HARRISBURG – A former employee of the State House of Representatives’ Republican Caucus who sued the body for discrimination, unlawful termination and retaliation, claiming he received prejudicial treatment for his practice of the Islamic faith, has settled his claims.
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1 Cold war: A defector like Mitrokhin had to please his hosts to stay useful for his settlement in a foreign country. iStock
Vappala Balachandran
Ex-Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat
On March 7, a leading Indian columnist quoted KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin’s ‘Archives’ (1999-2005) to say that India is the most ‘penetrated’ country since the days of Indira Gandhi. He was making this reference while ridiculing the NDA government’s paranoia over the alleged anti-India ‘conspiracy’ by three young women and Indian farmers.
Yet, he said, our government is unable to detect clear signs on what constitutes the real national danger, such as China’s hacking of our power plants. While agreeing with his conclusion, I am doubtful whether we should consider Mitrokhin’s version as true since his chief Leonid Shebarshin, who was handling India-Pakistan during 1964-77, had denied it. In December 2001, he told Vlast, a Russian weekly, that while Indira Gandhi va