New Delhi: Tapas Roy, a longtime Trinamool Congress politician, is among the latest list of politicians that “made last minute jumps” to the BJP for the ongoing general elections. Something like this would be “difficult to imagine” in the US, but is a regular thing in India. “The political elite can easily switch parties, and entire blocs of voters, known as ‘vote banks’, will often follow,” Gerry Shih and Anant Gupta write in the Washington Post.
Titled ‘As India votes, a streetwise pol proves pragmatism often trumps ideology’, the report points out that “Nearly 30 percent of the 444 parliamentary candidates fielded by the BJP are defectors from other parties” and that the “BJP has simply cajoled or pressured local leaders like Roy into joining their ranks, hoping to also peel away their supporters.”
The article attempts to raise questions about the role of ideology in Indian politics and whether party affiliations are more superficial compared to the past, and the adaptability of political strategies in India’s complex electoral landscape.
An article in WIRED explores how India’s political parties are exploiting artificial intelligence (AI) to influence voter outreach through audio fakes, propaganda images and AI parodies. While global concerns about deep fakes focus on misinformation and societal harms, Indian politicians are using the technology to navigate the country’s linguistic diversity and deliver personalised messages with the objective of a broader “voter outreach”, write Nilesh Christopher and Varsha Bansal.
Over 50 million AI-generated voice clone calls were made before the April elections, with millions more expected during voting, says the article titled ‘Indian Voters Are Being Bombarded with Millions of Deepfakes. Political Candidates Approve’.
“Bombay is closing itself off,” says Leo Mirani, Asia correspondent for the Economist in the organisation’s latest podcast initiative, bringing the audience dispatches — or rather love letters — from reporters’ cities.
The baking heat, the constant construction noise, the chaos is making all those who can afford to, secede from the ‘open’ nature of the city. People with money are moving towards privatised amenities, and walled townships. This, along with poor planning and the city’s own geographical limitations, has left barely any room to exist, he adds.
The city’s openness, which is supposed to be welcoming to all irrespective of their caste or class backgrounds with even signboards reiterating it, is moving towards becoming a ‘new Singapore’ or a ‘new Dubai’, bringing up the question of, “who does this city really belong to?” he says.
Privatised amenities, walled townships and poor planning along with the city’s own geographical limitations has left barely any room to exist, he adds.
“Space comes at a premium”, Mirani says. Even the city’s “aspirational airport” just has one runway leading to congestion of flights.
A Global Times column by Andrey Kortunov, the academic director of the Russian International Affairs Council, argues for the need for enhancement of India-China relations — the two countries that are seemingly the “future of Eurasia”.
Countries like Russia, it explains, “would gain a lot from an improved China-India relationship” and argues for the need to engage in more Russia-India-China (RIC) dialogue and bring in other countries as collaborators, too.
Kortunov calls for flexible, issue-specific multilateral formats, such as RIC, involving other nations like Iran, Brazil, Belarus, and Pakistan, which could further stabilise relations and contribute to regional peace and prosperity.
“Nothing in their history should prevent these two Eurasian giants from working together for their own benefit and the good of the continent,” the column says.
India, along with China is bucking the global shrinking of coal, highlights a recent editorial in Bloomberg. “To have any hope of meeting climate targets, the world needs them (the two nations) to change course,” it reads.
Titled ‘China and India Should Kick Their Coal Habit’, it lists a few suggestions for the Indian government to undertake, such as speeding up the adaptation of renewables and moving towards wholesale power exchanges, lowering of tariff barriers blocking imports of Chinese solar equipment and land reforms to ease construction of solar and wind farms.
Case against Israel and Hamas in ICC, riots in New Caledonia
Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutor has accused Israeli PM Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ in the Gaza Strip, and sought arrest warrants against them.
To understand more about the ICC’s jurisdiction in such a situation, read CNN’s report. You can also read the prosecution’s statement here.
Australia and New Zealand have started evacuating its nationals and travellers from the riot-hit French territory of New Caledonia. Over 300 people are being brought back amid the shutdown of the international airport in New Caledonia. Read The BBC’s report to know more.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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