India is spearheading its disinformation campaign against Pakistan through thinktanks and journalists of doubtful credentials. Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a registered Canadian charity, published a Pakistan-bashing report ‘Khalistan—A project of Pakistan’ which found mention in almost all leading Indian newspapers.

The social democratic Broadbent Institute (a thinktank on the political left) referred to the MacDonald-Laurier Institute as a “right-wing charity”.

That’s true. Founded in 2010, the institute is a registered charity funded by corporate and individual donors, including disguised pro-Indian lobbyists. Its political orientation is conspicuous from the fact that it is named after two Canadian prime ministers Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

Another pro-India “thinktank” is the “International Terrorism Observatory” chaired by Roland Jacquard. Prestigious French newspaper Le Monde (The World) pointed out in 2015; he is the only member “without publications, without a website, without postal address and without any legal existence”. He runs a bookstore stacked with books on “networks of Islamist terrorism’. According to journalists Didier Bigo, Laurent Bonelli and Thomas Deltombe, Roland Jacquard’s claim of being a media expert is questionable.

In July 2010, Roland Jacquard appeared on France 5 channel. In the show, he displayed a 300-page Arabic manual, supposedly intended for Al Qaeda cadres to protect themselves from the secret services on the Internet. The authenticity of the document was questioned by leading journalists, the cover of the document being that of a simple manual downloadable for free on the Internet. Jacquard incessantly writes China and Pakistan-bashing articles in Global Watch Analysis.

Another India-sponsored think tank was International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies run by Srivastava Group of India. In a startling disclosure, EU-based non-governmental organisation EU DisinfoLab exposed the identity of the “thinktank’ as also India-sponsored fake, dis-informational network of 265 fake media outlets in 65 countries, including US, Canada, Brussels, and Geneva. The Lab found that the “Institute” paid for the travel and accommodation of an unofficial far-right delegation of 23 European Union parliamentarians to Srinagar on October 30, 2013. The trip was arranged by Indian intelligence surrogate, Madi Sharma, who posed as a self-styled “international business broker”.

AMJED JAAVED,

Rawalpindi.