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☆ Modi Calls Muslims ‘Infiltrators’ Who Would Take India’s Wealth
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Alex Travelli | Suhasini Raj | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called Muslims “infiltrators” who would take India’s wealth if his opponents gained power — unusually direct and divisive language from a leader who normally lets others do the dirtiest work of polarizing Hindus against Muslims. Mr. Modi, addressing voters in the state of Rajasthan, referred to a remark once made by Manmohan Singh, his predecessor from the opposition Indian National Congress Party. Mr. Singh, Mr. Modi claimed, had “said that Muslims have the first right to the wealth of the nation. This means they will distribute this wealth to those who have more children, to infiltrators.”Mr. Modi aimed his emotional appeal at women, addressing “my mothers and sisters” to say that his Congress opponents would take their gold and give it to Muslims. Implications like these — that Muslims have too many babies, that they are coming for Hindus’ wives and daughters, that their nationality as Indian is itself in doubt — are often made by representatives of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P.

Persons: Narendra Modi, ”, Modi, Manmohan Singh, Singh, Mr, “, —, Modi’s Organizations: Sunday, Indian National Congress Party, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party Locations: Rajasthan

The views are spectacular in this corner of eastern Nepal, between the world’s highest mountains and the tea estates of India’s Darjeeling district, where rare orchids grow and red pandas play on the lush hillsides. But life can be tough. Wild animals destroyed the corn and potato crops of Pasang Sherpa, a farmer born near Mount Everest. He gave up on those plants a dozen years ago and resorted to raising one that seemed to have little value: argeli, an evergreen, yellow-flowering shrub found wild in the Himalayas. Farmers grew it for fencing or firewood.

Persons: Sherpa Organizations: Pasang Sherpa, Farmers Locations: Nepal, India’s Darjeeling, Pasang, Mount Everest, Asia

To live in the Maldives is to live in one of two worlds. Either you belong to the capital — Malé, a micro-Manhattan in the Indian Ocean — or you are out in “the islands,” among the quietest and most remote villages this side of the Arctic tundra. It is in these places — far from the archipelago’s walled-garden resort atolls, where no Maldivians actually dwell — that the country is picking between two visions of its future, like much of the rest of Asia, but more so. The outer islands are steadily depopulating, as the appeal of making a life through tuna fishing and coconut farming along their crushed-coral seashores shrinks. The splendid isolation may be what attracts visitors, but it seems incompatible with islanders’ aspirations in a nation modernized by global tourism.

Locations: Maldives, Manhattan, Asia

☆ 5 Things to Know to Understand India’s Economy Under Modi
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Alex Travelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Narendra Modi has big money behind him as he appears set to win a third term as India’s prime minister. His party has collected more political cash than the others combined, and the country’s richest business leaders support him. The campaign is fueled partly by a winning story Mr. Modi tells about India’s economy, some of which can be traced to changes made during his decade in office. Here are five factors that are essential to understanding India’s economy. But its economy has developed an undeniable momentum in the past three decades and is now worth $3.7 trillion.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Modi Locations: India

☆ What 10 Years of Modi Rule Has Meant for India’s Economy
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Alex Travelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As Narendra Modi was storming to victory in the election of 2014, he said that “acchhe din aane waale hain” — good times are coming. Now as Mr. Modi stands set to secure another term as prime minister in elections starting on April 19, the value of India’s stock market has grown threefold since he first took office. India’s economy is almost twice as big as it was. But the economic gains have been widely unequal. The bulk of India’s growth depends on those at the top of the income ladder, including a coterie of huge and tightly controlled businesses.

Persons: Narendra Modi, waale, Modi

“The tankers and cargo ships of 1950 aren’t the tankers and cargo ships of today,” said James Salmon, a spokesman for the Delaware River and Bay Authority. “It’s going to do a number on them,” he said of a modern ship and the hazard it poses to a bridge like the one in Baltimore. Image The new bridge ship collision protection system project on the Delaware Memorial Bridge will install eight stone-filled “dolphin” cylinders, each measuring 80 feet in diameter. Credit... Delaware River and Bay AuthorityThe situation with the Key Bridge is “unique,” said Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which represents state transportation departments. A protection system was subsequently built around the new pier.

Persons: ”, James Salmon, Francis Scott Key, Michael Rubino, don’t, Joseph Ahlstrom, It’s, “ It’s, Dali, hurtled, Jim Tymon, ” John Snyder, Pete Buttigieg, “, Paul, Gerald Desmond Bridge, Matt Gresham, Joong Kim, Michael Forsythe Organizations: Bay Authority, Port, SUNY Maritime College, New York State, American Association of State, Transportation, National Transportation Safety, Sunshine Skyway, Administration, Baltimore Sun, Union, National Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration, Liberty University Locations: Delaware, Bay, Baltimore, Port of Los Angeles, . Delaware, Maryland, Tampa Bay, Tampa, U.S, Minnesota, Union Pacific, St, New York, Bayonne, New Jersey, Staten Island, Long Beach, Calif, New Orleans, Mississippi, Port of New Orleans

☆ Data Dump Exposes the Fuzzy Lines Between Money and Politics in India
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Alex Travelli | Hari Kumar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Politics in India is an expensive business, and sometimes lucrative, too. In this year’s election, parties are expected to spend more than $14 billion — as much as in the United States. But there has been little in the way of transparency for the huge sums sloshing around. Reading between the lines of the spreadsheets full of names poses questions about the intersection of government and business in India. Construction companies, gambling impresarios, pharmaceutical bosses and many more corporate entities and individuals had forked over $1.7 billion in bonds since 2019.

Persons: Jairam Ramesh, Narendra Modi Organizations: State Bank of India, Indian National Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party of Locations: India, United States

☆ India Law That Sparked Deadly Riots Is Enacted After a 4-Year Delay
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-12 | by ( Alex Travelli | Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Weeks before a national election, the Indian government has abruptly announced that it will begin enforcing a citizenship law that had remained dormant since late 2019 after inciting deadly riots by opponents who called it anti-Muslim. The incendiary law grants Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and Christians from a few nearby countries. Muslims are pointedly excluded. With a characteristic thunderclap, the government of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, made a short declaration on Monday night that it had finalized the details that would bring the law, known as the Citizenship Amendment Act, into force. The government’s action, coming just before India announces the dates for an election expected in April and May, shows Mr. Modi delivering on a promise, and could change the electoral math in districts with Hindu refugees who stand to benefit from the law.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Modi Locations: India’s, India

Between a few flecks of coral in the Indian Ocean, a ribbon of highway more than a mile long swoops up from the blue. Since 2018, the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge has connected this archipelago’s hyper-dense capital, Malé, and the international airport — expanded by Chinese companies — one island to the east. But China is not alone in chasing friendship with the Maldives. The Maldives, a tiny tourism-dependent country of 500,000 people, barely registers as a blip alongside India and China, the world’s most populous nations. Yet every blip counts in the two giants’ competition for influence across South Asia, and that has set the Maldives on a zigzagging course between them.

Persons: Indira Gandhi Organizations: Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital Locations: China, Maldives, Malé, India, The Maldives, South Asia

☆ Disney and Reliance Industries Announce Media Mega Deal in India
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Alex Travelli | Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Walt Disney Company had an India-sized twinkle in its eye as early as 1993, when it first came to the country of now 1.4 billion potential media consumers. Along with India’s market, Disney’s ambitions grew bigger. Last year EY, the accounting and consulting firm, estimated that India’s media landscape would be worth $100 billion by 2030. On Wednesday, Disney announced it would merge its Indian operations under those of Viacom18, a part of Reliance Industries, India’s biggest conglomerate. Reliance will fork over $1.4 billion to consolidate its control.

Organizations: Walt Disney Company, Disney, Reliance Industries, India’s, Reliance Locations: India

☆ Why Farmers Are Marching Toward Delhi Again
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Alex Travelli | Suhasini Raj | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Once again, India’s capital is bracing itself for a siege. Not by a foreign army but by an army of Indian farmers, streaming toward New Delhi from nearby states to protest government policies. The farmers’ march has turned the city’s main points of entry into choke points, as the federal and local police go into overdrive: barricading highways by pouring concrete and stacking shipping containers to halt the advancing tractors. The authorities have blocked the social media accounts of some protest leaders and even used drones that were once billed as an agricultural innovation to drop tear-gas grenades on the demonstrators. The scenes hark back to North India’s biggest protests of 2020 and 2021, when hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly from the states of Punjab and Haryana, forced the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to abandon three bills meant to overhaul India’s agricultural economy.

Persons: Narendra Modi Locations: Delhi, Punjab, Haryana

☆ India’s Quiet Push to Steal More of China’s iPhone Business
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Alex Travelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It is happening in South Indian industrial areas on muddy plots that were once farmland. In Sriperumbudur, people call Apple “the customer,” not daring to say the name of a company that prizes its secrets. Once finished, each will be a tight block of 13 buildings with 24 rooms per floor around an L-shaped hallway. Every one of those pink-painted rooms will have beds for six workers, all women. It’s a ready-made scene from Shenzhen or Zhengzhou, the Chinese cities famous for their iPhone production prowess.

Persons: ”, It’s Organizations: Apple Locations: India, China, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou

Leading up to the temple’s consecration, public spaces around India were thrumming with excitement. Ram is one of the most revered gods among India’s Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of a total population of 1.4 billion. Islam does not appear in the Ramayana, having arrived in India only 1,000 years ago. But it is cast as the primary villain in the Hindu-nationalist telling of India’s history. Now, with a kind of spiritual and political homecoming for Mr. Modi, the Ram campaigners have the temple they had sought for decades.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Ram, Modi Locations: Indian, Ayodhya, India

A U.S. foreign development agency announced on Wednesday it would lend $553 million to establish a deepwater shipping-container terminal at the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka, expanding America’s effort to finance infrastructure around strategic parts of Asia. Adani will help develop the terminal with Sri Lankan partners. The money from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation resembles the kind of big-ticket deals that China’s development banks have struck around the world over the past decade. Under its Belt and Road Initiative, central to the foreign policy of President Xi Jinping, China made loans to build up ties around Asia, including in Sri Lanka. The Development Finance Corporation was created during the Trump administration to bankroll international infrastructure projects, cooperating with the State Department to support U.S. foreign policy and curb Chinese influence.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Adani, Xi Jinping, Trump Organizations: Port, Adani, Sri, U.S . International Development Finance Corporation, Initiative, Development Finance Corporation, State Department Locations: Colombo, Sri Lanka, Asia, India, China, United States

Schools closed in New Delhi on Friday, while some diesel-burning vehicles were ordered off the roads and much of the city’s incessant construction was halted, as the authorities tried to mitigate the effects of a thick haze of pollution that has descended on India’s capital, a calamity that has come to be an annual blight. Despite the mandates, and an appeal to people to stay indoors, the measures provided little relief for the city’s many millions of residents. “Breathing becomes heavy and long,” said Ram Kumar, a 30-year-old from the city of Gorakhpur, in the more rural north of India, who supports his family back home by driving an auto-rickshaw in New Delhi. In June, during Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season, New York saw its skies turn orange from the smoke that wafted over, with residents suffering from that type of pollution at a concentration of about 117 micrograms per cubic meter. By comparison, on Friday afternoon in Delhi, the average was around 500, reaching 643 in some places.

Persons: ”, Ram Kumar Locations: New Delhi, Gorakhpur, India, “, New York, Delhi

No nation in the world is buying as many airplanes as India. Its largest airlines have ordered nearly 1,000 jets this year, committing tens of billions of dollars to a spending spree that is unparalleled in aviation. In New Delhi, Indira Gandhi International Airport will be ready for 109 million passengers next year, as it prepares to become the world’s second busiest, behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States. The enormous aviation build-out, with a surge of investment behind it, has pride of place in India’s case for a greater standing on the world stage. As it moves up the ranks of the world’s biggest economies, India is scrambling to meet the expanding ambitions of its ascendant middle class.

Persons: yearn Organizations: Indira Gandhi, Hartsfield, Jackson Atlanta International Airport Locations: India, New Delhi, United States

Each notification sounded its own little alarm, but was amplified many times over when the targets identified themselves publicly. The warning on their phones, sent by Apple on Monday, seemed stark: “State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone,” it said in part. This week’s episode seemed to fit into that pattern for his critics and many who got the warning from Apple. Rahul Gandhi, the foremost opposition leader, said many of his confidants in the Congress Party received the notification. Mr. Gandhi added that he takes illegal surveillance by the government for granted.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Apple’s, Modi’s, Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Gandhi, “ Organizations: Bharatiya Janata Party, Apple, Party Locations: India

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a plea to legalize same-sex marriage, a stinging setback for gay people seeking equal rights in this socially conservative country of 1.4 billion people. A five-member bench of judges ruled unanimously against the petitioners, with the chief justice saying it was up to Parliament to create any laws recognizing same-sex unions. Still, it offered a few glimmers of hope to same-sex marriage proponents, if largely rhetorical in some cases. The judges ruled that transgender people can marry other transgender people, and expanded the definition of discrimination. Among the four opinions they issued in the ruling, some were pointedly sympathetic to the petitioners.

Persons: ”, Anjali Gopalan Organizations: Foundation Locations: India’s, New Delhi

While a major climate policy breakthrough appears unlikely at the G20 summit this weekend, experts do expect less-wealthy countries to continue pressing richer ones to provide more climate financing. In an article published in Indian newspapers on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India appeared to signal that climate finance would be a priority this weekend. “Ambitions for climate action must be matched with actions on climate finance and transfer of technology,” he wrote. But a meeting of climate ministers from G20 countries in India earlier this summer failed to produce consensus on climate-mitigation targets. There was some progress on climate finance at a G20 summit in Rome two years ago, where leaders said they would end the financing of coal power plants overseas.

Persons: Narendra Modi, ” Organizations: European Union Locations: United States, Egypt, Tuvalu, Chad, Pakistan, Pacific, India, Paris, Rome

While a major climate policy breakthrough appears unlikely at the G20 summit this weekend, experts do expect less-wealthy countries to continue pressing richer ones to provide more climate financing. Last year, rich countries agreed at a climate summit in Egypt to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by pollution from wealthy nations. “Ambitions for climate action must be matched with actions on climate finance and transfer of technology,” he wrote. But a meeting of climate ministers from G20 countries in India earlier this summer failed to produce consensus on climate-mitigation targets. There was some progress on climate finance at a G20 summit in Rome two years ago, where leaders said they would end the financing of coal power plants overseas.

Persons: Narendra Modi, ” Organizations: European Union Locations: United States, Egypt, Tuvalu, Chad, Pakistan, Pacific, India, Paris, Rome

☆ India Moon Landing In Latest Moon Race, India Aims to Claim First Successful Southern Pole Landing
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( The New York Times | Alex Travelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

India’s recent efforts in space exploration closely mirror the country’s diplomatic push as an ambitious power on the rise. That assertiveness on the world stage is a central campaign message for Mr. Modi, who is up for re-election for a third term early next year. “Thanks to our scientists, India has a very rich history in the space sector,” Mr. Modi said after Chandrayaan-3’s launch to the moon last month. Russia’s failed moon landing just days before India’s successful attempt was the latest indication of Moscow’s struggles as a space power. On the day India is attempting its moon landing, Mr. Modi is in South Africa for a meeting of the group of nations known as BRICS.

Persons: Narendra Modi’s, Modi, Mr, China —, Russia’s, India’s, Xi Jinping, Modi’s, Bharat Karnad, Karnad, “, ” Organizations: China, Mr, Artemis Accords, Center for Policy Research Locations: New Delhi, India, United States, Soviet Union, Washington, Moscow, China, Beijing, South Africa, Russia, U.S

The Indian mission launched in July, taking a slower, fuel-conscious route toward the moon. Vikram out-endured its Russian counterpart, Luna-25, which launched 12 days. Luna-25 was scheduled to land on the moon on Monday in the same general vicinity as the Indian craft but crashed on Saturday following an engine malfunction. India’s recent efforts in space exploration closely mirror the country’s diplomatic push as an ambitious power on the rise. Indian officials have been advocating in favor of a multipolar world order in which New Delhi is seen as indispensable to global solutions.

Persons: Vikram, Narendra Modi’s Organizations: Soviet Union Locations: India, Russia, Soviet, New Delhi

The group of nations known as BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — represents 40 percent of the world’s population and a quarter of the world’s economy. Now it is considering expanding, in a push to be seen as a credible counterweight to Western-led forums like the G7 group of advanced nations. It comprises the world’s largest authoritarian state (China) and its largest democracy (India), economies big and small, and relations with the United States that run the gamut, from friend to foe. China, under Xi Jinping, wants to expand BRICS, seeing in it a platform to challenge American power. India, locked in a territorial dispute with China, is wary of Beijing’s dominance in the club.

Persons: Xi Jinping Organizations: South Africa — Locations: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Western, United States, Moscow, Ukraine

☆ India’s Top Court Clears Way for Rahul Gandhi’s Return to Parliament
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Alex Travelli | More About Alex Travelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Supreme Court stopped short of implying any foul play within the judiciary, however. When the Surat court issued its ruling, Mr. Gandhi was forced out of the official residence where he had lived for 19 years, and his ability to run for office in next year’s election was thrown into doubt. After the Supreme Court handed down its decision on Friday, Mr. Gandhi struck an upbeat note, albeit in keeping with a stoical persona he has been developing in his campaign against Mr. Modi. “This is not one to celebrate but weep,” Praveen Chakravarty, a close adviser of Mr. Gandhi’s, posted on Twitter. “An orchestrated judgment in a bogus case by a friendly court had to be rectified by the SC, when 70,000 cases are pending.

Persons: ”, Mr, Gandhi, Modi, Praveen, Gandhi’s, “ Organizations: Supreme Court, Mr, Party, Twitter, SC Locations: Surat

In the early hours of Monday, on a train bound for Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, a police officer took up his service rifle, fatally shot his superior and then killed three unarmed passengers. All three of the passengers were Muslim men, according to Indian news reports. The violence occurred on the same day as a march led by a Hindu nationalist organization in one of the few northern Indian districts in which Muslims are a majority. The rally, which a Hindu vigilante wanted in the murders of several Muslims had promised to join, dissolved into street fighting, which then gave way to a full-blown riot that spread toward Delhi. As shops, vehicles and a mosque were set ablaze, at least five people were killed, including the mosque’s junior imam, the police said.

Persons: Chetan Singh, Modi, Yogi, Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath, Modi’s, —, Washington — Organizations: Mr, State Department Locations: Mumbai, Hindustan, South Asia, Delhi, India, New Delhi, Paris, Washington

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