New Delhi: India’s general election schedule exposes nearly a billion voters, besides thousands of candidates and poll workers to extreme heat, said a report in The Wall Street Journal titled, ‘The World’s Biggest Election Is Also Its Hottest’.
The report by Shefali Anand cited the Meteorological Department’s prediction that most parts of the country could see twice as many extreme heat days than usual, posing risks to the 970 million voters and 15 million poll workers who may have to endure temperatures as high as 49 degrees. It went further to add that low voter turnout, possibly influenced by the heat, could impact the prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
A report in the Financial Times titled, ‘Narendra Modi increases anti-Muslim rhetoric in India election campaign’, delved into the “intensified divisive rhetoric” deployed by Modi on the campaign trail. The report by Benjamin Parkin, Jyotsna Singh and John Reed highlighted that Modi has used “some of the most extreme language of his decade in power to attack opponents and mobilise Hindu voters”. This includes referring to Muslims as “infiltrators” and equating the Indian National Congress with the pro-Pakistan Muslim League.
“This kind of polarisation and communal rhetoric, of course it’ll appeal to your core voters,” it quoted Ronojoy Sen, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, as saying. Sen, however, added, “But I’m not sure how well it works in expanding the core.”
Indian intelligence planned the alleged assassination of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil with Samant Goel, the then chief of R&AW having approved it, said The Washington in a report titled, ‘An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India’.
The report by Greg Miller, Gerry Shih and Ellen Nakashima identified the unnamed co-conspirator “CC-1” in the US Justice Department’s indictment in the Pannun case as former R&AW officer Vikram Yadav. It went on to suggest that American spy agencies have “more tentatively assessed” that NSA Ajit Doval “was probably aware” of R&AW’s plans to “kill Sikh activists”, but “officials emphasised that no smoking gun proof has emerged”.
Asked why India would risk attempting an assassination on US soil, a Western security official was quoted as saying: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”
For Modi, the allegations appear to have only bolstered his political standing, it added. It cited the example of a public meeting in Rajasthan where Modi told thousands of cheering supporters, “Today, even India’s enemies know: This is Modi, this is the New India.”
“It’s just simpler. They buy, pay and go,” Amy Gunia and Sania Farooqui quoted an Indian shopkeeper as saying in a report for CNN titled, ‘Sari shops and street food stalls: How e-payments have taken over India’.
The report was a deep dive into the transformation of India’s economy driven by the widespread adoption of digital payments, particularly the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The UPI, launched in 2016, saw a surge in usage after demonetisation, it highlighted, adding that the Covid-19 pandemic further accelerated digital transactions.
Student arrests in Columbia to Netanyahu’s warning
With pro-Palestine protests breaking out in campuses across the US, The Guardian puts together the sequence of events that led to the arrests of dozens of student protesters at Columbia university.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will launch an invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza regardless of talks of a peace deal with Hamas, reports BBC.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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