Twelve days have passed since the Indian government snapped mobile services, landlines and the internet in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), making it impossible for Kashmiris to communicate with each other and the outside world.

Thousands of troops and a tight curfew have restrained Kashmiris from protesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sudden move to revoke J&K’s special constitutional status, and bifurcate the northern state, while the government has been trying to portray that everything is ‘normal’ there. However, ground reports suggest that security forces are using pellet guns and arbitrary arrests to quell any protests. 

The communication blackout has left parents queuing up for hours to speak to their children on a handful of phones made available in government offices and police stations. The local media in Kashmir has barely been able to function. Almost all political leaders — including two former chief ministers and a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer — are under house arrest. A Kashmiri journalist was picked up in a midnight raid and detained without explanation before being released. 

As the United Nations Security Council discusses Kashmir for the first time in 48 years, HuffPost India spoke with David Kaye, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, who described the communication blackout as “unprecedented” for a democratic society.

Kaye, a clinical law professor at the University of California, Irvine, said, “I can’t think of a democratic country that repeatedly shuts down the internet for whatever reason.” 

Who is a Special Rapporteur? 

The United Nations Human Rights Council appoints human rights experts in all sorts of fields to monitor all sorts of human rights around the world. And the area they appointed me to monitor as Special Rapporteur is freedom of expression. I report to the U.N. on thematic issues like surveillance, protection of journalists and so forth. I communicate with governments on violations or alleged violations or laws and policies of concern. I conduct country visits. 

You report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva?

Correct. And to the General Assembly (located in the U.N. headquarters in New York).

Do they do anything with these reports?

Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes, they will adopt resolutions based on the rules that we suggest should be applied. In some circumstances, they might adopt a resolution that demands that a state act in compliance with our findings. It really depends on the nature of our report.

You are the Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Is that different from speech and expression? 

Speech is something that is colloquially understood as being speech that we say from our lungs, our vocal chords, but expression captures a broader idea. Expression can be art, can be music, it can be any kind of media. Human rights law is very clear that freedom of expression includes the right to seek, to receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds through any kind of media. It’s a broader definition than plain old speech as a term. 

Mobile services and the internet in Kashmir have been snapped since August 5. It’s been 12 days. What’s your assessment of the situation? 

I’m really concerned about it. There have been shutdowns of the internet in Kashmir many times before. In those contexts, there would be a particular service, a mobile service would be shut down, or access to the internet would be shut down. I think the difference here is that not only has the internet shut down, but all telecommunications. So, it’s impossible for family members to be in touch with their families in Kashmir. It’s very difficult for them to know what is happening down the street, let alone around the world. So, I’m concerned that this kind of shutdown interferes in a very disproportionate way with the rights of everyone in Kashmir to have access to information, to have access to the internet for all sorts of reasons, to communicate both within the country and outside it.

Cable TV is working. Officials are claiming that landlines will be restored soon.  If this is to happen soon, there will be some communication, but does the situation remain equally concerning? 

It’s equally concerning. Part of my point was that because it has happened in the past, because it has happened in such a strong way over the past 10 days or so, there is no guarantee that this won’t happen again. The threat is always there for people in Kashmir that they will lose their ability to communicate and so simply because the government allows communication to return doesn’t mean that the last ten days — or however long this continues — simply disappears. It’s still a real interference with the right to freedom of the people of Kashmir. And frankly, people throughout India, who need to have information about Kashmir in order to make up their minds about whether they think what the government is doing is appropriate. 

You were appointed Special Rapporteur in 2014, have you seen anything like this?

There have been internet shutdowns in many places around the world, especially in central Africa. For example, in Cameroon, there was a very very lengthy shutdown of the internet in the English-speaking part of Cameroon. These kinds of shutdowns do take place. What is rather unique here is that internet shutdowns are extremely unusual, perhaps unprecedented, in democratic countries. I can’t think of a democratic country that repeatedly shuts down the internet for whatever reason. I want to distinguish India from Cameroon as an example. Democratic societies, democratic governments, do not typically shut down the internet. India is rather far ahead of others in doing that. In the context of how the Indian government would want to be compared, I think it would want to be compared to other democratic governments. Its shutting down the internet is really something quite different and very unusual.

It would be fair to say that you haven’t seen anything like this in a democratic country. 

For sure. This is unusual, unprecedented, among democratic governments. 

In Cameroon, was it just the internet or mobile services snapped as well?

There have been times when they snapped everything.

The concern is that lifting the communication blackout could lead to mobilisation, violent protests, loss of life and injuries. How does one weigh freedom of expression against all that? 

I would question your premise. Isn’t the curfew the reason why presently people in Kashmir are not able to demonstrate? Your question is presuming that if the internet is up, then people will protest and that could lead to all sorts of violence. But you tell me, isn’t the reason why there are not massive protests mainly because of the curfew? What the government is doing by shutting down the internet is — they can say it makes it harder for people to mobilise — but the real reason that people can’t mobilize is because of the troops on the ground that are forbidding them from going on the ground, from organising, from protesting. Both of those things are interferences with fundamental human rights that are protected under Indian law and under human rights law — the right to protest, the right to expression — and this kind of massive set of restrictions is really disproportionate even to that and seeking to prohibit violence. 

It is also prohibiting all sorts of things that are perfectly legitimate, even important, for people to do. Things like communicating with family, neighbours, doctors, communicating in order to do commerce.  I don’t know this to be true, but it is likely that people are having a harder time staying healthy and safe in an environment where they lack total communication than where it would be allowed and there may be protests on the streets. 

What about the argument that this has to be done in order to avoid a situation where there is violence and people get killed? 

It’s clear that the government has a legitimate interest in public order and public safety. My only point is that shutting down the internet is disproportionate to that end. It ends up interfering much more than is necessary in order to prevent violence. The government also has all sorts of tools to prevent violence, shutting down the internet is only marginally helpful for them to do it. Shutting down the internet, in fact, makes it harder for the people to know how to avoid violent protests. It makes it harder for individuals to know what is happening down the street so that they can be safe. 

I think it’s important for me to acknowledge that the Indian government has every responsibility and legitimate interest in maintaining public order, it’s just that the tool that it is adopting by shutting down communications is significantly disproportionate to that goal. 

You tweeted last week that this would be a good time for you to visit India. You re-upped your 2018 request to the Indian government. That was in the context of Kashmir? 

It’s always a good time to visit India. India proudly declares itself to be the world’s largest democracy. It has a very active internet industry, an active civil society on all sorts of issues related to journalism, issues on the internet. There have been all sorts of controversies around WhatsApp lynchings, internet shutdowns, intermediary liability, things that legislators and policymakers and courts have been engaged with in India for several years. It’s always timely to visit India but we can only do official visits to countries when we are invited by the government. I can’t just go to a country and visit and report to the U.N. There needs to be an official invitation. 

It was timely to re-up the official request to the Government of India (GOI) to conduct a visit because people are paying attention to freedom of expression in India. That was because of Kashmir, but reasons to visit India go way beyond Kashmir. 

When was the last time that a U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression visited India?

Never. It’s interesting because the first Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression was Indian, actually, but there has never been a visit by a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression to India. 

The first Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression was an Indian? Who was it? When was this?

Yes. His name was Abid Hussain. From 1993 to 2002.

While journalists from the mainland and foreign agencies are flying in and out of Kashmir with reports, the local media in Kashmir is paralysed. Websites of local news websites have not been updated since 5 August. Local news channels cannot operate. 

The pressure that is being put on all Kashmiris is being put more fully on journalists. And that’s a real problem for all sorts of people. It’s a problem for people in Kashmir. You need information about what is happening in the country. It’s a bad thing for the people of India. It’s a bad thing for the international community, which needs information in order to make decisions. So, the shutdown is not just about making it harder for individuals to communicate with one another, but it’s also making it harder for the truth of what is happening in Kashmir to get reported on and that’s really contrary to the values of a democracy and it’s unrelated to issues of public order and safety. It’s really a very, very serious concern to me.

But information is coming out. The foreign and Indian media, TV, print and web, are managing to cover it. It’s only the local media which is handicapped due to the communication blackout. 

That’s absolutely true. But wouldn’t you still say that the amount of information that is able to get out is still rather limited? There is a certain amount of information that has been getting out, but it is by no means a free flow of information that we expect from democratic countries. And I think what you are pointing to rightly is that it’s even worse for people in Kashmir because the local news that is important for Kashmiris to have is very difficult to come by. 

Is India in violation of any international and human rights laws? Any treaties and agreements? 

India is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It is the central treaty in international human rights law. It guarantees everyone’s rights to freedom of expression and it also says that when states restrict expression, they have to show that their restriction is necessary and proportionate to the achievement of a legitimate particular goal like protecting public safety and public order. I have not seen the government make that demonstration yet. And until it does, I have very serious concerns about its compliance with these provisions of human rights law.

The Security Council is having a closed door meeting on Kashmir today, but with the exception of Pakistan and China, foreign governments have said next to nothing about Kashmir. The United States and Russia, two permanent members of the Security Council are supporting India’s stand that this an internal matter. Are you concerned about the lack of pushback on the issue of freedom of speech?

There are many things going on here. There is the political issue around the status of Kashmir under Indian constitutional law and that’s not something I’m commenting on. That’s not my area of expertise, but it’s clear that the complete blackout out of the internet and communication in Kashmir should be the subject of very serious concern for the international community, and it is disheartening to see that governments that call themselves democratic and supporters of a free flow of information are not standing up for the people of Kashmir so that they can enjoy their rights. It does not appear that they are putting pressure on the Government of India and that is extremely disappointing.

There is the larger political issue of Kashmir’s constitutional status and then the violation of freedom of speech and expression. The international community can express concern about that aspect of the bigger problem?

I’m not saying that the status of Kashmir is a minor issue. It is of overriding importance for the future of human rights of the people of Kashmir. I’m only saying that’s not my area or expertise. It’s coming at a time when there are protests in Hong Kong, there are protests in Sudan. I’m saying it is important for the international community to reaffirm the rights of all people to peaceful protest and the right of all people to have information — all kinds of information, wherever it is coming from. It’s really problematic not to hear that kind of support from the international community in general, particularly over the last ten days or so. 

As the Special Rapporteur on Freedom for Opinion and Expression, do you have to do something? 

We are communicating with the government through our communication channels. We are watching it very closely and letting the government know about our concerns. I expect that we will issue a public statement in the next few days. 

When you say “we”?

My colleagues and I, among Special Rapporteurs. I should add that I would love to conduct a visit to India. Like we were talking in the beginning, India has never had a visit from a Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression. I think India has a lot to offer me in terms of the problems they face with respect to digital expression and so forth. I’m hoping they extend that invitation.

No Laughing Matter: The Ambedkar Cartoons 1932-1956 by Unnamati Syama Sundar is a damning expose of the casteism of the English press during the Independence movement and early days of nation-building. 

The book, published by Navayana, archives cartoons published in English media on Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as he does some of his most important political work—as a labour member of the Executive Council, fighting for representation of Dalits in the new Indian government, his work on the Constitution, and the Hindu Code Bill which sought to increase the rights of women and was bitterly opposed by conservative Hindus. The book shows how the so-called “legends” of Indian cartooning, including Shankar, Earan, Oommen and Vasu, used casteist and sexist ideas and visual symbols to lampoon the mass leader, even as he strove to lay an egalitarian foundation for the nation. Many would argue it is the job of a cartoonist to make fun of everyone. But, the book points out, it is not that simple. 

What is funny about drawing Ambedkar as short and childish when he puts forward his critique of fellow leaders and their policies? Or as a woman who has sex with a number of men, when he creates alliances to further his radical, egalitarian politics? Or, as an orthodox Brahmin, the very ideology he fought against his whole life?

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No Laughing Matter pulls back the curtain on the power structure that underlies the history of cartooning in India, and the medium’s use as a political weapon. It also forces us to reflect on what these cartoons, just some decades old, tell us about our society. The idea that it’s “just” a joke is negated by the fact that they were published at a time when reports of grievous violence against dalits were commonplace in newspapers—indeed, Ambedkar himself carefully documented these in his writings like The Untouchables. The easy coexistence of power, violence and humour finds echoes in social and political life even today, wherethe pendulum swings between the infuriating “Can’t you take a joke” to cases of sexual harassment and assault by popular comedians that came to light in the #MeToo movement. For creators and readers of cartoons, comics or even memes, it is important to reflect on the questions this book raises. 

In a recent conversation with this writer, Sundar discussed these nuances, the political and social landscape of the cartoons archived in his book, and his own work. The research scholar and cartoonist began archiving cartoons of Ambedkar in 2012.

Edited excerpts:

The idea for this book was born when a controversy broke in 2012 over the inclusion in an NCERT textbook of a cartoon depicting Nehru (a Brahmin) whipping Ambedkar, who was seated on a snail labelled ‘Constitution’. What was your take on it?  

Many people still argue that there’s no problem with the cartoon because they think it’s just a cartoon. In the rest of the world, it’s not like that—look at how controversial the Charlie Hebdo cartoons on Prophet Mohammed are. So, let’s debate the issue at least. Let’s look at the rest of the cartoons, archive them, and then come to a conclusion. Was there any bias? What is the pulse of the cartoonist? How are other leaders depicted by the same cartoonist, as compared to Ambedkar? 

As far as other leaders are concerned, these were out-and-out Congress papers. They wouldn’t depict Congress leaders poorly. For example, despite being a very popular cartoonist at the time, Shankar resigned from Hindustan Times because owner Devdas Gandhi wanted him to withdraw a cartoon on his father-in-law C. Rajagopalachari. Jinnah, on the other hand, was badly lampooned. But then Jinnah had a paper—Dawn—to counter this and there was a kind of cartoon rivalry going on at the time of Partition. The cartoonist who drew the NCERT cartoon—Shankar—was very close to Nehru.

See, every image can be read and interpreted in multiple ways. The sensitive aspects should be explained with context. For example, when you see Nehru whipping—it is ambiguous whether he is whipping Ambedkar or a snail. When you’re talking about the delay in the making of the Constitution in a textbook, you cannot simply put a cartoon in the chapter and say this is how it was. The delay in the process happened due to heated debates, but the image connotes that it is solely Ambedkar who is responsible. I would say instead of publishing an old cartoon of 1949—because the cartoonist may have drawn a cartoon to those conditions—it would have been better if they had commissioned an artist to draw new cartoons which are not hurtful. 

What do you think was the intent behind the cartoons archived in your book? 

The intent was to distort the work that Amebdkar was doing, and create a negative image of him. It came from a casteist grudge and was also a reaction to his anti-Gandhi and anti-Congress stance. 

Was there any opposition to these cartoons at that time? 

I didn’t get this cartoon, otherwise I would have used it. Shankar, the cartoonist was invited to Lady Irwin College for their convocation as the chief guest. When the graduates came on stage to receive their degree, he happened to see some of them wearing lipstick. The very next day in Hindustan Times, his cartoon said ‘Thinking of opening a lipstick service station at Connaught Place’. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, who was an activist, complained that the cartoon was done in bad taste and action must be taken. She complained to (MK) Gandhi, who called up Shankar to meet. When Shankar showed him the cartoon, Gandhi didn’t think there was anything wrong in it. He excused it, and started laughing at it. This event is documented in Shankar’s biography. 

When we were about to release the book, we came across another instance which occurred in the 1950s, when Hindu Code Bill debates were at their peak. There was a cartoonist in a Hindi newspaper who had drawn Ambedkar dragging a dead carcass. Ambedkar was very angry and wanted to file a case against them but the newspaper appealed to him to withdraw the case. Otherwise, however, he knew that cartoonists were lampooning him but he was seriously into drafting the Draft Constitution, and the Hindu Code Bill. So, from his point of view they were probably rubbish. 

Did the cartoons impact the way Ambedkar and his ideas were seen? 

When you look at the chronology of Ambedkar’s life, there are no cartoons on the most serious issues that he worked on. Speaking as a cartoonist, if you choose the correct topic, then the cartoon is already 50% successful. When I look at the newspaper articles at the time, some of the issues these cartoonists chose to highlight makes me think they missed the point. For example, among his scholarly works, the most notable is Annihilation of Caste. When it was published in 1936, it was debated very seriously between Gandhi and Ambedkar. Despite this, why don’t we see any cartoons on Annihilation of Caste in the English press? The cartoonists at that time couldn’t catch on to what Ambedkar was. I would say he was far ahead of his time, and these cartoonists had no clue. Another example is of when the Hindu Code Bill was being discussed. Today, we would expect that the cartoonists would draw in favour of Ambedkar and women’s rights, but many cartoonists at the time took a negative view of Hindu Code Bill. They said he was spoiling Hindu culture and women’s freedom. This tells us what kind of cartoonists we had in those days. With regard to circulation, the cartoons were limited to English press. A few were republished or copied in the vernacular press but didn’t reach the same mass base as—for example—Chandamama or Chacha Chaudhary today.  

You comment in the book on how all these cartoonists seem to be using variations of the same ideas and symbols, or a common visual register. Why do you think this was the case?

Indian cartoonists cannot escape from mythology. If they want to create an association, they tend to go back to mythology and use that. Unfortunately, readers relate to that very quickly and that is why they pick up these themes. Although these cartoonists took the format from Western cartoonists, they injected the casteism and misogyny of mythologies into these forms. For example, the cartoons that depict Ambedkar as Draupadi with five husbands. Shankar liked cartoonist David Low’s presentation very much, so he adopted his presentation but the themes are the same. If we could disconnect mythology from our cartoons and comics, that would be best. Unfortunately, almost all cartoonists continue to rely on mythology even today. 

The politics of who is making the joke and who the joke is aimed at is becoming an important cultural debate. Could you comment on where you think the line should be vis-à-vis the right to free speech?

We have multiple identities coming up in society – new trends have emerged, new movements have come. Back then, they used to depict male politicians wearing saris. They were misogynists. Nowadays, you can’t simply draw any cartoon on a dalit woman or a Muslim woman or a tribal woman or the third gender. You will have reactions from different sections of society. 

Where do we draw the line? Cartoonists have to get educated. You should know the basics. If you want to make political cartoons, you should have at least a basic understanding of history and Indian politics—you should know the draft Constitution; the politics of Gandhi, Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose; the position of scheduled castes, Muslims and tribals in India. Cartoonists have a responsibility to be connected to society, and their work must reflect it as well. Even contemporary cartoonists do not do this. There are also not enough female cartoonists today.  

In this context, what do you think about the political role of lampooning? 

The definition of lampooning has changed. It should be meaningful. Lampooning is what we cartoonists do if a politician is lying or distorting a historical fact, then we decide to correct that through a cartoon. I don’t think that means showing them as a woman and meaning it as an insult, as they did with Ambedkar. 

Do you see this kind of lampooning even today? 

I think that the impact of cartooning is going down because digital and graphic media like memes have come in. People are crazy about memes, not cartoons. You can do anything with memes—you can morph anything, it’s a limitless medium. This technology has increased the level of misogyny and hatred. If you see funny pages, the sexist content gets a high response from people. Or if there are any memes on Ambedkar, they are about reservation and merit because that is the only thing that comes to their mind when they see him. When I see Ambedkar, I think of the Constitution. 

Would you say memes have replaced the space of casteism and misogyny these cartoons used to occupy? 

Yes, memes get a fast response and you find a lot of anti-reservation themes, misogyny and false patriotism there. 

Are there any visual symbols or materials that have countered the representation of Ambedkar that we see in the cartoons archived in your book? 

Statues of Ambedkar have been used as a kind of symbol of self-respect. The best thing that happened in hamlets or ghettoes was placing statues of Ambedkar. It’s beyond just a statue, especially when he’s holding the Constitution. It’s a counter to Gandhi, where Gandhi is holding a Gita. The Constitution could be seen as a counter to the Gita. Gita means Manu—so it is a counter to Manu and Manu dharma. The Constitution is modern, and is about an egalitarian society. So, indeed, these statues have created a kind of belongingness, our own God, a symbol of self-respect, a symbol of Constitution. 

Where do you get inspiration from as a cartoonist? 

I find the cartoonist David Low’s work inspiring. He conveys his message with subtlety. His World War cartoons are his best work. There are also the colonial-era cartoons from Andhra which address social issues, the orthodoxy of the Brahmins and irrational thought. For example, there was one cartoon of a Brahmin driving a car and hitting another Brahmin. His wife says “See that Brahmin’s leg is broken” and the other Brahmin says, “Look, it’s his karma. Let’s leave it”. So, they were exposing that kind of irrationality. In the 1920s-1930s there was a party called Justice Party which was a non-Brahmin party. It emerged in response to Brahmins’ advancement in Congress. This Justice Party used to counter Brahmins’ oligarchy and orthodoxy by raising the issue of untouchability, to expose how irrational they are. Following their work, there were several digests with cartoons (like the one described earlier) on social issues. One such digest was called Samadarshini (meaning Equal Vision). In south India, we didn’t have Punch but had our own cartoon digests in vernacular languages. They were radical. Even the Punch series was very progressive. 

What questions do you try to raise through your work? 

See, the way we think is shaped by our education, the kind of books we read, the kind of leaders we like, and the kind of ideology that we follow. I think after reading Ambedkar, everything, even my drawing, has changed. When I draw cartoons, I always keep in my mind the anti-caste elements, issues related to women, and minorities. These are generally ignored or distorted by the mainstream media. We have to study the issues, and regularly follow them. We have to look at what is really happening on the ground—for example, Bhim Army. When we see the name, we immediately think of sticks or beating someone up but it was started to increase primary education. They started some 300 schools in UP. But the press won’t show this, or say this. 

I think as cartoonists, we also have to look at the issue from all sides before making something. How would those who don’t agree with you see the cartoon? For example, if you draw a cartoon on reservation, you have to look at the opposing view and put your points forward accordingly. You should also look at what’s happening within—I have drawn cartoons about the Dalit movement also, for example, about how women are treated at seminars, or their representation on the panels. I think we should criticise our own movements because that is when we will have a democratic space. Long ago, I even drew a cartoon on myself! Sitting in a room, drawing cartoons and not going to the polling booth to vote (Laughs). It is a way to have a democratic space.  

What’s next for you? 

Currently I am working on a book on Babasaheb’s visit to coastal Andhra in 1944. He was there for three days. This book will explore the purpose of Babasaheb’s visit, his speeches and rare photographs. I am also working on a second book, Ambedkar, B.G. Horniman & the Bombay Sentinel, which was about the Bombay Sentinel newspaper. Almost all newspapers were negative about Babasaheb, but Bombay Sentinel was positive. My question is, why? 

Vidyun Sabhaney is a writer, illustrator and editor of graphic narratives. Her recent works include First Hand 1 and 2.

Since 5 August, Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Shahid Chaudhary has managed the fallout of the Modi government’s sudden move to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitution status and bifurcate the northern state. 

For the first time in the communication blackout that has followed, Shahid has announced that landline connectivity will be restored on Saturday. In an interview with HuffPost India, he said, “Now, phone lines are being restored with immediate effect.”

There is still no clarity on when mobile services and the internet will be restored, and the curfew lifted. 

Mobile services and the internet are  still down — when will these be restored?

Process has been initiated for restoration of phone lines from tomorrow (Saturday) in most of the areas. Cellular connectivity shall follow.

When will the communication blackout end? 

Communication for maintenance of essential services is in place right from day one. Help lines were also established for public convenience. However, this had a limited reach given the demand-supply gap. Now, phone lines are being restored with immediate effect.

Who will make the call to end the blackout? The district administration or New Delhi?

Steps required to maintain public order and securing the safety of life are certainly taken at the local level by law enforcement authorities. The situation has improved over time. The process has begun for restoration of communication lines.

What are the alternative arrangements you have made for people to communicate to people outside Kashmir Valley? 

Initially, helplines were established at DC offices followed by the availability of these services at police stations and field offices. The DC Office in Srinagar had two helplines and four officials numbers where more than 19,000 calls were made / received in the last one week.

How long will the curfew continue? Has the curfew been relaxed in the past twelve days? 

There has to be a differentiation between curfew and restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC viz-a-viz use of force or legal implications. No orders were issued for curfew. There were restrictions under 144 CrPC and eased many times during the last one week or so.

Do you anticipate large scale protests? 

In administration or law enforcement our job is always to remain prepared. Let’s hope for the best. The situation has remained peaceful in most of the areas and I expect it to remain peaceful.

What is your biggest challenge?

On our part we have complete preparedness in place – sufficient supply of fuel, food, medicines and essential services, and measures for maintenance of public order and security . We look forward to greater cooperation from public for maintaining peace in the region.

How are you coping?

A lot of efforts have gone in maintaining public supplies and essential services ― power, water, sanitation, health, banking and so on apart from maintenance of public order. This meant working round the clock for everyone in the team. We have been successful in ensuring best possible service delivery in these circumstances. There are still no signs of exhaustion and we continue to monitor the situation apart from delivering our best on various fronts.

UNITED NATIONS  - U.N. Security Council members believe India and Pakistan should refrain from taking unilateral action over the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir, China’s U.N. envoy said on Friday after the council met on the issue for the first time in decades.

The 15-member council met behind closed doors at the request of China and Pakistan after India removed the decades-old autonomy the Muslim-majority territory of Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed under the Indian constitution. China rarely requests Security Council meetings.

India’s U.N. Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said the decision was an internal matter and that the country was committed to ensuring the situation remained “calm and peaceful.”

China proposed that the Security Council issue a statement on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, but diplomats said the United States, France and Germany objected. Such statements are agreed by consensus.

China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun summed up the council discussions, describing serious concern over the situation. No other Security Council members spoke publicly after the meeting.

“They are also concerned about the human rights situation there and also it’s the general view of members that parties concerned should refrain from taking any unilateral action that might further aggravate the tension there since the tension is already very tense and very dangerous,” Zhang said.

Akbaruddin accused Zhang of trying to pass off his remarks as “the will of the international community.”

In response to a question about human rights, Akbaruddin said: “If there are issues, they will be discussed, they will be addressed by our courts; we don’t need international busybodies to try and tell us how to run our lives. We are a billion-plus people.”

The Himalayan region has long been a flashpoint in ties between India and Pakistan, which both have nuclear arms. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the two countries to refrain from any steps that could affect Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

Telephone and internet links were cut and public assembly banned just before India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir earlier this month. The top state official said authorities would begin restoring some telephone lines in the region on Friday night.

Zhang said “it’s obvious that the constitutional amendment by India has changed the status quo in Kashmir, causing tensions in the region” and called for the issue to be resolved through peaceful means according to the U.N. Charter, Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements.

Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi described her country’s push for Friday’s Security Council meeting as “the first and not the last step.” She said it was the first time in more than 50 years that the council had taken up the issue.

“The fact that this meeting took place is testimony to the fact that this is an internationally recognized dispute,” she told reporters. “The people of Jammu and Kashmir may be locked up ... but their voices were heard today at the United Nations.”

The Security Council adopted several resolutions in 1948 and in the 1950s on the dispute between India and Pakistan over the region, including one which says a plebiscite should be held to determine the future of mostly Muslim Kashmir.

Another resolution also calls upon both sides to “refrain from making any statements and from doing or causing to be done or permitting any acts which might aggravate the situation.”

U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed since 1949 to observe a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir.

NEW DELHI - India has stuck to its commitment of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons but future policy will depend on the situation, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday, which analysts said introduced a level of ambiguity in a core national security doctrine.

India declared itself a nuclear weapons power after conducting underground tests in 1998 and long-time rival Pakistan responded with its own tests shortly afterwards. Since then, nuclear experts say the rivals have been developing nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.

In a visit to Pokhran in western India, the site of the nuclear tests, Singh paid tribute to late former prime minister and revered leader of the ruling Hindu nationalists, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, for making India into a nuclear power.

“Pokhran is the area which witnessed Atal Ji’s firm resolve to make India a nuclear power and yet remain firmly committed to the doctrine of ‘No First Use’.

“India has strictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in future depends on the circumstances.”

At the time of the tests, India said it needed a deterrent against nuclear-armed China but it has also long been concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities.

COMMENTS AIMED AT PAKISTAN?

Shekhar Gupta, a political commentator and defence expert, said the government appeared to have an open mind on the issue of ‘no first use’ of nuclear arms and the comments could be aimed at Pakistan, which has said previously it needed to develop small nuclear weapons to deter a sudden attack by India.

“Rajnath Singh is measured and not given to loose talk or bluster. He isn’t signalling a shift, but an open mind on the NFU (No First Use) inherited from Vajpayee’s Nuclear Doctrine,” he said on Twitter.

Tensions between the two countries have increased following India’s move to revoke autonomy in the disputed region of Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars. In February, Indian and Pakistani fighter jets clashed over the territory.

Vipin Narang, a nuclear affairs expert at MIT in the United States, said that Singh’s comments were a sign the policy on ‘no first use’ could change in the future.

“Make no mistake: this is by far the highest official statement—from the Raksha Mantri’s (Defence Minister) mouth directly—that India may not be forever bound by No First Use,” Narang said on Twitter.

NEW DELHI ― Former minister in the Arvind Kejriwal government and disqualified MLA Kapil Mishra along with AAP women’s wing chief Richa Pandey joined the BJP here on Saturday.

The duo was welcomed by BJP national vice president Shyam Jaju and Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari at the party’s office on Pant Marg.

“I welcome Kapil Mishra and Richa Pandey into BJP and hope they will serve Delhi by following the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and philosophy of Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Syama Prasad Mookerjee,” Tiwari said.

Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel earlier this month had disqualified Mishra under the anti-defection law after he campaigned for the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections in May.

Mishra, elected from Karawalnagar seat, has challenged his disqualification in Delhi High court.

Speculations over Mishra joining the BJP were making rounds since he started criticising the AAP supremo after being removed as a minister in May 2017.

Subsequently, he grew close to many Delhi BJP leaders and often shared the stage with them at public events.

I am the mother of two beautiful children. When I had my first, 17 years ago, I was blissfully ignorant about climate change. Now, not a day goes by that I don’t think about how it will impact my kids’ future. And that is why, despite the profound love and joy I’ve found as a mother, I’ve spent the last five years of my life working to influence people not to have children — or at least to have fewer of them. 

I had been married 10 years before I decided to have a child. It was a carefully calculated economic, intellectual and psychological decision. I analyzed my finances, the current state of my marriage, and my health. Although I was intellectually prepared, I was not prepared for motherhood to be the most fulfilling part of my life, in ways big and small. I devoted as much passion and devotion to being a parent as I had to my successful career in public relations. I filled seemingly endless days reading to my children, taking trips to the zoo, and cooking their favorite meals. There were the minor illnesses, nightmares and sports injuries, but I was so enthusiastic to spend time together that I even homeschooled my kids for two years just to give us more time together as a family. 

About six years ago, however, an unfamiliar feeling began to creep into my consciousness. I started to read more and more about the environmental destruction we, as humans, are inflicting upon the planet. Species are going extinct, forests are disappearing and aquifers are drying up at a startling rate. The steady drumbeat of dire news reminded me of how I felt being newly pregnant with my first child on the day of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when I questioned the sanity of bringing a child into such a chaotic, hate-filled world. Now, as a mother with two teenagers, I approached this latest existential crisis with less fear and more resolve. I wanted to help fix the situation. So I quit my job as a school librarian, and I took a job working on an environmental documentary. 

We traveled around the world, documenting the impact our global population of 7.6 billion people is having on the planet, including the acceleration and exacerbation of climate change. Fishermen in Japan told us about the need to start eating “garbage fish” because other species were no longer available. Farmers in Kansas told us about the increasing competition between farms for use of the aquifer they depend upon to irrigate their crops, as well as the unrelenting demand for them to produce more and more to keep up with the world’s demand. Public health workers in India showed us the fetid water that the less fortunate must use to drink and bathe because there is no clean supply.  

Working on the documentary, “8 Billion Angels,” opened my eyes to the scope of the problem, but, most importantly, it taught me about a practical, science-based solution that has a greater positive impact than any other “green” solution available: have fewer kids. 

If explosive world population growth is the greatest driver of our environmental degradation, including climate change, and if even the most environmentally conscious person creates a significant carbon footprint simply by consuming food, using fuel for transportation and consuming energy for heating and cooling, wouldn’t having fewer children be the best way to address our problems? Plenty of scientists, environmentalists and economists think so — and for good reason. In fact, a highly regarded 2017 study in Sweden found that having fewer children is by far the most effective way to address global warming and reduce emissions in developed countries.  

“I knew this was a sensitive topic to bring up,” said study co-author Kimberly Nicholas on NPR’s “Morning Edition” at the time of the study’s publication. “Certainly it’s not my place as a scientist to dictate choices for other people. But I do think it is my place to do the analysis and report it fairly.”

How could I, as a mother, tell women who want children to forgo the very choice I had made, for the sake of the planet and its inhabitants? I can’t and I won’t. What I can do is devote myself to giving others what I wanted for myself — the information to make the best possible decision for me, my family and my planet. 

After “8 Billion Angels” wrapped at the end of 2018, the executive producer approached me with a question: “Are you satisfied that you’ve fulfilled your mission to help make the world better for future generations? If not, let’s not settle for the single burst of attention that a film, book or event can generate.” We were frustrated after repeatedly watching documentaries and reading books that admire the problem, only to tack on some generic DIY action steps at the end, leaving audiences feeling full of despair, uninspired and confused about what to do. To continue the conversation we started in the film, we created Earth Overshoot — an organization dedicated to changing social norms and demonstrating ways that we, as individuals and as societies, can live sustainably within the planet’s ecological limits. 

I fight every day to redefine the narrative regarding population’s role in environmental sustainability. Speaking at conferences, screening the film and partnering with like-minded organizations, I help elevate the subject from out of the shadows. My goal is to correct misconceptions of what is considered normal and to support women who wish to limit or forgo childbearing in the face of societal pressure. 

When I was growing up, the only story we, as women heard, was one that followed a pre-ordained script. Step 1: school; step 2: marriage; step 3: children. Today, we need to be able to pause throughout our lives to assess and determine our next move. Only then can we move beyond making the decision to have children based on some outdated, misguided and destructive obligation to society and put the focus where it should be — on the best interests of the child, the parent and the planet.  

And what is the best way to promote having fewer children in a voluntary, human rights context? Ensuring that high-quality family planning is available for all women who want it, anywhere in the world, and increasing access to education for girls. Women with more education manage their reproductive health more, and have fewer and healthier children.

Studies have also shown that when women delay or forgo having children, there are not only environmental benefits, but the economic, health, and educational prospects of the mother and child rise dramatically. Shouldn’t we view this decision to promote smaller families as opting for quality over quantity? Do we want a world of more people with less opportunity for good health, peace and prosperity, or fewer people with more of each?

I believe that forgoing children in the face of climate change is a chance for women to show strength, power and control. Women have the strength to heal the planet, women have the power to give the children they do have the best possible future, and women should have the control to make decisions about their own bodies — decisions that affect their lives, and the future of our planet. 

Women don’t have to do it alone. There is a role we all can play, men and women, young and old, to promote a culture that recognizes the value of small families and supports women when they delay or forgo children. We can all support organizations that provide women access to high-quality reproductive health care and invest in girls’ education, and we can advocate — at local, national and international levels — for the resources and policy changes needed to help heal the environment and reduce ecological overshoot. We can all help to ease the burdens placed on the Earth’s mothers — and to ease the burdens we all place on Mother Earth. 

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“I can help,” she said, and with just those three words, a four-year nightmare began to unfold as I fell hard for one of the oldest cons in the book: The Inheritance Scam. 

But this scheme wasn’t cooked up by some fictional Nigerian prince soliciting me through a sketchy email. I fell under the spell of an immensely lovable woman who inserted herself into my life and became my best friend. Unfortunately, she was also an international con artist on the run from the authorities and I was about to become one of her many “marks.”

She scammed me out of nearly $100,000 using a series of brilliant confidence tricks as she simultaneously destroyed my sense of self and darkened my once joyful outlook. 

And as she was ruining my life, she was also scamming dozens of others around the world by impersonating psychics, mortgage brokers, psychologists, lawyers, travel agents, and even pretending to be a cancer victim.

She was a true “queen of the con,” utilizing disguises and even plastic surgery to alter her appearance from one crime to the next, and she might have gotten away with cheating many more people if she hadn’t unwittingly turned me into a relentless vigilante. Because instead of completely falling apart in the wake of her scam ― and the bankruptcy she forced me into ― I somehow found the strength I didn’t know I had to pick myself up from the wreckage. And I fought back. I started my own investigation into her scams, uncovered other victims and painstakingly brought her to justice. 

Today she’s sitting in a jail cell in Los Angeles County, probably wondering how on earth she became the victim of one of her own victims. 

Well, allow me to explain. 

She introduced herself to me as Mair Smyth in May 2013 when she joined a group of angry neighbors in my living room to discuss what to do about losing access to our building’s swimming pool due to a legal spat with a neighboring building. 

“I can help,” she told us. “My boyfriend is a lawyer who can get the pool back!”

I liked her immediately. We all did. She was brash. Funny. Extremely intelligent and outspoken. Ironically, she came across as a woman who always “told it like it is.” She also came across as an incredibly wealthy woman. She wore $1,200 Jimmy Choos and once showed me her closet filled with more than 250 pairs. That’s $300,000 in shoes alone! I thought to myself. But I Iater discovered they were all fake.

After our initial meeting in my apartment that night, Mair invited my husband, Pablito, and me to dinner. And over the next year, she frequently wined and dined us at fancy restaurants and always insisted on picking up the bill. “I love you guys,” she’d convincingly plead. “I have a lot of money ― let me pay!” 

We’d hang out almost every evening in our BBQ area, exchanging intimacies under the cool LA sky. Mair told us she was originally from Ireland and one night she pointed to a framed document hanging in her living room. “This is the Irish Constitution,” she said. “See that signature at the bottom? That’s my great uncle’s.” Since my knowledge of Ireland was scant, I believed her. I had no idea that like her shoes, that tale was also fake.

Mair brought me Irish tea and pastries and regaled me with stories of how when she was a young girl, her grandmother, who was supposedly in the Irish Republican Army, would bring her to the top of a bridge and teach Mair how to hurl Molotov cocktails down on British soldiers. I was captivated and horrified. But her stories about her family were all lies too. 

When I tearfully confided in her that part of my family had disowned me for being gay, she pounced. “My family disowned me too!” she said, as she fought back tears. “They’re trying to get me disinherited.” All of a sudden we weren’t just new friends ― we were two discarded souls bonding over our incredibly painful family circumstances.

Mair told me that an uncle, the patriarch of her family, recently died and her cousins were dividing up an estate worth 25 million euros. She said she was supposed to receive 5 million euros ― the equivalent of $6.5 million at the time ― as her share of the inheritance. As months passed, she’d frequently show me angry text messages and emails from her Irish cousins threatening that she wouldn’t get a dime of the inheritance.

I didn’t realize that Mair actually created those phone and email accounts herself to impersonate her “cousins” as part of her scheme.

Mair told me she had taken a lot of family money with her when she left Ireland many years ago, so she never needed to work. However, she claimed she enjoyed working, so she got a job selling luxury vacations at a travel agency in Los Angeles that her family did a lot of business with. She said her family’s association with the company made it easy for her to secure employment there. 

Fourteen months into our friendship Mair and I were like sister and brother. We even began ending our phone calls by telling each other “I love you.” She told me that her “barristers” (I had to google what that word meant) were having trouble trying to secure her inheritance and that they had warned her about a clause in her uncle’s will that stated that if any family member was convicted of a felony, they would forfeit their share of the inheritance. 

Mair was building up the framework of her con in such enthralling detail that I became an actual player in scamming myself. Instead of her telling me the next step in her deceitful story, she got me to tell her!

“You better be careful!” I cautioned her. “Since your family does a lot of business with the travel agency you work for, one of your disgruntled cousins might try and set you up to get you convicted of a felony to keep your share of the inheritance from you!”

I’d read news stories about husbands knocking off their wives for million-dollar insurance policies. We were talking about $6.5 million here. And according to the emails and texts I saw, many of her family members certainly appeared to hate her. Why wouldn’t they set her up? I thought. 

On July 8, 2014, my phone rang.

“You have a collect call from ― It’s Mair ― an inmate at the Century Regional Detention Facility. … Press one to accept,” the computerized voice instructed me.

I quickly pressed “1.” 

“You were right!” she sobbed. “I was arrested today. My family set me up to make it look like I stole $200,000 from my job.”

“I told you this would happen!” I yelled into the phone. I was distraught. I quickly found a bail bondsman and paid him $4,200 to get her out of jail. That’s when I first learned that her legal name was Marianne Smyth, not Mair Smyth.

She paid me back the $4,200 the very next day when she was released from jail. Or, rather, the married man she was dating at the time paid me back the next day. Little did I (or he) know it, but she was in the process of scamming him too.

As the months passed, Mair showed me emails from her “lawyers” assuring her that the criminal case against her was falling apart. I had no idea those emails were also from fake accounts she had created herself.

Then, almost three years into our friendship, she told me the district attorney prosecuting her case had frozen her bank accounts. She was devastated. So I started lending her money. She had immediately paid back the $4,200 I used to bail her out of jail, so I felt confident she’d pay me back any other money I loaned her. 

But that’s the thing: The term “con artist” is short for “confidence artist” because these individuals are skilled at gaining your confidence ― and then, once they’ve attained it, they use it to scam you out of your money. 

Over the course of several months, I loaned Mair nearly $15,000. You’d think I’d be worried about giving her that much money but I wasn’t. At all. She was not only my best friend but she claimed she was about to inherit millions of dollars ― at least that’s what all the emails from her “barristers” said ― so I never even considered the idea that anything sinister could be taking place. 

One day, Mair called me and said the DA was now demanding $50,000 to dismiss the criminal case against her. I didn’t have $50,000 in cash. But I did have an 840 credit score. So I let her charge the $50,000 on my credit cards using her PayPal account to get the criminal case against her dropped, thereby opening the pathway for her to secure her $6.5 million inheritance and pay me back. I had only ever been to court for speeding tickets at that point. I knew so little about the criminal justice system. Besides, Mair was now like a family member! I just never imagined that she could be scamming me. 

A few months later, I was shocked to find out Mair had been arrested again. She said the judge in her case considered her charging my credit cards with her PayPal account “money laundering” and punished her with 30 days in jail. The charge was not a felony ― she said it was just a “slap on the wrist” ― and she assured me, once again, that as soon as she got out of jail and received her inheritance, she would pay me back in full.

Mair called me collect from jail every day and begged me not to visit her. “I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said. But I insisted. So I logged onto the jail’s website to schedule a visit and that’s when everything fell apart and the true devastation she wrought on my life started to reveal itself. 

The jail’s website showed there had been no “slap on the wrist.” Mair was serving time for felony grand theft.

I took the day off work and immediately rushed down to a Los Angeles courthouse. With trembling hands, I started reviewing every record from Mair’s case that I could find. I discovered she had lied to me about everything. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. 

That $50,000 I let her charge on my credit cards was really to pay $40,000 as part of a plea agreement to a felony grand theft charge she faced for stealing more than $200,000 from the travel agency she worked for. Had she not been able to come up with that $40,000, she would have received a five-year jail sentence ― not the measly 30 days she actually served.

I discovered that her bank accounts had never been frozen. There was no wealthy Irish family or inheritance. She’s not even Irish! Those were all lies she used to entrap me. 

I went home and collapsed in my husband’s arms. I didn’t cry ― I wailed. 

“How could I let this happen to us?” I sobbed over and over again. I was inconsolable. 

Eventually, my pain was replaced by breathtaking anger and the determination to do something. 

First, I confronted Mair in the parking lot outside our apartment building the day she was released from jail. I told her I knew she wasn’t Irish. I knew no one froze her bank accounts. I knew there was no inheritance. She emphatically denied everything. “That’s not true, Johnathan! That’s not true!” she pleaded over and over again as tears streamed down her face.

But I had finally learned that those tears, like everything else in her life, were a complete fabrication. And I was done believing anything she had to say. I balled up my fists. Clenched my jaw. And walked away. We never spoke again. 

I went to the police days later in March 2017 and filed a report. The officer interviewing me seemed skeptical that there was anything they could do. “Don’t give strangers your money” were his parting words. 

So I started my own investigation. 

I dug up Mair Smyth’s yearbook and learned that she was born Marianne Andle in Maine and graduated from Bangor High in 1987. She later moved to Tennessee, where, according to her estranged family, she told everyone in town she had breast cancer and allegedly scammed her friends and neighbors out of thousands for “treatments.” They told me Mair was oddly obsessed with wanting to be Irish ― so much so that in 2000 she went to Northern Ireland on vacation and ended up marrying a local and then stayed in the country for nine years. 

In the same way that wooden stakes kill vampires and silver bullets kill werewolves, publicity kills con artists. I began turning my pain into a profound sense of purpose. I started an online blog and detailed how Mair had scammed me. Soon Mair’s other victims from all over the world started reaching out.

I learned that she scammed $10,000 from one victim by impersonating a psychologist, according to allegations in a police report. 

She tricked our landlord out of $12,000 in rent by pretending to have cancer.

I did some sleuthing and found out that Mair had low blood iron and would purposely avoid iron-rich foods so she could strategically get admitted into hospitals for transfusions. While sitting in a real hospital bed for a few hours, she’d ask a nurse to take her picture and then email that photo to her victims to better sell her cancer story. She used this particular scam a lot. 

I even got a call from a police detective in Northern Ireland. He told me authorities in Belfast had been looking for Marianne Smyth for years. The detective said she had worked as a mortgage broker in 2008 and had scammed many other people and then vanished. 

And these are just some of the stories I discovered. All in all, Mair Smyth used (at least) 23 different aliases. In this video, she goes by “Mair Aine” as she tries to convince people she’s psychic. She worked as a psychic for years scamming the most vulnerable of victims by using their innermost secrets and confidences against them. She’s also been charged with felonies for fraud and grand theft in Florida and Tennessee under the alias “Marianne Welch.”

The Los Angeles Police Department ended up spending 11 months investigating my case. I called them every day and became a huge pain in their ass.

Finally, in early 2018, Mair was arrested at the halfway house where she was hiding and charged with grand theft for scamming me. She was then released on her own recognizance, which was a huge mistake. One month before trial, Mair filed for a fraudulent restraining order asserting that I was threatening her with violence. I was forced to lose another $1,500 to her scams ― the cost of hiring an attorney to fight her bogus claim.

“If a judge grants the restraining order, you would be prevented from testifying against her at her criminal trial,” my lawyer explained. I was apoplectic. 

Could this be her checkmate move? I wondered. 

Thankfully, a prudent judge refused to grant the restraining order and her criminal trial proceeded as scheduled.

Four victims testified against Mair in early 2019 and a mountain of irrefutable evidence was presented by the prosecution. Though she was only being charged with scamming me, the judge allowed testimony from several other people she conned to demonstrate a pattern.

Mair did not testify in her own defense. As the witnesses described how she had scammed them, Mair sat there with an emotionless look on her face. That was probably her biggest tell to the jury. As brilliant of an actress as she proved to be while she was conning people, remarkably, she did not know how to “act” innocent. 

The only defense her attorney had for the jury was that I was supposedly making the whole story up and that I had persuaded all of the other witnesses ― people I didn’t even know before Mair scammed me ― to lie under oath so I could make a compelling documentary about it. And he was terrifyingly convincing. 

I had in fact decided to make a documentary about Mair. When I took the stand to testify against her, her attorney asked me why. 

“I want to warn people about her,” I responded. “By the time I’m done with Marianne Smyth, the world will know her face so she can never scam anyone ever again.” 

Testifying at trial was particularly grueling because the prosecutor went over each dollar Mair scammed from me in extreme detail. Having to relive that experience in front of a roomful of strangers ignited fury and embarrassment and regret in a new, especially painful way. I was an emotional wreck.

I spent two years doggedly pursuing Marianne Smyth. It consumed me. I had to file for bankruptcy because of what she had done to me. And the 24 court appearances I made even before the actual trial ― including continuances, pretrial motions and hearings ― meant I had to miss a lot of work and lost even more money. Not to mention the cost of hiring six private investigators in multiple states and countries to ferret out all her scams. 

But, damn, it was worth it.

On Jan. 9, 2019, Marianne Smyth was found guilty of scamming me out of $91,784. She was sentenced to five years behind bars.

Out of all the victims I uncovered during my investigation, only two of them had ever reported her to the police and that enabled her to continue scamming people for years before she met me. Most of her victims ― like most victims of any con artist ― were too ashamed to tell anyone what happened to them. I’m ashamed too. But my desire to stop her from hurting other people is much stronger than my shame. 

I’m forever changed by my experience of getting conned. I’m now suspicious of everyone and everything. I subscribe to multiple criminal databases and I background check everyone. Often, I will suss out even the most minuscule inconsistencies in someone’s story upon meeting them and throw it in their face, demanding an explanation. 

Making new friends is not something I’m good at anymore. But that’s not something that I can really help. I was taken advantage of by someone I truly trusted ― and loved ― and when you’re shattered in this specific, unthinkable way, it’s impossible to go back to who you were before.

While my life may never be the same, I hope others can learn from my experience with Marianne Smyth and, by reading my story, avoid being swindled themselves. If you meet someone new whose backstory is filled with drama and intrigue, or even just really unusual circumstances (especially if there’s money involved), there’s a good chance they’re trying to scam you. You might not ever encounter someone as conniving or cunning or deceitful as I did, but confidence games are more common than you think and your entire life can change because you have trusted someone who wants what you have and will stop at nothing to get it.

Johnathan Walton is a reality TV producer by day and a justice-seeking vigilante in his off-hours. His experience putting a con artist in prison has woken him to a new calling in life: helping other victims hunt down their con artists in the name of justice and closure and healing. You can reach him through his website, JohnathanWalton.com.

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It’s almost noon when Shubha Mudgal walks into the coffee shop that we agreed to meet at in Delhi. Not that you could guess it if you looked outside. In what has been a punishingly sweltering and parched monsoon season for the city, that morning saw Delhi hit by heavy—and welcome—lashings of rain. And as Mudgal shakes off her umbrella, folds it up, and steps in from the dark, overcast outside, it’s hard to stop the chorus of one of her most iconic songs from burrowing its way into my brain.

Ab Ke Sawan, Mudgal’s rock-infused paean to the rains, was released 20 years ago, catching the final Indipop wave before the genre’s decline in the 2000s, but it endures as the seasonal song of choice for many. “I still get tagged in posts of everyone from little kids to old grannies dancing and singing in the rain every monsoon,” she laughs.

The Hindustani classical singer remains deeply rooted to, and beloved for, her performances and compositions in the khayal and thumri-dadra genres of classical music—“I’ve lived with this music for a long, long time,” she says—but has often ventured outside the realms of her traditional training since she began performing in the 1980s, experimenting with more popular genres, and earning legions of avid listeners—and a few detractors—in the process.

In a career spanning decades, Mudgal has worn many different hats—singer-composer, record label consultant, advocate for musical education, and co-founder of an online music label. But this year, as she turned 60, the multi-faceted artist found herself suddenly very nervous about her latest project: her first book and her fiction debut. Through seven short stories, Looking for Miss Sargam engages with what Mudgal knows best—the vagarious, demanding and often absurd world of music.

In the hugely enjoyable collection, an old-school recording company attempts to reinvent itself to hilarious results; a nationwide hunt for the next big classical music star becomes mired in greed, and a PR-driven India-Pakistan peace concert doesn’t quite go according to plan.

It was this last story (the first in the book) that spurred the entire collection. Originally written to create a storyline for a part of Stories in a Song, a musical theatre production conceived by Mudgal, her husband Aneesh Pradhan and director Sunil Shanbag in 2011, Aman Bol did not eventually make it onto the stage. “It was just lying around for years and I would occasionally look back on it, wondering if I should add more to it,” Mudgal recalls. Finally, Pradhan persuaded her to show it to a literary agent (“What’s the worst that will happen? He’ll trash it”) who loved it, and Mudgal got down to writing more. 

While Aman Bol was her very first attempt at writing fiction, Mudgal, born to two professors of English literature in Allahabad, read novels hungrily as a child. “I grew up in a home full of books and we had heated arguments about them. A lot of them were classics, leather-bound Dickens volumes with gold lettering, and my sister and I were encouraged to read them and we were then quizzed.” 

As she grew older and Indian writing in English began to be more widely published, Mudgal gravitated in that direction. She’s currently reading Bangladeshi author Numair Choudhury’s novel, Babu Bangladesh!—“I’m a slow reader but it’s amazing and I’m riveted”—but admits that in the last 10 years, fiction has taken a backseat to books about music or those that are obliquely related to her work. “I’m hugely interested in Hindi, as well as Braj Bhasha and I like singing it as well. So I’m reading more literature in that language. I feel like I need to know more about the context around it.”

Warm, hilarious and bursting with irreverent tales, it’s evident that Mudgal is a natural storyteller, a trait that lends itself to, and has been honed by, her music.  “Creating a narrative is very much a part of music-making also,” she elaborates. “Particularly in the forms that I’m really studying—khayal and thumri–dadra—the musical narrative moves in an almost architectonical structure. So you begin by laying this big foundation of a raag story, so to speak, and add more detail and filigree work and keep on building that.” The big difference with writing, though, came down to the act of articulating in a manner that also spoke to other people. “I had to do a lot of practice for that,” she says.

The result is a collection that easily shifts in register from outright hilarious to wry to heartbreaking. Mudgal brings an insider’s perspective and an astounding eye for detail to these stories, creating characters and settings that pop. Her love for the tiniest of details meant that it took three years for Mudgal to write more stories, some of which did not eventually go into the collection. “I’m one of those creatures who can be distracted too easily,” she laughs.

Her travel schedule didn’t exactly speed along the process either. Mudgal splits her time between Mumbai, where her husband lives, and her Paharganj apartment in Delhi, which is also home to her two dogs, Nargis and Ringo. “The stories were swimming around in my head all the time but it’s only at the dead of night when I’m not travelling that I write,” she says. The nocturnal efficiency is true for composing music too—her neighbours once worriedly asked her why pressure cookers would often go off in the darkest hours of the night in her house. 

United by music, many of the characters in Looking For Miss Sargam are united by a burning desire for fame and recognition, desires that are often frowned upon by an artistic community that places value on austerity. Mudgal explains that especially in the classical music world, success often comes with its share of jibes and accusation of having almost “abandoned the music and sold out”. “There is this desire to be making art for art’s sake. And yes, art is a compulsion, it’s a huge obsessive compulsion and we all feel the urge and pull of it but I also earn my livelihood through music and I’m very proud of it.”

It’s impossible to separate the musician from her beliefs and Looking For Miss Sargam, through its sardonic wit, fleshes out issues that Mudgal has held close to her heart, campaigned for and written about in columns for many years—the lack of government support to classical musicians, the unfair treatment of accompanying artists, intellectual property for musicians and the rights of artists. “These are concerns that I cannot get rid of. They haunt me,“ she says.

“Nobody taught us the business of music. The balance of power is so skewed, hierarchies need to be equalled and made a square playing field.”

Holding those in power accountable extends beyond the music industry for Mudgal. In March, as war drums were being beaten and India-Pakistan hate fostered in the aftermath of cross-border attacks, Mudgal joined several other musicians, activists and artists in performing for peace at the Red Fort.

In July, she joined 48 other prominent artists and writers in signing an open letter to PM Modi, expressing concern over the rising incidents of lynching of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities in India, quoting statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau. The letter was met with one by personalities including Kangana Ranaut and Madhur Bhandarkar, accusing the signatories of “selective outrage”. The statistics regarding increased violence under Modi were predictably not addressed.

Mudgal remains undeterred. “I can’t bury my head in the sand and deny what’s happening,” she says. 

For now, the musician is looking ahead and excited about upcoming projects. She is unsure whether more fiction is on the cards—“Right now I’m just grinning away when somebody says they actually liked the book,” she says—but she’s looking forward to performing a musical rendition of the free verses of legendary Hindi poet Kunwar Narain next month, including his writings on nature and his moving poem, Ayodhya 1992, written in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition.

But Mudgal the writer is far from disappearing. A second book, non-fiction this time, is in the works and she’s also keen to sharpen her art. “My ear is better in a sense than my eye so I actually want to work on that. How do I write about a piece of music that has really touched me that my readers might never hear?” she asks out loud. “I think I need to do some more riyaz on that.”

In one of the deadliest attack in  Kabul, over dozens killed and many wounded when a suicide bomb blast ripped through a wedding party on Saturday.  As per officials, more than 1000 people had been invited at the Dubai city wedding hall in Western Kabul.

The blast comes at a time in Afghanistan as the United States and the Taliban near a deal to end a nearly 18-year war, America’s longest conflict. Also, Afghanistan will mark its 100th independence day on Monday.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Nusrat Rahimi tweeted the explosion occurred  at 10:40 pm when dinner was served that led to high number of casualties. The government is expected to release the number of tolls by Sunday.

Associated Press reported the attackers set off explosives amongst the wedding participants. Both the Taliban and a local affiliate of the Islamic State group carry out bloody attacks in the capital.

According to Tolo news, the blast occurred near the stage where musicians were and “all the youths, children and all the people who were there were killed. One of the wounded, Mohammad Toofan, said that “a lot of guests were martyred.”

This is the second such attack on the minority Shitte Hazara community in the last two months. On August 7 this year, a Taliban car bomb aimed at Afghan forces was also detonated on the same road killing 14 people and wounding 145 which majorly included women and children.

“Devastated by the news of a suicide attack inside a wedding hall in Kabul. A heinous crime against our people; how is it possible to train a human and ask him to go and blow himself (up) inside a wedding?!!” Sediq Seddiqi, spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, said in a Twitter post.

In November last year, a suicide bomber sneaked into a wedding hall where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad and killed 55 people on the spot.

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Fashion has a way of transcending borders. It’s common for designers to draw inspiration from cultural crossroads — think of Kim Shui’s culturally diffused bustier, Beyonce’s red-and-gold ensemble by Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla or Naeem Khan’s gown inspired by Moroccan ceramics.

Since President Donald Trump has taken office, he has pushed an anti-immigration agenda, one that includes mass deportation raids and detainment of migrant children. In response, the fashion community has been vocal against xenophobia and racism. Here are 12 fashion brands unapologetically speaking up for immigrant rights.

1. Kids of Immigrants

Kids of Immigrants, founded by first-generation Americans Daniel Buezo and Weleh Dennis, are artists who put immigrant justice at the forefront of their work. They repurpose thrifted items into innovative handmade pieces, and have received attention from artists like Kehlani, Big Sean, Lil Uzi Vert and Camila Cabello. KOI and Honduran-American musician Lorely Rodriguez have teamed up to raise money for Border Angels, a San Diego-based nonprofit that works to prevent migrant deaths on the Californian border through water drops and rescue stations, as well as by providing legal consultation and education services.  

2. Fenty

In partnership with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group, Fenty was created by pop artist and entrepreneur Rihanna. Not only is this the first time a woman of color will lead an LVMH maison, but Rihanna is also emphatic about her creative direction and identity: “Wherever I go, except for Barbados, I’m an immigrant,” she told New York magazine’s The Cut earlier this year. With the goal of a versatile line, she debuted an “Immigrant” shirt on the Fourth of July (sorry, but it’s sold out). 

3. No Borders

No Borders is a concept store in Mumbai, India, and New York City that celebrates diversity in fashion, culture and art. Founder and creative director Kanika Karvinkop curates collections that have a story to tell, especially if that story is inspired by an artist’s roots. The brand envisions “no lines between us and no boundaries when it comes to creative expression,” according to its site. 

4. Chnge

Chnge is tackling injustice through digital marketing, sustainable fabrics and minimal, conscious streetwear. They make graphic tees that boldly proclaim “Immigrant Power” and “No Human Is Illegal On Stolen Land.” At the Turkish factories that Chnge works with, workers make a living wage and are taught about financial management. 

5. Greenbox Shop

Who recalls Frank Ocean’s legendary “Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you could just be quiet?” T-shirt? Greenbox, the designer of that shirt, has activism at the core of its mission. The brand is owned by Kayla Robinson, an Afro-Latina entrepreneur who identifies as queer, and its “Fight Ignorance Not Immigrants” T-shirtoffers a resolute support of immigration.

6. Hija de tu Madre

Founder and designer Patty Delgado celebrates the intricacies of Latinx identity by juxtaposing a “Fuck Ice” T-shirt ― an apparent reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ― with a Taco Tuesday post on Instagram. “Our fashion serves as reminders of where we come from and who we are,” Delgado wrote on her website. “Our clothes provide us with a sense of familiarity, home and belonging.”

7. Awake NY

Applauded for its New York spirit, Awake NY streetwear offers a “Protect People, Not Borders” T-shirt that’s also available in Spanish. All proceeds will go to Al Otro Lado, a group that offers medical and legal support to immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, and to Casa Arcoiris, which provides legal and health services to LGBTQ+ migrants in Tijuana.

8. Prabal Gurung

Born in Singapore and raised in Nepal and India, designer Prabal Gurung, who is now based in New York, knows firsthand about the immigrant journey. His fall/winter 2017 collection featured T-shirts that read “I Am An Immigrant” and “Break Down Walls.” A portion of proceeds from those sales were donated to the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and Shikshya Foundation Nepal.

9. Ricardo Seco

Mexican designer Ricardo Seco showcases colorful layers for his fall/winter 2018 collection, Alebrijes-Dreamers. Along with this collection, his “Love Immigrant” T-shirt and “Proud Immigrant” coat urge us to reimagine the American Dream.

10. Opening Ceremony

Each year, according to its website, Opening Ceremony “showcases the spirit and merchandise of a visiting country” in its stores ― part of what it calls its “multinational approach to retail.” In 2016, OC also partnered up with Kids In Need of Defense, an organization that aims to protect children who enter the U.S. immigration system alone. 

11. Warby Parker

Warby Parker is a prescription eyewear brand based out of New York. Its co-founder and co-CEO, David Gilboa, immigrated to the United States at age 6. In 2017, when New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued the Trump administration over the decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Warby Parker filed a declaration in support of the lawsuit.

12. Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss emigrated from Bavaria to San Francisco in 1853. Today, Levi’s jeans are a household name, and the Levi Strauss Foundation has pledged$1 million in grants to groups that protect the civil liberties of immigrants, refugees, transgender people and other marginalized communities.

Chandigarh: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is expected to  restore  more telephone exchanges in the valley today. On Saturday, it has restored 18  of the 96 telephone exchanges in Jammu and Kashmir. 

While speaking to HuffPost India, Rana Ashok Kumar Singh, Chief General Manager, BSNL informed that while five exchanges were made operational in Srinagar on Saturday, over a dozen will be made operational on Sunday. 

“At present over 12000 telephones are working in the valley. We are expected to restore over 13000 more phones by today evening. The restoration is being done in a calibrated manner in the valley and surrounding areas,” said Singh.

The major telephone exchanges made operational in the valley includes Badami Bagh cantonment, Rajbagh, Uri and Gulmarg in Baramulla district, Tanghdhar in Kupwara, Ganderbal, Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Qazigund in Anantnag district, old and new Airport area.

The partial restoration has indeed brought a huge sigh of relief for the families of the armed forces personnel deployed in Kashmir. Due to blackout of the entire communication network, the families were not been able to talk to the army personnel posted in Badami Bagh cantonment area situated in the heart of the Srinagar city.

According to sources, the army officers except the Commanding officers of respective units were prohibited to even use satellite phones to communicate with their families back home. They were asked to use the phone strictly for official purpose.

Also, the Union Government has initiated the  process of easing of restrictions in the Kashmir by opening the schools and government offices on Monday. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Bhutan’s Leader of Opposition Pema Gyamtsho on Sunday and the two leaders discussed the issues of bilateral interests.

“PM @narendramodi met with Dr. Pema Gyamtsho, Leader of the Opposition of the National Assembly of Bhutan. Strong bilateral relationship enjoy support across the entire political spectrum in Bhutan,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

Earlier, Modi paid his respects at the National Memorial Chorten, a revered monument honouring the late Third Druk Gyalpo.

“Felt humbled after paying my respects at the National Memorial Chhorten, which honours the late Third Druk Gyalpo, who was a stalwart committed to peace, harmony and sustainable development,” Modi said.

Modi is here on his second visit to Bhutan and the first since his re-election in May this year.

Deciding to have kids can be a thrilling time in your life, but it can also be unexpectedly stressful ― especially if you embark on the process and it doesn’t happen right away.

How long will it actually take to get pregnant once you start trying? The answer depends on a number of factors. But there are some general timelines you can use to help you along the way.

Many people end up pregnant within just six months of trying through sex, according to Alan B. Copperman, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at Mount Sinai Health System.

“If a woman is in her 20s, most of the eggs are healthy, and conceiving is often easy,” Copperman said.

However, it may take longer or pregnancy may get more complicated the older you get, he added. This is hardly uncommon ― research shows that more and more women are choosing to have children later in life. And many go on to have healthy pregnancies.

Estimates suggest fertility problems affect roughly 12.1% of women ages 15 to 44, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 7.3 million women in that age range have sought treatment. 

But before you get too concerned, wait a year. One year is a good benchmark for most couples trying to conceive through sex, explained Shweta Patel, an OB-GYN with Orlando Health Physician Associates. For those older than 35, you may want to consider seeing a doctor sooner than a year since women tend to have fewer viable eggs the older they get.

“I usually say that on average, 1 in 10 couples will be successful the first month and each month after that,” she said. “That’s referring to a healthy couple who’s simply trying without any other means of tracking or fertility planning.”

While this advice mostly focuses on conceiving through sex, some of the same rules apply for other methods. If you’re considering IVF as a way to get pregnant, it will take about one to two weeks of ovarian stimulation ― which involves injecting medicine to help your ovaries produce multiple eggs ― before doctors can retrieve the eggs.

Then, after the retrieval and the fertilization, the embryo is transferred into the uterus. About 12 to 14 days later, you should know if the procedure worked and if you’re pregnant. Several IVF cycles may be required to get pregnant (but, of course, it’s different for everyone and isn’t guaranteed to work). IVF is also costly ― something you should definitely prepare for in advance.

How To Up Your Odds Of Getting Pregnant Sooner

If you want to improve your odds of conceiving during that first year through sex, you can use a combination of strategies to set yourself up for success.

First, both Patel and Copperman suggested getting into the best overall health you can before trying for a baby. You may want to visit your doctor before you begin the process to make sure your body is in its best condition for pregnancy. It’s also important for IVF; for instance, research has shown a link between low vitamin D deficiency and decreased odds of conceiving via IVF.

“Focusing on health and wellness and reproductive awareness [is] important,” Copperman said, adding that your doctor can perform standard genetic or disease testing that may give you some important insight.

If you have an infection, for example, you’ll want to treat it before trying to get pregnant. If you have a genetic abnormality that might hinder pregnancy, you’ll want to know about it.

Beyond that, Patel said you’ll want to have a check-up to identify health conditions you might be able to improve. “For instance, if you have diabetes or uncontrolled high blood pressure, you’ll want to get your numbers into normal range,” she said.

Patel said obesity may increase the odds of developing issues like gestational diabetes and raise your risk of complications like miscarriage or stillbirth. Untreated thyroid issues may also up your chances of stillbirth, premature birth or miscarriage. Your OB-GYN can let you know what other health issues should be treated.

If you’re trying to get pregnant through sex, Patel said a combination of tools can help you narrow down the window in which you might be fertile each month. Apps, of course, are popular right now.

“I always tell patients that most apps are algorithm-based and not scientifically associated with your body,” Patel said. “That said, they are useful to narrow down the week you’ll be ovulating.”

Natural Cycles is an app that tracks fertility using the basal body temperature method, which relies on taking your temperature each day to predict when you’re ovulating. It’s one of the only contraception apps that has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with many people using it to help aid in pregnancy (or for birth control).

Patel also suggested checking your cervical mucus for an “egg white-like consistency” if you want to gauge by sight. As estrogen rises and you approach ovulation, this thicker mucus helps sperm travel through the cervix toward the egg to increase your odds of conceiving. You should see a “transparent, like raw egg white,” “slippery,” or “stretchy/elastic” mucus, a few days before ovulation, as well as when you’re ovulating ― which is peak fertility time for you.

“Once you’re in the right week by monitoring the signs, you can use ovulation predictor kits to get the day right,” Patel said. “Start having sex the day your ovulation test is positive, and then a few days after.” 

The best way to get as accurate as possible? Use all three methods. “It’s best to use apps in conjunction with basal body temperature and cervical mucus consistency,” Patel said.

What If It’s Been More Than A Year?

If it’s been a year ― or sometimes less, depending on your age ― it might be time to see your doctor to create a more thorough plan. 

“It is never too early to get a reproductive check-up,” Copperman said, adding that it’s recommended for patients under 35 to get checked after trying for one year, and for patients to get checked after six months of trying if they’re over 35. But no matter how old you are, if you want to go in before that, “you should be empowered to ask questions and get answers sooner rather than later,” he said.

In other words, if you’re concerned, there’s nothing wrong with getting checked out no matter where you are in the process of trying to conceive. Or, if you’re just getting started, try setting an appointment with your doctor a year from now just so you don’t have to stress about it.

When you do go get checked out, you can start with your OB-GYN. Some may refer you to a fertility specialist who will check for infections, problems with sperm production or delivery, structural damage, ovulation disorders and more. 

“There is a lot we can learn by taking a thorough history,” Copperman said. “In an initial consultation, a trained fertility specialist can usually narrow down whether the cause of infertility is related to eggs, sperm, uterus or tubes.” 

In one-third of cases, there’s a problem relating to the man; in one-third of cases, there’s a problem relating to the woman; and in one-third of cases, there are issues affecting the fertility of both or there is no known cause, Patel said.

“Men will get a semen analysis, but with women, it’s more complex,” she said. “We’ll make sure there’s no miscommunication going on between the brain and the ovaries involving the hormones that help prime and release the eggs. We’ll check to see if there’s any reason she’s not ovulating. We’ll make sure the plumbing is OK, which we can look at using radiologic studies. We’ll check to see if there’s a genetic abnormality.” 

If you’re not pregnant after the first cycle of IVF (most people aren’t ― the odds are just over 21%), your doctor may suggest some changes to your medications or routines to improve your chances the next round.

Treatments vary based on the cause of your problem and how you’re trying to get pregnant, whether it’s through sex or through medical interventions.

“Treatment options can often be low-tech, and be as simple as having a couple better time intercourse to ovulation,” Copperman said. “In other cases, intrauterine insemination (IUI), fertility drugs like clomiphene citrate, and even surgery like laparoscopy or hysteroscopy might be helpful.”

For couples trying to get pregnant through sex, if there’s no blockage or structural abnormality, Patel said she often tries clomiphene citrate (clomid) for six months. The daily pill is usually taken for five days beginning on day five of a woman’s cycle.

“Each month, eggs are sort of competing for which will be released by a single ovary,” Patel said. “In simple terms, we remove the mechanism that keeps all the eggs from spilling out at once, and actually allow a woman to ovulate more than one egg per cycle.”

If clomid does not work, Patel often opts for letrozole ― a stronger drug aiming for similar effects. If six cycles of this are ineffective, couples will often be counseled on IVF. 

All of these treatments increasingly up your odds of successfully conceiving biological children. So, just know: If you want to have kids, there are tons of options to try. And just because you don’t get pregnant after a month, or even a year, doesn’t mean you won’t. Take it step by step.

Google Maps helped police reunite a father with his 12-year-old daughter who had gone missing over four months ago in Delhi, officials said.

The girl had taken an e-rickshaw near the Kirti Nagar furniture market in Holi on March 21, according to the police.

When the minor did not get down at the metro station, the e-rickshaw driver asked her where she wanted to go, but she did not give any reply. He took her to the Kirti Nagar police station at 8.33 pm, a senior officer said.

During an initial inquiry, the girl could not remember her house and just said she was from “Khurja” village and her father’s name was Jeetan, the officer said.

Police searched Khajuri Khas and Khureji areas of Delhi since their names are similar to the word ‘Khurja’, but could not find any records of missing complaints being filed. They took the girl to the nearby JJ colony, but no one could identify her.

The girl, who is mentally-challenged, also said that she had travelled to Delhi by a train a couple of days ago with an uncle named ‘Pintu’. He took off her clothes in the train’s washroom and left her there when she started crying, police said.

On March 22, her medical examination was conducted and no sign of sexual assault was found. A case was registered under Section 354A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the POCSO acts. She was handed over to an NGO named Nirmal Chhaya, the police said.

The 12-year-old was taken to Khurja village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district by a police team on four different occasions, but they did not get any clue about her family, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Monika Bhardwaj said.

“We kept trying to trace her family but could not get any lead. She was not being able to say the name of her village properly,” Bhardwaj said. “The police team had gone to Khurja several times, but no one could recognise her there.” 

When a police team was taking the girl to Khurja again on July 31, a senior officer asked her the names of nearby areas of her village. She said Sonbarsa was her mother’s village and there was a place called Sakapar near her village.

Thereafter, with the help of Google Maps, the police got to know that in Uttar Pradesh’s Siddharthnagar district, there are villages with the name of Sakapar, Sonbarsa and “Kurja”.

Later, her family was also traced by the police. On August 1, her father Jeetan, a native of Kurja village, came to Delhi from Gorakhpur, the police said.

Jeetan said he brought his daughter to the capital for treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS). The girl went missing on Holi from his sister’s house at JJ colony in Kirti Nagar, but he did not file any missing complaint, the police said.

Jeetan, who works at a scrap factory in Delhi, said his wife, who lives at her parent’s house in Sonbarsa, was mentally-challenged and she had also gone to some random place around one-and-a-half years ago, according to the police. “Around three-four months later, she was traced in Ludhiana, Punjab. Similarly, he thought that police will find his daughter also.” 

Jeetan, who also has a son and another daughter, said there was no uncle by the name of Pintu, following which the case of sexual harassment was dropped, the police said.

Heavy rains lashed northern states with an alert sounded in Punjab following release of excess water from Bhakra dam and the Yamuna nearing the warning level in Delhi on Saturday.

Following the release of 1,89,940 cusec of water from the Ropar Headwork,  Jalandhar Deputy Commissioner  Varinder Kumar Sharma has ordered the Sub Divisional Magistrates Phillaur, Nakodar & Shahkot to get 81 low lying and flood-prone villages evacuated”.

Andhra Pradesh too received heavy showers, with a swollen Krishna river leaving 87 villages and hundreds of acres of farm land under a sheet of water in two districts.

NDRF personnel retrieved the body of a girl who drowned in the swollen river in Krishna district, taking the death toll to two in the state.

After touching a maximum of 8.21 lakh cusecs in the early hours of the day, the flood discharge at Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada has fallen to 7.99 lakh cusecs at 10 am while the inflow remained steady at 7.57 lakh cusecs, the State Real-Time Governance Centre said.

Even the discharges from upstream reservoirs showed a declining trend but the travails of more than 17,500 people in 87 villages under 32 mandals in Krishna and Guntur districts may continue for the next two days.

In all 11,553 people in the two districts have been moved to 56 relief camps where food and drinking water are being provided.

State Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan conducted an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas of Krishna, while ministers visited the marooned localities in Vijayawada city and supervised the relief measures.

The body of a 17-year-old boy was found floating in the overflowing dam in Himachal Pradesh, where several roads were blocked following multiple landslides.

All educational institutions in Kangra district have also been asked to remain closed on Saturday due to incessant rainfall.

Several people stranded near Palampur following flash floods were rescued.

There is heavy flow of water in Baner Khud and Baan Ganga adjoining Chamunda Ji and the water level in rivulets in Nurpur sub division is on the rise as well, an official said.

In Punjab, an alert has been sounded in several districts following the release of excess water from Bhakra dam through the spill gates after heavy rainfall in its catchment area.

The Bhakra Beas Management Board authorities discharged 17,000 cusecs of excess water out of total release of 53,000 cusecs through the spill gates, an official said.

The remaining 36,000 cusecs was released after its use for power generation, he added.

On Saturday, rains lashed several places in Punjab, including Ludhiana, Amritsar, Mohali, Chandigarh.

People living near the Sutlej river and low-lying areas have been advised to be vigilant and take precautions to safeguard themselves.

With the Yamuna also flowing near the warning level, Delhi agencies are closely monitoring the situation to deal with any possible flooding, an official said.

Yamuna’s water level reached 203.27 metres, slightly below the warning level of 204.5 metres, an official said.

The official said at 10 am, over 21,000 cusecs water was released from Hathani Kund Barrage in Haryana. Besides, around 17,000 cusecs water was also released from the barrage.

In Rajasthan, hundreds of people were shifted to safer places, with Ajmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Vanasthali, Bhilwara and Sikar receiving 104.5 mm, 88.2, 79, 42.1,41 and 37.4 mm of rainfall.

The MeT Department has issued warning for extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places in eastern parts and heavy rainfall at isolated places in the western parts of the state.

People have started moving to their homes from relief camps in Kerala, even as the toll climbed to 113, with authorities retrieving more bodies from the landslide hit districts of Malappuram and Wayanad.

Fifty people have so far lost their lives in Malappuram and 12 in Wayanad, the two northern districts, where 28 people are still missing.

Search operations are continuing at Kavalappara in Malappuram and Puthumala in Wayanad, the two areas which were the worst hit in the second spell of south west monsoon rains since August 8, where massive landslides had wiped out two villages.

Kolkata, which is being battered by torrential rains, received 186.1 mm rainfall in the past 24 hours and the forecast is of more rains in the city.

Vehicular traffic was disrupted in several areas of central, south and north Kolkata, resulting in traffic snarls.

Flight operations were also affected, as take-off and landing was delayed, said a senior official of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport.

Eastern Railway CPRO Nikhil K Chakraborty said circular railway services were cancelled from 10.40 am onwards, due to waterlogging.

Train movement in Sealdah and Howrah sections of the Eastern Railway was slow, but there has been no cancellation so far, Chakraborty said

Chandigarh: Causing huge embarrassment to the Congress leadership just two months ahead of the assembly polls in Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the two-time former chief minister today backed the BJP for the  abrogation of articles 370 in Kashmir and said that the Congress has  lost its way.

“When government of India does something right I support them. Many of my colleagues opposed the decision to abrogate article 370 my party has lost its way, it’s not the same Congress it used to be,” said Hooda while addressing a poll rally in Rohtak.

He further added  that he would not compromise with anyone when it came to patriotism and self-respect.

“I was born in a patriotic family. Those who oppose (abrogation of Article 370), I want to tell them ‘usulon par jahan aanch aaye, vahan takrana zaruri hai. Jo zinda hai to zinda dikhna zaruri hai’ (When it’s about principles and traditions, we should fight for it. What’s alive, must look alive),” he said.

Hooda has shown his resentment at a time when the Congress leadership is already in doldrums. With just two months away for the assembly elections, the Congress is yet to chalk out a strategy to deal with the  comfortably placed BJP leadership in the state.

The veteran leader known  for his ‘Jat politics’ is presently under tremendous pressure to survive after his son Deepender  Hooda, a poster boy of centric defiance in the Hindi heartland lost by a 15,000 vote margin in the recently held Lok Sabha elections from Rohtak. 

Known as the family ground for Hooda family, Rohtak had  elected Deepender three times, his father Bhupinder Singh Hooda four times, and his grandfather Ranbir Singh Hooda twice.

Surprisingly, majority of the 20,000 postal ballots in Rohtak received from armed forces personnels in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections went to BJP.

Now with assembly elections round the corner, Hooda cannot afford to overlook the mood of Haryana, known as the land of ‘Kisans and Jawans’. 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressing a rally last week in Jind also applauded the people of Haryana  for sending the highest number of people to armed forces. He also dedicated the abrogation of article 370 in Kashmir  to the people of Haryana.

Congress has indeed lost its way

During the recently held Lok Sabha elections, two lakh panna-pramukhs were involved by the BJP to micro-manage the electorate in Haryana. 

BJP leaders believed that panna-pramukhs had played a key role in showcasing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s achievements at the grassroots. The party has, therefore, increased their numbers by 50 per cent to 3 lakh, who will work for the Assembly elections in Haryana.

Also, the Shakti  Kendras established in each Mandal too were involved  to ensure that even the last vote should be counted in favour of the saffron party.

On the contrary, Congress in the last five years in yet to form district level presidents to stabilise its cadre. The ongoing fight between Hooda and the incumbent state President Ashok Tanwar has further divided the party cadet into ‘Jats’ and ’SC ’supporters.

By expressing his resentment  to the party leadership, Hooda wants  them to formulate clear strategy to contest the assembly polls slated to be be held in October. He also wants to be announced as the CM candidate for the party.

While speculations are rife amongst the political parties that Hooda may soon announce his separation from Congress and float his own party, experts feel that his chances of leaving the party are  very rare.

Earlier also, three of the former Chief Ministers Bansi Lal, Bhajan lal ad Rao Birender Singh launched their own political outfits but could not survive long in the state.

HYDERABAD, Telangana—Dr RS Praveen Kumar was 28 years old and already an IPS officer when he took his first flight. So he was happier than most when one of his students got on an airplane at 12.

“It was earned, they had to work very hard for it,” he said.

The student referred to here studies at a school run by the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS), of which Kumar is the secretary. The institutes, for students from socially and economically weaker sections of society, mainly from Dalit and Adivasi backgrounds, are part of an experiment that is redefining Dalit identity in Telangana.

A month ago, students from the TSWREIS schools launched a payload into near-space to study cosmic radiation and the ozone layer. They did this using a high-altitude balloon that reached 26kms from the Earth’s surface — roughly three times the height of Mount Everest. The payload, Swaerosat-1, was followed by a second launch at the start of August, this one to measure pollution.

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For the Swaeroes, the students behind this project, the payload launch was a literal affirmation that the sky’s the limit. Five years ago, another Swaero, Malavath Poorna, became the youngest girl to climb Mount Everest when she was just 13 years old. 

Students of the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) schools (first set up in 1984 by the then united Andhra Pradesh government) have over roughly the last six years come to identify as Swaeroes — an identity instilled by Kumar.

“The SW stands for social welfare,” he said in a recent meeting in his office in Hyderabad. “And aero is synonymous with air, to remind us that the sky’s the limit. But there has to be more to this identity than just words, and that is what we have been trying to do.”

After taking study leave from the IPS in 2011 to go to Harvard, he returned to guide the TSWREIS to not just provide education, but also a sense of community, explained many of the Swaeroes HuffPost India spoke to.

It’s an identity that stays with them not just while they are in the residential schools, but even later in life. Apart from success stories like Poorna and Swareosat which make national headlines, there are also quieter changes, such as wedding invitations where the names of the bride and groom carry the suffix Swaero.

UNDERSTANDING SWAEROES

“Dalit acknowledges the oppression that I have been undergoing,” said Manasa Swaero, who studied in the REI schools five years ago. “Swaero identity gives me the strength to show the hidden — hidden by society — power in me.” 

Manasa, who is from Warangal, is pursuing an MA in Education at Azim Premji University and, as part of her research, is working on a project on how Swaero has evolved as a new social identity.

She has stopped using her family surname, and instead uses Swaero, affirming the new social identity she—and others—have found through the schools. She speaks about her identity easily, giving the impression that she has thought deeply and many times about the questions this writer was asking. 

“The idea [of what a Swaero is] first came to me when I was in Class X, when Praveen Kumar sir came to our school,” she said. “At the time, all I thought was, I am a student and this is the identity given to us. It means achieving something high, in school.”

It took her a few more years to understand how it was connected to her social identity.

“When I went for my undergraduate degree at Azim Premji University, I got to study feminism, and Ambedkar. We had a club called Ambedkar Feminism Study and Struggle Alliance, where I learned a lot. I got to know different kinds of ideologies, and how different activists have been speaking to the masses.”

This also helped her decide what she wanted to do in life. Although Manasa had been studying a BSc in Biology, she decided that she wanted to become a teacher. 

“The way women in my community are raised is to step back. Being a Swaero taught me to speak more, and speak about what I want,” she said. “As we see how caste dynamics happen, this identity [Swaero] gave me a way to see how my caste fits into society.”

For the young students who launched the payload, Swaero also means a path to opportunity, as an alumni network now exists to help each other and take the community forward through mentorship and funds.

For the students who envisage and carry out the ambitious projects, this is a chance to glimpse new possibilities. 

Prasanna Lakshmi, a young Swaero in class 9, who was part of the launch never dreamed she “would get an opportunity to design a space atmospheric probe”, while for J. Divya, who aims to become a space scientist, it was a thrilling experience to see the “payload “taking off majestically without technical glitches”. 

‘DALIT IS A WORD FILLED WITH PAIN’

For many of his students, Kumar said, the most painful question can be ‘what do your parents do’, or ‘what is your family name’, those conversation-openers that many Indians use to gauge a stranger’s caste.

The policeman, slim in his early 40s, has a broad smile usually, but as the conversation turns to caste, he looks intense.

“India is filled with people that have tremendous potential. The issue is that a quarter of the Indian population have been robbed of their potential, taught that they don’t have potential.

“Type the word ‘Dalit’ in Google Image search and the people you will see are only on the roads. You see women carrying nightsoil, and men toiling in harsh conditions. Dalit is a word filled with pain,” he said. “Why must we bear the burden of an identity thrust upon us?”

When people hear the word ‘Dalit’, said Kumar, they think ‘backwards’.

“We want to change all the stereotyping, so we [the TSWREI team] spent six months doing field visits to understand what can be done. We realised that the way forward was to start in schools, so that the next generation could at least be salvaged.”

Hence, Swaeroes was born.

The movement is part and parcel of the TSWREI work in building educational institutions, and the government initiative has reached a huge number of people.

However, just changing the label from Dalit would not have much of an impact, and so the next step for Kumar was to come up with a set of commandments—guidelines that all the students would follow, almost like a religion.

The first of these is as simple as it is stark: “I am not inferior to anyone.”

“But this could not become another ‘All Indians are my brothers,’” he added. “That’s why we helped launch the Poorna expedition, and Swaerosat. When Poorna and Anand Kumar climbed to the top of Everest, they planted a flag of Ambedkar and SR Sankaran, he was a civil servant who did a lot of work to eradicate manual scavenging.”

Poorna’s quest, which was turned into a movie by Rahul Bose in 2017, was a gamechanger for the institution.

“Poorna jolted the community, and the nation, and the multiplier effect of that event has been phenomenal,” said Dr Praveen Kumar. This becomes clear when you look at the number of Swaeroes studying in elite universities, he pointed out. “In Azim Premji University, we have 80 people, and 210 in Delhi University, 70 in Pondicherry University, all top institutions, which was unheard of earlier,” said Kumar.

As the Swaero identity becomes more popular, Kumar said that it’s also becoming an umbrella that extends beyond the school.

“It’s not just SC now, tribals, OBCs… earlier people used to mask their caste, but now people are proud of their Swaero identity. You have people using Swaero as a surname. You have Swaero chai shops.”

BREAKING FREE OF STEREOTYPES

Hemanth Kumar Swaero, whose family hails from Chilkamarri (around 50km away from the Hyderabad airport), earned a BSc in Physics as an undergraduate in Azim Premji University. There, he studied a course called Understanding India, which he say helped him realise more about social identity.

“Because of that, I decided to study public policy, because that means making decisions that will affect people,” he said. “But it is more than an individual action, it is collective, as you help others to reach the best possible position,” he added. 

And Hemanth is clear about his responsibilities.

“Once you reach somewhere, you have to pay it back to the community.”

A network of alumni from the TSWREI schools is spread across India now, and they have been able to help young Swaeroes get educational loans, and often raise funds and provide direct financial support for Swaeroes in their cities as well.

The alumni network also serves as a roadmap for how younger Swaeroes can make their way through life, said Varalakshmi Kommu, a development scholar who has been working on issues faced by Dalit women.

“I was selected to speak in Delhi at a talk, which was a big privilege, but I was getting no accomodation. But the seniors were there, they said, ‘we are your sisters, you will stay with us’,” she recalled.

When Varalakshmi was young, she didn’t know much about what social welfare meant.

“(My parents) saw it as charity they should be grateful for. But when Praveen sir came, he taught them to ask questions about whether we are getting proper food, and that the education is taking place in English,” she said.

The experience has helped her dispel casteist stereotypes that can hit a person without warning.

“We went to the bank to take a loan, and the person there said, ‘you don’t appear like an SC’, because of how I spoke. They were not believing that I’m studying post-graduate, and that my sister is studying in Miranda House,” she said.

A friend of Poorna and Anand, Varalakshmi also remembers how the two young mountaineers got to meet the Prime Minister. 

“For people like us, it can be a nightmare to be in a situation like that, we’re taught not to make noise. But thanks to Poorna and Anand, that is changing, and my father was very happy that I was able to write a paper for an Ambedkar conference in Newark, although I couldn’t go for it.”

Other Swaeroes have also built careers in high tech fields, such as Captain Anil Kumar and Sujay Sreedhar of Swaero-Sapiens Automation Solutions, who mentored the team that launched Swaerosat. 

One of the things Dr Praveen Kumar is insistent on is that his students are equipped with the skills they’ll need as technology changes at a furious pace.

“Soon, all Swaeroes will speak four languages—English, Hindi, Teleugu, and Code. Being able to code is an essential skill now and we want to make sure that all of our students have this ability from an early stage,” he said.

PRESSURE TO EXCEL

The students at the TSWREIS schools are driven and aspirational, as befits the identity they take on.

“He [Dr Praveen Kumar] would talk to us in college, and there was the Swaero magazine being distributed to us in the schools. There were photos of winners of competitions and quizzes, and that made me slowly think also, ‘why am I not there?’,” said Varalakshmi.

Speaking about competing with students with more privileges, Hemanth told HuffPost India, “by the time you reach post-graduate, you learn to manage. Now, I also help the rich kids with their studies.”

“Of course, there is some pressure and I do feel I have some responsibility to do better. There is so much blood and sweat invested in you, you are what you are thanks to the community.”

When this writer asked Varalakshmi whether she felt pressure to be exceptional, she laughed.

For Dr Praveen Kumar, there’s no question about this. “We want them to be the best, to have opportunities to excel. We have English clubs in the schools, horse riding—that even rich people don’t get to do, robotics camp, leadership camp.”

He’s clear that the Swaeroes need to keep reaching higher if they are going to bring the community to an even footing. “You can’t search for solutions in history. You have to seek your salvation in the future.”

“There are Swaeroes all over the country now, feeling a strong pressure to excel despite discrimination. To go to the best places, and be the best.”

Schools in Kashmir are expected to reopen this week, nearly two weeks after the Centre’s move to revoke provisions of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated it into union territories.

The government is planning to reopen only primary schools from Monday, PTI reported, and officials believe there won’t be much attendance because of the restrictions.

“Over 190 primary schools will reopen tomorrow in Srinagar alone and after this, we look forward to other areas like taking up development-related activities,” J&K spokesman Rohit Kansal said.

Internet in Jammu

On Sunday, officials said low speed (2G) mobile internet was “temporarily disconnected” in five districts of Jammu, a day after the services were restored. Indian Express reports the suspension sparked rumours of a strike in the region, leading to long queues at petrol pumps.

The services were snapped after it was found that a video clip with the potential to trigger communal tension was being circulated, PTI says.

However, Inspector General of Police, Jammu, Mukesh Singh said the 2G network has “temporarily been disconnected due to some technical reasons which is being rectified and efforts are on to ensure restoration as soon as possible”. He also asked people not to believe rumours.

Police told PTI searches were being carried out for nabbing those behind the video clip.

Jammu and Kashmir Police chief Dilbag Singh had warned that stern action would be taken against anyone misusing internet services. 

Phone lines in Kashmir

Authorities made 10 more telephone exchanges operational in Kashmir Valley on Sunday, but again snapped services of one of the 17 centres restored on Saturday, officials told PTI.

An exchange was closed after reports that landline phones were being used for spreading misinformation campaign, they said.

However, according to the Express report, major telephone exchanges in the region remain shut.

Officials told the daily they had no directions to restore the Lalchowk exchange, the city’s main exchange that has the most connections and services of Srinagar.

While authorities have not revealed how many connections have been restored in Kashmir Valley, PTI says around 28,000 fixed-line phones, out of around 50,000 are functional, as of Sunday.

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong streets were turned into rivers of umbrellas on Sunday as hundreds of thousands of people marched through heavy rain down a major road in the Chinese territory, where massive pro-democracy demonstrations have become a regular weekend activity. Organizers said at least 1.7 million participated, though the police estimate was far lower.

The assembly was peaceful, with no reports of violence, making for a rare calm weekend in a protest movement that has been marked by violent clashes with police. Law enforcement officers kept a low profile, with no riot police seen from the procession’s main routes. When stragglers convened outside a government complex in the late evening, other protesters urged them to go home. 

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Demonstrators who were shining laser pointers at a government building were convinced to leave, prompting applause from others in the group.

“We hope to see whether the government gives a response to this peaceful protest,” said Michael Leung, a 24-year-old who was ushering his fellow demonstrators away. “If we get a negative response, we cannot control the next (gathering).”

Organizer Bonnie Leung of the Civil Human Rights Front said earlier in the day that she hoped there would be no “chaotic situations.”

“We hope we can show the world that Hong Kong people can be totally peaceful,” she said.

The Civil Human Rights Front had organized three previous massive marches in Hong Kong since June. The movement, however, has been increasingly marked by clashes with police as demonstrators vent their frustrations over what they perceive to be the government’s blatant refusal to respond to their demands.    

“Peace is the No. 1 priority today,” said Kiki Ma, a 28-year-old accountant who participated in the march. “We want to show that we aren’t like the government.”

While police granted approval for the rally, they didn’t approve an accompanying march. Demonstrators nevertheless fanned out and filled the streets, as there was not enough space at the designated assembly area.

Public transit trains did not stop at stations near the assembly because of overcrowding 

Jimmy Shan of the Civil Human Rights Front said the group estimated that at least 1.7 million took part in the rally. He said the figure did not include those who were not able to make it to Victoria Park — where the march began — due to traffic constraints.

Police, whose crowd figures are generally lower than the organizers’ estimates, said the turnout at the assigned location and during the designated time period was 128,000. Many protesters, however, did not follow the pre-approved guidelines laid out by the authorities.

In Beijing, You Wenze, a spokesman for China’s ceremonial legislature, condemned statements from U.S. lawmakers supportive of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

You called the lawmakers’ comments “a gross violation of the spirit of the rule of law, a blatant double standard and a gross interference in China’s internal affairs.”

He said that Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people and the Chinese population as a whole rejected the actions of a “very small group of violent protesters” as well as “any interference of foreign forces.”

You did not mention any specific lawmaker, but numerous U.S. senators and Congress members, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have affirmed the U.S. commitment to human rights and urged Hong Kong’s government to end the standoff. 

Congress also has the power to pass legislation affecting Hong Kong’s relationship with the U.S. in ways that could further erode the territory’s reputation for stability and rule of law. That includes the recent reintroduction of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in Congress, which would among its other provisions require the secretary of state to issue an annual certification of Hong Kong’s autonomy to justify special treatment afforded to the city.

More directly, President Donald Trump could simply issue an executive order suspending Hong Kong’s special trading status with the U.S., a move that could have a devastating effect on the local economy at a time when Beijing and Washington are engaged in a bitter trade war.

A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to Beijing in 1997 under the framework of “one country, two systems,” which promised residents certain democratic rights not afforded to people in mainland China. But some Hong Kongers have accused the Communist Party-ruled central government of eroding their freedoms in recent years.

The protest movement’s demands include the resignation of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, democratic elections and an independent investigation into police use of force.

Harley Ho, a 20-year-old social work student who attended Sunday’s rally, said protesters were undeterred by the rain and would not rest until their demands were met.

“We will stand here, we will take action until they respond to us,” she said. “In the rain, our spirit becomes stronger.”

Members of China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police force have been training for days across the border in Shenzhen, including on Sunday morning, fueling speculation that they could be sent in to suppress the protests. The Hong Kong police, however, have said they are capable of handling the demonstrations.

___

Associated Press journalists Ken Moritsugu, Yves Dam Van and Phoebe Lai in Hong Kong, Dake Kang in Shenzhen, China, and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.