No excuse for terrorism flowing from Pakistan: UK

The United Kingdom needs to be more forthright on terrorism, particularly on terrorism that “flows across” Pakistan’s borders into Afghanistan and elsewhere, defence secretary Michael Fallon has said, indicating a subtle shift in London on south Asia.

Speaking to Hindustan Times on the eve of a three-day visit to Mumbai and New Delhi from Tuesday, Fallon, one of the senior-most figures in the Theresa May government, said Britain had made it “very clear” to Pakistan that there cannot be any excuse for terrorism.

Fallon’s remarks are significant in the context of Brexit compelling the UK to focus more on major economies such as India, and the continuing grouse in New Delhi that unlike the United States, India continues to be hyphenated with Pakistan in London’s outlook.

On Washington issuing a strong statement after the September 2016 terror attack on brigade headquarters in Uri, Fallon said the UK did condemn the attack but agreed that “We have to be more forthright on terrorism…we have to call it out for what it is”.

“There is no excuse, justification for terrorism and we make that very clear in Pakistan”, he said and added that his talks in India will also focus “on what more Pakistan needs to do to tackle terrorism that flows across the border into Afghanistan and elsewhere”.

Fallon will be in Mumbai to inspect the guided missile destroyer ‘Chennai’, among other engagements, and in New Delhi for talks with defence minister Arun Jaitley, national security advisor Ajit Doval and Indian military chiefs to further the India-UK Defence and International Security Partnership. Terrorism will “absolutely” be part of the talks, he said.

Keen to deepen existing links between Indian military and India’s defence industry, Fallon said British companies were now ready to enter arrangements under the Make in India programme, and plan new equipment to benefit militaries and defence industries of both countries. are farcical in the absence of any credible evidence against him. It is significant that our high commission was not even informed that Jadhav was being brought to trial.”

Last December, Pakistan’s foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz told the Parliament that the “dossier on Jadhav contained mere statements” and didn’t have any conclusiveevidence.Hourslater, Pakistan denied the statement.

Pakistan Army had also released a “confessional video” of Jadhav who is purportedly heard saying that he was serving the Indian navy. In the video, Jadhav allegedly says he arrived in Iran in 2003 and started a business.

Islamabad also repeatedly refused India’s request for access to Jadhav, who allegedly held an Iranian residency permit and a passport in the name of Hussain Mubarak Patel. The place of birth given in this passport was apparently Sangli, Maharashtra.

Though several suspected Pakistani spies were arrested in India over the years, none had been sentenced to death.

In 1999, Pakistan had hanged an Indian, Sheikh Shamim, also on charges of spying. In 2013, another Indian national, Sarabjit Singh, who was sentenced to death for spying in Pakistan, was killed in jail after being attacked by fellow inmates. bar Islands have put in place an interim regulator.

States can name any officer, preferably from the housing department, as the regulator to hear buyers’ complaints till a Rera is set up.

In the absence of the Rera, developers won’t have to register projects if they complete it before the regulator is notified. The law covers new as well as those projects where completion certificate has not been given. A buyer hit by delays won’t get any relief.

This is not all. Many states are still to notify the rules, without which the realty law can’t kick in. Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Delhi are the only ones to have drawn up the rules.

While states had to frame their own law using the central act as a template, the rules for the UTs were notified by the Centre. States can make changes to the central law but they can’t completely dilute the parent act.

Consumer groups are up in arms in states such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra against the dilution of provisions dealing with ongoing projects, alleging those were tweaked to favour builders.

Fight for RERA, an umbrella body of more than 100 home-buyers’ associations from across India, had in November written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the chief ministers of UP and Gujarat, saying the changes would render the new law “redundant”.

The deadline is just 20 days away and not much is expected as setting up a Rera takes time, sources said.

Industry sources said Airtel’s new STB will hit the market soon and is expected to eat into market share of smart TV-makers and streaming devices. Videocon’s launch will also force other players such as DEN networks, Siti Cable to come out with their products soon, they said.

“Reliance Jio is also pushing for its Android-based STB, which will come with Jio apps,” Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research told HT. “The rise in home broadband and free data, along with app-based remote controls, will give rise to the new digited STB penetration.”

According to Counterpoint data, out of the total 9 to 10 million flat panel TVs shipped to India, nearly 5 million units are smart TVs. The smart TV market size in India is around ₹24,000 crore.

However, Faisal Kawoosa, analyst at CyberMedia Research, was sceptical about STBs: “Users don’t like to be bound by the manufacturer with a specific set of apps and we have seen this with smartphones. The new STBs’ sucess may be limited as they will have to rely on pre-installed apps in contrast to access to a smart app store in a smart TV.”

Tata Sky, which was the first DTH that tried to digitise STBs, is also working on a concept called Webapps to further digitise its set-top boxes.

“Tata Sky+ customers are able to use apps while watching TV,” said Harit Nagpal, MD and CEO of Tata Sky. “Tata Sky is providing these customers an additional interface to access information/ gaming from popular apps through their TV apart from conventional handheld devices.”

Smart TV makers seemed unfazed about the new product. “Customers who need to buy a smart TV, they go with the inbuilt smart TV from the manufacturer. In my opinion , these (STBs) are good to increase the demand of smart TVs and people tend to use these kind of devices to their existing non smart TVs,” said Neeraj Bahl, head of consumer electronic business of Panasonic India.

VU Technologies declined to comment on the matter and Google, Samsung and LG had not responded to HT’s query at the time of going to press.