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☆ Is Modi Worried? India’s Long-Deflated Opposition Finds Some Momentum.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-23 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Pragati K.B. | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered India’s general election projecting supreme confidence. “Ab ki baar, 400 paar” went his party’s slogan, meaning this time his side aimed to surpass 400 seats in the lower house of Parliament, a staggering majority. But as the seven-week voting period enters its final stretch, with results expected on June 4, India is witnessing something unusual from its powerful leader. As Mr. Modi crisscrosses the country for rallies in 100-degree heat, he has often appeared on the defensive, and sometimes rattled. He has resorted to stoking anti-Muslim sentiments to fend off attempts to split his Hindu support base, only to deny his own words later.

Persons: Narendra Modi, paar ”, Modi, — Locations: India

☆ Strangers in Their Own Land: Being Muslim in Modi’s India
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-18 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Hari Kumar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

To be vilified because you are a Muslim in what is now a largely Hindu-first India. Neighbors hold back from neighborly gestures — no longer joining in celebrations, or knocking to inquire in moments of pain. “It is a lifeless life,” said Ziya Us Salam, a writer who lives on the outskirts of Delhi with his wife, Uzma Ausaf, and their four daughters. Workdays ended with riding on the back of an older friend’s motorcycle to a favorite food stall for long chats. His wife, a fellow journalist, wrote about life, food and fashion.

Persons: ”, Salam, Uzma Ausaf, Workdays Locations: India, Delhi

☆ Canadian Arrests Highlight Alleged Gang Role in India’s Intelligence Operations
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-04 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Suhasini Raj | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada accused India’s government of plotting a murder on Canadian soil — plunging diplomatic relations between the two countries to their lowest level ever — the first arrests in the killing, which came on Friday, did little to demystify the basis of his claim. The police didn’t offer clues or present any evidence that India had orchestrated the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh nationalist leader who was gunned down at the temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia, in June. What they did say was that three Indian men had committed the killing and that an investigation into India’s role was ongoing. Before the arrests, Indian officials had maintained that Canada was trying to drag New Delhi into what it described as essentially a rivalry between gangs whose members were long wanted for crimes back in India. After the arrests, a report from the CBC, Canada’s public broadcasting corporation, based on anonymous sources, also said the suspects belonged to an Indian criminal gang.

Persons: Justin Trudeau, India’s, Hardeep Singh Nijjar Organizations: Canada, CBC Locations: India, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, Delhi

In the small Bombay theater that showed big films, his father brought him — over and over again — to see the biggest of them all. With every one of his 18 viewings of “Mughal-e-Azam,” a hit 1960 musical about a forbidden romance between a prince and a courtesan, the young boy fell more in love. The rays of light, beamed in black and white, opened to him a world at once majestic and lost. The music swept him to places that only later in life would he fully understand. India, cinema and music — they would all change, too.

Persons: —, ”, Sanjay Leela Bhansali — Organizations: Alankar Talkies Locations: Bombay, Mumbai, India

☆ Why Did Modi Call India’s Muslims ‘Infiltrators’? Because He Could.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-23 | by ( Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his power at home secured and his Hindu-first vision deeply entrenched, has set his sights in recent years on a role as a global statesman, riding India’s economic and diplomatic rise. In doing so, he has distanced himself from his party’s staple work of polarizing India’s diverse population along religious lines for its own electoral gain. His silence provided tacit backing as vigilante groups continued to target non-Hindu minority groups and as members of his party routinely used hateful and racist language, even in Parliament, against the largest of those groups, India’s 200 million Muslims. But the brazenness made clear that Mr. Modi sees few checks on his enormous power. Abroad, partners increasingly turn a blind eye to what Mr. Modi is doing in India as they embrace the country as a democratic counterweight to China.

Persons: Narendra Modi, ”, —, Modi, Mr Organizations: Bharatiya Janata Party Locations: India, China

is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies.

Persons: Trump Organizations: The Times

☆ Modi’s Power Keeps Growing, and India Looks Sure to Give Him More
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As he campaigns across India for an election that begins on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks of his insatiable ambitions in terms of dinner-table appetite. Roofs over heads, water connections, cooking gas cylinders — Mr. Modi reads down the menu of what he calls the abundant “development” he has provided to India’s poor. “The main course is yet to come.”To Mr. Modi’s legions of supporters, a third term would bring more of what they find so appealing in him. He is that rare breed of strongman who keeps an ear to the ground. He has built an image as a tireless, incorruptible worker for a country on the rise.

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

☆ 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

☆ Modi’s Party Doesn’t Control All of India. But He’s Working on It.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Hari Kumar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is the final frontier for India’s most powerful leader in decades. The news media, the national legislature, civil society, sometimes even the courts — all have largely been bent to his will. But one critical group of holdouts remains: some of India’s richest states, the engine of its rapid growth. The future shape of the world’s largest democracy — and its economic trajectory — may rest on the power struggle that has ensued. Mr. Modi, who is well placed to win a third term in a national election that will begin on April 19, is wielding an increasingly heavy hand in what his opponents call an unfair effort to drive out the governments of the states his party does not control.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Mr, Modi

☆ India’s 2024 General Election: What to Know
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

India is holding its multiphase general elections from April 19 to June 1, in a vote that will determine the political direction of the world’s most populous nation for the next five years. The usually high-turnout affair, which was formally set on Saturday, is a mammoth undertaking described as the biggest peacetime logistical exercise anywhere. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose power is well entrenched, is seeking a third term. But his push to reshape India’s secular democracy as a Hindu-first nation has aggravated the religious and ethnic fault lines in the hugely diverse country. In a region of frequent political turmoil, India is deeply proud of its nearly undisrupted electoral democracy since its founding as a republic more than 75 years ago.

Persons: Narendra Modi Locations: India

☆ Will Memes About Politicians Now Get Sri Lankans Thrown in Jail?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Pamodi Waravita | Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even in the darkest of times, Sri Lankans held on to their humor. In 2022, when the island nation’s economy collapsed and the government announced a QR code system to ration gasoline, a meme spread online: “Scanning Fuel QR Code Now Makes You Forget Last Three Months.”And when public anger forced the strongman president to flee his palace, with protesters venturing inside to fry snacks in his kitchen and jump into his pool, another meme captured the mood upon their departure: “We Are Leaving. The Key Is Under the Flower Pot.”It is this kind of online expression, which helped fuel the largest citizens’ movement in Sri Lanka in decades, that activists and rights groups fear is now endangered. They are concerned about a new law, the Online Safety Act, that gives the government wide-ranging powers to deem speech on social media to be “prohibited statements.” Under the law, a committee appointed by the president will rule on what is prohibited, and violations could bring penalties ranging from fines of hundreds of dollars to years in prison.

Persons: ” Locations: Sri Lankans, Sri Lanka

☆ Burglars Hit Movie Director’s Home, Then Deliver a Cinematic Plot Twist
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( Suhasini Raj | Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When the thieves broke into the country home of a renowned film director in southern India, taking gold, silver and cash, they made a clean getaway. But days later, a small plastic bag appeared outside the house’s gates, stitched shut with thin sticks and containing something wrapped in a white handkerchief. Inside was a medal for a prestigious national award that the director, M. Manikandan, had won in 2021 for one of his films. With it was a brief note handwritten in Tamil, a regional language. “Sir, please forgive us,” the note read.

Persons: Manikandan Locations: India

☆ Lights! Camera! Modi! It’s a One-Man Show on Indian Television.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Hari Kumar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The people streaming into the holy town came on an intimate quest: to be among the first to seek the blessings of a beloved god they said was returning home after 500 years. These Hindu devotees took leaves of absence from work. They ate with fellow pilgrims, slept in the cold and sipped tea at roadside joints as they waited to see the dazzling new temple devoted to the deity Ram. Early in the morning, as a soft devotional melody played from speakers strung to electric poles, they took purifying dips in a river. But it was another, smaller group, camped on the riverbank in Ayodhya, that made sure the moment was as much about India’s powerful prime minister, Narendra Modi, as it was about Lord Ram.

Persons: Ram, Narendra Modi, Lord Ram Locations: Ayodhya

☆ Pigeon Was Cleared of Being a Chinese Spy, but Served 8 Months Anyway
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Hari Kumar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Suspicion of foreign espionage, cursive messages in ancient Chinese, a sensitive microchip — and a suspect that could not be stopped at the border. Ravindar Patil, the assistant Mumbai police sub-inspector assigned to the case, was scratching his head for answers. But first, he had to find a place to lock up the unusual captive. So he turned to a veterinary hospital in the Indian metropolis, asking it to retrieve a list of “very confidential and necessary” information about the suspect — a black pigeon caught lurking at a port where international vessels dock. “The police never came to check the pigeon,” said Dr. Mayur Dangar, the manager of the hospital.

Persons: Ravindar Patil, ”, Mayur Dangar Locations: Mumbai, China

They fanned out across the vast country, knocking on doors in the name of a cause that would redefine India. These foot soldiers and organizers, including a young Narendra Modi, collected millions of dollars to be socked away for a long fight to build a grand Hindu temple in Ayodhya, in northern India. The bricks, the campaign’s leaders declared, would not just be used for the temple’s construction on land occupied for centuries by a mosque. They would be the foundation for a Hindu rashtra, or Hindu nation, that would correct what right-wing Hindus saw as the injustice of India’s birth as a secular republic. Mr. Modi, today the country’s prime minister, will inaugurate the Ram temple in Ayodhya on Monday — the crowning achievement of a national movement aimed at establishing Hindu supremacy in India by rallying the country’s Hindu majority across castes and tribes.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Ram, Modi Organizations: Mr Locations: India, Ayodhya

The ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tightened its grip over India’s populous northern belt, results of state elections showed Sunday, expanding its dominance of a key region ahead of general elections in which Mr. Modi is seeking a third term. The party, which ruled for a majority of India’s history as a republic, has struggled to claw its way back after Mr. Modi rose to national power in 2014. The Congress party was hoping to use the state elections to build momentum for national elections next spring, but instead lost all three states in which it was pitted against Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. The only victory for Congress came against a smaller regional party in Telangana, in India’s south, where Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics has faced resistance. The results of elections in a smaller fifth state, Mizoram, are expected on Monday, but the race there is between two smaller regional parties.

Persons: Narendra Modi, Modi, Modi’s Organizations: Indian National Congress, Mr, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress Locations: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, India’s, Mizoram

In page after page of fly-on-the-wall detail, the indictment unsealed in New York this week describes a chilling plot: A criminal operative, on orders from a government official in India, tried to arrange the killing of a Sikh American on U.S. soil. And he was ordered to proceed even as India’s prime minister was on a red-carpet visit to Washington. The plot was eventually foiled, the indictment says. But its damning account leaves open a burning question: Why would the Indian government take such a gamble? Pursuing a vocal American activist in the movement would seem a risk to the momentum in U.S.-India relations as New Delhi expands its trade and defense ties with Washington in unprecedented ways.

Organizations: Washington Locations: New York, India, American, Canada, Washington, New Delhi

As the trapped workers came out of the under-construction road tunnel after 17 days, the happy end to a rescue effort that had riveted India set off celebrations across the country. Gone for the moment were questions about why the 41 men had been put at risk of being entombed in the tunnel in the first place. Cameras focused on local representatives of India’s governing party, who credited the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While activists and environmentalists also watched with relief, the scenes carried another, very different meaning for them. They had long warned, in futile court cases and failed tribunal hearings, that the $1.5 billion road-widening project was dangerously destabilizing the already fragile Himalayan landscape.

Persons: Narendra Modi, “ Modi, Modi Locations: India

☆ After 16 Days, Rescue Near for Workers Stuck in Tunnel, Officials Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Mujib Mashal | Suhasini Raj | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After a 16-day effort to free dozens of Indian construction workers trapped inside a Himalayan road tunnel, rescuers were finally preparing to pull the men out on Tuesday as diggers labored to clear a final stretch of debris by hand, the authorities said. The rescue operation had hit repeated roadblocks, with officials ultimately trying multiple ways to reach the 41 stranded men. But a breakthrough came on Tuesday afternoon, as trained miners using hand tools made rapid progress after picking up at the point where a drilling machine had failed. “The work of putting in the pipe to rescue the workers has been completed,” Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of the northern state of Uttarakhand, the site of the tunnel, said in a brief statement on social media. “Soon, all the worker brothers will be taken out.”Syed Ata Hasnain, a member of India’s National Disaster Management Authority, gave a less definitive assessment and said that about two meters, or six feet, of drilling remained.

Persons: Pushkar Singh, ” Syed Ata Hasnain Organizations: Disaster Management Authority Locations: Uttarakhand

☆ India Faces Questions About Another Reported Foreign Assassination Plot
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Mujib Mashal | More About Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the second time in recent months, the Indian government is facing questions about whether it was involved in an assassination plot on Western soil, as American officials said they had expressed concerns to New Delhi about a thwarted plan to kill a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen. U.S. officials did not publicly accuse India of trying to orchestrate the killing of the dual citizen, reported by news outlets to be Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a vocal advocate of the cause of Sikh separatism. But the revelation of a foiled plot comes just months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada accused the Indian government of involvement in the killing of another Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian territory. And in the case of Mr. Pannun, news outlets, led by The Financial Times, reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration had told the Indian government it had information possibly linking New Delhi to the plot against him. Responding to those reports, which cited anonymous U.S. officials, the Indian foreign ministry issued a vaguely worded statement acknowledging discussion with the United States on the matter.

Persons: Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Justin Trudeau, Hardeep Singh, Biden Organizations: The Financial Times Locations: New Delhi, U.S, India, Canada, United States

For Mr. Putin, it was a rare interaction with Western leaders since the start of the war last year. Once he had a chance to respond, Mr. Putin could not hide his irritation. “Some colleagues already in their speeches were saying that they were shocked by the ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine,” Mr. Putin said. Mr. Putin repeated Russia’s official line that the Kremlin was ready to negotiate and blamed Ukraine for rejecting talks. “Russia has never refused peace talks with Ukraine,” Mr. Putin said.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, “, ” Mr, ”, Mr, Viktor F, Yanukovych, Putin —, Xi Jinping —, Biden, Sergei V, Lavrov, Li Qiang Organizations: Hamas, Western, Kremlin, Ukraine Locations: Ukraine, Israel, Russia, India, Gaza, United States, China, Moscow, Europe, Delhi, Western

☆ A Big Year for India on the Global Stage Ends in Cricket Heartbreak
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Mujib Mashal | More About Mujib Mashal | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The stage was amply set: an acrobatic air show by Indian military planes, performances by star Bollywood singers, a light display, lots of fireworks and — talked about as the highlight — an appearance by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the vast stadium that bears his name. All India’s national cricket team, undefeated and heavily favored, had to do was win. In the end, the Indians fell short, losing to Australia on Sunday night in the men’s World Cup, silencing the home crowd of about 100,000 and bringing heartache to more than a billion Indians who have grown used this year to unending validation of their country’s global rise. The result was a bitter pill for a nation that expected a coronation as the most dominant force, measured in passion and money, in a sport that by some estimates is the world’s second most popular. It seemed to symbolize how far India has come, on and off the field, and how far it still has to go.

Persons: —, Narendra Modi Organizations: national cricket team, Australia Locations: India

☆ Fact Check: October Forbes issue featured Mark Zuckerberg, not Hamas official
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Forbes magazine did not publish a special October issue featuring former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on the cover, a spokesperson for the magazine said. For the truth,” and "Disappointed that Forbes would put the hamas leader on their cover. Forbes’ October/November issue has Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the cover. Forbes’ social media accounts make no mention of a “special issue” with Meshaal either. A fabricated Forbes October 2023 cover with former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was taken seriously by some.

Persons: Khaled Meshaal, “ Khaled Mashal, Forbes, Forbes ’, Mark Zuckerberg, Suhaib Salem, Read Organizations: Forbes, Reuters, Islamic University, Thomson Locations: Gaza City

Seven generations of its men before him had trained as Islamic scholars, known as Mawlawis. But his father, Mawlawi Mohammed Rafiq Habibi, was a conflicted man. He dressed in suits and ties and was open to debating theological questions with his son about the existence of God. On a bus ride from Kandahar to Karachi, the conductor softly sang the song. “All these distances in the world — the threads, the ropes are in God’s hand,” she told him.

Persons: Mohammed Sadiq Habibi, Kandahar “, Mawlawi Mohammed Rafiq Habibi, Bibi Hazrata, “, ”, tugged Organizations: Radio Afghanistan Locations: Afghan, Kandahar, Karachi, India, Arghandab

The anthem they stand for at the beginning of every game belongs to a republic that was toppled two years ago. Yet Afghanistan’s athletes have become the unlikely — and widely celebrated — heroes of the Cricket World Cup that is underway in India. In a tournament followed by hundreds of millions of people across the globe, they have defeated the defending world champions and two former titleholders handily. When they win, players sing and dance from the dugout, to the team bus, to their hotel rooms. The Afghan cricket team’s accomplishments are amplifying what has already been an astonishingly speedy rise in sports history.

Organizations: Cricket Locations: India

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