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Ironically for a people who were the victims of the Aushwitz concentration camp and others like it the state of Israel has turned Gaza into the world's largest concentration camp.

There is no food, clean water, medicines, fuel & hospitals are operating withouth anesthetic. In Nazi Germany death was not only dealt in the gas chambers but many also died due to lack of nutrition, outbreaks of diseases, unsanitary conditions etc.

The same is happening in Gaza as starvation is a fact, unclean water is leading to sick people & diseases is breaking out.

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The ongoing #GazaGenocides will have profound impacts beyond just Palestine.

Never has a single incident exposed so much the double standards of the west & their lectures to others on human rights, freedom of expression etc.

They will never recover their moral credibility. The ugly incident has also taken out the thin veneer of fairness of the current international system and power structure.

It is clear that underneath it all the international system is still run as a modified version of the colonial system of the vast.

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Before #Gaza most of us ‘neutral people’ were a bit perturbed about Palestinians but we largely admired & wished well for Israel.

There was a lot of sympathy due to the Holocaust (there still is).

We admired how a scrappy underdog little state defeated many Arab states. This was fuelled in part due to pro-Israel coverage by the Western Media and a pro-Israel movies in Hollywood too.

My first novel on Israel in school was the pro-Zionist book and popular best seller Exodus.
It had an anti-Arab and anti-Palestine slant.
I lapped up the book.

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Israel has a history of blaming militants when it hits sensitive targets.

In 2014 an AFP journalist saw an Israeli drone fire a missile which hit a children’s park & a hospital compound killing many kids.

Israel blamed Islamic Jihad rocket misfire.

timesofisrael.com/idf-terrorists…
In 2020 Israel hit a children’s hospital in Gaza but said exploding Hamas munitions are to blame.

timesofisrael.com/hamas-israeli-…

Once upon a time in Europe there lived a group of white people with white Kingdoms.

They were all Christians but they were also these slightly different white people who were called Jews.

The Jews served a useful purpose to be the fall guys for anything that went wrong. It helped that these different group of people were allegedly responsible for killing a Middle Eastern brown guy called Jesus according to a mainly fictional holy book.

The Jews were persecuted & held responsible for anything from natural disasters, to plagues to defeat in wars.

On the ongoing #Gazagenocide and if any possible pressure can be brought on Israel to not attack civilians.

USA & EU countries have already handed over blank cheques to Israel to do whatever it wants.

Israel is part of local politics in USA and Germany led EU supports Israel. Arab neighbors in the region will do nothing as while the Arab street is with the Palestinians the unelected leaders all need US/Western protection or approval to stay in power.

Plus the mainly Sunni leadership of Arab states are wary of Iran that backs Hamas.

I was very intrigued by the @nytimes piece that brought out the initial allegations against @newsclickin of indirect Chinese funding & using CCP talking points.

I went through @newsclickin YouTube videos going back to the start 14 yrs ago.

I was half expecting CCP propaganda. The early videos are essentially mainly talk shops with eminent journalists, economists, area experts etc on run of the mill economic, political, social and foreign policy stuff focused on India with very limited online views.

No hard CCP propaganda or anti-India stuff.

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Indians may not know this but the Indian Rupee over the years had become like a regional US dollar in South Asia with many smaller countries accepting or tolerating it as legal tender.

This greatly helped Indian tourists and travellers whose Rs was readily accepted. For example, in Bhutan all establishments from hotels to shops accepted the Rs.

A lot of trade is also done with Rs especially at the border areas since decades.

Same with Nepal too.

The first jolt came in 2016 with Modi’s demonetisation announcement.

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Bhutan’s PM said-

‘Doklam is a junction point between India, China & Bhutan’ - Geography

‘It is not up to Bhutan alone to solve the problem.’ - Fact

‘We are three. There is no big or small country, there are 3 equal countries, each counting for a third.’ - Stress on Bhutan

https://twitter.com/VishnuNDTV/status/1642072158753914880

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‘We are ready. As soon as the other 2 parties are also ready we can discuss.’ - Gives a veto vote to India. So far official veto only with Bhutan &China.

Nothing in PM’s statement is cause for worry.
In fact India gains as PM has inserted India into bilateral talks as equal.

The Bhutanese Prime Minister tells the @thebhutanese there is no change in stance on Doklam and the Bhutan-China border talks and nothing new was said.

This is after Indian media outlets misrepresented his interview to a Belgian newspaper.

thebhutanese.bt/prime-minister… The Prime Minister Dasho (Dr) Lotay Tshering said, “I have said nothing new and there is no change in position.” He reasserted that there is nothing new.

Facebook is the most popular and widely used social media platform in Bhutan.

If you want a sampling of the feelings of the masses in Bhutan then FB is a reliable indicator.

The misreporting by various Indian media outlets on the PM’s remarks has provoked outrage in Bhutan 👇 The screen shots are all reactions to Indian news outlets on their Facebook pages by ordinary Bhutanese.

I would classify the controversy in the Indian media and strategic community around the remarks of the Bhutanese Prime Minister Dasho Dr Lotay Tshering to a Belgian paper @lalibrebe over the Bhutan-China boundary talks as being a giant storm in a small tea cup and nothing new. The Indian media is seething over the PM's comments where he said Doklam is a junction point between the 3 countries (a geographical fact) and that it is not upto Bhutan alone to solve the problems but also requires India and China to come on board to solve the issue (fact).

In a bid to boost tourism Indian and other SDF fee paying tourists coming to Phuentsholing or Thimphu in Bhutan can now buy tax free gold.

The only condition being you have to stay in a tourist certified hotel and pay SDF.

The gold will be much more cheaper than in India. The gold will be sold by Duty Free outlets which normally sell luxury items and are owned by the Finance Ministry.

Apart from being tax free Bhutan’s Duty Free outlets will not make any profit as the aim is to promote tourism.

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In Sept 2016 Bangladesh, Bhutan& India agreed in principle to 1,125 MW Dorjilung hydro project where 🇧🇩 would fund project in 🇧🇹& power would be carried through 🇮🇳.
🇧🇹&🇧🇩 signed MoU but 🇮🇳 gave no reply after initial positive reaction.

In 2017 Adani signed power deal with🇧🇩. The same Adani thermal power deal with 🇧🇩 which is in controversy over high prices.

Bhutan’s hydro deal would have been much cheaper for 🇧🇩 and would have linked the power infrastructure of the 🇧🇩, 🇧🇹 and 🇮🇳 as the first example of regional cooperation on power trading.

Conventional wisdom has been that Bhutan’s location between China & India is a security threat, but a great commercial opportunity to take advantage of.

However, our location is not a commercial opportunity but a commercial disadvantage or threat to us.

thebhutanese.bt/knowing-where-… The reason being that both countries can manufacture and make everything cheaper and even better than us.

Forget about electronics and consumer goods, but our traditional Gho and Kira is manufactured in Indian factories and imported into Bhutan.

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The INR 1,200 per day SDF for Indian tourists is aimed at checking mass tourism which was becoming a major issue in Bhutan.

Bhutan was being sold as a destination cheaper than most mass tourism sites in India like Goa, Manali, Darjeeling etc by some Indian tour operators. The result was a mass inflow of tourists
which Bhutan was unable to cope with.

Greedy landlords were throwing out families in Thimphu and other places to convert apartments into hotels.

Traffic jams got much worse.

Trash was dumped by tourists everywhere including holy sites.

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Aabhas asked for Primary sources & so I presented Romila quoting the Sanskrit Text Ashokvadana talking of the destruction of 84,000 stupas by Pushyamitra.

But Romila's 1961 attempt to question it saying Sanchi Stupa was enlarged in Sunga period is complicated & outdated.

https://twitter.com/feludamitter/status/1529507550428729345

Archaeologist John Marshall says there is evidence of damage to Buddhist establishments at Takshashila during Shunga rule. He theorized Sanchi stupa was vandalized in 2nd century BCE ( Pushyamitra's reign), before being rebuilt on a larger scale. [Simmons & Sarao 2010, pp. 96–97]

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Hi, Aabhas, just saw your tweet today as I have been off Twitter for a few days.

Surprised that you are ignorant of the abundant historical evidence of destruction of Buddhist sites in India.

Drawing from various historians, their works & news articles here is a list.

https://twitter.com/Aabhas24/status/1528734282528608256

Prominent Indian historian D.N Jha who specializes in ancient &medieval Indian history has done credible work on this with ‘Primary Sources,’ in his 2018 book called  ‘Against the Grain:Notes on Identity, Intolerance & History.

Will quote tweets from here
counterview.net/2018/06/buddhi…

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine is quickly turning into a tutorial of why you should not invade a sovereign country in this day and age, even if you have the military might and size. Ruble has fallen in value, inflation is up, worst stock market crash in history, it can kiss goodbye to its high tech industries due to sanctions, there is a 58 fold increase in demand for cash as many people pull out foreign currencies and additional sanctions are on the way.

There are many reasons for the Afghan debacle but underlying it all is how so many domestic players treated Afghanistan as a piece of pie to be shared among the elite.

The smooth talking Hamid Karzai Prez from 2001-14 ran one of the most corrupt & extractive govts in the world. Be it the central governments or local warlords everybody was too busy siphoning billions of dollars in US aid money to focus on strengthening the Afghan state.

Smooth dressing/talking Karzai’s relatives/friends even ran a Ponzi scheme bank that defrauded depositors of USD 1 bn.

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Bhutan is regarded as a COVID success story & so I humbly offer some broad insights based on our experience -only to help.

1. Give the virus a lot of respect & never let your guard down.

2. Good Leadership is absolutely essential but so is an all of society approach. 3. Make your COVID plans early & have every one on board from the capital to village.

4. Then drill, drill and drill with multiple scenarios and especially with the worst case ones.

5. Do stock taking of medical infra and put things in place. Stock up on medical equipment.