WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023–38
About: the world this week, 17 September to 23 September 2023; Ukraine grain grind in Poland; Designated Terrorist in Canada; Antarctica’s Ice; Women’s Reservation; and Asia Cup Cricket.
Everywhere
Ukraine Grain and Poland
Poland has been a firm supporter of Ukraine from the beginning of Russia’s invasion. It often led the way in sending military aid and equipment, and argued passionately that such support is essential to protect Poland itself from Russian aggression. Now suddenly it feels like the political knives are out for Ukraine. There’s talk of how Ukraine should be grateful for Polish support.
This week, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned about scaling down or even ending weapons transfers to Ukraine. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning man who risks dragging his rescuers down with him.
The sharp downturn in relations between the neighbouring countries began with a dispute over grain imports that remains unresolved. Ukraine needs to export its grain harvest, and land routes are now critical because Russia is deliberately attacking ports on both the Black Sea and the Danube River. But in an effort to protect its own farmers, Poland does not wish to allow cheaper Ukrainian grain to hit its domestic market, only to pass through to the rest of the European Union in transit.
Later in the week, Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister said that he and his Polish counterpart have agreed to “find a solution that takes into account the interests of both countries”, after a phone conversation.
Designated Terrorist
This week, the already frosty ties between India and Canada plunged to a new low, almost reaching freezing point.
Canada’s Prime Minister (PM) Justin Trudeau accused India of being involved in the killing of a Sikh Separatist Khalistani leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on his country’s soil, based on what he called ‘credible information’. PM Trudeau announced this in Parliament and said that any involvement of a foreign government in killing a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”. And almost immediately, Canada expelled one of India’s diplomats at the Indian Embassy in Canada.
India promptly described the Canadian PM’s allegations as absurd and motivated. That the frozen approach and inaction of the Canadian government on Sikh Separatist activity, inside Canada, aims to undermine India, is long-standing, and of continuing concern. And in a tit-for-tat move, India expelled a senior Canadian diplomat — to leave Indian soil within 5 days- citing interference of Canadian diplomats in India’s internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities.
Later, in a deeper step, India suspended all Visa services in Canada with immediate effect and until further notice. And sought downsizing of Canada’s diplomatic presence in India.
Earlier this year, India reprimanded Canada for allowing a float in a parade depicting the assassination of former Indian PM, Indira Gandhi-by her Sikh bodyguards-perceiving this to be a glorification of Sikh separatist-Khalistani-violence. India has also been upset about frequent demonstrations and vandalism by Sikh separatists and their supporters at Indian diplomatic missions in Canada, Britain, the United States, and Australia. And has sought better security from local governments.
India counted that at least nine separatist organisations, supporting terror groups, have their bases in Canada. And despite multiple deportation requests, Canada has taken no action against those involved in heinous crimes, including the killing of popular Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala. India added that pro-Khalistani outfits such as the World Sikh Organization (WSO), Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), have been operating freely from Canadian soil. Multiple dossiers have been handed over to Canada, but India’s deportation requests have gone unaddressed.
The latest spat deals a fresh blow to diplomatic ties that have been fraying for years.
Who is Hardeep Singh Nijjar?
Nijjar is a prominent Khalistani leader who was trying to organize an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora in Canada- for a Khalistan State in India — with the organization muscle of Sikhs for Justice.
Nijjar hailing from a village in Jalandhar, Punjab, migrated to Canada in the mid 1990s. He arrived in Canada in 1997, using a fraudulent passport making a refugee claim. Nijjar then married a woman who sponsored his immigration and became a Canadian citizen in 2007. He works as a plumber. Nijjar became president of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia in 2018, and was a leader of the Canadian branch of SFJ.
According to India, Nijjar is also the leader of the pro-Khalistan group KTF and a warrant for his arrest was issued in November 2014, accusing him of conspiring in the bombing of Shingar Cinema in Punjab’s Ludhiana, in 2007, in which 6 people were killed. India issued another Interpol warrant in 2016 claiming Nijjar was involved in a plot to transport illegal ammunition, by paragliders, into India.
In 2018 Nijjar was accused of multiple targeted killings in India. In February that year, Amarinder Singh, then Chief Minister of Punjab, handed over to PM Justin Trudeau a list of most wanted persons that included Nijjar’s name.
In July 2020, India designated Hardeep Singh Nijjar a terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and, in September 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seized his assets in the country. The NIA has accused him of plotting the murder of a Hindu priest in Punjab and hatching a conspiracy to disturb peace and disrupt communal harmony. In 2022, the NIA offered a reward of INR 10 lakhs for any information that could help apprehend him.
What is the separatist Khalistan Movement? Get to the bottom, and history here:
Briefly, the Khalistan Movement was started for an independent homeland for the Sikhs and dates back to India and Pakistan’s independence in 1947, preceding the partition of the Punjab region between the two new countries. Sikh separatists demand that their own homeland, Khalistan, meaning ‘the land of the pure’ be carved out of Punjab. Later, India reorganised its States mostly on linguistic basis and Punjab became a Sikh-majority State. The demand for Khalistan resurfaced many times, most prominently during a violent insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s, which paralysed Punjab for over a decade.
The Khalistan movement is considered a security threat by India. The bloodiest episode in the conflict occurred in 1984 when the then PM of India, Indira Gandhi, sent the Army into the Golden Temple — Operation Blue Star- the holiest shrine for Sikhs, to evict armed separatist leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters. The operation culminated with the killing of Bhindranwale, among other terrorists. This infuriated Sikhs around the world. A few months later, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her home in New Delhi, in retaliation. The army launched operations in 1986 and 1988 to flush-out Sikh militants from Punjab.
But by then the Khalistan movement found roots in Canada.
Immigration of the Sikh population to Canada had begun in the early 20th Century. It started when Sikh soldiers in the British Army passing through British Columbia were attracted by its fertile land. By 1970, the Sikhs numbers in Canada rose and they became a visible face among the communities in the region.
The Khalistan-centric militancy climbed higher, when Sikh militants were found responsible for the 1985 bombing of an Air-India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India: Air-India Flight 182, Kanishka, operating on the Montreal–London–New Delhi–Mumbai route. On 23 June 1985 it disintegrated in mid-air en route from Montreal to London, at an altitude of 9,400 metres over the Atlantic Ocean, as a result of a bomb explosion from inside the aircraft. The remnants of the aircraft fell into the ocean about 190 kilometres (km) off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens.
The bombing of Kanishka is the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history; the deadliest aviation incident in the history of Air-India; and was the world’s most outrageous act of aviation terrorism until the 11 September 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in the United States.
According to investigators, the bombing of Kanishka was part of a larger transnational terrorist plot against India, which included a plan to bomb two Air-India planes. The first bomb was meant to explode aboard Air India Flight 301, which was scheduled to take off from Japan’s Narita International Airport, but it detonated early, before it could be loaded onto the plane, killing two baggage-handlers. The planners had failed to take into account that Japan does not observe ‘Daylight Saving Time (a practice of setting the clocks forward one hour from standard time during the summer months, and back again in the Fall).
The second bomb planted aboard Kanishka in Canada was successful. It was later revealed that both the conspiracy and the bombs, which were stashed inside luggage, originated in Canada. The Sikh militant and Khalistani separatist group BKI was implicated in the bombings.
Although a handful of people were arrested and tried for the Kanishka bombing, the only person convicted was Inderjit Singh Reyat, a dual British-Canadian national, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2003. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for assembling the bombs that exploded on board Kanishka and at Narita.
The subsequent investigation and prosecution lasted almost twenty years. The two accused Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were both acquitted, due to lack of evidence.
In 2010, a Justice John Major-led commission of inquiry submitted a report in which Canadian police and spy agencies were blamed for grave negligence and hampering the investigation. In the report, Justice Major said that the authorities should have known that the Indian aircraft was a terrorist’s target. His report concluded that a ‘cascading series of errors’ by the Government of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had allowed the terrorist attack to take place. And their failure to prevent the bombing ‘inexcusable’.
Canada has blood on its hands.
PM Justin Trudeau’s family has a history of being warm towards Sikhs and siding with Khalistani terrorists. In 1982 his father, Pierre Trudeau, had refused the extradition request of Khalistani terrorist Talwinder Singh Parmar, wanted for the murder of police officers in India.
Pierre Trudeau’s Government refused the Indian request on the quaint grounds that India was ‘insufficiently deferential’ to the Queen of England. Canadian diplomats had to tell their Indian counterparts that the extradition protocols between Commonwealth countries would not apply because India only recognized Her Majesty as Head of the Commonwealth and not as Head of State. Case closed!
Parmar was the head of the Khalistani terrorist organization BKI, which in 1985, bombed Kanishka. And Pierre Trudeau is largely blamed for the Kanishka bombing, as it was only after his government ‘saved Parmar’ that he started preparing for the bombing. In 1984, Parmar told his fellow Khalistanis that, “Indian planes will fall from the sky”. In the same year, Ajaib Singh Bagri, a close associate of Parmar, pledged to kill Hindus. He said at the founding convention of the World Sikh Organization, “Until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest!”
Reports suggest that Canadian authorities were aware of what Parmar was planning. One of the Canadian police informers had told police that Parmar promised him to pay a suitcase full of money if he agreed to plant a bomb on the plane. Parmar and his aide Inderjit Reyat were in the radar of the secret agency officials of Canada. They witnessed them testing a bomb on Vancouver Island. However, the police and spy agencies did not take the information about the bombing seriously and considered the informers unreliable. The Canadian authorities even lost or destroyed some of the key evidence. As a result, a trial in the case of the Kanishka bombing ended in acquittal of the accused due to lack of evidence.
In 1992, Parmar was killed by the Indian police when he sneaked into Punjab from Pakistan.
Today, Justin Trudeau’s is a coalition Government, following the September 2021 snap Elections he had called, hoping to win a majority on his own. He wasn’t successful as his Liberal Party won 157 seats in the 338 member Parliament and is backed by the ‘Khalistan-Friendly’ Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party with 24 seats.
In August this year Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire announced that they are separating after 18 years of marriage.
India’s suffering has been Himalayan on account of Khalistan related terrorism, and Canada is only rubbing salt into the wounds of many decades.
Meanwhile, the ice is melting in Antarctica.
Antarctica’s Ice
Antarctica’s huge ice expanse regulates the planet’s temperature, as the white surface reflects the Sun’s energy back into the atmosphere and also cools the water beneath and near it.
Sea-ice acts as a protective sleeve for the ice covering the land and prevents the ocean from heating up. As more sea-ice disappears, it exposes dark areas of ocean, which absorb sunlight instead of reflecting it, meaning that the heat energy is added into the water, which in turn melts more ice. Scientists call this the ice-albedo effect.
The sea-ice surrounding Antarctica is well below any previous recorded winter level a worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming. The ice that floats on the Antarctic Ocean’s surface now measures less than 17 million square km, i.e., 1.5 million square km of sea-ice less than the September average, and well below previous winter record lows.
An unstable Antarctica could have far-reaching consequences, polar experts warn. Without its ice cooling the planet, Antarctica could transform from being Earth’s Refrigerator to becoming Earth’s Radiator.
Scientists are still trying to identify all the factors that led to this year’s low sea-ice — but studying trends in Antarctica has historically been challenging.
In a year when several global heat and ocean temperature records have been broken, some scientists insist the low sea-ice is the measure to pay attention to.
Sea-ice forms in the continent’s winter (March to October) before largely melting in summer. And is part of an interconnected system that also consists of icebergs, land ice and huge ice shelves — floating extensions of land ice jutting out from the coast.
That could add a lot more heat to the planet, disrupting Antarctica’s usual role as a regulator of global temperatures.
Since the 1990s, the loss of land ice from Antarctica has contributed 7.2mm to sea-level rise.
Even modest increases in sea levels can result in dangerously high storm surges that could wipe out coastal communities. If significant amounts of land ice were to start melting, the impacts would be catastrophic for millions of people around the world.
Women’s Reservation
This week, India’s Parliament, which shifted operations from the old ‘colonial era’ Building to the spanking new ,vibrant Parliament Building passed a historic Women’s Reservation Bill -providing 33% reservation in the Lok Sabha (Member of Parliament) and State Assemblies Member of Legislative Assembly). This with a two-third’s majority in the Lok Sabha -only two voted against-and an unanimous vote-without dissent- in the Rajya Sabha. It will be made into law on the assent of the President of India, which is a mere formality. The Bill had been languishing in the corridors of Parliament for over 27 years. And this time has made it, but implementation would not be immediate.
The Reservation will come into effect after the national census and delimitation exercise is completed by the year 2029.
Asia Cup Cricket
India were crowned Asia Cup Champions for an eighth time after crushing defending Champions Sri Lanka by 10 wickets in the final in Colombo this Sunday. India literally steam-rolled Sri Lanka, to win the Cup.
Sri Lanka won the toss and opted to bat. In a fiery spell of bowling, India’s Mohammed Siraj grabbed four wickets in his second over, removing two batsmen in successive balls, to break the backbone of the Sri Lankan batting order.
Mohammed Siraj’s 6 wickets for 21 runs helped bundle Sri Lanka out for 50 runs before India’s opening batsmen chased the target down in 6.1 overs, pulling off its biggest-ever One Day International victory in terms of balls remaining.
More melting stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Play with World Inthavaaram.
