Peshawar attack, Pakistan Proxies

Its 16 December, a day which was generally mourned in pakistan, for losing one half of its terrority in 1971. Another big tragedy was waiting for this country in 16 December 2014. Six gunmen entered army school in Peshawar and massacred nearly 150 children of age 8-15 years. Its a shocking apocalyptic attack.The picture showing the dead children lying on one another in pool of blood was gruesome. What is the motive behind these terrible attacks? Why these terrorists killed the children inhumanely by shooting them in head? What is the rage behind this? To answer these questions, I have few dots.

Betrayal of Pakistan Proxies
In late 70’s when the soviet occupied the Afghanistan, a mega alliance of U.S, Pakistan, China and other U.S allies were formed. Their main motto was to drive away Soviet Union from Afghanistan for geo political dominance. For U.S, to avenge its wounds in Vietnam, it was a big opportunity so they funded heavily. Using these funds Pakistan grown some poisonous snakes namely Mujahidin in their own backyard, only to fight Soviet forces. For Pakistan it is different avenge motive as still to date their army and Intelligence agencies believe Soviet Intelligence (KGB) played a big role in split of their nation (Bangladesh). Within 10 years, Soviet Union faced decisive defeat due to superior fighting capabilities of mujahidin and tough landscape of Afghanistan. When the proxy war ended in late eighties, Pak president( at that time) Gen Zia ul Haq and ISI chief Gen.Akhtar khan felt their real time has came. They had already blueprint for their dream operation.Islamic jihadi’s now were ordered to fight in another land(Kashmir) which they dreamed to capture for last 30 years .
Here i present two proxy insurgents they were diverted for Kashmir. They initially involved in all shootings,beheadings in Indian Kashmir. Later when Kashmir conflict started to wane, they started turned against their own state and bitten them hardly.

MastGul:

Mast Gul also known as Haroon Khan was send from Pakistan as militant commander for Hizb ul mujahedeen, to fight against Indian security forces. In 1995, a famous 14th century shrine of Hazrat Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali was destroyed in an encounter between security forces and mast gul group near Charar-e-Sharif town in Budgam district (Kashmir). More than 25 dead in this 2 month siege, still Mast gul managed to escape to Pakistan Kashmir. When he arrived in Pakistan Kashmir, he was greeted with rose petals. Gul later addressed various meeting and even public rallies in places like Rawalpindi and became the ISI's blue-eyed boy. After a while, Gul vanished from the public eye with little information on about his whereabouts.

Few months back, When the Pakistan investigative agencies investigating for an attack on Shias, his name resurfaced again This time it was revealed that he is in opposite side to Pakistan. It was found that he aligned with the Tehreek-e-Taliban(TTP) and waging a war on Pakistan which loved him as its hero in 1995. Few other attacks was also attributed to him

Ilyas Kashmiri

Whenever Ilyas Kashmiri name falls in ears of any Indian army man, it is easy to notice a big anger coupled with sadness in their face. This dreaded terrorist led a brigade of terrorists to raid an Indian Army post; in return he took back to Muzaffarabad the head of one of the Indian soldier and showed it off like a trophy. According to reports that appeared in the Pakistani media at that time, General Pervez Musharraf had rewarded Kashmiri for the barbaric operation. Next day newspapers of Pakistan Kashmir published the picture of Ilyas Kashmiri with severed head of Indian soldier.

Later Ilyas Kashmiri joined with Taliban and involved in many assassination of big leaders inside Pakistan including Benazir Bhutto. One of the biggest and audacious attack he orchestrated is “PNS Mehran attack”. Pakistan Naval air arm is attacked by group of terrorists masterminded by Ilyas Kashmiri. At the end of the attack, 33 were killed that includes 18 Naval soldiers and commanders. Attack created more than billion dollar damage for Pakistan with destruction of Two American-built P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft. He was later killed in an U.S drone attack in Pakistan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Operation Zarb e Azb

Due to continuous attack by TTP militants towards Pakistan security forces in last few years, army establishment became impatient towards talks to TTP. With Karachi airport attack (June 2014) adding fuel to fire, Pakistan army started operation Zarb e Azb with aim of clearing militants operating in tribal areas. Similar idea was also in mind for previous army general Pervez Kayani during his time. But he was hesitant to start the operation, as he felt it will bring destruction from TTP to their own civilians. In July 2014, after safely evacuating common civilians to IDP camps, Pak army started the operation in North Wazirstan. Based on local intelligence inputs, militant infrastructure and dens were pounded with air force ammunition. Local journalists were not allowed to report the death and destruction inside war zone.

After this yesterday heinous attack by TTP, they claim that many of their children and women were killed in Pak air assault during operation zarb e azb. As per their assertions, they choose the Army school to attack their children only because of this incident

Taliban: We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped America

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/16/pakistani-taliban-massacre-more-than-80-schoolchildren.html

Conclusion:

Attack on children is unforgivable for anybody. To avoid further blood shed inside,Pakistan should have rational approach in dismantling all terror infrastructure inside its premises. This infrastructure includes camps catered to attack India. By promoting these kind of militant camps in Eastern border and attacking similar camps in western border won’t serve peace for Pakistan in long time. i want to repeat Pak general Raheel Sharif words again

Enemy ‘lives within us and looks like us’

http://www.dawn.com/news/1148898/enemy-lives-within-us-and-looks-like-us-says-army-chief

The Science behind 'Interstellar'

Recently released ‘Interstellar’ film created more enthusiasm and expectation among the science fiction film lovers. Film subject deals with the search of a habitual planet in nearby galaxy after earth became inhospitable for life. This film has been aptly released at a time when kepler mission (which is associated with finding habitual planets in nearby galaxies) is giving encouraging results. Though the film script is weak, still the movie is interesting with many realistic scientific concepts like black holes, worm holes, time dilation. Any unfamiliarity with many of the scientific terms in the movie will lead viewers to get feel lost in middle of the movie.

Here are the short brief of some of physics concepts used in the “Interstellar”

What is Black hole?

As per physics, any mass if squeezed massively to below “Schwarzschild radius”, it will become black hole. Mass may be anything, may be its stone or tree or camera or humans. Schwarzschild radius is radius of imaginary sphere. 

Imagine

·          If the Mount Everest is squeezed to size of white blood cell, it will become a black hole.

·          If the Earth is compressed  to size of peanut, it will become a black hole

Schwarzschild radius is defined by

where:

r_s is the Schwarzschild radius;

G is the gravitational constant;

m is the mass of the object;

c is the speed of light in vacuum.

Is the black holes are there in Universe? How they are formed?

Yes, they are in the universe. They are formed when very massive stars (more than hundreds of size of our sun) collapses at end of its life. A star is a sphere of gas held together by its own gravity. The force of gravity is continually trying to cause the star to collapse, but this is counteracted by the pressure of nuclear fusion inside the star core. This is called hydrostatic support. When massive star reaches end of its lifecycle (entire hydrogen got drained), the nuclear fusion stops. Eventually, when these reactions no longer generate sufficient heat to support the star against its own gravity, the star will collapse into an infinitesimally small point called a SINGULARITY. The Singularity has an area around it, called the EVENT HORIZON. Density of Singularity is infinite and Event Horizon is a notional boundary around a black hole beyond which no light or other radiation can escape. Once formed black holes will continue to grow by absorbing nearby mass including stars, planets, even other black holes     
                  

Black holes are also formed when neutron stars collide and collapse to form single entity. Generally black holes are present in center of every elliptical, spiral galaxy. Even our own milky way has super massive black hole namely Sagittarius A at its center

In the Interstellar, non-stationary spinning black hole namely Gargantua has been shown. This spinning black hole distorts the time and space and it is scientifically proven to be accurate.

What is a worm hole?

If two Singularities of a black hole can be merged in universe, worm tunnel can be formed. Worm tunnel links extremely distant locations with shortcut of few miles apart. For example, to get from Earth to Alpha Centauri(nearest star), a distance of 20 million million miles would have to be traveled around the curve. By taking a short cut such as a wormhole, only a few million miles would have to be traversed. The wormhole is direct, whereas the curved route is much longer. The only other way to cut down on time is to travel faster than the speed of light. The Theory of Relativity forbids this outlaw speed. The speed of light limit has not been violated, because a short cut is taken. The worm hole is still theoretical not a practical proven concept. Worm hole was first proposed by Einstein and his colleague Rosan

What is Time Dilation?

According to “Thoery of Relativity”, time gets bend due to differences in either gravity or velocity.

Relative velocity time dilation:

 If someone travel around the solar system at 50% the speed of light and then come back to earth they will have experienced less local passage of time than others in earth.They might have effectively have traveled to their future. Space orbiters and planes are examples of velocity time dilation. Astronauts orbiting in ISS and other orbiters will age slowly when compared to other human beings in earth?

Gravitational Time Dilation

Time in planets or other bodies pass slowly near to strong gravitational fields, whereas it runs fast near weak gravitational fields.

In the “Interstellar” film, planet orbiting close to black hole has high gravitational force, so clock ticks much much slower than on a spaceship which is farther away. As a result, when Cooper and Amelia(main characters) spend few hours in the planet and return to the spaceship, the other colleague romiley will inform them that 23 years had passed already.

Gravitational Lensing:

As already saw that time is bend by Gravitational field, gravitational field bends space and light. One of the better examples of the concept is, stars behind our sun appear to be slightly shifted from the original location. This phenomenon is due to sun’s gravitational force which bends light coming from stars behind sun. When coming to black hole, which has much more gravitational force distorts the light coming from farther galaxies, and as a result light appears to have much smudge. This effect is known as Gravitational lensing.

                           

In the Interstellar film, Kip Thorne one of leading astrophysicist helped Christopher Nolan to create a black hole with the Gravitational lensing effect in background. Blackhole  in the film is known as Gargantua. Gargantua’s accretion disc(just like Saturn rings) contains gas and dust which provides light and heat to gargantua’s planets. Black hole complex appearance is due to image of accretion disc being bent by gravitational lensing. One looping over the black hole and the other under it.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/

Conclusion:

Though the film has touched so many complex science elements, its storyline is flawed and failed to support the science. In some places, science laws were bend by Nolan to suit his film, which has been criticized by many astrophysicists. One among them is entering the black hole event horizon and safely reaching into some multidimensional space having nonlinear time. As per physics any mass entering the black hole event horizon will be spaghettified. Due to extreme tidal forces near black hole, mass will be horizontally compressed and vertically stretched, which is known as spaghettification.  

http://time.com/3572988/interstellar-science-fact-check/

Good science with bad story is documentary, but a good story with bad science is still a good film. Interstellar fits more for a documentary?

Sources :  Wikipedia, Science magazines,Dailies

India's Hardware Hunger- Made in India - Part 2(Telecom Industry)

In modern digital world, every nation’s sensitive information related to defense, banking, foreign policy, etc. are protected in cyber space. Country’s core assets such as power grids, financial and transport networks are fast getting connected to the internet and more official data are getting stored online.  With conventional warfare of armies fighting in land, sea, air became limited to few pickets; cyber warfare became a new battlefront in the world. By cyber warfare, nations often attack their enemies mainly for espionages and sabotage purposes. Using illegal exploitation of internet, telecom equipment and computer software, they stole the classified information of their enemies. Also certain groups engage in cyber terrorism (controversial term) through which they convey message to enemy nations by defacing their websites. In this cyber warfare prowess, china was repeatedly alleged to use its expertise to access highly confidential information relating to the national security of other nations, including India. How India prepared for this cyber warfare? How nation’s indigenous telecom hardware will play a vital role in this cyber warfare?

                                    

Frightening Examples

   

In middle of Feb 2014, there was viral news in Indian media about alleged hacking of telecommunication network tower belonging to state run telecom operator BSNL by Chinese telecommunication firm Huawei. Minister of communications and IT Killi Krupani then informed the Lok Sabha—the lower house of the Parliament of India—that the government has formed an inter-ministerial team to investigate the incident. At the end of the investigation, it was concluded that tower’s base station controller was hacked by Huawei engineers during up gradation process in Rajamundhary, Andhra Pradesh. Later Huawei issued an apology assuring actions will be taken so that similar instances won’t be repeated in future.

With National Security Agency (NSA) espionage episode in 2013, it was alleged that NSA widely used U.S manufactured internet routers to crack the online encryption standards. Disclosures by leaker “Edward Snowden” allege that US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's GCHQ cracked the encryption codes protecting the emails, banking and medical records of hundreds of millions of people. Later in April 2014, Cisco systems and Juniper networks agreed that their network equipment’s like routers, switches and security firewalls are highly vulnerable to infamous encryption bug namely “Heart Bleed” which was alleged to be implanted by NSA. Heart bleed bug exposed user names, passwords and other sensitive information of millions of worldwide customers. Through another Malware namely “FEEDTHROUGH”, NSA smuggled many hacking programs into mainframe computers which are running in Juniper Firewalls

Above mentioned incidents are glaring examples of how a telecommunication equipment can be used to hack the data for espionage and sabotage purposes. Thanks to India’s recent growth in information and communication technology (ICT), there is huge influx of foreign-made telecom equipments inside the country. Telecom equipment business in India is mainly controlled by five companies - Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia Solutions Network and Alcatel. But still  equipments from Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE occupy the majority. Initially, European and American manufacturers were supplying majority of such equipments, but in the last five years Chinese players have established their dominance in this area. BSNL had awarded a major part of its network expansion tender of about 10.15 million lines to Chinese company ZTE in 2012.As these equipment manufacturers never share any technical details, widespread usage of these foreign equipments in strategic telecom sector may lead to comprise of nation’s security. Also due to lack of indigenous players in this equipment production, India had to rely heavily on these foreign companies. 

First Indigenous Product

To address these potential threats, previous government announced an initiative to boost the local manufacturers related to telecom equipment. In one such initiative, Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) joined hands with Premier Indian Institute of Technology to develop indigenous products. By October 2013, their joint partnership yielded a “State of Art” indigenous Carrier Ethernet Switch Router. This joint product was successfully installed and activated by the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) in Mumbai recently. This development touted to infuse new confidence among nation engineers to develop indigenous secure, low power telecom products. These cost effective technology products not only save foreign exchange, but also address security and secrecy issues in strategic areas of defense, process control, nuclear power, space, electronic security and e-Governance.

Indian Government's other Intiatives and Challenges ahead

In 2012, previous government also announced an initiative to boost local manufacturing; this preferential policy states that 30% of the orders of government departments would be reserved for local telecom equipment makers. But also the policy underlines that the local manufactured product need to add value addition of 25%.Current finance minister announced a proposal in his maiden budget. Proposal states that 10% basic customs duty would be imposed on specified telecom products that are outside the purview of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA).But this announcement did not receive overwhelm welcome from Indian telecom operators. Experts in this field say they may help in long term, but in short term this may add a big headache. More than 90% of telecom equipment are imported, and advanced technology products are no way available in the domestic market. As a consequence, imposition of duty would just increase expenses of the telecom companies, and would not increase domestic sourcing. Indian telecom operators, who are sitting on accumulative debt of Rs 2.5 lakh crore, import telecom equipment worth about $8-10 billion every year, and the imposition of 10% duty comes as an additional burden.

Local manufacturers also blame cost disadvantage of about 20-25% when compared to foreign companies. With lack of any indigenously manufactured IC components, components imported will bear  a duty ranging from 10% to 15%. Also Indian telecom equipment makers pay 16-18% interest on loans. so with zero import duty which existed before, Chinese products have 30% cost advantage. According to industrial experts, investment in telecom equipment will go up by staggering Rs 5,21,940 crore in 2020. India still lacks 4G infrastructure, if significant percentage of this infrastructure is build using local made equipment it will add pride to the indigenization, add more security to the national network as well as boost the economy.

Sources: Wikipedia, other Indian Daily's and Magazines

India's Hardware Hunger - Part 1

 Indian election results were announced on May 16 2014.Nation was cheerful to welcome a new leader to Delhi durbar (an elite cliques dating back to Mughal era). He was called by working class voters as “incorruptible outsider who would impose discipline”. Industrialists, entrepreneurs, engineers who got lured by his pre-election speech, believed that he will bring massive mandate to introduce economic reforms leading to reawakening of Indian economy.  After 70 days from his swearing in, chorus of disappointment came from intellectuals who advised him during pre-election campaigns. To counter these concerns, he gave another attractive speech from “Redfort” on the eve of 68^th Indian Independence day saying “From ramparts of the Red Fort, I would like to call people of the world to 'come, make in India'. Come here and manufacture in India. Sell the products anywhere in the world but manufacture here...we have the power, come I am inviting you”. If Indian Government wants to bring back these dreams into reality, government needs to bring back neglected electronics hardware manufacturing industry into mainstream. Electronics semiconductor manufacturing industry has both commercial and strategic advantages for the country. This article explores the same

India : Brand Software, Neglected Hardware

On April 22, 2014, Indian IT services company “Tata consultancy services” (TCS) made a landmark for Indian IT industry. Company had peeped into the prestigious league of top 10 global IT services companies for the first time. Other Indian IT services companies like Infosys, CTS are globally giving tough competition to IT giants like IBM, Accenture. Indian Cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad have well established R&D centers, to propel innovative software designs for multinationals like Microsoft, Intel, Google, Cisco etc.. But when it comes to hardware, India is far behind. India’s lag in the hardware manufacturing industry will have significant impact for the Indian economy in the coming years. May be but how?

With smartphones to semiconductor chips, India’s electronic goods import stood at staggering $33.5 billion. That’s more than it spent on any imports except oil and gold.  Almost all kind of electronic gadgets like smartphones, tablets are released in Indian market immediately after their release in U.S and European markets. India’s large middle class procures more and more digital devices every year, and this trend going to accelerate in coming years. These heavy import phenomena lead more strain to Indian economy and its currency. By making few necessary electronics goods inside India, these strain can be partly avoided But Electronics manufacturing industry in India is not in good state, absolutely in poor state.  Its inefficient labor markets, unreliable power supply, and creaky transportation infrastructure have discouraged investments from even multinationals to start new electronics manufacturing industries inside country.  Even companies that assemble TV’s like Samsung, LG import most of their valuable chips, equipment from outside leaving behind the electronics manufacturing industry in very low end.

Semiconductor Industry Setup

Globally semiconductor industries with sales of around $300 billion have 3 tiers, Companies like Intel, Samsung, Toshiba, IBM not only design, also make the chips that end up in the devices they make. This kind of strategy not only helps them to yield high profits, also prevent their rivals from commoditizing the chips. These companies form the First tier. Second tier are the “fabless” designers of chips, who outsource the manufacturing to the specialized chipmakers. Broadcom, Qualcomm, NVidia belongs to these tier.  “Foundries” which have established huge capacities for a variety of chips that they produce for clients, form the last tier. Companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the biggest independent foundry, and Global foundries are in this league.

India’s Dilemma

As a Late entrant, India faces several obstacles and dilemmas in entering this highly complicated, expensive chip making industry. Silicon wafer is one of the important components in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Silicon wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor material, such as a silicon crystal, used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other micro devices. Using these wafers a manufacturer can place anywhere from 10 to several hundred semiconductors or ICs onto it, which are later cut out and used in computers and other electronics. Depending on the size of the Silicon wafer, the sophistication lies. The current state of the art is at 300 mm, however the global fab plants planning to move to 450mm by 2015-2016.

So dilemma with the Indian setup is that whether it is worth to start late or now. If now then how much Indian fabrication industry will gain from the internal Indian projects. Good Profits associated with these fabrication industries can be achieved, only if the plants are loaded more than 70% of the total capacity. If anything less than this, it will end up in huge losses. Current estimates say, Indian electronic products can hold to mere 30% to 40%, catering to the needs of low end tablets (India Manufactured) like Akash and other secure telecom products. In addition to this, every year the technology with which number of transistors accommodation inside the chip increases as per the famous Moore’s law. Due to this it will add more benefits like small size, less power consumption, more advanced functionality. Industry experts say planned Indian setup can start from 65nm to 45 nm. Though 65nm to 45nm is outdated technology (latest technology is 22nm to 14nm), it can cater well to Indian electronic products need within next 5 years.

Chip fabrication industry is a gigantic project, which needs intervention of government at multiple levels. Backbone of the fabrication plant installment is its initial funding. As per 2013 statistics, building a next generation wafer fab was estimated to be $10 billion. This massive initial investment can be achieved by means Public-Private partnership. In India too, private investment along government subsidies and incentives will play a major role in the success of the project

 Sources: Wikipedia, other electronics magazines.

Gaza Misery and India's Foreign Policy on Land of Israel

With War filled Middle East not ready to accept the ceasefire, world media become tired of reporting the blood filled streets of Gaza. In the last 11 days, Israel pounded Gaza with naval artillery, tank shells, and airstrikes adding more death toll and agony to Palestinian people, leaving behind trail of destruction everywhere. Rubble, twisted metal, and broken glass scattered throughout the streets of Gaza. With Power lines are hit, the darkness surrounds everywhere in Gaza strip. If Hamas think that their rockets attacks in southern Israel will lead to them freedom from Israeli oppression, Israeli government was equally adamant that their ground offensive will save their population from Hamas rocket attacks. International community find very difficult at this stage to arrange a truce between both sides and war consumes with even innocent kids dying in beaches.

At this instant of carnage, people in my country are divided in supporting either of the nations. In social media, equal numbers of messages with hashtags #IndiawithIsrael #IndiawithPalestine were available. Social activists, left wing politicians, Muslims join their campaign against Israel. On the other hand Nationalists, Right wing politicians argue that Israel has every reason to defend its country through these attacks. After NDA government initially refused to debate on this war scenario, some discussion happened today in upper house of parliament without yielding any resolution. New Indian governments in last few years had significant change in foreign policy related to Israel and Palestine.

Decades back when country become independent, Mahatma Gandhi stiffly opposed the idea of Israel creation. He argued that creation of nations based on religions is not acceptable as he proposed same concept in sub-continent during Indo-Pak partition. India voted against Israel admission in U.N in 1949. In 1954 India’s 1^st Prime minster Nehru stated in a statement that “Creation of Israel was a violation of international law”. On the other hand Hindu Nationalists led by Sangh parivar were jubilant on Israel creation and supported the same. India was the first non-arab country to contemporaneously recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation's authority as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. PLO office was setup in New Delhi in 1975 and New Delhi’s office was opened in Gaza in 1996.

With fall of Soviet Union in 1991and due to strategic and security compulsions, India shed its decade’s long policy of non-alignment, pro-Arab. India started its diplomatic relations with Israel from 1992.Relations become deeper and deeper every year, with visiting Israeli foreign minister once said “India is most Pro-Israel nation in world, even ahead of America”. Israel is one of selective nations which didn’t condemn when India conducted nuclear tests in 1998.India’s procurement of arms like Barack anti-ship missile; UAV’s further cemented the ties of Indo-Israel. In 2008, Israel overshadowed Russia, becoming India’s largest arms supplier. Along with defense deals, cultural, science and technology ties also improved and maintained in last few years. With all these developments happened in last few years, whenever Israel attacks Palestine with causality mounting, parties like congress, communists, Samajwadi party raise their voice. Their raise of voice is often criticized by Nationalist and right wing parties as appeasement towards Muslims for votes.Even during recent pro-Israel years, India tried to provide financial assistance to Palestine in rebuilding education related infrastructure.

Israel History

Until the 20^th century, Jews were one of most oppressed, prosecuted community in the world. From 4000BC Jews were slaughtered by Egyptians, Christians, Russians, Nazis and many more. They migrated throughout Western and Eastern Europe due to widespread pogroms. As Jews were scattered throughout Europe and central Africa, an new organization called Zionist organization was formed to unite all the Jews. At this time Jew organizations felt nostalgic towards their “Land of Israel” around “Bethlehem”. With this in mind Zionist organizations planned to build their nations around same area. In the meantime Arab people called Palestine’s lived around the Bethlehem. Few wealthy and Zionist sympathetic British government officials supported the Jews settlement in places where Palestine’s living. In 1917 British foreign minister, Lord Balfour announced Balfour Declaration of 1917, which stated that the British Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". This declaration was successfully passed in League of Nations in 1922. 

http://greatgameindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Israel-Palestine-Zionist-Conflict-GreatGameIndia.jpg

Tens of Thousands of Jews started migrated towards Palestinian lands and started to occupy it in pretext of the declaration. Often riots were reported between Jewish and Palestine people. Until 1940, this migration occurred even though other Arab nations tried to prevent it. In 1940’s Hitler led Nazi regime started Holocaust killing nearly 6 million Jews. After end of WWII, the  illegal immigrations again started towards Palestine lands.U.N formulated a partition plan in 1947 giving 2/3 territories of arab land to Israel.U.N General assembly successfully passed partition plan in 1948.With major discontent from arab countries, jubilant mood of Jews for their new country “Israel” is short lived. Murders, reprisals happened routinely between Jews and Arabs. In 1948, Arab-Israeli war started, Israel was attacked from all sides by Arab countries. But the Israel first PM countered all nations with brave strategy. Enemies are driven back and Israel drawn its first blood. After then many wars like Yom-Kippur war happened, and Israel attained decisive victory in almost all wars.

Also there is mention in the history books that Jews grabbed land from Arabs through money lending. Jews have the history of business of money lending from initial years. During initial 20^th century, Jews gave money to Arabs with high interests, with many poor Arabs unable to pay their interests and dues returned their land in return. These small grabbed lands become piece of nation. These happenings were alleged to be planned conspiracy by Zionist organizations in late 1800’s

Need of the hour

Few days back, even some Israelis opposed the Gaza offensive,

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-im-on-the-brink-of-burning-my-israeli-passport-9600165.html

But with everyday passage of this war and with casualties started to mount in Israel forces side, Israeli people once felt bad for Israeli aerial bombing started to ask revenge with Palestinians

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/gaza-crisis-hamas-killed-friend-need-kill?CMP=fb_gu

As told in  "Nicholas Kristof" story of "Who's right and wrong in middle east", good people from both sides especially Israel need to sit and work out a truce that will end ongoing carnage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-whos-right-and-wrong-in-the-middle-east.html?_r=0

One of the saddest truths of this Land called Israel is, its birthplace of three major religions namely Jewism, Christanism and Islam. But in the same place, people of either community never lived in peace, land always drenched with violence and soaked with blood. Hope all the child of “Abhraham” live in peace in this blessed land in near future

Fight beteween Pens and Guns

On September 10,1995, Mushtaq Ali an young ANI Photo Journalist from Kashmir, arrived as usual to perform his professional duties in Srinagar BBC Office. He opened a book parcel without knowing that it contained a bomb. Bomb exploded and within few minutes he got succumbed to the grievous wounds that he got from bomb blast. Later on investigations found that, the target of the bomb attack was another famed Reuters reporter Yusuf Jameel( who also got suffered severe injuries).It was also alleged that "renegade" militant brought the bomb disguised as a book to his office. This is glaring example to know that how Conflict Journalist’s life travels in a very dangerous path. 

For Journalists operating in the conflict torn regions, life is not just about scoops, interviews, deadlines and page one stories. While reporting from strife torn regions, the journalists especially photo journalists life always hangs between life and death. Journalists often face death threats from both government forces as well as rebels. This is literally a life surviving between “Devil and Deep blue Sea”. Journalists operating in conflict regions have always sword hanging over their head. They failed to keep the warring sides happy. If an atrocity by Government forces is reported, he may be dubbed as "anti- national" and highlighting the misdeeds of militants or extra-political activities of separatists would mean that he is anti-movement.

Nowadays South Asia is a dangerous region engulfed by lot of violence. In last few decades, almost every nation in south Asia including Afghanistan,Pakistan,India,Srilanka suffered enormous loss of lives due to conflicts surrounded in their region.  Report released by South Asia Media Commission says that the 22 Journalists are killed in 2013 in South Asia, with Pakistan topping the tally. India and Pakistan also got the dubious distinction of being among the world’s five deadliest countries for the media in 2013.In this article I want to give tribute to two brave south asian journalists who showed what “Fearless Journalism” means is.

Saleem Shahzad

In 1970’s,To hunt down the growing soviet union influence in south Asia, U.S and its allies(Pakistan,China) groomed the “Frankenstein Monster”. For the evil they groomed, the Pakistan is still at the receiving end and Journalists currently operating in the country also at perilous environment. In recent years, Saleem Shahzad, is one of the famed journalist who lost his life while uncovering the links between Islamist militants and the armed forces, a connection that Pakistan’s generals have denied for years.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME27Df06.html

Within few days after the above article got published in Asia Times , Saleem shahzad was summoned by ISI to explain the article which ISI felt it may tarnish its own image and country. Fearing for the wrath of ISI, Saleem shahzad wrote to HRW for his own security,. Eventually from 29^th May 2011 evening, Shahzad got disappeared. Two days after then, his body was found floating in the canal. Pakistan media strongly condemned his killing and demanded a probe in the dubious role of ISI in his killing. Bowing to Pakistan media protests, Pakistan PM ordered a probe to investigate the circumstances that lead to shahzad murder. But the probe commission report was disappointing with commission putting blame on non-state actors like Al-Queda,Taliban without mentioning any single individual or organization, leaving the culprits to roam freely in open space. Asia Times also wrote an article on “Who Killed Saleem Shahzad” later his murder.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MF04Df03.html

Lasantha Wickrematunga

Another important journalist who got killed during 2009 Srilankan War on LTTE was “Lasantha Wickrematunga”. Though by birth as Sinhala, Lasantha uncovered many truths related to human rights violations by srilankan forces on Tamil civilians during srilankan civil war. He wrote columns in his newspaper “The Sunday Leader” boldly criticizing both government forces as well as Tamil Tigers for country’s instability. For that he got assassination attempts from both groups. lasantha’s heavy criticism on Rajapaksa during 2008 for his ruthless war strategy, earned him nickname of “Terrorist Journalist” from Rajapaksa. Lasantha Wickrematunga was allegedly killed by Government forces on 8 January 2009. Weeks before his death, his a funeral wreath was delivered to him, along with copy of the newspaper reading "If you write you will be killed" in red paint.Sensing his death plot, Lasantha Wickrematunga wrote editorial "When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me." before his death, which was published posthumously.

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm

Off course Pen is mightier than a sword, but in a conflict journalist’s life it is more dangerous, playing with their own life. Unless peace prevails everywhere in the earth, conflict journalist’s role and recognition is not of much significance.