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Rishi Sunak hopes AI could be his legacy

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NEW DELHI — With the clock likely ticking on his time in Downing Street, Rishi Sunak wants to secure a legacy on the world stage. The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be just what he needs.

The British prime minister faces a general election next year with his Conservative Party languishing 18 points behind the Labour opposition in the polls.

But though Sunak told reporters travelling with him to the G20 leaders’ summit in India this weekend he was “entirely confident” he can still win re-election, U.K. government insiders say the PM already has one eye on his possible post-Downing Street legacy.

Sunak takes pride in how he has helped repair the U.K.’s diplomatic standing after the rancour of Boris Johnson’s premiership and Liz Truss’ brief but disastrous stint in power. He sees the Windsor Framework — the agreement on post-Brexit trade checks in Ireland which markedly improved U.K. relations with the EU and the U.S. — as his signature achievement so far.

Now the bigger prize in Sunak’s sights is the opportunity to position the U.K. as the leading authority on the governance of AI.

“He sees it as one of his long-term legacy pieces,” one government adviser told POLITICO. “Shaping the world’s response to a paradigm-shifting technology would be a big deal — and it would be recognized as a big deal.” A second government official said Sunak “never misses a chance” to bring up AI.

There are several existing international forums for governments to discuss AI regulation, including a G7 process and the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council. Sunak’s challenge is to convince countries to take the U.K. seriously as a place to bring existing initiatives together and fold in unrepresented countries. And that will require some skillful diplomacy.

From G20 to AI summit

Sunak used conversations with other world leaders at the G20 to drum up interest in his landmark AI safety summit, which is taking place in the U.K. in November. The invitation list has yet to be made public, but is expected to include a range of countries including China.

The prime minister told POLITICO en route to New Delhi: “So far, the response we’ve had has been really positive, people are really keen to participate and they recognize that the U.K. can play a leadership role in AI.”

At a technology-focused session of the summit on Sunday the PM made comments on the need to develop AI responsibly. He praised India for “bringing AI to the top of the agenda at the G20” and said that there was “an opportunity for human progress that could surpass the industrial revolution in both speed and breadth.”

He told leaders that first and foremost, the development of AI had to be done safely to manage risks. “This requires international cooperation,” he said. “The U.K. will be hosting the first ever international AI Safety Summit in November to help drive this forward.”

Sunak added that the technology must also be developed securely “to protect the digital economy from malevolent actors and states” and fairly to “ensure inclusivity.”

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“Getting this right is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities of our age,” Sunak said. “Let’s work together to make sure we all benefit.”

Lacking luster

But to make Sunak’s summit a success — and help secure his legacy — he will be reliant on the buy-in and active participation of fellow world leaders.

Despite Sunak congratulating his host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a successful summit, the G20 was noteworthy for the absence of powerful figures including China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Sunak will be hoping to avoid similar ‘no shows’ at his AI summit. He has already been dealt a blow with news last month that U.S. President Joe Biden will not be attending.

Key European leaders have also failed to confirm their attendance. In comments to POLITICO, one French official questioned the need for U.K. mediation, given alternative international avenues for discussing AI.

Sunak’s experience at the G20 also demonstrates the difficulties of choreographing the good optics and effective diplomacy required for a successful summit.

Predictions from U.K. government figures that Sunak would be mobbed by the adoring public did not materialize in a locked-down New Delhi where there were few people on the streets.

There were also hiccups in Sunak’s summit agenda. He had been due to meet Modi at his house on Friday but that was replaced with a 20-minute meeting on the margins of the summit on Saturday. On Friday night Modi hosted President Biden for dinner instead. The two leaders held talks for about an hour.

A planned business reception for Sunak on Friday at the British High Commission was also cancelled, because of transport issues. Sunak’s spokesperson said rescheduling was “part and parcel” of any summit.

Things did improve over the weekend for the British PM. Modi and Sunak were filmed bear-hugging each other when they met. According to the U.K. government’s readout, Modi “noted the warm reception” Sunak had had in India, and the pair had agreed to continue moving towards a free trade agreement “at pace.”

The Indian government said Modi has now formally invited Sunak for a bilateral visit, after POLITICO reported that U.K. officials were already drawing up plans for a possible return trip for Sunak later this year.

Additional reporting by Vincent Manancourt.

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Eleni Courea

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September 7, 2023
Who are the G20’s bad guys now?

NEW DELHI — When world leaders gather at the G20 summit on Saturday morning, the smiles may be more awkward than usual.

While China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin won’t be there, a B-list of strongmen with their own damning human rights records will be ready to embarrass the leaders of Western democracy with some stiff handshakes and fixed grins.

Some of these international bad guys also have played an increasingly assertive role in negotiations on the Ukraine war — interventions welcomed by the Ukrainian government. However unsavory their domestic records may be, that means they can’t be ignored.

Take Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. According to U.S. intelligence, he approved the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But last month, he hosted a multinational meeting in Jeddah aimed at kick-starting peace talks. He’s also staying on after the G20 for a state visit in India.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has locked up thousands of political opponents and stifled media freedom, met Putin just this week in an effort to unblock grain shipments through the Red Sea.

One official involved in preparations for the summit in Delhi this week joked that the optics will be challenging. “No one wants that photo-op with MBS, let’s face it,” the official said.

But overall, Western diplomats are unapologetic about engaging with the bad boys of the G20 — reflecting a growing realization in Western capitals the battle to win minds on the Ukraine war is not working and needs buy-in from the countries beyond the affluent capitals of Europe and North America.

“I’m not here to issue scorecards,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked this week if President Biden was relaying U.S. concerns about Narendra Modi’s record on religious and press freedoms during his multiple meetings with the Indian leader.

Biden is expected to hold a meeting with MBS, with whom he shared an infamous fist-bump last year, a sign to many that all had been forgiven.

One European official involved in the preparations praised India for its work behind the scenes in trying to get consensus on an agreement rather than settling on different positions.

“If they succeed, it shows that the G20 has a future,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to speak openly due to the sensitive nature of the matter.

Ukraine remained the most divisive issue for G20 diplomats trying to hammer out a summit communique, with negotiations continuing late into Friday night.

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to hold a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman | Pool photo by Madel Ngan via AFP/Getty Images

G7 countries — and the EU — are demanding that the principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter on territorial integrity and national sovereignty are reflected in the language.

Also weighing on minds is the global economy. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz touches down in Delhi just as economic figures showed that industrial production in Europe’s economic powerhouse nose-dived again in July.

China is battling a slowing economy and a real-estate crisis. But it’s countries like India that are witnessing the kind of accelerated growth levels that suggest it is on the up.

In New Delhi, giant posters of a smiling Modi, India’s prime minister, speckle the routes downtown.

This is India’s moment in the sun. Modi’s government has used its stint in the chair to show it can play a more assertive role in the global order.

India’s self-confidence as it hosts the global shindig signals a deeper geopolitical shift.

Three western officials with direct knowledge of the summit preparations said Brazil and South Africa, in particular, were playing a key role behind the scenes in coordination with India to get consensus on a final summit declaration, the holy grail of gatherings such as this.

Suzanne Lynch

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September 7, 2023
India’s consumer market set to become the world’s third largest by 2027, behind the U.S. and China

People check Apple Macbook laptops at the new Apple Inc. store in New Delhi, India on April 20, 2023.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

India’s consumer market is set to become the world’s third largest by 2027 as the number of middle to high-income households rise, according to a report by BMI.

The country currently ranks fifth, but the Fitch Solutions company predicts a 29% increase in real household spending will push India up two spots.

In fact, the report forecast that the growth in India’s household spending per capita will outpace that of other developing Asian economies like Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand at 7.8% year-on-year.

“Overall, the gap between total household spending across ASEAN and India will also almost triple,” the report said.

BMI estimates India’s household spending will exceed $3 trillion as disposable income rises by a compounded 14.6% annually until 2027. By then, a projected 25.8% of Indian households will reach $10,000 in annual disposable income.

“The majority of these households will be located in the economic centres, such as New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The wealthier households are mainly located in urban areas, making it easy for retailers to target their key target markets,” BMI said.

Growing young population

India’s large youth population is also a driving force for increased consumer spending.

Approximately 33% of the country’s population is estimated to be between 20 and 33 years old, and BMI expects this group to spend big on electronics.

The report predicts communications spending will grow by an average of 11.1% annually to $76.2 billion by 2027 due to a “technology-literate, urban middle class with increasing amounts of disposable income that would encourage expenditure on aspirational products such as consumer electronics.”

The country’s ongoing urbanization will also help boost consumer spending as companies can more easily access consumers and open more physical retail stores to cater to them.

In April, Apple opened two retail stores in Delhi and Mumbai. Samsung announced in the same month that it will set up 15 premium experience stores across India by the end of the year in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

BMI also noted that global investors such as Blackstone Group and APG Asset Management have injected more money into the country’s shopping mall business to capitalize on consumer spending growth.

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September 6, 2023
India’s G20 presidency risks ringing hollow as Ukraine war dashes hopes of consensus

US President Joe Biden, right, and Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, at an arrival ceremony during a state visit on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, June 22, 2023.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned the normally sedate rotating presidency of the Group of 20 nations into a branding vehicle to burnish India’s geopolitical importance — underscoring India’s emergence as a key voice on the world stage.

The country’s diplomats now face a race against time to broker tangible multilateral outcomes at this weekend’s G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi that will mark the end of India’s year-long presidency of the bloc of leading industrialized and developing economies.

India has so far not been able to foster consensus for a joint communique from the previous G20 meetings in other major tracks that it has convened. Member states haven’t been able to agree on binding action due largely to Russia’s and China’s objections to the language referring to the Ukraine crisis.

In a banner year for Indian diplomacy that also saw the world’s most populous nation take on the rotating presidency of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, India risks having little to show for its efforts that may in turn undercut the country’s credibility and Modi’s domestic messaging.

One of the risks is that by elevating India’s presidency of the G20 so much, there are now expectations for India to deliver some concrete breakthroughs.

Manjari Chatterjee Miller

Council on Foreign Relations

“What is different about India’s presidency of the G20 and what I’m amazed by is how the Modi government has turned the G20 into a nonstop advertisement for both India and his leadership,” said Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.

“One of the risks is that by elevating India’s presidency of the G20 so much, there are now expectations for India to deliver some concrete breakthroughs,” she told CNBC in an email. “India has been trying to use the G20 to bring the Global South together and offer itself as a bridge between the Global South and the West. But there remains the problem of Russia and China.”

With Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping sitting out the Sept. 9-10 meeting, the prospect for any real breakthrough appears dim.

Putin has not been known to have traveled out of Russia since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March against him and his allies for war crimes in Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine impasse

Indeed, the specter of Russia’s Ukraine invasion has loomed large over G20 meetings for the various tracks that India has convened.

India had hoped to forge consensus on a range of issues from a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies to the resolution of crippling debt issues for developing countries.

Other areas include reforms in multilateral banks as part of its agenda to foster progress on sustainable development, as well as the admission of the African Union as a member of the G20.

Despite its neutral position on the Ukraine crisis, New Delhi has not been able to broker a single joint statement in any of the key discussion tracks since India took over the G20 presidency in December 2022. Instead, it has only managed non-binding chair’s summary and outcome documents.

In fact, Russia disassociated itself from the status of the outcome document in a June meeting on development issues in Varanasi, due to references to the Ukraine war. China said the meeting outcome should not include any reference to the Ukraine crisis.

“The original language was accepted by Russia at the Bali G20 — and Indian diplomats in fact, played a major part in getting Russian acceptance on that,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Eurasia Group’s head for its South Asia practice, told CNBC in a telephone interview from New Delhi.

“But since then, Russia has hardened its position and joined by China to say that we don’t accept the original body language, which is taken from the UN Security Council resolution,” he added.

“Last I heard, India is still struggling to get an agreement on what type of language would be acceptable to all 20 countries,” Chaudhuri said. “If they fail to bridge that gap, then we may see the failure to issue a joint statement, and there probably won’t be an action plan afterwards.”

[Modi] is trying to portray this as a great recognition that India has arrived under his under his prime ministership.

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri

Eurasia Group

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — who is due to represent Russia at G20 leaders’ summit in place of Putin — reportedly warned there will be no general declaration at the meeting in New Delhi if Russia’s position is not reflected.

The Kremlin insists that its invasion of Ukraine is a “special military operation” in an existential war against the West that’s determined to take down Russia.

Domestic setback?

This could well be a setback for Modi’s government, which has convened more than 200 G20 meetings in more than two dozens cities across India.

“It’s actually quite brilliant and one has to give him and the BJP credit for making an event that is usually elitist and esoteric, and a rotating presidency that is routine into something the whole country can understand and be proud of,” CFR’s Miller said, referring to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

More than just lining streets with banners and signs that injected plenty of visibility to the various G20 meetings, Modi has also used these meetings to clean up host cities, promote local products and more.

“At the national level, [Modi] is trying to portray this as a great recognition that India has arrived under his under his prime ministership,” Eurasia Group’s Chaudhuri said. “I think the messaging has been strong, but the reception is harder to work out, it’s harder to quantify.”

The biggest risk for Modi is the lack of tangible multilateral accomplishment out of the G20 presidency after all that has been done and invested, possibly with an eye on boosting the legacy and standing of his Hindu nationalist BJP after a decade in power and ahead of national elections next year.

Underscoring that wariness, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was quick to tout the “unanimous support” from G20 member states, for two outcomes that India proposed at the Varanasi G20 ministerial meeting on developmental issues. He even labeled it the “biggest achievement” of India’s G20 presidency so far — despite Russia and China abstaining.

“There may be a sort of backlash, or a degree of cynicism may set among voters who say — we have heard a lot — we seem to have spent a lot of money, but nothing really seems to have happened here,” Chaudhuri added.

Still, Modi could point to other evidence of India’s place as a key global player in a year that saw New Delhi emerge as a strategic U.S. ally in its Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at checking China’s might.

India walked the diplomatic tightrope even as China pushed for an expansion of BRICS alliance of developing nations to build support for a broad coalition aimed at challenging U.S. dominance over the global political and economic system.

“India will continue to maintain healthy diplomatic relations with Russia amid an increasing reliance on that country’s energy imports,” Sumedha Dasgupta, a senior analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC. Moscow is India’s leading source of crude oil.

“Simultaneously, India will develop stronger diplomatic bonds with the US and its allies through means such as the Quad, co-operation on critical technology and defense, which will over time amount to a gradual geopolitical shift,” she said in an email.

‘Happy coincidence’

Underscoring India’s strategic importance, Biden hosted Modi in June in the Indian prime minister’s first state visit to the U.S.

Warming India-U.S. ties contrast with India’s continued standoff with China.

India — along with Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan — sharply rebuked China last week for a new national map that Beijing claims contested territories as its own.

As the U.S. ramps up efforts to limit the transfers of strategic technology to China on grounds of national security, India stands to gain from American companies looking to diversify their supply chains — at China’s expense.

In January, India’s commerce minister told CNBC that Apple was manufacturing its latest iPhone 14 in the country and aimed to produce 25% of all iPhones in the country.

Apple’s efforts to move its assembly of products from China became more urgent in the last few years years as U.S.-China trade tensions intensified, and supply chain disruptions caused by Beijing’s zero-Covid policy unraveled.

This development serves to buttress India’s burgeoning economic clout, the basis of its greater confidence and assertiveness geopolitically.

It’s a happy coincidence for the moment, I think, for India to showcase itself as an improved economy; as an improved place for international investors … and as an alternative to China.

Pravin Krishna

Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies

The International Monetary Fund expects India to be the world’s fastest growing major economy this year.

In the last decade in power, Modi’s BJP has liberalized foreign direct investment policies, invested in infrastructure, pushed for digitalization in the world’s fifth-largest economy, along with several other neo-liberal economic policies.

“All of of these things are coming together at the right time, alongside the G20,” said Pravin Krishna, a professor of international economics at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

“So it’s a happy coincidence for the moment, I think, for India to showcase itself as an improved economy; as an improved place for international investors; as an improved platform, potentially for manufacturing; and as an alternative to China, which India has been aspiring to be for a number of years,” he added.

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September 4, 2023
A new hotel trend that puts you to sleep — literally

Yearning for a good night’s sleep?

Join the club.

Globally, more people searched about sleep this year than ever before, according to data released by Google Trends last week. People are turning to the internet to learn about bedtime routines, sleep positions and to understand — “Why am I so tired all the time?” — a question which peaked in June, according to Google.

In fact, restorative sleep eludes so many that it’s given rise to a new type of travel. Hotels and wellness resorts are launching “sleep tourism” programs that go beyond plush bedding and blackout curtains.

From beds that use real-time artificial intelligence to on-call hypnotherapists, here are six spots that go to great lengths to help travelers get great shut-eye.

Zedwell Hotel, London

For those who need to switch off completely, London’s two Zedwell hotels have minimalist rooms that are free of “distractions” — such as televisions, telephones and even windows — according to its website.

Zedwell Hotel, London.

Source: Zedwell Hotels Trocadero (London) Hotel Ltd

The clutter-free aesthetic incorporates natural oak and ambient lighting, and rooms have sound insulation and purified air.

Six Senses Laamu, Maldives

Sleep-deprived guests can book a sleep wellness program that ranges from three to 10 days at Six Senses Laamu. Each stay comes with sleeping tracking, wellness screenings, spa treatments, meditation or breathwork exercises and nutritional advice, according to its website.

Six Senses Laamu, Maldives.

Source: Eleven Six PR

There are also yoga and Ayurvedic treatments, and visitors get access to the Timeshifter app to curb jet lag.

Sleep packages are also available at select Six Senses resorts in Switzerland, Fiji, India, Turkey and Thailand, among other locations.

Park Hyatt, New York

For restless sleepers in the Big Apple, New York’s Park Hyatt refreshed its three “Sleep Suites” with the latest version of Bryte’s “Balance” smart beds.

Park Hyatt Hotel, New York.

Source: Park Hyatt New York

The mattress plays sounds and uses subtle motion to lull guests to sleep. To wake up, the bed gradually moves over a period of 15 minutes to slowly and silently wake users up again. Within the mattress, a matrix of AI cushions adapts to body movements to relieve pressure in real time, too.

Suites also come with a diffuser and relaxing essential oil blend, along with a collection of “sleep-related books,” according to the hotel.

The Cadogan, London

Partnering with sleep specialist and hypnotherapist Malminder Gill, The Cadogan has a “Sleep Concierge” service that comes with a meditation (recorded by Gill), pillow menu, weighted blanket, bedtime tea blend and scented pillow mist.

The Cadogan, London.

Source: The Cadogen, A Belmond Hotel

For extra help, guests can book a session with Gill for one-on-one in-room sleep assistance, according to the hotel’s website.

Carillon Miami Wellness Resort, Miami

From ocean-front rooms on Miami Beach, this resort applies a tech-forward approach to sleep wellness through vibration and sound therapy that will provide an “essential powernap — even for the busiest of minds,” according to the hotel’s website.

Carillon Miami Wellness Resort, Miami.

Source: Carillon Miami Wellness Resort

In addition to having Bryte Balance mattresses, the resort provides hypnosis, saltwater bath therapies that allow guests to immerse in water loaded with 800 pounds of Epsom salt, and a “Somadome” futuristic meditation pod that combines color and sound, according to the website.

Sha Wellness Clinic, Alicante, Spain

With the help of sleep medicine specialist, Dr. Vicente Mera, guests at this luxury hotel and wellness clinic can participate in its “Sleep Medicine” program, which includes a sleep consultation, night-time polygraph, a continuous positive airway pressure (or CPAP as it’s known) study and tests that measures sleep and daytime indicators, such as resting heart rate and heart-rate variability, according to its website.

Sha Wellness Clinic, Alicante, Spain.

Source: Sha Wellness Clinic

A wellness plan is put in place for each guest that includes stress management sessions and hydrotherapy.

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September 3, 2023
India’s opposition parties to jointly contest 2024 elections against Modi

More than two dozen opposition parties in India have decided to jointly contest the 2024 national elections against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they aim to prevent the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) third straight victory.

The 28-party bloc, called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), on Friday announced that it will work out seat-sharing arrangements in different states to avoid splitting votes in favour of Modi’s party.

“We, the INDIA parties, hereby resolve to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections together as far as possible,” a statement from the bloc read.

“Seat-sharing arrangements in different states will be initiated immediately and concluded at the earliest in a collaborative spirit of give-and-take.”

India’s national elections are scheduled to be held around May.

From right to left, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar attend a meeting of the INDIA alliance in Mumbai on Friday. [Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo]

‘Stand together’

Indian National Congress party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi joined other key opposition leaders – including Sharad Pawar, Arvind Kejriwal, Sitaram Yechury and Lalu Prasad Yadav – at a two-day meeting in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.

Their goal was to set up a direct fight by putting one contestant against a BJP candidate in each voting district.

The opposition parties formed the alliance in June and are challenging Modi’s party on its economic record, rising unemployment and a host of other domestic problems, including rising anti-Muslim sentiment.

“We will be travelling to different locations to spread the word. The meetings will ensure that those at the centre will lose for sure. It will also ensure the freedom of media as well. We will stand together,” Nitish Kumar, chief minister of Bihar state, said at a news conference after the two-day meeting, according to The Indian Express newspaper .

Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress party president, said all segments of society, including public intellectuals and journalists, had been at the receiving end of the BJP’s “authoritarian misrule”.

“The communal poison that the BJP and RSS have spread over the last nine years is now seen in hate crimes against innocent train passengers and against innocent school children,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The RSS, or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is a far-right Hindu nationalist organisation formed in 1925 along the lines of fascist groups in Europe. It aims to create a Hindu-majority state in India.

The RSS is the ideological mentor of the BJP and boasts of having Modi among millions of its members across India.

‘Electoral autocracy’

Sambit Patra a BJP spokesman, slammed the opposition parties’ meeting and said their alliance was only for pretend unity and they will end up fighting badly with each other during the 2024 elections.

Lalu Yadav, a former Bihar state chief minister, complained that the opposition leaders have been the targets of raids and investigations by federal agencies controlled by the Modi government.

More than a dozen of these instances have led to defections of opposition leaders to the BJP, which is sometimes followed by dropped charges or pressure otherwise being eased. The BJP denies its involvement in the cases.

Modi’s rule has coincided with the economy recovering after the COVID-19 epidemic, rising unemployment, attacks by Hindu nationalists against minorities and a shrinking space for dissent.

A Swedish university project found that India has become an “electoral autocracy” as press freedom has deteriorated with the country slipping from 150 last year to 161 in this year’s rankings of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders.

Political analysts have also pointed out the lack of a level playing field in electoral politics as the BJP has received three times more funding than its rival parties, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms.

Modi has been accused of passing anti-Muslim legislation and implementing anti-Muslim policies.

These include ending the semi-autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region, in 2019 and a law on citizenship that the United Nations human rights office described as “fundamentally discriminatory” for excluding Muslim migrants.

Nevertheless, analysts said the opposition effort to oust Modi will be a difficult task. He is by far India’s most popular leader, and his party directly controls 10 of India’s 28 states, is in coalition in four other states and has more than 55 per cent of the 543 seats in parliament’s lower house.

Modi became prime minister in 2014 and won a second term for his party in 2019 with an easy victory against a splintered opposition.

“The stage of INDIA represents 60 per cent of the population, and if we unite in an efficient way, it is impossible for the BJP to win,” Rahul Gandhi, a strident critic of Modi, said on Friday.

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September 1, 2023
New Delhi doesn’t want its monkeys to ruin G20. But it has a plan | CNN

CNN
—

Authorities in India are determined to keep a lid on any monkey business ahead of world leaders jetting in next week, by placing life-size cutouts of angry langurs across the capital to dissuade smaller pesky primates from wreaking havoc or hogging the limelight while the nation takes center stage.

India is gearing up to welcome the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) countries in New Delhi next weekend, including US President Joe Biden, in an event that has been given utmost prominence at home.

Little is being left to chance, not even the city’s notoriously mischievous population of rhesus macaques.

The small monkeys are found across the capital, running across roads, bouncing between rooftops, causing a general nuisance and occasionally attacking unexpected pedestrians.

As the government embarks on a major beautification drive, freshly painting walls, planting trees and placing colorful flowers in key areas across town, New Delhi’s authorities have taken steps to ensure the animals don’t ruin those efforts.

Enter the langur – or at least, cardboard cutouts of langurs – and men trained to sound like the bigger primates.

“(The monkeys) don’t want to come near the large cutouts of the langurs as they get scared,” Satish Upadhyay, vice-chairperson of the New Delhi Municipal Council, told Indian news agency ANI. “Monkeys cannot be displaced, harmed or hit.”

Upadhyay added they have also deployed between 30 and 40 men who can mimic the sounds of langurs to trick the rhesus monkeys into thinking they are nearby.

The council has also left food for the monkeys in forested areas to encourage them to remain there, he added.

Monkeys are revered in Hindu-majority India and culling programs of wild or stray animals have previously proved hugely controversial. Hence the need for more humane solutions.

The langur monkey is much larger and more aggressive than the smaller rhesus macaque and have long been used in the past by authorities to scare off marauding gangs of the latter.

Live langurs were rented and put on duty when the Commonwealth Games were held in New Delhi in 2010, Reuters news agency reported.

Much of central New Delhi will come to a halt for the G20 with a huge operation to keep global leaders moving freely between the hotels and meeting venues.

Billboards advertising the summit and featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s face have been placed on corners of many streets, while the police and security presence is set to increase in the days leading up to the meeting.

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August 31, 2023
India’s moon rover finds sulfur, other elements in search for water near lunar south pole

India’s moon rover confirmed the presence of sulfur and detected several other elements near the lunar south pole as it searches for signs of frozen water nearly a week after its historic moon landing, the country’s space agency said Tuesday. The rover’s laser-induced spectroscope instrument also detected aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon on the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, said in a post on its website.

The lunar rover had come down a ramp from the lander of India’s spacecraft after last Wednesday’s touchdown near the moon’s south pole. The Chandrayan-3 Rover is expected to conduct experiments over 14 days, the ISRO has said.

This image from video provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows the surface of the moon as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft prepares for landing on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023.

AP

The rover “unambiguously confirms the presence of sulfur,” ISRO said. It also is searching for signs of frozen water that could help future astronaut missions, as a potential source of drinking water or to make rocket fuel.

The rover also will study the moon’s atmosphere and seismic activity, ISRO Chairman S. Somnath said.

On Monday, the rover’s route was reprogrammed when it came close to a 13-foot-wide crater. “It’s now safely heading on a new path,” the ISRO said.

The craft moves at a slow speed of around one centimeter (half inch) per second to minimize shock and damage to the vehicle from the moon’s rough terrain.

After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India last week joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve the milestone.

The successful mission showcases India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with the image that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to project: an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.

The mission began more than a month ago at an estimated cost of $75 million.

India’s success came just days after Russia’s Luna-25, which was aiming for the same lunar region, spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It would have been the first successful Russian lunar landing after a gap of 47 years.

Russia’s robotic moon craft crashes

00:21

The head of Russia’s state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos attributed the failure to the lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States.

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August 31, 2023
India to launch mission to study the sun — just days after successful moon landing

The sun setting in the Netherlands.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Days after India’s successful moon mission, the country is now setting its sights on the sun.

According to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Aditya-L1 spacecraft will be launched from the Sriharikota Spaceport on Sept. 2 in a bid to study the sun and its effect on space weather.

Aditya, which refers to the sun in Hindi, is to be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 of the Sun-Earth system, where the sun can be observed without any obstructions, an ISRO report stated.

Lagrange points are positions in space where gravitational forces of two large masses produce “enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion,” according to NASA. The resulting force can be used to remain in position and reduce fuel consumption — and can be likened to “parking spots” for spacecraft.

The launch will mark India’s first space-based observatory to study the sun, and would offer a “major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any occultation or eclipses,” the ISRO report stated.

The mission would also allow for the study of solar wind, which could potentially cause disturbances on Earth, such as disrupting communications and navigation systems.

India’s government had put forth a $46 million budget for the mission back in 2019, but has not published any updates since.

On Wednesday, India became the fourth country to land on the moon, doing so with the relatively low starting budget of $75 million.

While a first attempt for India, other countries have successfully placed orbiters to study the sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe in 2021 which was sent to the sun’s corona to sample particles and magnetic fields, as well as the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter which was launched the year before.

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August 29, 2023
Climate change has ravaged India’s rice stock. Now its export ban could deepen a global food crisis | CNN Business

Harayana, India
CNN
—

Satish Kumar sits in front of his submerged rice paddy in India’s Haryana state, looking despairingly at his ruined crops.

“I’ve suffered a tremendous loss,” said the third generation farmer, who relies solely on growing the grain to feed his young family. “I will not be able to grow anything until November.”

The newly planted saplings have been underwater since July after torrential rain battered northern India, with landslides and flash floods sweeping through the region.

Kumar said he has not seen floods of this scale in years and has been forced to take loans to replant his fields all over again. But that isn’t the only problem he’s facing.

Last month, India, which is the world’s largest exporter of rice, announced a ban on exporting non-basmati white rice in a bid to calm rising prices at home and ensure food security. India then followed with more restrictions on its rice exports, including a 20% duty on exports of parboiled rice.

The move has triggered fears of global food inflation, hurt the livelihoods of some farmers and prompted several rice-dependent countries to seek urgent exemptions from the ban.

More than three billion people worldwide rely on rice as a staple food and India contributed to about 40% of global rice exports.

Economists say the ban is just the latest move to disrupt global food supplies, which has suffered from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as weather events such as El Niño.

They warn the Indian government’s decision could have significant market reverberations with the poor in Global South nations in particular bearing the brunt.

And farmers like Kumar say market price rises caused by poor harvests doesn’t result in a windfall for them either.

“The ban is going to have an adverse effect on all of us. We won’t get a higher rate if rice isn’t exported,” Kumar said. “The floods were a death blow to us farmers. This ban will finish us.”

The abrupt announcement of the export ban triggered panic buying in the United States, following which the price of rice soared to a near 12-year high, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

It does not apply to basmati rice, which is India’s best-known and highest quality variety. Non-basmati white rice however, accounts for about 25% of exports.

India wasn’t the first country to ban food exports to ensure enough supply for domestic consumption. But its move, coming just one week after Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal — a crucial pact that allowed the export of grain from Ukraine — contributed to global concerns about the availability of grain staples and whether millions would go hungry.

“The main thing here is that it is not just one thing,” Arif Husain, chief economist at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) told CNN. “[Rice, wheat and corn crops] make up bulk of the food which poor people around the world consume.”

Nepal has seen rice prices surge since India announced the ban, according to local media reports, and rice prices in Vietnam are the highest they have been in more than a decade, according to customs data.

Thailand, the world’s second largest rice exporter after India, has also seen domestic rice prices jump significantly in recent weeks, according to data from the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

Countries including Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, have appealed to New Delhi to resume rice exports to their nations, according to local Indian media reports. CNN has reached out to India’s Ministry of Agriculture but has not received a response.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has encouraged India to remove the restrictions, with the organization’s chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, telling reporters last month that it was “likely to exacerbate” the uncertainty of food inflation.

“We would encourage the removal of these types of export restrictions because they can be harmful globally,” he said.

Now, there are fears that the ban has the world market bracing for similar actions by rival suppliers, economists warn.

“The export ban is happening at a time when countries are struggling with high debt, food inflation, and declining depreciating currencies,” Husain from the WFP said. “It’s troubling for everyone.”

Indian farmers account for nearly half of the country’s workforce, according to government data, with rice paddy mainly cultivated in central, southern, and some northern states.

Summer crop planting typically starts in June, when monsoon rains are expected to begin, as irrigation is crucial to grow a healthy yield. The summer season accounts for more than 80% of India’s total rice output, according to Reuters.

This year, however, the late monsoon arrival led to a large water deficit up until mid-June. And when the rains finally arrived, it drenched swathes of the country, unleashing floods that caused significant damage to crops.

Surjit Singh, 53, a third generation farmer from Harayana said they “lost everything” after the rains.

“My rice crops have been ruined,” he said. “The water submerged about 8-10 inches of my crops. What I planted (in early June) is gone… I will see a loss of about 30%.”

The World Meteorological Organization last month warned that governments must prepare for more extreme weather events and record temperatures, as it declared the onset of the warming phenomenon El Niño.

El Niño is a natural climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean that brings warmer-than-average sea-surface temperatures and has a major influence on weather across the globe, affecting billions of people.

The impact has been felt by thousands of farmers in India, some of whom say they will now grow crops other than rice. And it doesn’t just stop there.

At one of New Delhi’s largest rice trading hubs, there are fears among traders that the export ban will cause catastrophic consequences.

“The export ban has left traders with huge amounts of stock,” said rice trader Roopkaran Singh. “We now have to find new buyers in the domestic market.”

But experts warn the effects will be felt far beyond India’s borders.

“Poor countries, food importing countries, countries in West Africa, they are at the highest risk,” said Husain from the WFP. “The ban is coming on the back of war and a global pandemic… We need to be extra careful when it comes to our staples, so that we don’t end up unnecessarily rising prices. Because those increases are not without consequences.”

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August 28, 2023
Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among 6 nations to join China and Russia in BRICS economic bloc

Iran and Saudi Arabia were among six countries set to join Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in the BRICS economic bloc from next year, the group announced Thursday, in a move that will likely throw more scrutiny on Beijing’s political influence in the Persian Gulf.

The United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia are also set to become new members of BRICS from 2024.

BRICS was set up in 2009 as a group of emerging market economies and has become one of the leading voices for more representation of the developing world and the Global South in world affairs.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, speaks by video link on the closing day of the BRICS summit at the Sandton Convention Center in the Sandton district of Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

It currently represents around 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of the world’s GDP, although that is set to increase with the new members, which include three of the world’s biggest oil producers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.

Recently, questions have been raised over if BRICS is taking an anti-West turn under the influence of China and Russia, amid Beijing’s deteriorating relationship with the United States and Russia’s stand-off with the West over the war in Ukraine.

Mohammad Jamshidi, the political deputy of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, called the decision to add his country “a historic move.”

“A strategic victory for Iran’s foreign policy,” Jamshidi wrote on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “Felicitations to the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution and great nation of Iran.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country presently chairs BRICS, made the announcement on the six new members on the final day of the bloc’s summit in the financial district of Sandton in Johannesburg.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are attending the summit and were present alongside Ramaphosa for the announcement.

“This membership expansion is historic,” Xi said. “It shows the determination of BRICS countries for unity and development.”

“Over the years, China has stood in solidarity with developing countries through thick and thin.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not travel to the summit after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in March for the abduction of children from Ukraine. He has participated in the summit virtually, while Russia was represented at the announcement in Johannesburg by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

While Saudi Arabia had been touted as a likely new member if the five current BRICS members reached a consensus on expansion, Iran’s inclusion had been viewed as possibly politically problematic. China and Russia were pushing for expansion, but Brazil, India and South Africa, which have strong bilateral ties with the U.S., only gave their approval more recently.

The current members agreed on the final details of expansion after two days of talks in Johannesburg, although Ramaphosa said the idea had been worked on for over a year.

The BRICS leaders began their talks in Johannesburg on Tuesday night and were locked in discussions most of the day Wednesday, thrashing out the final details. BRICS is a consensus-based organization and all members have to agree on policies.

It’s the second time that BRICS has decided to expand. The bloc was formed in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa was added in 2010.

In an online message, United Arab Emirates leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan welcomed the BRICS announcement and said his nation would be joining an “important group.”

“We look forward to a continued commitment of cooperation for the prosperity, dignity and benefit of all nations and people around the world,” Sheikh Mohammed said on X.

Until recently, the inclusion of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates together in the same economic or political organization would have been unthinkable, as tensions escalated following the collapse of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal and a series of attacks attributed to the country since.

But as the coronavirus pandemic receded, the UAE became the first to reengage diplomatically with Iran, following missile attacks on Abu Dhabi claimed by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen.

In March, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced they had reached a separate détente with Chinese mediation. China has sought closer relations with all three nations, particularly Iran, from which it has imported oil since the collapse of the nuclear deal.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE also have maintained relations with Russia since Moscow’s war on Ukraine, much to the chagrin of Washington, which long has provided security guarantees for the major oil-producing nations.

Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said in a statement that his country would cooperate and coordinate with the rest of the members to achieve the bloc’s aims in economic cooperation, and to “raise the voice of the Global South.”

The news was also a major boost for Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent, as its government works to reengage with many global partners and financial institutions after a devastating two-year conflict in the country’s Tigray region ended last year.

The war caused billions of dollars of damage and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, under pressure from the U.S. and European Union, has turned to other partners like China, Russia and Gulf nations for support.

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August 24, 2023
U.S. Polo Assn. Launches Iconic Legends Campaign and Targets Billion-Dollar Opportunity in India

International Sports Power Brand Activates New E-Commerce Site Alongside Campaign

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. and BENGALURU, India, August 24, 2023 (Newswire.com)
–
U.S. Polo Assn., the official brand of the United States Polo Association, and Arvind Fashions Ltd. (NSE:ARVINDFASN), aka Arvind, are proud to announce two major business milestones in India: the iconic Legends marketing campaign and the new U.S. Polo Assn. website launch. Both business strategies have been designed to help take U.S. Polo Assn. in India to the next level, reaching the company’s new target to be a billion-dollar power brand in the country.

According to a recent United Nations report, India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation. In fact, according to the report, India’s population is expected to reach 1.428 billion, compared to China’s 1.425 billion. The U.S. Polo Assn. brand’s popularity in India has only grown with the population, making India prime to be the global brand’s fastest-growing market. The tremendous growth in popularity and ultimately market share is not without effort, which includes a strategy focused on both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce, as well as overall brand marketing through storytelling.

As one of India’s leading casualwear power brands, the multi-billion-dollar, global, sport-inspired U.S. Polo Assn. brand has launched an exclusive brand-specific website USPoloAssn.in to further enhance digital offerings for customers and provide easier access to its product offerings. U.S. Polo Assn. is the first brand in the Arvind Fashions Limited family of businesses to go live with an exclusive brand website. Previously, the brand was listed on all leading online platforms and NNNow, the official brand store and digital destination for Arvind Fashions Limited.

“Arvind has been a tremendous partner to the U.S. Polo Assn. brand, and we are excited about our future as a power brand, targeting a billion-dollar business over the long term in one of the world’s most important markets,” said J. Michael Prince, President and CEO of USPA Global Licensing, the company that manages and oversees the U.S. Polo Assn. brand. “The execution of our strategic plan in India will further solidify our position as one of the top casual menswear brands in the country.”

USPoloAssn.in will carry the entirety of the brand’s product offerings across menswear and kidswear. The website will also feature the brand’s footwear and innerwear collection, as well as the newly introduced USPA womenswear line.

The newly launched website will be hosting the “Legends Forever Play Together” campaign, featuring Arjun Rampal and Milind Soman, the ‘legends of the modeling industry’, and Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhuphati, the ‘legends of tennis.’ The campaign, while celebrating their legendary stature, also shows these icons reminiscing about their fondest memories of where their journey began.

Legends further showcases themes of fashion, style, and nostalgia, as well as bonding between the stars, while presenting the cool and sporty factor of the brand. In the multi-channel campaign, the Legends can be seen sporting the all-new Autumn-Winter ’23 Collection from U.S. Polo Assn. The collection features timeless classics with a modern twist, such as polos, denim, oxfords, sweaters, jackets and tee shirts.

The multi-billion-dollar, global brand’s presence has also exploded in India, having successfully launched new identity stores, featuring modern décor, an all-white interior, and authenticity through elements of the sport of polo, like polo-themed accessories and game broadcasts, for which the brand is based. U.S. Polo Assn. even launched five stores simultaneously on Sept. 17, 2022, in the city of Bengaluru, Arvind’s corporate headquarters.

“U.S. Polo Assn. is an example of ‘phygital’ retail, where we are blending the best of digital and physical channels to enhance both and deliver the best customer experience, ultimately enabling enhanced omnichannel engagement,” said Shailesh Chaturvedi, Managing Director and CEO, Arvind Fashions Ltd. “The combination of the very special and iconic Legends Campaign, the exciting new website and our revamped stores will now allow U.S. Polo Assn. to immerse consumers in our unique brand story across all major touchpoints.”

Currently, the brand’s retail footprint in India is at more than 400 brand stores, and over 2,000 shop-in-shops, across more than 200 cities in India. Globally, the U.S. Polo Assn. brand is in 190 countries and has global retail sales of more than $2.3 billion.

“This launch comes at the right time as the market is multi-branded and continues to grow, while customers want to engage more with great brands,” said Amitabh Suri, CEO of Arvind’s U.S. Polo Assn. Division. “U.S. Polo Assn. has a strong retail presence with more than 400 brand stores across India. And when it comes to online presence, U.S. Polo Assn. has been the top casualwear brand across all leading online e-commerce platforms, making it clear there was great demand in the market to launch the new brand website.”

About U.S. Polo Assn.

U.S. Polo Assn. is the official brand of the United States Polo Association (USPA), the non-profit governing body for the sport of polo in the United States and one of the oldest sports governing bodies, having been founded in 1890. With a multi-billion-dollar global footprint and worldwide distribution through over 1,100 U.S. Polo Assn. retail stores and thousands of department stores, sporting goods channels, independent retailers, and e-commerce, U.S. Polo Assn. offers apparel for men, women, and children, as well as accessories and footwear in more than 190 countries worldwide. U.S. Polo Assn. was named as one of the top global sports licensors in 2023, according to License Global. Visit USPoloAssnGlobal.com and follow @USPoloAssn.

About Arvind

Arvind Fashions Ltd., based in Bengaluru, is India’s No. 1 casual and denim player in the country’s retail industry, a lifestyle powerhouse with a strong portfolio of fashion brands catering to consumers across various sub-categories and price points. With a host of renowned brands, both international and indigenous, like U.S. Polo Assn., ARROW, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Flying Machine and Sephora, Arvind has presence across lifestyle brands, value fashion and prestige beauty. Visit Arvind, USPoloAssn.in, and follow @USPoloAssnIndia.

Source: USPA Global Licensing Inc.

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August 24, 2023
India becomes fourth country to land on the moon, first on the south pole, with Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft

The moon’s surface is seen below the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on August 20, 2023 as it orbited in preparation for landing.

ISRO

India staked new claim as a national superpower in space on Wednesday, landing its Chandrayaan-3 mission safely on the moon’s unexplored south pole.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched last month and touched down on the lunar surface around 8:34 a.m. ET.

The feat makes India the fourth country – after the then-Soviet Union, the U.S. and China – to land on the moon, and the first to land on one of the moon’s lunar poles.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tuned in to the livestream of the landing from South Africa’s Johannesburg, where he attended the 15th BRICS summit of emerging markets.

“All the people of the world, the people of every country and region: India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone … this success belongs to all of humanity,” Modi said, speaking on the ISRO webcast of the event.

“We can all aspire for the moon, and beyond,” Modi added.

The Indian Space Research Organisation mission control room celebrates the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

ISRO

The lunar south pole has emerged as a place of recent exploration interest thanks to recent discoveries about traces of water ice on the moon. India previously attempted a lunar south pole landing in September 2019, but a software failure caused the Chandrayaan-2 mission to crash into the surface.

“[The south pole is] really a very interesting, historical, scientific and geologic area that a lot of countries are trying to get at that can serve as a base for future exploration,” Wendy Cobb, professor of strategy and security studies at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told CNBC.

Cobb added that the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon is “really important for future exploration,” as it could serve as a source of fuel for rockets and spacecraft.

A rising space power

People wave Indian flags as an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh on July 14, 2023.

R.satish Babu | Afp | Getty Images

Modi visited the U.S. in June, during which he signed agreements alongside President Joe Biden to join the Artemis Accords and further collaborate on missions between ISRO and NASA.

Next year, the space agencies are expected to work together to fly Indian astronauts to the International Space Station.

India has also done more with less than its top global counterparts, with ISRO’s annual budget a fraction of NASA’s. In 2020, ISRO estimated the Chandrayaan-3 mission would cost about $75 million.

The mission was originally slated for 2021, but was delayed by the Covid pandemic.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated ISRO on the successful landing in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, adding, “We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!”

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August 23, 2023
Chandrayaan-3: Historic India mission for moon’s south pole set for landing

India could become the first nation to land a spacecraft on the moon’s south pole, days after a Russian probe crashed in the same region – an historic moment for the world’s most populous nation, as it rapidly closes in on milestones set by global space powers.

Chandrayaan-3, which means “Mooncraft” in Sanskrit, is scheduled to touch down shortly after 6pm India time (12:30 GMT) on Wednesday near the little-explored lunar south pole.

“India reaches for the moon”, The Times of India front-page headline read on Wednesday, with the hoped-for lunar landing dominating local news. “It’s D-Day for moon mission”, The Hindustan Times said.

A previous Indian effort failed in 2019, and the latest attempt comes just days after Russia’s first moon mission in almost 50 years, destined for the same region, crashed on the lunar surface.

But former Indian space chief K Sivan said the latest photos transmitted back home by the lander gave every indication the final leg of the voyage would succeed.

“It is giving some encouragement that we will be able to achieve the landing mission without any problem,” he told AFP on Monday.

Sivan added that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had made corrections after a failure four years ago, when scientists lost contact with the previous lunar module moments before its slated landing.

“Chandrayaan-3 is going to go with more ruggedness,” he said. “We have confidence, and we expect that everything will go smoothly.”

The mission was launched nearly six weeks ago in front of thousands of cheering spectators, but took much longer to reach the moon than those of the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.

India is using rockets much less powerful than those the United States used back then, meaning the probe must orbit Earth several times to gain speed before embarking on its month-long lunar trajectory.

The spacecraft’s lander, Vikram, which means “valour” in Sanskrit, detached from its propulsion module last week and has been sending back images of the moon’s surface since entering lunar orbit on August 5.

A day ahead of the landing, the ISRO said on social media the landing was proceeding on schedule and that its mission control complex was “buzzed with energy and excitement”.

“Smooth sailing is continuing,” the agency posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

India has a comparatively low-budget aerospace programme, but one that has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the moon in 2008.

The latest mission comes with a price tag of $74.6m – far lower than those of other countries, and a testament to India’s frugal space engineering.

Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts’ wages.

In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a satellite into orbit around Mars and is slated to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth’s orbit by next year.

‘Very, very important’

Sivan, the former ISRO chief, said India’s efforts to explore the relatively unmapped lunar south pole would make a “very, very important” contribution to scientific knowledge.

Only Russia, the United States and China have previously achieved a controlled landing on the lunar surface.

Russia launched its own lunar probe earlier in August – its first in nearly half a century.

If successful, it would have beaten Chandrayaan-3 by a matter of days to become the first mission of any nation to make a controlled landing around the lunar south pole.

But the Luna-25 probe crash-landed on Saturday after an unspecified incident as it was preparing for descent.

Punishing sanctions since the outset of the Ukraine war have affected Russia’s space industry, which has also been beleaguered by corruption and a lack of innovation and partnerships.

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August 22, 2023
Global onion prices could be set to rise with India slapping an export tax on domestic production

A labourer sorting out onions at a vegetable market in New Delhi on May 30, 2023. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP) (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Arun Sankar | Afp | Getty Images

With India slapping a 40% export tax on onions on the back of higher domestic prices of the vegetable, analysts are considering the global impact, especially on major importers.

The new levy announced Saturday acts to ensure domestic availability and cool inflation, and is effective immediately until December 31, according to the country’s Ministry of Finance.

Retail prices of onions in India have risen around 20% year-on-year, averaging at around 30.72 Indian rupees (37 cents) per kilogram on Aug. 19, compared to 20.44 rupees in the same period last year, data from India’s Department of Consumer Affairs shows.

Export taxes

“High rainfall in the month of July 2023 in key producing regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka led to damage to the stored onion crops,” said Pushan Sharma, director of research at CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics, an Indian research firm which is a subsidiary of S&P Global.

According to the Indian Meteorological Department, several parts of India were battered by rainfall during July.

Meanwhile, India’s inflation numbers for July hit a 15-month high of 7.44% compared to a year ago, largely attributed to the spike in domestic food costs. In April, prices of onions had dropped 32.2% year-on-year on the back of oversupply as a result of early crop maturation, according to a Mintec report published April.

Global onion prices are likely to get a positive price cue on account of India’s decision.

Pushan Sharma

CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics

But now the South Asian nation is currently wrestling with high vegetable, fruit and grain prices. Prices of tomatoes in India previously surged more than 300% due to adverse weather. India’s government in July also banned the exports of non-basmati white rice in a bid to ensure sufficient domestic supplies.

“The government would like to rein [in] prices and ensure sufficient availability in the domestic market. The late onset of monsoon has also affected the current onion crop,” said Samarendu Mohanty, Asian regional director of agricultural firm International Potato Center (CIP).

Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and parts of the Middle East rely on India for onion and the taxes will raise the prices of onions for these countries, he told CNBC.

India is the world’s largest exporter of onions, and contributes over 12% of global onion trade, data provided by CRISIL showed.

“Global onion prices are likely to get a positive price cue on account of India’s decision,” Sharma said.

However, he noted that the price hike is expected to be short lived, until October, where more onion crops are expected to come into the market.

Onions are an integral staple in India, and used in traditional South Asian dishes such as biryani. Alongside tomatoes and potatoes, the three vegetables form a part of the nation’s CPI basket. In 2019, India banned the exports of onions after a reduced harvest due to excessive rainfall.

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August 21, 2023
Taiwan’s Foxconn says it sees ‘billions’ of dollars in India investments | CNN Business

CNN
—

A month after exiting an ambitious project to help build one of India’s first chip factories, Taiwan’s Foxconn says it remains bullish about the world’s most populous nation and is planning “billions” of dollars in investments there, as multinationals seek to diversify their supply chains beyond China.

Foxconn’s India operations account for about $10 billion — or just under 5% — of the company’s annual turnover, which stood at $6.627 trillion new Taiwan dollars ($207 billion) last year, Chairman Young Liu told a Monday earnings call.

“There is a positive energy for this market,” he said in response to a question from CNN. “From the perspective of India’s potential market size and if we can fully implement our plans there, I think several billion dollars in investment is only a beginning.”

Liu said he saw opportunities to expand Foxconn’s business producing key components for consumer electronics and also in electric vehicles (EVs), which is a major growth area for the company.

Foxconn, best known for making Apple

(AAPL)’s iPhones, has more than 30 factories in India, including 20 dormitories that house tens of thousands of workers. It began its operations there in 2006.

In July, the company pulled out of a planned $19.4 billion chipmaking joint venture in the country with Vedanta

(VEDL), an Indian metals and energy conglomerate. It was seen as a blow to the New Delhi government’s plans to turn the country into a tech manufacturing powerhouse.

But shortly after, Foxconn said it was still committed to investing in Indian chipmaking, saying it will apply for a government program that subsidizes the cost of setting up semiconductor or electronic display production facilities.

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August 14, 2023
Who is Monu Manesar, Indian vigilante accused of inciting Haryana violence?

Nuh, India – In February this year, two Muslim men were abducted and allegedly burned alive in their car by a group of cow vigilantes in India’s northern state of Haryana.

As the charred skeletons of the two men – Nasir Hussain, 28, and Junaid Khan, 35 – were discovered inside an SUV car in the state’s Bhiwani district, the main accused, 28-year-old Mohit Yadav, became a poster boy of cow vigilantism in India and a subject of extensive public scrutiny.

Haryana is governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which has been accused of patronising Yadav, better known as Monu Manesar, and preventing his arrest in numerous such cases of cow-related attacks and even killings.

Many Hindus belonging to the privileged castes consider cows sacred. The sale and consumption of beef are banned in several Indian states, mostly in the north.

Dozens of Muslims have been lynched on suspicion of killing or transporting cows since 2014 in attacks critics say were enabled by the rise of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power.

How is Manesar linked to Nuh violence?

In Nuh, Haryana’s only Muslim-majority district, Manesar heads the local cow protection unit of the Bajrang Dal, the far-right youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), which in turn is affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor.

Founded in 1925, the RSS aims to create an ethnic Hindu state out of a constitutionally secular and religiously diverse India. The secretive organisation has millions of lifetime members across the world’s most populous nation and also abroad.

On July 31, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal decided to take out a religious procession through Nuh, with many participants carrying swords, tridents, sticks and firearms, and allegedly raising anti-Muslim slogans.

Two days before the procession, a Facebook video went viral, showing Manesar exhorting Hindus to congregate “in large numbers” for the procession in Nuh, saying he will also be there.

According to the police and the Hindu groups, the mostly Muslim residents of Nuh, angry over the February killings of Nasir and Junaid and other such incidents involving Manesar, attacked their procession with stones and burned some vehicles along the highway.

Nuh’s Muslims, in turn, accuse the Hindu groups of starting the violence, in which at least six people, including two Bajrang Dal members and two police guards, one of them Muslim, were killed.

Soon, the violence spread to the neighbouring Gurugram district where a mosque was attacked and its imam beaten and stabbed to death.

In response to the violence, more than 1,000 properties – mostly belonging to Muslims – were bulldozed by the Haryana government in Nuh, forcing an Indian court to ask if it was an “exercise of ethnic cleansing”.

Last week, several village councils in the region and a leading farmers’ group demanded Manesar’s immediate arrest to restore communal harmony and peace in the region, less than 100km (62 miles) from the national capital, New Delhi.

But he remains at large as anger over police inaction continues to simmer in Nuh and Gurugram.

What else is Manesar accused of?

Since his college days, Manesar, who holds a polytechnic diploma in engineering, has been a member of the Bajrang Dal, a group with a decades-old history of attacking minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians.

He was only 21 when a horrifying video, again from Haryana, showing him and his men attacking Muslims went viral in the summer of 2016. The video showed two Muslim men, their faces swollen and bloodied, being forced to eat cow dung after they were beaten for allegedly transporting beef.

Such videos are shared widely by right-wing Hindu groups on social media and WhatsApp groups to terrorise Muslims and other minorities. Soon, Manesar began to gain notoriety as a hardline vigilante.

His YouTube channel won a silver play button for having over 200,000 subscribers while his Facebook page boasted of more than 83,000 followers.

His posts mostly featured videos of high-speed chases and crashes, men flashing firearms and firing at trucks allegedly carrying beef, and photos and videos of injured men, usually Muslims, attacked by his team. Some photos showed him with powerful politicians and officers, including Home Minister Amit Shah.

Despite Meta and Google taking down his Facebook and YouTube pages respectively earlier this year, his videos are still shared widely by numerous fan pages run by right-wing groups and individuals.

Meanwhile, Manesar began to appear in debates on pro-BJP news channels, where he defended his violent cow vigilantism and attacks on Muslims.

In 2021, Manesar was invited to speak at a mahapanchayat, or a grand council of villages, called in support of some Hindu men accused of murdering a Muslim gym trainer, Asif Khan, who was also from Nuh.

At the mahapanchayat, Manesar was introduced as someone who shoots and gets shot at by “cow-smugglers”. In his speech, Manesar asked the crowd to prepare a list of Muslim men allegedly involved in “love jihad” – a far-right conspiracy theory that believes Muslim men target Hindu women through romance and marriage in order to convert them to Islam.

Manesar vowed his team would kill these Muslims.

What do Muslims in Haryana allege?

After the killings of Hussain and Khan in February, multiple victims came out in public with chilling testimonies and video evidence of torture posted online by the vigilante groups. The demands to arrest Manesar and his associates grew.

Imran Khan told Al Jazeera his cousin, Waris Khan, a motorcycle mechanic, was also allegedly lynched by Manesar’s gang a few weeks before Nasir and Junaid were murdered.

While police claimed Waris’ death was an accident, a video appeared showing him and two other men being forcibly shoved into a car. The man shooting the video asks the men to tell their names on camera.

Imran alleged the video was telecast live on Manesar’s Facebook page and showed Waris injured and bleeding, hours before he succumbed to his injuries at a government hospital in Nalhar.

He said the video has now been deleted and can be independently verified by the authorities.

In recent years, Nuh, also known as Mewat, has become an easy target for vigilante raids under the garb of cow protection, adding to anger and distrust among its residents.

“There was anger in the whole village when Monu Manesar was not arrested after Nasir and Junaid’s murder. If he was not given impunity by the government, he would not be roaming free. If he had not released his video before the July 31 procession in Nuh, riots would not have taken place,” Maksood Khan, a 22-year-old truck driver from neighbouring Rajasthan state, told Al Jazeera.

Hindu groups hold a meeting in Gurugram, Haryana in support of accused Monu Manesar after the killing of Nasir and Junaid in February this year [File: Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images]

Nasir Hussain and Junaid Khan belonged to Maksood’s village in Rajasthan.

Nuh-based lawyer Tahir Hussain Devla alleged Manesar himself was a cow smuggler.

“He is the biggest cow smuggler in Mewat. He extorts money from trucks for letting them pass through his area,” he told Al Jazeera.

Residents in Nuh blame Manesar and Bittu Bajrangi, another cow vigilante, for the recent violence.

Chaudhary Aftab Ahmad, the member of the legislative assembly from Nuh, accused the authorities of not acting despite his warning of possible violence in his constituency.

“There was definitely an apprehension of violence before the procession. It was building up through videos of Monu Manesar and Bittu Bajrangi on social media. I had flagged this to the SP [superintendent of police] of Nuh a day before through telephone that the situation may get out of control. They assured me that they are aware of all the things,” he told Al Jazeera.

How have the governments responded?

Raman Malik, the BJP spokesman in Haryana, rejected the demand for Manesar’s arrest. “Why should Monu Manesar be arrested?” he told Al Jazeera.

When he was reminded of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s statement on August 2 calling Manesar a criminal and vowing to help the Rajasthan police in nabbing him, Malik replied: “Then the Rajasthan police should do it. Why should we do something that is not our responsibility?”

Malik said Manesar is already cooperating with the police investigation and so there is no need to arrest him. “If there is a threat of him fleeing or not cooperating with the police, then they will act accordingly,” he said.

In June, Manesar told The Indian Express newspaper he was not absconding. “I haven’t got a notice from any police, Rajasthan or Haryana. If they call me for questioning, I will cooperate,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Haryana and Rajasthan governments are involved in a blame game over acting against him. In a news conference on August 2, Khattar said: “Since the Rajasthan police is searching for him, we don’t have the inputs on his whereabouts. Rajasthan police is free to act against him.”

The next day, his Rajasthan counterpart Ashok Gehlot posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, alleging that when Rajasthan police went to arrest Manesar, the Haryana police did not cooperate and instead registered a report against some Rajasthan police officers.

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August 14, 2023
India is a rising force in Southeast Asia as region seeks to counter China’s dominance

Indian Army T-90 Bheeshma tanks roll past during the full dress final rehearsal for the Indian Republic Day parade in New Delhi on January 23, 2009. (Photo credit RAVEENDRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Raveendran | Afp | Getty Images

India is taking major strides to expand its influence in Southeast Asia, a move that will allow countries to counter China’s dominance in the region.

“India certainly is becoming more ambitious in Southeast Asia. There is no doubt about it,” said Harsh V. Pant, vice president for studies and foreign policy at Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank.

It has also become “more forceful and more upfront” about its ties with the region, he added.

Growing rivalry between India and China is seen as influencing New Delhi’s strategic calculation in strengthening its presence.

For a long time, Indian leaders had been “hesitant and reticent” about the country’s role in the region, due to its own tensions with China along the Himalayan border, noted Pant.

Relations have been fraught since a border clash with Chinese forces in 2020, which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers, according to the Indian army.

“I think the understanding in New Delhi had been: Let’s not wade into waters where China might be more uncomfortable,” Pant told CNBC, adding that Beijing has “enormous potential to create trouble for India.”

Since China hasn’t “budged” on the border issue, India “now feels there has been no real return for its cautious attitude towards Southeast Asia,” he added.

India’s foreign ministry did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

In June, India’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, highlighted the border conflict was affecting relations between the two countries.

Until Sino-India relations achieve “some sense of normalcy,” Pant said, New Delhi has few options but to ramp up ties with countries — “big or small around China’s periphery, to ensure it has some leverage.”

Tightening ties

In recent months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has stepped up its outreach to regional countries aimed at balancing Beijing’s aggression.

The move reinforces India’s ongoing comprehensive strategic partnership with Southeast Asia.

In June, New Delhi said it was giving a naval warship to Vietnam, in the latest sign of growing defense ties between both nations, said Satoru Nagao, non-resident fellow at Hudson Institute, based in Tokyo.

“India also trains pilots and ground crew of fighter jets of the Vietnam Air Force. Indian naval ships visited Vietnam constantly,” he added.

Vietnam is now planning to buy supersonic missiles and surface-to-air missiles from India, said Nagao, who specializes in defense strategy, foreign policy and security alliances.

“India’s ‘Look East’ policy began in 1991, well before China’s growing assertiveness was a real problem in Southeast Asia,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation.

“But by 2014, when Modi turned the policy into ‘Act East,’ it was apparent that the region and world was dealing with a different kind of China — Xi’s China — which sought to flex its power more often and farther from Chinese shores,” he said referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Activists display anti-China placards and flags during a protest at a park in Manila on June 18, 2019, after a Chinese vessel last week collided with a Philippine fishing boat which sank in the disputed South China Sea and sailed away sparking outrage. Photo by TED ALJIBE / AFP) (Photo by TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images)

Ted Aljibe | Afp | Getty Images

India caused a stir in late June when its foreign minister and his Filipino counterpart, Enrique Manalo, issued a joint statement, urging China to abide by The Hague’s 2016 arbitration decision on the South China Sea.

The joint statement sparked speculation that New Delhi was shifting away from its neutral posture on competing territorial claims in the region.

In a landmark ruling on the South China Sea dispute, the international tribunal in The Hague unanimously ruled in favor of the Philippines in a historic case against China.

China has rejected the 2016 ruling, describing it as “illegal and void.”

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea — an assertion that is rejected by Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines among others, in competing claims for the resource-rich waterway.

India “is bolstering strategic ties — diplomatic, economic, and security — to Southeast Asian states to help them balance or hedge against, or outright counter Chinese power,” said Rand’s Grossman.

“This is particularly salient to the maritime sphere, namely the South China Sea, where overlapping sovereignty disputes threaten regional stability and openness,” he added.

Complex dynamic

China’s expanding influence through its Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia is also driving India’s calculation, according to Joanne Lin, co-coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS, at Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

As a result, “safeguarding India’s security, especially maritime security will be important,” Lin added.

Most countries in the region have supported China’s mega infrastructure project — Xi’s signature policy initiative aimed at expanding Beijing’s influence through a network of road, rail and sea connections across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Observers note Beijing’s more strident foreign policy, coupled with the political and economic leverage it could exert through the Belt and Road, has raised concerns in the region.

India is not a camp follower of either side. It continues to maintain a very independent streak in its foreign policy, which suits a large number of Southeast Asian countries.

Harsh V. Pant

Observer Research Foundation

Readjusting to an evolving international order defined primarily by the China-U.S. rivalry has also proven particularly challenging for Southeast Asian countries.

Regional countries are “engaging India because it is a power in its own right,” noted Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the weekly ASEAN Wonk newsletter.

They see India as an “important piece of a broader strategy of shaping a more multipolar order rather than one that is centered around China or dominated by U.S.-China bipolar competition,” he added.

A regional survey published by the ASEAN Studies Centre at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute showed India’s standing has improved greatly among Southeast Asian nations, despite its neutral stance in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“India is the third top option for the region in hedging against the uncertainties of the US-China rivalry. Its ranking more than doubled from the last spot in 2022 to the third spot this year,” said ISEAS’s Lin, one of the authors of the survey.

‘A way out’

Observers say that New Delhi also offers “a way out” for countries that seek to remain neutral in the U.S.-China conflict.

“India is not a camp follower of either side,” said Pant from New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation. “It continues to maintain a very independent streak in its foreign policy, which suits a large number of Southeast Asian countries.”

While China remained the most influential and strategic power in Southeast Asia, its standing has diminished, the Southeast Asia survey from February showed.

China continues to be regarded as the most influential economic power by 59.9% of the respondents. However, its influence has declined significantly from 76.7% in 2022, as countries grew more wary of Beijing.

For several states that “most distrust China in the region — namely the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore,” India is “an additional partner to help counter Beijing,” noted Rand’s Grossman.

Still, New Delhi’s latest moves to deepen regional ties won’t go unnoticed by Chinese leaders, analysts noted.

China will be “cautious” about the developments, said Lin from ISEAS. “India’s growing influence in Southeast Asia and enhanced defense cooperation,” among other issues “will cause unease in Beijing,” she added.

Pant noted: “China will be watching this carefully and sending its own messages out.”

But given Southeast Asia “is a central pillar to India’s own Indo-Pacific strategy,” that will not deter New Delhi,” he added. “India’s push into the region will only continue to gather momentum.”

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August 13, 2023
Ukraine cries foul as fuels refined from Russian oil pour into the EU

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Diesel, kerosene and other fuels refined from Russian crude are flooding into Europe, prompting Kyiv to call for tightening sanctions against Moscow.

In an interview with POLITICO, Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appealed for the EU, as well as the U.K. and the U.S., to close the “loophole” that allows third countries like India, China and Turkey to refine crude bought from Moscow’s state energy firms into petrol, diesel and other products before selling them on without restrictions.

In December, the G7 agreed to set a price cap of $60 a barrel on Russian crude, meaning sales below that price are allowed. The idea was to squeeze Moscow financially while allowing oil markets to continue functioning.

The result has been that countries like India are buying up cheap Russian crude and then refining it — which earns local companies the refining margin — before selling it to other countries.

Indian imports of Russian crude hit a high of 69 million barrels in May, an almost tenfold increase from the same period in 2021 prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and more than twice as much as the 31 million it bought in May last year.

Volumes have since fallen to around 50 million barrels in July, but remain well above pre-war levels.

As a result, Indian exports of fuel products to the EU have skyrocketed. In June, it exported 5.1 million barrels of diesel and 3.2 million barrels of jet fuel to the bloc, up from just 1.68 million barrels and 0.51 million barrels respectively in June 2021.

Ustenko singled out India, given that “before the invasion, they were buying Russian oil but the level of their imports was very marginal, only around 1 percent of their imported oil. Now it’s on the level of almost 40 percent, which is a really dramatic change.”

For New Delhi, it’s just good business.

In an interview with CNBC last week, India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri acknowledged his country’s privately owned refineries were snapping up Russian crude at rates well below the market price. “If there’s a 30 percent discount, the Russians are putting a ribbon around it and sending it to us free. That’s what it means.”

It’s also having a negative impact on Russia’s bottom line.

Russia’s energy export revenues have virtually halved in the first six months of this year, while the ruble has hit historic lows in recent weeks as sanctions begin to undermine the fundamentals of the Russian economy.

But as the war takes its toll on Ukraine, Kyiv wants to turn the screws even further.

Policymakers should support “a ban for all refined products going to G7 countries” if they’ve been produced using Russian oil, even if they were refined elsewhere, Ustenko said.

Ustenko added Kyiv wants to build support among G7 nations to bring the price cap down to just $30 a barrel. Poland and the Baltic countries pushed for a lower price last year, but countries like Greece — whose oil tankers transport a lot of Russian crude — balked.

These steps, Ustenko said: “Would be a huge signal to producers that it’s now completely illegal to touch Russian oil and to supply the regime with the blood money they are using to buy weapons and commit war crimes in Ukraine.”

However, the idea is unlikely to find much support, at least at the moment.

According to Maximillian Hess, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and author of a new book on Russia sanctions, the refining of Russian crude by third countries isn’t so much a failure of the measures as it is the intended feature.

“Part of the West’s strategy, as the U.S. has said repeatedly, is to keep Russian oil flowing,” he said, while ensuring Moscow earns less for its exports and doesn’t earn the premiums that come from selling refined fuel rather than crude.

“There’s certainly appetite among some members of the G7 for a $30 price cap, but there may be some challenges introducing a ban on refined fuels,” he added.

Gabriel Gavin

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August 11, 2023
Russia shoots for the moon as space race against US heats up

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Despite war and sanctions, Vladimir Putin is trying to haul Russia back into the space race.

In the early hours of Friday morning, state space agency Roscosmos launched the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century as an ambitious play in the scramble to build a base on the moon.

“If they pull it off, it will be a massive technological and scientific achievement,” said Tim Marshall, author of “The Future of Geography” on the geopolitics of space. He argues a successful Russian landing, and fruitful year of research, would mark a big step forward in plans to build a moon base with China by the 2030s.

Russia’s Luna-25 mission is being dispatched to scope out the lunar south pole, where scientists believe there’s a plentiful supply of water locked in ice in the perpetual shade of mountain ridges. Firming up water reserves is a critical requirement for supporting life on the moon with breathable oxygen, drinking water and even rocket fuel, which would then help space-faring nations further explore the cosmos from any lunar outpost in the future.

“The first goal is to find the water, to confirm that it is there … to study its abundance,” said Olga Zakutnyaya, from the Space Research Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, of Luna-25’s main aim.

But simply successfully landing a spacecraft on the rocky lunar south pole — which would be a first in itself — would also prove to Beijing that Moscow still has something to offer when it comes to cutting-edge aerospace technology. The two countries have already pledged to work together to build a moon base by the 2030s, but Beijing is the clear leader these days.

“Putin knows that Russia is the junior partner in the China relationship, including in the space relationship,” said Marshall, arguing that the Luna-25 mission could help rebalance the scales.

On the other side of the geopolitical divide, the United States is planning to send astronauts to the south pole later this decade as part of its Artemis program supported by Canada and European countries.

And, despite the competition, NASA doesn’t seem worried about Moscow’s mission.

“I don’t think that a lot of people at this point would say that Russia is actually ready to be landing cosmonauts on the moon in the timeframe that we’re talking about,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a panel on Tuesday in response to Luna-25.

Pole race

Only three countries — the United States, China and the Soviet Union — have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon, and only the Americans have put boots on the lunar surface.

The likes of India, Japan and Israel have all tried and failed of late. In 2019, India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission crashed, while an earlier attempt by Israeli firms with Beresheet also failed that year. In April, Japanese start-up ipsace also saw its Hakuto-R Mission 1 crash.

Only three countries — the United States, China and the Soviet Union — have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Trying again, India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which literally translates as “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, is scheduled to reach the surface on August 23 to explore the south pole, around the same time that Luna-25 is planning to attempt to land nearby.

“The fact that both Russia and India are targeting to land in the same, albeit large, region of the moon highlights that certain areas are more valuable than others,” said Benjamin Silverstein, an analyst for the Carnegie Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While Roscosmos insists there’s no chance of collision, a lack of agreed regulations for who can do what on celestial bodies like the moon means countries are deciding their own rules of the road when planning missions.

First landers on the lunar south pole could work up their own preferred standards and expect newcomers to follow their lead rather than relying on the slow and laborious process of trying to fix agreed lunar governance norms, Silverstein said.

The U.S.-backed Artemis accords sets out Washington’s preferred principles for a fresh era of space exploration, and would controversially allow countries to claim exclusive access to certain commercial zones around, for example, a moon base next to icy or resource-rich deposits.

“The growth [of Artemis signatories] to 29 shows that without question it’s going to be the dominant space bloc of the century, but for the foreseeable future they will never get China, Russia or their allies on board,” said Marshall.

Even without the politics, landing a spacecraft on the mountainous terrain of the moon’s dark poles isn’t easy.

“The south pole has a lot of craters and is very rocky,” said Nico Dettmann, the European Space Agency’s lead on lunar exploration, adding that a target accuracy of within 100 to 200 meters is required to be certain of a soft landing.

Current thruster and mapping technology, such as that deployed on Luna-25, will only be able to home in on a location between 15 and 30 kilometers from the target point, he said. “These space technology developments take time.”

Luna-25 had been set to include demonstrator navigation camera systems from the ESA as part of a cooperation deal, but that’s been scrapped due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with a separate mission to Mars dubbed ExoMars.

This article was updated to reflect that Russia had launched the lunar mission.

Joshua Posaner, Matt Berg and Laura Hülsemann

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August 10, 2023