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reasonsforhope · 10 months

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"India’s announcement that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and to meet fifty percent of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030 is a hugely significant moment for the global fight against climate change. India is pioneering a new model of economic development that could avoid the carbon-intensive approaches that many countries have pursued in the past – and provide a blueprint for other developing economies.

The scale of transformation in India is stunning. Its economic growth has been among the highest in the world over the past two decades, lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Every year, India adds a city the size of London to its urban population, involving vast construction of new buildings, factories and transportation networks. Coal and oil have so far served as bedrocks of India’s industrial growth and modernisation, giving a rising number of Indian people access to modern energy services. This includes adding new electricity connections for 50 million citizens each year over the past decade.

The rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual CO2 emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. However, India’s CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters, and they are lower still if you consider historical emissions per person. The same is true of energy consumption: the average household in India consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States.

India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2.

These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit [a.k.a. 2015, at the same conference that produced the Paris Agreement] by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment, and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support, and a vibrant private sector, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026...

Subsidies for petrol and diesel were removed in the early 2010s, and subsidies for electric vehicles were introduced in 2019. India’s robust energy efficiency programme has been successful in reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, transport and major industries. Government efforts to provide millions of households with fuel gas for cooking and heating are enabling a steady transition away from the use of traditional biomass such as burning wood. India is also laying the groundwork to scale up important emerging technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage, and low-carbon steel, cement and fertilisers..."

-via IEA (International Energy Agency), January 10, 2022

Note: And since that's a little old, here's an update to show that progress is still going strong:

-via Economic Times: EnergyWorld, March 10, 2023

#india #solar power #renewable energy #green energy #sustainability #wind power #population grown #economic growth #developing economies #renewable electricity #carbon emissions #good news #hope #hope posting

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zvaigzdelasas · 8 months

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[DW is German State Media]

Running an administration made up of three staunchly right-wing parties appears to be tedious but it hasn't changed her, says the leader of the post-fascist, radical right-wing Brothers of Italy party.[...]

Over the past year, Meloni, 46, hasn't repeated any of the more radical slogans she was so fond of while campaigning. At home in Italy, she is trying to shape domestic policy according to strict conservative family ideals while on the economic front she has more or less carried on with the relatively successful policies of her predecessor, Mario Draghi. Meanwhile at the European level, she has been almost moderate. One doesn't hear acerbic criticism of the EU from her these days and around the world, she seeks out friends and allies. In fact, she leaves the radical statements to her coalition partners: Matteo Salvini of the right-wing League (in Italian, Lega) party and Antonio Tajani, the country's foreign minister and head of Forza Italia, which was previously led by the late Silvio Berlusconi.[...]

The one thing that doesn't seem to weigh on her daily duties as Italy's leader is the fact that her own party's logo features the eternal flame that sits on the tomb of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Her partners in Europe also seem to be looking past that. One hears EU administrators in Brussels confess surprise at how "mild-mannered" and "soft-spoken" the Italian leader has become.[...]

At a Rome press conference with Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, head of the centrist Social Democrats, Meloni told reporters that both were in agreement on all of the most important policy areas and that they were looking for pragmatic cooperation. Scholz didn't object. Meloni also seems to have built a rapport with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. [...]

During a recent visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, von der Leyen and Meloni also seemed to be on the same page when it came to migration policy. That means monitoring borders, reducing arrivals and collaborating more closely with transit countries. Meloni's suggestion that the navy should blockade the coasts of North Africa was the only one that didn't win support from von der Leyen. The two women have already traveled to Tunisia twice to try and wring an agreement out of the autocratic Tunisian president on holding back migrants. Meloni sees that as part of her strategy to focus more on North Africa than previous heads of state have done, in her bid to stem migration.[...]

The heads of the EU and G7 states were actually relieved when Meloni expressed unconditional support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. US President Joe Biden praised Meloni's stance about how defending Ukraine also defends Europe's freedom.

"I hope you'll be nice to me," Biden joked when Meloni visited him at the White House in Washington this summer. Meloni responded with a telling laugh. Only a year ago Biden had branded her election victory a danger to democracy. Meloni let it be known that the pair were on friendly terms again after the one-on-one meeting in Washington. Meloni, who was completely inexperienced in foreign policy, has also been making friends at international summits, such as the recent G20 meeting in New Delhi. The public affection demonstrated by India's nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi prompted excited comments on social media in that country. The names, Meloni and Modi, were melded to create the new label "Melodi."

A win for moderation! /s

24 Sep 23

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everything-is-crab · 8 months

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:))

This is what I meant when I said both rightoids and liberals in India are equally dumb as fuck. Both are pro imperialists. She's not even lower caste and yet she's speaking on behalf of us. I have seen this trend in a lot of "anticasteist" upper caste women (who unfortunately have more voices than people like me, actually women from oppressed castes).

How are these people different from the white supremacists who say brown people are intellectually and socially inferior?

"At least the goras let us have meat" oh okay we're gonna ignore the 3 million lives lost in Bengal famine caused by Churchill's policies (after which he blamed it on us instead of his own greediness). Did he let those people eat meat then? Unhinged shit. They wouldn't let people fill their bellies cause sometimes instead of food crops they wanted our ancestors to grow cotton, indigo, spices, tea. Which also left areas prone to land disasters. Commercial stuff that they could sell at much cheaper prices in their own countries and others in the Western world as well. Also levied extremely unreasonably high taxes. Leaving us with no money. Delusional world these middle/upper class liberals live in where the British let us have meat. They didn't even let us have rice.

The British protected the caste system. Read Sharmila Rege's work about how the British introduced the process of "Brahmanisation" in colonial India.

This is the exact thing Hindu nationalists are doing rn! And have been doing forever! Protecting Western imperialists! Why do you think Modi is bootlicking the US so much? Do you think the farmers' protests and the after effects of globalization after 1991 are disconnected from Western imperialism?

Just because nationalists claim to be against white dominance doesn't mean they practice what they preach.

And this folks is why you need to incorporate class and gender in your analysis and not read about the work of only the middle class men of a community :)

Women and poor people matter too.

But unfortunately many earlier anti caste activists who were middle or upper class were anti Marxists and only later few like the Dalit Panthers and R.B More realized the importance of Marxist analysis for understanding modern caste based oppression more. Yes many Indian Marxists ignored casteism. But that does not mean we must dispose it as a useless theory.

But who tf cares about the Dalit Panthers or anyone else? Have you even heard of any other names that aren't Phule or Ambedka? Everyone followed and still follow people like Periyar, Ambedkar, Phule who were all from relatively well off family. And why will people who uncritically follow these people not think colonization was as bad? All of them attended British school and went for higher studies as well. The British was staunchly anti communist. They constantly resisted communist activists in colonial India. This is a privilege even today many people from oppressed castes cannot enjoy.

I have seen all these upper caste women, ignore people like me pointing this out. They think we're against education of oppressed castes (why would I advocate that for my own community?). But rather we take issue to these men ignoring their economic and male privilege and speaking on behalf of all of us.

A reminder that Periyar criminalized devadasis and read Ambedkar's arguments against Hindutva solutions to the Partition (hint: he cared more about the money that could be wasted in missionaries rather than the violence and human rights and unironically called Muslim people "tyrannical" and referred to "Muslim oppression" on Hindus). He was anti casteist, but he was Islamophobic.

To avoid with this kind of thinking, follow Dalit feminist theory. Dalit femininism from its inception has been pro Marxist (cause women make most of poor here). And they explain the effects of colonization on lower caste women (how the British introduced evidence act, a law that justified rape against lower caste women and let me remind you gang rape of lower caste women by upper caste men is a national issue. Ex the Manipur case, the rape of Phoolan Devi, the Hathras case etc). And how dowry (that earlier used to be a practice mainly amongst upper castes was now becoming dominant in lower castes as well due to capitalization of economy during colonial era). Maybe then you will understand why the British abolished sati but not any temple prostitution or other issues faced exclusively by women from oppressed castes. In fact they called upper caste women those who deserve to be protected but lower caste women were inherently deviant in their justification. But please go ahead and argue how imperialism brings "good things" sometimes.

Just read about caste reformation during colonial era. The choice isn't between hindutva and colonial era. The choice is between hindutva and hindutva along with colonial rule. Why do most liberals pretend the British never favored the Brahmins over everybody else?

White supremacy is so much better than Hindu supremacy for women of lower castes am I right guys?

This is so much better?

Also reminded of the "breast cloth" controversy. Do not mistake that anti caste activism is always anti caste for both Dalit men and women. Sometimes it favors Dalit men. And oppresses Dalit women further. Cause usually the colonizers never cared about oppressed castes but when they did, it was only for the men.

Ik many upper caste Marxists are not good at anti caste politics but I cannot separate Marxism from my anti caste or feminist politics. And as a Marxist from a formerly colonized country, I cannot ignore the imperial divide between the West (that is white dominated) and the global south (that includes India). You cannot separate the conditions of brown and black people today in the global south from the past dynamics of the colonizer and the colonized.

Lower caste women are obviously very poor. The poorest of all with least social protection. These upper caste women can sit on their asses and write papers and blogs on how much white supremacy was much cooler. But the ones from oppressed castes and working class? They don't have this privilege. They have the same burden of upper caste women related to marriage and domestic work and everything. But on top of that they have to do labor as well. And after globalization, when condition of "blue collar jobs" degraded (wages lowered, subsidies cut, worker protection rights gone etc) , the percentage of women in these fields increased. That's not a coincidence. Men always force women into lower earning occupations that have little job security. I am not gonna ignore this.

Fuck Hindutva. But fuck white supremacy too. For me neither is better. Both go hand in hand in fact. Look at the Hindu nationalists in France allying with white supremacists over shared conservative interests.

#Dalit femininism #india #marxist feminism

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mariacallous · 5 months

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The world is embarking on a critical year for the future of democracy. Elections in India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United States—to name just a few prominent countries headed to the polls in 2024—would normally be routine affairs. But many of these democracies are at an inflection point. Can the strengthening tides of polarization, institutional degradation, and authoritarianism be reversed? Or will democracy reach a breaking point?

Every democracy has its own particular set of characteristics. In each country holding elections this year, voters will judge incumbent governments on familiar issues such as inflation, employment, personal security, and a sense of confidence about their future prospects. But the foreboding that accompanies the world’s elections in 2024 stems from one singular fact: The uneasy accommodation between nationalism and democracy is coming under severe stress.

The crisis in democracy is in part a crisis in nationalism, which today seems to revolve around four issues: how nations define membership; how they popularize a version of historical memory; how they locate a sovereign identity; and how they contend with the forces of globalization. In each of these, nationalism and liberalism are often in tension. Democracies tend to navigate this tension rather than resolve it. Yet, around the world, nationalism is slowly strangling liberalism—a trend that could accelerate in a damaging way this year. As more citizens cast their ballots in 2024 than in any other year in the history of the world, they will be voting not only for a particular leader or party but for the very future of their civil liberties.

Let’s first discuss how societies set parameters for membership. If a political community is sovereign, it has a right to make decisions on whom to exclude from or include in membership. Liberal democracies have historically opted for a variety of criteria for membership. Some have privileged ethnic and cultural factors, while others have picked civic criteria that merely demand allegiance to a common set of constitutional values.

In practice, a range of considerations have guided the immigration policies of liberal democracies, including the economic advantages of immigration, historical ties to particular groups of people, and humanitarian considerations. Most liberal societies have dealt with the membership question not on a principled basis but through various arrangements, some more open than others.

The question of membership is increasing in political salience. The causes may vary. In the United States, a surge of migrants at the southern border has politically foregrounded the issue, forcing even the Biden administration to reverse some of its promised liberal policies. To be sure, immigration has always been an important political issue in the United States. But since the political arrival of Donald Trump, it has acquired a new edge. Trump’s so-called Muslim ban—even though it was eventually repealed—raised the specter of new forms of overt or covert discrimination forming the basis of a possible future U.S. immigration regime.

Europe’s refugee crisis—induced by global conflicts and economic and climate distress—is inflecting the politics of every country. Sweden has grown deep concerns about its model of integrating immigrants, ushering in a right-wing government in 2022. In the United Kingdom, Brexit hinged in part on concerns over immigration. And in India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will implement the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, which excludes Muslim refugees from certain neighboring countries from a pathway to seeking citizenship. For New Delhi, membership concerns are driven by the need to prioritize a large ethnic majority. Similarly, the status of migrants in South Africa is being increasingly contested.

The increasing salience of membership is worrying for the future of liberalism. Since liberal values have historically been compatible with a variety of immigration and membership regimes, a liberal membership regime may not be a necessary condition for creating a liberal society. One could argue that not having a well-controlled membership policy is more likely to undermine liberalism by upsetting the social cohesion on which liberalism relies. But it is a remarkable fact that many of the world’s political leaders who endorse closed or discriminatory membership regimes, from Hungary’s Viktor Orban to the Netherlands’s Geert Wilders, also happen to oppose liberal values. That makes it harder to create a distinction between being anti-immigration and anti-liberal.

The second dimension of nationalism is the contest over historical memory. All nations need something of a usable past—a story that binds its peoples together—that can be the basis of a collective identity and self-esteem. The distinction between history and memory can be overdrawn, but it is important. As the French historian Pierre Nora put it, memory looks for facts, especially ones that suit the veneration of the main object of recollection. Memory has an affective quality: It is supposed to move you and constitute your identity. It draws the boundaries of communities. History is more detached; the facts will always complicate both identity and community.

History is not a morality tale as much as it is a very difficult form of hard-won knowledge, always aware of its selectivity.

Memory is easiest to hold on to as a morality tale. It is not just about the past. Memory is a kind of eternal truth about one’s collective identity, to keep and carry forward.

Memories are increasingly being emphasized in the political arena. In India, to take the most obvious case, historical memory is central to the consolidation of Hindu nationalism. In January, Modi will open a temple to the god Ram in Ayodhya, built on the site where Hindu nationalists demolished a mosque in 1992. It is an important religious symbol. But it is also central to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s narrative that the most salient historical memory for Indians should not be colonial rule by the British but a thousand-year history of subjugation by Islam. Modi declared Aug. 5, the day the foundation stone of the temple was laid in 2020, as being as important a national milestone as Aug. 15, the day of India’s independence from the British in 1947.

In South Africa, questions of memory may seem less pronounced. But the compromise of the Nelson Mandela years, which some now see as sacrificing economic justice for the cause of social solidarity, is increasingly being interrogated. Faced with continuing inequality, economic worries, and declining social mobility, many South Africans are questioning the legacy of Mandela and whether he did enough to empower Black people in the country. This reflects some disillusionment with the ruling African National Congress. But this reconsideration could also potentially redefine the memory in terms of which modern South Africa has understood itself.

In the United States, the contest over how to tell the national story goes back to the Founding Fathers. But debates around this are more politically visible than ever, with politicians from Trump to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis basing their candidacies in part on what it means to be American and how to “make America great again.” Florida, for example, created dubious standards for the teaching of Black history, seeking to regulate what students learn about race and slavery. This is not just a contest over the politics of pedagogy; behind it is a larger, anxious political debate about how the United States remembers its past—and therefore how it will build its future.

The third dimension in the surge of nationalism is the contest over popular sovereignty, or the will of the people. There has always been a close connection between popular sovereignty and nationalism, as the former required the formation of the concept of a people with a distinct identity and special solidarity toward one another. During the French Revolution, inspired by the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the popular sovereign was supposed to have a singular will. But if the will of the people is unitary, what explains differences? Furthermore, if there are differences among people, as there naturally are, then how is one to ascertain the will of the people? One way out of this puzzle is to see who can effectively perform the will of the able—and in doing so represent the other side as betraying that will, rather than as merely carrying an alternative interpretation of it. In order for such a performance to take place, one has to castigate anyone who represents an alternative viewpoint as an enemy of the people. In that sense, rhetorical invocations of “the people”—understood as a unitary entity—always run the risk of being anti-pluralist. Even when democracies around the world have embraced a pluralist and representative conception of democracy, there is a residual trace of unity that gets transposed to the nation. The nation is not a nation, or cannot acquire a will, unless it is united.

People rally around a unitary will by benchmarking their national identity: We are Indian by virtue of X or American by virtue of Y. Sometimes, this kind of benchmarking of identity can be quite productive; it is a reminder to citizens of what gives their particular community a distinct identity. Yet one of nationalism’s features is that it struggles to make room for its own contestation. The opposition is delegitimized or stigmatized not because it has a different point of view on policy matters but because its views are represented as anti-national. It is not an accident that the rhetoric of national populists is often directed against forces that are seen to challenge their version of the national identity or their benchmarking of nationalism. As national identities become more contested, there are increasing chances that unity can be achieved only by being imposed.

As a political style, national populism thrives not so much by finding enemies of the people but enemies of the nation, who are often measured by certain taboos. Almost all modern populists—from Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Modi, Orban, and Trump—draw the distinction between people and elites not in terms of class but in terms of who authentically represents the nation. Who gets benchmarked as the true nationalist? The cultural contempt for the elite gets its strength not just from the fact that they are elites but that they can be represented as elites who are no longer part of the nation, as it were. This kind of rhetoric increasingly sees difference as seditious rather than merely a disagreement. In India, for example, national security charges are deployed against students who question the government’s stance on Kashmir. This is seen not just as a contestation—or possibly a misguided view—but an anti-national act than needs to be criminalized.

The fourth dimension of the crisis of nationalism relates to globalization. Even in the era of hyperglobalization, national interest never faded away. Countries embraced globalization or greater integration into the world economy because they thought it served their interests. But a critical question in this year’s elections in all democracies is a reconsideration of the terms on which they engage the international system.

Globalization created winners but also losers. The loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States or premature de-industrialization in India was bound to prompt a reconsideration of globalization—and all of this was happening even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which accentuated a fear of dependency on global supply chains.

Countries are increasingly convinced that the assertion of political control over the economy—their ability to create a legitimate social contract—requires rethinking the terms of globalization. The trend is to feel more skeptical about globalization and to seek out greater self-sufficiency for national security or economic reasons. “America First” and “India First” are to a certain extent understandable, particularly in a context where China has emerged as an authoritarian competitor.

But the current moment seems like a much larger pivot in the politics of nationalism. Globalization, while seeking to advance national interests, also mitigated nationalism. It presented the global order as something other than a zero-sum game in which all countries could mutually benefit by greater integration. It was not suspicious of cosmopolitan solidarity. Increasingly, democracies are abandoning this assumption, with profound consequences for the world. Less globalization and more protectionism will inevitably translate to more nationalism—a trend that will also hurt global trade, especially for smaller countries that need the rising tide of open borders and commerce.

Each of the four features of nationalism described here—membership, memory, sovereign identity, and openness to the world—has shadowed democracy since its inception. All democracies are also facing their own profound economic challenges: inequality and wage stagnation in the United States, the crisis of employment in India, and corruption in South Africa. There is no necessary binary between economic issues and the politics of nationalism. Successful nationalist politicians such as Modi see their economic success as a means of consolidating their nationalist visions. And in times of stress, nationalism is the language through which grievance can be articulated. It is the means by which politicians give a sense of belonging and participation to the people.

Nationalism is the most potent form of identity politics. It views individuals and the rights they have through the prism of the compulsory identity to which nationalism confines them. Nationalism and liberalism have long been competing forces. It is easier to navigate the tension between them if the stakes around nationalism are lowered, not raised. Yet it is increasingly likely that in many elections in 2024, the nature of the national identities of these countries will be at stake along the four dimensions listed above. These contests could invigorate democracy. But if the recent past is any guide, the salience of nationalism in politics is more likely to pose a threat to liberal values.

Advancing forms of nationalism that do not allow their own meaning to be contested or that seek to preserve the privilege of particular groups generally produces a more divisive and polarized society. India, Israel, France, and the United States each face a version of this challenge. Issues of memory and membership are the least amenable to being resolved by simple policy deliberation. The truths they trade on are not about facts that could be a basis for a common ground. It is notorious, for example, that we often choose our histories because of our identity rather than the other way around.

Perhaps most importantly, assaults on liberal freedoms are often justified in the name of nationalism. For example, freedom of expression is most likely to discover its limits if it is seen to target a deeply cherished national myth. Every emerging populist or authoritarian leader who is willing to abridge civil liberties or pay short shrift to institutional integrity wears the mantle of nationalism. It allows such leaders to crack down on dissent by using the canard “anti-national.” In many ways, this year’s elections may well decide whether democracy can successfully negotiate the dilemmas of nationalism—or whether it will be degraded or crushed.

George L. Mosse, the great 20th-century historian of fascism, described this challenge in his inaugural lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1979: “If we do not succeed in giving nationalism a human face, a future historian might write about our civilization what Edward Gibbon wrote about the fall of the Roman Empire: that at its height moderation prevailed and citizens had respect for each other’s beliefs, but that it fell through intolerant zeal and military despotism.”

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 6 months

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Lula faces numerous challenges as Brazil assumes G20 presidency

Lula also takes over at a time of bitter internal divisions in the group, legacy of outgoing president Narendra Modi.

As Brazil takes over the G20 presidency on December 1 from India, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be challenged to fulfil his promise of holding up the interests of the global south amid two ongoing wars and a slowing global economy.

Lula also takes over at a time of bitter internal divisions within the group, the legacy of outgoing president Narendra Modi, whose team, eager to force a joint declaration, ran roughshod over diplomatic niceties in closed-door meetings.

Despite these hurdles, Lula is forging ahead and has announced Brazil’s three key priorities as head of the G20: social inclusion and the fight against hunger, phasing out fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy and reforming global economic governance.

The Group of Twenty – the G20 – is a forum for the world’s largest economies to coordinate on key issues of global policy. Between them, G20 countries represent 85 percent of global output and two-thirds of the world’s population.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #foreign policy #g20 #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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udo0stories · 2 months

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Sana Shayin, a third-year student studying international relations at King's College London, has been exposed to a lively and thought-provoking atmosphere on a regular basis. Her passions for human rights advocacy and diplomacy have grown throughout this degree. Given the current and rapidly changing political landscape of the region, she is thrilled to be a part of International Relations Today as the Editor for South and Central Asia and contribute to the academic discourse in the field. India is home to about 200 million Muslims, making it one of the world's largest Muslim populations, despite being a minority in the nation that is predominantly Hindi. Despite constitutional protections, Indian Muslims frequently experience violence, intolerance and discrimination since the country’s independence in 1947. Experts claim that anti-Muslim sentiment has surged since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014 and began promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda. The government has enacted divisive policies that opponents claim will disenfranchise millions of Muslims and blatantly disregard their rights since Modi was reelected in 2019. Since Modi assumed office, there has been a rise in violence against Muslims. The acts have sparked protests in India and drawn criticism from all around the world. According to several analysts covering India, Modi’s reelection in 2024 would probably increase religious conflict in the nation. The Demographics India is a diverse nation in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language. The majority of its Muslims, who identify as Sunnis, make up roughly 15% of the population, making them by far the largest minority group. Hindus make up about 80% of the population. Similar to the Hindu population, the Muslim population in the country is diverse, with differences in caste, ethnicity, language, and access to political and economic power. Partition's Impact on Hindu-Muslim Relations Scholars claim that the animosity between Muslims and Hindus in India stems in part from the 1947 partition of British India and the schisms that happened during the British colonial era. The British decided to abandon the subcontinent after World War II because their economy was destroyed and they could no longer maintain their empire. Before the country was divided, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian National Congress in organizing massive protests and acts of civil disobedience against the British government in an effort to gain independence. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s political organisation, the All India Muslims League, demanded a separate state for Muslims. In 1947, a British judge arbitrarily drew the boundaries between a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, which included what is now Bangladesh. The Partition resulted in widespread migrations of Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India, as well as deadly riots and horrifying intercommunal violence. Survivors remember villages burning to the rubble, dead tossed in the streets, and blood-soaked trains transporting refugees from one nation to another. Historians estimate that between 200,000 and 500,000 people died. It is unclear why groups of people who had lived together for hundreds of years fought one another. The British "divide-and-rule" policy, which gave the Muslim minority—roughly 25% of the population—some electoral advantages, has drawn criticism from some analysts. Others highlight disputes between political movements that organized followers of the Muslim and Hindu faiths. Nearly 35 million Muslims still lived in India after Partition. The Religion Factor The nation’s 75-year-old constitution upholds egalitarian values such as nondiscrimination and socioeconomic equality. The Constitution does not specifically require the separation of church and state, despite the word "secular" being added to the preamble in 1976. Congress party leaders who fought for

India’s independence promoted a country that treated all its people equally, regardless of their religious beliefs. Gandhi, who championed a unified India free from discrimination, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindi nationalist, in 1948. The first prime minister of India, Nehru, considered the greatest threat to the country as those seeking to split the country along religious lines, particularly among Hindu factions. He felt that secularism was necessary to create a harmonious society and prevent another tragedy similar to what happened after Partition. Hindu nationalists contend that since Hindus’ sacred territories are inside India, whereas Christian and Muslim holy territories are outside, Hindus are the “true sons of the soil.” Generally speaking, they support laws meant to convert India into a Hindu state. Even though the majority of Indian Muslims are sprung from Hindus who converted to Islam, many regard them as foreigners. Founded in 1980, the BJP traces its origins to the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer group. The BJP secured a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha—India’s lower house of parliament and most powerful political body—for the first time in 2014, electing party leader Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. In 2019, the party won a majority once more following a contentious campaign packed with anti-Muslim rhetoric. What type of discrimination do Indian Muslims face? Muslims have faced prejudice in the workplace, in the classroom, and in housing. Many face obstacles in their pursuit of riches, political influence, and limited access to essential services, including healthcare. Furthermore, even with constitutional protections, people frequently have difficulty obtaining justice after being the target of prejudice. Muslims’ presence in parliament has stagnated over the past 20 years; following the 2019 elections, they controlled only 5% of the seats. This is partially because of the BJP’s ascent; by the middle of 2022, the party had zero Muslim Members of Parliament. In the meantime, a 2019 report by the NGO Common Cause, situated in India, discovered that half of the police polled exhibited anti-Muslim prejudice, which decreased their likelihood of stepping in to prevent crimes against Muslims. Analysts have also noted widespread impunity for those who attack Muslims. Recently, state and national courts and government bodies have often reversed convictions or dropped prosecutions against Hindus accused of participating in violence against Muslims. States are passing more and more legislation that limits the religious freedoms of Muslims, such as laws that forbid wearing headscarves in public places and prohibit conversion. Additionally, in a move critics refer to as “bulldozer justice,” authorities have punished Muslims extrajudicially. Authorities in multiple states demolished people’s homes in 2022, claiming the buildings didn’t have the necessary permits. Critics countered that they mainly targeted Muslims, some of whom had recently taken part in demonstrations. Although the practice has persisted, India’s Supreme Court responded by ruling that demolitions “cannot be retaliatory.” What controversial policies has the Modi government imposed on Muslims? The Citizenship Amendment Act was passed by the parliament in December 2019 and signed by Modi. It permits Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan to obtain citizenship more quickly. Critics claim that because the law excludes Muslims and applies a religious standard to citizenship for the first time, it is discriminatory. The Modi government claims that the law was made to protect these three countries' mostly Muslim vulnerable religious minorities from persecution. Simultaneously, the BJP pledged to finish the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in its 2019 election manifesto. The NRC was created in the 1950s

specifically for the state of Assam in order to determine whether the residents of that state were immigrants from what is now Bangladesh's neighbor or Indian citizens. The Assam government revised its registry in 2019, leaving out about two million Bengali Hindus and Muslims. Assume that this process is implemented across the nation. Critics contend that in that scenario, a sizable Muslim population might become stateless because they lack the necessary documentation and are not qualified for the Citizenship Amendment Act's expedited citizenship process. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in India, has seen its political stature eroded under Modi. The state, located in the mountainous border region under dispute with Pakistan, was divided into two parts and its special constitutional authority was taken away by the government in August 2019. Since then, Indian authorities have repressed the people’s rights in the area, frequently in the name of preserving security. In 2021, they detained well-known political figures and activists, harassed and arrested journalists, and shut down the internet 85 times. The government maintains that security has improved, yet since the division, armed groups have killed dozens of civilians. In December 2023, the Supreme Court, upholding the government’s decision, ruled that the territory should regain statehood in time for local elections the following year. "Muslims' status will change more the longer Hindu nationalists are in power, and it will be harder to reverse such changes," says Ashutosh Varshney, a Brown University expert on Indian intercommunal conflict. Maintaining India's Secularism Although there is an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment among Hindus, experts say it is wrong to assume that all Hindus and BJP supporters are against Muslims. Muslims and Hindus have resisted the BJP's attempts to weaken secularism in India in the form of activists, law scholars, and students. For instance, following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, some state chief ministers declared they would not carry out the law, and about 2,000 academics and professionals signed a declaration condemning it for violating the spirit of the Constitution. Global Reactions Numerous foreign governments and international organizations have denounced the BJP's discriminatory policies towards Muslims, highlighting specific concerns with the Citizenship Amendment Act, the BJP's actions in Kashmir, and anti-Muslim rhetoric. The UN human rights office described the Citizenship Amendment Act as “fundamentally discriminatory.” Iran, Kuwait, and Qatar were among the Muslim-majority countries to file formal complaints against India in 2022 over public officials’ Islamophobic remarks. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), comprising fifty-seven member states, has demanded that India cease the “systematic practices against Indian Muslims” and the “growing spate of hatred and defamation of Islam.” Nevertheless, Modi has succeeded in deepening India’s relations with the Gulf countries dominated by Muslims, including the United Arab Emirates, where he presided over an event for Indian expats and dedicated a brand-new Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi. Since they have strengthened ties with India, successive U.S. administrations have been hesitant to denounce the country’s atrocities openly. For instance, in February 2020, President Donald Trump visited India and complimented Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his support for religious liberty while remaining silent on the violence that had broken out in Delhi. Instead of openly criticizing the BJP government or Modi, the Joe Biden administration has opted to strengthen the strategic partnership between India and the United States. It is believed that Biden has privately voiced concerns about human rights. India, however, received its lowest ranking of “country of particular concern” in the 2020 report from the independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom—a designation it has held since 2004.

The most recent reports have upheld that classification and pushed for the US government to impose sanctions on Indian officials who are accountable for mistreatment. Some members of Congress have also expressed concerns.

#Politics #community #increasingly #Indian #marginalized #Muslims

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indizombie · 1 year

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During the decades that followed independence, when India liberalized its economy and companies needed government permission to raise capital or expand operations, Indian businesses competed while figuring out how to master a byzantine bureaucracy. Then, there were strict limits on private businesses: about whether they could lay off employees or which sectors they could invest in, for example. But in 1991, then-Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and then-Finance Minister Manmohan Singh launched economic reforms that allowed Indian businesses to begin to flex their muscles. If the old Gujarat model made businesses succeed by keeping them away from the government’s tentacles, the version embraced by Modi and Adani now blurs the lines between the state and the private sector.

Salil Tripathi, ‘Gautam Adani and the New Indian Capitalism’, Foreign Policy

#Foreign Policy #Salil Tripathi #Gautam Adani #India #PV Narasimha Rao #Manmohan Singh #Gujarat model #Narendra Modi

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collapsedsquid · 2 years

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The post-fascism piece was a bit vague on the question of “How US-centric is this analysis“ because I am a bit vague on this question, French and German far-right don’t have the same intellectual antecedents as US anarcho-capitalism but seem headed in the same direction, this is why I attempted that “materialist” analysis about post-industrial post-modernity.

But Bolsonaro, Duterte, Modi, and Erdogan are all people who seem to be similar but do not lead post-industrial economies, they are “middle-income” countries. The framework under which I fit them into this analysis is to say that Bolsonaro and Duterte have basically given up on mass industrialization, they do not aspire to it. One quip that I wish I could credit to myself is to say that if someone proposed the economic policies of the Brazilian dictatorship to Bolsonaro he would call them a communist. Duterte I know even less about but I’m going to say he’s in the same situation. Modi and Erdogan though, I would say are not post-nationalist, they remain solid nationalists, they seek still seek national power in the old-fashioned sense.

There were a few digressions I cut or almost started on that post-fascism piece but I thought I’d throw this out there.

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signode-blog · 14 days

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A Turning Point in India's Economic Landscape: How the Financial Markets Reacted to the 2014 Lok Sabha Election Results

The 2014 Lok Sabha elections in India marked a watershed moment in the country’s political and economic history. For the first time in 30 years, a single party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), secured a clear majority in the Indian Parliament, paving the way for Narendra Modi to become the Prime Minister. This political shift had profound implications for the Indian financial markets,…

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wordexpress · 2 years

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Nirmala Sitharaman's prediction for India's economy as IMF cuts global growth

Nirmala Sitharaman said growth will be among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi government and attention will be paid to sustaining the momentum that the Indian economy has got coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, on Tuesday forecasted India’s growth rate to be around 7 per cent this financial year.

Sitharaman said growth will be among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi government and attention will be paid to sustaining the momentum that the Indian economy has got coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her statement comes even as the IMF, in its latest projection, predicted India’s GDP growth to be 6.8 per cent — down from a January projection of 8.2 per cent and in July estimate of 7.4 per cent. However, despite the slowdown, India would remain the fastest-growing major economy.

The IMF said on Tuesday global growth is expected to slow further next year, downgrading its forecasts as countries grapple with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spiraling cost-of-living and economic downturns.

The world economy has been dealt multiple blows, with the war in Ukraine driving up food and energy prices following the coronavirus outbreak, while soaring costs and rising interest rates threaten to reverberate around the globe.

“I am aware that growth forecasts around the world are being revised lower. We expect India’s growth rate to be around 7 per cent this financial year. More importantly, I am confident of India’s relative and absolute growth performance in the rest of the decade,” she said addressing a gathering in Washington.

Sitharaman, however, observed that the Indian economy is not exempt from the impact of the world economy. “No economy is,” she said.

“After the unprecedented shock of the pandemic, came the conflict in Europe with its implications for energy, fertiliser and food prices. Now, synchronised global monetary policy is tightening in its wake. So, naturally, growth projections have been revised lower for many countries, including India. This triple shock has made growth and inflation a double-edged sword,” Sitharaman said.

After the Russia-Ukraine conflict started in February 2022, there was a sharp increase in food and energy prices. India had to ensure that the rising cost of living did not lead to lower consumption through erosion of purchasing power.

“We addressed these multiple and complex challenges through a variety of interventions. One, India ramped up its vaccine production and vaccination. India has administered over 2 billion doses of vaccine produced domestically. Two, India’s digital infrastructure ensured the delivery of targeted relief Third, in 2022, after the conflict erupted in Europe, we ensured adequate availability of food and fuel domestically, lowered import duties on edible oil and cut excise duties on petrol and diesel. The central bank has acted swiftly to ensure that inflation did not get out of hand and that currency depreciation was neither rapid nor significant enough to lead to a loss of confidence,” the minister said.

Sitharaman said India is discussing with different countries to make Rupay acceptable in their nations.

“Not just that, the UPI (Unified Payments Interface), the BHIM app, and NCPI (the National Payments Corporation of India) are all now being worked in such a way that their systems in their respective country, however, robust or otherwise can talk to our system and the inter-operability itself will give strength for Indians expertise in those countries,” she said.

#Nirmala Sitharaman #Indian Economy #India Gdp

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zvaigzdelasas · 1 year

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India received an enthusiastic welcome on Monday when he arrived in Port Moresby for the first visit by an Indian head of government and to meet with 14 visiting leaders of the Pacific Island Forum countries and territories. Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape stooped to touch Modi’s feet on arrival, welcoming him as the “leader of the Global South”.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken also visited Port Moresby at the start of the week. Blinken was standing in for US President Joe Biden, whose much-anticipated stopover in the country was cancelled, along with his planned subsequent visit to Australia, because of the crisis in the US Congress over the federal debt ceiling. Blinken signed two important agreements with Papua New Guinea during his visit: a Defence Cooperation Agreement and an Agreement Concerning Counter Illicit Transnational Maritime Activity Operations.[...]

These two visits were only part of a broader, substantial uptick in external engagement in Papua New Guinea. In April, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited the country, signing a defence framework agreement. It’s understood Indonesian President Joko Widodo will be there in June.

France has also recently signed a status of forces agreement with Papua New Guinea. Meanwhile, Australia is negotiating a security treaty that is expected to substantially upgrade its longstanding defence cooperation agreement.[...]

This activity all reflects the increasing importance of the Pacific Island countries in the strategic calculations of the democratic powers amid growing Chinese influence and heightened US-China tensions in the region. This is particularly true of Papua New Guinea. It’s the largest nation in the region by far, located only a few kilometres from Australia, near the intersection point between Asia and the Pacific.[...]

The updated defence arrangements between Papua New Guinea and the United States, combined with the now-established pattern of senior US-Pacific political dialogue, recent growth in regional US development support and the upgrading of its regional diplomatic network, provide some corroboration that a long-promised American recommitment to the Pacific is finally under way.

The text of the Defence Cooperation Agreement will not be officially released until it is formally adopted into US law. However, the signatories have indicated that it updates an old status of forces agreement and aims to strengthen Papua New Guinea Defence Force capabilities, including in humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and will allow for increased joint military training.

A draft leaked to the local media before the Blinken visit suggested the US might have substantial access to Papua New Guinea facilities.

Students at several Papua New Guinea universities protested against what they saw as a lack of transparency about the defence agreement. They expressed fears it compromised the country’s independence by bringing it more firmly into the US sphere of control. Some opposition political figures spoke of the risk of angering China and thus inviting potentially harmful repercussions for Papua New Guinea’s economic security.

But Marape and his government stood their ground. Marape argued the agreement had “nothing to do with China” and Papua New Guinea’s sovereignty remained intact. He also pointed to his government’s “healthy” relationship with Beijing and China’s status as an important trading partner for Papua New Guinea. He has firmly rejected accusations that the arrangements for visiting US military personnel would violate Papua New Guinea law.[...]

Papua New Guinea will nonetheless remain committed to its “friends to all, enemies to none” foreign policy approach. It will continue to leverage its growing array of relationships for its economic development.[...]

While Chinese investment and development support for Papua New Guinea actually remains very limited compared to that of Australia, it looms large as a trading partner. Chinese state-owned enterprises are now heavily engaged in Papua New Guinea, particularly its construction sector.

27 May 23

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mariacallous · 6 months

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India’s Middle East policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is often seen as both successful and perplexing. The governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to which Modi belongs, has a nationalist Hindu-right bent, and yet India’s outreach toward the Persian Gulf region under the current government, particularly to the Arab world, has been a defining success over the past decade.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the latter’s audacious strike on Oct. 7, has brought under the spotlight New Delhi’s diplomatic balance between a “new” Middle East and its traditional support for the “old.” The new is defined by New Delhi’s increasingly close proximity to the security ecosystem of the United States, while the old is highlighted by a visible shift away from the idea of nonalignment. India’s participation in new tools of economic diplomacy—such as the I2U2 minilateral between India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States, as well as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) announced on sidelines of the G-20 summit in September—are evidence of these not-so-subtle changes in posture, led by a burgeoning consensus between New Delhi and Washington to push back against an increasingly aggressive China.

India has been a steadfast supporter of the Palestinian cause since its independence, viewing the crisis through moral support for Palestinian sovereignty and as an anti-colonial struggle. In 1975, India became the first non-Arab state to grant full diplomatic status to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its then-chief, Yasser Arafat, regularly visited New Delhi. That relationship has become more complicated.

Last month, Modi condemned Hamas terrorism just weeks before the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami in the southern state of Kerala, which has close ties with the Gulf, hosted a virtual talk by former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal—showcasing the wide range of views that have long existed within India.

After decades of leaning toward the Arab world, in 1992, then-Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao established full diplomatic ties with Israel. This was done at a time of great change in the across the subcontinent, marked by the country’s economic liberalization following years of crisis. However, Israel was quietly building a strong foundation for this eventuality over the previous decades, supplying India with military aid in two crucial wars that it fought against Pakistan in 1971, before normalization, and then again in 1999, after full diplomatic ties were established.

This normalization forced India to perform a balancing act between three poles of power in the region: the Arab world, Israel, and Iran. All three remain important to Indian interests. The larger Arab world hosts more than 7 million Indian workers, who send back billions of dollars into the Indian economy as remittances; Israel remains a critical technology and defense partner; and Iran’s strategic location helps promote Indian interests in both Central Asia and a now much more volatile Afghanistan under a Taliban regime.

Fast-forward to 2023, and Indian foreign policy toward the region increasingly looks more pragmatic in design, balancing opportunities and challenges in an increasingly fractured global order, or what scholars Michael Kimmage and Hannah Notte have aptly termed “the age of great-power distraction.” As India’s economy rapidly grows, setting its sights on becoming the third largest in the world by 2030, so does its desire for influence. And the Middle East, from a foreign-policy perspective, is where a lot of this influence is being tested.

A recent spat between India and Qatar offers an interesting example for managing inflection points. In October, Doha announced a verdict of death sentences for eight former Indian Navy officials who were working for a private contractor involved with Qatar’s defense modernization. They were charged, according to reports, of spying on behalf of Israel. Since then, New Delhi has responded legally, appealing the Qatari court’s verdict while both countries continue to keep the judicial verdict confidential.

This is not the first time New Delhi has become embroiled in the regional fissures of the Middle East. In 2012 and 2021, Israeli diplomats were targeted in bombings in the capital, and in both cases, India hinted at Iranian involvement and having to delicately manage the situation behind closed doors—effectively telling Iran and Israel not to let their conflict spread to Indian soil.

Today, India is becoming more of an economic stakeholder in the Middle East, and by association, its security postures. This is not just the result of New Delhi’s reoriented foreign policy designs, but also depends on the personal involvement of Modi himself.

In 2017, Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel. Considering his brand of politics, he also visited Ramallah in the West Bank in 2018 to maintain India’s diplomatic consistency. He hosted Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2019 at the height of the Jamal Khashoggi murder scandal, when the Saudis were not welcome in most capitals. And finally, Modi has visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) five times since taking charge in 2015, and is often found referring to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as “brother.”

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Modi has talked to six regional leaders to put India’s position across, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The Modi government has attempted to walk a fine line between Israel’s counterterrorism aims against Hamas and the Palestinian humanitarian crisis. Countering terrorism has been an important tool for Modi’s international diplomacy, coming from India’s efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally for its state-sponsored terrorism.

But Indian diplomacy in the Gulf also has another objective: strengthening India’s position on Kashmir, which defines the India-Pakistan conflict, and weakening Islamabad’s case within organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). In February 2019, India’s then-Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj became the first Indian minister to be invited to speak at the organization since 1969, an event hailed as a major victory of Indian diplomacy; Pakistan was represented by an empty chair during Swaraj’s speech.

New Delhi’s other expanding relationship has been with the United States. In Asia, the institutionalization of mechanisms such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has brought Washington and New Delhi closer than ever before as both look to work together to counter an increasingly erratic China. India’s buy-in with the United States has not been just about the Asian theater, but the Middle East as well, with measures such as the I2U2 and IMEEC taking shape.

However, India’s own domestic politics have often also presented a challenge. In 2022, comments made by a BJP spokesperson against the Prophet Mohammed invoked widespread condemnation by Islamic nations, including those building close partnerships with India. Previously, in private, Anti-Muslim narratives in Indian domestic politics have been an area of discussion between Arab states and New Delhi. During this period, India has also pushed back against reports by the U.S. State Department on what the department described as the country’s deteriorating religious freedoms, criticizing them as “biased.” Despite these differences, strategic cooperation has remained steadfast.

The establishment of I2U2 was a direct result of the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2021. Both Israel and the UAE have been quick to establish a strong economic bilateral relationship since then. The accords have also helped countries such as India to increase economic and political cooperation with greater ease.

It is important to note here that while the I2U2 is seen as an economic cooperation platform, all member states, have taken part in expansive military maneuvers in the region in some shape or form. And this includes India, where all three services of its armed forces, the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, have increased their outreach and participation.

Beyond the I2U2, the announcement of the IMEEC is New Delhi’s latest sign of alignment with U.S. geoeconomic objectives. Already positioned by some as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the idea is to connect the Middle East with Europe and India through a trade corridor that can rival the centrality of the Suez Canal.

But countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, central to IMEEC, are also members of the Belt and Road Initiative and have interest in developing close partnerships with Beijing. Propaganda outlets of the Chinese Communist Party have already labeled IMEEC as a mere “castle in the air” The European Union, the United States, and India alike have marketed the corridor as the next intracontinental highway for digital and economic connectivity. However, IMEEC is in nascent stages of development, and no blueprint is currently on offer on how it is going to function.

These new economic highways, minilaterals, and reoriented geopolitics are transforming Indian foreign policy from one that has always been risk-averse to one that is willing to be a little more adventurous. Today, India is much closer to the United States than it has been at any point in its independent history.

Between its increasingly West-centric defense and technology shopping list—a historical break away from having a predominantly Soviet-era military ecosystem that continues to rely on Russian know-how even today—and the India-U.S. 2+2 dialogues regularly setting new precedents, it is not that surprising to see India partner with the United States in theaters such as the Middle East, where the Abraham Accords have leveled the playing field in a limited fashion between Israel, the United States, and a part of the Arab world.

Simultaneously, a counterargument against deeper U.S. collaboration from India also comes from the time that India helped the United States with the Iran nuclear deal prior to its unceremonious end in 2018. New Delhi had let go of significant diplomatic access to align with U.S. requirements by ending nearly all oil imports from Iran, which has vast reserves, offers good deals, and is geographically conveniently located. This fed into the then-U.S. policy of strong sanctions against Tehran to push it to negotiate with the U.N. Security Council’s group of permanent members. Experiences such as the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal continue to fuel a strong undercurrent of distrust toward Washington in Indian political circles.

India’s own position of upholding its strategic autonomy and self-styled leadership of the global south may find it often at odds with its strategic role in the Middle East as a partner of the United States. One of India’s longest-serving successes in this region has been its embrace of nonalignment. The fact that the I2U2 was almost immediately identified by some observers as the Middle East Quad gave it a texture of being an extension of a core U.S. interest—that of containing China. While India has never officially used such terminology, these portrayals in the media were detrimental to the kind of neutrality that New Delhi still hopes to preserve.

Finally, India’s outlook toward the Middle East is looking beyond the traditional centrality of energy and migration. Today, from the beginning, it wants to be a partner in the region’s post-oil growth designs. Indian diplomats in the region, earlier almost exclusively bogged down with migrant matters, are now tasked to secure foreign direct investments from the large Arab sovereign wealth funds. Modi’s majority government, in power since 2015, has been palatable to Arab monarchs who do not have to navigate a labyrinth of India’s coalition politics looking for fast decision-making, which they are accustomed to.

Whether its own leaders like it or not, India has bought into aspects of future security architectures with its membership of the I2U2 and IMEEC in one of the world’s most flammable regions. This is a bold and commendable posture for an economy that will require significant global input for its challenging future economic goals. It is also palatable for the Middle East to have India as a major energy market to diversify its exports and offset Chinese influence over critical commodities such as oil and gas.

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 8 months

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Lula Might Already Be Torpedoing Brazil’s G-20 Leadership

The recent G-20 Summit in India ended with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi handing the organization’s symbolic gavel of leadership to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Brazil doesn’t officially take charge of the G-20 until December, and Modi has floated the idea of one last virtual meeting among the member states in November while India still controls the agenda. But Lula still used the moment to announce Brazil’s plans for its year at the helm of the group.

Lula’s key focus for Brazil’s G-20 presidency will be ending global hunger by 2030. To do so, he wants to reform multilateral banks and the International Monetary Fund so that they focus on reducing debt burdens in lower-income countries, where money that could go to feeding the population currently goes to servicing debt instead. In addition to a G-20 task force on ending hunger and poverty, he also plans to stand up a second one focused on combating climate change.

That proposed agenda is Lula at his best, highlighting his own personal trajectory as the president who grew up poor, never finished high school, was injured in a manufacturing accident, led union protests and spent time in prison as a pro-democracy protester under Brazil’s dictatorship. He subsequently lived up to that background when he first became president in 2003 by lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty with the help of some innovative cash-transfer social programs.

Now he wants to take that agenda global. And though his rhetoric can grow heated when railing against multilateral finance, that doesn’t diminish the fact that Lula is a pragmatic negotiator when it comes to developing and implementing policies. That pragmatism is what led him to implement a pro-growth economic agenda in his first two terms as president from 2003 to 2010 and to adopt a similar approach when he returned to office this year.

Unfortunately, Lula’s other comments at the G-20 Summit ensured that nobody paid attention to or cared about his agenda for the coming year. Dismayed by the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi, Lula said that he would make sure that geopolitics did not get in the way of next year’s event. He went so far as to promise that Putin—who avoided the G-20 Summit as well as last month’s BRICS Summit in South Africa due to an outstanding warrant by the International Criminal Court over his war crimes in Ukraine—would be able to travel to Brazil next year without the threat of arrest. After the immediate and predictable backlash, Lula was subsequently forced to backtrack, claiming that he didn’t know what the ICC was and had no idea that the arrest warrant might be enforceable in Brazil, which is a signatory to the court’s founding treaty and therefore obligated to comply with its rulings.

Whether or not Lula was aware of the ICC issue, he knows that Brazil’s courts are famously independent and confrontational from personal experience. They jailed Lula himself just a few years ago on corruption charges, and they are currently targeting his predecessor, former President Jair Bolsonaro, in a case in which Lula cannot interfere. Put simply, Lula can’t control the court system the way authoritarian leaders can, and he knows it. For him to promise that Putin wouldn’t be arrested in Brazil wasn’t just an insult to international law, but also a clearly false statement about Brazil’s democracy and separation of powers.

#brazil #politics #luiz inacio lula da silva #brazilian politics #foreign policy #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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atomxmedia · 6 days

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Actively encourage wealth creation, startups; committed to provide right environment for them to flourish, says PM Modi

Encouraging Startup Growth

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reaffirmed his government’s commitment to fostering an environment conducive to startup growth and wealth creation in India. He emphasized the importance of providing the right ecosystem for startups to thrive and contribute to the nation’s economic progress. Modi’s remarks come in response to accolades from prominent figures in India’s startup ecosystem, highlighting the positive impact of government initiatives on entrepreneurship and innovation.

Supporting Entrepreneurial Spirit

Prime Minister Modi praised the entrepreneurial endeavors of people such as Varun Alagh, co-founder of Mamaearth, and Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato, in a series of postings on the social media site X. Coming from a modest background himself, Goyal acknowledged that government efforts allowed him to turn Zomato into a profitable business that employs thousands of people. Alagh further commended the Modi government for building a conducive environment that enables middle-class entrepreneurs to fulfill their aspirations.

Recognition from Startup Leaders

At a recent gathering chaired by Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, startup executives praised the Modi government’s initiatives to foster technology innovation and entrepreneurship. Prominent individuals such as Abhiraj Singh Bhal from Urban Company and Rohan Verma from MapMyIndia have expressed their appreciation for government programs like Startup India and the unblocking of vital industries like space and geospatial technology. They emphasized how proactive policies might generate chances for growth and innovation.

India’s Progress in Strategic Sectors

Modi also praised India’s space industry achievements, which have won praise from all across the world. He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to revolutionizing vital industries like geospatial technology and space, creating fresh chances for advancement and creativity. India is becoming a leading innovator in aerospace and allied industries thanks to the opening up of important sectors like space and military.

Creating Opportunities in Manufacturing

Dixon Technologies Chairman Sunil Vachani praised India’s shift from importing to manufacturing billion-dollar electrical items. He attributed this change to government initiatives, most notably the “Make in India” campaign. Vachani emphasized the tremendous advancements made in industries like LED lights and televisions, where domestic value addition is as high as 75%, while noting the need for higher value addition in manufacturing.

#startup #funding #governmen

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buglecourier · 6 days

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PM Modi Champions Startups and Wealth Creation: A Commitment to Growth

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently emphasized his government’s dedication to encouraging startups and wealth creation in India. Responding to praise from various startup founders and business leaders, Modi highlighted the supportive environment the Bharatiya Janata Party-led administration is fostering for entrepreneurship and innovation.

Praise from Industry Leaders

In a series of posts on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Modi responded to comments made by top executives from companies like Zomato, Urban Company, Mamaearth, and MapMyIndia at an event hosted by Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. The event also saw the participation of Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, where leaders in the startup ecosystem commended the government’s efforts in promoting technological innovation and manufacturing.

Encouraging Entrepreneurship

Highlighting the story of Zomato’s founder, Deepinder Goyal, Modi praised his journey from a small-town background to creating a successful business. “In today’s India, one’s surname doesn’t matter. What matters is hard work,” Modi posted. Goyal had previously remarked that despite initial doubts, the government’s initiatives allowed him to build Zomato, which now employs thousands.

Similarly, Modi applauded Mamaearth founder Varun Alagh, who, along with his wife, built their company from scratch with government support. “Keep up the great work and continue to inspire others with your success, Varun! Our government actively encourages startups and wealth creation,” Modi wrote.

Support for Homegrown Talent

Urban Company’s founder, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, praised the government’s role in helping build a skilled workforce and supporting the Startup India initiative. In response, Modi acknowledged the impact of the initiative on fostering innovation and growth.

Unlocking Strategic Sectors

MapMyIndia CEO Rohan Verma highlighted the government’s efforts in opening up strategic sectors like space, geospatial, and defense. Modi responded by emphasizing the global recognition of India’s strides in the space sector and the government’s commitment to transforming these crucial areas.

Venture capital leader Rajan Anandan also praised the opening of strategic sectors, noting the spurred innovation in aerospace, space, and defense. Modi responded by affirming the government’s support for innovators and wealth creators.

Boosting Manufacturing

Sunil Vachani, Chairman of Dixon Technologies, praised the government’s policies for transforming India’s electronics and mobile phone industry. He highlighted the shift from importing to producing $100 billion worth of electronic products, with significant contributions to exports. Modi agreed, noting the remarkable transformation and proactive steps taken in recent years.

Conclusion

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s responses reflect a strong commitment to creating an environment where startups and wealth creation can thrive. The government’s efforts in supporting innovation, unlocking strategic sectors, and boosting manufacturing are paving the way for India’s economic growth and global recognition.

#PM Modi #Startups #Wealth Creation #Indian Economy #Entrepreneurship

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