epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Monday, June 10, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
For this student, helping Afghan peers succeed fulfills another dream (Washington Post)
Washington Post [6/9/2024 10:00 AM, Karina Elwood, 54755K, Positive]
Zahra Rahimi has lived out many dreams in the past five years.

The first time she rode her bicycle outside in Virginia — something she couldn’t do in her home country of Afghanistan, which her family fled five years ago. The day last fall when she and other young female leaders were honored at the White House. The moment she was accepted into William & Mary — her top choice — with a full scholarship.

And this month, as she sat in her cap and gown, a rainbow of cords draped around her neck, alongside more than 800 graduates of Alexandria City High School.

“I never thought I would even be able to finish school, especially when I was in Afghanistan,” said Zahra, 17. “I never saw any of these opportunities coming to me, but right now it feels like a miracle, like I’m in a dream.”

In her five years in Virginia, Zahra became a standout student. She helped start a club for Afghan students at the high school and a community tutoring program for peers learning English, became the first student representative from the International Academy to sit on the School Board, and was recognized by the Virginia House of Delegates.

“She just continues to show up. She shows up and gets involved,” said Alexandria City School Board Chair Michelle Rief. “And I think as she’s done that, she’s realized how much of an impact she can make as a student.”

Zahra and her family arrived in Richmond in the fall of 2019, then came to Alexandria. The oldest of six children, Zahra said her father decided to move the family from Afghanistan for safety and better education opportunities. In Virginia, she connected with uncles and cousins she had not seen in years, but she still missed her grandparents and other relatives back in Afghanistan.

During the 2020-2021 school year, 69 Afghan students enrolled in Alexandria City Public Schools for the first time.

In August 2021, more than 85,000 Afghan nationals arrived in the United States as part of the massive U.S. evacuation when the Taliban took control of Kabul. Thousands landed in Alexandria, and their children enrolled in the public school system.

The school district’s Afghan population boomed: More than 400 students enrolled during the 2021-2022 school year.

Students learning English as a second language, especially older ones, often struggle in school. In Virginia, English learners score the lowest on the state’s standardized tests in every subject and have one of the highest high school dropout rates. School systems have limited resources to help students catch up, and even in the Alexandria district, with two International Academies designed for students who recently arrived from other countries, English learners can struggle.

Zahra, who herself spoke little English when she arrived, quickly noticed how many of her Afghan peers were having difficulties. She wanted to help.

“My goal,” Zahra said, “is to advocate for those who are in need and be a voice for others.”

Zahra approached Dan Altman, founder of Northern Virginia Resettling Afghan Families Together, with her concerns. First, they tried offering tutoring to prep students for the state tests.

Then they realized that what students really needed were English lessons.

They launched a program last summer that continued into the school year and offered about 100 middle and high school students English lessons for roughly seven hours a week. Altman said the program has a waitlist of 60 to 80 students.

Altman said he understands that the school system has limited resources. There are few employees who speak Dari or Pashto — the two major languages in Afghanistan — leaving students with stronger English skills, like Zahra, to act as interpreters for some of their peers in class.

“Behind her there’s a whole bunch of students, some are thriving, but many are not,” he said. “She shows the potential, if you had a really good student who got really good support, [of] what the system could do.”

On Saturday morning, Zahra stood at the front of a room at William Ramsay Recreation Center, interpreting for Altman as they addressed and praised students who completed the tutoring program this year. A couple of students in the course improved their reading by five levels over the year, they said. On average, students advanced by about 2.9 levels.

“Some of you guys might be wondering, what is the future of my child in their education?” Altman said, addressing parents.

He pointed to Zahra and her close friend, Hosai Rasuli, whom she worked with to start the language program and who is also heading to college on a full scholarship. “We are really excited to see more in the coming years,” Altman said.

Zahra said she felt more proud of the success of the other students than she did of her own. Seeing their improvement, she said, made her feel like she is actually making a difference.

Zahra and Hosai also worked together on other projects, including starting a high school club for Afghan students and creating a short documentary about the experiences of fleeing Afghanistan and the education restrictions that girls in the country still face. Dozens of people attended the documentary’s premiere at George Mason University in January.

“So many people were inspired coming out of that,” Altman said. “Her goal was to give a voice to those people, to inspire people to take action. And I think that’s ultimately what happened.”

It was Altman who nominated Zahra for the White House’s Girls Leading Change award. In October, Zahra and her parents spent the day at the White House as first lady Jill Biden celebrated 15 young women leaders from across the country. It made her feel as though she had finally found a home in the United States.

“I’m an immigrant and I have been chosen to go to the White House,” she said. “It just made me feel like maybe I’m not just an immigrant, but also part of this community.”

Earlier in the school year, Zahra wove through the crowded hallway at Alexandria City High, turned into her classroom, flipped open her Chromebook and patiently waited for class to begin.

“Don’t ever think that because of your journey to this place, that you don’t belong at a four-year university,” teacher John Humphrey told the class.

Humphrey was one of Zahra’s closest mentors at school. During her freshman year — which was conducted virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic — Humphrey said Zahra would stay on Zoom through her lunch break nearly every day. The two would chat, giving Zahra an opportunity to work on her English.

Humphrey said Zahra has become a role model for Afghan students. He has heard students say they want to join the School Board because that was what Zahra did. He sees her paving a path for others.

It was Humphrey’s class that in part helped Zahra prepare for college. She’s headed to Williamsburg with a full-tuition scholarship from the Posse Foundation. She plans to study political science and international relations and hopes to one day be elected to Congress.

On the morning of her graduation, Zahra stood in a classroom waiting with other students to board a bus to the ceremony. Hosai pushed Zahra’s long hair behind her shoulders to get a better look at her friend.

Zahra wore cords for the various clubs she was in and a stole with the Afghan flag on one side and the American flag on the other. The moment felt so bittersweet. She was so excited for the next chapter but nervous to leave her home again.

Getting ready, she adjusted her cap. It was covered in red glitter with silver butterflies and a special message: “Let your dreams be your wings.”
Taliban’s Name-Changing Campaign In Afghanistan An ‘Ultimate Act Of Victory’ (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/9/2024 9:36 AM, Frud Bezhan and Shapoor Saber, 1530K, Neutral]
One of the Taliban’s first acts after seizing power in 2021 was to rename the country the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Since then, the militant Islamist group has changed the names of scores of prominent streets, squares, universities, and even a city.

The Taliban has replaced some local Dari and Pashto names with Arabic ones that most Afghans do not speak. Landmarks honoring Afghan political figures, meanwhile, have been renamed to pay tribute to historical Islamic figures with no links to the country.

The Taliban’s name-changing campaign has triggered online criticism, with some Afghans accusing the hard-line Islamist group of trying to eliminate indigenous cultural identities.

During the last four decades of war, ruling political groups have often renamed landmarks and other prominent sites, including the communist regime in the 1980s, the mujahedin in the 1990s, and the Western-backed government that came to power after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the first Taliban regime in 2001.

Changing the names of public sites has long proved highly contentious, a byproduct of conflict among rival and even warring ethnic, religious, and political groups.

Hameed Hakimi, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank, said the Taliban was "renaming places and institutions to project their victory narrative to their loyalists, and to simultaneously remove remnants of their foes."

"Renaming a geography and institutions may be perceived as an ultimate act of victory by the Taliban, he added.

Removing Tributes To Former Foes

When the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021, it swiftly renamed streets, squares, and universities in the Afghan capital that honored its former enemies -- the toppled Afghan government and the former mujahedin, the Islamist groups that battled the Taliban in the 1990s. Many mujahedin figures received prominent roles in the new political order that emerged after 2001.

One of the Taliban’s first targets was Kabul’s main airport road -- the "Great Masud Road" -- which honored Ahmad Shah Masud, a prominent mujahedin commander and Taliban foe who was killed in 2001.

Kabul’s airport -- Hamid Karzai International Airport -- which honored former President Hamid Karzai, was also quickly renamed as Kabul International Airport.

The militants also changed the name of a Kabul square -- "Martyr Mazari Square" -- honoring Abdul Ali Mazari, a mujahedin commander who was killed by the Taliban in 1995.

The Taliban also renamed a public university in Kabul honoring former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a mujahedin leader who was assassinated by the Taliban in 2011.

Kabul’s so-called Bush Bazaar, once a thriving market for U.S. military gear and foodstuffs, was renamed "Mujahedin Bazaar." Taliban militants often refer to themselves as mujahedin, which means freedom fighters.

In the past two years, the Taliban has extended its name-changing campaign to cities across Afghanistan.

The extremist group changed the names of the airports in the central provinces of Bamiyan, Daikundi, and Ghor -- which honored two former mujahedin leaders and an Afghan army general, respectively.

Meanwhile, two main roads in the western city of Herat that honored Masud and the son of Ismail Khan, a former mujahedin leader, respectively, were also renamed.

‘Highly Political’

In many cases, the Taliban has restored the original names of streets, squares, and other public sites. In other cases, the militants have renamed places to honor Islamic scholars and jurists from the Arab world as well as the Koran, Islam’s holy book. In some instances, streets and squares have been renamed after slain Taliban leaders and fighters.

In one of its most controversial moves, the Taliban renamed the city of Charikar, the provincial capital of the northern province of Parwan, to Imam Azam.

The new Arabic name refers to Imam Abu Hanifa, an eighth-century jurist who founded the Hanafi school of Islam, the Sunni denomination followed by the Taliban.

Changing the name of Charikar, an ancient city with Buddhist roots, triggered widespread outrage.

The Taliban also changed the names of units in the Afghan military, replacing Persian and Pashto names with Arabic ones.

Meanwhile, a square in the western city of Herat long known as Education Square was recently renamed "Iqra," which means read in Arabic and is the name of a chapter in the Koran.

Locals have criticized the move.

Sayed Ashraf Sadat, an exiled activist from Herat, said the Taliban’s name changes were "worrying" and "highly political."

Naqib Arwin, a former official in Herat, said the Taliban’s decisions "have been done by force and without the consent and consultation of the people."

Haroun Rahimi, an Afghan academic who researches Islamic law, said the Taliban’s decision to replace Dari and Pashto words with Arabic ones was not surprising.

"They often name things after figures or events that have prominence in Islamic history," he said. "It is interesting that they are not naming things after their figures and leaders as much as the [previous government] did. Instead, they reach back to Islamic history."

Rahimi says that decision speaks to the Taliban’s complicated relationship with Afghan nationalism.

While the Taliban has its roots in a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, its ideology and practices are also grounded in Pashtun tribal codes. The group is predominately made up of Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country. Pashtuns have ruled Afghanistan for much of the country’s more-than-270-year existence.

Hakimi said the Taliban’s name-changing spree will "certainly result in the weakening of any collective sense of nationalism that Afghans have, especially over the past century."

"The Taliban crackdown in this regard extends deeply into Pashtun areas of the country too, effectively challenging Pashtuns’ sense of nationalism," he added.
Pakistan
China, Pakistan agree to strengthen mining, oil and gas cooperation (Reuters)
Reuters [6/9/2024 12:16 AM, Kevin Yao and Shuyan Wang, 42991K, Positive]
China and Pakistan have agreed to boost mining cooperation and promote the implementation of a pact on strengthening mining development and industrial cooperation, according to a joint statement from the two countries.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited in Beijing from June 4 to 8, in a bid to upgrade cooperation under the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a key part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The countries will promote investment by Chinese firms in Pakistan’s mining industry, and strengthen the planning of mining industry parks, including deep processing of ores, according to the joint statement published by China’s foreign ministry.

China will strengthen cooperation with Pakistan in areas such as marine oil and gas resources and natural gas hydrates, and will encourage Chinese firms to participate in the development of offshore oil and gas blocks in Pakistan, said the statement.

Chinese investment and financial support for Pakistan since 2013 have been a boon for the South Asian nation’s struggling economy, including the rolling over of loans so that Islamabad is able to meet external financing needs at a time foreign reserves are critically low.

Beijing has over $65 billion in investment in road, infrastructure and development projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as part of the Belt and Road scheme.
Pakistan’s budget will aim to set stage for IMF bailout (Reuters)
Reuters [6/10/2024 4:21 AM, Staff, 235K, Positive]
Pakistan’s coalition government is expected to lay out ambitious fiscal targets in the 2024/2025 (July-June) budget on Wednesday that will help strengthen its case for a new bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund, officials and analysts said.

Pakistan is in talks with the IMF for a loan estimated to be anything between $6 billion to $8 billion to avert a default for an economy that is growing at the slowest pace in the region.

"The budget holds critical significance for Pakistan’s IMF programme and must close the gap between our revenue collection and total expenditure; it is thus likely be contractionary," said Ali Hasanain, head of the economics department at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Pakistan narrowly averted a default last summer thanks to a short-term IMF bailout of $3 billion over nine months.

While its fiscal and external deficits have been brought under control, it came at the expense of a sharp drop in growth and industrial activity as well as high inflation, which averaged close to 30% in the last financial year and 24.52% over the last 11 months.

The growth target for the upcoming year is expected to be higher at 3.6% compared to 2% this year and economic contraction last year.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed public commitment to tough reforms since being elected in February elections, but high prices, unemployment and a lack of new job opportunities have piled political pressure on his coalition government.

Standard Chartered said in a note on the budget last month that fully implementing all the measures that the IMF is likely prescribing, such as increasing revenue through widening the tax base and power tariff hikes, will be tough for Sharif’s government.

"A weak coalition government, a vocal and popular opposition, and the difficulty of implementing deep-rooted structural reforms were seen as reasons for caution," Standard Chartered said in the note.

"A key concern among local stakeholders was the risk that front-loading tough fiscal measures could face a backlash from the public," it added.

It will also be the first test for new Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, formerly the chief of HBL, Pakistan’s largest bank, who was brought in by Sharif to formulate fresh policy solutions to address persistent problems in the $350 billion economy.

Previous finance ministers have shied away from thorny steps like cutting subsidies, reducing government spending and increasing tax revenues from politically sensitive sectors such as real estate, agriculture and retail.

Mustafa Pasha, chief investment officer at Lakson Investments, said he believes taking such steps would be difficult.

"Any attempt to tax agriculture, retail and real estate will likely be poorly structured and face legal challenges which will prevent any collection," he said, although he added that failure to address IMF demands would likely lead to a delay in a new programme which Pakistan cannot afford for long.

Another key point to look out for in the budget will be targets set for proceeds from privatisation. Pakistan is looking to make its first major sale in nearly two decades as it sells a stake in its national airline.

It is expected to be the first in a series of sales of loss-making entities, particularly in the troubled power sector.
Roadside bombing targeting security convoy kills 7 soldiers in northwest Pakistan (AP)
AP [6/9/2024 11:03 AM, Staff, 31180K, Negative]
A roadside bomb exploded near a security convoy in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing seven soldiers, including an army captain, the military said, a sign of a surge in militant attacks on security forces.

The latest attack happened in Lakki Marwat, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, the military said.

No one claimed responsibility, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, who have a strong presence in the region. The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, is a separate group that has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks in recent years, predominantly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In January 2023 militants killed at least 101 people, mostly police officers, when a suicide bomber disguised as a policeman attacked a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

On Sunday, the counter-terrorism department (CTD) of police in Peshawar issued a report, saying 65 police officials were killed while another 86 were wounded in 237 incidents of terrorism in the province in the past five months.

It said police have killed 117 militants and arrested 299 others in a series of operations.

Most of the attacks on security forces have been claimed by Islamic militants this year.

Pakistani authorities often say Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are giving shelter to TTP fighters across the unruly border. The Afghan Taliban government insists it doesn’t allow anyone to use Afghan soil for violence in any country.

TTP has also said it was not using Afghan soil for targeting troops in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s army says bomb blast kills seven soldiers (Reuters)
Reuters [6/9/2024 10:21 AM, Asif Shahzad, 42991K, Negative]
A bomb blast targeting a military truck killed seven soldiers on Sunday in northwestern Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan, the army said.

The incident took place in the Lakki Marwat district which is on the edge of a lawless tribal region divided on both sides of the border.

The improvised explosive device exploded near the military vehicle, killing seven soldiers including an officer, the army said in a statement.

"The perpetrators of this heinous act will be brought to justice," it said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The tribal region has long been a safe haven for Islamist militants who operate on both sides of the border.

An umbrella group of Islamist and sectarian militant groups called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been waging a war against the state to try to overthrow the government. It wants to run Pakistan as an Islamic state governed by its own harsh interpretation of Islam.

Islamabad says the TTP leaders have taken refuge in neighbouring Afghanistan, where they run camps to train Islamist militants to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

Kabul has previously said rising violence in Pakistan is a domestic issue for Islamabad.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have soured in recent months. Islamabad says Kabul is not doing enough to tackle militant groups targeting Pakistan.
Pakistan police arrest man accused of killing 2 minority Ahmadis in Punjab province (AP)
AP [6/9/2024 12:05 PM, Staff, 31180K, Negative]
Pakistani police on Sunday arrested a man accused of killing two members of the minority Ahmadi community in separate attacks in the eastern Punjab province, police and officials said.

The arrest came a day after the suspect shot and killed two Ahmadis hours apart in Mandi Bahauddin, a district in the eastern Punjab province, district police chief Ghulam Moinuddin said. He said the suspect had confessed to killings under questioning and faces murder charges.

It was unclear why the suspect targeted the two men.

The victims belonged to the Ahmadi faith, which was established in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whose followers believe was a prophet.

In a statement, Amir Mahmood, a spokesperson for the community of Ahmadis, denounced Saturday’s killings. He said the attacker was a student at a seminary, and that a campaign against the Ahmadiyya community is on the rise.

Mahmood demanded action against those involved in hate-speeches against his community.

“Why is the government not taking any action against them,” he asked.

Pakistan’s Parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974, and they have repeatedly been targeted by Islamic extremists, drawing condemnation from domestic and international human right groups.

Homes and places of worship of Ahmadis have been attacked by Sunni militants who consider them heretics.
Onion exports: How Pakistan briefly won at India’s cost in unlikely matchup (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [6/10/2024 4:14 PM, Abid Hussain, 20.9M, Neutral]
Pakistani onion farmers and exporters are celebrating a windfall due to an unprecedented surge in exports over the past few months, an unlikely win at the cost of their counterparts across the border in India.

The South Asian nations, bitter rivals in myriad arenas, are also major onion producers. But India is also the world’s second-largest onion exporter after China, and is a dominant force in the global market for the vegetable, its produce often crowding out onions from smaller nations.

So, in December, when India imposed an export ban due to a decline in local onion production, ahead of national elections, Pakistani farmers and exporters jumped at what they recognised was a rare opportunity. In 2023, India exported nearly 2.5 million tonnes of onions. Suddenly the world onion market had a gap — one that Pakistan partly filled.

Pakistan managed to export more than 220,000 tonnes of onions between December and March this year, which was a little more than its usual annual onion export volume.

Waheed Ahmed, patron-in-chief of the All Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Exporters, Importers and Merchants Association (PFVA), attributed this success to quick thinking — and a government willingness, at least for a while, to allow exports without placing a ban similar to India’s.

“When India placed the ban, we urged the government to allow us to avail the opportunity, and by our timely action, we managed to earn more than $200m in revenue for the country,” Ahmed told Al Jazeera.

The Pakistani government did eventually impose restrictions on onion exports, as the outward flood of the produce meant soaring domestic prices. But exports already under way through deals approved before the restrictions are expected to bring another $50m in revenue by the end of the fiscal year in June, said Ahmed.

By contrast, Ahmed said, the country typically earns between $110m and $150m from onion exports per year. Last year, the country was able to earn more than $235m in total from vegetable exports, with onion exports contributing about $90m.

Domestic shortage and price hike

For Pakistan, which has faced a desperate economic situation over the last two years, the export brought much-needed foreign reserves. The country’s central bank data showed that forex reserves, which were as low as $3bn last year, have recovered to $9bn this month, enough to cover imports for six weeks.

However, like onions, the feel-good story has multiple layers. The success of Pakistani onion exports resulted in a shortage of onions in the domestic market for a few months.

With more than 220,000 tonnes of the harvest being shipped overseas, the availability of onions for local consumption dwindled, pushing prices upwards between December and April, the duration when Indian onions were blocked from being exported, hitting ordinary Pakistanis hard.

The first four months of the year saw onion prices, typically 50 to 80 rupees ($0.18 to $0.29) per kilogramme, rise as high as 250 to 350 rupees ($0.90 to $1.26) per kilogramme, before gradually dropping in May.

“Onions are a staple in our daily meals,” Sumaira a housemaid in Islamabad who goes by one name, told Al Jazeera. “But with everything else getting more expensive, the rising onion price just adds to the burden,” she said.

Hamid Baloch, originally from Pasni in the southwestern province of Balochistan but currently working as a chef in a cafe in Islamabad, said the increase in onion prices impacted his business both in terms of production costs and sales.

“We buy in bulk, and one bag of 5 kilos of onions was going for 1500 rupees to 1800 rupees [$5.39 to $6.47] before it started coming down this month. Now it is available for close to 500 rupees [$1.50],” the 25-year-old told Al Jazeera while slicing onions for the chicken curry he was preparing.

According to the World Bank, more than 39 percent of Pakistanis earn less than $3.5 a day, and one of them is Muhammad Azam.

A daily wage worker in Islamabad, Azam said the rising cost of living meant people like him struggled to afford necessities.

“My children and I cannot even think about eating chicken more than once every two months. All we have are pulses and vegetables like onions or tomatoes, but in the last few months, even those were nearly impossible to buy,” he said.

However, he acknowledged that the last few weeks have seen a declining price trend in not only onions but other items as well.

Godsend opportunity

Inflation data and exporters both concur with the reduction in onion price.

Government figures showed that inflation, which had hit a record high of more than 38 percent May of last year, continued its downward trend, with the inflation figure for May 2024 recorded at 11.8 percent.

According to Imtiaz Hussain, a fruit and vegetable exporter in Karachi, the declining price of onions was due to the Indian government reversing its export ban.

“In early May, the Indian government reopened its onion exports, and markets in the Gulf region and some countries in the Far East, where we were able to sell, went back to procuring their onions from India,” he told Al Jazeera.

Ahmed, the PFVA official, said that exporters and farmers showed “good sense and opportunism” to export as many onions as they could during the short time period, when the government curtailed onion exports in March.

“Our aim was to continue exporting without causing a significant shortage in the domestic market,” he said.

Countering the inflated onion prices, Ahmed said that the increase was due to retailers exploiting customers while blaming exporters.

“In our wholesale markets, onions were continuously available for less than 150 rupees ($0.54) per kilogramme, so why should we get the blame if retailers sell them for more than 300 rupees? This is for the government to address, not us,” he said.

For Ahmed, the opportunity to earn foreign exchange was a balancing act after 2022, when floods destroyed large crops, including onions, in Pakistan’s southern areas, causing immense devastation to farmers.

“We suffered due to the flood, but this opportunity was a godsend. If farmers earn from one crop, they will invest more in the next crop. We just need to work on training our farmers to learn better, modern agricultural practices to increase their yield and revenue.”
India
Modi, Striking a Modest Tone, Is Sworn In for a Third Term (New York Times)
New York Times [6/9/2024 5:08 PM, Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar, 3994K, Neutral]
As a humbled Narendra Modi was sworn in on Sunday for a third term as India’s prime minister, the political air in New Delhi appeared transformed.

The election that ended last week stripped Mr. Modi of his parliamentary majority and forced him to turn to a diverse set of coalition partners to stay in power. Now, these other parties are enjoying something that for years was singularly Mr. Modi’s: relevance and the spotlight.

Their leaders have been swarmed by TV crews while on their way to present demands and policy opinions to Mr. Modi. His opponents, too, have been getting more airtime, with stations cutting live to their news conferences, something almost unheard-of in recent years.

Above all, the change can be seen in Mr. Modi himself. For now, at least, the messianic air is gone. He pitches himself as the modest administrator that voters showed they wanted.

“To run the government, a majority is necessary. But to run the nation, a consensus is necessary,” Mr. Modi said in a speech on Friday to members of his coalition ahead of his swearing in. “The people want us to deliver better than before.”

A visibly emotional Mr. Modi took the oath of office on Sunday evening, only the second prime minister to be elected for a third consecutive term in the seven decades of India’s republic. The ceremony, at the country’s presidential palace, was attended by about 8,000 supporters and dignitaries, including the leaders of India’s neighboring nations.

To many, Mr. Modi’s shift in approach can mean only good things for the country’s democracy — a move toward moderation in a hugely diverse nation that was being whipped into a Hindu-first monolith in the image of one man.

The question is whether Mr. Modi can truly become something he has not been during his two-plus decades in elected office: a consensus builder.

A New Man, or at Least a New Manner

“He is a pragmatic politician and, for his own survival and for the survival of his party, he will be a little mellowed,” said Ashutosh, a New Delhi-based analyst who uses only one name and is the author of a book on how Indian politics have changed under Mr. Modi. “But to assume a qualitative change in his style of governance is expecting too much.”

A trademark of Mr. Modi’s leadership in recent years has been the use of power levers at his disposal — from pressure of police cases to the lure of a share in power and its perks — to break his opponents and get them to switch to his side. A bruised governing party may well try such tactics to peel away some lawmakers to his side, analyst say, to buttress his place at the top.

But in the days leading up to the swearing-in, a change in approach was evident.

When members of the new coalition packed into the hall of India’s old Parliament building on Friday for deliberations on forming the government, every time a senior ally seated next to him stood up to start his speech, Mr. Modi also stood up. When it was time for Mr. Modi to be garlanded as the coalition’s choice for prime minister, he waited for the leaders of the two main coalition partners to arrive by his side before the congratulatory wreath of purple orchids was placed around his neck.

His hourlong address contained none of his usual references to himself in the third person. His tone was measured. He focused on the coalition’s promise of “good governance” and “the dream of a developed India,” and he acknowledged that things would be different from the past 10 years.

The last time Mr. Modi came to the Parliament complex for a closely watched event, last May when he inaugurated a new, more modern building for the assembly, he made an entrance some observers compared with that of a king: with markings on his forehead as a sign of piety and a scepter in his hand, as shirtless, chanting Hindu monks walked ahead of and behind him.

This time, he went straight to a copy of the Constitution, which declares that India is a secular and socialist democracy, bowing before it and lifting it to his forehead.
A Return to Debate, and to Parliamentary Procedures

For the first time in his more than two decades in elected office, Mr. Modi finds himself in uncharted territory. Until now, as long as he has been at the helm — whether at the state level as the chief minister of Gujarat or at the national level — his Bharatiya Janata Party has always had a majority. Analysts say that history of never having been in the opposition has shaped his heavy-handed approach to politics.

When he left Gujarat, after 13 years, he had established such a firm grip and had so routed the opposition that the state had effectively become one of single-party rule. His first national victory in 2014, with a majority for his B.J.P., ended decades of coalition governance in India, in which no party had been able to capture the 272 seats in Parliament necessary for a majority. In 2019, he was re-elected with an even bigger majority.

Mr. Modi’s enormous power helped swiftly carry out what had for decades been his right-wing party’s agenda, including construction of a lavish Hindu temple on a long-disputed site that once held a mosque, and the revocation of the special status long enjoyed by the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

A separatist insurgency has long troubled the Himalayan Kashmir region. As the inauguration ceremony began in New Delhi on Sunday, a bus carrying pilgrims in the Reasi district fell into a gorge after gunmen opened fire on it. At least eight people were killed, the police said.

A trademark of Mr. Modi’s governance was a disregard for parliamentary procedures and for debates on legislation. His unexpected, overnight demonetization in 2016 — which invalidated India’s currency in an effort to crack down on corruption — threw the country into chaos and dealt a blow to a still cash-driven economy. Similarly, rushing to enact laws aimed at overhauling the agriculture market resulted in a year of protests that choked Delhi, forcing Mr. Modi to retreat.

Before the election results came out, Mr. Modi’s party had predicted that his coalition would win 400 seats in India’s 543-seat Parliament. The opposition would be reduced to sitting “in the spectators’ gallery,” Mr. Modi said. Officials in his government had made clear that in his new term he would seek to put in place the only main item remaining on his party’s agenda: legislating a “uniform civil code” across this diverse country to replace varying laws of different religions that currently govern issues like marriage and inheritance. His party leaders spoke of Mr. Modi not only as their leader for the current term, but also for the next election in 2029, when he would be 78.

“He has been trying to transform the country,” Sudesh Verma, a B.J.P. official who wrote a book on Mr. Modi’s rise, said in an interview before the election results were announced. “I look forward to him working like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who worked into his 90s.”

But under a coalition government, Mr. Modi’s traditional approach will be difficult.

Two of the main coalition parties that helped him achieve the minimum number of Parliament seats to form a government are secular, in contrast to Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist ideology.

N. Chandrababu Naidu, whose party holds 16 seats, has been scathing in the past in his criticism of Mr. Modi’s treatment of the Muslim minority. He has also openly criticized Mr. Modi for using the central investigating agencies to target his opponents and taking “steps to subvert all democratic institutions.”

Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst in Delhi and the author of the 2023 book “How Prime Ministers Decide,” said, “The contentious ideological issues, like the enactment of the uniform civil code, may be put on the back burner if the allies are not comfortable with it.”

Mr. Modi’s popular image is built on two strong pillars. He is a champion of economic development, with an inspiring biography of a rise from a humble caste and relative poverty. He is also a lifelong Hindu nationalist, with decades as a foot soldier in a movement seeking to turn India’s secular and diverse state into an overtly Hindu-first place.

At the peak of his power, the Hindu nationalist aspect increasingly dominated. Analysts say that the recent rebuke by voters might be a lucky break for the nation: prompting Mr. Modi to tap into his development champion side, and to focus on a legacy of economic transformation that could improve the lives of all Indians.
Modi sworn in as prime minister for third term alongside familiar allies (Washington Post)
Washington Post [6/9/2024 4:54 PM, Gerry Shih, 54755K, Neutral]
Days after shock election results forced him to form a coalition government, Narendra Modi signaled an emphasis on continuity as he was sworn in Sunday for a third five-year term as India’s prime minister, and unveiled the 71 members of his council of ministers.

At a ceremony at the grand presidential palace in New Delhi, Modi appeared onstage alongside some of his closest allies, including leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party who held crucial security and economic portfolios during the previous term, to take fresh oaths of office. Details about the ministerial appointments were not made available by his office late Sunday evening, but they are expected to emerge in the coming days.

After a decade of Modi firmly in power, analysts are waiting to see how the prime minister will reshuffle the seats in his new government, and if he will relinquish key positions to partners in his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition after he failed to win an outright majority for the first time in his political career. But Modi, dressed in a blue jacket and a crisp white kurta, greeted a long line of familiar deputies Sunday, signaling that his third term will probably not change much in terms of personnel, even if he fine-tunes his governing style.

“There was that veneer of continuity: No big, first-line cabinet minister has been benched,” said Shruti Kapila, a professor of history at the University of Cambridge. “But it is very fragile. I don’t think he can push things too much.”

The swearing-in ceremony marked a rare accomplishment but also a humbling new reality for the 73-year-old leader of the Hindu nationalist BJP. Modi became only the second Indian prime minister, after Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s founding father, to be elected for three successive terms. But it also marked the beginning of one of the most uncertain periods of his career.

After winning an outright majority in Parliament in 2014 and 2019, Modi consolidated power, sidelined his rivals and built up a cult of personality, with his cabinet ministers regularly pledging fealty to Modi in public and his face adorning ubiquitous billboards and government welfare campaigns.

But election results last week showed that his BJP won only 240 of the 272 seats needed for a majority in the Lok Sabha lower house. For the first time, Modi needed help from his NDA coalition partners, namely Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party and Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) party, to form a new government.

And as he began power-sharing negotiations behind closed doors last week, Modi already began to strike a more restrained tone in public.

In a nationally televised speech to his coalition partners late Friday, Modi repeatedly referred to the NDA government — a departure from the previous term, when he commonly spoke of the “Modi government.” Often criticized as a leader who only appealed to Hindi-speaking Hindus in north and central India and who marginalized minorities, Modi now described his coalition as representing all of India’s diversity and noted that it also garnered votes from Christians and South Indians.

“I want to thank the people of the country for giving us a majority and assure them that we will leave no stone unturned to take the country forward by consensus,” Modi said. “This is the strongest coalition government in the history of coalition governments.”

Following the swearing-in ceremony, Amit Shah, Modi’s longtime confidant who served as home minister during his previous term, said on X that the NDA government would represent “all-inclusive nationalism.”

The ceremony, held on a sweltering summer evening, was attended by leaders from neighboring South Asian countries, including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well as India’s top business leaders and Bollywood superstars. Key members from Modi’s previous cabinet that renewed their oaths included Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, S. Jaishankar and Nirmala Sitharaman, the respective ministers of home, defense, road and highways, external affairs and finance in the last Modi government.

Many analysts are watching whether Modi allies — Shah, in particular — would retain key levers of power, including control over investigative and law enforcement agencies, which opposition parties allege have been misused for the BJP’s political purposes. Another question in the coming days is whether the NDA coalition’s smaller kingmakers will seek to become the Parliamentary speaker, which would leave open the possibility of defecting to the opposition without facing censure and thus holding their leverage over the BJP.
India’s Modi sworn in as PM for third term, faces coalition challenges (Reuters)
Reuters [6/9/2024 4:56 PM, YP Rajesh and Chris Thomas, 2042K, Neutral]
Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s prime minister on Sunday for a third term, after a shock election setback that will test his ability to ensure policy certainty in a coalition government in the world’s most populous nation.

President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Modi at a ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president’s palace in New Delhi, attended by thousands of dignitaries, including the leaders of seven regional countries, Bollywood stars and industrialists.

"Honoured to serve Bharat," Modi posted on X, minutes before he was sworn in, referring to India’s name in Indian languages.

Supporters cheered, clapped and chanted "Modi, Modi" as the 73-year old leader, dressed in a white kurta tunic and blue half jacket, was called to take his oath.

Modi was followed by senior ministers in the previous government: Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Piyush Goyal, among others. Their portfolios were expected to be announced after the swearing-in.

Midway through the inauguration, news came that at least nine people were killed and 33 injured when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a gorge after a suspected militant attack in the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, drawing criticism of the security situation from the opposition Congress party.

Modi, who started as a publicist of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of his Bharatiya Janata Party, is only the second person after independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru to serve a third straight term as prime minister.

Modi secured the third term in after multi-stage election that concluded on June 1 with the support of 14 regional parties in his BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. In the previous two terms his party had won an outright majority.

The outcome is seen as a big setback to the popular leader as surveys and exit polls had predicted BJP would secure even more seats than in 2019.

COALITION CHALLENGES

Modi delivered world beating growth and lifted India’s global standing, but appeared to have missed a step at home as a lack of enough jobs, high prices, low incomes and religious faultlines pushed voters to rein him in.

When Modi was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 the BJP enjoyed strong majorities, allowing him to govern decisively.

Modi’s new term as prime minister, therefore, is likely to be fraught with challenges in building consensus on contentious political and policy issues in the face of different interests of regional parties and a stronger opposition, analysts say.

Some analysts worry that the fiscal balance in the world’s fastest growing economy could also come under pressure due to demands for higher development funds for states ruled by the NDA’s regional partners and a possible push by the BJP to spend more on welfare to woo back lost voters.

While the broad focus on building infrastructure, manufacturing and technology could continue, "contentious reforms could be delayed", said Samiran Chakraborty, Chief Economist, India, at Citi Research.

"The BJP’s major coalition partners are politically unpredictable, sometimes working with the BJP and sometimes working against them," added Rick Rossow, the Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The larger parties that will be a part of his coalition are mostly agnostic on national-level issues and should not be applying a brake on economic reforms or security ties with the United States, Japan, and other key partners," he said.

Modi, whose election campaign was marked by religious rhetoric and criticism of the opposition for allegedly favouring India’s 200 million minority Muslims, has adopted a more conciliatory tone since the result.

"We have won the majority ... but to run the country it is unanimity that is crucial ... we will strive for unanimity," he said on Friday after the NDA formally named him coalition head.
Modi faces new reality of coalition government as he starts third term (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [6/10/2024 3:28 AM, Kiran Sharma, 2M, Neutral]
Narendra Modi has been sworn in as India’s prime minister for a historic third straight term, becoming only the second leader after Jawaharlal Nehru to achieve the feat. Although his Bharatiya Janata Party lost its outright majority in the nation’s recent general election, it is returning to power with the support of allies in the National Democratic Alliance.

"I look forward to serving [1.4 billion] Indians and working with the Council of Ministers to take India to new heights of progress," Modi posted on X, formerly Twitter, after taking oath on Sunday evening at the Presidential Palace along with 71 ministers -- 11 of them allies. "This team of Ministers is a great blend of youth and experience, and we will leave no stone unturned in improving the lives of people," he said.

Ministers including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who were also sworn in, were part of Modi’s last term. The ministers’ portfolios have not been announced yet.

Since Modi’s first term began in May 2014, he has launched a number of nationwide schemes with goals such as empowering women, farmers and the poor.

Despite going all-out to win over voters, Modi’s BJP took only 240 of the 543 seats in the nation’s lower house of parliament, where the majority mark is 272, forcing it to depend on its allies in the NDA to form a government. Critics blasted him for rising joblessness, poverty-stricken farmers distress and soaring food prices, factors which might have cost the BJP its majority.

This is the first time in 23 years that Modi failed to secure a majority for the BJP either in state or national elections, including the era as the chief minister of the western Gujarat state. Although the BJP headed the NDA in the last two terms of Modi too, running a coalition government when his party doesn’t have a solo majority could be challenging. Modi is expected to make political compromises to keep his allies in the NDA happy on side.

In 1998, late BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee brought together allies to establish the NDA and was sworn in as prime minister of the coalition government which lasted only 13 months after one of his key alliance partners withdrew support.

Already, ahead of the oath-taking ceremony, local media quoted unnamed sources as claiming that Modi’s allies were pushing for key positions in the government and also seeking development funds for their regions.

In 2014, his Hindu nationalist party pulled off India’s biggest election landslide in three decades, winning 282 seats. Nothing similar had been seen since 1984 when the Congress party, which ruled the country for most decades after India’s independence from British rule, took more than 400 seats as it rode a wave of sympathy in the wake of the assassination of its leader, then prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Modi’s party and alliance won an even bigger mandate five years later, with the BJP alone securing 303 seats. Modi mainly draws his support from the country’s majority Hindus, while minority Muslims often accuse the ruling party of marginalizing them.

Modi, 73, was born in September 1950 in Vadnagar in Gujarat to Damodardas Modi and his wife Hiraben, three years after India achieved freedom from British rule in 1947. He is the country’s first prime minister who was born in independent India.

He rose from humble origins to the most powerful position in the nation of more than 1.4 billion people. His father sold tea at a stall in a local railway station, where Narendra, the third of six children, often helped out.

"I’m aware of the pain of living under a weak roof. I’m aware [of] what a mother goes through when there is no food at home. I’m aware [of] how helpless one feels when there is no money to buy medicine," Modi said at an election rally in April. "And that’s why I decided that I will not rest until I wipe out every worry of the poor."

A charismatic leader and speaker, Modi served as Gujarat’s chief minister four times before becoming the country’s prime minister. He was credited for the region’s economic growth.

Modi wears crisp outfits made of handwoven khadi fabric and is often seen wearing a traditional kurta shirt and fitted churidar trousers along with a sleeveless jacket. Also a yoga enthusiast, Modi often reaches out to people through social media -- he has a whopping 98.6 million followers on X. However, he shies away from news conferences and hasn’t held any in the last 10 years. He gave interviews to a number of media outlets during the six-week elections.

In 1972, he joined the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Volunteers Organization, which is the ideological parent of the BJP. He went on to become one of its leading pracharaks, a term used for people who dedicate themselves fulltime to achieving the group’s objectives.

"He had potential and capacity [to rise in politics] because of which he was sent [to the BJP]," an RSS insider told Nikkei Asia of Modi, who joined the BJP in the 1980s.

As chief minister of Gujarat, Modi faced a boycott from the U.S. and the U.K over his alleged failure to control religious riots in the state in 2002. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in 2012 by an investigation team appointed by the Indian Supreme Court and has enjoyed friendly ties with Washington and London in his decade as prime minister.

In his election rallies, he also touted India’s rising global stature under his leadership, having hosted the Group of 20 summit last year and emerged as the voice of 125 developing countries of the Global South, whose cause he has been taking up at international forums. Modi had "a good report card to show the voters on foreign policy issues," said Raj Kumar Sharma, a senior research fellow at independent think tank NatStrat.

If India gets permanent U.N. Security Council membership during Modi’s third term, "that will be a big shot in the arm" for his government for years to come, said Pankaj Jha, a professor of international affairs at India’s O.P. Jindal Global University.
India’s Rahul Gandhi nominated as opposition leader after election gains (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [6/8/2024 2:27 PM, Staff, 20871K, Neutral]
Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family that governed India for decades in the wake of independence, has been nominated to lead India’s opposition in parliament following an election result that pulled his party back from the political wilderness.

A meeting of the leadership of Congress – the leading opposition party in the country – on Saturday voted unanimously to recommend Gandhi’s election as India’s official opposition leader. The role had been left vacant since 2014.

“All participants unanimously passed the resolution that Rahul Gandhi should take the position of leader of opposition in the parliament,” General Secretary KC Venugopal told a news conference after a meeting of the party’s executives.

The nomination will be put before a meeting of the 232 lawmakers belonging to a Congress-led opposition alliance later on Saturday.

On Tuesday, India’s governing BJP lost its majority in the chamber in an election that defied exit polls and shocked many supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP will still form the next government, but it will, for the first time in its 10 years in leadership, be reliant on a clutch of regional partners under its National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Modi is set to be sworn into office for a third term on Sunday.

‘Voters have punished the BJP’

The six-week election saw 640 million voters head to the polls across India. It also saw Congress nearly double its parliamentary numbers, its best result since Modi swept to power a decade ago.

The comeback has aligned with Gandhi’s, who faced an embarrassing loss of his seat representing the city of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in 2019. This year, he won the two districts he contested, Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh and Wayanad in Kerala. He will eventually have to choose which one to represent.

At the heart of Gandhi’s campaign efforts were long marches undertaken across the length and breadth of the country to galvanise support against Modi.

Aiyshwarya Mahadev, a spokesperson of the Indian National Congress, hailed the marches as the largest attempt the Congress party has undertaken in recent years to connect to the masses across the diverse country.

“We wanted to hear the voices on the ground and give them a voice. So during both the yatras [marches], we saw Rahul Gandhi listening to voices that hardly ever get heard, of people from communities that have been traditionally oppressed and marginalised,” she told Al Jazeera in March.

She added that the marches were “not about political pomp or any chest thumping” but were “about reaching the people on the ground, hearing their voices and becoming their voices”.

Gandhi is the great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister following independence in 1947. His grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and father, Rajiv Gandhi, also served in the role, while his mother has long been a top official for Congress.

Support for the younger Gandhi was on full display following Tuesday’s vote count, with several people seen sporting white T-shirts with photos of Gandhi on the back at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi.

“Voters have punished the BJP,” Congress leader Gandhi told reporters after the election results. “I was confident that the people of this country would give the right response.”

“BJP has failed to win a big majority on its own,” Congress lawmaker Rajeev Shukla told reporters at the time. “It’s a moral defeat for them.”

Reduced mandate

But the surge in opposition seats are not the only factor set to transform India’s legislature and how laws are passed in the country of 1.4 billion people.

Modi is currently staring down a reduced mandate, with analysts arguing that the allies he must depend on to maintain power may also serve as a check on his government.

Critics have long accused the majority-BJP government of ramming laws through parliament without discussions and debate.

That will not be easy any more, Sandeep Shastri, the national coordinator of the Lokniti Network, a research programme at the New Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), previously told Al Jazeera.

“It is going to be a much tougher ride in the parliament, very clearly, for the BJP.”
Where India Turned Against Modi (New York Times)
New York Times [6/7/2024 4:14 PM, Agnes Chang, Mujib Mashal and Pablo Robles, 831K, Neutral]
Narendra Modi set a lofty goal for an election he hoped would send him to a legacy-defining third term as prime minister: winning a majority so staggering that his party would cement itself as the only plausible option to lead India for years to come.

To do that, his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., aimed to expand on its deep support across the so-called cow belt in India’s populous north, while also making significant inroads in the country’s south, which has been more resistant to the party’s Hindu-nationalist agenda.

But little went according to plan for Mr. Modi when the election results arrived on Tuesday. His party did not just fall well short of its goal of winning more than 400 of the 543 parliamentary seats. It took such a steep dive — losing more than 60 seats — that it no longer had a majority in Parliament.

To stay in office, the powerful Mr. Modi is now forced to do something that does not come naturally to him: work with others, in a political coalition. That alliance, known as the National Democratic Alliance, or N.D.A., will face a reinvigorated political opposition, led by the Congress party, that significantly improved its performance since the previous election, in 2019.

The B.J.P.’s losses were sprinkled around the country, from Maharashtra in the west to West Bengal in the east. But Mr. Modi’s biggest setback came where it was least expected: the northern belt where his party was well entrenched and its Hindu-nationalist ideology had strong backing.

It appeared that some of Mr. Modi’s tactics had backfired in this region, perhaps because his party’s candidates there were seen as incumbents without much to offer after a decade in power. Those losses were offset in part however by gains in stretches of the south, where the B.J.P. — as a new entrant that has had little footprint there in the past — found better reception to its messages.

In Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, with a population of 240 million, the B.J.P. won just 33 seats, down from 62 in the previous election. It was in this Northern state that Mr. Modi in January inaugurated the lavish Ram temple, seen as one of his biggest offerings to his Hindu support base. But the B.J.P.’s chest-thumping over its Hindu-first policies turned off many lower-caste voters more concerned with issues like unemployment, inflation and social justice.

One of the biggest surprises was in the city of Ayodhya, the site of the Ram temple. The B.J.P. lost the seat in the city and other seats in its neighboring districts.

In the important state of Maharashtra, home to India’s business and entertainment capital, Mumbai, the B.J.P. won only nine seats, down from 23 in the last election. The party’s coalition partners suffered even worse losses.

The vote was seen as a verdict on the B.J.P.’s heavy-handed ways of reshaping the state’s political map. The B.J.P. had used pressure by government agencies and enticements of cash and power to split both of the state’s two largest parties. A faction within each of the two split parties then aligned with the B.J.P. The move backfired, however: In what was viewed as a sympathy vote, the original factions from the two parties outdid the B.J.P. allies by large margins.

The B.J.P. did have some good news: It continued to expand its support in the south, where it has struggled to establish a lasting foothold. In Andhra Pradesh, it formed a strong local alliance with two secular parties, and their coalition won 21 of 25 seats because of the unpopularity of the party in power in the state. It won a seat for the first time in the left-dominated state of Kerala and several seats in the state of Telangana.

The party’s most impressive gains came in the state of Odisha in the east. That state is part of the “tribal belt,” which weaves across central India and is the only part of the country where the B.J.P. has unified support. Its relatively poor communities have been skillfully targeted by the B.J.P.’s Hindu-first politics and welfare benefits.

But the party’s progress in eastern and southern India was far from enough to make up for its losses in the north. Now, with Mr. Modi deprived of the landslide victory he had sought, the country will see how he responds. Some of the strains in India’s democracy might be mended as Mr. Modi is forced to consult with coalition partners who could restrain his more authoritarian tendencies. Or he could crack down more fiercely than ever, worried about losing more ground to a revived opposition.
Has India Reached Peak Modi? Opposition Comes Back to Life (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal [6/8/2024 12:01 AM, Shan Li, Vibhuti Agarwal, and Krishna Pokharel, 810K, Neutral]
The storied party that led India to its independence and dominated politics for decades was all but left for dead after national elections five years ago.

The Indian National Congress party’s seats had dwindled to 52. Its most visible face was a featherweight, or so the thinking went, incapable of taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the powerhouse of Hindu nationalism.

But on Tuesday, the party and its allies flipped the script.

Congress nearly doubled its seats and the coalition it led won some 230 seats, nipping at the heels of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party with 240. Modi is set to return for a third term—but for many, the election marked a turning point.

“Modi’s halo has taken a beating,” said Ajay Gudavarthy, an associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. “Now he is like any other leader.”

The opposition-bloc parties successfully capitalized on a groundswell of discontent over high unemployment, falling rural incomes and stubborn inflation.

Meanwhile, Modi’s party came into the election confidently pointing to the completion of grandiose projects and India’s rising stature on the world stage. The prime minister promised to make India a developed country with higher average incomes by 2047.

Still, many wondered: What about right now?

“The opposition was quite smart in engaging with the anger of the people,” said Utpal Pathak, a political analyst who specializes in Indian elections. “It has been the most democratic way of protest by the people of India.”

One race in particular was seen as a microcosm of the way the contrasting messages played out. Voters ousted the ruling-party candidate from Ayodhya, the home of a grand Hindu temple the prime minister inaugurated in January. The construction of the temple on the site where a 16th-century mosque was destroyed by a mob fulfilled one of his party’s oldest election promises and was expected to help him clinch another majority.

But Modi’s party lost to the regional Samajwadi Party. The winning candidate, 78-year-old Audhesh Prasad, said he had a good feeling even before counting began because of the outpouring of support he got. He said by Tuesday afternoon, as it became clear his lead was insurmountable, the agent monitoring the counting on behalf of the ruling party left the room and didn’t return.

Prasad said that local anger over the destruction of homes and shops to redevelop Ayodhya into a “Hindu Vatican” amplified the economic frustrations facing much of the country. “It was their hubris,” he said.

His rival declined to comment.

The opposition alliance got off to a rocky start. It was beset by infighting. One party, the Janata Dal United, quickly deserted. That party is now expected to be a part of Modi’s coalition, helping him to secure a third term.

Political experts also credited the opposition’s gains to Rahul Gandhi, a political figure who has often been maligned as ineffective. Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister, was labeled by Modi’s party as an out-of-touch prince.

Gandhi embarked in recent years on monthslong walking tours to connect with the public. He also shifted from attacking Modi to a campaign focused on jobs and social justice, such as redistribution of wealth and expansion of affirmative-action programs that protect lower-caste groups. “We gave India a new vision—a pro-poor vision,” Gandhi said Tuesday.

The leftward shift for the party, which was in charge during India’s 1990s market-opening reforms, struck a chord with many voters.

India’s overall economy has boomed, but the benefits have mostly accrued to the wealthy. Tens of millions of people have returned to agricultural work over the past four years, but the number of manufacturing jobs has barely budged since Modi became prime minister in 2014. After 10 years of rule, many Indians have lost faith in Modi’s ability to deliver on his grand economic vision.

Modi appeared to try to paper over the economic discontent by doubling down on his Hindu nationalist narrative. In one campaign speech, he called Muslims “infiltrators” and “those who have too many children.”

“The more they spoke about communal and religious issues, and kept silent on the real problems like inflation and joblessness, the more unpopular they became among the masses,” said Abhishek Mishra, a spokesman for the Samajwadi Party, a major force in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, which delivered the biggest upset of the election.

The party needs to reflect on its losses, but Modi is in part paying the price for factors beyond his control, said Urvish Kantharia, a spokesman for the BJP in Modi’s home state of Gujarat and the author of a book on him.

His second term was buffeted by global crises including the pandemic and wars that sent prices soaring globally and brought economies to a standstill.

“But you cannot go to people and say that ‘Look, this is due to international reasons, economic reasons,’ “ said Kantharia. “Mostly people don’t want to know the reasons. They just want to know the outcomes.”

The Samajwadi Party wasn’t in Congress’s 2019 alliance but joined forces with the party for this election, making the opposition a more credible option in Uttar Pradesh, a state long a bastion of Modi’s support. Congress also fielded candidates in fewer seats to avoid competing with allies.

“The coalition also allowed Muslim votes to coalesce to a greater degree than in previous elections,” said Madhavi Devasher, an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, who studies Muslim representation in India.

Muslims are close to 20% of the population in India’s biggest state, a larger share than in many others.

These tactics led the opposition to grab a majority of seats in Uttar Pradesh, shocking the BJP. Modi’s margin of victory in the seat he ran from in the historic holy city of Varanasi, also in Uttar Pradesh, was down by more than 300,000 votes compared with 2019. “The prime minister has seen his peak and will never see it again,” said Mishra.

The opposition urged voters to consider what it would mean if Modi were to win a supermajority, a goal he trumpeted loudly on the campaign trail. That fed a fear that Modi’s government could target constitutionally sanctioned affirmative-action programs for traditionally marginalized caste and indigenous groups, political experts said. In many states, that swayed low-caste groups such as the Dalits to vote for the opposition.

“People thought the BJP could go to any extent and change anything,” said Vineet Punia, a senior leader with Congress.

Despite the fresh momentum, Congress has hard work ahead if it is to reverse its decline. It suffers from poor organization at the grassroots level and a shortage of up-and-coming leaders, political experts said.

Modi has given no indication that he has emerged from the election chastened—or that he plans to moderate his agenda.

“This is going to be a very turbulent period,” said Gudavarthy, the political analyst.
India’s Modi and his Hindu-nationalist party have another five years in power. What does it mean for the world? (CNN)
CNN [6/8/2024 9:19 PM, Simone McCarthy, 22739K, Neutral]
Narendra Modi has raised India’s stature on the global stage like no other recent leader of the world’s most populous country.

The prime minister – who secured a rare third term in office this week – has positioned India and its fast-growing economy as a crucial player in global issues like climate change and development, while cementing New Delhi as a key security partner for the United States and an aspiring leader of the Global South.

Modi’s victory will give the 73-year-old leader and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) another five years to raise India’s global stature – and to manage its contentious relationships and contested borders with nuclear-armed neighbors China and Pakistan.

But the election results also place Modi in a radically different position from the one he enjoyed during his first decade in power.

The larger-than-life leader and his BJP fell well short of an expected outright majority and must rely on coalition partners to form a government.

That has widely been seen as a shock setback for the leader and his party, who have been accused by critics of fueling Islamophobia and religious violence in India, while rolling back civil liberties and failing to solve livelihood issues like soaring youth unemployment.

Now, Modi will need to “devote a lot of time to (domestic affairs to) keep the government intact with a coalition with different agendas,” said T.V. Paul, author of “The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi.”

“This idea of India pushing its weight around may be much less feasible for the time being, given that foreign policy issues did not impact the (election) decision as much as people had thought.”

Power politics

One aspect of India’s international ambitions that’s unlikely to shift in Modi’s new term is New Delhi’s relationship with Washington – a connection that has helped burnish the prime minister’s profile as a power player.

India has emerged as a key security partner for the US, a pillar of its Quad security grouping alongside Japan and Australia, and expanding cooperation on high tech and defense in the face of shared concern about an increasingly assertive and powerful China.

In a congratulatory message to Modi on his win earlier this week, US President Joe Biden hailed the US-India friendship as “only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential.”

That relationship is only likely to strengthen in the near term, according to analysts.

“The two countries have shared concerns over regional stability and are overseeing a burgeoning defense cooperation,” said Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

“We can expect a more assertive India aligning closely with US interests in the Indo-Pacific and expanding tech cooperation.”

Ties between New Delhi and Washington have warmed in recent years even as Modi has firmly pursued India’s policy of strategic autonomy to push for a global order not purely dominated by the US or the US-China rivalry – another goal expected to remain unchanged by the election. For example, New Delhi has refused to give up its close relations with Russia, despite US pressure for its partners to cut ties with the warring country.

But one question is how Modi’s third term will affect percolating concerns in American policy circles about a widely documented backsliding of civil liberties in India under his right-wing leadership – as well as accusations the BJP aims to marginalize the country’s Muslim minority of more than 200 million.

India has also faced significant allegations of extraterritorial overreach, which raise questions about the risks of the country’s growing confidence, assertiveness – and commitment to international norms – under Modi.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in September said his country was investigating “credible allegations” linking India to the killing of a Canadian citizen and prominent Sikh leader. New Delhi hit back fiercely, accusing Canada of harboring terrorists and not acting against extremists, even as it denied the allegation.

Two months later, US prosecutors also alleged that an Indian agent was behind a foiled murder-for-hire plot targeting an American Sikh activist. New Delhi denied any involvement in that alleged plot and set up a high-level committee to investigate the accusation.

A changed India?

One factor to watch following Modi’s bruising election win, experts say, is whether the new government ramps up or tones down posturing that impacts India’s relations with its South Asian neighbors.

They point to how Hindu nationalism over the past decade has not only stoked division and violence within the country, but threatened to inflame frictions in the region, especially with Pakistan – often the target of heated BJP rhetoric.

Now, Modi’s BJP will need to answer the interests of its coalition allies – and face stronger checks from a resurgent opposition, which could dampen its Hindu-nationalist agenda. And analysts stress it will take time to see how the BJP calibrates policy aims and rhetoric based on this new political reality.

“If it is normal politics, it would seem that the elbows would not be as sharp on various issues,” said Sushant Singh, a lecturer at Yale University in the US. “But to cater to their nationalist support base, (the BJP) may actually take the other path,” to ramp up rhetoric, he added. “We’ll have to see what political call is taken.”

Such a reaction could also be driven by the BJP’s relative position of weakness going into this term, observers say, noting that Modi’s landslide win in the 2019 elections followed a ratcheting of tensions with Pakistan.

Then, India claimed to have launched airstrikes on what it alleged was a terrorist training camp across its de facto border with Pakistan after a car bombing killed Indian paramilitary forces, in an incident disputed by Islamabad.

The BJP uses the “otherization of the image of Pakistan to rally its core Hindutva base,” said Fahd Humayun, an assistant professor of political science at Tufts University in the US, referring to the ruling party’s ideology that India is inherently a land for Hindus.

“To that end, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which, with its back against the wall, an embattled Modi government plays up the perceptions of external threats to try and rally domestic constituencies.”

In his weakened position, Modi may also be pressed to respond assertively to any perceived threats from China, observers say.

Modi has appeared unwilling to risk confrontation with India’s militarily superior neighbor, despite being slammed by critics for what they say was a soft response to deadly 2020 clashes along their disputed Himalayan border.

Governments and policymakers across the world will be watching for how these issues evolve in the coming months.

In the meantime, some observers suggest that while the election results may not have boosted Modi, they are already a boon for India’s global clout.

“If he has won a (super) majority and pushed the Hindu agenda, it would have probably dented India’s (international) agenda,” said Paul, the author, who is also a professor at McGill University in Canada.

Paul said democracy was “India’s biggest soft power tradition” and its perceived resurgence in the election may boost the country’s image among liberal nations.

“India coming back as a proper democracy is good for the world order in many senses,” he added. But “it all depends how Modi will play this game.”
Narendra Modi and the myth of the strongman (Washington Post – opinion)
Washington Post [6/7/2024 7:30 AM, Fareed Zakaria, 6.9M, Neutral]
Indian commentators are running out of adjectives to describe the election results in the world’s largest democracy — surprising, shocking, stunning, among others. The results have diverged sharply from most predictions, including those of exit polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself confidently declared that his Bharatiya Janata Party would win 370 seats and his coalition would scale 400. In the end, the BJP got 240 and his coalition 292.

The Indian stock market crashed as the results trickled in. But markets can be wrong. This could well turn out to be good news for India politically and even economically.

Why did Modi lose so much ground? One important reason was that many opposition parties came together and projected one common candidate as the face of their alliance, which meant the anti-BJP vote did not splinter. The BJP’s share of the total number of votes in this election, 37 percent, was roughly the same as in the last one. Yet this time it translated into 63 fewer seats in parliament.

Voters also appear to have wanted to personally rebuke the prime minister. At least 20 of his ministers lost their elections. Modi’s own victory in his parliamentary constituency was surprisingly narrow. His race ranked 116th out of the 240 BJP victories by margin, among the lowest ever for a sitting prime minister. The party even lost in Ayodhya, the town where Modi had built a massive new temple (on the site of a mosque that was torn down) and inaugurated it with great fanfare, months before the election.

The results are most remarkable considering the advantages Modi had. He is the incumbent prime minister. His party massively outspent the opposition, using an election-financing scheme so blatantly one-sided that even India’s often compliant courts eventually shut it down. The agency charged with promoting government policies spent millions on ads with Modi’s face on them, reminding Indians of “Modi’s guarantees” — that the economy would soar and that their lives would be improved. Many government benefits in India, from vaccine cards to bags of grains, come with Modi’s beaming smile, as though they were personal gifts from a generous benefactor.

In addition, opposition politicians were investigated by tax authorities, the leader of the opposition was unseated from his parliamentary seat, two chief ministers (the equivalent of U.S. governors) were jailed, and opposition party funds were frozen to make it virtually impossible for them to travel or operate.

And yet, India’s voters — many of them still poor, poorly educated and vulnerable, 1 in 4 of whom are illiterate — voted for checks and balances, for limits to power and against the excessive cult of personality.

Modi campaigned with the pomp and ceremony of a monarch, even claiming that his birth was not a biological event, implying that it had spiritual origins. India’s voters seem to have reminded him that he is human.

Under Modi’s rule, India’s economy has boomed, but its democratic institutions have suffered badly. All three independent and widely respected nongovernmental organizations that assess countries’ democratic levels have downgraded India dramatically, documenting abuses of authority, decline in independent media, and politicized judiciary and independent agencies. (The fact that so many Indians appear to have lied to pollsters tells you they probably feared reprisals.) But now, Modi faces an emboldened opposition, state governments ready to stand up to him more strongly, and a media and civil society that might be willing to push back against governmental abuse.

Investors and business executives have been most worried by the election results. They see the prime minister as pro-business with a good track record on the economy. And they love the idea of a strong leader that they are sure a developing country needs to prosper. But they are wrong. The country that first broke out of the ranks of the developing world and became rich was postwar Japan. It did so under a series of colorless prime ministers. Two other economies that have had breakneck growth over the past six decades — greater than even China over that long run — are South Korea and Taiwan. For most of that time, they have also had bland leaders who muddled through.

India’s own seismic economic reforms took place under a coalition government, headed by an internationally unknown prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who only got the job because the Congress Party leader, Rajiv Gandhi, had been assassinated. The prior BJP leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who presided over strong growth, also headed a coalition. In fact, since 1989, coalition governments have been the norm in India, one to which it appears to be returning. Average income growth under the last coalition government, headed by Manmohan Singh, was actually slightly higher than during Modi’s tenure years in office.

Many sophisticated observers of the world often laud strongmen who run poorer countries, who can build roads and get things done quickly. But the average Indian voter seems to instinctively understand that in the long run, pluralism, cooperation and diversity are India’s distinctive features and its enduring advantage.
India investigates attack by suspected militants in Kashmir that killed 9 on Hindu pilgrimage (AP)
AP [6/10/2024 4:18 AM, Staff, 235K, Positive]
India is investigating an attack in which suspected militants fired at a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing nine and injuring 33, officials said Monday.

The attack caused the vehicle to fall into a deep gorge Sunday in Jammu province’s Reasi district. The bus was carrying pilgrims to the base camp of the famed Hindu temple Mata Vaishno Devi.

A team from the National Investigation Agency has reached the site of the attack, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Security forces also were trying to track down those suspected to be responsible.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha announced compensation of $11,975 each for families of those killed, as well as nearly $600 to those who were injured.

Federal minister Amit Shah said Sunday he was in touch with Sinha and the local administration was providing speedy medical attention. “The culprits of this dastardly attack will not be spared and will face the wrath of the law,” he posted on social media platform X.

A police officer said some of the victims had gunshot wounds and blamed the attack on Muslim militants who are fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which left 33 others injured.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence or merger with neighboring Pakistan. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

New Delhi insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.
Nine Hindu pilgrims dead in India’s Jammu after militant attack, police say (Reuters)
Reuters [6/9/2024 12:16 PM, Fayaz Bukhari, 42991K, Negative]
At least nine people were killed and 33 injured when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a deep gorge after a suspected militant attack in the Indian federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, police said.

News of the attack came as Narendra Modi took oath as prime minister for a record-equalling third term and drew criticism from the main opposition Congress party.

"This shameful incident is the true picture of the worrying security situation in Jammu and Kashmir," opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on X.

The Himalayan region, which is also claimed by Pakistan, has been roiled by militant violence since the start of an anti-Indian insurgency in 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

"Militants ambushed the bus and fired at it indiscriminately. The bus fell into a gorge, leading to the death of 9 pilgrims, and 33 are injured," said Mohita Sharma, district police chief of Reasi.

The last major attack on Hindu pilgrims in the region happened in 2017 when a bus was targeted, killing eight people.

Sunday’s attack comes a day after police chief RR Swain said the number of local militants in the territory was dropping but 70-80 foreign militants remained active.

The injured have been moved to nearby hospitals and a search for the attackers has been launched, police said in a statement.

A state official earlier said at least 10 pilgrims were feared dead.
India’s Heatwave Longest Ever, Worse To Come (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [6/10/2024 4:00 AM, Staff, 456K, Negative]
India’s heatwave is the longest ever to hit the country, the government’s top weather expert said Monday as he warned people will face increasingly oppressive temperatures.

Parts of northern India have been gripped by a heatwave since mid-May, with temperatures soaring over 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

"This has been the longest spell because it has been experienced for about 24 days in different parts of the country," the head of India’s Meteorological Department (IMD), Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, said in an interview with the Indian Express daily.

The mercury is expected to fall as the annual monsoon rains move north this month, but Mohapatra cautioned worse will follow.

"Heatwaves will be more frequent, durable and intense, if precautionary or preventive measures are not taken," he said.

India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but has committed to achieve a net zero emissions economy by 2070 -- two decades after most of the industrialised West.

For now, it is overwhelmingly reliant on coal for power generation.

"Human activities, increasing population, industrialisation and transport mechanisms are leading to increased concentration of carbon monoxide, methane and chlorocarbons," Mohapatra said.

"We are endangering not only ourselves, but also our future generations."

Scientific research shows climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

The latest heatwave has seen temperatures in New Delhi match the capital’s previous record high: 49.2C (120.5F) clocked in 2022.

As people sought relief from the scorching temperatures, the electricity grid groaned under a record peak power demand of 8,302 megawatts.

On May 29, an automatic weather station in the Delhi suburb of Mungeshpur recorded a high of 52.9C (127.2F), but the temperature was the result of a faulty sensor.

Elsewhere in Delhi, 17 other city stations hit a maximum of 49C (120.2F) the same day.

"We constituted an expert committee, which observed readings for the next two days and found there were problems with the sensor," Mohapatra said.

While the IMB had raised its concerns about the recording within hours, Mohapatra confirmed for the first time that the sensor was faulty.

"We inspect the AWS (automatic weather stations) every six months," he said.

"But in between a bird or a monkey can disturb it".
NSB
Under threat of jail, microfinance pioneer vows to keep lending to poorest Bangladeshis (The Guardian)
The Guardian [6/10/2024 12:00 AM, Kaamil Ahmed, 86.2M, Neutral]
The Nobel peace laureate and microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus has said that years of fighting what he calls “dirty” politically motivated attacks on his work to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh have made life “totally miserable”.

Yunus told the Guardian he had come under 20 years of pressure from the Bangladeshi government for his work, which is credited with improving the lives of millions of poor people, particularly women.

In January, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, along with three other people, for violating labour laws at Grameen Telecom, the not-for-profit company he founded in 1983. He is now on bail pending an appeal but has been charged with more than 100 other crimes, all of which he denies.

“This thing continues and makes my life miserable,” said Yunus. “I can’t concentrate on anything because I’m busy digging up documents to prove that I didn’t do this, documents to prove that I never did that.”

Yunus is credited with pioneering microfinance, a financial service for people locked out of formal banking systems. It allows them to take out small loans to invest in building their own businesses. Piloted in 1976 among a group of women in a Bangladeshi village who were given small loans without needing collateral, by the mid-2000s it was seen as a key tool for ending poverty. Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel peace prize for the work in 2006.

The system’s success in lifting people out of poverty has since been questioned and microfinance has been the subject of several scandals over lenders charging exploitative interest rates.

In 2011, Yunus was forced to resign from Grameen after a campaign led by Bangladeshi politicians. Yunus, who was 70 at the time, was deemed too old to run the bank. He maintains the mandatory retirement age of 60 should not have applied to him as the bank was not a government institution.

The Bangladeshi government has defended the action against Yunus, and denies that it represents a misuse of the legal system, accusing the economist of having a “victim mentality” for claiming he was being personally harassed.

Last year, more than 100 Nobel laureates signed an open letter calling for the labour law charges to be suspended. Amnesty International said the case was “emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh, where the authorities have eroded freedoms and bulldozed critics into submission”.

Alongside the January conviction, Yunus has been charged with corruption, tax evasion and money laundering.

“These are all false, ask any Bangladeshi. Anybody will know this is all false, fabricated,” Yunus said.

Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has accused the microfinance sector of “sucking blood” from the poor, but it was a speech she made in 2022 during the opening of the country’s long-awaited Padma Bridge that particularly concerned Yunus.

Hasina accused him of blocking progress on the bridge, which had a $1.2bn (£940m) World Bank loan cancelled in 2012 over allegations of corruption by Bangladeshi officials. She called for him to be plunged into the river to “teach him a lesson”. “It’s a very dangerous thing we are inviting the people of the country to dunk someone [in the river],” Yunus said. Hasina “pours out her extreme hatred on me”, he added.

Yunus won’t be drawn on the reasons for Hasina’s enmity but it has been linked by others to his aborted attempt to launch a political party in 2007.

Despite the threat of imprisonment, the 83-year-old has remained in Bangladesh and is still working to eliminate poverty and unemployment.

He said other countries had offered to host him but he did not want to leave behind his work or his employees. “This will be all forgotten, removed, destroyed. I don’t want to see that.

“Leave me alone, let me do the thing I want, that I enjoy doing and that people benefit from. It is not for my own interest,” he said. “I enjoy finding out solutions for the problems that we see around us – global warming, wealth concentration, unemployment, poverty.”

Yunus is still committed to microfinance. He believes any problems are due to a lack of regulation that has allowed unscrupulous dealers to operate.

When done right, he said, the system could give poor people the freedom to improve their lives by building businesses instead of having to subsist on low-paying jobs.

“[With a job] you surrender yourself to somebody else’s wishes for the little money that they give you at the end of the month … that’s not what human beings are all about. Human beings are not built for serving somebody else. Human beings are very independent, packed with unlimited creative capacity,” he said.

“Our institutions have been designed the wrong way. If you have money, you get more money … but if you have no money, you don’t get any money. So you stay where you are.

“What microcredit has done is brought that finance at the lowest possible stage … finance is the oxygen of entrepreneurship. If you connect finance with people, people suddenly become very active, become alive, his mind starts ticking, he starts creating things. He’s looking at the world in a different way.”
Central Asia
South Korea’s Yoon heads to Central Asia for talks on energy, minerals (Reuters)
Reuters [6/9/2024 9:59 PM, Hyunsu Yim, 42991K, Positive]
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol embarked on a trip to Central Asia on Monday to hold talks on strengthening diplomatic ties and cooperating in areas such as energy and minerals, Yoon’s office said.

Yoon will visit Turkmenistan with the first lady for a state visit before heading to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where he will sign agreements and attend business forums, according to his office.

In Kazakhstan, Yoon will discuss with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev measures to expand supply chain cooperation for critical minerals such as lithium as well as uranium.

The government plans to host a summit with leaders of five Central Asian countries next year in South Korea, Yoon’s office said.

His trip to Central Asia is the latest global push by Seoul to broaden diplomatic ties and partnerships to ensure access to markets and to secure energy supplies and other resources.

South Korea hosted its first summit with the leaders of 48 African nations this month, during which it vowed to increase development aid for Africa to $10 billion over the next six years as it looks to tap the continent’s mineral resources and potential as an export market.

Last month, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates signed a trade agreement at a summit to cut import duties and forge closer business and investment ties as it seeks to tap the investment potential of the energy rich Gulf state.
Russian and Kazakh legislators set up information exchange to study foreign influence (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [6/7/2024 4:14 PM, Almaz Kumenov, 57.6K, Neutral]
In what may prove an ominous development for non-governmental activists in Kazakhstan, Russian and Kazakh officials have established a parliamentary-level mechanism to share experience on combating “the influence of foreign agents,” according to a major Russian information agency.

Interfax reported that the bilateral information exchange was agreed upon during a meeting in Almaty of the Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s Parliamentary Assembly. The report went on to quote a Russian MP, Vasily Piskarev, as saying the new mechanism would establish a regular channel to “exchange legal norms regarding the protection of sovereignty, in particular, countering foreign interference and countering the influence of foreign agents in internal politics.”

Piskarev, who heads a State Duma commission to identify and root out instances of foreign meddling in Russia’s internal affairs, indicated the information exchange would be open to other CSTO members.

The news is putting members of Kazakhstan’s non-governmental sector on alert. Many are wary that such an information exchange could be a precursor to the introduction of ‘foreign agents’-style legislation in Kazakhstan. Ostensibly, such rules are designed to enhance disclosure requirements for entities, mainly non-profits and media outlets, that receive a substantial share of foreign funding. But prior experience has shown that provisions are also crafted in ways to give governments the ability to muzzle organizations that conduct activities or hold public policy positions that don’t coincide with authorities’ political preferences.

The Kremlin, for example, has used ‘foreign agents’ legislation as an instrument of repression, snuffing out all forms of internal dissent. Kyrgyzstan and Georgia have adopted Russian-style ‘foreign agents’ laws this year.

In Kazakhstan, concern is mounting not only about a possible foreign agents bill, but also about media freedom. The Kazakh Senate approved a media law in early June containing wording that could enhance the government’s ability to restrict independent journalists and outlets via a revamped accreditation process. The media bill earlier received approval from the lower house of parliament.

The Commissioner for Human Rights under the President of Kazakhstan, Artur Lastaev, told the German outlet DW last fall that the issue of adopting a law on foreign agents was “not on the agenda yet.” But, he added, “What will happen tomorrow, I cannot predict.”

In 2023, a Kazakh government agency established a registry for individuals “receiving money or property from foreign states, international and foreign organizations, foreigners and stateless persons.” But that registry, according to Lastaev, is designed solely to ensure that all taxes on such foreign income are paid. In September of 2023, the State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance published a list identifying 240 individuals and entities contained in the registry.
11 Journalists From Kyrgyz Investigative Group Go On Trial (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/7/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
Eleven former and current reporters for the Temirov Live investigative group in Kyrgyzstan have gone on trial in Bishkek on a charge of "calling for mass riots," which the journalists and rights groups have rejected as politically motivated.

Judge Kylychbek Istamkulov of the Lenin district court started the trial behind closed doors on June 7.

Four of the journalists on trial -- Makhabat Tajibek-kyzy, Azamat Ishenbekov, Aktilek Kaparov, and Aike Beishekeeva -- have been held in pretrial detention since January 16.

The other seven journalists were transferred to house arrest amid an outcry by domestic and international human rights groups over the case. The arrests were made after police searched the journalists’ homes and offices.

In April, the Kyrgyz Ombudsman’s Institute said guards physically attacked Tajibek-kyzy and two of her cellmates in detention center No.1 in Bishkek.

Prosecutors said at the time that they had launched a preliminary investigation into Tajibek-kyzy’s complaint.

Tajibek-kyzy is the wife of prominent investigative journalist Bolot Temirov, the founder of Temirov Live who was deported to Moscow in November 2022 after a court ruled that he illegally obtained Kyrgyz citizenship.

Temirov, who held Kyrgyz and Russian passports, rejected the accusation and insisted that the probe against him was launched after he published the results of an investigation suggesting corruption among top Kyrgyz officials.

Kyrgyz-based and international human rights groups have urged the former Soviet republic’s government to immediately release Temirov Live’s journalists and drop all charges against them.

Kyrgyzstan’s free press and civil society have traditionally been the most vibrant in Central Asia, but that has changed amid a deepening government crackdown.

In early April, President Sadyr Japarov signed into law a controversial bill that allows authorities to register organizations as "foreign representatives," which critics say mirrors a repressive Russian law on "foreign agents" that Moscow uses to muzzle free press and NGOs.
China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan railway project gets off the ground (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [6/7/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
After spending some time on a sidetrack, the long-planned China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway may be ready to get back on the main line. The heads of state of the three participating nations have approved an intergovernmental agreement to transform the railway from “a vision into a reality,” according to the Xinhua news agency.

It was a virtual signing ceremony for what, to date, has seemed like a chimerical project. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov each affixed his signature to the agreement via video link. Specifics of the agreement were not immediately disclosed.

Official statements stuck to generalities. According to a Xinhua report, the agreement establishes “a solid legal basis for the construction of the project.” A Kyrgyz government statement, meanwhile, said the three states had settled on “the basic principles and mechanisms of cooperation,” including “financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the railway.”

Mirziyoyev chose to focus on the future, not the present, in remarks delivered during the virtual ceremony. “This road will allow our countries to enter the wide markets of South Asia and the Middle East through the promising Trans-Afghan Corridor,” the Podrobno.uz outlet quoted the Uzbek president as saying.

Participants in the signing ceremony did not mention the project’s cost or a construction timeline. Xi indicated only that the participants would strive to complete the railway “as soon as possible.” The Podrobno report mentioned the railway’s route would stretch from the western Chinese hub of Kashgar to the Uzbek city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley, passing through Torugart, Makmal and Jalalabad.

The project’s cost has been widely viewed as the biggest obstacle to date. Plans to build the railway date back more than 20 years. The June 6 agreement doesn’t offer much clarity about financing. Completing the railway could come close to costing $8 billion, according to one estimate.

Late last year, Japarov said he hoped the project could launch in 2024, but acknowledged that funding hadn’t been lined up.

In late May, the Kyrgyz president and Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong spoke about a need to create a joint investment fund. In March, Kyrgyz officials floated a trial balloon about establishing a public-private partnership mechanism to finance and operate the railway.
Plenty Left In The Dark After Giant Uzbek Solar Power Deals (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/9/2024 5:26 AM, Mehribon Bekieva, 1530K, Neutral]
Uzbekistan’s gaping power deficits and the government’s desperate attempts to plug them are hardly a secret these days.

Only last week, President Shavkat Mirziyoev welcomed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to Tashkent for a two-day trip that turned into three days of talks, with Moscow’s energy assistance to its Central Asian ally topping the bill.

Alongside confirmation that Moscow’s nuclear energy giant Rosatom will build a small power plant in the country, the trip brought a pledge from Putin to nearly quadruple pipeline capacity next year, potentially upping Gazprom’s annual natural gas exports to the country to 11 billion cubic meters.

Just a few years ago, Uzbekistan was a net energy exporter.

But given a rapidly growing population of around 35 million and a growing economy, Tashkent’s dependency on imports -- and Russia -- looks set to deepen.

One way to offset that dependence somewhat would be to make good on a stated ambition to expand the share of renewable energy to 40 percent of Uzbekistan’s total by 2030.

And officials have certainly been talking a good game when it comes to green energy -- not least to institutional partners who have lent billions of dollars to fund the effort.

But the findings of a recent investigation by RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service into the country’s ostensibly booming solar power sector raise questions about how this campaign is being executed -- with weak infrastructure and the familiar allegations of corruption seemingly bogging down the government’s lofty ambitions.

The Solar Power Project And Its Secretive Subcontractors

Uzbekistan currently has at least $13 billion of renewable energy projects on the go.

The Sherabad Solar PV Park in Surxondaryo Province, currently being built with money from the Asian Development Bank, is one of many being funded with institutional debt.

The principal contractor for the $260 million, 457-megawatt (MW) project is Masdar, a company from the United Arab Emirates that specializes in renewables.

The agreement for the Sherabad solar project was struck in 2021, becoming Masdar’s fifth project in the country at the time and second only behind the 500 MW wind farm in Zarafshan in terms of generating capacity.

Mirziyoev personally visited the site to kick-start construction on June 1 of that year.

But beyond Masdar and the roughly 94,000 homes that the company expects the plant to power, there are at least two other beneficiaries of the project -- subcontractors Hex Solar and Osmon-Energy.

The engagement of these two companies on the Sherabad project is not mentioned in publicly available documents.

But RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service received copies of documents that appear to confirm that Hex Solar is the main subcontractor to build the facility.

Public records show Hex Solar was registered on January 1, 2020, at 863 Nukus Street in Tashkent.

An RFE/RL reporter who travelled to that address was unable to find the company’s office, however.

A LinkedIn profile of a company with the same name provides another address -- in Russia’s southwestern Astrakhan region.

LinkedIn users who listed Hex Solar as a place of work, such as engineer Baxtiyar Kasimov, indicate ongoing duties at "Nur Sherbad Solar PV 500 MW."

A second document seen by RFE/RL attests to a subcontracting agreement reached between Hex Solar and Osmon-Energy.

That document states that Osmon-Energy has "experience in the required field of work and has completed work of the same type and level or above the required level."

Yet Osmon-Energy was incorporated even more recently than Hex Solar -- just two days after construction began on the project slated for completion in 2026.

In the subcontracting agreement from that month seen by RFE/RL, the sum transferrable to Osmon-Energy for its work is 45.8 billion soms ($3.6 million) -- quite a windfall for a days-old firm.

An RFE/RL reporter who visited the Tashkent address for Osmon-Energy listed in the agreement was unable to find any trace of the firm.

But a source employed by the company confirmed its existence and claimed Osmon-Energy was making very healthy profits from the Sherabad Solar PV Park subcontract.

"Employees are paid in cash. This makes it easy to embezzle money," the source, who requested anonymity, told RFE/RL. "And they are paid at a very low rate. So, let’s say [Osmon-Energy] charges more than $700,000 for every 10 megawatts installed -- they will pay workers only $18,000 [from that]."

The source added that Osmon-Energy was far from the only overnight company to win big from subcontracting "around 30 major [solar power] plants" being built in Uzbekistan.

Userbay Seitrzaev, one of three men listed as a founder of Osmon-Energy (Abduzhalil Baimukhamedov and Olimjon Ibragimov are the others), denied any accusation of corruption when contacted by RFE/RL, insisting that construction work at Sherabad was under "strict control."

Hex Solar’s founder as per official company documents is a Chinese citizen, Cui Xiao.

RFE/RL was initially unable to reach Cui for its investigation published in Uzbek last month.

When contacted by RFE/RL with questions on the findings of the investigation -- and about whether his business was linked to Russia -- Cui said: "We are preparing a lawsuit against you. We can have discussions in court."

Masdar did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the subcontracting arrangements.

New Solar Plants, Old Grid

At the same time, experts have questioned the quality and productivity of Uzbekistan’s new solar energy plants.

In an interview with the private media agency Anhor.uz this year, Ivan Butuk, director of marketing and digital transformation for the company Energy Eco Sources, said that most new solar stations in the country had been installed incorrectly.

"[Some] 20-30 percent of those that I encountered were assembled with serious errors or were incomplete. That is to say that, while part of the equipment was missing, they were presented by contractors and owners as finished."

Butuk said the plants should be shut down and rebuilt for several reasons.

"They should be stopped immediately and reinstalled.... In addition to being a waste of the money invested, they are only 40 percent safe, inconvenient to use and maintain, and do not produce enough energy for their [installed capacity]," he told Anhor.uz.

The Sherabad solar power plant suffered a setback in January of this year.

Photos and videos shared on social networks showed solar panels apparently damaged beyond repair by strong winds on January 28. Two days later, the Uzbek Energy Ministry acknowledged that 91 panels had been destroyed, but noted they had not been fully installed and were easily replaceable.

Other experts say that Uzbekistan’s ability to harness the power of the sun -- the country enjoys roughly 300 sunny days per year -- is severely compromised by its aging electrical grid.

According to the recent calculations of one Tashkent-based research group, 62 percent of Uzbekistan’s power-distribution networks, 74 percent of its substations, and half of its transformers are some 30 years old.

Two years ago, a 100-MW-capacity $100 million solar power plant built by Total Eren -- a daughter company of French energy giant Total -- started work in the Tutli neighborhood of Nurobod, a district in Samarkand Province.

The plant was supposed to provide energy to more than 80,000 households. Yet residents of Tutli told RFE/RL that they are still suffering the same power outages as before.

Nurobod’s district administration responded to such complaints with a statement saying the power plant was connected to the main power grid and that the Tutli microdistrict was not slated to receive electricity from the plant directly.

Another enemy of solar power in Uzbekistan is climate change.

Because while Uzbekistan is edging toward a hotter, drier climate, it is also suffering from dust storms with growing regularity.

Dust and sand can significantly reduce the output of solar facilities, while ramping up servicing costs. This is something Uzbek authorities cannot prevent.

As for human factors, the government has "a chance to make it right" in the words of Kerry Adler, CEO of SkyPower, a North American energy company.

Adler witnessed the very beginning of the authorities’ drive for renewables in 2017, when Mirziyoev personally invited him to invest in the country.

In an interview with VOA in 2020, Adler explained that a lack of government guarantees had prevented his company’s slated $1.3 billion investment in a network of solar power plants from ever getting off the ground, despite what the businessman claimed was initial investment of $10 million in project preparation.

"We will never participate in any corrupt activities. We will not pay for a contract, nor would we even give a gift, nor will we make a promise," Adler said then, without directly accusing anyone of requesting a bribe.

"And I think that this is a country, from what I understand from people who have lived there and done business there, that historically has come from a different type of a culture."

Four years after the interview, SkyPower’s project has still made no progress.
Uzbekistan Outlaws Karakalpak Group Amid Crackdown (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/7/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Negative]
Uzbek authorities labeled a Karakalpak group as extremist and banned it in February, the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said citing Moscow-based human rights defender Vitaly Ponomaryov.

According to a statement from Ponomaryov, the Alga Qaraqalpaqstan (Forward Karakalpakstan) group was banned on February 22.

The group is an unregistered political party with thousands of members that promotes the independence of Karakalpakstan from Uzbekistan.

Karakalpaks are a Central Asian Turkic-speaking people. Their region used to be an autonomous area within Kazakhstan before becoming autonomous within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1930 and then part of Uzbekistan in 1936.

The fact that the group was banned became known during the trial of Karakalpak activist Parahat Musapbarov, who was sentenced to 6 years in prison in late May on a number of charges, including taking part in the activities of the banned group.

Karakalpak activists have been under pressure in Uzbekistan since mass rallies in Karakalpakstan’s capital, Nukus, in July 2022. Thousands of people protested Tashkent’s plans to change the constitution in a way that would have undermined the republic’s right to self-determination.

A meeting of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev (right) and his Kazakh counterpart, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, took place in the Uzbek city of Khiva on April 5.

The protests were violently dispersed. Uzbek authorities said at the time that 21 people died during the protests, but the Austrian-based Freedom for Eurasia human rights group said at least 70 people were killed during the unrest.

In January last year, an Uzbek court sentenced 22 Karakalpak activists to prison terms on charges that included undermining the constitutional order for taking part in the protests.

In March 2023, another 39 Karakalpak activists accused of taking part in the protests in Nukus were convicted, with 28 of them sentenced to prison terms of between 5 and 11 years. Eleven defendants were handed parole-like sentences.

The violence forced Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev to make a rare about-face and scrap the proposal to change the constitution.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[6/9/2024 2:52 AM, 2.5K followers, 13 retweets, 27 likes]
Hundreds of Afghans in Germany had protest to show solidarity with the family of a German police officer who was recently killed by an Afghan. Participants of this protest, while expressing their disgust with extremism, said that the attacker is not a representative of Afghans.

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[6/7/2024 7:03 AM, 2.5K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
Afghanistan is set to mark 1,000 dark days since the Taliban banned girls from attending school beyond the age of 12, dimming any prospect of women being allowed back into the formal education system in the near future: https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/afghanistan-taliban-school-ban-1000-days-b2557909.html

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[6/8/2024 11:14 PM, 79.5K followers, 205 retweets, 504 likes]
This man claimed responsibility for an explosion in 2018 that killed over 100 innocent men, women, and children at a Kabul hospital. I was there. His name is Sirajuddin Haqqani, Taliban interior minister. The US also has a $10 million bounty on him. He roams the world freely.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[6/8/2024 11:20 PM, 79.5K followers, 7 retweets, 46 likes]
My best friend was a doctor. He wasn’t answering his phone. I went to find him. Bodies were piled up in storage rooms - the elderly, young children. Blood ran through like a river. The situation was absolute chaos. You couldn’t see even a few feet in front of you.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[6/8/2024 11:20 PM, 79.5K followers, 4 retweets, 54 likes]
Now, he performs Islam’s most holiest ritual. His crimes will never be forgiven and many of us have dedicated our lives to ensuring the Afghan people see justice for the terror they have inflicted on our nation. We will never forget. We won’t give up.
Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/9/2024 11:56 PM, 6.7M followers, 177 retweets, 603 likes]
Deeply saddened by the martyrdom of Pak Army personnel including a Captain in a targeted attack in Lakki Marwat District. The sacrifices of our brave soldiers and citizens is a debt on us that we must repay by relentlessly eliminating terrorism from our nation.Heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families.

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/8/2024 9:41 AM, 6.7M followers, 749 retweets, 2.8K likes]
Zàijiàn , China! I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the people and Government of China for the warm hospitality throughout this remarkable and immensely fruitful visit. Under President Xi Jinping’s visionary leadership, China is reaching new heights and In order for Pakistan to flourish and progress, there are abundant lessons we can glean from our steadfast ally. Pakistan and China are proud to be Iron Brothers!

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/7/2024 1:18 PM, 6.7M followers, 380 retweets, 1.2K likes]
Landed in Xian a short while ago. Looking forward to learning about China’s agricultural modernization and innovation from the world class facilities of this great city. Keen to explore new avenues of cooperation and further deepen our linkages in agriculture to enhance Pakistan’s food productivity and quality.

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/7/2024 9:51 AM, 6.7M followers, 1K retweets, 3.1K likes]
Had the honor of meeting President Xi Jinping at the iconic Great Hall of People in Beijing. We discussed various dimensions of the multi faceted Pakistan-China relationship and reaffirmed our longstanding and steadfast friendship, All-Weather Strategic cooperation, economic and trade ties, and CPEC. Mutually decided to enhance our economic cooperation through timely completion of ongoing CPEC initiatives as it enters into the next phase with five new corridors. I congratulated him on the success of the 3rd Belt and Road Forum and 10 years of BRI. I underscored that Pakistan would continue to work with China to promote regional connectivity and economic development and to make Gwadar a connectivity hub for the socio-economic development of Pakistan. President Xi reassured that China would continue supporting Pakistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and development, and would continue supporting us in harnessing our geo-economic potential as a hub of regional trade and economics. I also extended an invitation to President Xi to visit Pakistan at his earliest convenience.

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/7/2024 8:37 AM, 6.7M followers, 632 retweets, 1.8K likes]
Honored to meet Premier Li Qiang in Beijing today. Had a detailed discussion on all areas of mutual interest, including bilateral as well as regional and global developments. Reaffirmed our shared desire to further strengthen the Pakistan-China All-Weather Strategic partnership and upgrade CPEC in the form of enhanced cooperation. Noted with satisfaction the steady progress of CPEC which is now moving to its second phase. Thankful to Premier Li for his kind remarks about my Government. Also witnessed with Premier Li the signing of bilateral MoUs and agreements in various fields. Extended a warm and cordial invitation to Premier Li to visit Pakistan. Proud of our friendship with China which draws strength from the hearts of our peoples and their shared desire for peace progress and prosperity.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 1:25 PM, 98.6M followers, 25K retweets, 149K likes]
Took oath as Prime Minister at the ceremony earlier this evening. I look forward to serving 140 crore Indians and working with the Council of Ministers to take India to new heights of progress.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 1:25 PM, 98.6M followers, 3.3K retweets, 15K likes]
Congratulations to all those who have taken oath today. This team of Ministers is a great blend of youth and experience, and we will leave no stone unturned in improving the lives of people.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 1:25 PM, 98.6M followers, 3.7K retweets, 17K likes]
I am grateful to all the foreign dignitaries who joined the swearing in ceremony. India will always work closely with our valued partners in pursuit of human progress.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 1:37 AM, 98.6M followers, 4.9K retweets, 35K likes]
Here is the English translation of my tribute to Ramoji Rao Garu. https://www.narendramodi.in/ramoji-rao-garu-a-multifaceted-persona-583235

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 12:11 AM, 98.6M followers, 11K retweets, 75K likes]
At Rashtriya Samar Smarak, paid tributes to our brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for our nation. Their unwavering courage and selflessness inspire us to uphold the values they fought for. Their sacrifice also motivates us to build a stronger and prosperous India they dreamt of.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 12:10 AM, 98.6M followers, 12K retweets, 99K likes]
Paid homage to Atal Ji at Sadaiv Atal. His visionary leadership and commitment to progress greatly benefitted our nation. His words and actions continue to inspire us in our pursuit of all round development. He remains a guiding light for us all.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/9/2024 12:09 AM, 98.6M followers, 11K retweets, 81K likes]
Paid tributes to Bapu at Rajghat. We are greatly inspired by his unwavering commitment to service and social welfare. His thoughts continue to guide us in building a better society

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/7/2024 10:44 PM, 98.6M followers, 12K retweets, 106K likes]
The passing away of Shri Ramoji Rao Garu is extremely saddening. He was a visionary who revolutionized Indian media. His rich contributions have left an indelible mark on journalism and the world of films. Through his noteworthy efforts, he set new standards for innovation and excellence in the media and entertainment world. Ramoji Rao Garu was extremely passionate about India’s development. I am fortunate to have got several opportunities to interact with him and benefit from his wisdom. Condolences to his family, friends and countless admirers during this difficult time. Om Shanti.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/10/2024 2:42 AM, 3.1M followers, 299 retweets, 3.6K likes]
Delighted to call on President Dr Mohamed Muizzu of Maldives today in New Delhi. Look forward to India and Maldives working together closely. @MMuizzu

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/10/2024 2:36 AM, 3.1M followers, 456 retweets, 5.7K likes]
Honoured to call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh today. The India-Bangladesh Maitri continues to advance.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/10/2024 2:35 AM, 3.1M followers, 228 retweets, 2.9K likes]
Appreciate President Ranil Wickremesinghe of Sri Lanka for receiving me this morning in New Delhi. Recognized the steady progress in India-Sri Lanka relations. @RW_UNP

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/9/2024 2:30 PM, 3.1M followers, 6.4K retweets, 34K likes]
Deeply shocked by the attack on a bus carrying pilgrims in Jammu and Kashmir. Heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims. Pray for the speedy recovery of the injured.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/9/2024 2:28 PM, 3.1M followers, 1.8K retweets, 20K likes]
Privileged to take oath as Union Minister in PM @narendramodi’s Government. The NDA Government will strive to take forward the quest for a Viksit Bharat and position us as a Vishwa Bandhu.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/9/2024 2:24 PM, 3.1M followers, 1K retweets, 9.5K likes]
Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in Bharat’s Amritkaal journey. Congratulate PM @narendramodi as he took oath of the office as the Prime Minister for the third straight time. Confident that his vision and leadership of NDA will take us further ahead in making of Viksit Bharat and Vishwabandhu Bharat.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/9/2024 10:20 AM, 210.4K followers, 17 retweets, 199 likes]
Modi is sworn in for his third term. In the days ahead he & his party will face difficult political questions (its electoral setback) and policy questions (how will its agenda be impacted by a coalition). But today it’s about history-he’s in the company of Nehru and no one else.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/9/2024 8:54 AM, 210.4K followers, 6 retweets, 90 likes]
Based on the list of names released publicly, it looks like many members of Modi’s second term Cabinet will be back for his third term Cabinet. But it’s still unclear what portfolios they will hold.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/9/2024 8:54 AM, 210.4K followers, 1 retweet, 7 likes]
An early test for Modi is how he handled the negotiations over Cabinet roles. The coalition partners had been pushing for some key portfolios, including Finance. We’ll soon see how they were allotted.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/8/2024 11:51 AM, 210.4K followers, 11 retweets, 70 likes]
Mohamed Muizzu will attend Modi’s swearing-in. It’s the latest indication, as I’ve argued before including in the piece below, that the Maldives under Muizzu is not aligning with China, rather it’s trying to better balance relations with China and w/India.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/7/2024 1:19 PM, 210.4K followers, 21 retweets, 152 likes]
"Last month, external affairs minister S Jaishankar described his boss as a leader with ‘networking, standing, and respect.’ He’s not wrong: most governments are keen to engage with Modi’s India." https://time.com/6985284/india-modi-reelection-significance/

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/7/2024 1:19 PM, 210.4K followers, 5 retweets, 25 likes]
It’s a painful reality for Modi critics to accept, but it’s true. For proof, see how quickly world leaders congratulated Modi for his election win, w/some of them doing so even before the final results were announced. His reduced mandate at home won’t impact his standing abroad.
NSB
Awami League
@albd1971
[6/9/2024 12:44 PM, 638.6K followers, 45 retweets, 430 likes]
Prime Minister #SheikhHasina paid a courtesy call to Bharat Ratna and veteran @BJP leader LK Advani today at his residence in Delhi.

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/9/2024 10:16 AM, 638.6K followers, 19 retweets, 53 likes]
Prime Minister #SheikhHasina will provide 18,556 more houses and lands to landless and #homeless families on Tuesday as part of the #AwamiLeague’s target of ensuring housing for all. This time, 70 more upazillas will become free of homeless people. https://link.albd.org/45r5z

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/9/2024 9:11 AM, 638.6K followers, 28 retweets, 179 likes]
Prime Minister of #Bhutan Mr @tsheringtobgay has paid a courtesy call to HPM #SheikhHasina today. @bdmofa @PMBhutan

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/9/2024 4:49 AM, 638.6K followers, 21 retweets, 62 likes]
Finance Minister AH Mahmood Ali has said that #inflation rate will be under control by December this year. He also said that the rate is around 9% partly due to the devaluation of foreign currencies and global interest rate hikes. https://en.somoynews.tv/news/2024-06-07/OT9z80VP #Budget2025

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/8/2024 10:14 AM, 638.6K followers, 27 retweets, 90 likes]
Prime Minister #SheikhHasina said that the national budget for FY25 was designed with the current global situation in mind, aiming to progress conservatively while fulfilling people’s fundamental rights https://albd.org/articles/news/41434 #Budget2025 #Bangladesh #AwamiLeague

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/7/2024 8:35 AM, 638.6K followers, 36 retweets, 142 likes]
#AwamiLeague President and #Bangabandhu’s daughter Prime Minister #SheikhHasina addressed a discussion meeting organized by Awami League at the Dhaka District Awami League office in Tejgaon today afternoon on the occasion of the historic #SixPoints Day and toured the newsreel exhibition titled ‘Bangabandhu to Sheikh Hasina in the course of history’ after the inauguration. .Photo: Saiful Kallol

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/10/2024 1:42 AM, 108.6K followers, 100 retweets, 100 likes]
President Dr Muizzu attends the official banquet hosted by the Indian President https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/31003

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/9/2024 1:20 PM, 108.6K followers, 149 retweets, 177 likes]
President Dr Muizzu attends the swearing-in ceremony of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers of the Government of India https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/31001

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/9/2024 1:09 PM, 108.6K followers, 157 retweets, 188 likes]
President H.E. Dr @MMuizzu attends the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister H.E. @narendramodi and Council of Ministers of the Government of India. The event took place at the Rashtrapati Bhavan this evening.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/9/2024 4:05 AM, 108.6K followers, 112 retweets, 123 likes]
Vice President @HucenSembe attends the opening of the Maldives Civil Service Conference 2024 This year’s conference is themed ‘Smart Governance for Civil Service Excellence.’ It will provide a platform for academic discourse on the modern reforms needed for service enhancement.

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[6/8/2024 10:03 AM, 5.6K followers, 4 retweets, 9 likes]
The election to the ECOSOC is Sri Lanka’s 4th consecutive success at a multilateral election. This marks a significant milestone for Sri Lanka’s diplomatic engagement led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its overseas Diplomatic Missions, the statement said.

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[6/9/2024 8:24 AM, 5.6K followers, 14 retweets, 64 likes]
Sri Lanka has been elected by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at the elections held in New York, on 07 June 2024, for a three-year term commencing on 01 January 2025. Sri Lanka obtained 182 votes, of the 189 member states present and voting, securing the 2nd highest vote count from the region.
Central Asia
UNODC Central Asia
@UNODC_ROCA
[6/10/2024 1:34 AM, 2.4K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
On 7 June 2024, UNODC ROCA & Anti-Corruption Agency of Uzbekistan signed an Action Plan for 2024-2025 to develop a national anti-corruption strategy and promote the Regional Platform for fast-tracking the implementation of the UNCAC. #UnitedAgainstCorruption

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[6/8/2024 8:59 AM, 6K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
Deeply grateful to have been a part of this significant meeting in Tashkent, the 19th session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Forum. The opportunity to engage with such esteemed colleagues and to contribute to the dialogue on the future of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is truly an honor.
Here are the key highlights from my speech:
SCO as the Largest Eurasian Entity: The SCO is the largest coalition in Eurasia, and it is crucial to reexamine our cooperation priorities, explore untapped opportunities, and chart pathways for their realization.
Need for Modernization: The SCO requires significant updates and systemic modernization to enhance its effectiveness, more than twenty years after its inception.
Central Asia as the SCO Core: Developing Central Asia as the core of the SCO opens up numerous untapped opportunities for multifaceted cooperation.
Transformation of Central Asia: Central Asia’s transformation into a more unified, dynamically developing, and open region is pivotal for the effective expansion of the SCO.
Economic Potential of Transport Corridors: Developing transport corridors through Central Asia can link China, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, South Asia, and the Persian Gulf, with planned projects like the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway driving further connectivity.
Strengthening Trade and Investment: Rapid formation of trade and investment connections between Central Asian countries and SCO partners is crucial for industrial and technological cooperation, involving longstanding investors from the Arab world.
Expanding Observer Participation: Expanding the participation of observer countries and dialogue partners in the SCO business community, including in the Business Council and sectoral meetings, is essential.
Regional Cooperation Forums: Holding regional cooperation forums within the SCO framework to involve interested observers and dialogue partners demonstrates significant potential for collaboration.
Need for Open Interaction: In today’s complex international environment, there is an increased need for broader interaction based on openness, non-alignment, and non-confrontational approaches to development issues.
Expanding International Ties: It is essential to continue expanding the SCO’s international connections with the UN, ASEAN, ECO, OIC, LAS, and other regional organizations of the Global South.
Engaging a Broader Circle: Engaging a wider range of states and organizations, including G20 countries, in dialogue to address challenges and seek coordinated solutions is necessary.
I look forward to our continued collaboration and the fruitful outcomes that will emerge from these discussions.

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[6/9/2024 12:52 PM, 6K followers]
Kazakhstan is preparing to build its first nuclear power plant. The Ministry of Energy plans to allocate 10-12 billion dollars for the construction of a nuclear power plant, if the initiative is supported in a referendum. This is stipulated in a consultative document to the draft Law on the Use of Alternative Energy Sources. The document also identifies problems in Kazakhstan’s energy sector, including a low share of alternative and renewable energy sources, a lack of favorable conditions for their development and a lack of appropriate legislation. As part of addressing these problems, a number of measures are proposed, including incentivizing the business community to increase the share of electricity from renewable sources to 12.5% by 2029, extending preferences for all types of alternative energy sources by 2026, etc. The document will be discussed until July 27. More: https://inform.kz/ru/10-12-mlrd-dollarov-budet-stoit-kazahstanu-stroitelstvo-pervoy-aes-98560b

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/8/2024 1:30 AM, 188.4K followers, 3 retweets, 36 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited the Coordination and Monitoring Center of the Public Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The center, established as part of the public security development strategy, began operations in March this year and is equipped with modern #digita ltechnologies. Special attention is given to the monitoring and evaluation of preventive inspectors’ activities and the training of employees via video communication.

{End of Report}
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