Yet another Hindu temple in Australia has been targeted by Khalistani goons, just ahead of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to India next week.

The Shree Laxmi Narayan Mandir in Brisbane was targeted on Friday night with the vidoes and photographs of the temple vandalisation going viral on social media.Temple President Satinder Shukla told The Australia Today that priest and devotees called this morning and notified him about the vandalism on the boundary wall of the temple.

“I am aware of what has happened at Melbourne Hindu Temples, but facing this hate ourselves is a very distressing experience,” Ramesh Kumar, a resident of the area, told the leading Australian daily.“This latest hate crime is a pattern of Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) globally, clearly attempting to terrorise Australian Hindus. Coupled with a barrage of propaganda, illegal signs, and cyberbullying, the organisation intends to present all-pervasive threats, fear, and intimidation,” added Sarah Gates who is the Director of Hindu Human Rights.

Khalistani had attacked the Indian Consulate in Brisbane on February 21 and hoisted a so-called Khalistan flag on the premises.Honorary Consul of India in Brisbane Archana Singh immediately notified the Queensland Police, which on arrival confiscated the flag and swept the Honorary Consulate of India to clear of any immediate threat.Previously, Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple in Carrum Downs and BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir in Mill Park were smeared with hate messages against Hindus and India.

The spate of attacks on Hindu temples had triggered widespread concerns with no end to Hinduphobia in the country.

(This article was first published in India Narrative)

11 year old Ashu has been kidnapped at gun point by the Islamists from Umerkot, Sindh. Ashu’s mother is running around to rescue her daughter.
Pakistan’s forced abductions and conversions have been known to put minority women at risk. Young girls are abducted, converted into Islam and forced to marry or are kept as sex slaves or raped. The government has been unsuccessful to implement the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 and the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, which raised the legal minimum age of marriage to 18 in Sindh province. The victim girls are largely left in the custody of their kidnapper throughout the trial process, where they are forced to claim that the conversion or marriage was consensual.

With Sri Lanka running out of foreign exchange reserves, the local elections that were scheduled for March 9 have been deferred due to a lack of funds to import essentials such as fuel, food and medicines to keep the island nation going.

According to a Hindustan Times report the usable forex reserves in Sri Lanka have dwindled to a mere USD 500 million.With Sri Lanka’s economy in the throes of the worst crisis since independence from Britain in 1948, the government is waiting for financing assurances from China, its largest bilateral lender, that would help to get the $2.9 billion IMF package. However, Beijing has kept the island nation in the lurch on the issue.

India on the other hand has strongly recommended Sri Lanka’s case to the IMF.Sri Lanka’s declining foreign currency inflows and increasing outflows are due to imports outpacing exports. Sri Lanka’s economy is in a crisis as the tourism sector which is the main forex earner for the country is in bad shape.  Overseas citizens are sending less money home and the country has to shell out huge amounts of forex to service soaring foreign debt repayment mainly to China.

Although the Ranil Wickremesinghe government has been claiming to have a forex kitty of  $2 billion some $1.5 billion as part of the balance of payments from China which cannot be used if the debt payments are not made, the Hindustan times report states.

While Sri Lanka is looking for financial support from Beijing with a 10-year debt moratorium as proposed by the IMF. China is hesitating to support the island nation as any waving of debt payment will have repercussions on huge loans it has given out to African countries as well as part of its Belt Road Initiative (BRI).

(This article was first published in India Narrative)