New Delhi: India’s move to tax different types of popcorn separately has tickled global media’s fancy—especially following the social media uproar over the GST council’s decision.
Reuters puzzles over the complications of non-branded popcorn mixed with salt and spices being taxed at 5 percent, branded and pre-packaged popcorn at 12 percent, and caramel popcorn at 18 percent.
“One widely circulated post on X showed an image of a branded ‘salt caramel’ popcorn packet and said how it would send the taxman into a tizzy calculating the tax rate on it,” says the report ‘How to tax popcorn? India’s formula sparks outrage against GST system.’
“Previous controversies have involved taxing chapatis or unleavened Indian flatbread differently from layered flatbreads, different rates for curd and yogurt, and cream bun versus bun and cream served separately,” Nikunj Ohri reports for Reuters.
The South China Morning Post says the different GST rates have caused “tempers to pop”, listing out the various posts “roasting” the complex GST system and noting that the move was “met with scorn online”.
A start-up founder even complained about the high taxation and urged people to leave the country, writes Biman Mukherji in the report headlined ‘‘Bit of a joke’: India’s popcorn tax sparks roasting of complex GST system.’
Separately, in an op-ed in the publication, Dr Liu Zongyi, senior fellow and director of the Centre for South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), lists out the four major issues—besides the border—that obstruct India and China’s relationship.
“Beyond border and bilateral relations, China and India can also improve mutual understanding and build trust by clarifying issues regarding the international order—on which they share similarities but also sharp differences,” the article begins.
The first point of order is that the international system is going through a transformation that both India and China are a part of.
“Both see as unfair the international order led by the United States and western Europe,” the op-ed, ‘Besides the border, 4 issues obstruct warmer China-India ties,’ says.
“But the Indian side, including high-level officials such as Jaishankar, view China’s rise as a disruptive force to the international order and a threat to regional peace and stability. This is unacceptable to China.”
The second obstruction is that a new world order is yet to take shape—and the world doesn’t know whether India or China will come out on top. Both countries are working on a “civilisational revival”, but both see the future of the international order as different.
India, Liu writes, is willing to back the US emerging as a victor “in the strategic contest it is leading against China”.
China, on the other hand, “ultimately wants peaceful coexistence and a global community with a shared future,” according to the op-ed.
The next point the op-ed makes is that a multipolar world means different things to both India and China—or rather, both countries disagree on what a multipolar Asia means.
“What China opposes is the outdated concept of spheres of influence. Just as East Asia is not China’s sphere of influence, South Asia and the Indian Ocean region are not India’s sphere of influence,” the op-ed claims. “China upholds an open mindset and the right to cooperate with countries in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region.”
The last bone of contention is the leadership of the Global South. Both countries are vying for the spot.
“Any attempt to alienate China from the Global South is bound to fail. A far better way is for both China and India to cooperate in jointly promoting the improvement of the political and economic status of all Global South countries,” the op-ed concludes.
An op-ed in the Global Times, it seems, agrees that there’s a “cognitive gap” between India and China.
Zhang Jiadong, director of the Center for South Asian Studies at Fudan University, says that cultural bridges need to be expanded to reduce that gap.
“To some extent, this indicates that the level of cultural exchanges between China and India is relatively low, which does not correspond to the size of their combined population or the significance of both countries as major developing nations,” the opinion article says.
The article, ‘Expand cultural exchanges to bridge the cognitive gap between China and India,’ acknowledges the ways in which the relationship between both countries has evolved—sensitivity to each other is decreasing, the international status of both countries has become more significant, and domestic public opinion in both countries have also become more mature.
What’s missing then is better cultural exchange, which would no doubt help improve both countries’ work towards the imagined new international order, Zhang writes. “Cultural exchanges rely on government initiatives, which means that both the Chinese and Indian governments need to allocate more resources and take more proactive measures to promote bilateral cultural exchanges.”
“This will help bridge the gap between the strategic needs of both countries and their level of mutual understanding and contribute to putting China-India relations back on a path of healthy and stable development at an early stage,” Zhang concludes.
The BBC reports on depictions of Christianity and the birth of Jesus Christ in Indian art and how modernism and Islamic motifs influenced art over the centuries.
One example is how Mughal painters featured emperor Jahangir in a nativity scene, which traditionally feature only Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.
This would no doubt have been influenced by the Christian missionaries who visited emperor Muhammad Jalaluddin Akbar’s court and because of whom Akbar commissioned many murals with Christian themes. His painters infused these paintings with elements of Islamic art, says the article, ‘Modernism and Islamic motifs: How Indian artists envisioned Christ’s birth.’
Closer to today, Goan artist Angelo de Fonseca used Christian iconography in his paintings, depicting Mary as an Indian woman dressed in a sari and wearing a mangalsutra, situating Christianity firmly in India. He would paint Biblical scenes unfolding in Goa’s local settings.
The famous artist Jamini Roy also brought elements of Christianity into his unique visual language, so much so that an art critic “observed that Christ represented a Santhal figure” for him.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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