REPORT ON PAGE 8
Shah Rukh Khan plays the titular role in Pathaan,
which released worldwide on Jan 25.
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SINGAPORE, WEEKEND OF FRIDAY,
JANUARY 27,
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STUDENTS BUSTED
OVER BBC FILM
ON MODI
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BAREFOOT
RUNNER WITH
WEIGHTS
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MCI (P) 079/10/2022
VETERAN DIPLOMAT
SPEAKS ABOUT
NEW WORLD ORDER
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Pathaan
brings
back
cheer to
Bollywood
Andaman islands named after
India’s bravest soldiers
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
Monday named 21 islands in
Andaman after recipients of India’s
highest military gallantry honour, the
Param Vir Chakra, in a message of
valour and unity.
“These 21 Param Vir Chakra
awardees gave up everything in the
service of the country. They were from
different states, spoke different
languages, had different livelihoods,
but they were united in their service to
the country,” he said.
India hosts Egypt’s Sisi as it looks
to increase defence sales
India and Egypt elevated their
relationship to a strategic partnership
and agreed to substantially increase
bilateral trade as the South Asian
nation looks for new markets,
including for its military hardware.
Trade between India and Egypt will
touch US$12 billion ($15.7b) annually
in the next five years, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi said in New Delhi at a
joint press meet with visiting Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Trade between the two countries
stood at US$7 billion in the financial
year ended March 2022. Food and
fertiliser shortages, supply chain
disruptions because of the Ukraine war
and Covid figured prominently in the
discussions, Mr Modi said.
Top editors’ body slams proposed
‘fake news’ rules
The Editors Guild of India (EGI),
India’s premier body for protecting
press freedom, has urged the
government to reject a proposal to
combat fake news on social media,
saying it would be akin to censorship.
“Determination of fake news
cannot be in the sole hands of the
government and will result in the
censorship of the press,” the editor’s
group said in a statement.
The proposed amendment by the
Ministry of Electronics and IT to
Information Technology Rules, 2021,
would bar social media platforms from
hosting any information that the
authorities identify as false.
The draft amendment issued on
Jan 17 said that information deemed
“fake or false” by the Press
Information Bureau or any other
agency authorised for fact-checking by
the government would be prohibited.
Six injured in Jammu blasts
At least six people were injured on
Saturday in two blasts in Jammu, the
principal city in Jammu and Kashmir,
ahead of the arrival of opposition
leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on a
cross-country march.
The blasts hit Jammu’s transport
yard in the Narwal area, said regional
police chief Mukesh Singh, as security
was heightened for Mr Gandhi, who
reached the city on Monday.
Air India fined over passenger’s
mid-air urination scandal
Air India has been fined US$37,000
for its handling of an incident in which
drunk Shankar Mishra, who was a
senior executive of an American bank,
was accused of urinating on a female
passenger on a New York-New Delhi
flight on Nov 26 last year.
The Indian Directorate-General of
Civil Aviation also fined Air India’s
director of in-flight services Rs300,000
($4,829). The flight’s pilot had his
licence suspended for three months for
“failing to discharge his duties” to
ensure safety and discipline.
Arrest warrant issued against
company MD over bridge collapse
Police in Gujarat aim to arrest the boss
of a clock-making company that
managed a colonial-era footbridge in a
small industrial town until it collapsed
last year, killing at least 135 people.
Nearly three months later, police
have issued an arrest warrant for Mr
Jaysukh Patel, the managing director
of Oreva Group, best known for
making clocks and electrical products,
said Gujarat head of police Ashish
Bhatia. A look-out circular has also
been issued to prevent Mr Patel from
leaving the country.
Four killed, six injured as crane
collapses during temple festival
Four people were killed and at least
six others injured after a crane crashed
during a temple festival in Tamil Nadu
on Sunday. Local media reported that
eight people were on the crane to
receive garlands from devotees at
Draupathi temple in Ranipet district
when the accident took place.
Minister’s tiger cull comment
sparks row
Kerala Wildlife Minister A.K.
Saseendran’s comments on culling
tigers, following the death of a farmer
in a tiger attack on Jan 13 in the
Mananthavady forest range in
Wayanad district, has sparked a debate
on conservation.
Several experts expressed outrage
and pointed out that culling was a
“legally untenable” suggestion.
India is home to more than 70 per
cent of the world’s tigers – 2,976. But
their habitats haven’t expanded at the
same rate, forcing so-called “surplus”
tigers to move outside protected
reserves and come in conflict with
humans. A federal wildlife protection
law, implemented in 1972, makes it
illegal to kill or capture tigers – India’s
national animal – even when they are
involved in such conflicts.
Bride calls off wedding as groom
cannot count money
A 21-year-old bride called off her
wedding in Uttar Pradesh’s
Farrukhabad district when the groom
failed to count currency notes.
Ms Rita Singh walked off the dais
and the incident led to a verbal spat
between the two families before the
police were called in.
The bride’s family claimed that they
were unaware that the 23-year-old
groom was “mentally weak”.
The bride’s brother Mohit said:
“Marriages usually happen in good
faith and the mediator was a close
relative, so we trusted him and did not
meet the guy. When the priest told us
about his odd behaviour, we decided
to conduct a test and gave him 30
currency notes of Rs10 each to count
which he could not. After knowing
about his condition, Rita refused to
marry him.”
Last dance awaits Sania as she
reaches mixed doubles final
Sania Mirza, India’s greatest women’s
tennis player, stayed on track for a
fairy-tale farewell after she reached the
mixed doubles final at the Australian
Open on Wednesday.
Sania teamed up with Rohan
Bopanna for her final Grand Slam in
Melbourne, having announced her
desire to step away from the sport
after next month’s Dubai Tennis
Championships.
Sania, who won the women’s
doubles crown at the 2016 Australian
Open, and Bopanna defeated the third
seed pairing of Desirae Krawczyk and
Neal Skupski 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 10-6 in
the semi-final on Wednesday.
She will play in the mixed doubles
final today, 18 years after she first
made her major debut at the same
tournament.
Cricket board auctions Women’s
IPL teams for US$572.5 million
India’s cricket board on Wednesday
earned US$572.5 million as it
announced the winners of bids to own
five teams in the inaugural Women’s
Premier League Twenty20 tournament
in March.
Three of the five women’s league
franchises – Mumbai Indians, Delhi
Capitals and Royal Challengers
Bangalore – already own Indian
Premier League teams.
The other two are Adani Sportsline,
– owned by Mr Gautam Adani, one of
the world’s richest men – and Capri
Global Holdings.
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Students at a full-dress
rehearsal for Republic Day
celebrations in Amritsar on
Wednesday.
India celebrated its 74th
Republic Day with the
traditional parade in New
Delhi on Thursday. It rolled
down the revamped Kartavya
Path – used to be known as
Rajpath, a ceremonial
boulevard from the British
period – for the first time.
There were tableaux from
17 states and Union
Territories, and six from
various ministries and
departments, depicting the
emergence of a “New India”
through growing indigenous
capabilities, cultural heritage,
economic and social progress
and women power.
74th Republic Day heralds ‘New India’
An SPH Media Limited publication
Editor-in-Chief
(English/Malay/Tamil Media group)
Wong Wei Kong
Editor
Jawharilal Rajendran
Contributing Editor
V.K. Santosh Kumar
Cluster Head
(International & Transactional Sales)
Martin Boey
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Page2
January27,2023
tabla
!
INDIA
Students were detained by Delhi po-
lice on Wednesday as they gathered to
watch a recent BBC documentary
about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Indian government has dis-
missed the documentary as propa-
ganda and blocked its streaming and
sharing on social media.
This follows similar disruptions,
some of which turned violent, at
gatherings this week by students to
watch the documentary that questions
Mr Modi’s leadership during deadly
riots two decades ago.
His opponents are also raising ques-
tions of government censorship.
Mr Modi, who is aiming for a third
term in elections next year, was chief
minister of Gujarat in February 2002
when a suspected Muslim mob set fire
to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims,
setting off one of independent India’s
worst religious bloodsheds.
In reprisal attacks across the state,
at least 1,000 people were killed,
mostly Muslims, as crowds roamed the
streets over days, targeting the minor-
ity group. Activists put the toll at
around 2,500.
Mr Modi has denied accusations
that he did not do enough to stop the
riots, and he was exonerated in 2012
following an inquiry overseen by the
Supreme Court.
A petition questioning his exonera-
tion was dismissed last year.
The government has said the BBC
documentary India: The Modi Ques-
tion, released last week, is a biased
“propaganda piece” and has blocked
the sharing of any clips from it on
social media.
The Students’ Federation of India
(SFI) said on Wednesday that it
planned to show the documentary in
every Indian state. SFI is the student
wing of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist).
“They won’t stop the voice of
dissent,” said SFI general secretary
Mayukh Biswas.
Ahead of one of the screenings at
Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university,
13 students were detained amid a
heavy police deployment.
The university blamed the students
for creating a “ruckus on the street”
and said they did not have permission
to screen the show, police said.
“There is no chance that anybody
who tries to disturb the discipline of
the university will go free,” the univer-
sity’s vice chancellor Najma Akhtar
told Reuters.
A day earlier, bricks were hurled,
allegedly by members of a right-wing
group, at students hoping to watch the
documentary at Delhi’s Jawaharlal
Nehru University, students said.
Student leader Aishe Ghosh said
they were watching the documentary
on their phones and laptops after
power was cut off about 30 minutes
before a scheduled screening. The uni-
versity had denied permission and
threatened disciplinary action if the
documentary were screened.
“It was obviously the administration
that cut off the power. We are encour-
aging campuses across the country to
hold screenings as an act of resistance
against this censorship,” said Ms
Ghosh.
The media coordinator for the uni-
versity did not comment when asked
about the on-campus power cut.
The SFI spokesman did not respond
to a message seeking comment nor did
the police spokesman respond to
queries.
Protests also erupted following the
film’s screening at campuses in Kerala
on Tuesday, while a show was can-
celled mid-way at a university in
Chandigarh, according to local media
reports.
Mr Derek O’Brien, a member of
parliament in the upper house,
tweeted on Saturday that the opposi-
tion “will continue to fight the good
fight against censorship” in reference
to the ban on sharing clips from the
documentary on social media.
“The documentary was rigorously
researched according to highest edito-
rial standards,” the BBC said. It ap-
proached “a wide range of voices,
witnesses and experts” and featured a
range of opinion including responses
from people in Mr Modi’s Bharatiya
Janata Party.
Reuters
Former United States secretary of state
Mike Pompeo wrote in a book (right)
published on Tuesday that India and
Pakistan came close to a nuclear war
in 2019 and that American interven-
tion prevented escalation.
“I do not think the world properly
knows just how close the India-Pak-
istan rivalry came to spilling over into
a nuclear conflagration in February
2019,” the likely future US presiden-
tial contender wrote in Never Give An
Inch, his memoir of his time as
Mr Donald Trump’s top diplomat and
earlier CIA chief.
India in February 2019 broke prece-
dent by launching airstrikes inside
Pakistani territory after blaming a
terrorist group there for a suicide
bombing that killed 41 Central Re-
serve Police Force troops in Kashmir.
India shot down an F-16 during an
aerial combat in which Pakistan shot
down an Indian warplane and captured
its pilot.
Mr Pompeo, who was then in Hanoi
for a summit between Mr Trump and
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,
said he was woken up by an urgent
call from a senior Indian official.
“He believed the Pakistanis had
begun to prepare their nuclear
weapons for a strike. India, he in-
formed me, was contemplating its own
escalation,” Mr Pompeo wrote.
“I asked him to do nothing and give
us a minute to sort things out.”
Mr Pompeo said US diplomats con-
vinced both sides to stand down.
“No other nation could have done
what we did that night to avoid a
horrible outcome,” Mr Pompeo wrote.
Mr Pompeo, who wrote that Pak-
istan “probably enabled” the Kashmir
attack, said he spoke to “the actual
leader of Pakistan”, then army chief
General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in an
allusion to the weakness of civilian
governments. Mr Pompeo at the time
publicly defended India’s right to act.
Indo-Asian News Service
Delhi Police
personnel
detaining
students at
Delhi’s
Jamia Millia
Islamia
campus on
Wednesday.
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Students busted over Modi documentary
Pompeo: India-Pakistan
were on brink of nuclear war
INDIA
tabla
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January 27, 2023
Page 3
