Author: Sanjoy Narayan

The Udan Pari, or Flying Fairy, of Indian Sports Has Feet of Clay

By Sanjoy Narayan

India’s Sprint Queen, PT Usha, has feet of clay

Last year, India’s most celebrated woman athlete, P.T. Usha was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. A veteran sprinter, Usha has to her credit four Asian gold medals and 7 silver medals and is often called the “Queen of Indian Track and Field”. Last week, Usha came out in defence of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, popularly known as Brij Bhushan. Bhushan, a member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and member of Parliament, is facing multiple accusations of sexual harassment and physical aggression.

Since January this year, Indian wrestlers have been protesting against the 66-year-old Bhusan for his alleged misbehaviour and sexual harassment of women wrestlers. The protesters have demanded his arrest and ouster from his official position. To be sure,  over the years there have been several other allegations against Bhushan: he has confessed to a murder; he was involved in the demolitions of the Babri Masjid; he has been caught on camera slapping a wrestler; and he is believed to have had connections with the underworld and was charged in 1992 for helping the Dawood Ibrahim gang in organising a shoot at an Indian hospital.

When the latest controversy surrounding him erupted, and wrestlers and other sportspersons, including Olympians, organised morchas and assemblies in the capital, instead of coming out in support of those who were protesting, India’s Sprint Queen Usha chose to take a surprising line: she said that the agitations against him were “not good for the country’s image” and that those who were taking up the cause of women wrestlers were “indisciplined”. 

Patronage does that to some people. When the ruling regime rewards you with a position of prestige–in the 58-year-old Usha’s case, it was the trappings of a Rajya Sabha membership–it can create a sense of pathetic obeisance to your patron and lead to loss of sensibilities. Unfortunately, Usha, who is also the chief of the Indian Olympics Association, has fallen victim to that disgusting syndrome. 

To be sure, three months ago, India’s sports ministry constituted a committee, headed by boxing star Mary Kom, to examine the charges against Bhushan but till now the committee has not returned with any report or observations. Incidentally, Kom, 40, has also served as a Rajya Sabha MP from 2016 to 2022. She was also nominated to the upper house by the ruling regime. 

The politics of patronage is an odious thing. In India, it afflicts people from all walks of life. Every year before the run-up to the national Padma awards begins there is hectic lobbying that many resort to. As is the case when it comes to lobbying for the 12 nominations to the Rajya Sabha. With few exceptions, in most cases the nominees are decided by the ruling regime on political considerations and, also in most cases, those who accept the nominations appear to also compromise with their vertebrae: like Usha, they become spineless.

Meanwhile, even as a police case has been filed against Bhushan, the WFI chief is adamant and insists that he is innocent. He has said that he will cooperate but is not willing to face investigations as a criminal. The controversy surrounding him rages on.

As defence ministers meet, India’s border spat with China continues 

Last week, India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh met with his Chinese counterpart General Li Shangfu and emphasised that China had violated the terms of existing agreements between the two countries in the border row in eastern Ladakh. China claims large tracts that India insists belong to it and recently a list of locations in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh that were renamed in Chinese by China were revealed. 

The Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have had 18 rounds of talks to ease tensions along LAC in the region but a resolution has remained elusive. The latest border row between the two countries has been on for three years.

Meanwhile, in response to India’s allegations of violations, China has stated that the situation along the Line of Actual Control, a notional demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the Sino-Indian border dispute, remained “stable”. 

In lay terms, the talks between the two defence ministers have failed to unlock the stalemate over the border dispute.

Politicising the rescue of Indians stranded in Sudan 

When the nationals of a country are caught up and stranded in another country because of civil strife or war in that foreign location, it is the onus of their government to arrange means of repatriating them. India has done the same. When civil war erupted in the north-east African nation of Sudan with anti-government militia clashing with the Sudanese army, thousands of Indians were stranded there facing huge risks to their lives. Accordingly, the Indian government sprang into action and launched an operation, coordinated between the government and the Indian embassy, which rescued stranded Indians and repatriated them back to India.

The action was laudable and on point. However, it was named Operation Kaveri, a reference to the major river in southern India that flows through the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The naming of the rescue operation, believed to be done at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is of significance. 

Many of the stranded Indians in Sudan are originally from the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu where the River Kaveri is revered and worshipped. In these states, it is a sacred river that is worshipped as the Goddess Kaveriamma (Mother Cauvery and is considered to be among the seven holy rivers of India. It is extensively used for agriculture in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Cut now to politics. On May 10, Karnataka will hold its assembly elections. Opposition parties have alleged that naming the Sudan operation after the sacred river is aimed at generating positive sentiment for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which wants to fare well in the polls in order to build an inroad into southern states where its clout and influence is poor. The Congress has called it a “low-blow tactic” by the BJP, while the latter has countered it by citing that the code name for the operation notes the sacredness of the river. When the government took action to repatriate Indians stranded in Ukraine, it called it Operation Ganga. 

Meanwhile, India has successfully moved approximately 1,700 to 2,000 Indian nationals out of the conflict zones in Sudan.

Another film; another controversy

The trailer of the film, Kerala Story, by film producer, Vipul Amrutlal Shah, has led to an eruption of controversy. The film, which is to be released on May 5, is believed to be about the story of how women from the Indian state of Kerala were duped and trafficked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the strife-ridden region of Syria. 

The film purportedly shows how “Love Jihad” was used to lure more than 30,000 women from Kerala by the ISIS. “Love Jihad” is a term that originated in India, referring to an alleged practice of Muslim men targeting non-Muslim women for conversion to Islam through seduction, love, and marriage. The term is not recognised as a legal or sociological concept in India, and the claims of its existence are considered controversial and contested.

The film’s teaser was released last November but in a complaint filed by a journalist based in Chennai, it has been alleged that the film depicts Kerala as a “terror-supporting state” and that it undermines India’s intelligence agencies. Different political parties have also waded into the controversy and fear that its release could spark communal tensions. Hindu hardliners, on the other hand, have taken to social media and other platforms in support of the film.

Not long ago, another film, The Kashmir Files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, generated controversy and criticism, with some accusing it of being politically motivated and promoting a divisive narrative. One of the main criticisms of the film is that it portrays the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits as a result of Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism, while downplaying the role of the Indian government and security forces in the displacement. Critics argue that the film’s portrayal of the situation is one-sided and ignores the complex political and historical factors that led to the exodus.

Let them eat Chocolate?

Days before his formal coronation on May 6, a life-sized bust of King Charles has been made from more than 17 litres of melted chocolates. The bust weighs 23 kg and took four weeks to make. It will be on display in the town of Slough, bordering Greater London.

There is no information, though, about what will eventually happen to the chocolate bust made by Mars, the confectionery company. 

The idea of making Chocolate Charles, although not associated with the Palace or the monarch in any way, recalls the old story about the phrase “let them eat cake”, which is often attributed to Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France during the French Revolution. The story goes that when she was told that the people of France had no bread to eat, she callously responded, “Let them eat cake.”

With the British economy under stress–high inflation, shortages of food and energy in the aftermath of Brexit, and several unseemly political controversies–a bust of its king made out of chocolates could seem a tad ironic, or even darkly surreal.

Jobless India Most Populous Time Bomb

Jobless India Could Become World’s Most Populous Time Bomb

By Sanjoy Narayan

Jobless India could be world most populous time bomb

This month, India is believed to have surpassed China as the country with the world’s largest population. For the first time in centuries, China will not be the world’s most populous country. According to data based on statistical projections released by the United Nations, India’s population by mid-year will reach 1.4286 billion, compared to China’s 1.4257 billion – 2.9 million less.

According to the projections, India’s population is rising while China’s is declining. India’s population is set to rise to 1.515 billion in 2030. By contrast, China’s population, is expected to fall slightly to 1.416 billion over the same period.

Is India’s burgeoning population a blessing or a bane? The good news is that India’s population is relatively young: 1.1 billion Indians are in the working age band of 15-64. When more than half the population is of working age, a country is said to enjoy the advantage of what is known as a “demographic dividend”, which can be a huge potential for the economy. In comparison, China’s population is rapidly ageing. In 2022, China’s population declined for the first time in six decades. Compared to 35% of Indians being less than 20 years old, only 23% of China’s population is in that bracket.

The not-so-good news is that to get the most out of its huge potential workforce, India has to create jobs for its youth and that is not really happening. Despite trying to change economic policies, liberalise regulations, and incentivise manufacturing and other economic activities, India has not been able to attract the order of foreign investment that it needs to boost employment opportunities for its burgeoning population of job-ready youth.

Officially, India’s joblessness at 6.1% in 2017-18 was at a 45-year high but government data says that the levels may have improved in 2021-22 by falling to 4.1%. However, may believe that that the official figures could be underestimations. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) pegged India’s overall unemployment rate in March this year at 7.8% (and an even higher 8.5% in urban India where, in general, wages and productivity are higher).

According to another estimate, nearly five million people enter the workforce every year but, the government’s own production-linked incentive schemes for selected sectors is projected to create only six million jobs in five years.

This year ending March, the GDP growth has been forecast at 6.8%, which makes India the fastest growing big economy but that might not be enough. Investment growth in India has nearly halved from an annual average of 10.5% between 2000 and 2010 to 5.7% in 2011-2012. Unless investment grows and, according to some analysts, GDP grows at 8 to 8.5% annually for the next decade, India’s growth could be a “jobless” one. And that would be a true disaster: the demographic dividend would turn into a ticking time bomb.

Meanwhile, China responds…

The global attention that India’s population surge has received has irked China. Not because India’s population has surpassed China’s but because the China’s regime thinks that interpretations of the development, particularly by the western media, have been biased and anti-China. Western media’s observation that China’s population was declining and ageing faster is what has caused Chinese resentment.

In strongly worded statements, China’s government controlled broadcaster CCTV said last week that the subtext from Western media in recent years was that China’s development was in “big trouble” and that when the country’s demographic dividend disappears, it will decline and the global economy will also suffer. China, CCTV said, has created a “miracle of sustainable and stable economic development with a huge population”.

The statement went on to say that the US was increasing its efforts to contain China’s development and the Western view was to simply equate population size with development milestones. CCTV said this showed a lack of basic understanding of how population development works. Decreases in birth rate, it said, are a natural consequence of development and is something that the developed world faces everywhere. Countering reports focusing on China’s declining population and ageing demography, Chinese officials said it wasn’t only quantity buy quality that mattered for a country’s population and that the government has been taking appropriate measures in response to its ageing population.

Ex-governor of J&K makes explosive revelations

In February 2019, in Pulwama, 25 km south of Srinagar in Kashmir, a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel was attacked by a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber. The attack killed 40 Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. The Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the most deadliest in recent years. Now, a former governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Satyapal Malik, has revealed in an interview that the attack may have been possible because of serious security lapses on the part of Indian authorities.

Malik, in his interview with journalist Karan Thapar, said that the CRPF had asked for four aircraft for safe travel but the Centre had refused it. The Pulwama attack could have been prevented had the Centre agreed to the CRPF request. More important, Malik claimed that when he told Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the lapse in security, Modi had reportedly told him to stay quiet about the matter. Coming four years after the Pulwama incident, Malik’s claims have added heft to Modi’s critics and rivals but BJP leaders have dubbed him a rabble rouser.

Public shooting of gangsters brings focus on UP gun violence

Last week when Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf, both notorious gangsters, who had been in police custody in Uttar Pradesh for a string of crimes, including murders, were being transported by police escorts ostensibly for medical check-ups, three people masquerading as journalists fired guns and killed both of them. The incident was caught on video and live TV. The killers who shouted the Hindu slogan of “Jai Shri Ram”  after shooting the duo, were quickly overpowered and arrested.

Media reports, based on official briefings, variously described the shooters as criminals, drug addicts, and so on. Yet, the incident refocuses attention on rising instances of gun violence in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court expressed its distress at a large number of cases concerning the possession and use of illegal guns in Uttar Pradesh. The right to bear arms is not a fundamental right in the Indian Constitution.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state accounts for the largest number of guns. In 2016, the number of licensed guns, according to the small arms survey, in UP was the highest among all states at nearly 1.3 million compared to the total number of licensed guns in India that then stood at 61 million. More recent estimates suggest that Uttar Pradesh could account for half of the country’s illegal weapon seizures. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for 2020, as many as 67,947 firearms were seized under the Arms Act in the country in 2020, with UP topping the list (32,776 seizures).

Many believe that these figures may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to possession of unlicensed guns in the state and the ease of acquiring them. Public shootings in Uttar Pradesh have become frequent and this should be cause of serious concern for UP’s government.

Apple opens stores in India but the brand isn’t a draw

Apple, the company that Steve Jobs built, and the one that revolutionised how we compute, communicate and entertain ourselves using technology, opened two stores this month in India—in Mumbai and Delhi. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook visited India on the occasion and did all the requisite photo-op worthy things: ate paani puri with diva Madhuri Dixit: met the Prime Minister and other officials: and talked about investing more in India: Apple wants to expand manufacturing in India. The flip side is that Apple isn’t really a big draw in India. The market share of iPhones is just 5.5% of the total cell phone market in India (an estimated 1.2 billion phone users of which 600 million use smartphones). Apple products are costly. The cheapest iPhone is still way out of reach for the average Indian consumer and 95% of cell-phone users opt for cheaper Android-based devices.

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All Eyes on Russia as Its Tiny Neighbour Finland Joins Nato

By Sanjoy Narayan

Finland, a tiny Nordic country (population: 5.5 million), doesn’t usually make it to the global news headlines. It rarely makes any news that affects the rest of the world meaningfully. Recently though, it has regularly hit the headlines after being ranked the world’s happiest country for six straight years. But that is not what this column is about.

Early this month, Finland held its parliamentary elections in which the incumbent prime minister, Sanna Marin, a 37-year+old woman, was ousted when her left-of-centre Social Democratic Party (SDP) lost to two right-leaning parties, the conservative National Coalition Party (NCP) and the ultra right-wing nationalist outfit, the FinnsParty. When Marin became prime minister in 2019 at 34, she was the world’s youngest head of a government. 

There is much speculation about how the new government, led by a coalition that is still being cobbled together, will formulate policies on immigration, social benefits, and unemployment subsidies at a time when Finland is reeling from the effects of the continuing rise of inflation and high levels of national debt. 

Finland has a highly industrialised, largely free-market economy with a per capita GDP almost as high as that of Austria and the Netherlands and slightly above that of Germany and Belgium, but its economy has been hit in recent years by the twin effects of the Covid pandemic and Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. The latter is really the reason for the world’s eyes on Finland.

Finland has had complicated relations with Russia. For one, almost all of its eastern border is with Russia, measuring 1,340 km. Finland, which was a region governed by Sweden for centuries, became part of the Russian Empire after Sweden lost the Finnish Wars against Russia in 1808-09. It was a Duchy under Russia till it got independence in 1917. Between 1939 and 1944, Finland fought two major wars with Russia. Since then, there has been peace between the two countries and economic co-operation.

Like Sweden, Finland, while part of the European Union, has remained non-aligned with bodies such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). After Russia’s offensive against Ukraine, however, Finland and Sweden sought membership in the body, which is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 countries. Last week, after Turkey, a Nato member that had been opposing Sweden and Finland’s joint move to join Nato, approved Finland’s membership, the country became the 31st member of Nato.

Russia, predictably, views Finland’s Nato membership with concern. Ever since it attacked Ukraine, Russia’s position has been that it has been provoked by the West for its actions in Ukraine. Russian president Vladimir Putin has böamed Nato’s expansion and the new European missile defense systems as the reasons for conflict in Ukraine–accusations that the Western nations and Nato reject outright.

With Finland joining Nato last week, the tension with Russia is bound to increase. Already, Russia is believed to be amassing troops and military equipment along the border with Finland. Although Finland has significant military strength–compulsory conscription of male citizens assures the country of significant military personnel, both active and in reserve, and Finland has fared well in past wars with Russia–it is a small country with limitations to its defence capabilities. That is precisely one of the chief reasons for joining Nato. That is also why globally all eyes are on the tiny “happiest country in the world” and what happens next along its eastern border.

China flexes muscles; renames parts of NE India

On India’s long-disputed north-eastern border with China, the latest development is one that is fraught. Last week China came out with a list of names that seek to rename parts of India’s north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. China has renamed a total of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which it has called ‘Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet’.India has rejected the claims and the new names but this marks an escalation in the conflict over the region between two countries. Skirmishes in the region have been frequent and China’s latest moves are causing concern in New Delhi. 

This is the third batch of precise locations that China has renamed–it did so before in 2017 and then again in 2021. It bolsters the country’s long-held claims that Arunachal Pradesh belongs to China. The latest list of names released officially by China has 11 places. These include two land areas, two residential areas, five mountain peaks, and two rivers.

While India has reiterated that the state and the places “renamed” by China have been and will always be part of India, the United States has waded into the controversy by “strongly opposing” China’s attempts to claim what is Indian territory.

China now poses the most challenging security challenge for India. Three years ago, there was a major skirmish at the disputed border between the two countries along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is a notional demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory. 

How India responds to China’s muscle flexing will be closely watched globally. China is militarily as well as economically a superior power to India and not long ago, India’s foreign minister caused a flutter when he referred to China as being much stronger and, therefore, a challenge that was formidable for India.

China’s ascension as a global power was again in focus when Chinese president Xi Jinping brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Then, recently, he visited Moscow and met Russian president Vladimir Putin even as Russia’s Ukraine offensive remains unabated. 

India’s crackdown on international NGOs continues

Oxfam, a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organisations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, faces an investigation by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of violating the provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010.

India has on earlier occasions cracked down on international non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, which have had to suspend their activities in the country. The crackdown on such organisations has usually been based on allegations of funding that violates Indian laws but activists and opposition parties believe that the motivation could be uncomfortable findings and reports that such organisations have regularly produced accusing India of violating human rights, individual freedom, and environmental protection. Oxfam is the latest in the list of international non-profits to be targeted by the Indian authorities.

UK foreign secretary stirs up protests in Pakistan

When Suella Braverman, the British home secretary, in an interview alleged that British Pakistani men worked in child abuse rings or networks that targeted “vulnerable white English girls”, it set off angry reactions in Islamabad. Braverman, who is incidentally of Indian origin, was earlier in the news when she introduced the illegal migration bill that seeks to swiftly detain and deport illegal immigrants from Britain.

On her allegations against British Pakistani men, Pakistan’s foreign office reacted by saying it amounted to discrimination and signalled an intent to target and treat British Pakistanis differently. In her interview, Braverman said that British Pakistani men “see women in a demeaned and illegitimate way and who pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave”. 

Interestingly, in a 2020 British Home Office report on child sexual abuse, it was pointed out that research on offender ethnicity is limited, and tends to rely on poor-quality data. It did, however, state that studies show white men as being the majority of offenders, in comparison with Asian or Black men.

Suffer from social anxiety? You could smell someone’s armpit!

Smelling other people’s sweat is not a proposition that most people will find appealing but a new study finds that people suffering from social anxiety could benefit from a combination of mindfulness sessions and the body odour of others. 

A study conducted by the Karolinska Institute, a research-based medical institute in Sweden, showed that people suffering from social anxiety who were exposed to mindfulness and body odour of others appeared to show an improvement in their condition. Using a small sample size of 48 women, the study found that patients who completed a mindfulness session while exposed to body odours saw a 39% reduction in social anxiety, while without body odour there was a 17% reduction in anxiety scores. 

An Indicted Trump Could Still Become President of the US

By Sanjoy Narayan

An indicted Trump could still become president of the US

It is not an everyday occurrence that a former president of the USA gets indicted by a court. US presidents, both serving and former incumbents to that post, have always been protected against indictment. Till last week, when President Donald Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury on charges that hush money payments were made to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, who claims she and Trump had sex, and that she accepted $130,000 (more than Rs 1 crore) from his former lawyer before the 2016 elections that he won and became president.

According to US law, the indictment means that now the Manhattan district attorney can move forward with criminal charges against the former president. When a suspect is indicted it means that the grand jury has found enough evidence to charge him with a crime and for the prosecutors to move to the second stage with a case against him.

In 2016, days before Trump was elected president, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, allegedly wire-transferred the sum of money to Daniels, ostensibly for her to be silent about the alleged “affair” she had with Trump.

How will this affect Trump’s campaign for his bid to be elected as president again in 2024? More particularly, could this hurt his campaign? Or, could it hurt it? 

Scandals are never good for political candidates. If scandals emerge before elections, a candidate’s performance in the elections usually is impacted negatively. In the run-up to the 2022 elections to the US Senate, it was revealed that Herschel Walker, an anti-abortionist Republican candidate, in 2009 had paid for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion. His credibility was dented and he lost a fair share of votes. Could something like that happen to Trump?

Quick opinion polls (conducted before Trump’s actual indictment) have suggested that an indictment could negatively affect his chances of becoming president again. Polls such as those (and there will certainly be many more of them now that he has been indicted) have a downside. Many people who say they would not vote for him probably wouldn’t have done so even if hadn’t been indicted or charged. So it isn’t wise to put too much stock on such opinion polls.

The thing is, however, that Trump continues to be quite popular among Republican voters. According to Civiqs, an online polling and data analytics company, as on March 31, after the indictment, nearly 75% of voters had a favourable opinion of him. Another company, Morning Consult, tracks the Republican primaries, in which party members vote in a state election for the candidate they want to represent them in the general election. After the primaries and caucuses, each major party, Democrat and Republican, holds a national convention to select a Presidential nominee. Morning Consult’s tracker shows that Trump still tops the list of candidates from the Republican party. As many as 52% of potential Republican primary voters would choose Trump. For the record, the same poll found that 26% would choose Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is also in the race; and just 5% would go for Nikki Haley, the Indian-origin Republican contender for the presidential candidacy.

There could be another angle to Trump’s indictment. The US political scenario is sharply partisan and divisive. Most Republican voters and supporters believe that Trump is being charged unfairly (a Reuters-Ipsospoll says more than 75% of Republicans feel he is being targeted unfairly). Remember that the indictment is not the only potential “setback” that Trump has faced. In 2019, he faced an impeachment inquiry related to the Ukraine scandal in which it was alleged that Trump coerced the president of Ukraine into announcing an investigation of Trump’s rival Joe Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter for malpractices in connection with a Ukrainian company. The inquiry was dismissed by the Senate and the issue did not seem to affect Trump’s popularity. 

As of now, therefore, it does not seem that the latest indictment could have any major negative impact on Trump’s bid for another presidency of the US.

Karnataka polls will be a test for both, BJP and the Congress

Karnataka’s assembly elections will be held on May 10 and the results will be out three days later. For the two most important contenders in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, the state elections will be an important test. For the BJP, which is in power there now, it will test its attempts to consolidate its sway in Karnataka and indicate whether it can spread its wings further in other southern states. For the Congress, it will test whether the party, which has been slithering down a slippery slope almost everywhere in elections throughout the country, can regain some of its past glory by defeating the BJP’s might. 

In the 2018 assembly elections in Karnataka, the BJP won 104 of the 224 seats beating the Congress, which garnered 80. Since no party won a majority in the assembly, the BJP as the party with the largest number of seats was first invited to form the government. But before a trust vote to prove its majority could be held, the BJP government resigned and a Congress-led coalition government took charge. But in 14 months, some more than a dozen legislators crossed the floor and the Congress-led government collapsed. Since then, it is a BJP government that has been in power in Karnataka, albeit tenuous. 

All eyes will, therefore, be on how the two main national parties fare in Karnataka this time. Expect high-decibel campaigning and pre-electoral firepower from both sides.

The “search” for Amritpal Singh continues

The manhunt for Amritpal Singh, the self-styled chief of Waris Punjab De, a pro-Khalistani group that wants a separate state for Sikhs, has become a sort of a farce. Videos and social media posts keep surfacing with statements from the 30-year-old fugitive who has been on the run since March 18.

Even as Indian security forces comb areas, conflicting reports about where he could be hiding abound. Most recently, via a YouTube post, he claimed to be in high spirits and called upon his followers to unite against the actions of the Indian government. On the live YouTube post, he also urged Sikhs in India and abroad to call a Sarbat Khalsa on the occasion of Baisakhi. A Sarbat Khalsa is a deliberative assembly (on the same lines as a Parliament in a Direct Democracy) of the Sikhs.

Many conspiracy theories, including one that suggests that the Indian authorities are deliberately going slow on apprehending Singh, are doing the rounds. Meanwhile, the young Sikh rebel continues to be at large and his supporters, especially those among Sikh immigrants in UK and the US are becoming more vocal with their protests.

Cheetahs bring cheer to India

Last year, eight Namibian cheetahs were brought into the Kuno national park in Madhya Pradesh. Last week, one of the cheetahs gave birth to four cubs. This is a boost to India’s attempts to repopulate forests with the species. Cheetahs are India’s only big carnivores to have gone extinct. Over the years, forests across India were cleared to develop settlements and set up plantations, resulting in the loss of habitat for big cats, including the cheetah.

The birth of the cheetah cubs, the first time in 70 years after the species became extinct in 1952, is good news for India’s environment and forest conservation.

Gun menace in America

After a 28-year-old shooter who identified as transgender walked into an elementary school in Nashville last week and shot dead three children and three adults, the spotlight is again on gun ownership and recurring gun-related violence in the country. The shooter in Nashville was killed by the police but the controversy over the right to own guns rages on.

The shooter used an AR-15 rifle, which is the best-selling rifle in the US. It is an army-style gun that has no known civilian use. Yet it is popular in the US with one in 20 Americans owning one. 

The Washington Post newspaper asked nearly 400 AR-15 owners, who are mainly white, male, and between 40 and 65 years old,  to explain their reasons for owning the model. 

Most owners said self-defense was the reason for owning an AR-15. Others said it was recreation, target shooting, and hunting, which was why they owned an AR-15. 

The controversy over the right to own guns in America stems from the 2nd amendment of the US constitution, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, along with nine other articles of the Bill of Rights. The politics over the amendment and the spiralling rise in gun-related violence, particularly in school shootings, have been raging in the US with sharply divisive opinions about whether it should be modified. The modern debate about the amendment is about whether it protects an individual’s private right to bear arms or should be exercised through regulated organisations such as the National Guard.

Whichever Way His Appeal Goes, Rahul Gandhi Must Apologise

Whichever Way His Appeal Goes, Rahul Gandhi Must Apologise

By Sanjoy Narayan

Whether he wins an appeal or not, Rahul must apologise

Four years ago, on the campaign trail before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi, Congress leader and scion of the party’s first family, is believed to have stated: “Why do all the thieves, be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, or Narendra Modi, have ‘Modi’ in their names?” Now,that alleged utterance earned him a jail sentence, a fine, and more. Last week, a court in the Gujarat city of Surat sentenced Gandhi to two years imprisonment and a fine of ₹15,000 for defamation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A day after the court verdict, Gandhi, an elected MP from Wayanad in Kerala, was suspended from Parliament and disqualified from the House.

To be sure, Gandhi was given bail for 30 days to appeal against the court’s verdict but if that fails and the suspension stands, Gandhi could face disqualification from the House for six years. For a heated, spur-of-the-moment outburst during campaigning, the price he might have to pay could be high. Legal experts of various hues have weighed in on the court’s verdict, debating whether Gandhi’s alleged statement, referring to the surname, lowers the reputation of everyone who has that surname and, specifically, that of India’s Prime Minister. Incidentally, the court’s verdict came after it heard a complaint filed by a BJP MLA from Gujarat named Purnesh Modi who accused Gandhi of defaming 130 million people living in India having the surname ‘Modi’.

We will have to wait to see how Gandhi’s appeal in the case pans out. The bigger issue, however, is whether he has been needlessly reckless with his comments. It is true that electioneering in India is commonly marked by politicians trading charges, sometimes even baseless ones, targeting rivals. It is not uncommon in the high-decibel circus that accompanies campaigning in India to hear politicians hurl abuse and potentially defamatory allegations against each other.

That is, like it or not, the nature of campaigning in a country where the number of people eligible to vote in 2019 was more than 912 million (the population of the European Union is around 447 million; the population of the US is 332 million; and that of Russia is 144 million). Laws are routinely tested during electioneering: enticements with money or other material benefits to induce people to vote for a particular candidate are common; and, in addition, politicians often resort to threats, coercion, and violence to get votes.

Then there are the campaign speeches in which, often, political leaders push the boundaries of decency and etiquette when they allude to their rivals. Slander, abuse, and baseless allegations are not rare when it comes to speeches and statements that politicians make on the campaign trail. If, however, Rahul Gandhi did say what he has been accused of, did he cross the line?

Gandhi has a history of making public statements that are often embarrassing gaffes. In 2015, at an election rally in rural Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, Gandhi who was then vice-president of his party said: “Look around and see; people here are not wearing suit-boot but torn clothes and kurtas.” The statement was intended to be a jibe at the Modi government for what he thought was a bias towards big business and richer Indians but to an audience of poor and underprivileged villagers, it was highly insensitive. 

In 2013, while talking at an Indian industry forum for the first time, he made the bewildering statement that India was a “beehive” and not an “elephant” to China’s “dragon”. On another occasion, he profoundly said that “politics is in your shirt, in your pants; it’s everywhere”. And, at a Congress party convention in 2013, he made the assertion that India’s Dalit community needed “Jupiter’s escape velocity”.

More recently, he went on tour to the UK and in speeches and public interactions, criticized the Indian foreign minister’s comments about China as being “cowardly”, accused the government of stifling democracy, and was quoted as saying that the Indian government was intolerant of criticism and accused it of trying to silence the Opposition. This was interpreted by his opponents as being undiplomatic and “anti-Indian”.

Many of his senior colleagues in Congress, a party where nearly everybody pays obeisance that borders on servility to the Gandhi family, defend Rahul Gandhi, by saying that he is young and still developing as a politician. For someone who will turn 53 this year, he surely is taking a lot of time to do that.

His 2019 comments referring to the Modi surname were unwarranted and egregious and, obviously, targeted at the Prime Minister. The issue is that Gandhi had no basis for his insinuation and, while legal experts will debate and differ on the interpretation of what he said, and no matter what the courts finally decide, at the least, he owes an apology to all Modis, including, of course, the Prime Minister. That would be a decent thing to do.

Pro-Khalistan Preacher on the Run

For several days now, there has been an all-India manhunt for Amritpal Singh, a pro-Khalistani Sikh leader from Punjab who supports the creation of a separate state for Sikhs. Singh, 30, who has a sizable following, has been on the run since March 18 and although thousands of police and security forces have been mobilized, he still remains at large. 

Amritpal Singh is the leader of a group known as Waris De Punjab (translated, it means the ‘heirs of Punjab’). Last month, his supporters, armed with guns and swords, attacked a police station to seek the release of a member of the group. Although the police arrested hundreds of supporters connected to the attack, Singh remains free and untraceable. 

Singh rose to the forefront during the farmers’ protests in 2020 against the Indian government’s new farm laws. Singh joined the protests by aligning with the Waris De Punjab group that was founded by Deep Sandhu, an activist and actor. After Sandhu died in a car accident, Singh took over at the helm of the group and his speeches directed against the “Hindu nationalist” government and other Punjab-related issues garnered substantial support in the state. 

Many compare Singh to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a separatist leader who was killed in 1984, when under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. That incident led to anger and strong resentment in the Sikh community and resulted in further communal tensions. Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards and a horrendous period of riots engulfed the country.

Amritpal Singh may not have attained the stature that Bhindranwale had but he has been making provocative statements against many, including the Union home minister, Amit Shah. 

In Punjab where the ruling government is led by the Aam Aadmi Party, there has been a crackdown on communication, including the internet and social media. Meanwhile, there have been international protests against the action of the government against Singh and his followers, including anti-India protests in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.

What to Make of Xi Jinping’s Visit to Russia?

Speculation over what the all-powerful Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia and his meeting with the Russian president Vladimir Putin would achieve swirled in the western media last week. It was Xi’s first visit to Russia after the latter attacked Ukraine more than a year back. While China proclaimed that Xi’s was a peace brokering trip, it didn’t really turn out that way. Instead, it appeared that the visit cemented further the ties between the two countries. China has been defending Russia diplomatically for a long time and has supported the latter’s views on the sanctions that the west has imposed on Russia. With the sanctions that it faces, Russia needs China as a trading partner. China buys oil from Russia and the latter imports manufactured goods as well as crucial weapons from China.

Good ties with Russia also fit in well with China’s overall Belt and Road Initiative, one of Xi’s most ambitious plans of strengthening Beijing’s leadership through a programme of infrastructure building throughout China’s neighbouring regions.

In fact, Russia can count on China as being its biggest ally in a scenario where it has become increasingly isolated from much of the world. Observers feel the body language of the two leaders amply demonstrated that China was the more powerful “Big Brother” that Russia could count on.

The meetings between Xi and Putin did not lead to any meaningful breakthrough in the conflict with Ukraine although China had positioned itself as a peace broker. According to a joint statement released by China, both Xi and Putin said they wanted a stop to the actions that led to “increased tensions” and prolonged the war in Ukraine, but the statement did not acknowledge that Russia’s invasion and military assault were the cause of the growing and continuing crisis in Ukraine.

The two leaders also called on NATO to respect the sovereignty, security, and interests of other countries, which reflected the rhetoric that it was the western security alliance’s fault that had provoked the Russian attack on Ukraine. In short, the stalemate continues. Western analysts view Xi’s visit and its impact as the rising superpower’s continuing threat to the west. 

Tech Sector Layoffs Continue…

Is the tech balloon losing steam? Since late last year, many tech giants have been revising their revenue targets downwards and slashing their workforce. The trend is continuing.

Last weekend, Amazon, the biggest e-tailer, began slashing jobs as part of its latest move to downsize by 9,000 employees. The biggest cuts are in Amazon’s web services, advertising, human resources, and its streaming site, Twitch. In January the company had announced cutting 19,000 jobs. 

Amazon’s decision comes soon after Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, announced in mid-March that it wants to cut 10,000 jobs, which follows last November’s sacking of 11,000 employees at the company. 

Tech sector downsizing is now a trend. Last Thursday, Accenture, the Irish-American IT services and consulting giant, announced that it would cut 19,000 jobs. 

Once a lucrative destination for job-seekers, the tech sector seems like it is caught in a meltdown.

Hindenburg Strikes Again

After targeting India’s Adani group, now the short-seller activist, Hindenburg Research, has taken aim at Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey’s company, Block. 

The stocks of Block, a payment company founded by Dorsey, crashed after a Hindenburg report announced that the company had allowed criminal activity to operate with lax controls and “highly” inflated Block’s Cash App’s transacting user base, a key metric of performance. 

Hindenburg alleged that Cash App’s user base had large numbers of unbanked entities. Block’s shares plunged nearly 20% shortly after Hindenburg’s claims.

Financial circles are apprehensive about the activist research firm and whether it will make further investigative revelations that could impact the value of other companies.

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Expel Rahul Gandhi? Or Allow Him to Speak?

Expel Rahul Gandhi? Or Allow Him to Speak?

By Sanjoy Narayan

Should Rahul Gandhi be allowed to speak or be expelled from Lok Sabha?

Last week the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads India’s ruling regime, issued a notice in Lok Sabha urging the speaker seeking an order to expel Rahul Gandhi, Congress MP and a former president of the party. The grounds for seeking his expulsion were allegations that he had breached his privileges as a parliamentarian by the comments he had made about governance in India, India’s foreign policy, particularly related to China, and issues concerning democracy and freedom of speech in the country. Gandhi was reported to have made these comments during a recent foreign visit to the UK where he had several speaking engagements.

For four days scheduled normal work in Parliament had come to a halt while members of the ruling regime and those from the Opposition, chiefly Gandhi’s party, sparred over this. While in the UK, Gandhi had alleged that Indian democracy was in peril and that he was not allowed to speak freely in Parliament. Last week, amid the noisy protests and counter-protest in Parliament, Gandhi followed up his UK speeches by meeting with the Lok Sabha speaker and asking that he be given time to speak on the floor of the House. Gandhi referred to four members from the BJP who spoke in Parliament and accused Gandhi of “belittling” and “insulting” Indian democracy on foreign shores.

Gandhi was quoted in The Hindu as saying: “If Indian democracy was functioning, I would be able to say my piece in Parliament.” And adding: “So, actually what you are saying is a test of Indian democracy, after four BJP leaders made allegations about a member of Parliament, is that member of Parliament going to be given the same space that those four members were given, or is he be going to be told to shut up?”

Well, does Gandhi deserve the right to speak his mind in Parliament? Or should he be expelled for breach of privilege? The answer would depend on how his statements made in the UK are interpreted against the privileges enjoyed by MPs in India.

The Indian parliament and its members from both houses (the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha) enjoy certain rights and protection. The Constitution of India grants MPs privileges or advantages under Articles 105 and 194 so that they can carry out their responsibilities and functions without hurdles. These privileges are aimed at ensuring proper democratic functioning of the legislature. The question is whether Gandhi breached these privileges by making the statements that he did while in the UK.

It would all depend on how the speaker of the Lok Sabha, Om Birla, responds to the notice. If the speaker decides that it is a matter that warrants discussion then the notice would be sent to the Lok Sabha’s committee of privileges, which could investigate the matter and decide whether Gandhi was in breach of the privileges that he is entitled to as MP. It could then prepare a report on the matter, which along with recommendations for action against Gandhi, could be tabled before the House for a decision.

Going by precedence, however, it is not common for breach of privilege notices to be escalated by the speaker to the next level by referring them to the privileges committee. But Gandhi also faces another complaint that the privileges committee is already examining. These are charges against him of making “derogatory” comments about the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, which allege that he (Modi) gave favourable treatment to the industrialist, Gautam Adani, who was recently accused by an activist short selling firm of financial manipulation and deception.

How the charges against Gandhi will pan out could likely be seen next week in Parliament. Will he be allowed to speak? Or will the notice against him be acted upon? Or, will the House continue to be disrupted as the fracas between the ruling regime and the Opposition stymies normal work to the detriment of the nation?

To make sense of the world, watch China; not the US

It was a case of the mediator making bigger news than the two long-time foes who shook hands last week. When Saudi Arabia and Iran, two countries that have been in confrontation for many decades, partly based on historical and religious enmity, decided to shake hands and resume diplomatic relations, it was a major breakthrough in the geopolitics that dominates West Asia. Saudi Arabia, dominated by Sunni Muslims, and Iran, which is dominated by Shia Muslims, have been at loggerheads for long. And their conflict (accompanied by proxy wars) has been known as the Cold War in the Middle East, an analogical reference to the Cold War between the West, notably the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union.

But while geopolitical analysts have welcomed the beginning of a rapprochement between Saudi and Iran, the spotlight shone more brightly upon the mediator—in his case, China, led by its hugely powerful president and head of state Xi Jinping. China’s emergence as a broker of peace in the Middle East is of great significance and can be seen as the beginning (or, as some analysts would say, continuation) of the development by which it is has begun supplanting the gradually declining dominance and clout of the US in the region.

The Middle East is important for China for obvious reasons. Shorn of all frippery, the Middle East is of importance for all major nations for its oil. By enabling the “handshake” between Saudi and Iran, China has now become a close and reliable ally of two of the world’s largest producers of oil. And instead of others, such as the US and Russia, it has not had to resort to armed conflict in the region. Xi’s diplomacy is driven by his country’s economic and commercial objectives.

For China, gaining a major presence in the Middle East ties in with its overall strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by which it wants to connect Asia with Africa and Europe through land and maritime networks aimed at improving regional integration, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth. Brokering peace between Saudi and Iran will give it the boost it needs to cement the BRI in the region.

In fact, more than the moves that the US makes in the global arena, it is China’s moves that deserve to be observed with more focus. Last week the US president Joe Biden made a bit of news when he welcomed the International Criminal Court’s “arrest warrant” against Russia’s president Vladimir Putin for “war crimes” in Ukraine. The warrant means nothing. Russia is not a member of the ICC, which is based in The Hague and has no jurisdiction in Putin’s country. Biden’s welcoming of a warrant that is unlikely to be exercised is even less significant. It is non-news.

What is of major significance, however, is the announcement that Xi Jinping would be visiting Russia next week in his first visit after Russia attacked Ukraine and started the ongoing war back in February 2022. Although China claims that it is a neutral peace broker between Russia and Ukraine that should fool nobody. China’s diplomatic and commercial ties with Russia have been growing consistently. Xi’s visit, which will be marked by a face-to-face meeting between him and Putin, therefore, could signal the fast-emerging superpower’s support for Putin and for Russia, something that could be an unambiguous wake-up call for the West. To make sense of where the world is headed, watch China. And not the US.

Preventing another Covid wave

In directions to six Indian states–Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka—the Centre’s health secretary has asked the state authorities to pre-empt and control the sudden and resurgent trend of spreading infections related to the Covid virus. The states have been asked to  focus on testing, treating, tracking, and vaccination.

Last week, on Thursday, 700 Covid cases were recorded in a day after an interval of four months and they were concentrated in these six states. India wants no repeat of the past waves of the Covid related cases, hospitalisations, and deaths.

Mainly because of India’s huge population and its density, the several waves of the virus since the pandemic emerged in November 2019 have taken a big toll on India. The number of people infected by Covid is reported at 44,694,349; the number of deaths at 530,799; and the number that recovered from the illness at 44,158,161.

Another case against Sisodia!

There was a fresh setback to the deputy chief minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, who is also a trusted lieutenant of the chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) president Arvind Kejriwal, who has been in custody after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested him in connection with a (now withdrawn) new liquor sales policy.

Now, the CBI has charged him with surveilling people and political entities that were opposed to the AAP government and its leaders. According to the charges, Sisodia allegedly misused the Feedback Unit formed by the Delhi government. The unit, set up in 2015, was aimed at gathering ‘actionable feedback’ about the working of government departments and related agencies. The CBI has charged Sisodia with using it to snoop on his party its leader’s opponents. AAP has, of course denied it and said that the CBI move is politically motivated by the Centre and the ruling regime led by the BJP, an arch opponent of AAP.

India gets an US envoy after 2 years

Although Eric Garcetti was appointed by Joe Biden as the new Ambassador to India in 2021, he couldn’t take office because of an ongoing dispute. When Garcetti was mayor of Los Angeles, he was believed not to have taken appropriate action against an aide who was accused of sexual harassment. Last week, finally, Garcetti was cleared to take office in New Delhi.

For two crucial years, Washington did not have a man in India’s capital. This has particularly been critical in the past year since the Russia-Ukraine conflict. India has not unambiguously condemned Russia and continues to have trade and defence ties with the country—it buys huge amounts of Russian oil as well as weaponry. This has irked the US, which also a major trading partner of India. The US is also concerned about the growing influence and impact of China in the region, especially on the border that the latter shares with India.

At a juncture such as this, having an US envoy in India is important and this is now finally completed.

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Jaishankar is Right; India Should be Really Scared of China

By Sanjoy Narayan

India should be scared of China

Last month India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar, who is building a sort of reputation for delivering gaffes, came under fire of the Opposition when, after the recent India-China border stand-off in the north east, he remarked that India could not pick a fight with China because the latter had a much bigger economy. The Opposition tore into him, saying that he was suffering from Stockholm syndrome (which may have been a reference to Jaishankar’s stint during his foreign service days as India’s ambassador to China) and Indian military veterans, notably those who have fought in India’s wars and skirmishes with China, termed his attitude as “defeatist”.

Factually, however, Jaishankar’s statement about China, while probably not befitting in the pride and patriotism-fuelled world of diplomatic norms, is quite correct. China is much larger and more powerful than India on most measures. India might take pride about the fact that, according to the World Bank, its GDP growth for last year was 7%, making it one of the world’s best-performing economies, while China’s growth figure was well below its official target of 5.5% and probably the worst in the history of modern China. But before we get ahead of ourselves, the sobering fact to note is that China’s GDP is $14.69 trillion, and India’s is $3.18 trillion. In that context, getting giddily excited about growth percentages is a bit stupid.

Militarily too China is far ahead of India. According to Global Firepower, which ranks countries on the basis of their military strength, China is No. 3 and India No. 4 (USA is No. 1 and Russia No.2) and in terms of personnel in military service the difference between India and China may not be huge. India has 14.5 lakh active personnel; and China has 20 lakh. But consider defence budgets of the two countries: India spends $72 biillion on defence but China spends $225 billion. That is a difference of $147 billion.

China’s economic strength and military power are not the only formidable factors that India should be concerned about. Last week, US intelligence agencies, in their annual global threat assessment report, warned that after the clash between India and China in 2020 along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is a notional demarcation line that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory in the Sino-Indian border dispute, there is a real threat of a full-blown armed confrontation between the two countries that could require the intervention of the US. The report said that “previous standoffs have demonstrated that persistent low-level friction on the Line of Actual Control has the potential to escalate swiftly.”

Changes in China that could further impact India

Last week, when Chinese premier Li Keqiang bid farewell to 800 or so senior government officials, he is said to have said the following words: “Heaven is looking at what humans are doing. The firmament has eyes.” The segment of his address in which he said those words has unsurprisingly not been aired by the state-run China Central Television but unofficial videos that capture him saying that have been circulating.

Interpreting what Li meant is not difficult. Also last week, an unprecedented third term for Xi Jinping, China’s all-powerful president was officially and unanimously approved by the country’s legislature, which is in effect a rubber-stamp institution in country that Xi runs single-handedly and with authoritarian might. In that context, the nuance of what outgoing premier Li said is easy to see.

In China’s Communist ideology, the people are supposed to be the lead players in politics and in governance of the country. The state council, which is the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China and the supreme organ of state power, is supposed to interpret the common people’s voices and shape policies based on that. Li’s comments about “heaven” looking at what humans are doing is likely a nuanced reference to how, under Xi, who has been in office since 2013, how the state council has been overshadowed by the Communist Party’s central committee that he runs with near-absolute control.

Xi’s philosophy and objectives have been variously interpreted as throwback to an era where economic , political and international policies of China were centralized and heavily controlled. Xi’s policies have put private sector players in China back under central control after an era of near-capitalistic market freedom. But more importantly, his policies regarding the west and the rest of the world are being interpreted as being aggressive and expansionist. This is why the relations between China and US have turned southward and this is another major reason for India, which shares a 3,488 km border with China ought to be worried.

Rahul Gandhi gets flak over comments “against India”

Congress leader, MP, and member of the Congress party’s elite family (there is no other way of describing the sometimes enthusiastic and sometimes reluctant leader), Rahul Gandhi, came under severe criticism for what supporters of the ruling regime in India called “anti-India” remarks. While on a visit to the UK, Gandhi, 52, criticized the Indian foreign minister’s comments about China as being “cowardly”, accused the government of stifling democracy and was quoted as saying that the Indian government was intolerant of criticism and accused it of trying to silence the Opposition.

Among other things, Gandhi alleged that his phone was being surveilled, and that in Parliament, microphones were often switched off when Opposition party members wanted to protest against government action and policies. While there is probably a degree of truth in what Gandhi has ranted about in his meetings and public engagements in the UK, the fact that he chose a foreign country to make such allegations is what seems to have angered his opponents.

Australia-India ties and the Quad initiative

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), or Quad, is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States and is interpreted as a grouping that seeks to counter China’s growing dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. In that context, the visit of Australia’s prme minister Anthony Albanese to India last week was of significance. The countries seek to strengthen ties by engaging in more trade, investment and defence relations.

In the engagement, which included Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian prime minister Albanese also attending a cricket match between the teams of the two countries, the importance of China loomed. Both India and Australia want to become bigger trade partners as both countries want to detach from China. As of now, China is Australia’s largest trade partner. India could now become Australia’s second-largest trade partner. The two countries last year signed an interim trade deal that was close to a full free trade agreement.

Artificial Intelligence for brewing beer

After humanlike chat interactions on platforms such as ChatGPT, Bing and Bard, it is breweries where artificial intelligence may be making inroads. Beer making might be an ancient skill: the oldest recipe for beer dates back to 1800 B.C. in Mesopotamia where Sumerians are said to have brewed the drink from fermented barley bread.

But today, breweries are beginning to use artificial intelligence to get the perfect brew. An Australian brewery is putting QR codes on its beer cans and bottles so that customers can scan them and give feedback on the taste and other attributes of the beer that they are drinking. The feedback is directly transmitted to company’s brewery where an algorithm tweaks the formula of the brew.

This is how it works: The Adelaide based company, Deep Liquid, which partners with the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, helped a local brewery, Barossa Valley Brewing to create AI2PA: The Rodney. It is an AI-generated IPA. On each can of AI2PA, a QR code allows drinkers to send in their comments and views on the beer’s flavor, smell, taste, etc. The feedback in real time is converted to a set of data that can be used by an algorithm to change the recipe of the beer according to what consumers want. So, tipplers get to drink the beer that they actually prefer. Cheers!

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Who Benefited Most From Delhi’s Booze Policy Flipflop?

Who Benefited Most From Delhi’s Booze Policy Flipflop?

By Sanjoy Narayan

Delhi’s liquor policy flipflop

Not so long ago, buying alcohol in most of India but especially in Delhi used to be an ordeal of Kafkaesque proportions. Let me give you one hilarious example of what it was like to buy, say, a bottle of whisky or rum or whatever your tipple of choice was in Delhi in the 1980s. Alcohol retailing was then controlled by the government almost entirely in the city. The city’s liquor vends were usually small hole-in-the-wall affairs, heavily protected by barred iron gates and customers had to make their purchases by asking for what they wanted and then, getting the bottles delivered between the iron bars.

Yes, it was a bit of a jail-like, Soviet-style operation. You couldn’t look for what you wanted. You had to ask for it and, often, you never got it but instead had to settle for whatever the sales guy, usually not particularly trained in customer services, would gruffly offer. There could be even more ridiculous situations. Once, a friend went to a liquor vend in south Delhi to buy a bottle of Old Monk Rum, those days a favourite of students perhaps because it was cheap and strong. It was quite near closing time for the store. The practice those days was to line up in one queue to pay for what you wanted and then stand in another with your receipt to get your purchase delivered. It was a weekend and both queues were long. Our friend managed to pay and get the receipt but as he stood in the slow moving second queue it was closing time and the vend shut down. My friend and a dozen others stood there with receipts in hand—they had paid for what they wanted to buy but they wouldn’t get it that day. They’d have to come back when the shop opened the next day!

I related this bizarre, but yes, true, story because it could put into perspective the controversy over the Delhi government’s attempt to first put in place a new liquor policy and then being forced to withdraw it under the shadow of an alleged scam that has seen the arrest of several people but most notably the city-state’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia who is the closest lieutenant of Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) president and chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal.

Liquor laws, according to the federal structure and division of powers between the Centre and the states in India, are framed, enacted and implemented by states and the taxes on liquor sales accrue mainly to the states’ exchequers. Over the past several decades, many states have liberalized government controls over liquor sales by privatizing retailing of liquor or, for example, by allowing grocery chains to also have liquor sections. Conversely, some have stuck to their old practices. In Gujarat, for instance, there has been prohibition almost since India attained Independence from British rule. In Bihar, prohibition has been introduced more recently. As has been in Mizoram and Nagaland and in the Union territory of Lakshwadeep. But in other several other states, privatized retailing of liquor has been thriving for years.

Not in Delhi, though. Buying liquor in Delhi may have changed a bit from the Kafkaesque experience of my friend in the 1980s but it is still a sort of stigmatized activity. While there is a mix of private and government owned vends, the government-owned stores are still mostly not customer friendly. So, when a couple of years ago, the Delhi government’s excise department (Sisodia, among other things, also looked after excise) decided to privatize the retailing of liquor, it was expected to be customer friendly and forward looking. After all, privatization would probably bring in competition, and, therefore, better services and prices—all the things that are beneficial to customers.

That didn’t happen. Barely months after the new policy was introduced, it was scrapped. Liquor vending is back to being a government business. Sisodia and others have been arrested. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s premier investigation agency, has charged Sisodia with a number of things: he has been accused of allowing the creation of cartels: of allowing retailers to reap huge margins on sales: and depriving the government of large sums of revenue by changing the norms of taxing liquor sales. Implicit in the accusations is also allegations of kickbacks that he or his associates might have received for granting retailing licenses.

The charges are yet to be proved but there are issues that need to be examined correctly. First, is the new liquor licensing policy sound and fair for all concerned—customers, liquor vendors, and the government? Does it result to lower revenue from liquor sales for the government? Does it enrich retailers disproportionately because it allows high margins? Does the customer face price gouging or unfair pricing?

The second set of questions relate to the charges against Sisodia and the other accused. Have there been illegal kickbacks and other malpractices in the process of granting licenses? Has the state’s excise department willfully harmed the interest of the government? Have cartels of liquor sellers and manufacturers been encouraged by the policy makers?

The two sets of issues have different implications. The first set looks at whether the policy was inefficient. If it was, it was bad, but not perhaps illegal. If, however, any of the answers to the second set of questions are in the affirmative, then the accused should be brought to book. Delhi’s so-called liquor scam is not an open and shut case. At least, not yet.

A welcome step to ensure fair elections

For far too long, regulators in any sphere in India–financial markets, commerce and business-related affairs, and even elections—have always been appointed on the basis of their ability to kowtow to the regime in power rather than on the basis of their credentials of competence, credibility, fairness and unbiasedness. Governments in India (of every colour and stripe, by the way), have always chosen ‘trusted’ individuals to head organizations that investigate, regulate or implement laws in different spheres.

Elections are an activity where this phenomenon has been most in evidence. The apex regulator of elections is the Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC). The  CEC heads the Election Commission of India, a body constitutionally empowered to conduct free and fair elections to the national and state legislatures and of President and Vice-President.

It is easy to see in India’s noisy and massive electoral process why those in power would like to have ‘loyal’ (or, if you like, pliable) individuals in charge of regulating elections. And, with a few exceptions, this has been quite the rule. The CEC has often been a handmaiden of the ruling powers.

In that context, last week’s judgement by a Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court is viewed as a landmark instance. The bench directed that the CEC and Election Commissioners (ECs) will be henceforth appointed by the President on the advice tendered by a committee of Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha or the leader of the single largest party in opposition and the Chief Justice of India (CJI).

The court was quite unambiguous about the direction and said that “fierce independence, neutrality and honesty” envisaged in the institution of the Election Commission of India (ECI) requires an end to government monopoly and “exclusive control” over appointments to the highest election regulatory body.

It is a welcome direction and a much-needed reform. We can now hope that in appointments of other regulators for other aspects of India’s political, social, and economic activities, there will be a similar approach.

The G20 summit in India goes sour

When India hosted the G20 summit for the first time last week, it was with the hope that the focus would be on issues that concern developing countries like itself. But that was not to be. Sharp divisions and differences, primarily over continuing Russian offensive against Ukraine came in the way of the summit issuing a joint statement at its conclusion. The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development.

Instead, at the G20 summit, hosted by India in New Delhi, tensions ran high with Russia and the West trading charges on the war in Ukraine with angry exchanges dominating the proceedings. Russia accused the West and the US of “blackmail and threats”. The US said Russia’s actions in Ukraine were “unprovoked and unjustified”. In the end it was an unproductive summit that went sour.

Mind your young heart

It took a disclosure by a Bollywood actor to bring the focus back on heart health. Last week Sushmita Sen, 47, revealed via social media that she had suffered a heart attack recently and had to undergo angioplasty. It highlighted the growing incidence of relatively young people, in their 30s and 40s, suffering sudden heart attacks or other cardiovascular complications.

There have been instances of young people suffering heart attacks, some even fatal ones, while working out in gyms, or doing regular activity. This has brought the focus back on whether many so-called successful people also may be leading stressful lives that can pose potential risks.

If personalities such as Sen and other celebrities that have faced similar critical junctures in their lives decide to start campaigns encouraging young people to take better care of their health and well-being, it could have a positive impact on many people’s lives.

A virtual kissing machine

Are you in a long distance relationship and missing being with your partner? Don’t fret, because China may have a solution for you. Students at a Chinese university have created a “remote kissing device” for people in long-distance relationships.

Gross it may seem but the 3-D gadget is made of silicon and has a mouth-shaped module that is “triggered through a kiss that is then transferred to the mouth on the other side”. Patented by an institute in Changzhou, the gadget is believed to mimic the movement, temperature and pressure of the kiss using sensors, and links to phones via Bluetooth and an application.

Now, if the only key to nurturing a relationship was by kissing a lip made of silicon!

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Lynchings and Demolitions Become a “Model” in India

Lynchings and Demolitions Become a “Model” in India

By Sanjoy Narayan

Lynchings and Demolitions a “Model”

One use of the word, “model”, is to describe a thing or a practice that can be followed or imitated by others and although the literal definition of that meaning doesn’t incorporate it, the word “model” is usually associated with positive attributes. Hence, the phrases, “role model” or a “model for development” and other similar ones. But last week when members of the Hindu mahapanchayat in Haryana’s Manesar town clamoured for the state to follow the “Uttar Pradesh model” it was a most sinister practice that they wanted the authorities to emulate: demolition by bulldozers of unauthorised and illegal settlements.

On the face of it, the demolitions, aimed at illegal encroachment of public spaces and state owned land may have a legitimate objective but last year when a spate of such demolitions happened in several states, but mainly in Uttar Pradesh, there were allegations that the practice was abused and demolitions were aimed at settlements that had mainly Muslim residents or small businesses run by that community. In fact, bulldozing demolitions has become a sort of retributive action.

Last week’s mahapanchayat meeting, attended by hundred of villagers from in and around Manesar, was held to show solidarity for an individual named Mohit Yadav, aka Monu Manesar, whose dubious claim to fame includes several criminal charges, including being accused in a very recent case where two Muslim men were burnt to death in a car, presumably by right-wing cow vigilante groups who have in recent years become very active in lynching anyone who is suspected of cow slaughter or transportation of cows for slaughter. The strictest laws are in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, where the slaughter of cows and their progeny, including bulls and bullocks of all ages, is completely banned.

However, the law is interpreted quite loosely by so-called cow vigilante groups who are believed to widely use mere suspicion as a compelling reason to unleash their vengeance against Muslims. Since 2014 when the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power at the Centre, the number of lynchings in the name of “cow protection” has soared. 

Mahapanchayats, which are usually run by khaps or community organisations representing a clan or a group of North Indian castes or clans, are gatherings that cover 10-12 villages. Khaps, which advocate and often order honour killings (for marrying or eloping couples that are from different castes) and also decide on property rights, as well as other matters, have no legal status and are, indeed, banned by the courts in India. Yet, in rural parts of northern India, primarily in Haryana where the khaps are most belligerent, they still thrive.

Last week, in Manesar, the khap-fuelled Mahapanchayat came out in support of a criminal with murder charges and protested against the police action against him. The police that came to Monu Manesar’s village were from Rajasthan because the murders of the two Muslim men had taken place there across the border from Haryana. The Mahapanchayat tried to block the policemen from entering the village and even briefly blockaded the highway connecting Delhi and Jaipur. 

The bodies of the two men who were believed to have been killed in Rajasthan were found in the charred vehicle across the border in Haryana’s Bhiwani district. Manesar is believed to have led the group that perpetrated the crime. He remains unapprehended. Manesar is a sort of a hero among local right-wing Hindu militants. A member of the Bajrang Dal, a militant youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, he also has a YouTube channel (with more than 200,000 subscribers) where instances of cow vigilantism are posted.

The disturbing thing is that the Mahapanchayat while protesting against the police action against Manesar has also supported vigilantism against “cow slaughter” and called for Haryana to adopt the “Uttar Pradesh model”, ostensibly to target Muslims. This is yet another distressing trend in the growing wave of discrimination and persecution of minorities in today’s India.

Shiv Sena: End of the Thackeray era?

In 1966, the late Bal Thackeray, a former professional cartoonist, founded the Shiv Sena party, which began as a pro-Marathi nativist movement in Maharashtra. The party wanted Marathi people in the state to be preferentially treated vis-a-vis migrants from other parts of India and agitated for that cause. Over the years, however, the party has changed its ideology sharply, moving from regionalism to ultranationalism and then swinging towards secularism. In fact, last year when former Maharashtra chief minister and Bal Thackeray’s son, Uddhav Thackeray, forged an alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, the hardliners in the party, led by Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde,  forced a split in the party.

After a legal battle between the two divisions, last week witnessed the Shinde faction taking charge of the party and getting the court-approved right to use the party’s traditional bow and arrow symbol as well as the name, Shiv Sena. 

This comes as a blow to Thackeray and his faction. He has appealed the Supreme Court order in the matter but for the moment, the Thackeray has come to an end in Shiv Sena.

Could Biden’s visit to Ukraine aggravate the Russian offensive?

US president Joe Biden paid a surprise visit to Ukraine last week to show solidarity towards the nation as well as to its beleaguered president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Biden’s visit marked one year since Russia attacked Ukraine and the beginning of the ongoing war. After his visit, Biden was quoted as saying: “I’ve just come from a visit to Kyiv, and I can report: Kyiv stands strong, Kyiv stands proud, it stands tall and, most importantly, it stands free.”

Biden said Russia would never win the war and that the US and its allies would consider fresh sanctions against the country if it did not relent in its offensive against Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in his state of the union address last week, the Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed the West and Ukraine for starting the war, a view that he has espoused ever since Russia began its attack. He also announced that Russia was suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty (START). The new START was signed in Prague in 2010 and it limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the US and Russia can deploy, and the number of land and submarine-based missiles and bombers they can use to deliver them. Russia has the highest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world with an estimated 6,000 warheads. Russia and the US together have more than 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads, enough to destroy the world many times.

In recent weeks, Russian attacks against Ukraine have intensified and there is, at least for the moment, no sign of an end in the conflict.

Adani stocks continue to plunge after Hindenburg report

The bloodbath in Adani group’s stocks continues well after short-seller and activist firm Hindenburg Research accused the group of financial irregularities and price manipulation. When the report was released in January, Adani was ranked as the third richest billionaire in the world. As a result of the crash of his group’s stocks, he is now down at the 33rd spot, according to the Forbes’ Real Time Billionaires list. According to Economic Times, with stocks falling up to 84% from their 52-week high levels, the total market capitalization of all 10 Adani stocks has reduced by 62% to Rs 7.32 lakh crore in a month.

The meltdown in Adani stocks has also spread to affect the market sentiment on the Indian bourses. The Nifty last week was down by more than 3% compared to a month ago and one of India’s biggest insurance companies, LIC, which is a large investor in Adani group companies, could make a notional loss of around Rs 30,000 crore on account of its investments in the conglomerate’s stocks. 

Microsoft’s Bing gets shirty in trial runs

Microsoft, which is getting ready to launch its AI-based chat, the enhanced Bing, could have a bot with an attitude on its hand. The IT giant has been rolling out the AI chatbot to select users for a few weeks now and it is getting some interesting feedback. One phenomenon is especially noteworthy. If asked many questions, the chatbot is reported to get a bit unhinged and irritable. On some occasions, it has threatened users and even compared them to Adolf Hitler.

As a consequence, Microsoft is believed to be modifying the bot, including limiting the number of questions that can be asked of it.

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How India Uses IT Sleuths to Keep Media in Check; A ‘Safe’ Sting Operation; and Air India’s Boeing Mega Deal

How India Uses IT Sleuths to Keep Media in Check; A ‘Safe’ Sting Operation; and Air India’s Boeing Mega Deal

By Sanjoy Narayan

Tax Raids to Keep the Media in Check

Last week, for three days, the income tax authorities in India did what they called a “tax survey” of the British news agency, BBC, at its premises in Delhi. For three nights at least 10 journalists, including three editors, were kept there while 50 income tax officers scrutinised documents and emails, and cloned phones and laptops. The so-called survey’s timing was interesting. In January, the BBC had put out a two-part documentary entitled, India: The Modi Question, focused on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his relationship with the Muslim minority in the country. The Indian government had moved swiftly to ban the documentary in India and instructed media platforms such as YouTube to pull clips from the documentary from the public domain.

Although India’s information and broadcasting ministry has denied that the “survey” by IT authorities at BBC has anything to do with the documentary, it is widely perceived that the move is designed to intimidate the news agency. That is not an implausible conclusion to draw. Government departments such as the IT authorities, and the police are routinely used by governments–both at the centre and in the states–to keep the media in check. 

In recent years independent news organisations such as News Laundry, and The Wire have had to face IT or police investigations. Both the organisations often publish stories and analyses that question the government’s policies or action usually with a spirit of healthy criticism that should characterise a country’s media environment if it is truly free.

The government has also cracked down on non-media organisations such as independent think tanks, and non-governmental organisations. In 2020, Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization, which evaluates the human rights situation in countries around the world, was banned from operating in India. Last year, the IT department charged three organisations with breaking the laws that govern foreign funding. Oxfam India, the Centre for Policy Research, and the Public-Spirited Media Foundation were raided by the department. 

A large swathe of India’s mainstream (or legacy) media, which still accounts for the largest reach and revenue in the industry, coasts along unintimidated mainly because it doesn’t rock the boat by “offending” those in power either on account of being compromised politically or economically or because it considers it a safer option that critiquing authority. For example, few mainstream media publications have criticised the “survey” by the IT sleuths at BBC. To really get an idea of what has been happening there, you need to check what the global publications have been putting out.

The amusing thing about the BBC affair is how it seems to have backfired for the government. When the government banned the documentary in January, it sparked a heightened interest among the public for watching it and links via VPN or other encrypted social media sharing platforms got freely distributed. When the IT department struck at BBC, media organisations around the world criticised it but also recapitulated the content of the BBC’s documentary and how it had pointed out Modi’s involvement in the Gujarat riots of 2002 and, later, how after he became Prime Minister, minority communities, particularly Muslims, have faced persecution and discrimination. So if you had forgotten about the documentary, the IT “survey” has, in a way, resurrected memories of it. That’s probably a side-effect that the authorities had not anticipated.

Sting Journalism that is “Safe” and Inconsequential

Who says Indian media are not investigative or that they have lost their voice? If mainstream Indian media want to avoid being taken to task for questioning the government of the day, they can still appear to be vertebrates… because there are always safe topics to get frenzied about. Recently, a TV news channel did what it called a “sting operation” on the chief national selector for the Indian cricket team, which caused him to resign.

The chief selector (who is now an ex-chief selector) apparently talked to the news organisation about how Indian cricketers use “fake fitness injections” to appear fit to play matches even when they were not and how the team’s former captain, Virat Kohli, might have had ego clashes with the Board for Cricket Control in India’s  (BCCI) president and also a former team captain Sourav Ganguly. Exciting stuff, is it not?

You may argue that in a cricket mad country such news is grippingly riveting. The jury is out on that. What perhaps is certain is that for such investigative “sting” operations, the TV channel in question will not attract the attention of the Income Tax sleuths. Bravo!

Air India’s Jaw-dropping Boeing & Airbus Deal

Air India, India’s premier airline that was bought by its erstwhile owners, the Tata group, last year, ordered a record number of 470 planes from Boeing and Airbus in a deal that is estimated to cost more than US$100 billion. This is part of a huge revamp of the airline by the Tata group and involves the purchase of 220 aircraft from Boeing and 250 from Airbus.

This move by the Indian airlines could be seen as the beginning of a recovery in the air travel market after the unprecedented slump that it witnessed during the pandemic years. Both the US (where Boeing is based) and France (where Airbus is headquartered) are predictably thrilled by Air India’s deal and presidents–Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron–spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi about it.

Air traffic is predicted to rise sharply in India with an estimate that passenger traffic will rise 7% annually for the next 20 years. The government also has plans to build nearly 80 new airports in the country. 

As for Air India, the new owners face quite a challenge in revamping the airline. When it was sold by the government to the Tatas, Air India is reported to have been losing $2.6 million a day and its record for performance and customer service was poor. The big deal to acquire a new fleet could be one step towards improving things at the company.

Centre-friendly Guvs for 13 States

In a predictable move, 13 states have got new governors appointed for them. While the appointment of governors is something that the President of India does, it is just a formality for the president’s office; the real choice of who will be the governor of a state  is done by the ruling regime, i.e. the central government. 

Although the post of the governor is largely ceremonial, increasingly the office has been occupied by persons who are supportive of the Centre and the regime in power. That is alright as long as the state is allied with the Centre. In cases where states are run by parties that are the ruling BJP-led central regime’s rivals, placing a governor who owes allegiance to the Centre can be a tactical move aimed at countering the state’s policies.

Most of the new appointees in the latest reshuffle are very senior BJP or RSS members. No surprise!

Continuing Saga of the Adani Group

Even as the Adani Group’s stocks began witnessing a recovery around midweek last week, the sell-off started again. This time it was believed to have been sparked by a comment made by George Soros the businessman, investor, and philanthropist, George Soros who said that the Adani Group’s crisis will lead to a “democratic revival” in India. 

Clearly aimed at the ruling regime, which has come under criticism for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closeness to Gautam Adani, Soros’s statement led to a quick response from the government with the Union minister Smriti Irani retorting that Soros had “now made known his ill intentions in the democratic processes of India.”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court in India has begun hearing in the Adani group’s suit filed against Hindenburg Research, an activist short-seller that has accused the group of financial manipulation.

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