Saturday, December 14, 2019

Biometric ID And Citizenship Solutions

Every human being has a right to being a citizen of this or that country. Statelessness is a human rights violation.

At one end the claim is being made that this bill will affect about 32,000 people who have sought asylum. But the protests point at something entirely different. There are a lot of illiterate citizens in India who have lived in the country for generations who do not have any kind of paperwork. Because in India's informal economy, no paperwork is necessary. The Muslims are disproportionately poor and are less likely to have paperwork despite having no other country. India is the only country they know. This bill along with the national effort to create a registry of all citizens can be used in ways so as to render tens of millions stateless at the stroke of a pen. That is the fear. And it is combustible.

That religious minorities face persecution in Pakistan, or Afghanistan or Bangladesh is not a reason why they should also face persecution in India. This is not about Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or Bangladesh. This is about the fundamental character of India.

You start with the biometric ID. You don't ask for paperwork. You give them paperwork based on their biometric IDs. That should be the Indian way.

India is in a good position to take a political lead on this and make it a global issue to be tackled at many regional forums, and at the United Nations. The Indian national government should not embarrass itself by ill-thought measures that do not stand the shine of its own constitution.

India's Contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill
Has India Gone Crazy?

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India's Contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill

Has India Gone Crazy?

UN closely analysing possible consequences of Citizenship Amendment Bill: UN spokesperson The UN is closely analysing the possible consequences of India's amended Citizenship Act, a spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres has said.

India abandoning its founding principles with Citizenship Amendment Bill The purpose is to create, through law, a permanent threat to hang over every single Muslim head in India, writes Mihir S Sharma. ........ As with Trump’s “Muslim ban,” this law’s inability to hide its true intent is almost comic. Migrants fleeing religious persecution in the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are to be granted citizenship--but not those fleeing persecution in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka or Myanmar. It is the latter, of course, where there’s a genuine humanitarian crisis — but the Rohingya are Muslim, so by the BJP’s logic they cannot and do not deserve a place in the Hindu homeland of India. Hindus being murdered in Pakistan can flee to India — but not Shias, Baloch or Ahmedis, who are if anything currently even more at risk in that troubled country. Once aspiring to be as multicultural, secular and inclusive as other modern liberal democracies, India now looks less to those countries as its model and more to Israel, Pakistan or China........ But it would be a mistake to think this new citizenship law is only about migration and refugees and nebulous notions of national identity. It is far more immediate and insidious than that, particularly when seen in combination with the other big state project in border areas: a national register of citizens, or NRC, which demands that residents produce extensive documentation, sometimes going back decades, to prove their Indian citizenship. Naturally,

this exercise is particularly difficult for some of India’s poorest, who have little or no paperwork.

In the border state of Assam, millions were thrown into legal limbo when they were left off the NRC. ....... The purpose of the Citizenship Amendment Bill is simple:

when combined with the NRC, it can protect poor Hindus from the regulations that could render any poor Muslim a non-citizen at the stroke of an official’s pen.

The purpose is to create, through law, a permanent threat to hang over every single Muslim head in India: Don’t stand up for yourself, or we will set you the impossible task of proving that you are, in fact, Indian.......... Some people are puzzled that, in the midst of an economic slowdown that it has no idea how to combat, the government is instead spending enormous amounts of political capital on India’s variant of the Muslim ban. ........ India’s Partition, in which one country turned to religious nationalism and one to secular liberalism, is the largest such natural experiment in history. One country, Pakistan, headed down the road to disaster; the other, India, has managed to make something of itself. Who would have thought that the one with a chance of success would decide at this late stage to emulate its less successful twin?

Divide and win: How Citizenship Bill and NRC are BJP's next Ram Mandir

Fight is for India How Muslims are striving to keep it peaceful, inclusive and secular ...... The point they were trying to hammer home: the Muslims are not fighting for themselves but to preserve the idea of India. ...... When tyres were burnt in a minority-dominated locality in Calcutta in the afternoon, messages went out on social media hinting at “riots”. ...... “These protests are spontaneous, but I have requested them not to cause hardship to people as the people are the backbone of any form of protest,” said Mamata, who is planning movements from Monday against the “twin blows of NRC-CAB (as the bill was known before it was signed into law)”. ...... ordinary Muslims have been joining the protests out of a deep sense of fear.



Smells like a page from ‘Nazi’ copybook Parallels with Hitler Germany cited ...... The MP drew a parallel between the concentration camps of 1933 and the detention camps of 2018, before adding that 60 per cent of the people in those detention camps are Bengali Hindus........ The Reich Citizenship Law of 1935 protected those with German blood....... In Germany under the Nazis there was a plan, known as the Madagascar Plan, to deport the Jews. Now, the Indian government has the National Register of Citizens (NRC) ...... “And the last one, in the German copybook they referred to a very interesting word, ‘Jews’ as ‘rats’. And, as someone said, once powerful politicians start using dehumanising language, what happens after that, termites! What are we talking about today — termites, cockroaches, vermin. These words are not used by any party worker, but these words are being used by the Prime Minister and sometimes by the home minister,” he said.

Indians punish Corbyn over Kashmir
Shinzo Abe cancels Japan-India summit amid citizenship bill violence Narendra Modi's government has said its Citizenship Amendment Bill, making it easier for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring countries to gain India citizenship, will protect those persecuted from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. ..... The United Nations human rights office voiced concern that the new law is "fundamentally discriminatory in nature", and called for it to be reviewed.

In India’s Citizenship Act, an eerie echo of Nazi Germany’s claims to protect ‘racial comrades’ The Nazis used moral concern over the plight of German minorities abroad to construct the idea of a racialised national polity that transcended boundaries. ........ worrying similarities with the rhetoric and policies of the German state between 1929-1940. ...... Germans constituted the largest ethnic minority in Eastern Europe at the time, spread over Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece and parts of the USSR and the Balkans.The German state, the Weimar Republic succeeded by the Nazi state, tirelessly raised the issue of the oppression faced by German minorities in these states –claims that were rooted in reality. ....... In October 1933, the representative of the newly formed Nazi state to the League clarified that the German nation had “a natural and moral right to consider that all its members – even those separated from the mother country by state frontiers-constitute a moral and cultural whole”. Continuing the pursual of this policy after their withdrawal from the League, the Nazis claimed to protect their “racial comrades” either through invasion (Austria and Sudetenland) or via the acquisition of “trustee rights” in their Danubian client states that gave Germany, the “mother country”, the right to intervene to protect “the folk-group”. ..... In the words of a pan-German theorist: “Blood is stronger than the passport.” ....... Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are constructed as helpless victims whom India must save from the tyranny of intolerant, Islamic theocratic states by easing the procedures of Indian citizenship for them. ...... rejecting the Joint Parliamentary Commission’s proposal to replace the list of groups with “persecuted minorities”, which could have included persecuted Muslims and Tamils from neighbouring countries. ....... Shah’s riposte also fails to address why the law does not extend to Myanmar or Sri Lanka – neighbouring states culpable for the systemic oppression of Rohingyas and Tamils respectively....... These exclusions tell us that the suffering of the Rohingyas, Sri Lankan Tamils or Ahmediyas does not matter to the Indian state. Akin to German policies in the 1930s, the objects of moral concern for the national community help articulate a racialised conception of the nation – the Hindu Rashtra......... Since they were not Hindus, Muslims and Christians would have to live as subordinate members of the Hindu political community, according to Savarkar.





In India, protests over new citizenship bill as Muslims fear further persecution A federal panel on religion has urged the United States to sanction India’s Home Minister Amit Shah if it passes. .......... India’s foreign ministry called the panel’s statement inaccurate, saying the bill seeks to help persecuted religious minorities already in the country. “It seeks to address their current difficulties and meet their basic human rights,” said ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar.

India's Citizenship Act gets challenged at the Supreme Court barely a day after passing Parliament
India is slowing down so fast that even experts can’t keep up
Citizenship bill is a triumph of the idea of India 'This bill is for the children of Partition who are still subject to inhuman barbarism because they profess a faith rooted in India.' ...... 'If India fails them, we shall be no better than a Pakistan which brutalises its minorities and has turned into a factory of intolerant bigots,' says former BJP MP Tarun Vijay. ....... It was quite revealing to hear Opposition leader after leader in Parliament opposing the bill, but none, absolutely none, had a word to say about the miseries and pains of suffering Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Buddhists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. ...... The bill does not stop any religious person from any country on this planet to seek asylum or shelter in India. The doors for them, Muslims or any other sect, remain open through Constitutional means. There are innumerable instances of people from all religious streams coming to India and choosing to stay here....... No one stops them. No one will ever stop them. India will remain the best place to live for those who love pluralism and democratic values......... This bill is for the children of Partition who are still subject to inhuman barbarism because they profess a faith rooted in India. ........ From Goa's inquisition to the selling of Hindu men and women in Iraq's slave market by Muslim conquerors and even recently, forcing them to leave their homes and orchards in the Kashmir valley by jihadists -- it is they who not only suffer the contempt of the Islamists for being practising Hindus, but are mocked at for raising their voice to seek help........ For Hindus and Sikhs, there is no other homeland in the world except Hindustan........ the Hindu population in Pakistan and now in Bangladesh has been continuously decreasing at an alarming rate. ....In Pakistan from 13% to 1% and less, and in Bangladesh from 22% in 1947 to 8% currently........... After centuries of subjugation, here is the first government that is speaking up for the rights of persecuted Hindus without harming any other people.

UN closely analysing possible consequences of Citizenship Amendment Bill: UN spokesperson According to the amended Act, members of Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 and facing religious persecution there will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship....... The Act says the refugees of the six communities will be given Indian citizenship after residing in India for five years, instead of earlier requirement of 11 years.

Indian president disregards protests, signs citizenship bill into law New law grants Indian citizenship for six minority religious groups, except Muslims ..... The party said the law is “prima facie communal” and questioned the exclusion of minorities such as Rohingya Muslims who were just as persecuted as other faiths listed in the law.

India’s citizenship bill puts secularism at risk The right is given to Christians — which cynics might suggest is aimed at fending off US criticism — but not Jews, or atheists. The act also ignores members of Muslim sects who do face discrimination in the three neighbouring countries, and Muslim refugees from elsewhere, such as Rohingyas from Myanmar and Uighurs from China. As such, it rekindles the two-nation theory — the idea of a Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India — that was rejected by the independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. ......... Tens of millions of Indians still have no documentation; as late as 2005-2006, only 40 per cent obtained birth certificates and even now only 80 per cent of babies are registered at birth. Replicating the Assam process nationwide could leave huge numbers off the register. The citizenship amendment law, however, would provide a path to citizenship for followers of “Indic” religions — but not Muslims. Amit Shah, the home minister, has repeatedly pledged to introduce an NRC across the country.

He has also pledged that illegal migrants will be deported before India’s 2024 parliamentary election.

........... India’s courts might yet strike down the amendment as unconstitutional. Judicial challenges are likely to take years, however, by which time severe damage might already have been done. ........ If Mr Modi’s government is serious about protecting immigrants, it should sign the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention — which asserts refugees should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to life or freedom, but to which India is not a party.

Asaduddin Owaisi files petition in Supreme Court against citizenship bill The Hyderabad lawmaker, who had torn the copy of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Centre’s move.

Owaisi had alleged the bill was aimed at making Muslims “stateless”. He also warned that it would lead to another partition

during the debate in the Lok Sabha.

Citizenship Amendment Bill: Are India's claims about minorities in other countries true? Census data for 1998 shows that the Hindu population of Pakistan (which was formerly west Pakistan) had not really changed significantly from its 1951 level of around 1.5 to 2%. ....... But the data also suggests that the Hindu population of Bangladesh did fall - from around 22% or 23% in 1951 to around 8% in 2011. ...... It's true that the state religion of Pakistan is Islam. Afghanistan is also an Islamic state......... A lengthy legal battle to get that reversed ended in 2016 when Bangladesh's top court ruled that Islam should remain the state religion....... all these countries have constitutional provisions stating that non-Muslims have rights and are free to practise their faith. And individual Hindus have risen to prominent positions in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, notably as chief justices in the two countries......... In practice, non-Muslim minorities do face discrimination and persecution........Pakistani Hindus who moved to India in recent years told the BBC they face social and religious discrimination, with a particular issue being the targeting of Hindu girls in Sindh province...... In Bangladesh, there are various reasons for the decline in the proportion of Hindus over the years. The better-off Hindu population have had their homes and businesses targeted, sometimes in attempts to get them to leave so their land or assets can be taken over. Hindus have also been the targets of attacks by religious militants......... According to UN data, the number of refugees in India went up by 17% between 2016-19. As of August this year, the biggest numbers registered with the UN were actually from Tibet and Sri Lanka.

What does India's new citizenship law mean? The law does not clarify why minority migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan are favored over those fleeing Sri Lanka and Myanmar from where minority Muslims have sought refuge in India. ....... The law has been challenged in India’s Supreme Court by a Muslim political party, lawyers and rights groups on the grounds that it violates the secular constitution......... More than 500 eminent Indian jurists, lawyers, academics and actors, have signed a statement condemning the legislation.

Secularism Is Dying in India Both houses of parliament have passed a controversial citizenship bill that excludes Muslims.
India: Citizenship Bill Discriminates Against Muslims
Opinion: India's new citizenship act is unconstitutional Indian citizenship has always been firmly rooted in the country's constitution, which emphasizes equality, regardless of gender, caste, religion, class, community or language. ....... The recently approved Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) does exactly the opposite. It violates every one of these fundamental values and spreads the wings of "Hindutva," or Hindu nationalism, in this so-called secular country by making religion the key to citizenship. ...... The NRC in the northeastern state of Assam has already excluded nearly 2 million people from Indian citizenship. This has demonstrated the terrible human costs of dividing people and linking citizenship to documentation in a country where many people are illiterate and lack the proper papers....... Persecuted people have suffered atrocities, broken families and statelessness, among other hardships. It's also true for Muslims........

The new citizenship act shows us that India needs a refugee policy in line with international law, and not a law based on discrimination and dictated by an ideology that makes use of religion for political gains.

..... If things continue at this pace, it will not be long before the fundamental pluralistic character of India is altered.



Citizenship Amendment Bill: Decoding, what it holds for India "The constitutions of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh provide for a specific state religion. As a result many persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities have faced persecution on grounds of religion in those countries. Some of them also have fears about such persecution in their day-to-day life where right to practice, profess and propagate their religion has been obstructed and restricted. Many such persons have fled to India to seek shelter and continued to stay in India even if their travel documents have expired or they have incomplete or no documents," the Bill states........ Among the main opposition against the Bill is that it is said to be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution — the Right to Equality. Congress, Trinamool Congress, CPI(M) and a few other political parties have been steadfastly opposing the bill, claiming that citizenship can't be given on the basis of religion. There has also been widespread protests across North East in Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim........... there are 31,313 persons belonging to these minority community living in India on Long Term Visa...... Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament said the bill will give a new dawn to lakhs and crores of people. Parties like Shiv Sena have been asking for an exact number. As per the IB records the numbers are -

Hindus 25,447, Sikhs 5,807, Christians 55, Buddhists 2 and Parsis 2.
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2019 Photos

2019 Photos

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Has India Gone Crazy?

How Citizenship Act, NRC will alter the idea of India, writes Barkha Dutt All of us will have to prove our Indianness. And the poorest and the Muslims will be the most hit ............. The government insists that the amended new law on citizenship (the Citizenship Amendment Act or CAA) is not anti-Muslim. In fact, it claims that Indian Muslims are not even impacted by the legislation. Its stormtroopers on social media have been deployed to vociferously argue that those criticising the revamped rules — I am among them — are begrudging fast-track protection to persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring countries. .......... About 1.9 million people found themselves excluded from the NRC in Assam, but these were not just Muslim migrants from Bangladesh — the suddenly stateless included lakhs of Hindus as well. What may now happen is something like this. The citizenship law will throw a protective shield over the disenfranchised non-Muslims; the Muslim migrants will then be left to appeal before the foreigners’ tribunals. The new law also offers legal immunity to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan from jail, deportation and other criminal proceedings. In other words, the only people in internment centres will likely be Muslim migrants.............. For those who say that this does not impact India’s 200 million Muslim citizens, let me ask, how can you be untouched by the signalling that there is now a hierarchy of faiths among our people? ....... If refugees have been living in abject conditions of poverty and statelessness — and I myself have met Hindus from Pakistan living for decades in dismal conditions in Rajasthan — and deserve the magnanimity of the Indian State, that should extend to all of them, irrespective of their religion. It should include Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus and persecuted Rohingyas of Myanmar. And if our national policy is that illegal entrants are infiltrators, overrunning our land and culture, and stretching our already tight resources, then that too should apply to all of those who come into India without papers and documentation and visas. How can the BJP argue this both ways?......... In Assam, they want both the Muslims and Bengali Hindus who came in after 1971 to go back. In other parts of the east, there is similar hostility towards the Chakmas. In an area where there are more than 200 indigenous communities, ethnicity, language, and culture are as emotive, and, sometimes more, than religion. ........ begs the question. Why do it at all? Why create a crisis from two decades of peace; why fix what isn’t broken; why upend the very idea of nationhood that distinguishes India from its neighbours; and why bring religion into who can be Indian or not? ...... The CAA plus NRC equation will change not just the arithmetic but the very philosophy of India.



Modi's mandate was for double-digit growth rates. Modi's mandate was for a five trillion dollar economy. Modi's mandate was for economic development. This is social regression. This is going backward. At this pace, this is Modi's last term in office: Maharashtra shows the way. This is a gross misreading of the mandate. It is not about what you did or did not write in your manifesto. How many voters read your manifesto? Forget voters. How many of your BJP leaders read your manifesto? What you did to Kashmir, now you are doing to all of India. The social fabric of India will be in tatters at this pace.

The US is the richest country. And the US is incapable of deporting its 10 million-plus undocumented. India is less rich, to put it generously, and it has a much larger population. This attempt is bigotry outright. This is ill. This is about marginalizing the marginalized. This is cruel.

The political "genius" here is to create a refugee crisis, the largest in the world, where none exists.

If this bill is unconstitutional, its opponents need to mount a legal challenge, instead of only issuing press releases. And the political blowback needs to happen. Modi is clearly steering India back to its "Hindu growth rate" days.

‘Rahul Jinnah’ a more appropriate name for you: BJP hits back at Rahul Gandhi Veer Savarkar is revered as a Hindutva icon for the BJP but is accused by its rivals of tendering apologies to the British government to secure release from jail when India was under colonial rule. ....... Addressing the Congress’ mega “Bharat Bachao Rally” at Ramlila Grounds in the national capital, Gandhi had turned down the BJP’s demand for an apology for his “rape in India” comment, saying his name was Rahul Gandhi not Rahul Savarkar, and that he would never apologise for speaking the truth.

Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's West Bengal hit by protests
Violent clashes continue in India over new citizenship bill Protests spread to Delhi as BJP government accused of making Muslims second-class citizens
India just redefined its citizenship criteria to exclude Muslims With a new law — and massive new detention camps — the country is undermining its status as a democracy....... India is home to 200 million Muslims. ...... The legislation turns religion into a means of deciding whom to treat as an illegal immigrant — and whom to fast-track for citizenship. ...... When the NRC was published in August, around 2 million people — many of them Muslims, some of them Hindus — found that their names were not on it. They were told they had a limited time in which to prove that they are, in fact, citizens. Otherwise, they can be rounded up into massive new detention camps and, ultimately, deported. ...... So far, this measure affects potentially 2 million people, not all 200 million Muslims in India. However, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said it plans to extend the NRC process across the country....... Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and violence over the past few years under Modi’s BJP. But the one-two punch of the NRC followed by the CAB takes this to a new level. The country is beginning to look less like a secular democracy and more like a Hindu nationalist state. .......

If the Indian government proceeds with its plan, in a worst-case scenario we could be looking at the biggest refugee crisis on the planet. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom have all warned that this could soon turn into a humanitarian disaster of horrifying proportions.

...... Shashi Tharoor, whose Congress party opposes the CAB, dubbed it “fundamentally unconstitutional.” ..... Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest and human rights advocate, said in an emailed statement that by “assuring citizenship to all undocumented persons except those of the Muslim faith, the CAB risks ... destroying the secular and democratic tenets of our revered Constitution.” ...... India’s Constitution guarantees everyone equality under the law. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship eligibility, a decision that goes all the way back to the 1940s, when India was founded as a secular state with special protections for minorities like Muslims. ....... Harsh Mander, a noted rights advocate of Sikh origins, wrote that the CAB represents “the gravest threat to India’s secular democratic Constitution since India became a republic.” He said that if the bill becomes law, he’ll declare himself a Muslim out of solidarity. Meanwhile, he’s also calling for Indians to fight the CAB with a nationwide civil disobedience movement. ...... Already, protests are underway. In Assam’s capital, authorities have shut down the internet and implemented a curfew. ................ “The idea of India that emerged from the independence movement,” said a letter signed by more than 1,000 Indian intellectuals, “is that of a country that aspires to treat people of all faiths equally.” But this bill, the intellectuals said, is “a radical break with this history” and will “greatly strain the pluralistic fabric of the country.” ......... The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said India is taking a “dangerous turn in the wrong direction,” adding that the US should weigh sanctions against India if it enshrines the bill in law. ......... The only hope for those who oppose it is that it will be struck down in court on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional. ........ Those in Assam whose names do not appear on the NRC have been told the burden of proof is on them to prove that they are citizens. But many rural residents don’t have birth certificates or other papers, and even among those who do, many can’t read them; a quarter of the population in Assam state is illiterate........... Residents do get the chance to appeal to a Foreigners’ Tribunal and, if it rejects their claims to citizenship, to the High Court of Assam or even the Supreme Court. But if all that fails, they can be sent to one of 10 mass detention camps the government plans to build, complete with boundary walls and watchtowers. ........ The first camp, currently under construction, is the size of seven football fields. Even nursing mothers and children will be held there. “Children lodged in detention centers are to be provided educational facilities in nearby local schools,” an Indian official said. ....... If the detainees in the camps end up being expelled from India — and that is the government’s plan — this could constitute a wave of forced migration even greater than that triggered by Myanmar in 2017, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were displaced........ And it’s not clear where the newly stateless people would go. Neighboring Bangladesh has already said it won’t take them. All this has induced such intense anxiety that some Muslims are committing suicide........ Under Modi, vigilante Hindus have increasingly perpetrated hate crimes against Muslims, sometimes in an effort to scare their communities into moving away, other times to punish them for selling beef (cows are considered sacred in Hinduism). And this summer, Modi erased the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, which had previously enjoyed considerable autonomy over its own affairs. ........ “These infiltrators are eating away at our country like termites,” BJP president and home minister Amit Shah said at an April rally. “The NRC is our means of removing them.” Shah has openly said the goal is to deport those who are deemed illegal immigrants...... Last month, Shah said the government will conduct another count of citizens — this time nationwide. This could be used to clamp down on Muslims throughout India, potentially triggering a huge humanitarian disaster.



India passes controversial citizenship bill that excludes Muslims
India Passes Controversial Citizenship Bill That Would Exclude Muslims

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UAE: Wonder Nation



The UAE is a remarkable nation. For a country with a population of 10 million to hit the Top 10 countries index on power, I mean that is quite something. This is an Israel-like wow factor going on. You have to ask, how did this come to be?

I have only gotten to learn about the UAE in recent weeks. There was so much I did not know. There is so much I still don't know.

But I came to learn that the federation was a voluntary coming together of seven different adjacent monarchies. I don't know of another example in the world where something like that happened. Every other example I know is of forceful conquest. Akbar would conquer in India and then turn the local king into his local tax collector. That was considered enlightened and generous.

Then I thought the monarch of the UAE simply prefers the title of president. But no, that is actually a duly elected position.

Then, boom, I learned the UAE has a federal parliament that, step by step, is moving towards universal franchise. The idea is that down the line every citizen of the UAE will vote. That is a declared goal. And I think that is remarkable. The UAE did not need an Arab Spring to get to this.

But, get this. Half of the federal parliament is female, by royal decree. Or, rather, presidential decree. That happened only a few weeks ago. And there were no hiccups in the population after that. Women in America don't see this happening for another 100 years.

Even more remarkable, the UAE passed anti-gender hostility in the workplace set of laws recently. They are remarkably enlightened, really well thought through. I don't see the US Congress doing something like that, and the #MeToo movement has raged in America for several years now.

Dubai is the most culturally diverse city on earth. And by a wide, wide margin. That is my number one thing to like about Dubai. In Dubai 10% are citizens, 90% are people who have come from 200 plus countries to work, make a living. Shanghai beats NYC on physical infrastructure. But Shanghai is nowhere close to attempting NYC's diversity. And Dubai makes NYC look like a 19th-century city.

A random global poll might show that Dubai is what people know. But the UAE is way more than Dubai. Abu Dhabi is only 90 miles away. That is a sweet 10 minutes on a hyperloop.

Dubai has already done what the region at large needs to do. Dubai was forced on that path because it had less oil than others. But now it has created a roadmap for the region at large. The post-oil future looks like Dubai. I think Dubai is the inspiration for NEOM.

Dubai: Remarkable City
NEOM: A Fundamental Departure For All Humanity?


Exciting as the present is, the future is even more exciting. It is my firm belief that Africa and South Asia are the next two Chinas. And the twin cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are well situated. What Hong Kong did for China Dubai could do for Africa and South Asia.

As the region at large attempts to emulate Dubai, Dubai simply needs to move higher up on the economic food chain. That higher ground is technology. What will happen in tech over the next 25 years is 100 times bigger than what has happened over the past 25. The Internet has been the appetizer. India has the tech human capital that powered Silicon Valley. The Middle East has the money. And the market is all around.







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Friday, December 13, 2019

Global Energy Demand


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Britain's Vote

Has the economic theory on trade been debunked by political process? I don't think that is the case. Trade leads to rises in productivity, but if the new riches are not widely shared, then the people will revolt. I think that is the message.

The UK is in a political funk. 52% of the voters voted for remain parties. And yet the results show a sweeping victory for the "Get Brexit Done" party. The country could use political reforms. But I don't see them coming.

If Brexit will happen, Scotland will break away. Northern Ireland might also. Europe is the "country" they might choose.

I think Boris Johnson and Donald Trump attempting a trade deal will be quite a horror show. The National Health Service will be part of the discussion. That will cause a lot of churn.

Socialism makes people uncomfortable. People clearly did not like the idea of someone like Corbyn coming anywhere close to 10 Downing Street. I think the vote was more about that than Brexit. Although clarity of message always helps. BoJo had great clarity. Corbyn was all over the map on the message. Was he for Brexit? Against? Was he for a second referendum?

This is a democratic downsizing of Britain. People are choosing this.

Plenty of Brits of South Asian origin are next in line for power. BoJo was London Mayor. So is Sadiq. BoJo's cabinet colleagues are several Indians. England + Wales might end up with a brown Prime Minister before 2030. That is one extrapolation.

It is still not computing. A hard Brexit will bring all sorts of horrors. I think, despite this vote, the negotiations with Europe will simply continue. A hard Brexit will form bread lines in England.

Britain's Brexit and the US-China trade war both point out the need for WTO reform. They don't suggest ending trade.

Most people lining up to replace Corbyn are women. I think that is positive.

There are those who are saying Labour lost this election, as well as the next one. One can't be so sure about that. Now BoJo has to deliver. That is the hard part. A clean Brexit is a fantasy, not a smart option. Britain has never been an island.

As for ideology, it is not that the market does not work. The market is not being allowed to work. Crony capitalism, bought capitalism is causing market distortions. It is not that democracy does not work. Democracy is not being allowed to work. A centrist leader who understands the implications of the impending fourth industrial revolution could build a counterweight. I have no idea who that is, or if someone of that description is waiting in the wings even.

In the US that might be a Pete-Yang ticket.

In the meantime, the world flirts with a willful global recession. You can badger trade for only so long before it has been too long.

What does Britain know and understand that France and Germany do not? All three are similar size economies.





U.K. Election Result Starts Clock on Brexit Talks With E.U. Few expect the negotiations on the country’s future trade and security relationship with the bloc to be quick or easy........... European leaders on Friday welcomed the clarity of the British election result, since they, too, want to “get Brexit done.” But Boris Johnson’s substantial majority will only start the clock on new negotiations about Britain’s future trading and security relationship with the European Union. ....... Few except Mr. Johnson expect the talks to be quick or easy. They can be quick, Brussels argues, if Britain agrees to keep its regulations and tariffs the same or very close to those of the bloc.......... But European leaders, in Brussels for the last day of a summit meeting, remain unsure whether Mr. Johnson, with his resounding mandate to ratify his Brexit deal by the end of January, will stick to his campaign pledge to finish any trade negotiation with the European Union by the end of 2020, or whether he will choose next summer to seek a year’s delay for longer talks.........

So long as the two sides are negotiating, Britain will be in a “transition” period, with its relationship with the European Union essentially unchanged, even if it will legally have ceased to be a member.

...... Brussels, in its conclusions on Brexit, is demanding a future relationship that “will have to be based on a balance of rights and obligations and ensure a level playing field.” That is Brussels-speak for British regulations and rules that do not diverge too far from Europe’s........ But if Mr. Johnson wants a free hand to make trade deals with the United States and other countries and to position Britain as more of a low-tax, light-regulation economy, Brussels will demand a tougher set of trade restrictions, unwilling to have a large competitor so close with significantly more favorable conditions for business and finance........ Mr. Johnson may favor a hard deadline, but that will put Britain, which will soon be negotiating from outside rather than inside the European Union, into a weaker position ......

The risk is that a quick trade negotiation, considered almost a contradiction in terms by trade experts, could fail, bringing Britain and Brussels back to the prospect of a “no deal” Brexit.

...... Many British businesspeople — and presumably some of the new Conservative Party members of Parliament from the industrial north of England — will want to be able to trade with Brussels with as little friction and paperwork as possible. That would mean closer alignment to the European Union than harder-line Brexiters advocate........ Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, has managed his key goal: preventing the restoration of a hard border on the island with Northern Ireland. But he also wants to preserve close ties in a future relationship, he said on Friday — “a trade deal or trade deal plus” — to “ensure that we still have a tariff-free trade between Britain and the E.U. and a set of minimum standards.” ........ Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary insisted that the less-affluent countries of Central Europe must get generous financial guarantees. “We cannot allow Brussels bureaucrats to have poor people and poor countries to pay the costs of the fight against climate change,” he said.

‘No ifs, no buts’: Johnson vows to get Brexit done after sweeping election win
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