metallic corralling bangs are kind of a. and just this jet of steam of fire was literally rolling off the walls around me and on the ceiling i could just see it eating up all around me. i know that if that happened on board an aircraft there there would be no chance of survival. it was the biggest chemical into songs history. a $10000.00 square foot 3 story structure. to the ground. after my building burned down after that they realize very emphatically the danger of this chemistry. knows well the chemistry of the dreamliner battery. boeing chose the most powerful

there is but also the most volatile they went to lithium. which is why here is our danger look so step down to secure plane president just before the fire started a new company to make lithium ion batteries for business jets. bugs i was a true believer in the technology. then he began testing 23.3 m. series. battery back. to even the latest industry guidelines going so far as to fire bullets into batteries to see if they could be made safe military applications. you know you could run the test that you feel that you need to meet the requirements. but. you also need to have

a conscience that's going to tell you i want to do the extreme. in the end testing with a conscience couldn't make the batteries meet the requirements is new company failed. we became professional and destroying batteries and and the more we learned about it the worse it got i mean with home i got him to give it to him and we were sent to what the rest of the guys were doing i guess we knew why. by the rest of the guys he means boeing. m a we're testing to a week a standard one written by the f.a.a. specifically for the dreamliner. it's the f.a.a. is job to regulate safety but when it comes to building airplanes the f.a.a.

delegate service site almost completely to the aircraft manufacturers. when it comes to the battery and beyond boeing largely polices itself the batteries passed boeing's tests in line with the f.a.a. rules boeing said the 787 batteries would virtually never catch fire on board an aircraft then they failed twice in just 9 days. boeing has not uncovered the root cause of the failures. it found a work around. a strong steel case more insulation and an exhaust triss fuels any fire will be a possible because there's not enough oxygen to support combustion but several leading scientists out there doubts i don't think it's sufficient fix even inside that steel box with all of its fortifications all the elements are still there for fire. despite not knowing the root cause america's safety

regulator the f.a.a. was satisfied. and in april 23rd team the dreamliner was back. but this story goes far beyond the burning battery it begins at boeing itself. is it the 1st american commercial jet capable of economical transatlantic service but boeing's 707 jet clipper since its creation in seattle nearly a century ago boeing had developed a reputation as a world class engineering company. but in 1970 boeing changed. in merged with competitor mcdonnell douglas. 2 companies with 2 very different business models. the merger was all about transforming our successful culture and business model

into the same business while the big doll dogs had used unsuccessfully you basically shortchanging hearing is stop doing aggressive new product go into your other business for cash. the new boeing moved its headquarters from seattle the only home the company had ever known to chicago. it began slashing investment in research in order to cut costs. and maximize wall street returns. i felt was wrong i felt the company was going to come in the wrong direction and. i thought that quality would suffer and the integrity of the product would suffer. the feel that that legacy and now history and clone potence has been hijacked.

by a bunch of course. by 2003 it was time to launch a new plane. but boeing's new board was reluctant to invest the billions needed. the board made it clear that. they wanted this plan made for less money they wanted it made for $5000000000.00. they wanted parkers the command to pay the rest. it's expensive so how do you make that happen well you promised them that you can do it for awareness and then worry about the consequences later. boeing came up with a plan to save itself money. it would push the costs onto its major suppliers. boeing would call them pumice. and they would design and pay for the parts they built.

boeing's job would be to assemble the plane. it was almost as if at times you thought boeing executives believed well maybe they could sit in chicago and have other companies do things they would just rake in the money somehow by putting it all together putting a boeing sticker on it at the end. right on show jewel boeing rolled out the dreamliner on sunday july the 8th 2007. 787. their alliance with us today have made a big commitment to boeing at this airplane so far they have ordered 600 and 77th birthday i think a lot of ways enjoy 2007 it was one of the more magical moments seen in the industry watching us live around the world broadcasting i'm told in 45 countries in

mind languages for the for beer of this very exciting new boeing 787 dreamliner. we were all inside the factory with artificial lighting big stage tom brokaw a huge screen. then they opened the doors of this giant assembly bay in rolls this beautiful beautiful. now. and there it is sitting in the sun and we all stream outside and we'll touch it. and none of us know that. and i'm reassured by all the executives involved that it's going to fly within 2 months. what i realized walking around it is that you could you know. look up in the wheel well and you can see daylight.

we learn that the whole thing was shot. beautiful isn't absolutely beautiful. they roll like this fig airplane. i realize the doors are made of plywood this plan that we were admiring was completely a shell inside none of this would be possible of course without exceptional leadership there's only 2 conclusions you can draw you have executives there who are either lying in which case they're clueless because they're going to get caught in 2 months or you have a complete disconnect between the people who are working on the play and the engineers and the executives who are saying this and so to each and every member of the sudden a sudden global team i say thank you. congratulations and keep up the great work more than any other single event. it was

a good line and it was a statement that the boeing company is now oh about the big lie. of. the day off to the roll out wall street pushed boeing stock to a 10 year high. but it was all about one rival as revealed in boeing's investor calls. chart. september 2007 boeing announces its 1st delay. the all year how the airplane goes to gather to shift really complicated. on top of a 2007 a 3 month delay becomes 6 months we wish we didn't have to do this. kind of

innovation present challenges there we're doing our best to meet. october 2 10096 months becomes 2 years of delays. we know that we can and must do better and i'm confident that despite our setbacks we will get the 787 through the quite as program and into the hands of our cause. it just kept getting worse and worse and it seems unbelievable you have to understand this is all the president there never been a boeing to land a boeing program the sequence of events which an awful lot like a catastrophe rather than just a manageable series and always. the dreamliner a business strategy was backfiring. designed to save so much money it was costing

boeing billions. the outsourcing plan failed very badly all these different suppliers who were going to build these major sections couldn't actually do it. to fix the dreamliner boeing dispatched hundreds of quality inspectors to struggling supply is around the globe including to its partner and linea in southern italy ringback. we are looking through with a final part of the process. ready would take on the tosca constructing the body of the plane not without a minyan panels but with compass it plastic barrels. the main objective to lose weight. saving fuel and making the 787 cheaper to run. but no one had

ever made anything like this before not boeing and especially not a linear that is not compatible with that on the market and nothing else like that . boeing's quality inspectors have one overriding priority to make sure the job is done correctly. in 2009 when inspectors found fools in parts made in this a lenny a plant. they would work to stop. a year later in a linear as other factory they again found serious problems and again they wanted work to stop. but this time managers overruled the quality inspectors. this internal boeing document from 2010 reveals executives ordered the linea to continue with fabrication without delay we follow all of the time the proceeded to stall but with the help of a boring specialist at the time there was a worry you disapprove of collusion they took responsibility for approving the quality and we would continue to warfare engine in the product. in

a separate memo obtained by al-jazeera boeing states that she may require deviations to the preferred quality process. we received the memos from an engineer who like many we spoke with was afraid to appear on camera so he answered my questions by email. the quality engineer told us deviating. the process compromised safety. a linear a boeing said it did not. so i brought the memo to the former president of boeing's

engineers union so my name is cynthia cole c y n t h i a last name c o l e cynthia cole spent 32 years at the company but never on the dreamliner program ringback. so she had never seen this memo before ready. the program schedule may require deviation to the preferred process see that was says right there that one fragment of the stands you know you don't you don't change your quality process for schedule you make quality happen in the schedule. they're short changing the engineering process to meet a schedule and they're not even allowing quality control to do their job and they're telling them this is how it's going to be i don't see how these people who

write these things and agree to these things you know this if you don't hear how they how they sleep at night i just don't get it how can you do that. as an engineer i find that reprehensible. how does it make you feel as a fly. oh yeah i know fire so is the one. that just makes you know because i've been kind of avoiding flying in the seventies and seeing this i would definitely avoid fire. combining asymptote knology. to challenge soviet era methodologies. busy through making creating and performing. turning a generation of children. into the trailblazers of tomorrow. after school armenia is part of the rebel education series. on al-jazeera.

al-jazeera where ever you are. a conflict that is now considered to be the world's worst humanitarian crisis how many did not all have to die like this horrible stock is hearts is really for sale and investigation into how billions of euros are made from supplying arms to saudi arabia a leader of the coalition fighting a war in the south the case is. why the amount of money involved yemen war profiteers on al jazeera america is divided like never before each side is so convinced that they are absolutely correct that the other side is dangerous heaven has

a wall of strict immigration policy elders smart people in power investigates the partisan politics eroding civil norms vital to american democracy are you concerned that the the political divisions today could lead to violence or it will the strange death of american civility part 2 on al-jazeera. we should all be here in doha with your top stories on al-jazeera breaking news out of india the indian government says it is scrapping a law that grants special status to indian administered kashmir the article 370 grants the regional government complete jurisdiction over all matters except defense foreign affairs finance and communications the residents live under a separate set of laws including those relating to citizenship ownership of

property and fundamental rights as compared to other indians the government also plans to split up the state indian administered kashmir which includes hindu majority jam which will no longer be a state's it will be a union territory under the central government but will have a local assembly locked up which is made up of buddhists and shia muslims will also be a union territory ahead of that the government has imposed an indefinite security lockdown in parts of the disputed region prominent local politicians are now under house arrest phone lines are done and the internet is not working. in other news live pictures out of hong kong protesters there launching a rare citywide strike there blocking trains tunnels and major intersections there's anger over the government's handling of protests against a no show extradition bill and china's influence over the territory on kong leader kerry lamb is accusing the protestors of trying to destroy hong kong. such

extensive disruptions in the name of certainty months or are uncooperative and the men have seriously undermined hong kong law and order. and are pushing our city the city we are in love. and many of us helped to build through the verge of a very dangerous situation. u.s. president donald trump has reacted to the tumor shootings in the state saying hate has no place in america 29 people were killed in the attacks in ohio and texas the shooting in el paso is being investigated as a possible hate crime humans who see rebels say they have launched a series of drone attacks targeting 2 airports and an air base in saudi arabia there's no confirmation of the strikes from riyadh those are your headlines so far the news continues after rewind back in half an hour to 30 minutes of world news

see that. if the dreamliner represents boeing's future. and i've come to the place where that future will be built. in this assembly plant in charleston south carolina. i've been called to a meeting with a man who works inside the plant. he's taking a huge risk even talking to me. it's been eating me alive to know what i know and have no appetite no venue to say anything. at

his request we used a different voice. 300 souls on the plane their lives it's bigger than me. we had seen reports of bad workmanship in the plot. but the man claimed the problems of falling deeper. with all the problems reported on the 787 there's 90 percent that's get swept away hushed up. it's an iceberg. the people that actually work on it are the biggest problem there isn't an educated under skilled and uncaring staff that are building these planes and i'm not the only one that feels that way and he was prepared to prove it. camera inside the plant to record what some workers said about the dreamliner.

so. you can't have somebody from mcdonald's do heart surgery that's trusting someone with your life that's what we're doing here.

i see a lot of things that should not go on an airplane plant people talking about doing drugs looking for drugs. really like in a place. like this someone who has right now i can just look up the list. you know put sure. when boeing 1st announced the 787 back in 2003 nobody ever dreamt it would have been assembled anyway but washington state. the one place boeing to always made its commercial aircraft. but new boeing was playing by new rules so it did something into never done before. off final assembly to the

highest bidder. they were going to hold a competition for a steer against a nationwide competition were to build this plant. iran to my editor after i put the phone down i think it was 5 o'clock and i said you're going to believe this they're going they're not necessarily going to go here. washington state one but only by giving boeing what was then a record $3000000000.00 in tax breaks. 5 years later owns machinist's would go off the job after contract negotiations stall . the strike cost boeing billions and added to the dreamliner as delays. boeing stock was in freefall i mean the global economic crisis.

that strike really enraged the top executives at boeing and so early in 2009 they made it very clear that they wanted a 2nd assembly might somewhere else. that turned out to be south carolina the state offered cheap land and labor. close to $1000000000.00 in support found no unions. the decision to build the 2nd 77 assembly line in charleston south carolina was made because of the strike in 2000 it they wanted to do it there because they wanted to weaken the union and they did . but for boeing leaving behind a world class union workforce for the greener pastures of a nonunion charleston would come at

a price. work in the plants is significantly behind and plagued by production areas. i know of one customer no longer except plants from charleston due to quality issues. they will only accept final assembly done in everett washington. every day when you go to work not only are you doing your job but you're looking at the previous job to see if someone has messed something else up on that and chose not to tell me.

to be sure everything is done correctly and the plane is safe boeing has quality assurance inspectors painstakingly check every step of the way but in south carolina this inspector says he only saw ends off on finish joe ups. of. you think everything better. my name is john woods. space engineer.

to lead troops. going. join words spent a career in the highly specialized field of everest base compass its. boeing hired woods knowing he had qualified psychiatric conditions. attention deficit disorder obsessive compulsive disorder and mild depression his job was to write instructions on how to repair parts damaged during the manufacturing process. it's my job. to make sure. that their craft is safe. which says when you try to enforce quality standards in the south carolina plant it was the rate by his bosses. in a couple of meetings there is several group of managers. screaming at me to

dumb down they were construction. saying you have to take remove requirements from your instructions as to it's it's going to take too much time. would says he witnessed damaged parts being ignored papered over and hidden from view. there's no doubt the bad repairs going out the door on the $77.00 aircraft i am worried that. sooner or later there's going to be a structural failure and feel. goods appealed to boeing's human resources department claiming he was being harassed for doing his job instead of coming to his defense boeing managers put boards under review. weeks later they fired him. on the revealed this the day before i was terminated. i was telling my brother. it was to be working out.

he still had not lost faith in the system. he turned to the f.a.a. . filing a whistleblower complaint. the documentary ledged 7 serious violations in the south carolina. i'm going to the page where they reach their conclusions in their discussion and what they found is that all the allegations all but one of them they could not substantiate and the one that they could substantiate they asked boeing to fix it boeing said ok we fixed it and then they closed the investigation and that's pretty much how they all go i mean i've seen this so many times. i think you would think that if you want.

us to help you when they commonly call me up with information and they say i have all this information about this dangerous situation should i blow the whistle and i said well no not unless you have a private trust fund or another job to go to because you have a problem earning a living. when we looked at would f.a.a. complaint we noticed a familiar name. from me. he was in the f.a.a. is man in charge of the dreamliner. in 20113 years behind should boeing celebrated final approval for the 787 to fly. and it was bob romney who signed the order. right.

for. thank you it was bought from me who signed off on the dreamliner batteries. and offered 2 failed and the f.a.a. grounded the dreamliner it was bought from me who signed it back into the. shortly after that he retired from the f.a.a. . 2 weeks later he was hired as vice president of the aerospace industries association which nobody's on behalf of boeing. one of the 1st things he did was to appear before congress to call for greatest so for regulation for companies like boeing for years the f.a.a. to allow greater use of delegation not only to take full advantage of industry expertise but to increase the collaboration that improves aviation safety mr but from a declined our interview request one day or regulating the airline in the next day

you're working for it can't possibly be tough on the industry that you're regulating because you'll never get that plum job after you leave the regulators that the f.a.a. will rarely cross boeing is simply walked. into the washington influence game and boeing is amongst them last year the company had over $100.00 registered lobbyists. even president obama boasts that he works for boeing you so i desire time i see him i said you know i deserve a gold watch because i'm selling your stuff all the time. jay is jim mcnerney. it's clear what boeing gets from the u.s. government what's not so clear is what he gives back. pay no taxes in 2013 no federal income taxes that's not a unique year over the last 12 years they claim to over $1600000000.00 in federal

tax refunds even though they reported 40 $3000000000.00 in u.s. profits. $43000000000.00 in profit but none of that comes from the dreamliner which has cost billions and he's years away from making money. all of boeing's commercial profit comes from older and from. those created prior to the dreamliner prior to jim mcnerney and prior to the merger. it has been the top executives and largest stockholders who have benefited most. going c.e.o. jim mcnerney made $27.00 and a half $1000000.00 in 2012 that was enough to pay the salaries of the president of united states the vice president $15.00 cabinet secretaries the 9 supreme court justices 7 joint chiefs of staff and all 100 u.s. senators. mcnerney is set to retire with

a pension of close to $250000.00 a month. just before christmas 2013 boeing demanded pension cuts from its union machinists for jim mcnerney to be earning a pension. proximately occur a $1000000.00 per month and think that it's ok for him to take my $2200.00 pension is outrageous absolutely outrageous. back in south carolina and with the rise tool with boeing's new workforce is coming to a close as only one question left to ask. also 15 of these kind of workers if they fly on the dreamliner. chain said no. you won't but. why would you.

find this stuff as far as your answer will will join the workers who fear to fly the plane they build quality process apparently loosened to speed up shed work is fired after making safety allegations we needed on says from boeing right now we're at a very exciting point in time we have brought our production rates up to 10 airplanes a month faster than any airplane in the aviation history and to the highest level of any wide body airplane aviation history there's a couple of documents i want to show you here i showed him the documents suggesting boeing had changed quality procedures and overruled inspectors to speed up production mr loftus was not manager of the 707 program in 2010 when the memos were written not for with the talking. for boeing engineers. have told us that these

represent boeing essentially putting shuttle ahead of quality shortchanging the engineering process to me to shed you is that something you recognize the number one focus that we have that boeing is ensuring the continued safe there were this of an airplane the integrity of the airplane in the quality of the airplane going out. we've also heard directly from from work inside a south carolina plant. they painted a grim picture really of things that they say the workforce isn't up to the job i'm extremely confident in the quality of the workforce and i'm going south carolina the boeing workers at south carolina to share that confidence is what some of them said here. why would we need to turn the camera what's the problem and then boeing's communications director stopped the interview. the glories you.

want to. come on to say i can't tell you who the employees are but they are boeing work is to who assembled the planes that you build. shorts for. oh i'm assuming the buck stops with the boeing commercial airplanes management and so the most senior managers are the ones to answer this we're here with the head of the 707 program and we have these things that you know you need to hear and you need to provide a response to we have not heard charles. crawford. irate that. we could but. but this i do i have the highest degree of confidence in the production system we have with the employees we have the boeing company in our supply chain. it's. the.

questions in writing denying it compromises safety or quality it said our interview was hostile unprofessional and in the worst traditions of tabloid style television news the company said it was confident that its battery fix prevents failure as boeing says it uses one common f.a.a. approved quality system for the 707 in everett and charleston boeing noted its memory stated it did not signify authorization to ship parts that don't meet quality requirements boeing said it drug tests in line with company policy and duplicable law the company denies any customer has said they will only take planes from everett. as for john woods boeing says his safety claims have no merit the. may 18th 24 team. canada celebrates the delivery of its 1st 77.

this is the modern marketing reality of the dreamliner but is there another reality one revealed by a burning badgering by the words of the workers who built the plane will. find boeing's apparent changes to its quality protocol. boeing says the 77 has no more problems than previous models the f.a.a. says there's never been a safer time to fly. the dreamliner is the phones to selling plane in the world. one day we may need find ourselves on board. when we do we will trust boeing has put quality 1st we will trust the regulators have been rigorous. to mentally be able to trust the plane is same.

broken dreams from 2014 a disturbing insight into the corporate culture of the world's biggest manufacturer and i'm pleased to say that i'm joined from london by the reporter on the film will jordan so well what's happened since that film ed let's start with the release of the film and what action boeing took at the time which was externally very little internally. really what they did was try and weed out the whistleblower the person who it filmed within the plugs charles. and south carolina they also let go all the temporary workers in the areas of the plant they they suspected were the areas where workers had filmed and then issued a statement attacking our journalism describing it as tabloid style and complaining

about ambush tactics and they blamed the allegations on disgruntled employees who they set out an axe to grind and they talked about sources who they felt had their own agendas and said they didn't have an interest in safety but in their own personal priorities they complained that the program was inaccurate and and unbalanced but 5 years have passed now we have seen. a new crisis now at boeing with the 737 max which has sparked reportedly a federal investigation a criminal investigation into the certification of that plane and that has also reportedly expanded to that plant in south carolina where prosecutors have issued subpoenas for information about activities there there's also been a renewed media scrutiny on that plant reporting broadly the same things

that we found back in 2014 which suggests that in fact very little has changed within that plant and within the boeing culture more broadly well statistically flying is the safest form of transport and i guess you're more likely to fly a bomb the most of the aircrafts of 5 years on from your investigation how worried should we be all. well it's true that hundreds of thousands millions of people fly every day and they do so unharmed flying is extremely safe it is deemed to be much safer than driving in a car almost other forms of transport and there is also a huge level of scrutiny on a plane construction but that is because it is such an extremely complicated business and you can talk to be journalists who have worked in the aviation sector

for years and years and years and engineers in fact who say you know they simply cannot understand the true complexity of the machines that we fly and that is the reason why there has to be so much scrutiny but that is also why there are times issues that arise and any issues like that of the 737 max and will do you fly in a 787 dreamliner especially after what people working on that playing told you about it at some point most regular flyers will fly on the 787 i am a regular fly and there are some routes you do fly on the 787 i have. and here i am but there is a plenty to look at and to scrutinize on boeing and all we can do as the flying public is trust that the system works trust but verify and i think. a decent amount of scrutiny on boeing and airbus and all plane manufacturers is

absolutely what should and is going on well thank you for talking to as. well that's it from rewind you can find more updated stories from the al jazeera archive on the rewind page at al-jazeera dot com elizabeth problem for me and all the rewind thank you for watching. hello there mostly fine picture across much of the middle east we have seen some of those that monsoonal showers in the crotch of the last few days there but a child showing up here although we can't rule out the chance of an off the thunderstorm but for the most part to drive across pakistan the same into kabul $36.00 celsius on monday one of the bits and pieces of rain scattered showers but

very widely scattered across turkey for the next 24 hours by choosing a should be mostly dry $27.00 the high in ankara and a whole further to the south $45.00 in baghdad and also in kuwait city and that's how much is a similarly high further to the south most to care along the southern coast maybe just a straight pushing of the southwest of yemen and again throughout the entire region we have got that from all the wind strong at times is blowing down of sea from the north $45.00 celsius in doha on tuesday but the wind helping a little bit with the humidity that we have for the south southern africa there's a front sliding by that south coast but it's not really bringing any rain 15 degrees in capetown on monday temperatures a close to the average it's a woman day into durban 24 degrees celsius and no sign of any needed rains further to the north as you can see maybe just some pushing into the far north east of madagascar and isles for cheese day 22 and 116 in cape town.

where if you. the indian government scraps a law that grants special status to indian administered kashmir. has new delhi cut cell phone and internet links in kashmir and puts local politicians under house arrest. hello and welcome i'm peter w.

watching al jazeera live from our headquarters here in doha also coming up. that aside differences and bring back. and say no to chaos and violence. embattled hong kong leader kerry lam faces an unprecedented general strike across the city. 40 people were killed in libya in airstrikes by forces loyal to the warlord after. the top story the indian government scrapped constitutional provisions giving special status to indian administered kashmir home minister. comes as the region is under lockdown with all communication lines now suspended let's take a closer look at the law the granted autonomy to this disputed region well we're talking now about article $37370.00 allowed indian administered kashmir to make its

own laws except in finance defense foreign affairs and communications that means the residents of the states live on the different laws from the rest of the country in matters such as property ownership and citizenship the government also plans to split up the state indian administered kashmir which includes hindu majority jam who will be directly run from new delhi but will have a local assembly duck which is made up of buddhists and shia muslims will. also be a union territory but it will not have its own assembly well as we mentioned indian administered kashmir is now in a state of lockdown thousands of additional troops have been deployed and public gatherings of being severely restricted phone and internet links of being cut and in an unusual move pro india politicians in kashmir they're also under house arrest the government has asked all hindu pilgrims and tourists to leave the area warning

of possible attacks by armed groups there's also been a spike in shelling of the line of control that separates india and pakistan administered kashmir pakistan on saturday accused india of using banned cluster munitions and allegation the indian army denies let's talk now to the defense analyst who joins us from dallas to chicago welcome back to al-jazeera this is such a complicated picture what does it mean. how well essentially we have the ruling party in india which is a hindu nationalist part of the gentile party or the b j p that has a spot of its electoral promises said that it would remove the special status that muslim majority. state which is actually core just more in kashmir enjoys within the indian provision through this article called article 370 that was struck down

today that party says that this article is discriminate 3 it was the basis of the exception of jumbo and kashmir state to the indian union in 1947 at a time when all states had the choice of whether to join indel pakistan or in kashmir joint india on the condition that these trees areas that you talked about foreign affairs currency and could. moon occasions and defense are going to be handled by the central government in delhi where it's all about the provisions all other aspects of governance would be handled by the government in jammu and kashmir now the beach it be tested be struck down that provision it said in its electoral manifesto as well that it would do so nobody ever thought that they would actually get around to doing it so soon but they placed kashmir under

a security lockdown they are making sure nobody comes out on the streets and protests otherwise they could be very bloody protests and they have not just struck down the provision of $370.00 but they have actually dismantled the state of jammu and kashmir dignity as it existed in the indian constitution it now consists of union territories which are centrally governed love doc is one and jumped on kashmir would be one so that is sort of a radical new provision which many people are saying will require a constitutional amendment the b.g.p. doesn't think so we'll have to see what happens in the days ahead ok who's behind this and why. well this is a straightforward pandering to the hindu majority electorate in india b j p the hindu nationalist party that i spoke about came to power in the elections

in may this year with enhanced majority based on promises that it would remove these special provisions which they say pander to the muslims of india so there is a clear political polarized nation here with the ruling party trying to pander to its hindu vote bank and anything that it sees as anti muslim whether the action that is taken against kashmir today or any action that it is to takes against pakistan meets with heavy approval from the from the hindu votebank so for the government this has been a step that it has promised in is now delivered on we'll just have to see whether the indian courts whether the indian legal system and whether the indian legislature since it's a constitutional amendment it will have to be passed by a 2 thirds majority in parliament where all these people line up behind the b.g.p. calculating that their benefits lie with the vote bank or not is it legal and if

it's not legal where would the challenges against that and. just repeat that peter is this legal as far as we can tell because of the constitutional relationship between the federal government in new delhi and the state governments and if somebody decided to challenge where would that challenge come from and might it i guess end up in the supreme court. well the challenge 1st of all would come from interest groups in kashmir as you mentioned earlier in the program the whole of kashmir has has been practically locked up including the pro indian politicians so mean it is now on one side including the session is the nationalist the union is everybody is outraged at this step that has been taken so the 1st legal challenge will come from kashmir itself

or show at the same time there are many civil society groups that believe this is an extremely unwise step that article 370 which has now been scrapped actually constituted the bridge between the state of war in kashmir and the indian union and doing away with it now open the doors for open palestine type independence struggle within kashmir so there will be many interest groups in india as well which will be mounting legal challenges and the political opposition which has many of our fears lawyers amongst them will also be mounting legal challenges as well it can be expected that these will be heard by a constitution bench of the indian supreme court but everybody will be waiting to see which way that ruling goes we've seen indian states being split or bifurcated along these lines before i guess in some senses if you go back to the seventy's that's kind of how we got bangladesh as well that's a different discussion granted but when states like this get treated in this way

within the context of indian politics some people do very well because they're in the bits of the state that pays allegiance to the state capital that's already industrialized that makes money other people do less well so if you apply that to indian administered kashmir you're going to make a difficult situation much worse potentially much more combustible perhaps. or without without question the kashmiri people since the days of the mogul rulers in the 16th and 17th century have historically nurtured a profound distrust of new delhi which had they believe has always tried to exploited has tried to impose its will on it that has continued over the centuries it exists even today and this step which actually amounts to going back on

a promise based on which kashmir ceded to the indian union in 1947 will only get the kashmiris to believe that they were right in in distrusting delhi all these years and that their future actually lay better with pakistan really ludicrous though that means seem to some but as a as a muslim majority province that is now being sort of feeling betrayed in its condition for accession to the indian union that's that's absolutely the best we of of making a bad situation even worse as you put it as you as you sort of rightly brought out states have been changed before their boundaries redrawn but that has been done constitutionally with the consultation of the state with the free will of the state in accordance with article 3 of the indian constitution this is now just being rammed through this is being bulldozed on to the kashmiri people and it's not going to go down well to put it extremely mildly mr unpacks complex situation for us

really well thank you so much for joining us here on al-jazeera out of our bureau in new delhi good to talk to you sir. thank you let's move on to another ongoing developing story midday in hong kong a citywide general strike is underway monday's generally busy and hong kong but as you can see from this video the streets are almost completely empty anger over the government's handling of protests against the shelved extradition bill and concerns about china's influence in the territory many want the territory leader kerry to resign and she's accusing the protesters of trying to destroy homes. such extensive disruptions in the name of certainty months or uncooperative movement have seriously undermined hong kong's law and order. and are pushing our city the city we all love. and many of

us helped to build through the verge of a very dangerous situation. well hong kong opposition politicians say kerry has lost all legitimacy to continue in office i carry land has practically tell the hong kong and international communities that she has done nothing wrong and that it tends to set a she and her government morally bankrupt and her use of diversion tactic claiming that the people is the monster have changed more into something else that say that seriously a lie let's talk to our correspondent andrew thomas tracking that story for us in hong kong andrew how much of a success has this strike been today. while hong kong has been very.