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:
Friday, June 7, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Female students missing from Afghan university entrance exams for 3rd straight year (VOA)
VOA [6/6/2024 9:30 AM, Ayaz Gul, 4032K, Negative]
Taliban education officials in Afghanistan launched university entrance exams in almost half of the country’s 34 provinces Thursday, with no female students present for the third consecutive year.

The National Examination Authority, which conducts the multistage exam process, has stated that it plans to admit at least 75,000 male candidates to public and private universities this year.

Since reclaiming power three years ago, the hardline Taliban have barred girls 12 and older from attending school beyond sixth grade in Afghanistan. The ban was abruptly extended to female university students in December 2022, depriving them of completing their higher education.

The Taliban’s men-only government has placed sweeping restrictions on women’s rights and freedom of movement, prohibiting many of them from public and private workplaces.

The United Nations and human rights groups have persistently decried and demanded the Taliban remove curbs on Afghan women’s access to education and work.

This Saturday, June 8, will mark 1,000 days since the de facto Afghan authorities prohibited female secondary education, impacting more than one million girls nationwide.

"Afghanistan will never fully recover from these 1,000 days,” Heather Barr, women’s rights associate director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA via email.

“The potential loss in this time – the artists, doctors, poets, and engineers who will never get to lend their country their skills – cannot be replaced. Every additional day, more dreams die,” Barr stated.

The Taliban defend their governance as being in line with Afghan culture and their strict interpretation of Islamic law, dismissing calls for reforms as interference in the country’s internal matters.

No foreign country has formally granted diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government, mainly over human rights concerns and its harsh treatment of Afghan women.

Corporal punishment

The fundamentalist rulers have also ignored U.N. calls for halting the public flogging of Afghan men and women convicted of crimes such as “moral crimes” and running away from home, among others.

The latest such punishments were carried out Tuesday when a group of 63 people, including 14 women, were publicly subjected to mass flogging at a sports ground in the northern Afghan city of Sar-e Pul.

“We are deeply disturbed by the widespread, continued use of corporal punishment in Afghanistan,” Jeremy Laurence, the U.N. human rights spokesperson, said Wednesday.
He noted the accused reportedly were lashed between 15 and 39 times before being returned to prison to complete their sentences. Laurence reminded the Taliban that corporal punishment “is a clear violation” of international human rights law.

“We again urge the de facto authorities to immediately cease all forms of corporal punishment. Furthermore, we call on the de facto authorities to ensure full respect for due process and fair trial rights, in particular access to legal representation, for anyone facing criminal charges.”

The Taliban have publicly flogged hundreds of men and women in sports stadiums across the country since seizing power in 2021. At least five Afghans convicted of murder have also been executed publicly by gunfire.
Germany will deport criminals from Afghanistan and Syria after asylum-seeker stabbed cop to death, Olaf Scholz vows (Daily Mail)
Daily Mail [6/6/2024 11:12 AM, David Averre, 85570K, Negative]
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed that Germany will start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again after a stabbing spree by an Afghan immigrant last week left a police officer dead and four more people injured.

Friday’s savage attack on anti-Islam campaigner Michael Stuerzenberger by Afghan Sulaiman Attae at a rally in Mannheim city centre was live-streamed to YouTube and immediately went viral, prompting mass outrage.

The 25-year-old knifeman, who killed a 29-year-old police officer by plunging a blade into the back of his neck as he tried to intervene, came to Germany in 2014 as an asylum-seeker.

Then on Tuesday, a local council candidate for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was stabbed - again in Mannheim - after confronting someone who tried to tear down an election poster.

Almost one week on from the first attack, Chancellor Scholz today addressed parliament in a speech focused on security, days before European elections in which far-right populists across the continent are expected to make big gains.

‘It outrages me when someone who has sought protection here commits the most serious crimes. Such criminals should be deported, even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan,’ he said to the applause of legislators.

‘Serious criminals and terrorist threats have no place here,’ Scholz added. ‘In such cases, Germany’s security interests outweigh the interests of the perpetrator.’

Migration has been one of the major topics during the European election campaign that far-right and mainstream parties have been exploiting to garner votes from Europeans concerned by millions of new arrivals looking for refuge from war, hunger, climate change or just trying to build up a better future for themselves.

Scholz said that ‘what happened in Mannheim - the fatal knife attack on a young policeman - is an expression of the misanthropic ideology of radical Islamism’.

‘There is only one term for this: terror. Let’s declare war on terror,’ he said in an uncharacteristically firm speech.

Germany does not currently carry out deportations to Afghanistan or Syria.

The government does not have any diplomatic relations with the Taliban in Kabul, and considers the security situation in Syria too fragile to allow deportations there.

But Scholz claimed that his government was working on solutions to enable the deportation of convicted Afghans to Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries.

There have also been discussions in Germany about allowing deportations to Syria again.

He also promised that deportation rules for all others who commit or support terrorism will be toughened as well.

Last week’s attack, described as an act of terror by the group that organised the rally in Mannheim, shocked Germany and sparked a wave of calls from fearful citizens to crack down on violent migrants.

Horrific video footage of the incident showed how Attae tackled Stuerzenberger to the ground and violently swung a large blade at him, prompting terrified screams from onlookers.

Police descended on the scene almost immediately, but officer Rouven L. made a fatal mistake and gave the bloodthirsty attacker a chance to circle behind him.

Ataee stabbed the cop in the neck before being shot by other officers. The policeman later died in hospital, while Ataee remains in a serious condition in hospital.

Even the left-leaning Green Party is calling for tougher measures against Islamic extremists following the attack, after years of urging Germany to take in more asylum seekers.

Speaking on a talk show on Germany’s ARD, leader Ricarda Lang urged decisive action, and acknowledged her party’s previous reluctance to confront the issue head-on.

She said: ‘Islamism is the enemy of a free society. And it must be treated as such and must be combated, in terms of security policy and society as a whole.

‘There can be no excuses, no justifications.’

But it is not clear how fast, if at all, the German government will be able to execute more deportations of criminal foreigners as the country’s bureaucracy often slows down any political decisions.

Britta Hasselmann, parliamentary leader of the Greens, who are part of Scholz’s governing coalition, questioned how realistic his deportation plans were.

She said it would be difficult to negotiate a deportation agreement with the Taliban or Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries.

‘It will have to be... examined for which third country it should be attractive to take in terrorists or serious criminals. I am looking forward to seeing what answers we come up with,’ she said.

But Friedrich Merz, opposition leader with the conservative Christian Democrats, said: ‘The time of warnings and condemnations, of denials and announcements, that time is now over.

‘People expect us to act. They expect decisions.’

Many Germans initially welcomed migrants when more than a million people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq came in 2015-16 after wars and instability in their home countries.

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel - who famously declared in 2017 that Islam was ‘not the source of terrorism’ - opened the country’s borders to over a million asylum seekers in 2015.

The move was highly divisive, praised by many liberal commentators as a morally just, humanitarian policy but slammed as dangerous and short-sighted by more conservative mouthpieces.

It also fuelled the growth of anti-immigration groups to protest what members saw as the failure of government to counter the arrival and influence of Islam in Germany.

Germany’s right-wing AfD party has exploited concerns about the newcomers.

In 2017, the party’s founder, Alexander Gauland, explicitly vowed to fight an ‘invasion of foreigners’ and his popularity grew rapidly - the AfD enjoyed significant success in Germany’s state elections in October, winning its biggest-ever share of votes in the powerful state of Hesse and gaining a significant portion of votes in Bavaria.

But in recent months, millions of Germans have gone on to the streets to protest against radical plans by the far-right to deport millions of immigrants, even those with German passports.

And a series of scandals involving the AfD’s top candidates in the European elections pointing to their alleged closeness to Russia and China, as well as one of the party’s top leaders’ repeated use of Nazi slogans, have seen the party slump in recent polls.

Scholz’s Social Democrats and other mainstream parties have been trying to depict themselves as tough on migration and radical Islam in hopes that voters will not turn to AfD to tackle issues related to migration.
International assistance to Afghanistan needs to adapt to the ‘new normal’ (Al Jazeera – opinion)
Al Jazeera [6/7/2024 5:30 AM, Alexander Matheou, 85570K, Neutral]
Trucks painted bright blue, yellow, and purple dot the arid emptiness of Spin Boldak in southern Afghanistan. Their roofs are laden with the entire possessions of families who have returned from Pakistan after decades of displacement. Hundreds of thousands have preceded them in recent months following a ruling that undocumented migrants must leave or face deportation. Most have never been to Afghanistan before. They must build new lives from scratch.

Many are so poor that they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. They certainly don’t have the capital needed to start a livelihood. When they arrive in Spin Boldak, they receive medical care, some food, and a little cash from humanitarian agencies. They are grateful, but when I ask them what they want, they all underline the same thing – jobs, start-up capital – a chance to survive economically.

Very few will get such help. Not because humanitarian agencies don’t want to support them but because international aid in Afghanistan is still largely geared towards survival, not resilience. This is true for returnees from Pakistan and for responses to floods and earthquakes. As a result, there is a growing divergence between donor strategies and the expressed needs of Afghans facing climate and poverty-related exclusion and displacement risks.

That there is divergence is not surprising. Many of the major donors of international aid are from Europe and the United States. Memories of conflict are still fresh. On top of that, clashes in values with Taliban authorities, particularly regarding access to work and education for women and girls, make tension inevitable and necessary.

What is disappointing though is that the framing of much international assistance remains essentially negative, the emphasis being on not helping the Taliban. Whereas, what is needed is a people-first, positive framing that asks what institutions, structures, skills, and attitudes are most likely to contribute to sustained wellbeing and peace in Afghanistan, given the specificity of the context.

Some will protest that such a framing is impossible while half the population is excluded from education and the workforce. There are two main flaws to this argument.

The first is that it is not entirely true. While restrictions on women are unacceptable and severe, there are exceptions and workarounds that can support women, and these are opportunities to help.

The second is that restricting aid hurts everybody, including women and girls, who, as well as aspiring for themselves, also want their fathers, brothers, and husbands to have an income and an education. In other words, everybody loses from non-engagement, including those the nonengagement is intended to support.

What would a more positive framing consist of in practice?

For a start, it would consider the institutional capacity in Afghanistan to provide social protection and opportunities for its citizens rather than focusing on parallel, international structures. For the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, this means supporting the country’s leading national, humanitarian institution – the Afghan Red Crescent. But there are plenty of other institutions critical to the well-functioning of the country that would benefit from support too.

Second, it would think long-term. Instead of endlessly emphasising an urgent need for food, it would design support aimed at livelihood recovery and job creation, for men and women. This is not an assertion that relief aid is never needed, only that it should be supplementary to a strategy of promoting household economic independence. This is far from where we are now.

Third, it would invest in the country’s capacity to cope with the endless climate risks. Heavy rains and flooding have killed dozens of people in both southern and northern provinces of Afghanistan over recent weeks. Cattle, agricultural land, trees, and bridges have been destroyed, pushing thousands of some of the world’s poorest people into destitution.

Relief aid is needed, but so are check dams and early warning systems. Yet such development support that may provide sustainable protection remains unacceptable to many donors who see it as somehow aiding the de facto authorities. Such policies are helping no one.

Fourth, it would focus on all possible learning opportunities. There is rightly indignation at the lack of secondary education for girls, but we should not give up on learning altogether. Every feasible opportunity for alternative education, vocational education, skills development, and learning should be supported for both men and women. Of all the crises Afghanistan is experiencing, the least visible and most severe may well be a mental health crisis rooted in trauma from the past and a lack of hope in the future. Relief aid is a weak strategy to address that. Supporting self-development is a strong one.

Finally, even a new framing must distinguish between engagement and endorsement. There are many good reasons why endorsement is problematic, but engagement to enable the right sort of investment that works in the best interests of the people of Afghanistan is critical.

After August 2021, many donor countries didn’t know how to respond to the shock of the change in leadership in Afghanistan. To their credit, some continued to respond to humanitarian imperatives even if they did hold back any development financing and engagement.

As we approach the third anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power, and begin to witness a relatively stable “new normal” under the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan leadership, it is time for more donors to move from a reactive strategy to a proactive one. One that aims, as much as possible and despite daunting challenges, to lay foundations not just for bare survival, but for wellbeing and hope.
Pakistan
Pakistan government submits details, photos of ex-PM Khan’s life in jail (Reuters)
Reuters [6/6/2024 10:50 AM, Asif Shahzad, 42991K, Negative]
Pakistan’s government submitted to the Supreme Court on Thursday details of the living conditions of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, seeking to rebuff his claim of mistreatment and of being held in solitary confinement without access to lawyers.

The government submission seen by Reuters included photographs of the cell that showed a collection of books including Nelson Mandela’s autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom", apparently intended to highlight Khan’s freedom to read what he wishes in jail.

The submission also contained a list of family and friends, lawyers and party members who have seen Khan since he was jailed in August last year on corruption charges. Khan, 71, is also fighting dozens of other cases that he and his party say are politically motivated to thwart his return to power.

The government asked the court in its submission to appoint a judicial officer to verify the facts.

Khan complained to the court last week that he was being kept in solitary confinement without access to his lawyers.

In an appearance before the court via video-link later on Thursday, Khan asked Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa to have his cell conditions inspected.

Isa said he would appoint a commission to pay a surprise visit to the prison cell.

Khan’s party stood by its claim that he had been mistreated, and added that the pictures included were of the cell where Khan was being kept in solitary confinement.

"It is a contradiction to the claim that a former prime minister is entitled to an A class cell with an air-conditioned room & a helper to attend to the errands," his party said in response to the submission.

The pictures in the government submission showed a messy bedroom with a study table, a chair, a single bed, a cooler, a washbasin next to a washroom in the corner, with a flat TV screen hung on a wall. It shows shirts thrown on the back of the chair and trousers, pants and a towel hung on a wall.

Another picture shows a long walkway with a barracks on both sides, describing it as an "exclusive gallery for walk, twice a day." Another shows what it says is a separate kitchen with condiments, one more showed a collection of books on Islam, history and politics, and other pictures show a room with an exercise bike and fitness equipment.
Outrage over Imran Khan being kept in solitary confinement in windowless prison cell (The Telegraph)
The Telegraph [6/6/2024 6:32 PM, George Johnson, 29812K, Negative]
Photographs of Imran Khan’s cramped, windowless prison cell have raised accusations that the Pakistani government is lying about his treatment in jail.

Supporters of the former prime minister have accused the Pakistani government of lying about his treatment in prison after photographs emerged of the cramped cell he is being kept in.

The government sent the pictures to the Supreme Court after Mr Khan, the cricketer-turned politician who was jailed on corruption charges in August last year, complained that he was being kept in solitary confinement and had no access to his lawyers.

Mr Khan and his supporters have long claimed that the cases against him were politically motivated. Earlier this week he was acquitted of leaking state secrets, but will remain in jail because of his conviction in another case.

Mr Khan and his third wife Bushra Bibi, a faith healer, are both serving prison sentences after a court ruled that their marriage in 2018 was un-Islamic and therefore illegal, because it came too soon after her divorce.

“Khan is now being kept in this tiny jail room, with no facilities, just for getting married,” Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said.

“As a former PM, Imran Khan is being denied his fundamental human rights, and basic facilities he’s entitled to by all this. History will remember this unprecedented fascism in Pakistan,” the PTI added.

The pictures released by the government showed a small room, with a basic bed, a desk and a bare concrete floor. There appears to be no window or natural light of any kind.

Zulfi Bukhari, a spokesman for Mr Khan, said that, as a former prime minister, Mr Khan was entitled to “an A-class cell” with a helper.

“Mr Khan never did complain about being kept in a facility with no access to natural light or a window,” he told The Telegraph.

Even in jail, Mr Khan remains a potent political force in Pakistan, and his supporters reacted with outrage at the images of the cell.

“Utterly disgraceful that someone is being forced to live in a horrendous 6x8 prison cell over a false allegation,” said Sadiya Mukhtar, a PTI supporter.

“Khan is a prince, who used to live in castles, and is now facing all the cruelties, brutalities, and barbarism for us. He is facing the situation with great determination. I want to tell him the whole nation is indebted to him,” she said.

Haniya Majeed, another Khan supporter, said: “Such unjust treatment for a leader who has tirelessly served the nation in every field and not just as a politician. This isolation is seen as a tactic to break his spirit and limit his influence.”

She added: “Khan is my leader, and I am proud of him,” she said.
Pakistan Power Crisis Deepened By Mountain Tourism (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [6/6/2024 4:14 PM, Nisar Ali, 1.4M, Neutral]
In the mountainous valleys of Pakistan, 18-hour daily power cuts have meant local teacher Aniqa Bano uses her fridge as a cupboard for storing books and kitchen utensils.

Load shedding is typical across much of fuel-short Pakistan, but few areas consistently suffer the same prolonged outages as Skardu city.

A surge in mountain tourism, driven by climbers and Pakistanis looking to escape heatwaves, is rapidly depleting the limited energy supply at the gateway to ascend K2, the world’s second-highest peak.

While higher-end hotels can supplement their supply with solar panels or fuel generators, many locals cannot afford such luxuries.

"We have to reinvent everything that once used electricity," said Bano.

Skardu is the largest city in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan, where almost impossibly high peaks tower over the Old Silk Road, still visible from a highway transporting tourists between cherry orchards, glaciers and ice-blue lakes.

Normally home to around 200,000 people, Skardu becomes heavily bloated in summer when Pakistanis seek the relief of its cooler climate at 2,228 metres (7,310 feet) above sea level.

The region hosted 880,000 domestic visitors in 2023, up from 50,000 in 2014.

As the country grapples with energy shortages -– owing to dwindling forex reserves, mismanagement, rapid population growth and climate change –- the tourism boom has proved too much for local power.

"Due to the increase in population and tourism activities, load shedding hours have increased," Muhammad Yunus, a senior engineer for the regional government’s water and power department, told AFP.

There are up to 22 hours of load shedding in winter and between 18 and 20 hours in summer -- an increase of around 10 percent each year for the past six years, according to the department.

Siddiqa, a tailor and handicraft maker who goes by one name, has seen her earnings fall alongside the number of hours of electricity.

"When we started this business in 2014, there was no issue of power," she told AFP. "Now, I have replaced all the electric machines and brought hand sewing machines."

"In the presence of light, we could prepare 10 to 12 suits every three days. Now, to prepare a single suit, it can take 10 to 15 days."

The tourism flow does not appear to be letting up any time soon. There are up to 15 domestic flights a week to the region and, since March, international flights began landing from Dubai.

In Skardu alone, the number of hotels has increased more than fourfold since 2014, according to the tourism department.

Owing to its remoteness, Gilgit-Baltistan is not connected to the national grid, so it relies on its own power generation from dozens of hydro and thermal plants.

But Pakistan’s 7,000 glaciers -- more than anywhere outside the poles -- are rapidly melting.

This can temporarily increase the availability of water for energy production, but the glaciers’ long-term ability to store and release water gradually decreases, affecting energy production.

"The availability of water for hydroelectric plants is becoming unpredictable," said Salaar Ali, head of the Department of Environmental Science, University of Baltistan.

Damage to energy infrastructure is also a regular setback.

Record heatwaves in 2022 caused dozens of glacial lakes to burst their banks, washing away more than 20 power plants, 50 bridges and countless homes.

Inadequate planning and mismanagement of the power sector can also play a role, engineers have said.

The Satpara dam on the edge of Skardu city, completed in 2008 for $26 million of aid funding, was supposed to supply 40,000 homes with power.

But it generates just a fraction of its potential after plans to divert a river were halted, government engineers admit.

"It has been full only once since its formation," said Yunus, the engineer in Skardu.

Without a reliable energy supply, Wajahat Hussain, a 36-year-old carpenter, uses a fuel generator to keep his business in operation -- puffing out emissions that contribute to global warming.

"We run the generator to fulfil the demands," he told AFP. "There is no work without the generator."
India
India’s Modi, Humbled by Voters, Faces Potent Economic Struggles (New York Times)
New York Times [6/7/2024 12:00 AM, Peter S. Goodman, 831K, Neutral]
Before the Indian election results emerged this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was widely viewed as a charismatic and popular strongman celebrated by the business world for elevating its importance, even as he failed to solve a vexing problem: how to turn swift economic growth into critically needed jobs.

After the election, Mr. Modi finds himself staring at that same monumental puzzle, yet relegated to an uncomfortable new status. He is the head of a party that has been chastened at the polls, forcing him to forge a coalition to maintain power.

Mr. Modi’s governing authority is likely to be constrained by the complexities of keeping his coalition partners on his side. He could not solve India’s most deep-seated economic challenge when he wielded a monopolistic hold on power. Now, he is a weakened leader who must balance additional interests, while still lacking an obvious way to improve living standards.

“There has been a sense that employment growth has been weak in the last four, five years,” said Arvind Subramanian, a former chief economic adviser to the Modi administration, who is now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “How do you create more jobs? This is really India’s central economic challenge, but I think the government will find itself with relatively limited tools.”

The humbling of Mr. Modi’s party resonates in part as an expression of popular frustration that India remains a land of economic peril for hundreds of millions of people, as well as a country defined by astonishing contrasts in wealth. In major cities, five-star hotels boasting sumptuous spas look down on teeming slums that lack plumbing. In rural areas, malnutrition prevails under many roofs, and families struggle to find the money to keep children in school.

Though its working-age population numbers roughly one billion, India has only 430 million jobs, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, an independent research institution in Mumbai. And most of those counted as employed are stuck in precarious circumstances as day laborers and farm hands, lacking reliable wages and government workplace protections.

Improved livelihoods are evident in many cities, from the high-rise apartments filling out the horizons to air-conditioned shopping malls and luxury cars choking roads. But the gains are narrowly concentrated. Professionals who work in technology centers in the south of the country and around the capital of New Delhi have enjoyed substantial progress. A rapidly growing domestic auto industry is a source of relatively high-paying jobs.

Magnates like Gautam Adani, one of Asia’s richest men, have seen their business empires enhanced by their relationships with Mr. Modi and his willingness to eviscerate regulatory impediments to their greater fortune.

But most Indian workers are effectively marooned in the so-called informal sector — laboring at roadside stalls, in small shops and in itinerant trades where they have no guarantee of income or the possibility of advancement.

The failure of economic growth to yield more jobs is in large part the story of how India missed out on the manufacturing boom that played out in East Asia over recent decades. From South Korea and China to Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, hundreds of millions of people have escaped poverty via wages earned in factories.

India has not shared in that transformation in large part because of a historical focus on self-sufficiency, a disdain for international trade and stultifying bureaucracy that has discouraged investment.

“The whole manufacturing thing bypassed India,” Mr. Subramanian, the economist, said. “It’s that bigger development failure that is continuing to haunt India.”

Mr. Modi has pursued initiatives aimed at bolstering manufacturing and increasing exports. His administration has streamlined regulations and improved ports. Yet despite some high-profile developments like Apple moving the assembly of some iPhones to India, manufacturing makes up only 13 percent of the country’s economy, according to World Bank data. That is a lower share than a decade ago, when Mr. Modi took office.

Foreign money has flowed into India’s stock markets, multiplying share prices, a key element of Mr. Modi’s pro-business image. But persuading international investors to put money directly into Indian companies — a riskier bet — has been a harder sell. His Hindu nationalist party has demonized the Muslim minority, a source of social ferment that has raised fears of instability.

The election could further discourage additional investment, because Mr. Modi will likely have a more difficult time gaining passage of stalled reforms sought by business, including laws making it easier to amass land and hire and fire workers.

With no clear pathway toward economic dynamism and more challenging political circumstances, Mr. Modi might resort to a time-honored method of shoring up support: He will expand social welfare programs, tapping government coffers to hand out more cash to communities in need.

Such a course could potentially diminish available funding for the advancement of the government’s signature program — its aggressive construction of highways, ports, airports and other infrastructure. Those plans are central to maintaining India’s strong economic growth and the broader campaign to encourage investment in manufacturing.

Some fear that any short-term pursuit of political favor through the scattering of money could undermine the longer-term project of spurring jobs through the promotion of industry.

“You need to ensure that the benefits of economic development reach the maximum number of people,” said Shumita Deveshwar, chief India economist at Global Data.TS Lombard, a forecasting and consulting firm in London. “If people keep depending on welfare and are not getting the benefits of economic development, then it basically just creates stagnation.”

Geopolitical alterations appear to give India a fresh crack at growing its manufacturing base. As the United States and China engage in trade hostilities, multinational brands are seeking to reduce their heavy dependence on Chinese factories to make their goods. Major retailers like Walmart are increasingly looking to India as an alternative to China.

But capturing that potential investment demands continued upgrading of highways, rail connections and ports, along with a focus on vocational training to give people the needed skills to take up factory work.

Even before the election, there were doubts that Mr. Modi’s administration was moving quickly enough to realize these gains.

“India is a counterweight to China in terms of geopolitics, and we will continue to see some of that investment flowing,” Ms. Deveshwar said. “But the scale at which they are provisioning the ecosystem for these opportunities just is not large enough.”
India Modi’s alliance unanimously elects him to lead as PM for third term (Reuters)
Reuters [6/7/2024 4:21 AM, Sarita Chaganti Singh, Tanvi Mehta, and Sakshi Dayal, 5.2M, Neutral]
India’s Narendra Modi was formally elected on Friday by lawmakers of his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to be prime minister for a historic third consecutive term, as the world’s most populous nation returns to government by coalition.

Modi will next meet President Droupadi Murmu later in the day and present his claim to form a new government, with a spokesperson for one of his allies saying his swearing-in was set for Sunday evening.

It is the first time in a decade that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has needed the support of regional parties to form the government.

The party, which had a handsome majority in the previous two terms, secured only 240 seats in the lower house of parliament, far short of the 272 needed to govern on its own.
The NDA won 293 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, and the INDIA alliance, led by Rahul Gandhi’s centrist Congress party won more than 230 to exceed forecasts.

Lawmakers from the BJP and its allies, including the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and the Janata Dal (United) voted unanimously for Modi to become the leader at the alliance’s first meeting after the June 4 vote count and declaration of results.

Modi’s name was proposed by outgoing Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and seconded and backed by other outgoing ministers and leaders of parties in the alliance.

Newly elected lawmakers and senior alliance leaders thumped tables and applauded to back his candidacy, with some standing and chanting "Modi, Modi!" in the central hall of the old parliament building.

The swearing-in ceremony for the prime minister is scheduled for Sunday evening, a TDP spokesperson told Reuters.

Indian media said both BJP allies are eyeing the post of the speaker in the lower house, while the party itself is expected to retain four key ministries - foreign affairs, defence, home and finance.

The coalition negotiations are a throwback to an era before 2014, when Modi swept to power with an outright majority for his BJP, as alliance partners haggled for positions and benefits.
Modi to be sworn in as India’s PM on Sunday (BBC)
BBC [6/7/2024 4:49 AM, Cherylann Mollann, 65.5M, Neutral]
Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is set to take oath as India’s prime minister for a record-equalling third term on Sunday.

A senior party leader said that the ceremony would take place at 6pm local time (12.30 GMT).

On Tuesday, a BJP-led coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), won the general election with 293 seats.

The results were unexpected as the BJP did not win an outright majority as several exit polls had predicted.

The BJP won 240 seats, several seats short of the 272 required to get a majority in India’s 543 member parliament.

However, two key BJP allies, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), won 16 and 12 seats each in their respective states, pushing the NDA comfortably over the half-way mark.

Media reports had earlier speculated that the opposition alliance, which won 234 seats, might approach the TDP and JD(U) to support the bloc and stake claim to form the government.

However, Friday’s announcement by the BJP has put that speculation to rest.
The announcement came after top leaders of the NDA met in capital Delhi to discuss the future course of action.

In the coming days, the coalition will announce the names of ministers and assign key portfolios.

Media reports suggest that TDP leader, Chandrababu Naidu, might ask for his state, Andhra Pradesh, to be given special status in exchange for his support.

This status grants a state certain financial benefits for its development.

In 2018, Mr Naidu had left the NDA due to disagreements over this very demand. He re-joined the alliance months before this year’s general election.

There has been no official statement by his party about such a demand.

On Wednesday, Mr Modi submitted his resignation to President Droupadi Murmu, and the parliament was dissolved, a formal step before a new prime minister and MPs are sworn in.
Narendra Modi faces first coalition test as allied parties demand cabinet seats (The Guardian)
The Guardian [6/6/2024 1:10 PM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 86157K, Neutral]
Narendra Modi is facing the first test of coalition politics after losing his outright majority in the Indian election, with smaller coalition allies emerging as powerful kingmakers in the formation of the government.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) won the most seats in the election results declared on Tuesday, but not enough to pass the 272 parliamentary majority mark, forcing it to rely on coalition partners to return to power.

Having enjoyed an overwhelming majority for a decade, negotiating a coalition is new and many believe tricky territory. “For the first time in his political career, Narendra Modi will have to play the coalition game,” said Prof Christophe Jaffrelot of King’s College London.

It appeared the smaller parties who are part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) were using their newfound power within the coalition to their advantage, demanding influential cabinet seats and parliamentary posts.

The Telugu Desam party (TDP), which has 16 seats and is led by Chandrababu Naidu, is reportedly seeking the position of parliamentary speaker as well as five cabinet seats and special status for the state of Andhra Pradesh that it governs, which would grant more funds.The chief minister of Bihar state, Nitish Kumar, who heads the Janata Dal (United) party, is also said to be demanding at least three cabinet seats.

Yet according to reports, the BJP is not in the mood to let go of any key ministries. It is said to be refusing to entertain that any key posts in defence, finance, home affairs and external affairs, or indeed transport, highways and railways, would go to anyone other than its own ministers.

While all the NDA parties came together to assert that Modi was the alliance leader and their chosen prime minister candidate, the political horsetrading in order to form the coalition appears to put Modi on the back foot even before he takes office. Several of the parties he is relying on to return to power have a chequered past in coalitions, having both previously switched sides – in Kumar’s case numerous times.

The NDA is also on a tight deadline to reach a consensus as plans have already begun for Modi’s swearing in ceremony over the weekend. It was initially touted to be held on Saturday but is now reported to be delayed until Sunday evening.

Invitations have already gone out to regional leaders to attend the ceremony, with the Sri Lankan president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and Nepal’s prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, among those who have said they would attend.

Rishi Sunak was among the world leaders to call Modi and congratulate him on his victory. The US president, Joe Biden, said “the friendship between our nations is only growing”, while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, congratulated his “dear friend”. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, spoke on the phone with Modi on Wednesday and “warmly congratulated” him.

India’s opposition coalition, known as the INDIA bloc, announced on Wednesday that despite exceeding expectations and winning 232 seats as a collective, it would not be making a bid for power.

“We will take appropriate steps at the appropriate time to realise the people’s desire not to be ruled by the BJP’s government. This is our decision,” said Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of Congress, the largest opposition party.

Rahul Gandhi, the most well-known face of Congress, held a press conference on Thursday to allege Modi and other senior BJP figures had been involved in a stock market scam around the election, accusing Modi of giving out information to manipulate the stock market, which soared after his return as prime minister was confirmed. The BJP dismissed the accusations, with the outgoing trade minister, Piyush Goyal, responding that such claims were “baseless” and the result of the opposition being unable to handle election defeat.
A Chastened Modi Could Be a More Reliable Partner to the US (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [6/6/2024 8:08 AM, Dan Strumpf and Philip Heijmans, 27296K, Neutral]
Claiming victory despite a massive electoral setback, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised on Tuesday night to make India a key actor on the world stage on everything from trade to climate change. “A strong India will give strength to the world,” he said.

But his Bharatiya Janata Party’s loss of its parliamentary majority leaves him with a weakened coalition government with less room to maneuver, including when it comes to foreign affairs. The result is likely to be an India that is more measured and less brazen on the global stage, if also more predictable as a foreign partner.

That should be welcome news to the US. Washington has taken pains to cultivate India as an economic partner, a link to the so-called Global South nations and a counterweight to a rising China. In doing so, it has tolerated India’s democratic backsliding at home and adventurism overseas, extending to allegations that Indian officials were involved in a murder-for-hire plot on its own soil. The government behind those actions has now been humbled at the polls and must answer to coalition partners.

“It’s almost a best-case scenario to have continuity in government, but also a government with a reduced majority that will have to put more effort into consensus building — into perhaps being less inclined to do its own thing because it can,” said Navdeep Suri, a retired diplomat with nearly four decades in the Indian Foreign Service.

“I think democracies overseas in Europe, in the US, in Japan probably will appreciate this,” he said.

Few expect India’s overall trajectory to change: Another five years of Modi in charge should keep India on its course as a rising global power — a country with a newfound swagger on the world stage, and one that is fully aware of its increased leverage and economic clout at a time of a weakening Western-dominated order.

India’s importance remains underpinned by an economy projected to grow 9% by the end of the decade, putting it on course to eclipse China as a driver of global growth even as it remains considerably smaller in size. Tech giants like Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Micron Technology Inc. are expanding in India as companies look to diversify their supply chains. Foreign leaders and business groups have extended congratulations to Modi on a third straight election victory.

While the US has sought to pull India further into its orbit — it’s a member of a key US-led regional grouping and defense ties have strengthened in recent years — New Delhi will continue to maintain strategic autonomy in line with its non-aligned stance stretching back to independence. Key elements of Modi’s party and the Indian bureaucracy remain wary of getting too close to the US, and New Delhi has walked a middle path on key global disputes — refusing to take a strong stance on the war in Gaza, and keeping up its friendly ties with Russia, an essential provider of weapons and fuel.

“India will always be skeptical of US power, because US power is global and India some day would like to be a global actor,” said Rohan Mukherjee, an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and author of Ascending Order, a book on how emerging powers navigate the international order. “It has to carve out enough space for itself so that it’s not just a follower of the US.”

But Modi’s India has also been marked by an assertiveness that has rankled partners, neighbors and rivals, with the BJP using its political dominance to ram through contentious policies. An emblematic example: the scrapping of autonomy for the contested northern region of Jammu and Kashmir, sped through the previous BJP-controlled parliament after its 2019 landslide victory, enraging its rival Pakistan, which also claims the region.

The allegations that Modi’s government was running murder-for-hire plots in Canada and the US, meanwhile, stem from its campaign against Sikh separatists deemed terrorists by Modi’s administration. The tepid response by the Biden administration to those allegations underscored the lengths of its tolerance to preserve a partnership the US president has called “among the most consequential in the world.”

Chietigj Bajpaee, senior research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House in the UK, said the assertive foreign policy actions under Modi can be seen as a global extension of the ruling party’s Hindu-nationalist ideology, which views India as a “civilizational state” with the historical legitimacy to play by its own rules.

“It believes that because of its civilizational status, it can be exempt from global norms,” he said.

That attitude might get a recalibration — particularly in a coalition government comprised of regional and caste-based parties with varied and shaky allegiances. Allies he’ll need to rely on, like the Janata Dal (United) party and Telugu Desam Party, draw backing from significant numbers of minorities.

“None of these parties are anti-Muslim,” said Subir Sinha, director of the SOAS South Asia Institute in London. “Those are the weak links in the coalition.”

Modi routinely portrays himself as a historical leader pulling India out of its colonial past, and his administration has fiercely rebutted Western criticism of its record on human rights and democracy. After Germany called out the arrest of an opposition politician on the eve of the elections, India summoned one of its diplomats in New Delhi for admonishment. It lashed out at the US following similar remarks.

A more restrained third Modi term could also bring a rapprochement with old rivals, in particular China. A fence-mending with India’s northern neighbor and one of its largest trading partners would de-escalate tensions that spiraled into border clashes in 2020 and 2021. China joined other countries on Wednesday in congratulating Modi on his electoral win, saying it was “ready to work” with India with “a view to the future.”

Any such move could potentially test India’s relationship with the US, which has spent years wooing New Delhi as a part of its “Indo-Pacific” strategy, in the hopes that it ties up Chinese troops on its border in any conflict over Taiwan. China “made protests” over a social-media post by Modi on Wednesday where he wrote that he looked forward to “closer ties” with Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

Even as India’s voters rebuked Modi Tuesday over his strident rhetoric and neglect of the country’s poor, what remains indisputable is that the country’s rising global stature has been an important pillar of Modi’s popularity among his supporters. While US voters are thought to give little weight to foreign policy in their estimation of their leaders, Indians have applauded Modi’s championing of their country on the world stage. Next week, he’ll be in Italy at the annual G-7 summit of major economies, allowing him to rub shoulders with Biden and other Western leaders, showcasing again his country’s growing importance.

“He’s not just a leader for India,” said Raguram Kumar, a 31-year-old carpenter who spent the election volunteering for the BJP in the traditionally hostile southern state of Tamil Nadu. “He is a world leader too.”
Third term for Modi likely to see closer defense ties with US as India’s rivalry with China grows (AP)
AP [6/6/2024 11:03 PM, David Rising and Ashok Sharma, 456K, Neutral]
Fresh from declaring victory in India’s election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered few details on the agenda for his third term, but went out of his way to underline he would continue to focus on raising the country’s military preparedness and clout.

That should come as good news to the United States and its other allies, as they focus increasingly on keeping China’s sweeping maritime claims and growingly assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region in check.

“The government will focus on expanding defense production and exports,” Modi told a crowd of supporters at his party’s headquarters after election results came in. He spoke of his plan to increase security by lowering India’s dependence on arms imports. “We will not stop until the defense sector becomes self sufficient.”

Defense cooperation with the U.S. has greatly expanded under Modi, particularly through the so-called Quad security grouping that also includes Australia and Japan.

It’s a two-way street, giving the U.S. a strong partner neighboring China, which Washington has called its “pacing challenge,” while strengthening India’s defense credibility against a far more powerful rival.

“India is currently a frontline state as far as the Americans are concerned,” said Rahul Bedi, a New Delhi-based defense analyst. “The Indian navy is a major player in the Indian Ocean region.”

The defense relationship was also at the top of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda when he congratulated Modi on the election results.

In a call, “the two leaders emphasized their deepening the U.S.-India comprehensive and global strategic partnership and to advancing their shared vision of a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” the White House said.

It added that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan would soon travel to New Delhi “to engage the new government on shared U.S.-India priorities.”

It was about a year into Modi’s second term when India’s defense focus took a sharp turn toward China, when troops from the two nuclear neighbors clashed in 2020 in the Galwan Valley in the disputed northern border region of Ladakh and 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

“China really is India’s long term strategic challenge, both on the border and in the Indian Ocean as well,” said Viraj Solanki, a London-based expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“This has resulted in a number of defense partnerships by India shifting, or just focusing on countering China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

Beijing has a close relationship with Pakistan, India’s traditional rival, and China has been increasing defense cooperation with India’s neighbors, including Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

“China is really trying to engage more with these countries and develop its own influence and presence,” Solanki said. “I think that is a concern for New Delhi and something that will lead to increased competition in the Indian Ocean over the next few years.”

In congratulating Modi on the election results, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that a “sound and stable “ relationship between India and China was “in the interest of both countries and conducive to the peace and development of the region.”

She also added that China stood “ready to work with India,” but her comments were significantly more muted than the Foreign Ministry’s remarks on Modi’s last win in 2019 — before the border fight. At that time, the Foreign Ministry called the two nations “important neighbors” and said China wanted to “deepen political mutual trust, carry out mutually beneficial cooperation and push forward the closer partnership between the two countries.”

Modi has always governed with his party in the majority, but after a lackluster performance in the election will now be forced to rely on coalition partners, and will face a stronger and invigorated opposition.

The main opposition Congress party is unlikely to challenge Modi’s defense reforms, but has been critical of how he has handled the border issue with China and may pressure him on that front, Bedi said.

“Modi has not been entirely truthful, or very economical with the truth as far as the situation in Ladakh is concerned,” he said. He referred to a Defense Ministry document that was published online, and quickly removed, which had suggested Chinese troops entered Indian territory during the 2020 confrontation.

“The opposition, I am sure, will raise questions and ask the government to come clean on what the real situation is.”

Under Modi’s program of military modernization and reform, his government has sought to grow the private defense manufacturing sector, a space previously occupied solely by the government-run organizations, and has eased foreign direct investment regulations to try and encourage companies to establish themselves in India.

In a flagship project, the country launched its first home-built aircraft carrier in 2022, part of a plan to deploy two carrier battle groups to counter China’s rising maritime power.

Much of India’s military equipment is of Russian origin, and delays on delivery and difficulties of procuring spare parts due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also provided impetus for India to diversify defense procurement, looking more to the U.S., France, Israel and elsewhere, Solanki said.

As it seeks to strengthen ties with India, Washington has agreed to a deal that will allow General Electric to collaborate with Hindustan Aeronautics to produce fighter jet engines.

Speaking at the Shangri-La defense conference in Singapore last weekend, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the countries were also co-producing armored vehicles.

“The relationship that we enjoy with India right now is as good or better than our relationship has ever been,” he said. “It’s really strong.”
After election setbacks, Modi’s image in the U.S. is more important than ever (NBC News)
NBC News [6/6/2024 2:37 PM, Sakshi Venkatraman, 48440K, Neutral]
After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was re-elected Tuesday amid surprising blows to his party, both supporters and critics agree that his influence in the diaspora is an even more crucial part of his global image.

Some posit that losing its majority in Parliament under Modi — a polarizing leader who has become the face of both a modern, global India and a growing Hindu nationalist movement — indicates support might be waning for the seemingly bullet-proof Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). And with that, allies say, Modi will be looking to keep the diaspora invested.

“This movement gets so much of its support and so much of its energy from the diaspora,” said Modi-critic and Washington D.C.-local Pranay Somayajula, 23, organizing and advocacy director for the nonprofit Hindus for Human Rights. “Now that they’re in a more defensive position, they’re going to be relying even more heavily on their support network.”

Some Indian Americans, like Somayajula, condemn Modi’s record on human rights and his treatment of minority groups, while others applaud what they see as India’s immense progress under his rule. A study by the Carnegie Endowment found that around 50% of Indian Americans approve of Modi, compared to 74% of Indians in India.

Modi and the BJP have spent years trying to drum up support in the U.S., and, in many ways, they’ve succeeded. They owe that reach in part to organizations like Overseas Friends of the BJP, a registered foreign agent that operates in 32 countries around the world. From White House visits to massive rallies, the way Modi has mobilized the diaspora has been more direct than any Indian leader before him.

Modi sees Indian Americans as his ambassadors abroad, allies said, and they can only expect those outreach efforts to increase.

“He saw this large Indian diaspora who are very prosperous,” Adapa Prasad, the president of the U.S. chapter of Overseas Friends, told NBC News. “They should be leveraged for the causes of India and the friendship between India and their host countries.”

A surprising setback

Like many Indian Americans, Washington, D.C.-local Sreenath Nampally, 49, a Modi supporter, was glued to his screen Tuesday. He said he felt an air of disappointment settle over his watch-party as results began to come in.

“It was a weird night,” he said. “We set ourselves such high expectations.”

But he’s not worried, since achieving a third term in power hasn’t been done in India since the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nampally said he is confident that Modi is still well loved and that the BJP is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Having spent his childhood in the southern city of Hyderabad, Nampally says the development he sees when he goes back home is night and day. Railways, roads and airports have all thrived, he said, and it’s part of the reason he loves Modi.

“I’m totally amazed by the infrastructure development,” he said. “The places where it used to take me four or five hours to travel, now it takes an hour.”

But the regions of India that delivered some of the BJP’s steepest losses on Thursday were rural parts of the country, where voters cited unemployment and inflation as the most pressing issues to them.

While India’s national economy has thrived, the youth unemployment rate has risen since the end of last year. Regions with more caste-oppressed voters also turned away from the BJP, with voters worried affirmative action programs would be rolled back.

Other civil rights concerns, like Modi’s anti-Muslim dogwhistling and attacks on press freedom, have also drawn concern from watchdog groups in the U.S. and abroad. Critics say he has heavily contributed to the rise of Hindu nationalist sentiment, the idea that India should be a Hindu-dominated country, both at home and abroad.

Somayajula predicts that the setbacks will light a fire under BJP actors and drive them to spread their message more intensely in diaspora communities.

“I think in the next five years of this new government under Modi, we’re going to see a really significant doubling down of Hindutva politics here in the U.S.,” he said, referencing the political ideology that encompasses Hindu nationalism. “In the same way that Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election emboldened his base to carry out an attempted insurrection at the Capitol.”

While campaigning in April, Modi referred to Indian Muslims as “infiltrators,” saying his opponents in the election would give them all of the country’s resources.

But Modi’s supporters in the U.S. say this is a mischaracterization and reject the idea that his politics target any religious group. They say the people who feel that way simply don’t know the facts.

“I think it’s just ignorance,” Nampally said.

Prasad thinks it’s something more nefarious.

“These are all parts of a toolkit for larger design to denigrate Hindus, India and whoever is in front of that cause, like Modiji or BJP,” he said, using the Hindi suffix “ji” at the end of Modi’s name as a sign of respect.

Efforts to garner U.S. support

Given Modi’s controversies at home, support and legitimacy from other world leaders is crucial to his image, both allies and critics contend.

“Indian American community members have heavily participated in promoting and basically campaigning for Modi and BJP,” Prasad said.

The Overseas Friends of the BJP has organized pro-Modi car rallies and marches in several U.S. states. They have also hosted call-a-thons, where Indian Americans will call voters in India, starting with their friends and family before moving on to others, to directly encourage them to vote for Modi.

A 2019 rally in Houston called “Howdy Modi” drew 50,000 people. There, Modi held hands with Trump as they shared the stage.

Last year, thousands gathered on the White House lawn as President Joe Biden welcomed Modi to an official state dinner. He addressed Congress, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. and praising the “Samosa Caucus,” a coalition of Indian Americans elected to the House of Representatives.

This recognition from the U.S. solidifies Modi on the world stage and serves to quell deeper questions, Somayajula said, adding that the diaspora’s role in this is huge.

“The Biden administration, the Trump administration before it and whatever administration comes into power in November absolutely bears responsibility for the legitimacy that the far-right regime in India has been able to garner,” he said.

But for those who love Modi, this international outreach to the diaspora is a way they can feel close to home. They left India for the U.S., they said, but that doesn’t mean they want to leave it behind entirely.

“He’s creating that opportunity and interest, ‘Hey, come back and give back,’” Nampally said. “Not only just for us but for our next generation here. That’s an area I’m passionate about — how do I make the connection to my children?”

Somayajula says that the diaspora can also play an integral role in speaking up for those in India who can’t and in questioning Modi’s treatment of the subcontinent’s most vulnerable groups.

“This requires a broad coalition across religious lines across community lines,” he said. “But we have a key role to play, and that is in fighting this fight within our communities where we have the privilege and the positionality that makes it safe for us to be having these conversations.”
India opposition demands probe into stock market moves during election (Reuters)
Reuters [6/6/2024 11:11 AM, Shivam Patel, Sakshi Dayal, and Rupam Jain, 42991K, Negative]
India’s opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has demanded an investigation into sharp stock market moves towards the end of the just-ended national elections, alleging on Thursday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave misleading investment advice.

Modi’s alliance won the vote with a far smaller majority than the landslide forecast by exit polls last weekend.

Projections made by Saturday’s exit polls sent stock markets surging on June 3, with the NSE Nifty 50 (.NSEI) and S&P BSE Sensex (.BSESN) jumping 3.3% and 3.4% respectively, a day before the Election Commission counted votes and declared results, dragging the markets back down again.

Modi and some of his ministers had said during campaigning that the markets would surge when results were declared on June 4, with Home Minister Amit Shah saying in a television interview, "buy before June 4, they will shoot up".

Gandhi told reporters: "We are interested in having a JPC to investigate the role of the prime minister, home minister, BJP members." He was referring to comments made by them during the campaign and a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe.

"We want to understand who are the foreign investors who did these trades?" he said.

Modi’s outgoing trade minister Piyush Goyal returned the accusation, saying that it was Gandhi who was misleading investors.

"He is worried that Modi is coming back to power... He is pressuring foreign investors to not invest in the country," he said. "We know equities markets undergo changes according to various estimates presented from time to time."

On Tuesday, the markets crashed to a four-year low - down nearly 6% - after election results showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had lost its outright majority and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won only a narrow majority.

The NDA won 293 seats in the election, much lower than projected. Gandhi’s Congress-led opposition ‘INDIA’ alliance won 232, higher than projected.

Markets regulator the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A source familiar with the developments said SEBI was examining share trade patterns ahead of the exit polls and general election results for any suspicious transactions.

Modi’s office and an aide of Shah did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Indian Court Orders States to Share Water With Parched Capital (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [6/6/2024 9:05 AM, Lou Del Bello, 27296K, Neutral]
The Supreme Court of India on Thursday ordered neighboring states to increase water supply to the capital, to help ease the severe shortage due to a prolonged heat wave.

It told the water-rich state of Himachal Pradesh to release 137 cubic feet of water per second to Delhi, and asked the adjacent Haryana state to allow the additional flow. The Delhi state government took its neighbors to court as a last ditch resort against worsening water scarcity.

Delhi relies for the bulk of its supplies on the local Yamuna river, the levels of which deplete during summer. The local water manager, the Jal Board, had to reduce the volumes it can treat for public consumption, leading citizens to flock to private tankers to fill their buckets.

“Delhi’s water woes are entirely of its own making and are largely a result of unplanned urbanization,” according to Govind Singh, associate professor of environmental studies at OP Jindal Global University near Delhi. A government survey recorded the water demand of the city rising to 1,290 million gallons per day, against supply of just below 1000 million, he added.

As well as tapping into the Himalayan river, Delhi is also a major user of groundwater. That too is depleting fast, due in part to citizens extracting water from their own backyard wells, according to the government agency Niti Aayog.

“During the rest of the year, Delhi somehow manages to skim through the water shortage,” Singh said. “But when the summer heat is too much, as witnessed this year and as predicted for the coming years, the situation worsens and the matter quickly becomes political to legal.”

Managing booming demand in the city of over 20 million is the only permanent solution to its chronic water crisis, Singh said.
India’s monsoon hits key western state, may falter next week, sources say (Reuters)
Reuters [6/6/2024 6:57 AM, Rajendra Jadhav, 42991K, Neutral]
India’s monsoon rains have advanced into the western state of Maharashtra after covering almost all of the southern region, but they could weaken and deliver lower-than-normal rainfall next week, two senior weather officials told Reuters.

Summer rains, critical to spur economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, usually begin in the south around June 1 before spreading nationwide by mid-July, allowing farmers to plant crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugarcane.

The monsoon arrived in Maharashtra on Thursday after spreading through the southern states earlier than usual, a senior official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) told Reuters.

Maharashtra is India’s biggest producer of sugar and its second largest producer of cotton and soybeans.

India has received 7% more rainfall than normal since the season began on June 1, the IMD says. The monsoon will advance further across India in the next few days but could weaken from next week, another weather official said.

"The monsoon will take a pause for few days," the official added. "Except for the west coast, most of the other regions will receive less rain," the official added.

Farmers need to wait for proper moisture levels in the soil before sowing summer crops and should not sow them in a hurry, the official said.

Both officials sought anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

The lifeblood of the nearly $3.5-trillion economy, the monsoon brings nearly 70% of the rain India needs to water farms and refill reservoirs and aquifers.

In the absence of irrigation, nearly half the farmland in the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, wheat and sugar depends on the annual rains that usually run from June to September.
Why India’s Political Reset Isn’t a Growth Killer (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [6/6/2024 4:00 PM, Andy Mukherjee, 27296K, Neutral]
The spike in volatility in Indian markets this week portends the triumph of politics over economics after a 10-year hiatus.

Narendra Modi met leaders of the parties that make up his National Democratic Alliance Wednesday. For the first time since he became chief minister of the western state of Gujarat in 2001 — or prime minister in 2014 — he needs allies to stake his claim on power.

Right up to Monday, zooming asset prices were signaling a comfortable victory for Modi. Not only was the muscular Hindu right-wing leader going to return for a third term, his mandate might even allow him to change the constitution. When votes were counted Tuesday, markets had a heart attack. Forget turning the secular republic into a Hindu nation, his Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, doesn’t have the numbers to form a majority government. Modi will only head a coalition administration, for which he may be temperamentally unsuited.

Voters couldn’t care less about his discomfiture, or for the volatility in financial markets. They want a toning down of BJP’s religious polarization and an emphasis on pro-labor policies: more jobs and better incomes. Without those, 8%-plus economic growth is an empty slogan.

For providers of capital, though, Modi’s shrinking halo is far from good news. India’s risk premium is lower than most other emerging markets. Don’t be surprised if that premium — the extra return investors expect for their additional risk — goes up.

But don’t be too alarmed, either.

The last time politics played such a big role in Indian markets was in the winter of 2013. That was when S&P Global Ratings was threatening to cut India’s credit appraisal

to junk unless elections the following year produced a government capable of reviving growth, which had slumped to just over 4%, the slowest in a decade. “Politics are trumping economics,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. wrote in a note to investors.

Back then, voters perceived their interests to be in sync with investors. In giving the BJP a full majority of its own in 2014, they ended a 25-year-long era in which coalitions — some stable, others not — were the norm. In 2019, Modi won an even bigger mandate. All that changed the assessment of the country’s riskiness. The cost of hedging against a default on $10 million in Indian bonds1 fell from $300,000 a year in November 2013 to less than $50,0000 now.

When financial honchos like JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon applaud Modi for doing an “unbelievable job,” they cite tangible gains, such as the explosion of a smartphone-based digital economy or the visible improvement in infrastructure: roads, ports, airports. What they really love him for, though, is that he took party politics out of the political economy and narrowed India’s risk premium.

But he did that in ways that pitted capital against labor. In Modi’s India, workers lost more of their already-limited bargaining power. A handful of capital-guzzling conglomerates edged out millions of small firms, leading to a surge in income and wealth inequality to levels worse than under British Raj before 1947.

Voters want a reset, but not investors. Publicly they worry about a slow pace of reform under weak administrations. But that isn’t the full story. Even Modi — with all power concentrated in him — has failed to execute controversial changes in land and labor markets. In reality, a dependence on allies brings back memories of the $23 billion telecom scandal of 2012, followed by an alleged $42 billion coal scam under a previous Congress Party-led coalition government.

Those concerns would be rational if corruption did ever go away under the strongman’s rule. Only the threat of discovery disappeared, as independent institutions were emasculated. For six years, the Modi government ran a system of anonymous corporate financing of elections riddled with allegations of quid pro quo. It was only in February that the Supreme Court finally declared the mechanism unconstitutional and forced disclosures. Even then, Modi and his ministers defended the so-called electoral bonds as a move toward transparency. His finance minister vowed to bring them back.

That was before the poll verdict. Which ally would now allow the BJP to get away with a lion’s share of corporate donations? There’s really no reason for investors to feel too pessimistic if Modi’s diminished clout reins in BJP’s exorbitant money power — fancy new real estate across the country and 10 times as much in general funds as the Congress Party, its closest rival.

Coalitions aren’t always bad. Before Modi scrapped the 92-year-old tradition, India’s railway network had its own separate budget. Heading up the ministry was a coveted job, given to an important partner. “Lalu goes to Harvard,” was the headline of a 2006 Times of India article about Lalu Prasad Yadav, a rural leader from Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, who had turned around the finances of railways without raising fares. The transformation was to be a Harvard Business School case study.

Under Modi, the rail network has been run by an accountant, and a former investment banker. The current minister is a Wharton MBA who has never fought a popular election. And yet, India is still waiting for the kind of high-speed connectivity that has reshaped China’s economic landscape. Most ordinary people can’t afford the glitzy new trains Modi likes to flag off on ill-maintained existing tracks. Overcrowding has made regular journeys intolerable. The youth complain about lack of railway jobs.

A strong government packed with technocrats does not necessarily produce better outcomes than a weak one that must accommodate career politicians. Modi 3.0 will be the latter type. According to media reports, Chandrababu Naidu, a politician from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, is bargaining for two cabinet posts as the price for his 16 lawmakers to not switch sides. The BJP has 240 of its own. For a majority government it needs 272. With 12 seats, Modi’s other key ally is Bihar’s Nitish Kumar. He, too, will have his demands.

Investors would gain nothing by being too antagonistic to coalition politics. After all, if voters in the world’s largest democracy want the needle of economic distribution to move a little away from capital and toward labor, then so be it. An increase in the risk premium is acceptable if the end result is more widespread prosperity. India’s political reset may be nerve-racking, but not necessarily a catastrophe.
India’s global role will grow in Modi’s third term (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [6/6/2024 11:00 AM, Brahma Chellaney 18752K, Neutral]
India’s election, the world’s largest democratic exercise, may have delivered a stunning surprise by denying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party an outright majority in parliament, but this setback is unlikely to affect the stability or direction of his third-term government.

The primary reason is that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, contested the election in alliance with several small political groups, with the coalition winning a majority of seats in parliament’s ruling lower house.

Still, the BJP’s loss of its commanding majority in the lower house represents a blow to Modi’s political standing, including puncturing his air of invincibility. After stacking up political win after win, an overconfident Modi had predicted even before the campaign formally began that the BJP would secure more than two-thirds of the seats in the lower house.

The BJP’s failure to win a simple majority on its own, however, is unlikely to have a direct bearing on Modi’s national agenda or foreign policy. The allied parties Modi will depend on are provincial groups with no national vision or ideas.

Moreover, while the fragmented opposition may have unified to stop Modi’s juggernaut in the election, it lacks a common agenda or leader, which raises the question of whether its unity will endure. In fact, the combined number of seats won by the multiple parties in the opposition coalition is slightly less than what the BJP secured on its own.

Modi, 73, is entering a second decade as prime minister, despite a strong anti-incumbency sentiment in Indian society. Only one other Indian leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, secured a third term decades ago.

Modi’s leadership has given India political stability, robust economic growth and accelerated military modernization. India’s international profile and geopolitical weight are rising, partly because the end of China’s economic boom has thrown into relief the emergence of Asia’s other demographic giant as a geopolitical and economic force. India is now the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

After the election results, Modi declared that his third term would represent a “new chapter of big decisions.” But, given India’s fractious politics, big decisions often tend to fuel division and polarization, especially when they challenge entrenched interests. In his second term, Modi, for example, was compelled to repeal farm reform laws after a year of opposition-backed grassroots protests.

With his pro-growth and pro-market agenda, Modi is aiming to transform India into a global manufacturing hub at a time when Western companies are interested in shifting production away from China. Consequently, his new term is likely to see greater government spending not just in manufacturing and infrastructure but also on human capital, particularly in education and training.

The new government will have to urgently consider the nation’s foreign policy challenges, above all the military standoff with China, which recently entered its fifth year. The tense standoff, triggered by furtive Chinese encroachments on some Indian borderlands, may not be grabbing international headlines, but China persists with a frenzied buildup of force deployments along the Himalayan border, as if it is preparing for war. China recently deployed its most advanced J-20 stealth fighter jets near the India frontier.

India’s most-pressing foreign policy challenges relate to its troubled neighborhood, not least a strengthening strategic axis between China and Pakistan, with both these nuclear-armed allies staking claims to swaths of Indian territory. India is already the world’s third-largest defense spender, behind the U.S. and China.

More fundamentally, Modi has helped shape a pragmatic foreign policy vision. Shorn of ideology, Indian foreign policy has sought to revitalize the country’s economic and military security, while avoiding having to overtly choose one power over another as a dominant partner.

In practice, however, closer cooperation with the U.S. has remained Modi’s signature foreign policy initiative, despite some new irritants in the bilateral relationship, including the role of U.S.- and Canada-based Sikh militants.

While tilting toward the West, India remains loath to enter into a formal military alliance with the Western bloc. President Joe Biden’s reluctance to say anything on the Sino-Indian military standoff, let alone side with New Delhi, reminds India that it must defend itself all on its own.

India’s independent approach to international affairs is unlikely to change given that New Delhi believes in friendship without dependence. This makes India the world’s ultimate “swing state” in the current transition from the post–World War II American-led order to a new global order whose contours are still not clearly visible.

In contending with China, its sole challenger at the global level, the U.S. needs a degree of adaptability in forging partnerships, instead of hewing to the Cold War–style “us versus them” approach. A country as large as India cannot become just another Japan or Britain to America. Yet no anti-China alliance can play a strategically meaningful role without India, which has locked horns with the Chinese military in a way no other power has done in this century.

To be sure, India’s size and diversity pose enormous challenges. It is now the world’s most populous nation and is demographically and culturally very heterogeneous.

Still, as the latest election highlights, India’s democratic framework serves as a pillar of inclusion, stability and strength. By empowering people at the grassroots level through participatory processes and open dialogue, the Indian political system has enabled members of historically marginalized classes and castes to gradually gain prominence in politics and bureaucracy. Modi’s own humble beginnings illustrate this.

India today is an ascendant global player, and Modi’s focus in the third term will likely be on enabling India to play a bigger role on the world stage. India’s accelerated rise will not only increase its salience in the global balance of power but also help advance American goals in the Indo-Pacific region, the world’s new economic and geopolitical hub.
Why Modi Underperformed (Foreign Policy – opinion)
Foreign Policy [6/6/2024 11:39 AM, Ravi Agrawal, 2014K, Positive]
From pundits to polls, there was a wide expectation this year that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not just win a rare third consecutive term but would secure an even bigger parliamentary majority than he had before. As it emerged on Tuesday, India’s voters had other ideas. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the most seats—more than the entire opposition alliance combined—but will need the help of coalition allies to form a government. Modi has never needed to share power before, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how he will adapt to the vulnerabilities of coalition politics.

What will the surprising election results mean for politics in India and for India’s place in the world? I spoke with two experts on FP Live: Milan Vaishnav, the director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Yamini Aiyar, the former president of New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or download the FP Live podcast. What follows is a condensed and lightly edited transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: There was a wide expectation that Modi would return to power in a landslide. He didn’t. What went wrong?

Milan Vaishnav: If we rewind the clock to January and February of this year, before voting began, every pre-election survey pointed in one direction. And that was an overwhelming majority for the BJP, plus seats for the BJP’s allies known as the NDA. Exit polls reconfirmed that as recently as June 1. But that’s not what we saw. We saw a BJP that fell short of a governing majority. It will only be in power thanks to the help and assistance of its coalition partners.

The overarching message or takeaway for me was that it really wasn’t clear what this election was about. It’s such an obvious question to ask, but I have no answer for it. And this really hurt the BJP. There was no defining economic, national security, emotive issue. And what ended up happening, in broad strokes, was more of a classic state-by-state contest where local factors, incumbency, caste equations, party dynamics, alliances mattered much more. The BJP is on much weaker ground there. They have been the incumbent for 10 years. They have a motley group of opposition parties which have banded together with the explicit purpose of keeping the BJP out of power. There was some upset within the BJP’s ranks. They replaced over 100 of their sitting MPs, bringing in defectors and turncoats from other parties. This is important because the BJP is a rank-and-file, cadre-based party, so they don’t necessarily take very kindly to people coming from the outside. And so they really struggled to do something that we think of as part of the BJP’s strength, which is crafting a narrative.

But it was really the opposition, on the campaign trail, which was very disciplined in its messaging, hitting the government hard on the state of the economy, inequality, social injustice. And unlike opposition campaigns of the past, they stayed on message. They were nimble and they were very clever. It was the first time in a while when you saw opposition social media ads and you laughed out loud because of how cutting they were.

RA: Yamini, there’s been a lot of commentary about how democracy has been challenged in India. Do the results show that democracy is, in fact, alive and well in India?

Yamini Aiyar: Every poll and, frankly, everybody from elites and opinion-makers to opposition parties and people out of the ivory towers had the same sense that Modi is going to come back. It was, in fact, on the back of that confidence that they coined the phrase “Char Sau Paar,” meaning this time we will cross more than 400 [seats in parliament]. Five hundred and forty-three is the total number of seats, so if you hit 400, you’ve achieved hegemonic dominance.

At the start of the campaign, a set of actions was taken by the government that gave a sense that dominance was now full and complete. In January, there was the consecration of the Ram Temple, a long-standing contestation around India’s secularism and Hindu identity, in which it looked like the Hindu national narrative had won. The prime minister was a sole priest, publicly and visibly participating as the key actor in the consecration ceremony. All over the city, people celebrated this huge achievement of what had really been the heart and soul of the struggle of the Hindu nationalist movement through the ‘80s and ‘90s, which was when they rose.

The slide into authoritarianism had begun a long time ago, but it accelerated in some ways in those two months before the elections, hitting a crescendo when one of the leading opposition voices was jailed days before the campaign officially began. The Congress Party, the leading opposition party, comes out saying, “Our accounts have been frozen.” And in the backdrop of this, several other politicians have investigative agencies chase after them, civil society is completely curbed. There was a sense that there is no space for active political contestation, that dominance has been achieved, that this election was going to be won before it even began. And then the campaign started.

As the campaign unfolded, the BJP had one national agenda. So I disagree with you, Milan. There was a national agenda. It’s just that agenda wasn’t as exciting to all voters. The national agenda was Modi, Modi’s charisma, Modi’s personality, Modi’s omnipresence, his mesmerizing charm, the spell that he had cast on the Indian voter over these last 10 years. And it was Modi’s guarantee, which is the title of the BJP manifesto. Modi was the sole and only campaigner.

The opposition, which was struggling to figure out how to create cohesion, was listening and engaging in some remarkable ways. The first and most important thing was the economy, as Milan mentioned. People wanted to hear from the BJP what they had to say about the two things that were hurting them the most, particularly in north India, which was unemployment and, linked to that, inflation. Early in the campaign, some BJP leaders, perhaps in their hubris, let out that there was some thinking about changing the constitution. And that is why they needed total dominance. The Indian electorate was already beginning to wonder about this total dominance. This idea of “crossing 400” had a sense of arrogance that was beginning to become uncomfortable. And you saw this in the growing emergence of social media influencers who were really hitting out at the authoritarian tendencies of the government. Their numbers started rising, a sign that voters were looking for something else. This, combined with this challenge to the constitution, became a live issue which the opposition was able to harness into a cohesive narrative and link it very interestingly to caste politics. Suddenly, caste was back in contention because the constitution was written by B. R. Ambedkar, who is a very important figure for lower-caste politics in India. But also the constitution contains hard-fought rights linked to reservations [affirmative action]. So the opposition built this into a narrative about social justice. The voter, too, was beginning to express an exhaustion with the constant polarization and the constant authoritarianism. These were the messages that eroded support for Modi, and that’s where the election landed.

RA: If Modi does indeed form a government, he’ll have to rely on coalition allies. How do you think he and his party will approach power sharing? And what do you think that means for governance?

MV: We are truly in uncharted territory. Narendra Modi was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat, the state’s chief executive, for 13 years. He always had an overpowering single-party majority. When he transitioned to national life as prime minister in 2014, for the past 10 years, he has always had a dominant majority. Yes, he had coalition allies. They were extraneous. They were superfluous. He didn’t need them. He campaigned with them. He let them come along for the ride. He didn’t count on them to prove his majority on the floor of parliament.

We’re in a completely different scenario here. We have two political parties: the Telugu Desam Party, which is the ruling party in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, and the Janata Dal (United), part of the ruling alliance with the BJP in the state of Bihar. Together, they have about 30 seats. They could make or break this government. So they are going to extract their pound of flesh. This is not something that Narendra Modi has a lot of practice doing. Those of us who have watched him over the past two decades are really not sure how he’s going to manage. His style of governance is very much top-down: centralizing power, working with the bureaucracy, cutting out members of the cabinet. But you’re now going to have your key coalition partners who are going to have important positions in the Council of Ministers.

All of a sudden, you may even have a party which has two seats in the national parliament of 543, which is going to say, “No, no, no. If I leave, this is going to hurt you.” We don’t know how he’s going to manage because he’s never had to do this before.

RA: Yamini, from the 1980s onward, most Indian administrations were coalition governments, and one can say that Modi between 2014 and 2024 was a sort of exception to that norm. How do coalition governments tend to do in India?

YA: Coalitions work in India because of the peculiar nature of India’s politics. As democracy deepened, coalition politics, state politics, regional politics became very important ways in which ethnic anxieties, linguistic anxieties, caste-related pressures for access to state power found accommodation. So it is really about the fundamental principle of democracy, which is a politics that becomes accommodative for a large country like India, with multiple fissures and deep forms of inequality. It sometimes can slow decision-making down.

I think that cooperation, dialogue, deliberation—which are at the heart of coalition politics—are good for India. It may mean that decisions cannot be taken immediately, but the decisions that are taken are more long-standing. So I don’t think there’s much for us to worry about. We have experienced dominance, we know its limits, and we know that it’s really important to have checks and balances. The Indian voters’ message, in my reading of this election, is a nuanced message. It’s a message that says, “Modi, we’re not completely giving up on you, but we don’t like how you’ve done stuff. So you’re a little bit on notice.” And to the opposition, “We’re kind of interested but not fully convinced, so you’re on notice, too.” It’s on both of them. So if the opposition, which is now a little stronger, uses parliament productively for serious debate, I think we will actually end up with far more useful economic reform. Our growth trajectory is at a place where much of what needs to be done requires cooperation with states, and so coalitions will help move us in that direction.

MV: The empirical evidence is very clear. Economic growth has been better and higher under coalition governments than single-party majorities. It is true that it is harder to enact new reforms, but it is also harder to undo old reforms. When you have a country that’s slowly moving in a more pro-market direction, I think it’s important. But the second part of what Yamini said is equally important, which is there’s also an institutional corollary here. When you have a more fragmented, multipolar political system, independent institutions like the Election Commission, like the Supreme Court, like the Reserve Bank of India, like various anti-corruption accountability institutions, they have space and don’t feel suffocated. They don’t feel the need to pay excessive deference to the ruling party. Some of these institutions, which have really not been very effective for the past 10 years, might start reclaiming some of that space back.

YA: But this is uncharted territory for Modi and his comrade in arms, Amit Shah. They have never been in a situation where they are not in total control. It really depends on how they read the mandate. Do they read the mandate like I do, as a nuanced mandate where the electorate is saying, “Some things you did, we don’t like, so stop.”? Or do they read it to say, as some of their Twitter trolls have been doing, which is, “The Hindus have let us down. Those cross-caste coalitions have let us down. Let’s go back to our core agenda.”? Will they then act as wounded animals and push back even further? They still have powers. It’s really about whether they shift their governance strategy or whether they double down, because now they are in a slightly weaker position and have to reestablish their dominance.

RA: What do you imagine other incumbent leaders around the world might draw from Modi’s relatively underwhelming performance this time?

MV: We always have this debate about whether, to defeat someone like [former U.S. President Donald] Trump, we need a counter-Trump on the Democratic side. One lesson in this election is, there is no leader to this opposition of more than two dozen parties. You don’t necessarily need another kind of larger-than-life personality to go against the incumbent populist leader. The second is that this was, in some ways, an issue-based campaign on the opposition side honed in on this idea of inequality. They stuck with it, and then they linked it to other issues. They linked it to reservation. They linked it to caste. They linked it to the two-speed economy. But they were pretty message-disciplined in talking about the core vulnerability of this government. That is, the headline numbers are beautiful, but you scratch the surface and there’s a lot of distress underneath. The third is, and it might seem somewhat flippant, but humor. There was a sense of mockery, of fun. You would have these doom-and-gloom speeches from the prime minister and others about how Muslims and other minorities were going to take your wealth away from you and redistribute amongst the masses. And the opposition would put out these parody videos with actors made to look like Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, poking fun!

RA: Yamini, it has been well documented that press freedom has declined in India in recent years. Reflect a little bit on whether there are limits to how leaders can deploy mass media to their advantage.

YA: There are certain pieces of an authoritarian playbook: Media control and money control are two critical ones, with civil society control being the third.

In mid-April, this social media influencer, whom I had heard about a little bit, just pops up. He’s like a kid sitting in Germany, straight out of Haryana, talking about dictatorship. And it was interesting. It was funny. I watched the whole thing. My mom, who’s over 80, called me up and said, “Have you watched it?” And then we both had a giggle. And then my colleague, Neelanjan [Sircar], with whom I wrote about this, we started going out into the field. We were in the middle of the rural hinterland of Uttar Pradesh, which is some of the poorest parts of India. Everybody now has a phone. And everywhere we went, there was at least one person, if not more, who was talking about this Dhruv Rathee and his videos. The videos were getting more and more powerful, and popping up more and more every day. We started asking people, “Where do you get your information? Where do you get your news?” We’ve seen this in other surveys, too. Anyone who was under the age of 45 was getting their news from YouTube and WhatsApp. And there’s a dark side to WhatsApp and YouTube, no doubt.

But in this instance, it increasingly began to be clear that people were looking for alternative spaces, alternative voices. And many of these were voices of people who had voted for BJP in 2019, voted for BJP in the state election in 2022, but were now increasingly talking about unemployment, dictatorship. There’s a word in Hindi, “tanashahi,”—dictatorship—that suddenly shows up everywhere, and that word became popular because of this social media influencer. We also found that even visible, hardcore BJP supporters, the local mobilizers, who if you pushed a little bit, they say, “Yes. TV media will only give you Modi, Modi, Modi.” So social media emerged as this alternative space. The right wing used to use it very effectively. In 2014, 2019, social media played a crucial role in harnessing the darker side of bigotry and hate speech. This time around, I’m not saying that went away, but the other side who were looking for other sources of information found a space to vent their frustrations or to hear views that were more aligned with their feelings through social media. That played a very important role in energizing voters who were feeling uncomfortable about what was going on.

RA: Assuming Modi is prime minister for another five years, do you expect his foreign policy to change or adapt, especially given that he will now be running a coalition government?

MV: I don’t think so. The structure of geopolitics right now is such that India just has a lot of room to maneuver. There are three big trends that we can point to. The first is declining American hegemony. We’re moving away from a kind of unipolar moment to a more multipolar, fragmented world order. Number two, clearly, is the increased concern, not least in India, but also the United States and Europe and other places, about Chinese expansionism and their alternate vision of the Indo-Pacific in Asia and the global order. And then third, of course, is the return of a more global Russia despite all of its problems. And so India finds itself in this geopolitical sweet spot, where it can pursue its policy. They’ve gone from calling it nonalignment to multi-alignment. But basically it pursues bespoke partnerships with particular countries in particular issues in domains. So working with the United States on defense technology at the same time that they can be importing Russian crude is the classic example. Those structural factors aren’t changing.

So the kind of assertiveness, the confidence, the brashness that you see from Indian diplomats connotes a sense that, to some degree, the world needs India more than India needs the world. Now, that has been heightened a bit because of the Modi government’s own arrogance, and that’s maybe been taken down a peg. But fundamentally I don’t think this changes much about the nature of India’s partnerships, what its priorities are, and who it seeks to work with.

RA: Nationalism has been such an important force in India, but particularly under the Modi government, that has morphed into jingoism. Do you expect that to change under a coalition government, or is it part of an Indian psyche that cuts across party lines?

YA: In the rush of trying to analyze why Modi was sort of “cut down to size,” as one newspaper headline put it, we also need to recognize that certain elements of what he has brought into Indian politics, in terms of the political dialogue and discourse, haven’t gone away. Jingoism and muscular nationalism—maybe the two are interconnected—and this idea that India has arrived on the global stage, shedding its sense of colonial victimhood, aggressive, that is something that resonated with voters. It’s treated as an achievement of this government. I don’t think voters have rejected it. I don’t know that voters have necessarily rejected the polarization, the bigotry, as much as just said, “This is not enough. We also want to hold you accountable for our everyday lives.”

So while the constitution went from being an abstract issue into something that was real with reservations, there are many other important things about liberalism, about freedoms, about liberty, about secularism that are very serious works in progress. Those have not found their way into the domain of mass politics. And I do think that there is a political consensus around muscular nationalism, particularly projected on the global stage.
NSB
Bangladesh Cuts Budget Deficit Target to Lowest Since 2015 (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [6/6/2024 5:54 AM, Arun Devnath, 27296K, Neutral]
Bangladesh plans to cut the budget deficit to the lowest in more than a decade as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government slows spending and raises taxes amid a steady erosion of foreign reserves.

The government plans to lower the deficit to 4.6% in the new fiscal year starting in July — the lowest since 2015, from a 5.2% target currently, according to Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali.

To achieve this, Bangladesh wants to raise income taxes for the wealthiest, increase a value-added tax for some goods and services and rein in government spending to the slowest pace in 15 years.

“We will follow fiscal consolidation as well as the reduction of the budget deficit, and will continue budget belt-tightening measures, even if on a limited scale in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year,” Ali said in his presentation to parliament on Thursday.

These measures also pay heed to the International Monetary Fund’s advice to Bangladesh to shore up revenues as foreign reserves fell to $18.7 billion, covering less than three months of imports. Fitch Ratings last month cut the country’s credit score deeper into junk territory, citing a continued weakening of these external buffers.

Bangladesh has proposed increasing the government revenue target by 8% to 5.41 trillion taka ($46 billion) for the new fiscal year, equivalent to 9.5% of GDP. The nation also plans to raise spending by 4.6% year on year to 7.97 trillion taka — the slowest pace since Hasina’s Awami League returned to power in 2009.

Increased external vulnerability due to a decline in forex reserves and higher fiscal deficits could lead to a further negative action, Fitch has said. Government revenues have underperformed budget targets due to tax exemptions, weak tax collection and the challenges in carrying out reforms, the rating company said.

Bangladesh has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world at 8.2%. Ali said the government plans to increase the maximum rate to 30% from 25% for individual tax payers in order to “distribute the burden equitably so that higher-income individuals pay a larger share.”

The South Asian country will shift from a retrospective tax system for companies and individuals to one that lets them know beforehand how much they have to pay for the following year. The “prospective tax system” will help taxpayers do proper planning and help boost tax compliance, Ali said.

Bangladesh raised the duty for mobile phone services and increased the value-added tax, or VAT, on SIM cards, capitalizing on one of the fastest-growing mobile phone markets in the world. The government doubled the VAT for locally-produced cigarettes to 15% — the maximum rate in the country.

Bangladesh’s policy actions since 2022 have been insufficient to stem the fall in foreign exchange reserves or resolve the tight supply of dollars, according to Fitch.

Earlier this month, Bangladesh’s central bank introduced a crawling peg to keep the taka stable. The nation is looking to allow the currency to float freely for the first time in the country’s history, a key demand from the International Monetary Fund to keep its $4.7 billion loan program on track.

Ali also addressed growing concerns around inflation, which annually rose 9.89% in May — the fastest pace in seven months.

“Inflation is one of our main challenges at present,” Ali said. “In this context, to achieve macroeconomic objectives, supportive fiscal policies, such as reducing budget expenditure, discouraging less important expenditures and various austerity measures have been adopted.”

The measures suggest Hasina’s government is struggling to rein in price gains, particularly for food staples. She had pledged to control consumer price increases after she won a fourth straight term earlier this year.

The central bank in May made interest rates market-based to curb inflationary pressure. While analysts have commended the interest rate change from a treasury bill-linked formula as a “forward looking policy,” they say more needs to be done.

“The present crisis is due to poor economic management,” said Sadiq Ahmed, vice-chairman of Dhaka-based Policy Research Institute. “The challenge for Bangladesh is to restore macroeconomic stability with proper attention to the consistency of policies.”
Bangladesh cuts GDP growth target to 6.7% as economic crisis bites (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [6/7/2024 3:07 AM, Faisal Mahmud, 2M, Neutral]
Bangladesh has cut its annual GDP growth target and pledged to rein in spending as the country grapples with an economy beset by soaring inflation, unstable exchange rates and rapidly depleting foreign reserves.

The moves were announced Thursday as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government unveiled a 7.97 trillion taka ($67.5 billion) budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in July.

Dhaka said it now expects the economy to grow 6.7% in the fiscal year, down from an earlier 7.5% target. But observers cast doubt on the lowered forecast, citing high inflation and stagnant private-sector investment growth.

"I would call this a feel-good or paper target," said Hossain Zillur Rahman, chairman of the Dhaka-based Power and Participation Research Center think tank. "GDP growth is a combination of several factors and I don’t think some of the major factors are in good shape now."

The government’s spending plans were about 8% higher than in the previous budget -- well off the double-digit increases of earlier years.

To control expenses, Dhaka trimmed its budget deficit forecast to 4.6% of GDP, down from around 5%.

Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said the new budget prioritizes "fiscal responsibility and restrained spending," reflecting a "cautious approach." But he added officials would not prolong spending cuts to avoid hindering economic growth.

The South Asian nation of 171 million is grappling with near double-digit inflation. Since the start of 2022, the taka has depreciated by more 40% against the dollar, and foreign currency reserves have dropped by more than half.

Last year, Hasina’s government resorted to taking a $4.7 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to alleviate the strain on its foreign exchange reserves and committed to reforming the financial sector.

On Thursday, Ali said spending would gradually be raised in the second half of the year if officials can collect more tax money.

Despite having the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio in South Asia at 7.8%, Ali has set an ambitious revenue collection target of 5.41 trillion taka, or 9.7% of the country’s gross domestic product. However, the National Board of Revenue has long struggled to meet government-set tax collection targets.

The finance minister told parliament that his key goal is to bring down inflation to 6.5% in the upcoming fiscal year -- a target decried as unachievable by local economists. Before the budget announcement, the country’s inflation rate reached a seven-month high of 9.89%, fueled primarily by escalating food prices.

"The 6.5% target seems unrealistic when the country’s real inflation exceeds more than 12%," said Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow at Bangladeshi think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). "Besides, the finance minister failed to outline a clear plan for achieving this reduction in his budget speech."

Economist Ahsan H Mansur said tackling inflation goes beyond budgetary measures and emphasized the crucial role of the central bank’s "proactive and hawkish" monetary policy stance.

"If the policy continues, it would yield results in tackling inflation within the next six months," said Mansur, chairman of the Policy Research Institute think tank.

In May, Bangladesh’s central bank rolled out a new system to address exchange rate volatility, allowing the taka to fluctuate more freely against the dollar based on market forces; the currency then plummeted into a freefall.

The government is aiming to boost forex reserves to $32 billion from less than $19 billion now, Ali said. But that goal could be challenged by plans to boost imports by 10%, further draining the country’s supply of foreign currency.

"I don’t think it will be easy to check the dwindling foreign reserve and increase it by a substantial amount," Mansur said. "Yes, the budget is contractionary, but given the current context, it is ambitious too."
Central Asia
Court Cancels Prison Sentence Of Kazakh Man Convicted Of Killing Girl During 2022 Unrest (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/6/2024 2:10 PM, Staff, 1530K, Negative]
Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court has canceled a seven-year prison sentence handed to a man in a high-profile trial related to the death of a 4-year-old girl during deadly unrest in Kazakhstan in January 2022.

The Supreme Court’s officials told RFE/RL on June 6 that the case was sent to a court of appeals for assessment, adding that the decision was made at a hearing held behind closed doors.

The man who was sentenced in the case, Arman Zhuman, a member of the military, had been found guilty of abuse of power in November, but on March 28, a military court in Astana annulled the case.

Aikorkem Meldekhan, 4, was shot dead in the Central Asian nation’s largest city, Almaty, by what the court concluded was military personnel, when she and other members of her family were in a car on their way to a grocery store on January 7, 2022.

The vehicle was sprayed with at least 20 bullets, also wounding Aikorkem’s 15-year-old sister.

Zhuman’s lawyer, Oksana Musokhranova, told RFE/RL that her client’s defense team is working on his full acquittal.

Aikorkem’s father, Aidos Meldekhan, condemned the Supreme Court’s ruling, questioning the hearing’s being held behind closed doors.

"Our stance has not changed. We demand the charge to be changed into murder, and all persons involved into the crime to be held responsible," Aidos Meldekhan said.

At least 238 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, are believed to have been killed during the January 2022 unrest.

At the time, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev gave police and military troops the controversial order to "shoot to kill without warning." He justified the move by saying "20,000 extremists trained in foreign terrorist camps" had seized Almaty airport and other buildings.

No evidence of foreign-trained terrorists was ever presented.

The order sparked an outcry, and Aikorkem’s picture turned into an image symbolizing the victims of the crackdown, many of whom were killed -- some under torture -- by police, security forces and military personnel, including troops of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, whom Toqaev invited into the country "to restore law and order."
Kazakh Journalist Loses Appeal Against Fine For Voicing Support For RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/6/2024 9:05 AM, Staff, 1530K, Neutral]
A court of appeals in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, has rejected an appeal filed by journalist Zhamila Maricheva against a fine she was ordered to pay for her online article supporting RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, known locally as Radio Azattyq.

Last month a court in Almaty ordered Maricheva to pay 73,840 tenges ($164) for "distributing false information."

The charge stems from an article she posted on her ProTenge Telegram channel in January where she raised issues faced by Radio Azattyq in obtaining official accreditation from the Foreign Ministry, which had sparked fears that the government was trying to stifle independent media.

Maricheva praised Radio Azattyq for what she called its professionalism, stressing the importance of the broadcaster’s programs in Kazakhstan.

Another Kazakh journalist, Askhat Niyazov, reposted Maricheva’s article at the time and was charged with slander.

A court in late April acquitted Niyazov and closed the case, stressing that there was nothing criminal in Niyazov’s actions.

Maricheva has maintained her innocence, insisting that police violated her rights on April 24 by detaining her for questioning while she was jogging instead of officially summoning her to a police station.

In January 2023, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry denied accreditation to 36 Radio Azattyq journalists. Some of the correspondents had not been able to extend their accreditation since late 2022.

The situation was exacerbated when a group of Kazakh lawmakers approved a draft bill that would allow the tightly controlled former Soviet republic’s authorities to refuse accreditation to foreign media outlets and their reporters on grounds of national security.

RFE/RL reached an agreement with the Kazakh Foreign Ministry over the accreditations on April 23.
Kazakh Coal Mine’s Managers Get Prison Terms Over Deadly Blast (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/6/2024 8:54 AM, Staff, 1530K, Negative]
A court in Kazakhstan sentenced four managers of the Lenin coal mine on June 6 to prison terms for an explosion that killed five miners in November 2022. The mine’s chief engineer Pyotr Li was handed a five-year sentence, while two managers -- Talghat Bayakenov and Andrei Zavyalov -- were sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison each. Acting safety and ventilation security chief Dmitry Ablov got 4 years in prison. The men’s wives said they will appeal the ruling. Deadly accidents at mines in the central Kazakhstan region are frequent. In 2006, a similar blast at the Lenin mine killed 41 miners.
China reaches deal on railway project linking it with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan (South China Morning Post)
South China Morning Post [6/6/2024 11:41 AM, Liu Zhen, 10447K, Positive]
China on Thursday finally signed an agreement for a key railway linking it with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, a project hailed by President Xi Jinping as “a show of determination”.

“The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway is a strategic project for China’s connectivity with Central Asia and a landmark project for [our] three countries to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative,” said Xi in a message issued to mark the occasion.

The deal’s resolution signalled that Beijing’s decade-long ambition to expand its connection with Eurasian countries is finally on track.

Xi said the agreement provided a “solid legal foundation” for the railway’s construction and transformed the project “from a vision to a reality”.

“It demonstrates to the international community the firm determination of the three countries to join hands to promote cooperation and seek common development,” Xi said.

He added that China would work with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to build the strategic passage that would benefit all three sides and regional development “as soon as possible”.

The president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, and his counterpart in Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, also sent congratulatory messages, Chinese state media Xinhua reported.

Japarov said the 325-mile (523-km) railway would become a new transport link from Asia to Europe and the Persian Gulf and would promote regional connectivity and trade.

Mirziyoyev said it would not just be the shortest land route from China to Central Asia, but also to the South Asia and Middle East, which is “in the long-term interests of relevant states”, according to Xinhua.

The US$8 billion rail link starts in China’s Kashgar, Xinjiang, and goes through southwest Kyrgyzstan and ends in Andijon in eastern Uzbekistan. It could reduce the freight journey between China and Europe by 559 miles, serving as a faster and cheaper alternative to current China-Europe land routes, most of which travel through Russia.

The project was first proposed in the 1990s, and the three sides signed a memorandum of understanding on the railway in 1997. But the project had been stalled by technical, political and geopolitical issues.

Russia, which sees Central Asia as its own backyard of influence, was initially less than enthusiastic about the project but now has expressed support as Moscow becomes increasingly reliant on China for trade under the economic sanctions imposed by the West because of its war against Ukraine.
Indo-Pacific
Singapore, India, others pitch ‘clean’ projects in U.S.-led framework (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [6/6/2024 10:18 AM, Dylan Loh, 2042K, Positive]
Indo-Pacific countries from Singapore to India touted billions of dollars worth of sustainable infrastructure projects that U.S. investors can back, as America worked to advance a regional cooperation grouping that excluded China on Thursday.

U.S. trade officials, led by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, gathered with regional counterparts in Singapore for ministerial meetings of the America-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) group.

According to an announcement, the members signed an "IPEF Clean Economy Agreement" to promote green projects in the region. As part of this, officials announced on Thursday that $23 billion of investment opportunities were identified in "clean energy and climate friendly infrastructure," among other areas of sustainable development, which the U.S. would support.

"The U.S. doesn’t just say what our intentions are, but we show up, we show up repeatedly, consistently, in the region," Raimondo told reporters at a briefing.

Particularly, the IPEF participants highlighted 20 "investment-ready projects" worth $6 billion in areas covering industrial parks, special economic zones, energy, agriculture and aquaculture, waste management, water and transport. These projects were nominated by members Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, according to Singapore trade officials.

Separately, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. launched an "IPEF Catalytic Capital Fund" on Thursday. The fund seeks to gather resources to expand the pipeline of bankable clean economy infrastructure projects.

Under this, $33 million of initial funding is in progress and will be set aside to be used to raise up to $3.3 billion of private investments in countries deemed as low- and middle-income nations.

"Singapore has long been an advocate for the U.S. to actively engage the region, especially Southeast Asia, and we have also consistently acted on this conviction," Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said Thursday. "We were early supporters of IPEF, and we saw it as a way for the U.S. to strengthen economic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific."

The IPEF, which involves 14 countries, was put forward by President Joe Biden’s administration after he took office in 2021. The goal was to regain economic influence in Asia after Washington’s withdrawal from the proposed TPP trade agreement -- now the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Excluded from the IPEF, China is part of another regional bloc -- the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which involves overlapping countries from IPEF such as Australia, Singapore and South Korea in a free trade pact as Beijing jostles with Washington to engage the region.

Not all countries covered by the IPEF could sign on to the agreements presented on Thursday, however. Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica, who was present at the Singapore meeting, said India and Vietnam were two countries that did not put pen to paper.

"There are a couple of countries that were still completing their domestic processes and therefore were not able to participate today," a U.S. senior Commerce Department official told reporters. "But ... [they] have indicated their intention to do so as quickly as they can, and so, that’s where things stand at."
Twitter
Afghanistan
Abdul Qahar Balkhi
@QaharBalkhi
[6/7/2024 2:22 AM, 638.5K followers, 6 retweets, 29 likes]
Remarks of IEA-MoFA Spokesman regarding comments by German Chancellor about expulsion of Afghan Nationals from the Federal Republic of Germany https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPcz5ZBbMAACJ9S?format=jpg&name=900x900

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[6/6/2024 10:01 AM, 2.5K followers, 1 like]
Tamadon TV goes live with breaking news that the Taliban have entered their station and demanding the channel to cease its broadcast. The brave journalists are doing their job to the last moments in Afghanistan. #JournalismIsNotACrime #Afghanistan

Jahanzeb Wesa
@Jahanzi12947158
[6/6/2024 8:27 AM, 2.5K followers, 1 like] This dire human rights news makes it even more baffling that the UN is convening states for talks on Afghanistan in less than a month with a focus on (checks notes) economic development, counter narcotics, and climate—and bending over backwards pleading: https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/06/moe-than-60-publicly-flogged-by-the-taliban-in-northern-sari-pul-province-of-afghanistan/

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[6/6/2024 6:35 AM, 81K followers, 23 retweets, 32 likes]
Afghanistan: The public flogging of 63 individuals, including 15 women, on multiple charges in a sports stadium in the Sar-e-Pol province on 4 June is shocking and inhumane. The Taliban violate the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment under international law and should not be carried out under any circumstances. The Taliban de facto authorities have disregarded international human rights law and reinstated a cruel justice system, contributing to the legalization of inhuman practices. The criminal practice of public flogging and all other forms of corporal punishment must be immediately and unconditionally stopped and a formal justice mechanism with fair trials and access to legal remedies must be put in place.
Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/6/2024 11:37 AM, 6.7M followers, 573 retweets, 1.8K likes]
Proud moment as Pakistan receives a resounding 182 votes and is elected to the United Nations Security Council for the term 2025-26. Our election to the Council with such overwhelming support of UN member states at this critical time bears testament to the international community’s confidence in Pakistan’s diplomatic standing as well as to our commitment to global peace & security. We look forward to working with the international community to address pressing global challenges. We will continue to play our role in promoting peace, stability, and cooperation among nations.

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[6/6/2024 6:14 AM, 6.7M followers, 299 retweets, 905 likes]
Honored to address Pakistan China Friendship and Business Reception in Beijing today. My speech focused on the strong historical ties between Pakistan and China, the significance of our iron-clad relations amidst a changing world around us today and how an All Weather Strategic Partnership between Pakistan and China is vital for our peace, progress and prosperity of our peoples.

Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[6/6/2024 11:09 PM, 73.5K followers, 5 retweets, 39 likes]
#Pakistan’s Prime Minister @CMShehbaz who is in #China on a bilateral visit will today be holding meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Chinese counterpart, Premier Li Qiang, will also meet with National People’s Congress Standing Committee Chairman Zahao Liji.

Kamran Khan
@AajKamranKhan
[6/7/2024 1:28 AM, 5.6M followers, 97 retweets, 345 likes]
PSX crash with market losing about 4000 points about 4% just this week spell a massive disaster for the already sinking image of Shahbaz Sharif government. If rumours or proposals to madly enhance taxes on dividend income and CGT are implemented any last remaining space for white and clean business & investment will be gone forever. https://facebook.com/share/v/9sie3oawtsy4tdEN/?
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/6/2024 10:20 PM, 98.5M followers, 3.5K retweets, 18K likes]
Over the last decade, we have focused on qualitative changes in the education sector. This is reflected in the QS World University Rankings. Compliments to the students, faculty and institutions for their hard work and dedication. In this term, we want to do even more to boost research and innovation.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[6/6/2024 8:56 AM, 24.8M followers, 1K retweets, 9.3K likes]
The Chief Election Commissioner, Shri Rajiv Kumar, accompanied by Election Commissioners Shri Gyanesh Kumar and Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. A copy of the Notification issued by the ECI in terms of Section 73 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, containing the names of Members elected to the House of the People – following General Elections to the 18th Lok Sabha – was submitted by them to the President.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[6/6/2024 8:56 AM, 24.8M followers, 91 retweets, 622 likes]
The President congratulated the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners on the successful completion of the electoral process, the largest democratic exercise in human history. The President appreciated the efforts of the Election Commission, its officials and members of its staff, other public officials, police and security personnel, for working tirelessly and diligently to uphold the sanctity of the people’s ballot and successfully completing a free and fair election.

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[6/6/2024 8:56 AM, 24.8M followers, 84 retweets, 583 likes]
The President commended hundreds of millions of voters who participated in the election process in such large numbers. The President noted this was entirely in keeping with our Constitution and India’s deep and unshakeable democratic traditions.

Vice-President of India
@VPIndia
[6/5/2024 12:17 PM, 1.5M followers, 424 retweets, 4.7K likes]
Hon’ble Vice-President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar and Dr Sudesh Dhankhar attended the farewell dinner hosted by the Hon’ble President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu ji, for the Union Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji, at Rashtrapati Bhavan today. @rashtrapatibhvn @narendramodi

Vice-President of India
@VPIndia
[6/7/2024 12:51 AM, 1.5M followers, 72 retweets, 991 likes]
Dr. Mohan Yadav Ji, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh called on Hon’ble Vice-President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar at Vice-President’s Enclave today. @DrMohanYadav51

Indian National Congress
@INCIndia
[6/6/2024 8:22 AM, 10.6M followers, 12K retweets, 41K likes]
The common people of India lost Rs 30 lakh crore in the stock market on June 4. We ask:
1. Why did the PM and HM give specific investment advice to the 5 crore families investing in the stock markets? Is it their job to give investment advice to the people?
2. Why both interviews were given to the same media house owned by the same business group, which is also under SEBI investigations for manipulating stock markets?
3. What is the connection between the BJP, the fake exit pollsters, and the dubious foreign investors, who invested one day before the exit polls were announced and made huge profits, at the cost of 5 crore families? We demand a JPC investigation into this biggest-ever stock market scam.: Shri @RahulGandhi

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/6/2024 8:54 AM, 210.4K followers, 5 retweets, 20 likes]
My postmortem on the BJP election setback for @ForeignPolicy. "The odds are that Modi and BJP...will recover. But given the challenges of leading a coalition gov’t & facing a stronger opposition, Modi will more frequently find himself on the back foot." https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/06/05/india-election-modi-bjp-lose-majority-roadblock/

Richard Rossow
@RichardRossow
[6/6/2024 10:05 AM, 28.7K followers, 7 likes]
Navies of India, Oman hold talks in Delhi. Discussed interoperability, maritime domain awareness, more. https://bit.ly/3x57Emg
NSB
Awami League
@albd1971
[6/6/2024 12:43 AM, 638.5K followers, 6 retweets, 35 likes]
Prime Minister #SheikhHasina and the central leaders of #AwamiLeague have paid respects to the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman today marking the historic #SixPoints Movement.

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/6/2024 10:30 AM, 638.5K followers, 21 retweets, 37 likes]
#Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact of #climatechange. Considering these impacts, the national budget for FY25 has set aside a special allocation of Tk 100 cr for #climateaction and #environmentalprotection. https://link.albd.org/g8xzw

Awami League
@albd1971
[6/6/2024 5:46 AM, 638.5K followers, 34 retweets, 79 likes]
Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said the FY 2024-25 budget will make life easier for common people. He said, "There is no benefit in unnecessarily increasing the amount of money in the budget. I want to make life easier for the common people". https://link.albd.org/x29jg #Budget2024 #Bangladesh #AwamiLeague

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[6/6/2024 5:29 AM, 99.1K followers, 479 retweets, 3.3K likes]
Honored to speak to my friend PM @narendramodi Ji conveying the good wishes of the people and government of Bhutan. I look forward to working closely with #Modi3 to take relations between Bhutan and Bharat from strength to strength.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/6/2024 3:44 PM, 108.6K followers, 68 retweets, 74 likes]
The First Lady Sajidha Mohamed attended the reception held to mark World Food Safety Day. This year’s World Food Safety Day is being marked under the theme ‘Food Safety: Prepare for the Unexpected’.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/6/2024 4:08 PM, 108.6K followers, 53 retweets, 61 likes]
Vice President @HucenSembe attended the @official_ium convocation ceremony held this evening.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/6/2024 11:41 AM, 54.1K followers, 27 retweets, 36 likes]
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moosa Zameer concludes his Official Visit to Sri Lanka Press Release | https://t.ly/DROTf

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/6/2024 11:00 AM, 54.1K followers, 19 retweets, 28 likes]
Foreign Minister @MoosaZameer paid a courtesy call on the Opposition Leader of Sri Lanka, H.E. @sajithpremadasa and discussed the longstanding and historical relations between both countries.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/6/2024 9:21 AM, 54.1K followers, 27 retweets, 45 likes]
Foreign Minister @MoosaZameer paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, H.E. @DCRGunawardena, and reaffirmed Maldives commitment to strengthening the close friendship and cooperation between both countries.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/6/2024 8:42 AM, 54.1K followers, 28 retweets, 35 likes]
FM @MoosaZameer met with the Minister of Public Security, HE. @TiranAlles, today. During the meeting, Minister Zameer raised the difficulties the Maldivians face due to the changes to the Sri Lanka visa policy. Minister Alles assured that the issue will be resolved for Maldivians.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[6/7/2024 12:38 AM, 319.4K followers, 30 retweets, 109 likes]
TRCSL has given the green light for Starlink to launch satellite internet services in Sri Lanka, pending a two-week public consultation period. This development will revolutionise our connectivity, opening up new horizons, especially for our youth. With faster and more reliable internet, our youth can access global education resources, collaborate on innovative projects, and thrive in this new digital age. We will introduce relief packages for the education and fishing sectors. Starlink’s implementation will be transformative for Sri Lankans, especially those struggling to stay connected with reliable, high-speed internet. This advancement will significantly improve connectivity across the country, which is crucial for inclusion in the digital economy and maintaining communications in remote areas and during natural disasters.

Ranil Wickremesinghe
@RW_UNP
[6/6/2024 9:11 AM, 319.4K followers, 41 retweets, 334 likes]
The brutal beating of a 4-year-old girl has rightly horrified the country. While the judicial process will address the perpetrators, we must prioritise the child’s well-being, which will require swift and decisive action from state officials. It’s important to understand and raise awareness about how the trauma from such abuse can haunt children for a lifetime. This is why we must work towards preventing physical or mental violence and abuse against children in homes, schools, and communities. Aligned with Corporal Punishment Day, and in response to the growing prevalence of such incidents, the Cabinet of Ministers approved amendments to the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code to prohibit corporal punishment across all settings. I have requested officials to expedite the legislation for prompt implementation to ensure swift protection for our children. The state must care for and protect our children, as their well-being, both physical and mental, is a measure of the much-discussed stability Sri Lanka is striving to achieve. We must remember at all times that there is no tomorrow without children, and their welfare must be our highest priority.
Central Asia
UNODC Central Asia
@UNODC_ROCA
[6/6/2024 5:21 AM, 2.4K followers, 2 retweets, 4 likes]
Highlighting the link between “professional launderettes” and corrupt officials at the recent UNODC workshop for judges in Astana. On 23 May, 20 judges from city and province courts discussed national and international practices in combating corruption. @StateINL

MFA Kazakhstan
@MFA_KZ
[6/6/2024 11:29 AM, 51.1K followers, 9 retweets, 16 likes]
Goodwill Ambassadors Project Launched at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan http://gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/787681?lang=en

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/6/2024 11:59 AM, 186.7K followers, 34 retweets, 225 likes]
Presidents Shavkat #Mirziyoyev and @RTErdogan held a meeting in a narrow format, aiming to enhance their strategic partnership and amplify cooperation. They focused on boosting trade to $5 billion and forming a joint business council, while also converging on pressing regional topics, including #Afghanistan’s situation.

Saida Mirziyoyeva
@SMirziyoyeva
[6/6/2024 4:59 AM, 18.2K followers, 1 retweet, 32 likes]
Uzbekistan also has much to offer to the @wto and to the world. As the most populous country in #CentralAsia, with a growing young and creative population, we can provide the world with new talents, ideas, authentic skills, and services.

Furqat Sidiqov
@FurqatSidiq
[6/6/2024 7:35 AM, 1.4K followers, 3 retweets, 16 likes]
Today, @president_uz’s Special Representative for #Afghanistan Ismatulla Irgashev conducted a briefing at the @USIP. The event provided an in-depth look into Uzbekistan’s approaches to Afghanistan, sparking lively and informative discussions on various topics of mutual interest.

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[6/6/2024 2:04 PM, 23.3K followers, 5 retweets, 9 likes]
Uzbekistan intends to join the @wto in 2026 https://www.gazeta.uz/en/2024/06/06/wto/

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[6/6/2024 2:02 PM, 23.3K followers, 1 like]
Uzbekistan: The Anti-Corruption Agency is designated as the authorized body for regulating relations related to conflicts of interest. Monitoring compliance by employees with the law will be carried out by an ethics commission created in this organization. @AntikorUz @kunuzeng https://kun.uz/en/47536282

{End of Report}
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