Updated: September 15, 2020 6:47:15 am
This becomes important given that Zhenhua Data claims to be working with intelligence, government, military and security agencies.
The geography of those monitored in India by the Chinese firm Zhenhua Facts is revealing.
the Indian Express Research from Zhenhua’s Overseas Key Information Database (OKIDB) reveals that at least 180 politicians and bureaucrats on the target list are from northeastern states, including Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; Sikkim; and the newly created Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir; and Ladakh.
This becomes important given that Zhenhua Data claims to be working with intelligence, government, military and security agencies.
Significantly, the the database includes as up to 30 prominent leaders and bureaucrats from the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh, the scene of the current confrontation between India and China on the Current Line of Control (LAC).
China faced India in Doklam in Sikkim in 2017; Beijing had called the UN Security Council seeking a meeting to discuss India’s abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status last August, and in early March it had stalled a proposal by the United Nations Security Council to designate the head of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Masood Azhar, global terrorist.
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Beijing’s vigilance over the northeast has many reasons. For more than a decade, China’s wave of dam construction and water diversion plans along the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo) by its side also remain a source of tension between the two neighbors.
Those on Zhenhua’s list include at least 12 current or former Chief ministers and their relatives; 10 serving ministers who have infrastructure portfolios such as energy, water resources, irrigation, river development and public works, and a number of key bureaucrats from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and West Bengal.
From Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Youth Affairs and Sports to Mehbooba Mufti, former Chief Minister of J&K when she was a state (currently in detention), those monitored include Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, Chief of Nagaland Minister Neiphiu Rio and his deputy Yanthungo Patton.
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Not only do these states and UT share international borders with five countries, including China, they are key to making the Center’s Act East Policy a critical physical bridge between India and Southeast Asia.
Politically, the ruling BJP has expanded its presence in the region with its own top ministers in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura, since taking power at the Center in 2014.
Among those monitored are former members of the Ladakh Parliament, leaders of the PDP and the National Conference in the Valley; the President of the State Congress, Ghulam Ahmad Mir; former Union Minister Saifuddin Soz; Karan Singh, son of Hari Singh, the last king of the princely state of J&K.
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In OKIDB, the former head ministers from the northeast include two from Assam, three from Arunachal Pradesh, two from Meghalaya, one from Manipur, Sikkim and Mizoram.
The list mentions bureaucrats such as Umang Narula, now an advisor to the deputy governor in Ladakh, and Japu Deru, a former Bomdila MLA and a former adviser to Arunachal’s chief minister, Pema Khandu.
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