Baluchistan in Indo-Pak relations

• Mentioned by PM in his independence day speech.
• Pakistan incorporated Baluchistan in its territory forcefully after independence. HR violations rampant.
• Baluchis appealed to PM when he visited White House. Couldn't have made a statement there. (3rd nation)
• India has maintained a moral high ground generally that it will not interfere in internal affairs. But, necessary to show Pak a mirror at this point of time. Moreover, no place for morality in IR beyond rhetoric. IR is cold blooded in practice.
• India hinting that it can counter Pakistan rhetoric on violation of HR in Kashmir rhetoric more aggressively.
• Pakistan saying that India is meddling in Pakistan's internal affairs. 
• Indo-Pak dialogue has been derailed. (Pakistan wants to talk on Kashmir, India on cross border terrorism)
• In PoK, there was violence witnessed earlier this year due to rigging of elections conducted by Pakistan there.
• Way forward will be for Pakistan to take a step back and resume talks on low hanging fruits and putting the sensitive issues on a back burner for now.

Why France prone to radicalization?

·  5 million Muslims (presently, 7.5% of population but increasing because Muslims= 4-5 children/ couple and others only 1)

·  Live in ghettos, treated as 2nd class citizens=> easy to radicalize.

·  France’s rule in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia (the country of Md. Bouhlel’s origin) was sometimes heavy-handed.

·  France did not fulfill promises made during 2^nd world war. (Algerians killed 84 Europeans in Setiff massacre, harsh respose by French)

·  In 1961, during the Algerian war of independence, it is believed that nearly 50 Algerians who participated in an illegal march in Paris were tortured and killed by the French police, with their bodies thrown in the Seine river.

·  Pervasive social media.

·  Muslim Population has sympathy for Islamic terrorism (the Paris Bataclan attack mastermind, Salah Abdeslam, hid in Molenbeek, Belgium) 

·  Text book approach of IS (creating fantasies, making violence desirable, literal interpretation of religious texts)

The France government should look to solve above issues in the long term to take the problem at its roots.

How ISIS was formed

·        Zarqawi visited Afghanistan as a fighter but got pushed towards extremism by the teachings of Maqdisi

·        He returned to Jordan and continued to engage in terrorist activities there.

·        He then entered Iraq in 2004 with his fighters by the support of Assad to fight the US forces.

·        After some time he affiliated to Al Qaeda (to access funds and fighters) and formed Al qaeda of Iraq

·        Initially the Sunnis joined it but later became dissatisfied and organised Anbar Awakening/ Sahwa movement to successfully crush AQI

·        The sectarian divides were increasing due Nouri Al Malicki’s pro shiite Policies. And moreover, after the debaathification of Iraq’s military sunnis were left jobless.

·        After the Sahwa movement, the 20% of the militants were promised jobs in army. The promises were however not kept. The sunnis thus joined AQI in huge numbers and began massacring Shias in huge numbers

·        AQI renamed  itself as Islamic State of Iraq after Zarqawi’s death in 2006.

·        In 2010, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi became its leader and started acting more independent of Al Qaeda

·        In 2011, Baghdadi sent Joulani in Syria to form an Al Qaeda branch there, which later cropped up as Jabhat al Nusra.

·        Later Baghdadi started interfering in Syria to the dislike of Joulani.

·        Finally, in 2013 it broke off from Al Qaeda (leader: Zawahiri) and renamed itself as ISIS.