QBullet: ISIS Files Part 3, Paris Attack Mastermind Possibly Dead

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Photo: PTI)

1. Was Influenced by YouTube, There Will be a Caliphate: Afsha Jabeen

In the part three of its series IS Files, The Indian Express profiles Afsha Jabeen, an ISIS sympathiser. According to the report, Jabeen is sort of a split personality with conflicting opinions on most things. The report says Jabeen, while being categorised as unlikely to be a jihadist, has provided an online medium of recruitment for the extremist outfit. She is also the only female Indian charged for her association with ISIS.

I was alone in the house after my husband and daughter went for work and school respectively. My husband (had) provided laptop and WiFi facility in our house for my time-pass. I used to sit in my house and started searching (the) Internet about Islamic religious literature. Till that time, I did not have in-depth knowledge of Islam, though Islamic studies was one of my subjects up to XII standard. After that I decided to improve my religious knowledge and started searching on the Internet for the same.

<b>Afsha Jabeen to the interrogators, quoted by <i>Indian Express.</i></b>

Read the full report here.

2. Paris Attack Mastermind Abaaoud Reportedly Killed

French soldiers man a position on a street corner during a police raid in Saint-Denis, near Paris. (Photo: AP)

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks was believed to be holed up in the St Denis apartment that was raided on Wednesday by the French authorities. Citing two senior European intelligence officers, the Washington Post has said that Abaaoud was killed in a seven-hour siege.

Read the full piece here.

Also read on The Quint, Suspected Paris Mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud is Possibly Dead.

3. Government Reaches out to Opposition Ahead of Winter Session

Congress President Sonia Gandhi and party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. (Photo: PTI)

With eight days left for the Parliament’s winter session to begin, the government has reached out to the opposition. Parlimentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu reached out to Congress Lok Sabha leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday to discuss amendments to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill. However, Naidu said that the opposition must not fixate on the Bihar victory. A Hindustan Times report reads:

Meanwhile, finance minister Arun Jaitley met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday. The BJP and the Congress sources maintained that the visit was meant to invite Gandhi for his daughter’s wedding. Jaitley had also visited party chief Sonia Gandhi last Saturday for the same purpose, Congress sources said.

Read the full report here.

4. Dissent in 7th Pay Panel Over Edge for IAS & IFS

People gathered in a government office. (Photo: Reuters)

Speaking with The Hindu, a member of the seventh pay panel said the recommendations that will be submitted to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have quite a few notes of dissent from the members. The member also said that the scaling back of increase in pay from 20 percent to 15-16 percent shows that the “economy is not booming now as it was then”.

Top sources told The Hindu that the report could not reach an agreement on “controversial” issues such as if and how the edge the IAS and the IFS officers enjoyed over other services should be maintained, and the report included multiple dissent notes from its members.

Read the full story here.

Also read The Quint’s Seventh Pay Commission: Heaping More Bounties on Less Government

5. Culture Ministry to Home: Think of Padma Awards for Cooking too

Culture and tourism minister Mahesh Sharma. (Photo: Reuters)

Culture minister Mahesh Sharma has sent a recommendation to the Ministry of Home Affairs to consider giving Padma awards to chefs too. According to The Indian Express, the idea was floated by Sharma after he received a proposal by some prominent chefs like Sanjeev Kapoor, to consider cooking as a category.

The Ministry of Culture recently received a proposal to include the art of cooking in the list of Padma awards. Cooking is an art. If there can be Padma awards in other fields of art like music, tabla, why not cooking? We studied the proposal and sent a recommendation to the MHA.

<b>Mahes Sharma, MoS, Culture and Tourism to <i>Indian Express</i></b>

Read the full story here.

6. Telescope: How to Cover a Terror Attack

Screenshots of reportage on Paris attacks. (Courtesy: YouTube)

The Indian Express describes how Indian media, especially 24*7 news channels, would have acted if a Paris-like attack were to take place in New Delhi. The piece describes their coverage on the ground as well as the drama that would unfold during the prime time panel discussions.

The writer also takes names of Congress and BJP spokespersons and predicts their comments in such a scenario.

Read the full piece here.

7. Death at the School

People gather in front of the school where the toddler died. (Photo: PTI)

The death of three-year-old Syeda Xainab Fatima Jaffery has brought many questions regarding safety of children in schools to the fore. An Op-ed in The Hindu discusses where the fault lies, and what are the other issues that require immediate attention.

These are only the problems that expose children to clear and present danger. What of those phenomena fraught with equally grave and longer-term consequences, such as sexual molestation, corporal punishment, absence of toilets and clean drinking water? Indeed, taken together the child’s experience at school runs the whole gamut of risks. Why must the years at school be a minefield for children to navigate?

Read the full piece here.

8. Islamic State can Find no Ground in India

An opinion piece in the Hindustan Times makes a case for the argument that ISIS cannot succeed in penetrating India. The writer cites the examples of Pakistani terror outfits and ISIS’ predecessor Al-Qaeda and their attempts to breach Indian security agencies for decades. The argument admits that though terrorists have found some ground in Kashmir, the rest of the country is not as vulnerable as it’s being perceived.

Several, presumably internet-addled, young persons have been identified before they were able to impulsively act on their terrorist fantasies, and a fairly sensitive, velvet-glove approach, involving families and local communities, has been adopted for their rehabilitation, and appears to have been quite efficacious. There is no indication that any significant ‘army’ of radicalised Muslim youth, provoked by the Daesh propaganda, is likely to rampage across India in the foreseeable future.

Read the full piece here.

9. Je suis Mumbai: Gay Paree, Bindaas Bombay. Bombs Target the Spirit

(Left to right) 9/11 in New York, 26/11 in Mumbai, 13/11 in Paris.

An opinion piece in The Times of India points out that New York, Mumbai and Paris were cities whose names were once taken proudly as brands. But after last Friday, the memory of these cities will be etched in our souls also for the massive terror attacks that the people in these cities were subjected to.

The writer talks about the spirit that changed after 26/11 in Mumbai and 9/11 in New York. People have tried to moved on and have succeeded partially, but 13/11 has refreshed those wounds and might do the same to Parisians the next time.

Read the full piece here.

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