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Rooster Stabs Man to Death During Cockfight Training

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A man was killed by a rooster with a blade tied to its leg during an illegal cockfight in southern India, police said, bringing focus on a practice that continues in some Indian states despite a decades-old ban.

The rooster, with a 3-inch knife tied to its leg, fluttered in panic and slashed its owner, 45-year-old Thangulla Satish, in his groin last week, police inspector B. Jeevan said Sunday. . .

According to Jeevan, Satish was injured while he prepared the rooster for a fight. “Satish was hit by the rooster’s knife in his groin and started bleeding heavily,” the officer said, adding that the man died on the way to a hospital. (Read more from “Rooster Stabs Man to Death During Cockfight Training” HERE)

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Report: Indian Christians ‘Persecuted in All Areas of Life’

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Christians in India face persecution “in all areas of public and private life,” according to a study by the Christian Aid group Open Doors.

In majority Hindu India, “Christians are persecuted in all areas of public and private life, and anti-conversion laws (currently in nine states, with more considering adoption) are abused to harass and intimidate Christians,” according to the organization. Although few people are actually convicted under the anti-conversion laws, related cases “can drag on for years.”

According to the U.S.-based Open Doors, “Hindu extremists” in India “believe that all Indians should be Hindus, and that the country should be rid of Christianity and Islam. They use extensive violence to achieve this goal, particularly targeting Christians from a Hindu background.”

Indian Christians are often accused of adopting a “foreign faith” and may be blamed for perceived “bad luck” within their majority Hindu communities. The tension has lead to Christians suffering physical attacks and being killed by fellow community members in extreme instances. Hindu converts to Christianity are “under constant pressure from their family and community to return to Hinduism,” according to the study. “If they do not ‘re-convert,’ they may be boycotted by their community, with a devastating effect on their ability to earn income.”

The ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the economic and social blacklisting of Christians in India. (Read more from “Report: Indian Christians ‘Persecuted in All Areas of Life’” HERE)

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Indian Call Center Scams $14 Million From Americans in Elaborate Scheme

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Sometimes we have to question the intelligence of Americans. It’s no secret that unhealthy lifestyles and eating mounds of junk food can impair brain function. With that being said, intelligence is lacking for some Americans as thousands were recently swindled out of millions of dollars by a scammy Indian call center.

According to the NYTimes, an Indian call center in Peera Garhi, west of Delhi, tricked victims into believing their bank accounts were frozen as part of an elaborate drug investigation. As many as 4,500 victims were told, they had to transfer money to the scammers or risk serious jail time. . .

Over two years, the call center bilked more than $14 million from gullible Americans who “were asked to buy Bitcoins or Google gift cards worth all the money in their accounts,” said Anyesh Roy, a police officer in New Delhi. The monies were then transferred to what the victims thought was a “safe government wallet” but were actually accounts tied to the call center. (Read more from “Indian Call Center Scams $14 Million From Americans in Elaborate Scheme” HERE)

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WATCH: Violent Clashes Between Chinese and Indian Troops

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Never-before-seen footage showing Chinese and Indian troops brawling in what appears to be a location on the nations’ mutual border surfaced online on Wednesday, months after a similar clash led to the deadliest incident between the countries in decades.

The South China Morning Post reported that an unnamed Chinese military source confirmed the authenticity of the video, which shows the two sides fighting each other with sticks and their bare hands. The source said that the lack of firearms indicated the two sides were showing restraint and dated the video to have been taken some months ago.

The footage may have come from the June 15 clash between the two armies in the Galwan Valley of India’s Ladakh region, which led to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers. China has refused to reveal how many casualties it suffered as a result of the scuffles, though Indian officials have estimated that twice the number of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops died as Indian soldiers.

The footage may also be from another incident. A separate analyst told the Morning Post that it could have been filmed as early as May. (Read more from “WATCH: Violent Clashes Between Chinese and Indian Troops” HERE)

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India Bans More Chinese Smartphone Apps

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India banned an uncertain number of Chinese smartphone apps Tuesday, adding to the 59 banned at the end of June and 47 more, mostly clones and alternate versions of the original 59, in July.

One of the newly blacklisted apps is Mi Browser Pro, another version of a popular web browser that was preinstalled on many Chinese phones sold in India until the “Boycott China” initiative began.

Both banned versions of Mi Browser are products of the Chinese company Xiaomi, which said this week it was “working towards understanding the development” and would “adhere to all data privacy and security requirements under the Indian law.”

Voice of America News (VOA) noted that fully banning the Mi Browser could potentially halt the sale of Xiaomi smartphones, and others that normally preinstall the app, unless the phone makers agree to stop installing it on phones sold in India.

The updated blacklist includes browser plugins from Chinese mega-corporation Baidu, video editing tools, email services, and possibly the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo — effectively a substitute for Twitter, which China has banned citizens from using. IndiaTV quoted reports on Thursday that said the Weibo app does not appear on software download sites in India, including the Google Play Store. (Read more from “India Bans More Chinese Smartphone Apps” HERE)

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What to Expect From U.S. President Donald Trump’s Visit to India

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American and Indian national interests are clearly converging.

President Donald Trump will, therefore, strive to enhance US – India bilateral relations with the context of a multilateral environment.

What does that mean?

I refer back to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concept of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), first articulated in 2015.

SAGAR stresses the importance of the Indian Ocean to India and the close alignment between Indian and global interests, as Dhruva Jaishankar outlined in his article “Indian Ocean Region: A Pivot for India’s Growth:

“(i) preserving freedom of navigation for commercial shipping, (ii) sustainably and equitably harnessing the Indian Ocean’s natural resources, (iii) establishing protocols for enhancing disaster prevention and relief as well as search and rescue operations, (iv) countering piracy, terrorism, smuggling, and illegal weapons proliferation, and (v) managing international naval competition.”

It is no accident that regional security is the fundamental component ensuring that the benefits of regional economic growth can be realized.

Acknowledging and de facto supporting Prime Minister Modi’s SAGAR strategy, it is also no accident that the United States recently renamed its military Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command.

The foundation of growing US – India strategic convergence has been the recognition of potential Chinese economic hegemony and military expansion in South Asia, especially via China’s close alliance with Pakistan and Pakistan’s own obsession with the use of terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy, all threats to the Modi SAGAR goals.

It is, therefore, not surprising that increased US-India defence cooperation has been the leading element in the expanding relationship and a segue to a new trade agreement likely to be completed within the next year.

Last November, the US and India completed their most expansive joint military exercises in history amid efforts to coordinate more ambitiously on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region as outlined in the SAGAR doctrine.

Sales of American weapons systems to India have concomitantly increased, which has included Apache attack helicopters for anti-terrorist operations, Seahawk helicopters for the Indian navy, C-17 heavy air-lift sustainment and anti-surface warfare and anti-air defence MK 45 5 inch/62 calibre (MOD 4) naval guns.

The need for greater US – India coordination will only increase as the American forces withdraw from Afghanistan and the Trump legacy in that regard will be determined by ensuing regional events precipitated by that withdrawal.

Both India and the United States have a shared interest in preventing strategic adversaries, namely China and Pakistan, from unduly benefitting from that withdrawal at the expense of regional stability and a balance of power.

Make no mistake, China seeks global domination. One vehicle to achieve it is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a collection of infrastructure projects and a network of commercial agreements in 152 countries designed to link the entire world directly to the Chinese economy through interconnected land-based and maritime routes.

A critical part of BRI is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an infrastructure and development project, the backbone of which is a transportation network connecting China to the Pakistani seaports of Gwadar and Karachi located on the Arabian Sea

The guarantor of that soft power approach is the hard power of Chinese military expansion.

China plans to establish a naval and air bases on the Arabian Sea within easy reach of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. That military facility will complement China’s already operational naval base in Djibouti, located at another strategic chokepoint, the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

All of that is the opposite of what Prime Minister Modi seeks to achieve through SAGAR.

It may be that the outcome of the Modi-Trump meeting and subsequent greater US– India cooperation may largely determine peace, stability, economic prosperity and the democratic future of the Indo-Pacific region.

Both the stakes and the potential benefits are that high. (For more from the author of “What to Expect From U.S. President Donald Trump’s Visit to India” please click HERE)

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Pakistan Prime Minister Threatens India with Nuclear War over Citizenship Law

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Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has once again threatened India with nuclear war over the recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which promises Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees of the neighbouring countries.

Khan, while addressing the first Global Refugee Forum as a co-convener here on Tuesday, said: “I want to tell the whole world that they should be aware of the biggest impending refugee crisis (in South Asia).”

He was apparently referring to the recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which promises Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.

“We in Pakistan are not just worried that there’ll be a refugee crisis; we are worried that this could lead to a conflict. A conflict between two nuclear-armed countries,” Khan remarked.

Leaving no opportunity to condemn India on the world stage, Khan also put forth his rhetoric on New Delhi’s decision to revoke Article 370 that accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, saying “It is time for the world to take notice of the situation in Kashmir,” despite India time again stating that such matters are entirely “internal” to the country. (Read more from “Pakistan Prime Minister Threatens India with Nuclear War over Citizenship Law” HERE)

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After Losing Bet, Man Offers His Wife as Payment

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An Indian man is being investigated for gambling his wife away before assaulting her when she refused to go with the winner.

The incident took place in the district of Banka in the north-eastern Indian state of Bihar when Binod Kumar Shah lost a bet who could not afford to pay, according to local media. . .

When he returned home later that evening, he woke up his wife and told her to pack her bags because he lost the bet and the winner was arriving in the morning to collect his ‘winnings’.

Devi told local media: ‘My husband told me the winner was coming to the house in the morning so I should get ready to leave with him because he lost the bet.’

That morning, Shah allegedly assaulted Devi when she refused to go with the winner. (Read more from “After Losing Bet, Man Offers His Wife as Payment” HERE)

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Surprise: India and Russia Challenging China in South China Sea

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India is challenging Chinese influence in the South China Sea with its outreach to regional powers, including Russia, with which it has agreed to launch a maritime route that would partly go through the hotly contested waters, analysts said.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed by India and Russia – two traditional security allies – during a regional economic forum this week, a new Indo-Pacific sea route will extend from the port city of Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, to Chennai, on the Bay of Bengal in eastern India.

The shipping route will partly traverse the South China Sea, the scene of numerous territorial disputes involving China and neighbouring countries over the years.

In addition to cooperating on the planned maritime route, India and Russia could ramp up their alliance in the military and technological spheres, according to a joint statement released at the economic forum in Vladivostok. . .

“This could signal that India’s cooperation with Russia is now coming to a substantial phase,” Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview. (Read more from “Surprise: India and Russia Challenging China in South China Sea” HERE)

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Woman Reportedly Decapitated by Elevator

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By Fox 5. A factory worker in India was reportedly decapitated by an elevator while she tried to untangle her headphones from a collapsible grill, according to the New York Post.

Police in Vadodara said the woman’s severed head was found on the ground floor of the plastics factory, while her body was located inside the elevator on the third floor.

The earbuds remained in her ears and authorities said a playlist was still running on the phone in her hand.

Authorities said it appeared she was trying to free her headphones from the elevator’s collapsible grill when she arrived at work around 8 a.m. Monday. (Read more from “Woman Reportedly Decapitated by Elevator” HERE)

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Woman Reportedly Decapitated While Trying to Free Headphones from Elevator

By The NY Post. . .The severed head of Sushila Vishwakarma was discovered on the ground floor of the plastics factory in Vadodara, while her body was in the elevator that traveled to the third floor.

Police believe the 48-year-old was trying to free her headphones from the elevator’s collapsible grill as she arrived at work at 8 a.m. Monday, according to the Indian Express. . .

“We are speculating that she was using her phone and absentmindedly she tried to stick her head outside the lift, which started going up, and the accident happened,” investigating officer MN Saporiya told the paper. “So her body was dragged ’til the last floor and her head got severed.”

Bapod police Inspector TR Bamaniya told the Express that they hope an autopsy will reveal more. (Read more from “Woman Reportedly Decapitated While Trying to Free Headphones from Elevator” HERE)

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