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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ndtv.com/india-news/farmers-clash-with-cops-in-heart-of-delhi-drive-tractors-into-red-fort-2358223%3famp=1&akamai-rum=off https://worldnewsera.com/news/violent-clashes-as-indian-farmers-storm-delhis-red-fort/amp/ 'A punch in the face of dictators.' Farmers have climbed on the red fort in Indian capital where the republic day ceremony is held. The crowd is huge. Reportedly, 5000 tractors constitute just one group and I am still seeing how many are there. I have heard that the protestors are around 500,000 but don't know if this is true or a rumor.

Recently in a discussion on these boards an argument was made that how Iran and India are great countries because they don't get dictated to by the foreign powers. It was said to get to the Pakistanis who can't think straight because of their country's history of taking foreign dictation. While there are no two opinions about this in the case of Iran, and whereas Pakistan has often acted like a US client state, one has to question the assumption behind extolling India's position vis-a-vis foreign dictation. The easiest way is to compare Iran's and India's relations with the US for the last couple of decades to see through the argument. The United States had always viewed Indian (and Pakistani) nuclear programs as a threat to the West and its allies. But in early 1990s when India was reeling under IMF loans and US sanctions, the then Indian government entered into back channel talks to convince them that Indian nukes were not a threat to the US or the West and asked for the sanctions to be lifted. Americans bluntly told them to normalise relations with Israel to prove their sincerity. India complied. Magically, literally overnight, Indian nukes stopped being a threat and an era of US-Indian strategic partnership was entered into. This partnership got a fresh boost about which you can read the links below. Pakistan was told to follow Indian example when the US imposed sanctions after nuclear tests in the late 90s but Pakistanis refused. Which was unusual since Pakistan is supposed to be a client state in the Saudi model, doing what the Americans demand, but here the usual Indian and Pakistani roles vis-a-vis foreign dictation were reversed. This also tells us that foreign dictation is not an either/or proposition. Most developing countries are pushed to find a balance to resist dictation of powerful countries while at the same preserve their country's interests. Some countries are more successful in this than the others, depending on their internal politics, size and geostrategic location. Note that India is not a signatory to NPT (Nuclear non-proliferation treaty) whereas Iran is but we still get the following: Why? Because of this: It may be argued that the current Indian foreign policy is in line with its interests, that India doesn't need to keep speaking against injustice to harm its own interests. So its strategic partnership with the US and Israel is understandable. This may so but the pied pipers of Incredible India™ on these boards should be consistent when they criticise those camps that support US hegemony in the region through its Zionist proxy, and those that don't. Or those that exist to take foreign dictation (Saudi et al) and those that don't (Iran, Syria, Russia). There is a reason that, of all the emerging powers in the region (China, Russia, India), it is the latter which is a US strategic partner and not others. A useful summary from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Israel_relations