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☆ Rahul Gandhi, Long on the Ropes, Looks Set for an Unexpected Comeback
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-05 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Just last year, Rahul Gandhi and the once-powerful party he led, the Indian National Congress, seemed to be on the ropes and little threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s consolidation of political power. Congress had not been a competitive factor in national elections in years, winning fewer and fewer votes each time Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was elected. And Mr. Gandhi himself had been convicted on a slander charge and barred from holding a seat in Parliament. But on Tuesday, Mr. Gandhi and a broad opposition coalition led by his Congress party registered a far stronger showing than expected in India’s elections, setting the stage for an unlikely comeback. “This time he has improved his vote share by at least 17 million votes, which is very substantial.”

Persons: Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi’s, Modi’s, Gandhi, ”, Rasheed Kidwai Organizations: Indian National Congress, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Observer Research Foundation Locations: New Delhi, “

☆ Early Election Results Suggest Sharp Turnaround for Indian National Congress
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-04 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In India’s last general election, in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party won 303 of 543 parliamentary seats — nearly six times as many as the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress. But early election results on Tuesday indicated a far stronger showing than expected for the Congress. “Whatever the final results, one thing is clear — it is a moral victory for Congress and our leader Rahul Gandhi, and defeat for B.J.P.,” said Robin Michael, a political worker, referring to Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. While there was no indication that Congress and the opposition coalition it leads would scrape together a majority to unseat Mr. Modi, party workers said that they had dented Mr. Modi’s aura of invincibility. They praised Mr. Gandhi, the Congress party’s most prominent figure and a great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first post-independence prime minister.

Persons: Narendra Modi’s, jubilation, Rahul Gandhi, ”, Robin Michael, Modi’s, Mr, Modi, Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s Organizations: Indian National Congress, Congress, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party Locations: New Delhi

Before the water tanker rolled into one of New Delhi’s largest slums, Arvind Kumar was pacing between the gate of a public school and a tea seller’s stall hundreds of yards from his home, where he lives with nine members of his family. “There, it is coming,” Mr. Kumar shouted to a woman waiting on the slum’s edge. With their last stored drops now spent, and a heat wave searing the city, the two neighbors had decided to make sure the truck reached its destination. The woman boarded the 5,000-gallon tanker and guided its driver through a tight lane, past houses lined with thousands of jerrycans, many chained in place, and onto a stony plateau.

Persons: Arvind Kumar, ” Mr, Kumar

☆ Leaflet by Leaflet, a Few Aging Activists Fight India’s Tide of Bigotry
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-28 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

One recent morning, Roop Rekha Verma, an 80-year-old peace activist and former university leader, walked through a north Indian neighborhood prone to sectarian strife and parked herself near a tea shop. From her sling bag, she pulled out a bundle of pamphlets bearing messages of religious tolerance and mutual coexistence and began handing them to passers-by. Don’t let anyone divide you,” one read in Hindi. Spreading those simple words is an act of bravery in today’s India. Ms. Verma and others like her are waging a lonely battle against a tide of hatred and bigotry increasingly normalized by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P.

Persons: Roop Rekha Verma, Verma, India’s Organizations: Bharatiya Janata Party Locations: today’s India

☆ Storms Pummel Mumbai, Killing at Least 8
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-13 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Heavy rains accompanied by strong winds ripped through Mumbai, the financial capital of India, on Monday, killing at least eight people, uprooting trees and causing power outages in many parts of the city, officials said. The deaths were caused by a large billboard that toppled onto a crowd of people seeking shelter, a local official said. Video on social media showed the billboard shaking in the storm before falling. One witness, Swapnil Khupte, said that when the rains and wind started becoming worse, he and his friends had taken shelter at a gas station near the billboard. When it collapsed, he said, many of the people trapped under it were women and children.

Persons: Swapnil Khupte Locations: Mumbai, India, Ghatkopar

☆ Australian Journalist Says She Was Pushed Out of India
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Sameer Yasir | Yan Zhuang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A senior journalist with Australia’s national broadcaster says she was effectively pushed out of India after her reporting on Sikh separatism angered the Indian government, accusing the authorities of hindering her from going to events, seeking to have her reporting taken down and refusing for weeks to renew her visa. Avani Dias, the South Asia correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, said on social media that Indian officials told her last month that her application for a resident journalist visa extension would not be approved because a television segment she had produced on accusations that India was responsible for the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada had “crossed the line.”She was eventually granted a temporary visa extension at the last minute after lobbying by the Australian government, less than a day before she was scheduled to leave the country, Ms. Dias said in her podcast, “Looking for Modi.” But she said that she ultimately decided to leave because “it felt too difficult to do my job in India.”“I was struggling to get into public events run by Modi’s party,” Ms. Dias said on the podcast. The Indian government has disputed Ms. Dias’ account and said she was assured by high ranking officials that her visa would be renewed.

Persons: Avani Dias, “, Dias, Modi, ”, Ms, Dias ’ Organizations: Australia’s, South, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Locations: India, South Asia, Canada

☆ Why India’s Opposition Can’t Get It Together
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That Mr. Modi has established such dominance in Parliament despite falling well short of majority popular support is a reflection of a dysfunctional and fractured political opposition. The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, governed for decades after the country’s independence in 1947, guided by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Here’s why India’s political opposition is in such dire straits. The Congress, long positioned at India’s political center, has struggled to find a direction and offer an ideological alternative to the Hindu nationalist B.J.P. That has held back the broader opposition’s fight against Mr. Modi.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Mr, Modi, Nehru Organizations: Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress

☆ China Had a ‘Special Place’ in Modi’s Heart. Now It’s a Thorn in His Side.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Narendra Modi once looked up to China. As a business-friendly Indian state leader, he traveled there repeatedly to attract investment and see how his country could learn from its neighbor’s economic transformation. China, he said, has a “special place in my heart.” Chinese officials cheered on his march to national power as that of “a political star.”But not long after Mr. Modi became prime minister in 2014, China made clear that the relationship would not be so easy. Continued border incursions flared into a ferocious clash in 2020 that threatened to lead to all-out war. Mr. Modi, a strongman who controls every lever of power in India and has expanded its relations with many other countries, appears uncharacteristically powerless in the face of the rupture with China.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Modi, Xi Jinping — Locations: China, India

☆ 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

☆ 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

☆ India Zoo Official Gave Revered Names to 2 Lions. He Was Punished.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-27 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The lions look bemused or even bored in photos but not unhappy. Now in a captive-breeding program in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, they are as married as animals can be. On Saturday, the authorities suspended a high-ranking forestry official who had overseen the animals for naming the lioness Sita, after a revered Hindu goddess, and her mate Akbar, after a medieval Muslim emperor. Amid an atmosphere of heightened religious and political tensions between Hindus and Muslims in the country, the lions’ names drew an outcry. Lakshman Bansal, an official of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a far-right group linked to India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said that when he read the lions’ names in a Bengali newspaper it “felt provocative.”“It is blasphemy,” Mr. Bansal said by telephone.

Persons: Sita, Akbar, Lakshman Bansal, “, ” Mr, Bansal, ” Organizations: Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party Locations: West Bengal

☆ India’s Supreme Court Strikes Down a Fund-Raising Edge for Modi
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

India’s Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a contentious fund-raising mechanism that allowed individuals and corporations to make anonymous political donations, a system that was widely seen as an advantage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing party. Though the judgment came just months before the country’s next general election, probably too soon to affect its outcome, activists said it could bring more accountability to campaign finance down the road. The ruling on “electoral bonds,” as the fund-raising instruments are known, came a full six years after Mr. Modi’s government introduced them. Under the contested fund-raising system, the government-owned State Bank of India, India’s largest commercial bank, issued paper bonds that could be purchased in exchange for donations to a political party of the donor’s choice. They range from just $12 to more than $120,000, with no limit on the number of bonds that a donor could buy.

Persons: Narendra Modi’s Organizations: Bharatiya Janata Party, State Bank of India Locations: India’s

☆ ‘It Is Suffocating’: A Top Liberal University Is Under Attack in India
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-10 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Jawaharlal Nehru University, named for India’s first prime minister, is one of the country’s premier liberal institutions, a hothouse of strong opinions and left-leaning values whose graduates populate the upper echelons of academia and government. But to the Hindu nationalists who hold power in India, the university and others like it are dangerous dens of “anti-India” ideas. campus and attacked students, shouting slogans associated with a far-right Hindu group. Vocal supporters of the right-wing governing party who have been installed as administrators have suspended students for participating in protests and, in December, imposed new restrictions on demonstrations. Professors have been denied promotions for questioning government policies.

Organizations: Jawaharlal Nehru University Locations: India

☆ It’s January at a Big Himalayan Resort. Where’s the Snow?
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-16 | by ( Showkat Nanda | Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Every morning, Ishfaaq Ahmad Malik, a ski instructor in Indian-controlled Kashmir, opens his bedroom window and, like many others in the region, wonders: Where is the snow? “This has never happened before in January. Not in my lifetime,” said Mr. Malik, 65. “Definitely not in Gulmarg.”Each winter, Gulmarg, one of Asia’s largest and highest ski resort towns, attracts thousands of skiers, many from as far away as Europe and the Americas, drawn by perfect powder, cheap hotels and breathtaking views of the Himalayas. At 8,500 feet, this scrappy ski town’s miles of slopes are usually blanketed by snow from December to March and packed with snowboarders and skiers.

Persons: Ishfaaq Ahmad Malik, ”, Malik, “ Locations: Kashmir, Gulmarg, Europe, Americas

Within hours, witnesses say, upper-caste landlords massacred 58 Dalits, people once known as “untouchables,” most of them farmworkers in the eastern state of Bihar who had been agitating for higher wages. The next day, he lodged a police complaint, and investigators soon filed charges. He is still waiting — after conflicting verdicts and hundreds of court hearings, with some witnesses now dead or impaired by fading eyesight — for a resolution. “A cry for justice turned into a lifelong nightmare for us,” said Mr. Paswan, 45. In a vast nation with no shortage of intractable problems, it is one of the longest-running and most far-reaching: India’s staggeringly overburdened judicial system.

Persons: Binod Paswan, Paswan’s, ”, Paswan Locations: Bihar

☆ Alleged Plot to Kill Sikh Separatist Highlights Thorn in India’s Side
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The federal indictment this week of an Indian citizen in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme targeting a Sikh separatist in New York threatens to damage ties between the United States and India just as the Biden administration has been courting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The charges are rooted in a decades-old dispute: the demand by some Sikhs for a sovereign state known as Khalistan carved out of northern India, which the Modi government opposes. In addition to directing the unsuccessful plot in New York, the federal indictment said, an Indian government official organized the killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada who was shot in June by masked gunmen outside a temple in Vancouver. The idea of Khalistan is rooted in Sikhism, a religion with 26 million followers around the world, of which about 23 million live in the state of Punjab in northern India. Sikhs make up less than 2 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion.

Persons: Biden, Narendra Modi’s, Modi Locations: New York, United States, India, Canada, Vancouver, Punjab

☆ After Days Trapped in a Tunnel, Workers Wait for a Rescue’s Plan B
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Four days after 40 workers became trapped in a Himalayan road tunnel, the Indian authorities were still trying on Thursday to find a way through debris and rescue them, as anguished family members and colleagues protested outside to demand faster action. Communication was severed, leaving the men to wait inside, unsure of what would happen. In the hours afterward, officials established contact with the workers by sending radios through an undamaged pipe into the tunnel. The authorities have said the men are safe inside the tunnel. Officials put dozens of rescuers to work around the clock to remove debris using drilling equipment and excavators.

Persons: Arpan Yaduvanshi Locations: Uttarakhand, Uttarkashi District

☆ Toxic Air Is No Reason to Stay Inside for Delhi’s Joggers and Yoga Fans
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-12 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A few steps into his early-morning run, Purushottam Sahu struggled to breathe. Overhead, a thick brown-gray haze blanketed the sprawling forest park in New Delhi where he and other joggers, yoga enthusiasts and dog owners were keeping to their daily habits despite official warnings against exerting themselves in the toxic air. “We are all jogging faster toward death,” said Mr. Sahu, 46. “Because we have no other choice.”Every year in the late fall, as air pollution in the Indian capital climbs to noxious extremes, the government takes emergency measures like closing schools, restricting traffic and banning construction. But for the region’s 30 million inhabitants, life must go on, and for many in this urban expanse of lush parks and morning strolls, that means trying to remain active.

Persons: Purushottam Sahu, ”, Sahu Locations: New Delhi

☆ What’s in Our Queue? ‘Paatal Lok’ and More
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When Anjan Sundaram’s book “Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo” was published, I wasn’t a journalist, but it helped me make the transition. Part memoir, part reportage, with terrific storytelling that reminds me of V.S. Naipaul, “Stringer” tries to address endless brutalities in the African country. I am reading it for the third time.

Persons: Anjan, “ Stringer, Congo ”, V.S, Naipaul, “ Stringer ” Locations: Congo

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

A deadly outbreak of dengue fever in Bangladesh is the most severe in the country’s history, the authorities said, with fast-spreading infections from rural areas further straining the already overwhelmed hospital system in the capital, Dhaka. On Monday, the Bangladeshi authorities said they had recorded 909 dengue-related deaths this year through Sunday, compared with 281 in all of 2022. “Hundreds of patients are also coming to Dhaka from outside,” said Dr. Khalilur Rahman, a director at the Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and hospital. He said some hospitals in Dhaka were facing shortages of intravenous fluids used to rehydrate patients with dengue, and pharmacists were increasing their prices as demand for IV treatment rises, adding to the severity of the crisis.

Persons: ”, Khalilur Rahman Organizations: Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Locations: Bangladesh, Dhaka, “

Indian lawmakers passed landmark legislation on Thursday that would reserve one-third of all seats for women in the lower house of Parliament and in state legislatures, a move aimed at improving gender parity among lawmakers. The legislation was passed by the upper and lower houses of the Parliament after two days of deliberation and lengthy speeches by lawmakers from the governing party and the political opposition. The bill now requires approval from at least half of the country’s 28 state legislatures before it becomes law, after which it would come into force. Passage in both houses of Parliament virtually guarantees its implementation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the law’s passing in the lower house of Parliament as “a golden moment of India’s parliamentary journey” that is aimed at enabling “greater participation of women in our political process.”

Persons: Narendra Modi

If you’re ever in New Delhi and think you hear a monkey, don’t assume it’s a monkey. It could be a professional monkey noise impersonator. That’s because humans have been trained to imitate the guttural grunts and shrieks of gray langurs, a type of large monkey that can scare away the smaller kinds that tend to invade city officials’ residences or disrupt state visits. This weekend, the impersonators will take on a fresh challenge: keeping monkeys, which often evade guards by swinging through tree canopies, from barging into venues for the Group of 20 summit of world leaders, the first to take place in India. The event is an important one for India on the global stage, and the government does not want monkeys to steal the spotlight.

Organizations: Group Locations: New Delhi, barging, India

☆ Welcome to Bharat: Invite to G20 Leaders Ruffles Feathers in India
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There were no immediate comments from Mr. Modi suggesting he would move to officially change the country’s name to Bharat. Bharat, a Sanskrit word, is often used locally in Hindi, but in all communication in English and with other countries, the nomenclature is India. The country’s Constitution uses the term just once — “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States,” Article 1 says — but that was enough for at least one government official. “‘India, that is Bharat’ — it is there in the Constitution,” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, told a news agency on Wednesday. “Please, I would invite everybody to read it.”The Constitution, however, refers to the nominal head of the country as the president of India.

Persons: Modi, ” Subrahmanyam, “, Mohan Bhagwat, Bharat Organizations: Constitution, of States, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Locations: Bharat, India

Ms. Mao declined to explain the reason for the decision and refused to answer questions about Mr. Xi. The Chinese leader has never missed a G20 summit, which brings together 19 countries and the European Union, since taking power in 2012. The opacity of Chinese politics and Beijing’s reticence make it difficult to know why Mr. Xi appears to have chosen not to attend the summit. Analysts say it could reflect Mr. Xi’s preference for groupings in which China is more dominant, such as the recently concluded BRICS summit of emerging nations in Johannesburg. Given that Mr. Xi would be missing an opportunity to meet with President Biden on the sidelines of the summit, the move might suggest that Mr. Xi wants to ease tensions with the United States on his own terms.

Persons: Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Mao Ning, Mao, Xi, Beijing’s, Biden Organizations: China’s Foreign Ministry, European Union, Russia Locations: China, New Delhi, India, United States, Washington, Asia, Johannesburg

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