MONTH-IN-PERSPECTIVE-MAY 2021

NEW DELHI: There was this newspaper report datelined New Delhi “Ex-student abducts teacher over Rs. 20 lakhs”. Reporting from South Delhi, the paper informed that one Sadaqat, a 23 year old youth, was a former student of a maulana with a madrasa in Shaheen Bagh in 2008. Later as he started earning money from a food stall in Okhla he started to deposit his savings with the maulana, Mohammad Muntazir Alam, his teacher. For 5 long years he kept depositing his savings and allegedly it had accumulated to Rs. 20 lakhs. However Sadaqat alleges that his teacher Maulana Alam refused to return the money he had kept with his teacher, when he asked for it. How can a teacher, that too, a maulana teaching Quranic tenets, if true, betrays the trust of his student?! At 23, Sadaqat is young and energetic and when his savings of many years was in danger of losing he was angry and had to act. Act he did, but in the process of acting to get his money back, he committed a serious crime. He abducted his teacher, the Maulana, for a ransom of Rs. 25 lakhs. He had with him another 4 youth to help him execute his plot, Shamim, Nabi Hasan, Firdaus and Manzar Alam. The teacher was abducted on the 5th April as per the complaint of the family. Police acted fairly quickly and on the 10th managed to break open the flat where the maulana was found shackled with an iron chain. Reportedly Sadaqat had rented the flat and his teacher had come to the flat to bless the flat and its tenants, instead got caught in the game he had allegedly started. If what is reported as claimed by the accused Sadaqat, what kind of an education this maulana could be giving if he cannot be trusted with money, kept for safe keeping in trust, by his own student? As for Sadaqat, while his demand for getting his Rs. 20 lakhs, allegedly kept with the maulana, is in order, his action of abducting the maulana is patently wrong. But how else he could have got his unaccounted earning back? His 20 lakhs, if true, is truly unaccounted, so also may not have any proof that he has given it all to the maulana. These are the pitfalls which may have made maulana emboldened to refuse to part with the alleged receipts from his student. For same reasons Sadaqat too has had a bad case, even if he is on the right side. His legal options to recover the money given to the maulana was either nil or limited. So abducting for ransom, he thought, was the only option. It will be an interesting case study, how the case will traverse towards a fair judgment. Hail justice ! NEW DELHI: There was this write up in the Sunday TOI by Chetan Bhagat, “How pseudoscience is coming in the way of India tackling the pandemic”. Having read the piece entirely early on Sunday, which is generally not the practice, this writer was left completely disappointed for the sheer emptiness of the whole effort at writing. The title offered the chance of knowing how pseudoscience in India failed the country vis-à-vis the pandemic. Keen to learn something new, the 800+ words article, turned out to be wasted effort that had just filled the expensive space of “ALL THAT MATTERS” column in the Sunday TOI. The author Bhagat claimed himself to be a Hindu and that he is proud of being one and he is knowledgeable of Hindu scriptures etc. As a Hindu he stated, he is duty bound to criticize some of its practices. Fair enough. In fact, every community owes it to the larger world that they themselves come forward to tell the world what is wrong in the community’s precepts & practices, so also say why and how it can be corrected for the larger good. Of course, it is nobody’s case, that all religions have its disagreeable grey areas and necessarily have the openness to accept it and correct itself in an evolving world order. Having said that, fortunately Hindus accommodate their critics, within their fold, as a necessary headache to live with! And sometime these critics succeed in getting their message across and Hinduism has a history of continuous evolution since days immemorial. But this Chetan Bhagat somehow kept going round and round saying that a large section of Hindus are unscientific, without any elaboration following. Readers would keep wondering where, when and how unscientific Hindus have disrupted the tackling of Covid 19, since there was no instance, he mentioned, except some general observation. After a laboured effort towards the end he writes. “I respect my religion and revere the scriptures. However, it is only a vaccine developed in scientific lab that can save humanity today……Those who yearns for and live an imagined past stay stagnant while progress come to those who live in the future”. Frankly there has been no report in the media or in social network any opposition to the vaccine by Hindu ‘bigots’. So from where does this Bhagat get his inputs for this write-up? He ends with his last paara “Love your religion. Follow and respect traditions. However be scientific-curious about new discoveries and willing to change your mind because of it. That, and only that, is what will make us create a golden era for India again”. ‘Love your religion, follow and respect tradition’, do we need him to tell this! The last sentence talks about “create a golden era for India again”. The last word ‘again’ sends a completely wrong conclusion. It conveys India was great; it is true we have lost that greatness. But was it because we were unscientific, or because of other factors & reasons! Clearly, this write-up did not add anything by way of learning. It was in a way LOVE’S LABOUR LOST. UTTAR PRADESH:Will Uttar Pradesh ever become Uttam Pradesh! It was hoped with the reign of Yogi Adityanath that Uttar Pradesh may become slowly a Uttam Pradesh. Unfortunately the kind of people, at least a section in UP, makes it difficult to attain this eminently attainable status with good law & order situation. Some weeks ago, a young boy Asif, some 13/14 years of age, had entered a temple Dasna Devi Mandir in Ghaziabad’s Masuri village in northern UP to drink water. Our poets have extolled “To provide water to a thirsty person, do we need our scripture to tell us”, meaning providing water to all living beings is fundamental to all humans, anywhere in the world. But sadly, this boy Asif was beaten by the temple caretaker, Shringi Nandan Yadav rather badly and the incident was videographed by one Shivanand Saraswathi. Reportedly, both Yadav and Saraswathi have been arrested under different sections of IPC. However, the arrest of the duo does not reduce the enormity of the inhuman behavior of Yadav and the insensitive attitude of Saraswathi in recording the incident and then post it on social media. Characters like this, is a blot on civil society and are not fit for civilized world. They should not only not given bail but should be punished adequately for their acts of cruelty on innocent children. Here what is relevant to be mentioned is, while most papers were matter of fact in reporting the incident, The WEEK, clearly tried to muck the dirty water by highlighting the Congress stand that relevant sections of law were not applied to make both Yadav & Saraswathi accountable under harsher laws on violence on children. It is true that those accused should be justly punished for their cruelty towards a young boy; the purpose should not be for scoring political points but to get justice to the young Asif, who clearly was wronged and injured. WEST BENGAL: Prof. Amartya Sen, is a great son of India, winner of Nobel Memorial Prize in economics and some other awards. He is, like many intellectuals, not comfortable with BJP and its governments. According to him “if Bengal ends up being governed by central leaders not local leaders, it will vastly strengthen the concentration of power in India in the hands of those whose conception of minority rights is extremely limited and whose record on economic policy and social justice seems seriously defective”. For a person like Prof. Amartya Sen, an International Indian, who came calling to West Bengal, probably to vote, since he is still holding Indian citizenship, despite his long and mostly outside of India stay, his remarks or can we say outbursts are not surprising. If memory serves him right, he should not forget the rule of his fellow travelers led by late Jyothi Basu, the daily scotch drinking former CM of West Bengal, for 34 long years. The socio-economic development for all these 34 years in West Bengal had taken a back seat. In 2011 Economic Times carried an article with a title “LEFT rules West Bengal for 34 years and ruins the state”. “At that time industry fled the state, farm growth tapered off and poor in the state became worse off than poor folks in most other states”. It had commented when TMC came to power, “The left is finally out of Bengal, leaving behind a riddle. How could a party, the CPM, rule a state for 34 long years, while presiding over its overall decline!?” Prof. Amartya Sen, the eminent economist that he is, is fully aware. It is true TMC, when it came; it came with a fresh approach when it tried doing things, mostly populist and succeeded in catching the imagination of its voters. That’s how TMC returned to power again after five years. However power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. TMC supremo became increasingly arrogant. Another 5 years down the line, she slowly started to lose the grip on issues around her. Practiced blatant vote bank politics, played up communal cards, in the background of BJP emerging stronger at the centre and growing in states. TMC Supremo Mamata Bennerji does not like Narendra Modi, so does Prof. Amartya Sen. That shared dislike has brought them together. No wonder, Prof. Sen do not want BJP to become the ruling party in West Bengal! Whether BJP will emerge as winner is still in the realm of possibilities, but it will surely emerge with more numbers. It’s nobody’s case that BJP is a paragon of all virtues. It has its share of controversies and dark areas. But, like George Fernandese had observed some 25 years ago, ‘between the two evils, go for lesser evil’. Besides Prof. Amartya Sen lives abroad most of the year, every year, since decades. So how relevant are his remarks is a big question mark? MAHARASHTRA: “Complaints have been noted”, remarked the Municipal Commissioner Dilip Dhole, an IAS, of Mira-Bhayandar Municiapl Corporation (MBMC). He was reportedly reacting to a query, ‘what’s happening to the complaints on local development works by the activist members of the local civil society. According to a report in the print media datelined Mira-Bhayandar, a large suburb of extended city of Greater Mumbai, MBMC has been doling out hundreds of work orders for various developmental and big ticket infrastructure projects in the twin city. But these works are being carried out without any technical supervision. For example, when concrete is poured, it has to be in the presence of civil engineers to check the quality and verify the cement contents, aggregates-sand mix and its proportion relevant to the job in question. No verification is possible once the concrete is poured. Reportedly, according to the residents, this practice is rampant and nobody in the administration gives a damn about the complaints, despite video-graphic evidence. This is a very sad spectacle and is being witnessed across the board, the sad waste of tax payer’s money. In Mangalooru, MCC Civic Group is fighting for the creation of ward committee to oversee exactly above situations, which have been found to be an order of the day. Hope MCC civic group succeeds in the formation of ward committees, so that there indeed is some apparatus to bring some sense to an otherwise senseless way these city corporations work. MAHARASHTRA: Yesterday, on 12th April 2021, TOI published a story “Islamic scholar retracts his statement on Azan”. Quite frankly it was not surprising at all on what Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani has done. Reportedly, acting general secretary and spokesperson of AIMPLB (All India Muslim Personal Law Board) had written an article in Urdu exhorting community members, advocating moderation while performing religious duties. He had suggested the use of loudspeakers for Aazhan in moderation. According to him, if there are multiple mosques in an area, only one big mosque use outer loudspeaker for Aazhan. He had also suggested that care should be taken to ensure that the volume is not too high and in other mosques Aazhan can be given on internal speakers or outside without speakers. Besides he wrote that care should be taken in the positioning of loudspeakers so that they are not directed towards non-Muslim localities or hospitals. According to Mohammed Wajihuddin of Times News Network (TNN), criticism to the writing of Maulana Rahmani came fast through online comments from the orthodox section of the community. Reportedly Maulana Rahmani retracted his observations saying they were his personal views. All that Maulana Rahmani had asked was moderation not stoppage of use of loud speakers and community forced him to retract his statements! And where are Muslim intellectuals like Hamid Ansari, Zoya Hassan, Irfan Habib and their ilk? The fact is there are moderate elements aplenty among Muslims, but are intimidated by hardcore extremist elements that do not support change, thus have rendered these intellectuals boneless. That is sad indeed. In Mangalooru there is a celebrated local writer in Kannada, Saarah Aboobakar. She is very critical of some of the practices in her community with respect to women. Once she was asked to give her comments on Aazhan. She was quick to point out ‘what about temple using loudspeakers’? While her interlocutor did agree that use of loudspeakers is wrong in all places of worship, she failed to explain how 5x365=1825 times Aazhan call a year can be compared to not even 12 such occasions in temple during the whole year. Thus intellectuals too suffer from fixations and closed minds. In fact intellectuals in public space including media should come to the rescue of moderate elements and support people like Maulana Rahmani, only then changes hoped by many in the community can happen. Coming to Aazhan per se, many years ago, a resident of Bandra in Mumbai, a Muslim gentleman, had won a writ in the moderate use of loudspeakers. Bombay High Court had given a judgement to stop the use of loudspeakers in the early morning Aazhan and to stop use of loudspeakers after 10.00 in the night. MAHARASHTRA: Most Indians are privy to the circus that engulfed the MVA government in Mumbai, post the Mumbai Police Commissioner’s sensational disclosure of 100 crores demand by the Home Minister Anil Deshmukh. We all know that an SUV was found in the vicinity of Mukesh Ambani’s swanky residence ANTILIA with explosives. Those who matter they all know that Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian and therefore for an explosive laden vehicle to be found outside his residence could send any police force into a tizzy. Suddenly many things started to happen. The owner of the SUV was found mysteriously dead in a creek some 50km away from the bomb site. Family cried foul and calls it ‘Murder’. Sachin Vaze, a lowly ranked police officer, the unlikely king pin, gets arrested for the alleged murder of Mansukh Hiren, the owner of the ‘bomb’ laden SUV. Question about his antecedents started making its round and reaches the door of the City Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh. Making dispensable pawn of policemen by their political bosses is a done thing in India, so Mumbai Commissioner of Police Param Bir Singh was dispensed with an order of transfer to an insignificant post. After the ‘Gelatin Bomb’ comes the ‘letter bomb’. PB Singh, the former C.P. Mumbai, writes a letter and releases it to the press, hungry for sensation. He publicly accuses his political boss Home Minister Anil Deshmukh of asking him and his police department to collect Rs. 100 crore every month from dance bars and restaurants of Mumbai. It was as if an earthquake hit the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government in Mumbai. Anil Deshmukh, the Home Minister resigned, ‘with no-clothes on’. He was the nominee of Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar, the machinist par-excellence. Bombay High Court takes suo moto notice of the bizarre development and orders for a CBI probe. Advisors within the MVA government employs, expensive lawyers Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the top pleaders at the apex court to appeal against the Bombay High Court order. According to Olav Albuquerque, a senior lawyer-cum-journalist- “The Maharashtra government has burnt the tax payers’ money by defending Anil Deshmukh, engaging top lawyers Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, both of whom charge over Rs. 1 crore to argue the matter which was doomed to fail”. He opined “It’s the most foolhardy ploy by the Maharashtra government to appeal against Bombay High Court order”. Clearly since the issue raised by Commissioner of Police Mumbai was very serious, MVA government lost its sense of proportion and knocked at the door of Supreme Court, knowing full well ‘they had no case’. Right enough the highest court of the land rejected their plea to dismiss the order to probe by CBI. KARNATAKA: Long ago there was this thoughtful observation making its interminable rounds in the speakers circuit. There are three good things of life and they are 1) American Salary. All over the world people would rush looking for opportunities into the land of Uncle Sam. It may not be any more the case. 2) Indian Wife was another prized desire or so it was thought. Because in India it was 'Pati Devo Bhava'. Even if the man called husband was an idiot, a phatinga or a drunken liability. Of course not anymore. Most Indian women do not think much of this age old invocation and have greater clarity of thought on institution of marriage. 3) British Discipline, the 3rd good thing. Indeed half the world was under British rule decades ago due to their disciplined way of life. If the above are the ' 3 good things of life' there has got to be 3 not so good things of life if not bad. And they are 1) Chinese Salary. Over 3 decades ago it was 25$ salary per week. Nobody wanted to go to China. Of course it's no more the case. Now it's $500 per week. 2) American wife was not a preferred choice at all. Men were fine with weekend outings with them than taking her to mom at home to show ' here is your daughter-in-law'. 3) Indian Discipline was the negative 3rd.So true. Indians were condemned as the most indisciplined. It was decades ago and it continues to be so into the foreseeable future. India is the second most populous country in the world with over 1300 million countrymen. No government, especially a democratically elected government, can control this huge number. No health infrastructure or governmental initiative can manage if there's any large scale spurt in the Covid driven pandemic. We all need to recognize this truth. There's no point blaming political leadership or administration for the 'failure' to live upto people's expectations. It's, we as responsible and responsive citizens try to live a life of basic discipline of taking care of each one of us and our own near and dear ones. Whether it is managing our immunity level through appropriate food intake, exercising body parts and practicing yogic postures, steam inhalation, drinking hot water, maintaining social distance, using face mask outside and generally live a healthy life should see us all through. This is the least we all can do to help the government to weather the difficult phase the country is passing through like rest of the world. Shouldn't we all remember the oft repeated idiom ASK NOT WHAT THE COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU. ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE COUNTRY, and it’s no big deal! KARNATAKA: In the entire world of homo-sapiens, there is inequity all over, across the spectrum. Some are born with too much wealth and some are born with too much poverty, between these two extremes is the lot of most of the humanity. This is so in every society across the world. But in one thing God or the nature has been rather very fair. ALL OF US HAVE THE SAME 24 HOURS, from the most powerful man in the White House, Joe Biden to the scavenger in our own backyard or the Sub-Saharan Africa. So it is left to each one of us to make most of the 24 hours that is at our disposal to be utilised usefully and fruitfully. Dr. Niyaz Panakaje is a classic example of what one can do with skillful, motivated and meaningful TIME MANAGEMENT. Having born with 7 siblings and in extreme poverty, to acquire a doctorate in his chosen area of intellectual dynamics, is to set an example for any future generation as a shining model of what persistence can do. Hats off to Dr. Niyaz Panakaje for his exemplary achievement and pertinacity of purpose! His life story, from nothing to something should be written in gold for all those who give-up midway their educational pursuance blaming poverty and penury. Print media report datelined Mangalooru titled it “He sold fish, worked as Mason to earn his PhD”. These journalists should use their imagination in giving titles to such stories. It could have been “PhD in the midst of poverty” without having to belittle ‘selling fish’ or ‘working as Mason’. Selling fish is an independent dignified effort to earn a living; some do it small some do it big. Similarly masonry too is a respected skilled craft. This heightened sensitivity is a part of journalistic moorings, which most men and women in the 4th estate do not bother to cultivate. Be that as it may, the story of the evolution of Niyaz to become Dr. Niyaz Panakaje, M. Com PhD, has to be retold many times over, for aspiring youth of our country. TO BE BORN POOR IS AN ACCIDENT, BUT TO DIE POOR IS A CRIME is an oft repeated sentence in motivational speaker circuits. It is an eminently possible proposition to acquire financial stability in life and sometime even riches despite killing poverty with dedication and commitment. There are innumerable examples of those who pulled themselves out of extreme poverty by the dint of sheer application. Hence it is not surprising that boy Niyaz applied himself to the evolving circumstances to become Dr. Niyaz Panakaje, M. Com PhD, and well paying Astt. Professorship at Srinivas University and he is only 29. Yet, his story has to be told since he has come to the media attention when there are many who have finished their PhDs despite constraints of all kinds and have remained unsung and remained unwritten. Here a pertinent point that needs to be mentioned is the number of siblings Dr. Panakaje has. He is one of the 8 children for his parents. It always bothered thinking men and women why poor couple end up with many children and thus create problems, for themselves and their offspring, which many times become insurmountable. We know of a female domestic helper, who came to a household to work in Surathkal, a Mangalooru suburb, with her only daughter who was 5th std. pass. Her request was that her daughter be allowed to stay with her and the employer sends her daughter to school, so that like herself her daughter too does not end up as a domestic helper in some household. The concerned employer that he was readily agreed to educate the girl child of the domestic helper, who wanted no more children and wanted to do her best for her only child. Today after some 22 years, the daughter is a Professor of Commerce in a College in Udupi district. Two cheers to all those who work hard to succeed despite poverty! KARNATAKA: A week or so ago, we wrote a piece on how boy Niyaz grew into Dr. Niyaz Panakaje, after having obtained a doctorate from Mangalore University in his chosen field. It was a story of sheer endurance and pertinacity with heightened time management skill by young Niyaz under extremely trying circumstances. By any stretch of imagination, it was a well written piece, with some reference to journalists to be sensitive in giving titles to their stories. In their eagerness to sensationalise, they had belittled fish mongering and masonry. Any job that gives any one a livelihood is honourable within the intellectual limits of persons pursuing these vocations; to that end we should respect it. Dignity of labour is inherent in every job one does as long as it is honestly done. However, there was this joker who called the write-up ‘crap’, when it was posted into a WhatsApp group of ‘journalists’, only because we implored journalists to be sensitive in giving titles to their stories. But why this recollection of the above story here? In the print media, there was this story “No ventilator free, minister’s PA succumbs’, when the title could have been “No Ventilator, ministers PA succumbs’. The word ‘free’ in the middle gave a confusing message as if, ministers PA was looking for ‘free ventilator’. According to the report St. John’s Medical College Hospital, where a Karnataka Minister’s PA was admitted, had 29 ventilators, which were all in use and were occupied and none of them were therefore free. Another gaffe in the same paper, the 1st page had this small story “Narcotics worth Rs. 3k crore seized from Lankan Boat”. On page 5, it was, “Drug worth Rs. 3k crore seized from Pak Boat’. In the 1st smaller story it says “Sri Lankan fishing vessel which originated from Pakistan”, the second story tells “the Indian Navy seized a Pakistani fishing boat with contraband”. However both reports stated that the crew was Sri Lankan. So, what should the reader take! KARNATAKA: There was this report in the print media datelined Mangalooru “Headscarf issue causes tension at Law College”. In a completely avoidable controversy KVG Law College in Sullia, situated some 86kms from Mangalooru became a news for some wrong reasons. Reportedly a girl student refused to remove her headscarf while writing the examination and had walked out. According to the media, the principal of the College is reported to have told “On Friday three students came to my chamber seeking permission to wear their headscarf while writing the exam. Two of them agreed to write the exam without the headscarf but one girl refused to do so. On Saturday, (17/04/2021), despite asking her to take the hall ticket and appear for the exam, she walked out along with her parents and is now blaming the college of denying permission to appear for the exam”. In the above statement which the media has carried, it is very clear, the majority will go with the system, but a minuscule few will be assertive and bring bad name to themselves and to the institution. In a democracy assertiveness has always disturbed the normal life in society. And assertiveness is possible only in a democracy. In this case, Campus Front of India, a socio-political outfit, whatever they are there for, staged a protest for allegedly not allowing the student, Sabna, from appearing for the exam, without mentioning that two of the students have agreed to appear for the exam without headscarf, which was not part of the college dress code. It is sad, even media only goes for sensation. They had the duty to highlight the stand of the Principal and that there are other students as well, who have accepted not to have headscarf in line with dress code, which was agreed while taking the admission to the college. Clearly this Campus Front of India is fishing in troubled water. This attitude is not healthy. TAMIL NADU: Madras High Court went, kind of, berserk, the other day with its intemperate outburst, “Election Commission should be put up on murder charges for being the most irresponsible institution” while stating “you are the only institution responsible for the situation that we are in today. You have been singularly lacking any kind of exercise of authority. You have not taken measures against political parties holding rallies despite every order of this court.” The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy made the above acerbic observation on a public interest writ asking for proper arrangement with Covid-19 protocol while counting of votes. High court and its judges are within their judicial domain to address all public interest concerns, and they should do it with authority and without mincing words, as long as all that the court has observed orally and have put in writing is within the ambit of propriety. They do not have the luxury of impropriety. But to charge that Election Commission, another constitutional entity, with murder! Exceptionable, is the mildest rebuke that can be handed back to Madras HC bench, when someone in the media termed it ‘slander’. Clearly the language used by the learned judges, is unbecoming of a High Court judge, that too the Chief Justice of Madras High Court! Sadly it didn’t stop accusing the EC of being murderer; the bench has threatened to stop the counting of votes on May 2. Somebody in the press called it “This is at best impotent hyperventilation, at worst a bid to undercut the legitimacy of the Election Commission”. No doubt, as a constitutional authority. High Court has its role cutout. They are answerable to the petitions coming-up before them. But as the ultimate arbiter of justice, they should not be given to theatrics and flashy utterances. In this case, Madras High Court Bench led by the Chief Justice has clearly gone overboard with a tinge of lack of self control. Someone called it “Mind your language, Milords! On its part Election Commission has gone to town to tell that enforcement of Covid norms is the responsibility of the state under its National Disaster Management Authority as per an act of 2005 and that it has done what it was expected of, to continuously directing the state and district administration to enforce instructions to prevent the spread of the corona virus. Hope, the 30th April appearance of EC in the court shall put to rest the controversy. WORLD:That post Covid-19, China, like rest of the world, has suffered economically was never in doubt, but as usual China is reticent in admitting the declining fortunes. A Kabul datelined news informed “Xi’s dream project Belt Road Initiative in trouble”. Such a possibility was long expected for the over ambitious nature of the entire exercise. China under its President Xi Jinping was trying hard to emerge as a super power. In its attempt to become universally acceptable, it offered all kinds of economic assistance to all countries looking for help. But China always had the desire to dominate the country it would help, by terms that would slowly subjugate the sovereignty of those countries it is ostensibly helping. India had learnt it pretty early that Chinese economic assistance was always with strings attached and agenda driven and world is slowly realizing the sinister motive of Chinese leadership. China always had this expansionist approach to its geo-political maneuvers. World is privy to its assertive military exercise in South-China Sea, so also trying to brow-beat India with bullying tactics. The recent Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, among Australia, Japan, India and the US, has sent a clear signal as deterrence to the expansionist, hegemonistic and belligerent attitude of China. However, post pandemic Covid-19, Kabul Times informs that “Chinese President Xi Jinping’s dream of setting a new world order has come crashing down after Covid-19 slowed down the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) pushing it towards becoming financially unviable”. Hence China was forced to cut back on new loans and investments under BRI. According to the Kabul Times “Chinese economy has slumped drastically during the pandemic. There are reports that the lending under the BRI has come down from USD 75 billion in 2016 to just USD 3 billion in 2020, besides these projects are a tremendous strain on its body politic with problems like corruption, lack of financial transparency, patently unfair loan conditions, fear of debt trap, negative environmental impacts etc. Even in Pakistan reportedly, only 32 of the 122 projects announced under BRI could be completed so far. It looks ‘chickens are coming home to roost’ at last.