
bowl the Kiwis out twice to win a match. Both the T20s and Test series are vital on this tour of
New Zealand, the former as preparation for the World Championship to be played in October
this year, and the latter for firming up a place in the World Test Championship final scheduled
for mid-2021.

Injuries to key players compels captain Kohli and chief coach Ravi Shastri to make revisions in
game plans urgently. The handicap here is of time since injuries to both Dhawan and Ishant
happened just before the tour started.

Some relief, of course, comes from the fact that replacement talent is also very good. This could
be the opportunity youngsters replacing Dhawan (Sanju Samson and Prithvi Shaw) and Ishant
(yet to be announced) were seeking.

The next few weeks should show how well the team has adjusted and coped with the challenge.

The writer is a senior journalist who has been writing on the sport for over 40 years.

Tectonic shift in US’ attitude

Deepak Sinha
The US no longer views West Asia as critical to its economic well-being as it did in the past,
when it depended on the oil from that region
Karl Marx once wrote, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” But often times
events tend to combine both the tragic and the farcical in equal measure, just as we are seeing
them play out between the Iranians and the Americans. US President Donald Trump’s recent
actions remind one of the Hollywood blockbuster, Gunfight at the OK Corral, except for the
minor aberration that West Asia is no Wild West and Trump is certainly no Marshal Wyatt Earp.

Whatever reasons he may put forward for his actions, the targetted execution of a serving Iranian
General and war hero, Qasem Soleimani, while on an official visit to Iraq raises serious
questions of sovereignty, morality, ethical conduct and can never be justified in any civilized
society. It was, in fact, a blatant act of aggression in clear violation of international law and a war
crime, made even more heinous because neither America nor Iran is at war with each other. It
shows up the true face of America for what it is and has been these past decades, a global bully.

More importantly, the rationale and timing of the attack raise grave suspicions as to Trump’s
motives. The late General Soleimani was by no means a tactical commander and his
neutralisation would hardly stop operations in progress, in this case the launch of “imminent
attacks” on American embassies, as has been alleged by the President. What is more likely is that
Trump ordered this rash and utterly immoral attack in the vain hope that it would divert attention
from his forthcoming impeachment trial, while at the same time make him appear to be a strong
and decisive leader. However, make no mistake General Soleimani’s killing was a grievous loss
to the Iranian establishment, especially to its “Irregular Warfare” capabilities, something that will
take time to rebuild.

While Trump’s action was totally transactional and short-term in nature, it coincided with the
American deep state’s far more long- term strategy there, the necessity to squeeze China. Over
the past two decades there has been a tectonic shift in the manner the United States (US) views
West Asia, ever since it became one of the world’s leading oil producers, exporting more oil than
Saudi Arabia. In March last year, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the
US exported more crude and petroleum products than it imported. As senior partner Per Magnus
Nysveen of Rystad Energy, a global oil consulting and analysis firm, put it, “The oil market is
overly preoccupied with short-term US crude stocks but the big picture tells a new story.
Increasingly profitable shale production and a robust global appetite for light oil and gasoline is
poised to bring the US to a position of oil dominance in the next few years.”

This fact obviously suggests that the US no longer views West Asia as critically important to its
economic well-being as it did in the past, when its economy depended on the oil from that
region. For it, the geostrategic value of that region lies more in the adverse impact that any
exacerbation of tensions there would have on the Chinese economy, as it is bound to, given
Chinese dependence on oil from that region. It, therefore, stands to reason that it no longer finds
it necessary to maintain a large troop presence in the region and can achieve its long-term aims
through the use of proxies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. In this context, much has been made
of the Russian attempts to fill the vacuum that the US withdrawal has left. However, President
Putin must be aware that he is punching well above his weight given the fact that the Russian
economy is just around 1/20th that of the US.
Finally, with regard to the US-Iran imbroglio, while it is certainly extremely far-fetched to
suggest that World War-III is just around the corner, one can also safely assume that the existing
stalemate is not going to last forever and probably the situation is going to get far worse, before
it gets better. This is more so if in the coming months the Iranians attempt to utilise their
considerable irregular warfare assets to force the Americans out of Iraq, if not the Middle East.
Escalation in tensions would then be unavoidable and that would have serious repercussions,
with unintended and unpredictable consequences for the world at large.

In this context we would do well to recall the innocuous events that triggered one of the darkest
chapters in world history, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife
by a 19-year-old Serbian terrorist, Gavrilo Princip. While that event may have occurred in far-
away Sarajevo, it did set the world aflame, bringing untold misery to tens of millions over the
next four years. It would indeed be unfortunate if this tragedy were to be repeated.

(The writer, a military veteran, is a Consultant with the Observer Research Foundation and a
Senior Visiting Fellow with The Peninsula Foundation, Chennai)

National Broadband Mission: Universal

access to digital communication in India
International Institute For Non – Aligned Studies

While science, technology and innovation have occupied a major stance in contributing to the
economic growth in developed and developing nations, the idea of advancement in fostering
digital communication across the world remains at the heart of the Non-Aligned Movement.
With a drastic shift towards forces of globalisation and transformational technological progress,
the world is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. It is the concerted efforts
of the economies that their success is sky high. Being a setup of 120 nations across the world,
NAM has been a key driver for change in development strategies for the economies.

In line with the move towards equipping India with digital communication infrastructure, paving
way for advanced and universal access to broadband services across the country, the Prime
Minister Mr. Narendra Modi led government in India, launched the ambitious National
Broadband Mission. Unveiled by Union Minister for Communications and Electronics and
Information Technology, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the flagship mission aims at fulfilling the
aspirations of the citizens of India by enabling them to acquire access to fast track growth of
digital communication infrastructure. The aim of the highly ambitious projects does not get
restricted to the urban hubs in the country but pertains to the rural and remote areas as a major
field of concern. The government remains committed to giving universal and equitable access to
broadband services to every citizen, reaching out to the villages by 2022 and improving the
quality of services for mobile and internet.

The project involves laying Optical Fibre Cable on route around 30 lakh kilometres, increasing
the tower density from 0.42 to 1.0 tower per thousand of population by the year 2024. The
project with an estimated outlay of 7 lakh crores, envisages deploying 10 lakh mobile towers
from 5.65 lakh sites at present. With a move to further reach out to every sphere, the ambitious
project strives for the development of innovative implementation models for Right of Way
(RoW) and to enhance strategies to work with States and Union Territories in order to have
consistent policies that lead to the expansion of digital infrastructure. The flagship mission
envisions levelling up the fiberisation of towers from the existing 30 present to 70 per cent with
its innovative ideas and technologies.

The idea behind implementing the National Broadband Mission in India is to bring under an
umbrella, people from all walks of life, strengthening technological infrastructure for education,
health, entrepreneurship and development by bridging the digital divide while facilitating
inclusion and digital empowerment through access to all. The government at the centre has
initiated several efforts in the field to empower its rural base with digital connectivity. BharatNet
initiative is one such programme that has reached to as many as 142,000 village blocks, which is
now to be backed by the National Broadband Mission, enlarging the targets to be achieved. With
so much to achieve and making a large population getting engaged in taking a lead with the new
technologies and challenges, what is required is collaboration and not the coercion. Thus, it
becomes the responsibility of every economy to come forward to work together and engage in
effective multilateralism and take a lead in being capable of meeting challenges that come their
way. The ideas need to be reformed with the times changing at a fast pace, the best technologies
and expertise must be shared to pursue a positive and forward-looking agenda.

With its reaffirmed commitment towards ensuring universal and non-discriminatory access to
information technology and knowledge, NAM has initiated a number of steps to help developing
nations to encourage digitisation in communication, making them more responsive to their
developmental needs.

It is the concerted efforts of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Member States that today the
world is well witnessing a revolution in information and communication technologies. While,
with the emergence of technology, the world is changing at an unprecedented rate, it becomes
the shared responsibility of the public and the government to work closely in each and every
domain of the economy to generate awareness regarding the same and make use of the
technology that offers innovative solutions to emerging challenges to secure a brightening future
for all.

A Hot Winter in India

Tarek Fatah
Whether it is France or Nigeria, Italy or Myanmar, the presence of militant Muslims is a serious
cause of concern to all – most of all to Muslims who want freedom from Islamists, be they
inspired by Iran, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

If one were to watch India through the lens of its social media and the statements made by its
upper middle-class urban elites of the Left, the country is facing chaos and is in a downward
spiral towards a catastrophe.
At the centre of this storm in a teacup is a new law passed by both houses of the Indian
Parliament that provides for a fast track towards citizenship for refugees in India who fled
religious persecution in three of India’s neighbours — Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh
before 2015 and who now live in difficult conditions as stateless persons.

Since most of the people who fled India’s three Islamic neighbours were non-Muslim, the new
Indian law known as the Citizenship Amendment Act is applicable to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists
and Zoroastrians.
India’s Islamic clerics and Muslim leaders, as well as the Islamic University in Delhi known as
Jamia Millia Islamia or ‘University of the Islamic Nation’, erupted in protest at the thought of
settling Hindus and Sikhs inside India.

Delhi’s University of the Islamic Nation went on strike with Muslim students burning buses and
public property, demanding that Muslims too must be included in the list of people being given
fast track to citizenship.
Never mind the fact that there was no reason for any Muslim to flee Pakistan or Bangladesh to
become refugees in India. But all reason and rational argument was brushed aside and anyone
defending the CAA was labelled an Islamophobe.

Even Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton, took to Twitter where he posted: “I don’t support
any law that discriminates against one’s faith.” I asked him via social media if his remarks were
catered towards the Pakistani and Khalistani (Sikh separatist) vote bank in Brampton. Instead of
responding, the mayor blocked me.
The militant students of Delhi’s Islamic University kept up the pressure and soon the outlying
villages and suburbs of Delhi that have a large Muslim community had blocked a major highway
that links the Indian capital to a large suburb, causing massive traffic jams and riling up the
residents who were too scared to speak lest they too be referred to as Islamophobes.

The Islamic University academia and students belched out calls for secularism even as their
emblem was emblazoned with “Allah O Akbar” and the fact that 50% of the seats in the campus
were reserved for Muslims who are, at most, 13% of the population.

Opposition politicians and Communist activists joined the fray with incendiary remarks that fed
to the false feeling of Muslim victimhood.

Mani Shankar Aiyar, once India’s top diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan, told a protest: “No one can
imagine an India without Islam and Muslims.” He also referred to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi as ‘Katil’ (a murderer).

At another gathering, the much-respected opposition politician Shashi Tharoor urged the crowd
not to sink into religious bigotry of any kind, but the Indian Muslims kept chanting a slogan last
raised in 1946-47 when Muslim separatism led to the ‘partition’ of India and almost a million
deaths.

Despite Tharoor’s pleas the crowd kept on chanting: “La Ilaha illallah” (There is no God, but
Allah). This slogan raised in a political context is incendiary and clearly is targeted towards
India’s Hindus who despite being over 80% of the population, have not yet reacted to the
constant depiction of their country as a place of anti-Muslim bigotry.

Dr. David Frawley, an American who has settled in India and has embraced Indian heritage like
few else, put it best when he tweeted: “You cannot criticize Islam in Pakistan because it is the
majority.

You cannot criticize Islam in India because it is a minority. Yet you can criticize Hinduism in
India because it is a majority and in Pakistan because it is a minority. Yet Hindus are said to be
intolerant.”

High levels of Aflatoxins in milk is alarming

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Some years ago an NGO was asked by the state government to run a gaushala in Patiala. They
did, on condition that the food would be supplied to the cows by the Municipality. The
Municipality gave the contract for chara (green fodder) to a person. He bought it from farmers
and gave it to the gaushala. One day, after eating the chara, 18 cows died within an hour. Instead
of holding an enquiry and seeing what was wrong with the chara, the municipal commissioner
buckled under the pressure of “gausevaks” and arrested the NGO caretakers of the gaushala. The
“gausevaks” seized the gaushala and began to run it. Another 40 cows died and then the gaushala
was closed down. A typically Indian way of solving a problem. Not one person in the
municipality held the farmers, or the chara contractor, responsible for giving poisoned feed to the
cows.

I would have done an enquiry into two things : the pesticides that were being used to grow the
feed and the aflatoxin contamination of the crop.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has done a detailed survey of milk
across India and released the results in October 2019. They found that a large amount of milk
had aflatoxins, dangerous carcinogens, in it, far beyond the permissible limit. The highest rates
of aflatoxin contamination were found in Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Kerala.

Aflatoxins are 20 toxins produced by mould (fungi) of the genus Aspergillus, namely, A.
flavus, A. parasiticus and A. nomius. Aflatoxin B1 is the most predominant form in aflatoxin-
contaminated crops. When cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats eat feed contaminated with aflatoxins
B1 and B2, aflatoxins M1 and M2 will be formed in their livers and excreted in milk. This is
drunk by you.

Aflatoxins cause both acute and chronic toxicity. Aflatoxins B1 and M1 are the most potent and
can cause acute liver damage, cirrhosis and cancer. They have been classified as carcinogens by
the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Aflatoxins-producing moulds affect crops in warmer parts of the world. Peanuts, maize and
cottonseeds are most frequently incriminated, but it is also found in wheat, cassava, oilseeds,
fruits, wines, legumes. The moulds (Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus) grow in soil,
decaying vegetation, hay, and grains.. The optimal growth temperature is 25ºC, but already at 10-
12ºC the fungus starts to grow.

Droughts make the crops even more susceptible to Aspergillus infection. But it can occur at any
time : After the crops are harvested, contamination can occur during storage when there is
delayed drying, or when the moisture level is high. Rodents and insects in the silos facilitate
mould infestations. Aflatoxin contamination can occur along the entire food chain, starting from
the field, during storage, and transportation and processing.

Animals fed contaminated food pass aflatoxins into eggs, milk and meat. Milk is the most
important source of aflatoxins in the human food chain, containing both M1 and B1.

Once the aflatoxins are in the milk they cannot be removed by boiling, pressure cooking or
pasteurization.

Cancer is not the only problem. Food containing aflatoxin concentrations, of just one milligram
per kilogram, can cause aflatoxicosis which causes nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and
convulsions in the short term and acute liver failure, jaundice, lethargy, eventually leading to
death, according to a WHO study in February 2018. “Based on past outbreaks, it has been
estimated that when consumed over a period of 1–3 weeks, an Aflatoxin B1 dose of 20–120
microgram per kilogram (μg/kg) by weight per day is acutely toxic and potentially lethal,” the
study says.

And that’s not all. A study, conducted in Nairobi, Kenya in August 2018, stated that aflatoxin
contamination had severe health impacts on milk drinkers, causing stunting in children under the
age of five years. “The exposure to AFM1 from milk is 46 nanogram per kilogram (ng/day) on
average, but children bear higher exposure of 3.5 ng/kg bodyweight per day (bw/day) compared
to adults, at 0.8 ng/kg bw/day. This causes stunting among children,” the study said.

According to FSSAI standards, the permissible limit of aflatoxins in milk is 0.5 µg/kg. The
FSSAI survey showed that about 10% of the milk samples were contaminated. Imagine 10% of
India’s population, that drinks milk, taking this poison in daily. 38% of Lakhs of children are
now stunted according to government figures.

Aflatoxins are also mutagenic. Which means they damage our DNA, cause it to mutate and set
into motion a problem that will affect all the coming generations of the family.

They are even more dangerous for animals, who die immediately after convulsing or develop
cancer. The first aflatoxins were discovered in England in 1961 when 100,000 turkeys died
suddenly. Contaminated peanut meal feed was found to be the source of the outbreak

What should we be teaching farmers ? To store grains properly so there is no mould growth. To
check their fields to see that there is no mould growth. Do we do this ? No. The presence of
aflatoxin M1 (AFM1), in milk and dairy products throughout the world, has been known for over
thirty years and is a special problem in India. But no attempt has been made to deal with it.

Do we care what we feed our cows and buffaloes ? No – as long as the quantity is there, who
cares about the quality. Feed and fodder are not regulated In India. While 60 countries, including
India, have put a maximum level of 0.05 μg/kg milk and the EU has put the same level for feed
that is given to dairy cattle, India has no laws for fodder
A system should be in place to check fodder, and this should be made mandatory for dairy milk
producers. Milk should be tested daily, instead of once in ten years, by FSSAI. Rapid screening
of fresh, stored, pasteurized milk, liquid or powdered milk, cheese, needs the ELISA, TLC or
HPLC test. If an alert has been signalled, the farmer must withdraw the products and suspend
delivering milk to the market.

Poor storage conditions and practices can also lead to fungal contamination. The most effective
method to control AFM1 concentration in milk is by applying standard Good Agricultural and
Storage Practices during pre- and post-harvest conditions. Strict regulations, and adapting good
storage practices in developed countries, have minimized the contamination of AFM1 in milk
and dairy products. Because AFB1 contamination levels vary with year and climate, it may be
useful to develop an AFB1 monitoring program that takes into account climatic conditions, and
pre-harvest feed quality, during its growing season. There is an urgent need to control aflatoxins,
specially in urban and peri urban areas where cattle are stall fed.

Most farmers know nothing about aflatoxins and, certainly, no dairy owners know that milk can
be contaminated. You, as the consumer, know the least of all. A national awareness programme
is important.

Since it the main nutrient for babies and young children, the occurrence of AFM 1 in
commercially available milk, and milk products, is a serious health problem. Don’t give your
children milk. Stop bringing it into the house.