People in large numbers in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) are protesting against the Pakistani establishment and demanding freedom, in a video available with a leading news channel.

The video which is exclusively available with CNN-IBN shows people protesting in several areas including Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Kotli, with the protesters shouting pro-india slogans.
ome protestors have also said on camera that Pakistan has no right to use force on them and even that India is better place to live. In the video, they are also heard demanding jobs and other rights.

The video shows that anti-Pakistan protests are on the rise in PoK and the Pakistani force is using brutal force to shut their voices.

The report said that the protest can’t be called sporadic, as the swelling crowd, and the police and Army presence to reign them in is a clear indicator that these agitations are not a one-off but a force to reckon with.

Pakistan recently cancelled the NSA-level talks with India claiming that no peace process can be initiated without Kashmir being discussed.​

In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences.

Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

Robert Mickens, the Vatican correspondent for the Catholic journal The Tablet, said the pontiff’s comments were further evidence of his attempts to shake off the Catholic Church’s fusty image, reinforced by his extremely conservative predecessor Benedict XVI. “Francis is a still a conservative,” said Mr Mickens. “But what this is all about is him seeking to have a more meaningful dialogue with the world.”

“Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”

In a welcoming response to the letter, Mr Scalfari said the Pope’s comments were “further evidence of his ability and desire to overcome barriers in dialogue with all”.

In July, Francis signalled a more progressive attitude on sexuality, asking: “If someone is gay and is looking for the Lord, who am I to judge him?”

In a welcoming response to the letter, Mr Scalfari said the Pope’s comments were “further evidence of his ability and desire to overcome barriers in dialogue with all”.

In July, Francis signalled a more progressive attitude on sexuality, asking: “If someone is gay and is looking for the Lord, who am I to judge him?”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed the Indian diaspora in San Jose, California and said that there had been a change in the mindset of the people across the world as they were now saying that the 21st century belongs to India.

Here are top quotes from PM Modi’s speech

1. Your fingers created magic on the keyboard and the computer and this gave India a new identity. Your skill and commitment is wonderful.

2. I have faith in the nation because India is youthful. 65% of our population is under the age of 35.

3. We are harbingers of peace. We come from the land of Gandhi & Buddha.

4. Terrorism is terrorism. There is no good terrorism and bad terrorism.

. UN still hasn’t been able to define terrorism. If it will take so much time to define, how will we tackle it?

6. From Upanishads we have moved to Upgraha. India succeeded in its Mars Mission in the very first attempt.

7. Today, the world looks at India with hope and confidence.

8. I am trying my best to live up to everyone’s expectations.

9. Brain drain can become brain gain, did anyone ever think about this. That’s why I have a different outlook towards this. I see it as ‘Brain Deposit’, out to look for opportunities. When that comes this brain will give back to India with interests.

10. Am I working? Am I working for nation? Am I fulfilling promises?

11. Who brought this change? This change was not by brought by Modi, but 125 crore Indians.

12. We are moving ahead with ‘JAM of all’, where ‘J’ stands for Jandhan account, ‘A’ for Aadhar Card and ‘M’ for Mobile governance.

TII students have called off their relay hunger strike, although the strike in the elite institution will continue. Students are protesting the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as chief of FTII.

The agitating FTII students on Saturday had said they would withdraw their hunger strike to pave way for a dialogue with the government if the I&B Ministry confirm a date for talks to resolve their demands including removal of actor Gajendra Chauhan from the institute’s chairmanship. Joint Secretary of I&B Ministry has now replied to the letter sent by students. A meeting has been fixed on 29th September at Films division, Mumbai. The three students have called off their hunger strike, out of which Himanshu had completed 400 hours of his strike.

The FTII students’ Association (FSA) leader Vikas Urs said on Saturday, “We have responded to the Ministry’s letter dated September 24, in which it requested us to withdraw (107 day) strike and hunger strike (17 day) to create a conducive environment for a dialogue. We have offered to withdraw our ongoing hunger strike if the government confirms a date and venue for the proposed meeting.” He said the FSA had always kept the channels of communication with the government open and expressed its willingness to have a dialogue to resolve the issues raised by them, including setting up of a transparent mechanism for appointments on the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) governing body.

The students had been on a relay hunger strike in batches of three as part of intensification of their agitation.

As India celebrates 50 years of the 1965 war this month, the Indian Chinese who were hauled off to Rajasthan’s Deoli camp remember the ordeal of another war

“Meresss awalon kaaaa jawab do…!” Ying Sheng Wong, 70, is doing a pretty good job of hollering that peremptory refrain from the hit film Maine Pyar Kiya in his somewhat disjointed Hindi, and the Indian Chinese gathering around him in Toronto crowds erupt in laughter and applause. But the reason they have banded together is not at all cheery.

They call themselves the Deoliwallahs, 60 men and women with some really tragic stories to tell about a tumultuous phase of Indian history. The year was 1962, and between October and November, India and China were caught in a short but intense war. So acrid was the anti-Chinese sentiment in India that a whole lot of perfectly innocent Indian Chinese, mostly in the Dooars and Assam, were surprised by its savagery. Some had married local women, and most spoke only local languages. They were more Indian than Chinese with businesses and lives firmly entrenched here. Suddenly, they became potential “traitors”. Soon, under a new ordinance, the midnight knocks began to be heard across the homes of Indian Chinese, especially those living in Darjeeling, Tinsukhia and Shillong. Entire families were bundled into trucks and transported to railways stations where began a seven-eight day train journey to an abandoned PoW camp at Deoli, Rajasthan. In some cases, the families were separated: the men deported to China, mother and children stuck in Deoli, the grandparents elsewhere, say accounts.

The war wrapped up in a month but many of those interned remained in the jail for up to five years. When the families returned, they found their homes and businesses confiscated and plundered. Some of them tried to cobble their lives back together but many left for the West, mostly Canada and the US. Now, 53 years later, these survivors and their families are trying to find some answers, and perhaps an apology for that painful episode that turned their world upside down.

On October 6, at Delhi’s India International Centre, some of these Deoliwallahs will be participating in an event recalling the events of 1962. The dramatic story of the Deoli internment and the suffering it caused has been surfacing in many forms in recent years. The survivors have formed a very active and vocal Association of India Deoli Camp Internees 1962 (AIDCI). Earlier this year, Beyond Barbed Wires: A Distant Dawn, a documentary by Indian photojournalist Rafeeq Ellias that tells the story of the internees, was released.

Another Deoliwallah, Yin Marsh, 66, an artist from California, wrote Doing Time with Nehru two years ago on her life in Darjeeling as a child before the war of 1962 and of her family’s internment at Deoli. Joy Ma, another participant at the IIC event, is writing her memoirs. And before all that, five years ago, there was ‘Makam’, the Assamese bestseller by Rita Chowdhury on the Indian Chinese community in Tinsukhia which saw many tragedies in the wake of the war.

It may all seem very distant in history, but the unfairness of being made victims of a war that wasn’t theirs still rankles. “I was just six but what I do remember is the look on my parents’ faces when we were led into the train. It was a look of disbelief, hurt, grief, fear. I didn’t know what it meant then but today, it hits me really hard,” says Michael Cheng, 59, who now runs a restaurant in North Carolina.

Cheng’s father had migrated to Darjeeling from Guangdong and set up a chain of flourishing businesses – a shoe store, a restaurant, a lodge. He was big on the horse racing circuit and owned a horse. All that came to an end for the family of 13 in 1962. When the Cheng family was released, they were simply dropped off at Chinatown in Kolkata and ordered not to return to Darjeeling. Kind relatives took the family in and Cheng recalls sleeping on an ironing board. Slowly the Chengs put their shoe business together, and by the ’70s managed to return to Darjeeling. But it was never the same again, and the Chengs migrated to the West. “My brother who still misses India often says ‘I wish this war never happened’,” says Cheng.

Wong was much older when he was taken to the camp along his six siblings, just a day after the war ended. At 17, he recalls the humiliation of the three years at the camp, the heat, the terrible food and the aftermath. His father, who came from the Wangchu in Canton, was running Attun and Sons, a popular shoe shop at GS Road in Shillong. He died a painful and mysterious death at the camp at age 48.

“After we were released, we got Rs 1.50 every day till we reached Shillong to feed ourselves and we would only spend 50 paise on food.” The shoe shop reappeared as Latest Footwear in Burra Bazar but the fear of fresh hostilities never went away and the family moved to Canada.

Journalist Joy Ma, who was actually born at the Deoli camp, says the saddest aspect of the events of 1962 was how well assimilated the Chinese community in India was. “Even today, at the family shrine, some people keep paan and beedi as offerings to ancestors like they did back home in India. They were part of local communities, married to local Indian or Nepalese women; many hadn’t even set foot in China,” she says.

Her family were prosperous furniture contractors in the Dooars, and the ignominy of having to be dependent for every little thing at the camp hurt deeply. “People were told it was a short trip and they would return soon so they didn’t take much along. The camp was not ready for so many. When they first arrived, some had put out their shirts for the dal to be ladled into,” Ma says.

The survivors and their families, still trying to make sense of the events that tore their lives apart, are hoping for a small memorial at Deoli to make sure that the episode is not forgotten.
Courtesy- Darjeeling Times