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  • It’s never been this warm in February. Here’s why that’s not a good thing | CNN

    It’s never been this warm in February. Here’s why that’s not a good thing | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    As parts of the West and Northern US face a winter storm with blizzard conditions and significant snowfall, much of the rest of the country is experiencing a summer-like heat that has never been felt before during the month of February.

    More than 130 cities from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes could set new records for daily and monthly high temperatures this week. Highs will climb up to 80 degrees as far north as Ohio and West Virginia — certainly unusual, but becoming less so in the warming climate.

    Here’s a stark example: Before this decade, Charleston, West Virginia, had only hit 80 degrees before March three times in more than 100 years of record-keeping. But this week’s incredible warmth will mean that four of the last six years will have logged temperatures of 80 degrees, which is its normal high on June 1, in February.

    Record warmth in February — a time that’s supposed to still feel like winter — might not sound like such a bad thing, but its negative consequences spread across the plant world, sports, tourism and agriculture. And it is another clear sign that our planet is warming rapidly, experts say.

    “Whenever we get these events, we should always be thinking there’s the possibility or likelihood that human-induced climate change is increasing the likelihood of strange weather,” Richard Seager, climate researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, told CNN. “The more it goes on, the more they can bring such tremendous damage.”

    A satellite image taken on February 13 shows just around 7% of the Great Lakes are covered in ice -- significantly lower than average for this time of year.

    On the Great Lakes, ice coverage reached a record low for this time of the year — the same time that the annual maximum extent of ice usually occurs. As of last week, only 7% of the five freshwater lakes were covered in ice, a sharp difference from the 35 to 40% ice cover typically expected in mid-to-late February, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Great Lakes ice is on a downward trend, NOAA scientists report. A recent study found a 70% decline in the lakes’ ice cover between 1973 and 2017.

    The decline in Great Lakes ice each winter may not seem like it has any harmful impact, but that ice acts as a buffer for large, wind-driven waves in the winter, scientists have reported. Without the ice, the coastlines are more susceptible to erosion and flooding.

    Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, a research scientist at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan, said low ice coverage could also set the stage for another severe lake-effect snow storm like the one Buffalo, New York, experienced in December.

    “The moisture and heat from the lake surface water are absorbed into the atmosphere by storm systems, and then fall back to the ground as snow in the winter,” Fujisaki-Manome said in a statement.

    The Lake Champlain shoreline on February 16. The lake near the access area is covered with ice, but officials are warning anglers to stay off the lake because unseasonably warm temperatures have made it unsafe.

    The thin ice has already had deadly consequences in New England.

    At Vermont’s Lake Champlain, the annual ice fishing tournament was cancelled last weekend when three fishermen died after falling through the ice. One man’s body was found hours after he was expected to return home from the lake, while the other two died after their utility vehicle broke through the ice.

    Montpelier, Vermont, had its warmest January on record this year since 1948, with Burlington recording its fifth warmest January since 1884, according to the Burlington National Weather Service.

    Robert Wilson, a professor of geography and environment at Syracuse University, said the Northeast as a whole is now a “fast-warming region,” with winter seasons warming faster than summers due to the climate crisis.

    And he underscored how this trend is threatening some of New England’s most cherished winter activities.

    “In coming decades, winter — as most people understand it — will get shorter and warmer, with less snow and more rain,” Wilson said. “This poses a serious threat to winter recreation: snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and downhill skiing.”

    Daffodils bloom in Norfolk, Virginia, on Tuesday.

    Plants are blooming way earlier than usual across much of the country, a clear sign that spring is either right around the corner — or it has already arrived, in some places.

    “Spring is coming early in much of the Southern and Eastern US,” Brad Rippey, meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture, told CNN. “Here in the mid-Atlantic, that means everything from budding trees to crocuses in bloom to spring peepers making lots of noise — and in February, no less.”

    Many plants species — including daffodils, witch-hazel, forsythia and even cherry blossoms — are beginning to leaf out in the East. Theresa Crimmins, director of the USA National Phenology Network, said it’s the plants responding to very early warm temperatures.

    “Plants, especially those of temperate systems, respond to a number of cues in order to wake up in the spring, including exposure to chill in the winter, exposure to warmth in the spring, and day length,” she told CNN.

    Dead or dying peach trees at Carlson Orchards in Massachusetts. Temperatures dropped below freezing in recent weeks, after abnormal warmth in January, threatening the crop.

    If another cold snap occurs after an early warm spell, Crimmins said it could be disruptive and damaging for the plants’ cycle. As flower buds develop, many species lose their ability to tolerate cold temperatures, which means a freeze could kill blooms and leave fruit crops and other commodities vulnerable to spring freezes.

    Rippey said warm winters followed by a spring freeze has become more common in recent years. In 2017, for instance, a severe spring freeze in March damaged several fruit crops — peaches, blueberries, apples and strawberries — in states including Georgia and South Carolina, which carried an economic toll of roughly $1.2 billion.

    “As nice as it feels to have temperatures in the 70s and 80s this time of year, the fact that it’s not ‘normal’ can have a profound impact on the ecosystem,” Rippey said. “Even a typical spring freeze can damage commercial and back-yard fruit crops that have been pushed into blooming by late-winter warmth.”

    India issued its first heatwave alert, with temperatures in some states reaching 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) – up to 9 degrees Celsius (16.2 Fahrenheit) above normal, according to data released by the India Meteorological Department on Monday.

    “The heatwave warnings as early as February is a scary situation,” Krishna AchutaRao, a professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, told CNN.

    It has raised fears of a repeat of last year’s deadly heatwave, which scorched swaths of India and Pakistan.

    Blistering heat has devastating consequences for people’s health, for water supplies and for crops; last year, crop yields were reduced by as much as a third in some parts of the country. As temperatures soared last spring, India banned exports of wheat, dashing hopes that the world’s second-largest wheat producer would fill the supply gap caused by the war in Ukraine.

    Commuters cover their faces with clothes to protect themselves from sun as temperatures soar in Hyderabad, India, on Wednesday.

    This February, with high temperatures hitting wheat-producing states, including Rajasthan and Gujarat, India has set up a committee to monitor the impact of rising temperatures on the crop, according to Reuters.

    Europe, too, has seen unusually high temperatures, kicking off 2023 with an extreme winter heatwave that broke January temperature records in several countries. Low levels of snow and rainfall have fueled concerns about the region’s rivers and lakes.

    The River Po, which winds through northern Italy’s agricultural heartland, fed by snow from the Alps and rainfall in the spring, is at very low levels, while water in Lake Garda in northern Italy has reached record lows. There are fears Italy, which declared a state of emergency last year after its worst drought in 70 years, may face another drought.

    The unusually warm weather has also left ski resorts across the Alps with little or no snow. In February, top skiers wrote an open letter to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation demanding action on the climate crisis.

    “The seasons have shifted,” they wrote. “Our sport is threatened existentially.”

    While ski resorts have adapted to warming by relying on artificial snow – a process that uses a lot of water and energy – Wilson noted that resorts would still need cold nighttime temperatures to make it.

    “The long-term survival of skiing and other winter recreation will depend on nations lowering their carbon emissions to avoid the more dire consequences and severe warming in the future,” he said.

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  • Seattle may become the first U.S. city to outlaw caste

    Seattle may become the first U.S. city to outlaw caste

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    One of Kshama Sawant’s earliest memories of the caste system was hearing her grandfather — a man she “otherwise loved very much” — utter a slur to summon their lower-caste maid.

    The Seattle City Council member, raised in an upper-caste Hindu Brahmin household in India, was 6 when she asked her grandfather why he used that derogatory word when he knew the girl’s name. He responded that his granddaughter “talked too much.”

    Now 50, and an elected official in a city far from India, Sawant has proposed an ordinance to add caste to Seattle’s anti-discrimination laws. If her fellow council members approve it Tuesday, Seattle will become the first city in the United States to specifically outlaw caste discrimination.

    In India, the origins of the caste system can be traced back 3,000 years as a social hierarchy based on one’s birth. While the definition of caste has evolved over the centuries, under both Muslim and British rule, the suffering of those at the bottom of the caste pyramid – known as Dalits, which in Sanskrit means “broken” — has continued.

    In 1948, a year after independence from British rule, India banned discrimination on the basis of caste, a law that became enshrined in the nation’s constitution in 1950. Yet the undercurrents of caste continue to swirl in India’s politics, education, employment and even in everyday social interactions. Caste-based violence, including sexual violence against Dalit women, is still rampant.

    The national debate in the United States around caste has been centered in the South Asian community, causing deep divisions within the diaspora. Dalit activist-led organizations such as Oakland, California-based Equality Labs, say caste discrimination is prevalent in diaspora communities, surfacing in the form of social alienation and discrimination in housing, education and the tech sector where South Asians hold key roles.

    The U.S. is the second most popular destination for Indians living abroad, according to the Migration Policy Institute, which estimates the U.S. diaspora grew from about 206,000 in 1980 to about 2.7 million in 2021. The group South Asian Americans Leading Together reports that nearly 5.4 million South Asians live in the U.S. — up from the 3.5 million counted in the 2010 census. Most trace their roots to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

    There has been strong pushback to anti-discrimination laws and policies that target caste from groups such as the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America. They say such legislation will hurt a community whose members are viewed as “people of color” and already face hate and discrimination.

    But over the past decade, Dalit activism has garnered support from several corners of the diaspora, including from groups like Hindus for Human Rights. The last three years in particular have seen more people identify as Dalits and publicly tell their stories, energizing this movement.

    Prem Pariyar, a Dalit Hindu from Nepal, gets emotional as he talks about escaping caste violence in his native village. His family was brutally attacked for taking water from a community tap, said Pariyar, who is now a social worker in California and serves on Alameda County’s Human Relations Commission. He moved to the U.S. in 2015, but says he couldn’t escape stereotyping and discrimination because of his caste-identifying last name, even as he tried to make a new far from his homeland.

    Pariyar, motivated by the overt caste discrimination he faced in his social and academic circles, was a driving force behind it becoming a protected category in the 23-campus California State University system in January 2022.

    “I’m fighting so Dalits can be recognized as human beings,” he said.

    In December 2019, Brandeis University near Boston became the first U.S. college to include caste in its nondiscrimination policy. Colby College, Brown University and the University of California, Davis, have adopted similar measures. Harvard University instituted caste protections for student workers in 2021 as part of its contract with its graduate student union.

    Laurence Simon, international development professor at Brandeis, said a university task force made the decision based “on the feelings and fears of students from marginalized communities.”

    “To us, that was enough, even though we did not hear of any serious allegations of caste discrimination,” he said. “Why do we have to wait for there to be a horrendous problem?”

    Among the most striking findings in a survey of 1,500 South Asians in the U.S. by Equality Labs: 67% of Dalits who responded reported being treated unfairly at their workplace because of their caste and 40% of Dalit students who were surveyed reported facing discrimination in educational institutions compared to only 3% of upper-caste respondents. Also, 40% of Dalit respondents said they felt unwelcome at their place of worship because of their caste.

    Caste needs to be a protected category under the law because Dalits and others negatively affected by it do not have a legal way to address it, said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder and executive director of Equality Labs. Soundararajan’s parents, natives of Tamil Nadu in southern India, fled caste oppression in the 1970s and immigrated to Los Angeles, where she was born.

    “We South Asians have so many difficult historical traumas,” she said. “But when we come to this country, we shove all that under the rug and try to be a model minority. The shadow of caste is still there. It still destabilizes lives, families and communities.”

    The trauma is intergenerational, she said. In her book “The Trauma of Caste,” Soundararajan writes of being devastated when she learned that her family members were considered “untouchables” in India. She recounts the hurt she felt when a friend’s mother who was upper caste, gave her a separate plate to eat from after learning about her Dalit identity.

    “This battle around caste is a battle for our souls,” she said.

    The Dalit American community is not monolithic on this issue. Aldrin Deepak, a gay, Dalit resident of the San Francisco Bay area, said he has never faced caste discrimination in his 35 years in the U.S. He has decorated deities in local Hindu temples and has an array of community members over to his house for Diwali celebrations.

    “No one’s asked me about my caste,” he said. “Making an issue where there is none is only creating more fractures in our community.”

    Nikunj Trivedi, president of the Coalition of Hindus of North America, views the narrative around caste as “completely twisted.” Caste-based laws that single out Indian Americans and Hindu Americans are unacceptable, he said.

    “The understanding of Hinduism is poor in this country,” Trivedi said. “Many people believe caste equals Hinduism, which is simply not true. There is diversity of thought, belief and practice within Hinduism.”

    Trivedi said Seattle’s proposed policy is dangerous because it is not based on reliable data.

    “There is a heavy reliance on anecdotal reports,” he said, suggesting it would be difficult to verify someone’s caste. “How can people who know very little or nothing about caste adjudicate issues stemming from it?”

    Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, called Seattle’s proposed ordinance unconstitutional because “it singles out and targets an ethnic minority and seeks to institutionalize implicit bias toward a community.”

    “It sends that message that we are an inherently bigoted community that must be monitored,” Shukla said.

    Caste is already covered under the current set of anti-discrimination laws, which provide protections for race, ethnicity and religion, she said.

    Legislation pertaining to caste is not about targeting any community, said Nikhil Mandalaparthy, deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights. The Washington, D.C.-based group supports the proposed caste ordinance.

    “Caste needs to be a protected category because we want South Asians to have similar access to opportunities and not face discrimination in workplaces and educational settings,” he said. “Sometimes, that means airing the dirty laundry of the community in public to make it known that caste-based discrimination is not acceptable.”

    Council member Sawant said legal recourse is needed because current anti-discrimination laws are not enough. Sawant, who is a socialist, said the ordinance is backed by several groups including Amnesty International and Alphabet Workers Union that represents workers employed by Google’s parent company.

    More than 150,000 South Asians live in Washington state, with many employed in the tech sector where Dalit activists say caste-based discrimination has gone unaddressed. The issue was in the spotlight in 2020 when California regulators sued Cisco Systems saying a Dalit Indian engineer faced caste discrimination at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

    Sawant said the ordinance does not single out one community, but accounts for how caste discrimination crosses national and religious boundaries. A United Nations report in 2016 said at least 250 million people worldwide still face caste discrimination in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Pacific regions, as well as in various diaspora communities. Caste systems are found among Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Muslims and Sikhs.

    Among the diaspora, many Dalits pushing to end caste discrimination are not Hindu. Nor are they all from India.

    D.B. Sagar faced caste oppression growing up in the 1990s in northern Nepal, not far from the Buddha’s birthplace. He fled it, emigrating to the U.S. in 2007. Sagar says he still bears physical and emotional scars from the oppression. His family was Dalit and practicing elements of both Hinduism and Buddhism, and felt shunned by both faiths.

    “We were not allowed to participate in village festivals or enter temples,” he said. “Buddhists did not allow anyone from the Dalit community to become monks. You could change your religion, but you still cannot escape your caste identity. If converting to another religion was a solution, people would be free from caste discrimination by now.”

    In school, Sagar was made to sit on a separate bench. He was once caned by the school’s principal for drinking from a water pot in the classroom that Dalits were barred from using. They believed his touch would pollute the water.

    Sagar said he was shocked to see similar attitudes arise in social settings among the U.S. diaspora. His experiences motivated him to start the International Commission for Dalit Rights. In 2014, he organized a march from the White House to Capitol Hill demanding that caste discrimination be recognized under the U.S. Civil Rights Act.

    His organization is currently looking into about 150 complaints of housing discrimination from Dalit Americans, he said. In one case, a Dalit man in Virginia said his landlord rented out a basement, but prevented him from using the kitchen because of his caste.

    “Caste is a social justice issue, period,” he said.

    Like Sagar, Arizona resident Shahira Bangar is Dalit. But she is a practicing Sikh and her parents fled caste oppression in Punjab, India. Her parents never discussed caste when she was young, but she learned the truth in her teens as she attended high school in Silicon Valley surrounded by high-caste Punjabi friends who belonged to the higher, land-owning Jat caste.

    She felt left out when her friends played “Jat pride” music and when a friend’s mother used her caste identity as a slur.

    “I felt this deep sadness of not being accepted by my own community,” Bangar said. “I felt betrayed.”

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • India hits back after George Soros says Adani troubles will greatly weaken Modi’s grip on power

    India hits back after George Soros says Adani troubles will greatly weaken Modi’s grip on power

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    NDIA – JANUARY 18: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Gautam Adani, chairman and founder of the Adani Group, and other delegates at Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, at Mahatma Mandir Exhibition cum Convention Centre, on January 18, 2019 in Gandhinagar, India.

    Hindustan Times | | Getty Images

    India slammed billionaire investor George Soros after he alleged the Adani turmoil will weaken Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s grip on power and lead to a “democratic revival” in the country.

    The latest dispute highlights renewed scrutiny on the relationship between India’s leader and business tycoon Gautam Adani, who has lost billions in net worth since a short seller report accused his companies of fraud. The Adani Group has denied those allegations, calling the report a “calculated attack on India.”

    Last week, Soros criticized the prime minister saying India was a democracy but Modi “is no democrat.” Over the weekend, India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, told a conference in Sydney that Soros’ comments were typical of a “Euro-Atlantic view” and rejected his accusations.

    “There are still people in the world who believe that their definition, their preferences, their views must override everything else,” Jaishankar said.

    He added there was “a debate and conversation that we must have on democracy,” including whose values defined a democracy as the world rebalanced and became less Euro-Atlantic.

    “He is old, rich, opinionated and dangerous, because what happens is, when such people and such views and such organizations — they actually invest resources in shaping narratives” Jaishankar said in a response to a question about the billionaire’s remarks.

    India’s voters will decide “how the country should [be] run,” the foreign minister said.

    “It worries us. We are a country that went through colonialism. We know the dangers of what happens when there’s outside interference,” Jaishankar added.

    Modi-Adani ‘close allies’

    Soros’ criticism focused on the cozy relationship between Modi and Adani.

    “Modi and business tycoon Adani are close allies; their fate is intertwined. Adani Enterprises tried to raise funds in the stock market, but he failed,” said Soros.

    Both men hail from India’s Western state of Gujarat. Adani was an early supporter of Modi’s political aspirations and championed the Indian leader’s growth vision for the country. Modi flew in an Adani jet after he was elected to national office in 2014. 

    But Adani lost his crown as Asia’s wealthiest man in a matter of days after short-seller firm Hindenburg Research alleged fraud. The Adani Group has denied wrongdoing and fired back at the firm in an over 400-page rebuttal.

    “Adani is accused of stock manipulation and his stock collapsed like a house of cards. Modi is silent on the subject, but he will have to answer questions from foreign investors and in parliament,” Soros said.

    The billionaire predicted Adani’s troubles will “significantly weaken Modi’s stranglehold on India’s federal government” and “open the door to push for much needed institutional reforms.”  

    “I may be naive, but I expect a democratic revival in India,” Soros said.

    The Hungarian-born investor is the founder of the Open Society Foundations advocacy network, through which he has donated more than $32 billion, according to its website. The network said it gives “thousands of grants every year toward building inclusive and vibrant democracies,” with active projects in more than 120 countries.

    Adani’s fall draws fire

    Opposition critics have also seized on the Hindenburg report to attack Modi and his party ahead of national elections set for next year. India’s main opposition Congress party has staged protests and demanded an investigation into Hindenburg’s allegations. 

    However, the opposition party was quick to distance itself from Soros’ comments.

    “Whether the PM-linked Adani scam sparks a democratic revival in India depends entirely on the Congress, opposition parties and our electoral process,” tweeted Jairam Ramesh, Congress’ general secretary. “It has NOTHING to do with George Soros.”

    Politically, it’s hard to predict what effect, if any, the Adani scrutiny will have on Modi’s popularity and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, observers said.

    Still, the relationship between Modi and Adani is “so long and strong” it will be tough for the prime minister and his party to wriggle out of this crisis unscathed, Ashok Swain, head of the department of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University in Sweden told CNBC recently.

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  • Carnival: 10 wild facts and customs | CNN

    Carnival: 10 wild facts and customs | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Ash Wednesday is just around the corner (February 22). So you know what that means.

    Carnival celebrations for 2023 are in full force around the world. It’s a time when people – particularly those in areas with strong Roman Catholic traditions – indulge their wild side before the solemn, introspective days of Lent commence.

    With so many participants (more than a million in some cities) and so many different celebration spots (from the Americas to Asia), there’s bound to be a lot of fascinating tidbits to uncover surrounding Carnival.

    To go with the party vibe, here are some wild Carnival facts, figures and customs:

    The world’s biggest annual Carnival, held in Rio de Janeiro, naturally generates a lot of economic activity for Brazil. But the expected amount for 2023 is positively eye-popping, according to a report from Reuters.

    “We believe the economy will generate five billion reais ($971.55 million) during Carnival alone, a record,” Ronnie Aguiar, the president of the Rio Tourism Company (Riotur), recently told the news agency.

    That’s what the power of roughly 5 million people freely spending after pandemic restrictions will do for you.

    After a two-year hiatus, around 80,000 tourists from abroad are expected to show up for 2023, according to the International Air Transport Association.

    The Venice Carnival began in 1162 as a military celebration. From there, it morphed into good ol’ party time – until 1797.

    That’s when dour Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, put the kibosh on the revelries (Austrians had just started calling the shots in Venice at the time). He also banned Venetians from wearing masks. Talk about a party pooper.

    During the 19th century, Venetians tried to jump-start a big public gathering, but they were able to muster only small, private fêtes.

    Then in the height of the Disco Era, the Italian government came to the party-time rescue. It helped Venice relaunch Carnival in 1979. It’s now grown into one of the world’s most renowned, complete with grand masked balls and flotillas in the canals.

    Elaborate, highly artistic masks are a key part of Venice Carnival. The nicer ones really go up there in price, too.

    Speaking of masks, the Venice Carnival is famous for its mysterious and fancy face coverings. And the nicer ones can cost you quite a few euros.

    Some high-end Venice masks go for €400 (about $425) or even more. That’s a lot to pay to be stylishly incognito, but they provide a classic keepsake.

    A man holds several strands of Mardi Gras beads while standing on a balcony above Bourbon Street.

    What masks are to Venice, beads are to New Orleans.

    The throwing of beads and other trinkets to the crowds during Mardi Gras was started in the early 1870s. In fact, they’re called throws.

    How many are tossed out? Tons of them. Literally.

    A few years back, cleaning crews removed a whopping 93,000 pounds on a five-block stretch of St. Charles Avenue downtown from clogged storm drains. That works out to 46.5 tons.

    New Orleans has since installed “gutter buddies” to prevent beads from entering the drains.

    In the small Spanish Mediterranean port city of Águilas, they’re also into throwing stuff. Here, it’s eggs – but they’re not filled with yolks.

    Months before Carnival, locals collect eggshells, then paint them or cover them in striking colors and fill them with confetti. In Spanish, it’s called cascarones de confeti.

    They’re used in a battle in which Don Carnal, who represents the Roman god Janus, is at war with Doña Cuaresma (Mrs. Lent). Don Carnal always loses.

    Puffs of flour fill the air above the crowd in Galaxidi, Greece.

    Geez – there really is something about Carnival and throwing things.

    In the little Greek harbor town of Galaxidi, what they toss is a whole lot softer than beads and less elaborate than confetti-filled eggs.

    Each year, the town and the townspeople get covered in colored flour, which is thrown on locals and tourists alike. You might want to bring some protective eyewear if you attend. Check out the madness in this YouTube video.

    India definitely knows how to throw a celebration – Diwali and Holi anyone?

    While exporting those to the world, Indians are also making their unique contribution to Carnival in Goa, which was a Portuguese – and therefore Catholic – colony for centuries.

    The Goa Carnival is full of the usual parades, colorful costumes and elaborate floats, but the Carnival here mixes with local Goan culture and Hindu traditions.

    In one old Goa Carnival tradition, people throw their old utensils out of their kitchen windows when the parade passes. Another is when people get into playful fights throwing colorful powders at each other, similar to the Holi Festival.

    YouTuber Heena Bhatia captured parade scenes from the 2022 Carnival on her channel.

    Back in Rio, they’re definitely enjoying all things samba, but they also shake it up, baby.

    Turns out Brazilian-beat Beatles songs are the rage at one of the many Rio street parties known as blocos. There are more than 500 blocos, according to Carnivaland.net.

    At Aterro do Flamengo (Flamingo Park), the Sargento Pimento party is dedicated to playing Beatles music.

    Catch a very fitting “Here Comes the Sun” from 2013 on YouTube.

    Giant puppets are a signature of Olinda's Carnival contribution.

    Rio ain’t the only game in Brazil when it comes to Carnival. A favorite among Brazilians is the Recife & Olinda Carnival. Fewer tourists show up, so if you’re looking for true local flavor, the mutual party thrown by these two northeastern coastal cities could be for you.

    And don’t miss the bonecos, giant papier-mache puppets, in Olinda. They are up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) tall and are paraded through the streets.

    Olinda concentrates on daytime events, while the nighttime is the right time for Recife.

    In the Caribbean’s Trinidad and Tobago, you can sit back and watch and listen. Or you can join in. It’s called playing mas, according to online experts Carnivaland.net.

    To play mas, you have to join a masquerade band, but you just can’t show up. You must first pick out a mas band you’d like to be a part of and don their costumes (some are sexy, some are more conservative).

    Joining a mas band isn’t free, but some are all inclusive, providing your costume, food and drinks, bathroom areas and more.

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  • With fighter jets on display at air show, the U.S. makes a stealth pitch to India

    With fighter jets on display at air show, the U.S. makes a stealth pitch to India

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    When two Lockheed Martin F-35s flown by the United States Air Force roared through Indian skies for the first time this week at an international air show in southern India, spectators were awestruck by the fighter jet’s design and aerobatics. 

    The fifth-generation fighter jet has stealth, supersonic, and multi-role capabilities – making it the most lethal in the world. And the presence of the aircraft — an F-35A Joint Strike Fighter from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and an F35-A Lightning II from the 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, along with F-16s, Super Hornets and B-1B bombers — at the weeklong aviation exhibition in Bengaluru fueled speculation whether the American show of strength was a sign of a growing strategic relationship between the two countries or an attempt by Washington to woo New Delhi away from its biggest military supplier and decades-old friend, Russia.

    aero-india-2.jpg
    The USAF F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team flies at the 2023 Aero India show in Bengaluru, India.

    USAF F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team


    “Frankly, we have seen such high-level American participation earlier too … but geopolitically, things are a little different. China is a little more aggressive, so this is significant,” Manmohan Bahadur, a retired air vice marshal of the Indian Air Force, told CBS News. 

    India has been looking to modernize its aging fighter jet fleet to boost its air power, especially in the face of renewed border tension with China and a decades-old conflict with Pakistan. In 2019, Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet after an air clash and captured its pilot. 

    The United States, which is selective about which countries it sells the F-35 to, has not made it clear whether they have offered the jet to India — nor has the Indian Air Force said anything official about it. 

    “There is no doubt that it’s a very capable fighter jet, but I don’t think India would consider it as of now … certainly not in the near future because it has to fit our scheme of things, our current systems,” Bahadur told CBS News. 

    aero-india-1.jpg
    The USAF F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team flies at the 2023 Aero India aviation show in Bengaluru, India.

    USAF F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team


    But Rear Admiral Michael L. Baker, defense attache at the U.S. embassy in India, said New Delhi was in the “very early stages” of considering whether it wanted the plane. The jets are estimated to have a lifetime cost of $1.7 trillion, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

    The majority of India’s military equipment — across the nation’s air force, navy and army — has come from Russia. Last year, when Russia attacked Ukraine, India resisted pressure from its western allies to distance itself from Moscow — the only major U.S. ally that neither condemned Russia in clear terms nor backed sanctions against the country.

    But reports say India has been concerned about Russian military supply delays because of the Ukraine war, especially at a time of growing tensions with China and Pakistan. 

    Major global arms manufacturers were in the audience on Monday in Bengaluru when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India aims to more than triple its annual defense exports to $5 billion over the next two years. While India aspires to become a manufacturer of the sophisticated defense equipment in collaboration with global giants, first to meet its own needs and eventually to export, it will have to depend on arms imports until then.

    And the strong U.S. presence at Aero India — which Major General Julian C. Cheater, assistant deputy undersecretary for international affairs of the U.S. Air Force, said earlier this week was “the ideal forum to showcase the most advanced, capable, lethal and interoperable weapons systems the U.S. has to offer” — was a seemingly soft and stealthy pitch for India’s interest.

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  • Uncontacted tribes and an Indian military base. Did a ‘spy’ balloon snoop on the Andaman and Nicobar islands? | CNN

    Uncontacted tribes and an Indian military base. Did a ‘spy’ balloon snoop on the Andaman and Nicobar islands? | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    When a strange white sphere appeared in the skies above the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in January 2022, it swiftly became a talking point in this sleepy Indian Ocean archipelago of 430,000 people.

    Hundreds of members of the public spotted the strange object, which looked a little like a full moon, and were eager to speculate on what it was, reported local media. But “high-altitude surveillance balloon” didn’t seem high on many people’s guess list.

    Many suggested it was a weather balloon; others, including local news outlet the Andaman Sheekha, thought that made no sense, ruling out the possibility on the grounds of the object’s shape, height, and photographs showing what appeared to be “eight dark panels” hanging from it.

    Some did suggest spying might be involved, but that too seemed a strange explanation.

    Under the headline, “Unidentified Flying Object over Port Blair city triggers curiosity and rumor,” the Sheekha posed a question: “In this age of ultra advanced satellites, who will use a flying object to spy?”

    That question, experts say, has taken on a greater resonance this month, after the United States shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that spent days over American territory, including apparently lingering over nuclear missile silos in Montana.

    US intelligence officials say the balloon – which China insists was a civilian weather research vessel – was part of an extensive Chinese surveillance program run from the island province of Hainan that has flown balloons over at least five continents in recent years.

    Other governments have also raised concerns. Soon after the balloon was spotted over the US, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the incident “should not be tolerated by the civilized international community,” adding it had experienced Chinese balloons flying over its territory in September 2021 and again in February 2022.

    Japan meanwhile said it “strongly presumed” that three “balloon-shaped flying objects” detected in its airspace between November 2019 and September 2021 were “unmanned reconnaissance” aircraft flown by China.

    But India – which administers the Andaman and Nicobar Islands – has remained conspicuously silent, despite questions being raised by the Indian media.

    “Mystery balloon hovered over Andaman and Nicobar Islands around tri-service military drill,” reported India Today; “Chinese spy balloons, UFOs trigger paranoia among countries. Should India be worried?” asked Live Mint. “Reports Suggest India Was Targeted by Chinese Balloon Too,” ran a headline in The Wire; “Did a Chinese ‘spy’ balloon snoop on India too?” asked Firstpost.

    China, meanwhile, has strongly denied running a balloon surveillance program. It maintains the vessel downed by the US was a weather balloon thrown off course and has also rejected Tokyo’s claims. Beijing said it firmly opposed “the Japanese side’s smear campaign against China” and said Japan should “stop following the US” by engaging in “deliberate speculation.”

    “China is a responsible country that strictly abides by international law and respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries. (We) hope that all parties will look at it objectively,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in response to a question from CNN about whether the country had ever used balloons to spy on India.

    The high-altitude balloon spotted above the United States.

    But to many onlookers, the silence from New Delhi on the matter has been as baffling as the balloon-like object was to the readers of the Andaman Sheekha.

    “I think (the Indian) government is being silent about it for the simple fact that (it) was unable to do anything about it,” said Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at New Delhi-based think tank Center for Policy Research.

    “If it were to say that a spy balloon was found over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which is seen as a great bastion of Indian sovereignty, it would show the government in a very poor light.”

    India will come under the international spotlight this year as it hosts two high-level summits – the G20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – and it is “desperately keen” for them to go well, Singh said.

    Indian prime minister Narendra Modi arrives for the G20 summit in Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on November 15, 2022.

    And with a general election on the horizon in 2024, its leader Narendra Modi will be eager to look tough in the eyes of voters who swept him into power on a ticket of nationalism and a promise of India’s future greatness.

    Acknowledging that a UFO – which may or may not have been spying – had floated above an archipelago that hosts a significant Indian military presence would compromise that message.

    “Raising this issue of the balloon,” simply wouldn’t be in New Delhi’s interest, Singh concluded. “As a nationalist government, it would completely destroy and demolish its image within the country.”

    But Manoj Kewalramani, a fellow of China studies at the Takshashila Institution in India, said silence was simply more New Delhi’s style.

    “Historically, India has never spoken about these issues,” he said. “If the US has briefed India on the Chinese spying program, India will very careful about what they reveal, so as to not tarnish that relationship.”

    CNN reached out to the Indian government for comment on this article but did not receive a response.

    The Andaman and Nicobar Islands may seem an unlikely target for international espionage.

    The remote, sleepy archipelago at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea lies about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Aceh, Indonesia, and more than 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) from the Indian capital New Delhi. Only a few dozen of its more than 500 islands are even inhabited.

    India's Andaman and Nicobar islands

    There is little commerce to speak of beyond fishing villages, and while the sandy beaches and rich biodiversity have made some of the islands popular with tourists, others are so remote they are home to uncontacted tribes.

    In 2018, an American missionary, John Allen Chau, is thought to have been killed by the Sentinelese tribe after he arrived on North Sentinel Island, hoping to convert them to Christianity. In 2006, members of the same tribe killed two fishermen poachers whose boat drifted ashore. Two years earlier, one of its members was photographed firing arrows at a helicopter sent to check on their welfare following the Asian tsunami. Protection groups have urged the public to respect their wish to remain uncontacted.

    But as obscure and remote as these islands may be, there are reasons they might be of interest to foreign intelligence agencies.

    In this undated photo released by the Anthropological Survey of India, Sentinelese tribe men row their canoe in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.

    As a major outpost in the Indian Ocean, the islands join the Bay of Bengal with the wider Indo-Pacific, via the Malacca Strait – one of the busiest and most important trade routes in the world.

    The location also makes the islands a strategic military asset for India, and they are home to the only integrated tri-service (army, navy, air force) base of the Indian armed forces.

    In recent years, New Delhi has poured great effort into enhancing the islands’ prospects as a military base, with Modi in 2019 unveiling a decade-long plan to add more troops, warships and aircraft to its existing fleet.

    “The islands are used for military deployment and dominate the area,” said Singh, from the Center for Policy Research. “Various Indian military leaders have described the islands as an ‘unsinkable carrier.’”

    In the event of a military clash between China and the US over Taiwan, Singh said, “the US could ask India for support from the islands.”

    “India has also been very protective about the islands. Very rarely have they allowed foreign military to exercise on land on these islands,” he added.

    Kewalramani, from the Takshashila Institution, said China “would want to know what’s happening on the (Andaman and Nicobar) islands.”

    However, he also said it remained unclear “whether they would do that through a balloon and whether a balloon could gather enough intel.”

    To many commentators, the whole saga is less about what may or may not have been a surveillance balloon, and more about the Modi government’s reticence to engage on issues involving China for fear of sparking a diplomatic crisis ahead of next year’s Indian election.

    While there may be some sensitive military secrets to be gleaned from Andaman and Nicobar islands, analysts suggest the real reason for tight lips in New Delhi may be connected to what is happening thousands of miles to the north, along India’s 2,100-mile (3,380-kilometer) disputed border with China.

    It’s here in the thin air and freezing temperatures of the Himalayas that troops from the two nuclear-armed neighbors have clashed over the past few years, in what are startling reminders of India and China’s combustible relationship.

    Tensions along the de factor border have been simmering for more than 60 years and have spilled over into war before. In 1962 a month-long conflict ended in a Chinese victory and India losing thousands of square miles of territory.

    But rarely in recent years have those tensions been as high as they are now. Since a clash involving hand-to-hand fighting in 2020 claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers, both sides have deployed thousands of troops to the area, where they remain in what appears to be a semi-permanent stand-off.

    This general view shows a monastery in Tawang near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), neighbouring China, in the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh on October 20, 2021. (Photo by Money SHARMA / AFP) (Photo by MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images)

    Why do India and China spar at the border?

    “The whole character of the border changed in 2020. China did something that they had not done before … they came into occupied areas … and refused to withdraw,” said former Lt. Gen. Rakesh Sharma, whose more than 40 years in the Indian army included a stint commanding the Fire and Fury Corps in the Ladakh area of the border.

    There are now signs things may be heating up once again, according to Arzan Tarapore, South Asia research scholar at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

    A brawl between troops from the two sides in December – what the Indian government characterized as a “physical scuffle” – was “part of the steady drumbeat of China building its military presence, asserting its control over disputed areas, and probing Indian defenses,” Tarapore said.

    “It was just one episode in a string of episodes, and India should certainly expect more – and probably bigger – such probes and incursions in the future,” he added.

    With the border issue heating up, analysts say Modi faces a difficult diplomatic balancing act.

    On one hand, he needs to project a strong image to voters and show he is willing to stand his ground against China’s pressure at the border.

    On the other, he must be careful to avoid inflaming the already tense relationship with Beijing by wading into China’s dispute with Washington over the balloon shot down off the US East Coast.

    One reading of India’s silence may be that is adopting Theodore Roosevelt’s famous foreign policy maxim of, “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”

    New Delhi recently announced a 13% hike in its annual defense budget to 5.94 trillion rupees ($72.6 billion) – which is expected to fund, among other things, new access roads and fighter jets to be based along the disputed border.

    In this photograph provided by the Indian Army, tanks pull back from the banks of Pangong Tso lake region, in Ladakh along the India-China border on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021.

    But, as with the UFO in the Andaman and Nicobars, experts say New Delhi sometimes gives the impression that the less said about the border the better.

    Kenneth Juster, a former US ambassador to India, told Indian television channel Times Now that New Delhi preferred Washington not to comment on Chinese aggression at the Himalayan border.

    “The restraint in mentioning China in any US-India communication or any Quad communication comes from India, which is very concerned about not poking China in the eye,” he said, referring to discussions of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – a strategic US-led group that includes India, Japan and Australia and that Beijing is convinced is aimed at containing China’s rise.

    Modi has largely avoided speaking publicly on the border issue, going as far as saying on live television shortly after the deadly 2020 clashes that, “No one has intruded and nor is anyone intruding.”

    “He wants the crisis to go away. His reaction is to avoid talking about it,” said Singh, the analyst. “Propaganda and PR have led many Indians to believe that things (at the disputed border) are OK.”

    Kewalramani, the China expert, said India simply preferred a lower-key approach in pushing back against Beijing, noting it had cracked down on Chinese businesses, including by banning some Chinese apps.

    “While there aren’t huge gestures, it is part of India’s diplomatic culture to avoid aggression,” he said.

    The problem with that approach, others warned, was that it risked making India appear weak.

    “Considering that a crisis on the border is still ongoing, and continues to haunt India and China, the silence does not bode well for India,” Singh said.

    “It emboldens China.”

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  • Search of BBC offices by Indian government enters third day | CNN Business

    Search of BBC offices by Indian government enters third day | CNN Business

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    Indian tax officials continued their search of the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai for the third consecutive day, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN, weeks after the country banned a documentary from the British broadcaster that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago.

    BBC employees have been told not to disclose information about the searches. A spokesperson for the broadcaster said it was cooperating with authorities.

    Some staff members were asked to remain at the offices overnight on Tuesday, the BBC said. But the offices are now open for people to enter and leave as needed.

    The searches come nearly a month after the Indian government said it banned the two-part documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” from being aired in the country and used “emergency powers” to block clips of the film from circulating on social media domestically. Twitter and YouTube complied with the order, the government said.

    The documentary revives the most controversial chapter of the Indian leader’s political career, when he was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

    Modi was accused of not doing enough to stop some of the most heinous violence in India’s post-indpendence history, when riots broke out between the state’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims.

    More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the violence and at least 220 more went missing, according to government figures.

    Modi has denied accusations that he failed to stop the violence. A special investigation team appointed by India’s Supreme Court in 2012 found no evidence to suggest he was to blame.

    Two years later, Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in India, riding on a wave of Hindu nationalism in the country of 1.3 billion, where nearly 80% of the population follow the faith.

    The government’s move to block the documentary polarized opinion in the world’s largest democracy. Critics decried it as an assault on press freedom, while Modi’s supporters rallied to his defense.

    India’s main opposition Congress party described the ongoing tax searches at the BBC offices as a “brazen attack” on India’s free press.

    “If someone tries to shed light on the prime minister’s past, or dig out details of his past…the present and future of that media house will be destroyed by his agencies. That is the reality,” the party’s media department head, Pawan Khera, told reporters Wednesday. “India is the mother of democracy but why is India’s prime minister the father of hypocrisy?”

    The BJP has tried to justify the move by saying nobody in the country is above the law.

    Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, the party’s spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said companies, including media agencies, must “follow and respect Indian law.”

    “Anyone, any agency, whether tied to the media, a company, if they are working in India, they must follow and respect Indian law. If they follow the law, then why should they be scared or worried? Let the Income Department do its job,” he said.

    The raids raised fears of censorship in India, with several media organizations issuing statements condemning the government’s actions.

    Now ranked between Turkey and Sudan, India dropped eight places to 150 out of 180 nations in last year’s World Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders.

    The Press Club of India said in a Tuesday statement the raids “will damage the reputation and image of India as the world’s largest democracy.”

    “It is deeply unfortunate as this latest instance appears to be a clear cut case of vendetta, coming within weeks of a documentary aired by the BBC,” it said, urging the government to “restrain its agencies from misusing its powers in order to intimidate the media.”

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  • Adani’s fall reignites scrutiny of billionaire’s close ties with Modi

    Adani’s fall reignites scrutiny of billionaire’s close ties with Modi

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    An activist of India’s Congress party shouts slogans as he burns an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian tycoon Gautam Adani during a rally organised to protest against the union governments financial policies in Kolkata on February 6, 2023. Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images

    Dibyangshu Sarkar | Afp | Getty Images

    Modi and Adani probably share the closest relationship a politician can have with a business person.

    Ashok Swain

    Uppsala University

    Hindenburg’s report has further sharpened the focus on the billionaire mogul’s close ties with Modi.

    “Adani has pulled off this gargantuan feat with the help of enablers in government and a cottage industry of international companies that facilitate these activities. These issues of corruption permeate multiple layers of government,” the report alleged.

    In a rebuttal that ran over 400 pages, the Adani Group rejected those allegations calling it a “calculated attack on India.” 

    The company did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The Prime Minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

    ‘Crony capitalism’

    India has always struggled with “crony capitalism,” but the cozy relationship between Modi and Adani has “taken it to a different level,” according to Ashok Swain, head of the department of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University in Sweden.

    “Modi and Adani probably share the closest relationship a politician can have with a business person; certainly, it had never happened in India. Their rise has been together,” added Swain, a veteran observer of Indian politics.

    Adani’s family-owned conglomerate spans from airports and maritime ports to coal and renewable energy and more recently, media.

    India’s “chosen growth model” requires a “certain degree of crony capitalism,” said Milan Vaishnav, South Asia director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    NDIA – JANUARY 18: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Gautam Adani, chairman and founder of the Adani Group, and other delegates at Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, at Mahatma Mandir Exhibition cum Convention Centre, on January 18, 2019 in Gandhinagar, India.

    Hindustan Times | | Getty Images

    Vaishnav added the Modi government’s industrial policy is premised on building up national champions in industry, and Adani has been the “poster child to date.”

    “There’s no question that Adani enjoys this position today at least in part because of his proximity to the prime minister,” he said, “but also because of a perception that he is able to execute on projects at scale.”

    A ‘fruitful relationship’

    The relationship between Adani and Modi is longstanding.

    Both men hail from India’s Western state of Gujarat, where Modi was the chief minister in 2001. Adani was an early supporter of Modi’s political aspirations and championed the Indian leader’s growth vision for India.

    Modi flew in an Adani jet after he was elected to national office in 2014. 

    There is no question that the fortunes of these two men are connected…

    Milan Vaishnav

    Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

    “That Adani and Modi forged a close bond during their years in Gujarat is an open secret,” noted Vaishnav.

    “There is no question that the fortunes of these two men are connected,” he said, “especially in the past few years as the government has ramped up capital expenditure as it makes a concerted push on infrastructure.”

    The Adani Group is a key player in Modi’s ambition to transform India into a $5 trillion economy, said Alim Remtulla of Medley Advisors.

    Adani Group's a key player in Modi's push to transform India into $5 trillion economy, analyst says

    Both men embody the “Gujarat growth model,” he said, referring to the embrace of close relations between big business and government.

    “Specifically, infrastructure is a key element to Modi’s nation-building plans. Adani [Group] is one of the few firms in the country that can deliver on these major infrastructure projects across the country,” Remtulla told CNCB’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

    “Similarly, for Adani, he needs the implicit backing of Modi to raise funds for these capital-intensive projects. So this is a long and fruitful relationship that goes back decades,” he said.

    Opposition attacks

    Hindenburg’s report turned out to be a political gift for India’s opposition, which for years has railed against Modi for his links with Adani. With national elections looming next year, opposition critics have seized on the report to attack Modi and his party.

    India’s main opposition Congress party has staged protests and demanded a probe over Hindenburg’s allegations. Opposition critics have also accused Mod’s government of giving unfair favors to Adani’s business empire.

    “The entire country has observed a close connection between the Adani Group’s commercial interests and your [Modi’s] eagerness to help him using government policy. This pattern is consistent across sectors ranging from agriculture to energy to transportation,” Jairam Ramesh, the Congress party’s general secretary, said in a statement last week.

    NEW DELHI, INDIA – FEBRUARY 7: Members of Indian Youth Congress protests over ongoing Adani issue in front of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) office at Connaught Place on February 7, 2023 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

    Hindustan Times | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

    In 2018, the Modi government reportedly changed rules that allowed Adani to bid — and eventually win — tenders for six airports. It was met with outrage amid criticism of cronyism. The government has rejected those allegations.

    After Modi became prime minister, Adani continued to benefit from the relationship but on a much larger scale, said Swain.

    “Besides giving licenses for the airports and ports, changing the environmental rules for Adani’s coal mines, and tweaking the rules to favor Adani’s stakes in special economic zones, Modi has helped Adani’s businesses in many ways,” he said.

    In his address to parliament last week, the prime minister seemed unfazed by the opposition’s criticism and made no mention of Adani.

    I am skeptical that the Adani crisis will personally tarnish Modi or hamper the electoral prospects of the [ruling party] BJP.

    Milan Vaishnav

    Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

    “The blessings of 1.4 billion countrymen are my biggest ‘suraksha kavach,’” Modi said, using a Hindi term meaning “safety shield.”

    “And you can never breach this safety shield with the weapons of abuse and lies,” he said, as opposition lawmakers chanted “Adani, Adani.”

    Adani has rejected claims that he gained personal favors from Modi, calling such allegations baseless.

    “Prime Minister Modi and I are from the same state. That makes me an easy target for such baseless allegation,” said the tycoon, according to a January report in India Today.

    “My professional success is not because of any individual leader but because of the policy and institutional reforms initiated by several leaders and governments over a long period of more than three decades,” he said in the report.

    Political damage?

    Politically, it’s hard to predict what effect, if any, the fresh scrutiny will have on Modi’s popularity and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, observers said.

    “I am skeptical that the Adani crisis will personally tarnish Modi or hamper the electoral prospects of the BJP,” said Carnegie’s Vaishnav.

    Still, the relationship between Modi and Adani is “so long and strong” it will be tough for the prime minister and his party to wriggle out of this crisis unscathed, added Swain.

    “Adani’s close link with Modi has forced his supporters and India’s Hindu nationalists to defend [Adani] for the last nine years. It will not be that easy to distance themselves from Adani now,” he said.

    “However, they will try to blame Adani’s fall on an international conspiracy against Modi,” he added.

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  • India stock markets have been volatile. Analysts say these sectors are worth watching

    India stock markets have been volatile. Analysts say these sectors are worth watching

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    The Indian government announced during the annual budget on Feb. 1 that the country will increase infrastructure spending by 33% to 10 trillion rupees ($122.29 billion) in the next fiscal year.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Indian markets have been volatile as the Adani crisis continues to dominate headlines, but analysts say this could be a buying opportunity.

    In particular, some are bullish about the construction sector and say an infrastructure push could benefit cement stocks.

    In a January note, Bernstein analysts led by Venugopal Garre, said they were “generally optimistic about the real estate cycle and the potential for a better rural environment.”

    Investors can consider playing the country’s infrastructure sector through domestic cement names, Garre said. 

    Cement: UltraTech, Ambuja

    Bernstein likes UltraTech Cement — a company Garre said has the capacity to keep up with the growing number of real estate projects coming up in India. 

    He said “70% of cement demand comes from real estate, and 30% comes from infrastructure,” and added that when a new property is built, cement is needed from the first day the project cycle commences. 

    This is unlike electric equipment or circuitry that is only needed in the third or fourth year of the construction project, he explained. 

    Sanjiv Bhasin, director at IIFL Securities, also said UltraTech Cement is one of the firm’s “top picks,” along with Ambuja Cements.

    Shares of UltraTech Cement was trading at about 7,123.05 on Wednesday, lower by 0.21%. The stock is close to its 52-week intraday high, according to FactSet.

    The government’s spending on infrastructure is increasing and “we think cement prices are headed higher because we [are going] into a season where construction activity may be at the highest,” Bhasin said. 

    FactSet data showed shares of Ambuja Cements have fallen 34% year-to-date. Bhasin has said the stock is a buy and that it’s a “brilliant opportunity” despite the current market volatility.

    The Adani Group owns a 63.15% stake in Ambuja Cements, Refinitiv showed.

    The price for Ambuja Cements is falling “because it exists within the Adani umbrella,” said Praveen Jagwani, chief executive officer at UTI International Singapore.

    “This temporary fiasco is only a buying opportunity … We still think that UltraTech and Ambuja are very, very good plays on the cement side,” Bhasin said, adding than an impetus on infrastructure spending will cause these names to outperform in the next quarter.

    India’s infrastructure push

    Morgan Stanley is bullish on India’s industrials sector, its analysts said in a note on Feb. 1 after the budget announcement.

    “As the Budget supports capex and employment creation, we remain constructive on the domestic demand strength,” the financial services firm said.

    Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced during the annual budget last week that the country will increase infrastructure spending by 33% to 10 trillion rupees ($122.29 billion) in the next fiscal year. India’s fiscal year starts in April and ends in March the next year.

    India’s construction materials industry should see some upside from the rise in capital expenditure, but investors have to be “very careful” when picking cement stocks, Jagwani told CNBC.

    India needs more high quality commercial buildings, roads and airports, but the country’s infrastructure sector is also “super unpredictable and risky,” Jagwani warned.

    Return on investment would fall each year as infrastructure projects get delayed, Jagwani pointed out, claiming that it happens frequently in India. 

    Engineering: ABB India, Siemens India and more

    Engineering companies that focus on infrastructure and construction are also good buys, IIFL Securities said.

    They include ABB India, Siemens India, and Larsen & Turbo.

    Larsen & Turbo will be coming out with “higher double digit margins, and their order flows are the strongest,” Bhasin said. 

    UTI International also likes Berger Paints, which Jagwani said has the “ingredients” to see a continuous growth in sales and will benefit not just from new buildings being built, but older ones that need maintenance. 

    “Paint is in the replacement market. People need to get their houses and apartments painted every few years because of rain and excessive heat,” he said. 

    The shares, however, are down 4.5% year-to-date and close to their 52-week intraday low of 527.6 rupees. Berger Paints was trading at about 555.45 rupees on Wednesday. 

    — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. 

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  • Indian authorities raid BBC offices after broadcast of Modi documentary | CNN Business

    Indian authorities raid BBC offices after broadcast of Modi documentary | CNN Business

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    Indian tax authorities raided the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday, weeks after the country banned a documentary from the British broadcaster that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago.

    BBC News reported on television that people had not been allowed to enter or leave the offices.

    The raids come after the Indian government said it used “emergency powers” to block the documentary from airing in the country, adding that both YouTube and Twitter complied with the order.

    The move polarized reaction in the world’s largest democracy. Critics decried it as an assault on press freedom, while Modi’s supporters rallied to his defense.

    A BBC spokesperson told CNN that the organization was “fully cooperating” with authorities. “We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said.

    The two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” criticized the then-chief minister of the western state of Gujarat in 2002 when riots broke out between the state’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims. It was broadcast in the UK in January.

    More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the violence and at least 220 more went missing, according to government figures. Almost 1,000 women were widowed, while more than 600 children were left orphaned, official figures showed.

    Modi and his ruling ruling Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in India in 2014, riding on a wave of Hindu nationalism in the country of 1.3 billion, where nearly 80% of the population follow the faith.

    The BBC said Jack Straw, who was British foreign secretary in 2002 and features in the documentary, claims that Modi had “played a proactive part in pulling back the police and in tacitly encouraging the Hindu extremists.”

    Modi has denied accusations that he failed to stop the violence. A special investigation team appointed by India’s Supreme Court in 2012 found no evidence to suggest he was to blame.

    But the riots remain one of the darkest chapters in India’s post-independence history, with some victims still awaiting justice.

    Last month, some university students in Delhi attempting to watch the banned film on campus were detained by police, raising concerns that freedoms were bring throttled under Modi’s government.

    Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said companies, including media agencies, must “follow and respect Indian law.”

    “Anyone, any agency, whether tied to the media, a company, if they are working in India, they must follow and respect Indian law. If they follow the law, then why should they be scared or worried? Let the Income Department do its job,” he said.

    India was a country that “gives an opportunity to every organization” as long as they are “willing to abide” by the country’s constitution, Bhatia added.

    The raids have raised fears of censorship in India.

    In a statement Tuesday, the Editor’s Guild of India said it was “deeply concerned” by the development.

    The raids were a “continuation of a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organisations that are critical of government policies or the ruling establishment,” it said. “This is a trend that undermines constitutional democracy.”

    The statement gave examples of similar searches carried out at the offices of various English-language local media outlets, including NewsClick and Newslaundry, as well as Hindi-language media organizations including Dainik Bhaskar and Bharat Samachar.

    The Press Club of India said in a Tuesday statement the raids “will damage the reputation and image of India as the world’s largest democracy.”

    “It is deeply unfortunate as this latest instance appears to be a clear cut case of vendetta, coming within weeks of a documentary aired by the BBC,” it said, urging the government to “restrain its agencies from misusing its powers in order to intimidate the media.”

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  • Biden to announce a Boeing and Air India deal worth at least $34 billion | CNN Business

    Biden to announce a Boeing and Air India deal worth at least $34 billion | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Air India will purchase more than 200 planes from Boeing, a White House official says President Joe Biden will announce Tuesday. It’s the third biggest sale of all time for the aircraft manufacturer.

    The agreement will include 190 Boeing 737 MAXs, 20 Boeing 787s, and 10 Boeing 777Xs – a total of 220 firm orders valued at a list price of $34 billion, the official says. The purchase will also include customer options for an additional 50 Boeing 737 MAXs and 20 Boeing 787s, totaling 290 airplanes for a total of $45.9 billion at list price.

    In a statement, Biden said the sale would “support over one million American jobs across 44 states, and many will not require a four-year college degree.”

    “This announcement also reflects the strength of the U.S.-India economic partnership,” the president wrote. “Together with Prime Minister Modi, I look forward to deepening our partnership even further as we continue to confront shared global challenges — creating a more secure and prosperous future for all of our citizens.”

    Production will support three separate U.S.-based manufacturing lines, will result in $70 billion in total economic impact across the United States and support an estimated 1.47 million direct and indirect jobs, a White House official said Tuesday.

    India has been gaining some manufacturing business as Western tensions flare with China, including major companies that traditionally rely heavily on Chinese production. Apple is one such company, with Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal saying the tech giant was already making between 5% and 7% of its products in India.

    India is set to overtake China this year to become the world’s most populous country. The country’s massive and cheap labor force, which includes workers with key technical skills, is a big draw for manufacturers. Asia’s third-largest economy also offers a growing domestic market. In 2023, as global recession fears persist, India is expected to remain the fastest growing major economy in the world.

    If it can sustain that momentum, India could become only the third country with GDP worth $10 trillion by 2035, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

    Boeing’s

    (BA)     737 Max has been plagued with problems, but production and orders for the troubled aircraft has picked up, boosted by a massive order from United late last year. In June, Ethiopian Airlines took delivery of a 737 Max from Boeing for the first time since the March 2019 crash that killed all 157 people on board, and led to a 20-month grounding of the jet.

    The company has plenty of other troubles in China, the world’s largest aviation market. It has been on the verge of being virtually shut out of the region as trade tensions between the United States and China have basically halted Boeing sales in the country for the last four years. The company has not announced any sales to a Chinese passenger airline since November 2017, and the country banned the Boeing 737 Max for much longer than most countries. A Boeing 737 Max finally took off in China in January for the first time since 2019.

    Boeing has faced myriad problems in recent years, beyond the drop in demand for passenger planes that occurred during the pandemic. Delivery of the 787 Dreamliner widebody jets resumed last year after they were halted due to quality control issues.

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  • 400 love letters and a play: How two Indian prisoners found love

    400 love letters and a play: How two Indian prisoners found love

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    At the entrance to a small bright-green house with a wooden door in the village of Kazhuthapali in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, sits the King of Love.

    That is the literal translation of UA Anburaj’s name. And the 43-year-old lives up to it. The tall, quiet man watches his wife Revathi and their two children – five-year-old son, Agaram, and eight-year-old daughter, Yazhisai – prepare for the local temple festival, and smiles contentedly.

    More than a decade ago, the couple were furiously writing to one another – nearly 400 letters in a handful of years – but neither dreamt they would one day be here: at home, together.

    That is because the letters were exchanged between two high-security prisons in the neighbouring state of Karnataka – where Revathi and Anburaj were each serving a life sentence.

    “We actually fell in love over letters,” says 32-year-old Revathi, smiling. “I remember how my roommates used to tease me every time a letter came in.”

    Post release, Anburaj and Revathi rebuilt their lives with their children Agaram and Yazhisai [Courtesy of Anburaj]

    Heroes and bandits

    Decades before the first letter was sent, Anburaj was growing up in Kazhuthapali, a village whose name means “donkey creek”. “It was literally the place where the [forest-dwelling Soliga tribe] from the neighbouring hills used to offload their donkeys to let them drink water from the creek,” Anburaj explains.

    His parents were both weavers – his mother Annakodi, 65, still works on her pedal loom, expertly weaving a colourful doormat​​ outside the house while her son speaks. When Anburaj was young, his father wanted him to become a police officer. But the boy had other interests.

    “When I was eight years old, I had heard stories of a forest bandit and his gang roaming those very hills. But … none of the villagers had ever seen him,” Anburaj recalls.

    The forest bandit – Veerappan – was a notorious poacher and sandalwood smuggler. But many of the villagers and forest dwellers in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka supported him.

    “In 1972, India brought in the Wildlife Protection Act to protect the forests and the very next day, the hunting tribes and forest-dependent villagers became criminals,” Anburaj explains.

    The newly formed forest department put pressure on the tribes who were dependent on the forest for food, but provided them with no other alternative, he adds.

    “There was a huge gap between the government and the forest dwellers – and it led to the rise of Veerappan as a leader who protected forest-dependent tribes from the authorities.”

    Koose Muniswamy Veerappan
    An undated file photo of Indian bandit Koose Muniswamy Veerappan [File:Reuters/Stringer/India AH/TW]

    But while the adolescent Anburaj was curious about Veerappan, he found his hero in someone else – an old village storyteller named Sevi. The wise elder spoke of the way of love, helped solve village disputes and shared moral tales that would capture the attention of the entire village.

    But then one day, when Anburaj was 15, something happened that would change both his and Sevi’s lives forever.

    Hearing a commotion outside, Anburaj stepped out of his house to see the usually quiet village filled with men dressed in camouflage – part of a special police task force formed to capture Veerappan and his men. The startled teenager slowly moved through the crowded street and there, in the middle of a throng of people, was a naked Sevi, huddled in a foetal position. A group of policemen thrashed the old man with batons as villagers looked on in shock.

    Women begged the policemen to stop and, when they eventually did, the villagers quickly clothed the storyteller. The police officials declared that the same thing would happen to anyone who dared to support Veerappan. Anburaj watched as his hero limped back to his hut, not knowing that it was the last time he would see him.

    “Sevi thatha [grandpa] never came out to share his stories again, and he died within months,” he says. Sevi’s death had a profound effect on Anburaj, who decided then that he wanted to join the rebels in the forest.

    When he was 17, Anburaj got his chance.

    He was grazing his sheep in the hills when he encountered Veerappan. The bandit took an instant liking to the inquisitive teenager, taking him under his wing and teaching him the ways of the forest. Anburaj would stand guard for Veerappan, carry his groceries, and do his bidding.

    “At that point, I was just Veerappan’s soldier who blindly obeyed his orders. I would beat up anyone he asks me to,” he recalls, recounting his involvement in two offences where the gang kidnapped forest officials and two freelance photographers for ransom.

    But, just three years after he joined them, Veerappan asked Anburaj and some other bandits to surrender to the police as a part of his reconciliation efforts with the state government, which he said had promised them amnesty in exchange for their surrender. Anburaj did as he was asked and remembers bidding a teary-eyed Veerappan farewell.

    A photo of Anburaj looking to the left.
    Anburaj was sentenced to life in prison at age 20 [Balasubramaniam N/Al Jazeera]

    The state government backed out of its commitment, however, and put Anburaj and the other bandits on trial. Veerappan – who did not surrender because he wasn’t sure the government would honour its promise – went on the run until he was ambushed and killed by state police in 2004.

    Anburaj was 20 years old when he was sentenced to life in prison for aiding the forest brigade and being an accessory to kidnapping.

    “When the judge read the statement that said I had to serve my sentence ‘until my last breath’, it felt like a death knell,” he says.

    When fate draws a path

    “[In prison] the food, water, everything was abysmal. The worst part was we were given two bowls: one to eat on and another to collect our excreta; we had to dispose of it ourselves the next day,” he says.

    The lack of basic human dignity shocked Anburaj, who responded by organising peaceful protests requesting better sanitation facilities. His legal petitions would later pave the way for improved toilet facilities across the state’s prisons.

    When he was not protesting, Anburaj was reading. Papillon by Henri Charriere – a novel that explores the title character’s imprisonment and subsequent escape from a French penal colony – hit particularly close to home. Like its hero, Anburaj felt that the punishment for a crime he had committed as a juvenile was too harsh.

    “Like Henri, I was not ready to spend the rest of my life in prison, so I hatched plans to escape its towering walls,” he says.

    But while trying to find ways to surmount his physical obstacles, Anburaj met “a renowned theatre director who had come to organise plays for prisoners” – and his plan changed.

    As plays were often held outside prison grounds, Anburaj volunteered to set up a team of actors and theatre technicians in his prison, hoping that this would be his ticket to escape.

    It did free him, but not in the way he had anticipated.

    A photo of a group of people standing around on stage, in a play with a man sitting cross-legged in the middle.
    Anburaj, in one of the many plays they showcased as part of the prison theatre programme [Courtesy of Anburaj]

    Before they could begin work on the plays, inmates were asked to attend workshops where they did things like paint, craft clay models, and dance. “The idea was to bring out the mindset of a child in each one of us, which it did. I had never held a brush or canvas in my life yet I painted two huge canvases, immersing myself in the experience for three whole months. As a prisoner, we do not get to see the sunrise or sunset inside the prison so I created a painting of a warm sunrise,” Anburaj recalls.

    Over the next six months, he was swept into the world of theatre. Each script and character spoke to his soul. “When I read the scene where Lady Macbeth cries in anguish about her inability to wash the scent of blood from her hands, I could connect to the guilt she felt.”

    Anburaj felt a need to hug his victims and to ask for their forgiveness. He believed it was necessary for every prisoner to feel that sense of guilt in order to reform themselves. He was also heavily influenced by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, reading close to 150 books on the revolutionary’s life as part of his preparations for a play about Gandhi’s wife, Kasturba.

    In the men’s prison, female characters were usually played by male prisoners. But when his theatre team had to put on a play called Madhavi – a scathing commentary on patriarchal society – he felt that only a woman could do justice to the role.

    So in 2008, he wrote to prison officials requesting that female prisoners be allowed to perform in the prison theatre. His petition was accepted and 12 female prisoners from a nearby facility joined their group of performers.

    That is when he met Revathi.

    A chance at a future

    When Revathi was three years old, her mother died. Soon after, her father abandoned her. So she lived with her grandmother in Chennai. But when she passed away, 14-year-old Revathi chose to stay with the family she worked for as a house helper.

    A year later, that family relocated to Bengaluru, the Karnataka capital, taking Revathi with them. But within six months of the move, they had sent her to work for an elderly lady in a posh apartment in the city.

    “I was shocked when one day that lady nonchalantly declared that I was sold to a prostitution ring in Mumbai. My stomach churned, I knew that there was absolutely no one to save me,” Revathi recalls.

    She claims that when she shouted for help, the woman stabbed her in the stomach and arms. She says she managed to grab the knife from her and “attacked her back”.

    Revathi recalls how the woman “sunk in a pool of blood”.

    “I passed out before I realised what had just happened.”

    Three days later, the 16-year-old woke up in hospital. That is when she learned that she was to be tried for murder.

    Revathi was convicted and sentenced to life in 2003.

    A photo of Revathi.
    Revathi was sentenced to life in prison at age 16 [Courtesy of Anburaj]

    She played the scene out in her mind over and over again, wondering if she could have done anything differently. But there she was in a white sari – the uniform worn by female prisoners – that declared her a criminal to a world she barely knew.

    During her first year in prison, she did not talk to anyone. She fell into depression. Then, a few years into her sentence, a prison official encouraged her to join a theatre group in the women’s prison.

    After prison officials approved Anburaj’s request in 2008, the female inmates began practising along with their male theatre counterparts under a large tree in the garden of the men’s prison. After their workshops and rehearsals ended, the women’s and men’s groups would then return to their respective prisons.

    When Revathi first arrived with the other female inmates, Anburaj hardly noticed the quiet young woman.

    Revathi kept to herself as she could not speak the local language – Kannada. It took her days to figure out that Anburaj was in fact from her home state, Tamil Nadu, and spoke her mother tongue, Tamil, fluently. Slowly, she began opening up to him.

    “One day, I was asked to craft something in clay as part of our theatre workshop at the men’s prison. I chose to mould a statue of a mother. Having lost my mother at a young age, it was the first image that came to my mind,” she says.

    She became overwhelmed with emotion and Anburaj, who was the assistant director for the prison theatre initiative, helped her finish the statue.

    A friendship blossomed between the two. “We only spoke a few words in person but he wrote to me extensively. His words were always kind and soothing,” Revathi smiles.

    The workshops and practice sessions allowed them to meet for five days a week over a period of 11 months.

    A photo of two people in a play. There's a man kneeling on the left holding the hand of a woman standing on the right.
    Anburaj on stage in a prison theatre production [Courtesy of Anburaj]

    Their conversations evolved into long discussions about the characters in their plays and the challenges of their lives before they were imprisoned. “I had studied only till class four so I could hardly write. He, on the other hand, wrote mellifluously. In fact, I learned to write from him,” she laughs.

    When prison officials considered releasing Revathi for good behaviour, and she worried about where she would go, Anburaj assured her that she could go to his family. His mother and siblings would treat her like their own, he insisted. That was the moment Revathi knew that Anburaj was her future.

    For Anburaj, Revathi was someone who shared his vision. “I knew that I wouldn’t just step out of prison and take care of just my family. I needed someone who understood my ideology. Whatever was denied to us, I wanted to try and give back to those we can,” he explains.

    “As a person who has been a victim herself, I had seen Revathi stand up for common good even inside the prison grounds. She had petitioned to bring sanitary napkins for women prisoners. She was empathetic and is my equal in every sense of the word.”

    Abundant love

    In 2011, three years after they met, while both were on parole – temporary release given to prisoners based on good behaviour – they got married. Four years later, while Anburaj was away performing at a Bengaluru theatre festival, Revathi bore their first child while in prison – a tiny, premature baby girl.

    Anburaj and his prison supervisor rushed overnight to see the newborn in a private hospital in Mysuru. “The minute I held her I felt immense joy and hope. There was also this sense of huge responsibility on my shoulders. It was not about pampering her or giving her wealth or education. I just wanted to provide that little girl with the best environment to let her fly and let her be,” he said.

    The next day, Revathi returned to prison with the baby.

    Six months after giving birth, and after 14 years in prison, Revathi was released for good behaviour. Anburaj was released a year later, after spending two decades in prison.

    The couple moved to live with Anburaj’s parents in Kazhuthapali.

    A photo of the Anbu family which consists of six people.
    Anburaj and Revathi live with his parents and the couple’s children in Kazhuthapali [Balasubramaniam N/Al Jazeera]

    With some help from friends, Anburaj set up an oil processing unit and later expanded it to an organic shop that sells vegetables, groceries, honey, oil and handicrafts. He continues to go back to the prison where he was imprisoned, to organise plays for inmates. Revathi has plans to set up a separate theatre unit in a women’s prison, and the two are trying to create similar programmes in other states as well.

    Revathi says they are hardly romantic in conventional ways. “In all these years, he has gifted me a sari and I have given him a peaceful Buddha statue, which he keeps on his table at our shop,” she smiles.

    “Only love has transformed us into humans and we feel it is necessary to bring this peranbu [abundant love] to the world around us,” says Anburaj.

    Having witnessed the challenges that underprivileged forest tribes experienced during his time with Veerappan, Anburaj has helped set up a tribal cooperative society that works towards marketing sustainable forest resources and is in the process of creating a school curriculum based on native ecological knowledge.

    Revathi often accompanies her husband on his trips to meet the tribal communities in the neighbouring Thamaraikarai Hills and says she loves to see him transform into a little child as he animatedly shares his stories with people there.

    “Our love story has never been just about us,” she declares. “All I wanted was love, and now, I feel it abundantly.”

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  • India’s largest insurer LIC says it may review stake in Adani after management meeting

    India’s largest insurer LIC says it may review stake in Adani after management meeting

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    India’s largest insurer says it “might” review its stake in the embattled Adani Group after meeting with the management.

    Life Insurance Corporation Chairman M.R. Kumar told CNBC in an exclusive interview that the state insurer plans to have a discussion with the Adani management soon to get a better picture of the crisis engulfing the conglomerate.

    “As an investor, it’s not often that we have this kind of a situation. But then we have reached out to the management of Adani,” Kumar, told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill in an interview in Mumbai last week, adding the meeting could happen in the coming days.

    “We propose to speak to them about this … just to try and understand what’s really happening within the organization, within the Adani group.”

    An advertisement of the state-owned insurance group and investment company Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is pictured at the entrance of a metro station in New Delhi on March 1, 2022. (Photo by Sajjad HUSSAIN / AFP) (Photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images)

    Sajjad Hussain | Afp | Getty Images

    The chairman said the insurer will make a call whether to review its stake in the Adani Group after the meeting. 

    For now, LIC has no plans to trim its exposure in the ports-to-energy conglomerate.

    “As of now, no,” the chairman told CNBC.

    Asked whether that could change after the meeting with the Group, the chairman said it “might.”

    On Jan. 30, nearly a week after the Hindenburg report came out, LIC said in a statement it had invested 364.7 billion rupees ($4.47 billion) in Adani companies. That brings the insurer’s total exposure in the Group about 1% of its assets under management.

    The state insurer had a 4.23% stake in the conglomerate’s flagship business Adani Enterprises as of end 2022, according to FactSet data. LIC also owns 9.14% of Adani Ports as of Nov. 11 last year, FactSet showed.

    Market meltdown

    NEW DELHI, INDIA FEBRUARY 6: Indian Youth Congress worker protesting against very risky transactions and investment of government institutions like LIC and SBI in Adani Group by Modi government at Jantar Mantar on February 6, 2023 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

    Hindustan Times | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

    “These rating actions follow the significant and rapid decline in the market equity values of the Adani Group companies following the recent release of a report from a short-seller highlighting governance concerns in the Group,” Moody’s said in a statement.

    In a further blow, global index provider MSCI last week said it will cut the weightings of some Adani Group businesses, including flagship firm Adani Enterprises.

    Nathan Anderson, founder of Hindenburg, following the MSCI move on Twitter said: “We view this as validation of our findings on offshore stock parking by Adani.” 

    Still, the LIC chairman said the national insurer isn’t too concerned about the conglomerate’s high debt levels or the recent volatility in Adani’s share price. He stressed LIC makes its investment decisions based on market fundamentals.

    “I can assure you that all investment decisions taken by LIC, are basically on fundamentals, on company valuations — whether it is debt or equity,” Kumar said.

    Adani fallout

    The Adani fallout has raised concerns about the group’s exposure to India’s leading banks and insurers.

    India’s opposition parties have targeted both the LIC and State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, for their investments in the conglomerate.

    India’s main opposition Congress party accused the government as well as LIC and SBI for squandering public money and demanded a probe into the allegations made in the Hindenburg report.

    The opposition party also organized street protests outside several LIC and SBI offices across the country last week, over their exposure to the Adani Group.

    India's largest lender discusses exposure to Adani

    Last week, the State Bank of India told CNBC,  the loans they extended to the Adani group are well covered and there should be no immediate risks. The bank added the Indian public doesn’t need to be concerned about their deposits in the bank.

    LIC’s chairman echoed a similar sentiment saying the state-owned insurer’s fundamentals remain robust.

    “I think we have very strong fundamentals in place. The growth drivers are intact … we are growing very well this year,” said Kumar. “So I believe that people need not have any worries about where they’ve invested their money.”

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  • Is the iPhone’s ‘Made in India’ era about to begin? | CNN Business

    Is the iPhone’s ‘Made in India’ era about to begin? | CNN Business

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    As Apple looks beyond China to secure crucial supply chains strained by Covid lockdowns and threatened by rising geopolitical tension, India has emerged as an attractive potential alternative to the world’s second largest economy.

    And Beijing’s big regional rival isn’t missing a beat in talking up the opportunity. One of India’s top ministers said last month the California-based company wants to ramp up its production in the South Asian country to a quarter of its overall total.

    Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said Apple was already making between 5% and 7% of its products in India. “If I am not mistaken, they are targeting to go up to 25% of their manufacturing,” he said at an event in January.

    His comments come at a time when Foxconn

    (HNHPF)    , a top Apple supplier, is looking to expand its operations in India after suffering severe supply disruptions in China.

    For years, Apple had relied on a vast manufacturing network in China to mass produce iPhones, iPads and other popular products. But its dependence on the country was tested last year by Beijing’s strict zero-Covid strategy, which was rapidly dismantled last December.

    Since the middle of last year, Apple has redoubled its efforts to invest in India. But can Asia’s third largest economy deliver?

    “Theoretically, it can be done, but it won’t be happening overnight,” said Tarun Pathak, a research director at market research firm Counterpoint.

    “[Apple’s] dependency on China is a result of almost two and a half decades of what China put in to develop their entire electronics manufacturing ecosystem,” Pathak said, adding that the company makes nearly 95% of its phones in China.

    Apple did not respond to requests for comment from CNN.

    But the world’s most valuable company posted shockingly weak earnings this month, partly because of its recent problems in China. The troubles started in October, when workers began fleeing the world’s biggest iPhone factory, run by Foxconn, over a Covid outbreak.

    Short on staff, Foxconn offered bonuses to workers to return. But violent protests broke out in November, when newly-hired staff said management had reneged on their promises. Workers clashed with security officers, before the company eventually offered them cash to quit and leave the site.

    While operations at the sprawling campus in Zhengzhou, central China, have now returned to normal, the supply problems hit the supply of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models during the key holiday shopping season.

    Foxconn did not respond to a request for comment.

    On top of that, US-China relations are looking increasingly tense. Last year, the Biden administration banned Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chipmaking equipment without a license.

    “I think they will continue to depend on China for a significant proportion of their production,” said Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School, referring to Apple.

    “But what they are trying to do, and I think it makes sense, is to add diversity to their supply base so that if something goes wrong in China, they will have some alternatives.”

    Shih referred to this strategy as “China +1 or China+ more than one.”

    “India is a hugely exciting market for us and a major focus,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a recent earnings call.

    “Looking at the business in India, we set a quarterly revenue record and grew very strong double digits year over year and so we feel very good about how we performed,” he said.

    India is set to overtake China this year to become the world’s most populous country. The country’s massive and cheap labor force, which includes workers with key technical skills, is a big draw for manufacturers.

    Asia’s third largest economy also offers a growing domestic market. In 2023, as global recession fears persist, India is expected to remain the fastest growing major economy in the world.

    If it can sustain that momentum, India could become only the third country with GDP worth $10 trillion by 2035, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

    Analysts say India’s growing consumer base might give it an edge over Vietnam, which has also been attracting greater investment in electronics manufacturing.

    The Indian government has rolled out policies to attract investments in mobile phone manufacturing. According to Counterpoint’s Pathak, India accounts for 16% of the global smartphone production, while China constitutes 70%.

    There are some success stories: Samsung, the world’s top selling smartphone brand, is one step ahead of Apple and already makes a lot of its phones in India.

    An employee tests the camera quality of mobile phones on an assembly line at a unit of Foxconn Technology Co., in Sri City, Andhra pradesh, India.

    The South Korean giant has been diversifying away from China because of rising labor costs and also stiff local competition from homegrown players such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi.

    It now makes the bulk of its phones in Vietnam and India, with the latter accounting for 20% of Samsung’s global production.

    In 2018, Samsung opened what it called “the world’s largest mobile factory” in Noida, a city near New Delhi, and analysts say the the company may have paved the way for other manufacturers.

    Apple devices are manufactured in India by Taiwan’s Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron. Until recently, the company would typically start assembling models in the country only seven to eight months after launch. That changed last year, when Apple started making new iPhone 14 devices in India weeks after they went on sale.

    Some of Apple’s biggest contractors are already pumping more money into India. Last year, Foxconn announced it had invested half a billion dollars in its Indian subsidiary.

    Earlier this week, the government of the southern Indian state of Karnataka said it is “in serious discussion of investment plans” with the Taiwanese giant. Foxconn already has factories in the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

    Manufacturing in India, however, comes with myriad challenges. It constitute only 14% of India’s GDP, according to the World Bank, and the government has struggled to grow that figure.

    “One of the things that China did is they built infrastructure when they could. And I would argue that India did not build infrastructure when they could,” said Shih, referring to highways, ports and transport links that allow easy movement of goods.

    An aerial view of Mumbai Metro Line 7 between Andheri East station and Aarey Metro station on its Andheri (East)-Dahisar (E) route on Western Express Highway, on July 26, 2022 in Mumbai, India.

    Apple will also face a lot more red tape in India if it wants to create sprawling Chinese-style campuses.

    “Will India be able to replicate a Shenzhen version?” asked Pathak, referring to China’s manufacturing hub. Building such “hotspots” won’t be easy and would require India to think about issues ranging from logistics and infrastructure to the availability of workers, he added.

    Experts told CNN that accessing land in a chaotic democracy like India could be a challenge, while the Chinese Communist Party faces fewer barriers to expropriating real estate quickly for causes it deems important.

    India would also have to think about moving beyond simply assembling iPhones through favorable government policies.

    “You need to source components locally, which means you need to attract many more companies in the supply chain to set up shop in India,” Pathak said.

    Some of the biggest businesses in India may be stepping up. According to Bloomberg, autos-to-airline conglomerate Tata Group is in talks with Wistron to take over the Taiwanese company’s factory in southern India.

    Tata and Wistron did not respond to request for comment.

    “I am not directly involved in that, but it should be really good for India because this is going to create an opportunity in India to manufacture electronics and microelectronics,” N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, COO of Tata Consultancy Services, the group’s software services arm, told Bloomberg.

    While there are significant obstacles in India’s ambition to deepen its relationship with Apple, doing so would be a huge boost for the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    ‘I think it’ll be [a] big, big win,” said Pathak, noting that growing manufacturing ties with a US giant like Apple will in turn attract other global players in the electronics manufacturing ecosystem to India. “You focus on the big one, the others will follow.”

    — Catherine Thorbecke and Juliana Liu contributed reporting.

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  • The Adani cloud over India

    The Adani cloud over India

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    Mumbai, India – Amid the usual traffic snarls on one of central Mumbai’s busiest overpasses, drivers could hardly help but notice a simple, yet large, hand-painted slogan proclaiming that the rapidly rising wealth of businessmen Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani was a miracle of Narendra Modi’s government.

    In the city’s stock market, however, Adani’s wealth, which has increased by more than $100bn in less than a decade, was eroding faster than the paint on the slogan could dry. Adani’s self-named conglomerate grew by running a rapidly increasing share of India’s public infrastructure including ports, airports, power plants and coal mines.

    However, a recent report by the New York-based activist short-seller Hindenburg Research showed a vast array of offshore entities with ties to the Adani group, which it indicated may have been used to inflate profits, hide losses or blur ownership. The report, titled Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History, said the group was involved in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”.

    The report, which came out on January 24, hit India and stocks of the group’s listed companies like a bombshell, even as they retraced several older trails of regulators’ inquiries that had gone nowhere. The ensuing days wiped more than $110bn of market value off the group’s listed firms and halved Adani’s net worth.

    Hindenburg’s report came just as the 200 billion rupees ($2.5bn) follow-on public offer of Adani group’s flagship Adani Enterprises was to open on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The group hit back at the report on the day of the public offer opening, January 27, saying it was an “attack on India”. It put out a 432-page response and scrambled to get the public offering subscribed.

    But stock prices for group companies continued to fall and Adani Enterprises said it would scrap the offering, even though it had been fully subscribed and the money returned to investors.

    The damage from the report has extended far beyond the Adani group. Its allegations of regulatory failings and questionable corporate governance have been ill-timed for India as it seeks the global centre stage. It recently overtook the United Kingdom as the world’s fifth-largest economy and China as the world’s most populous country. This year, it holds the G20 presidency.

    “Investors do worry about the risk of contagion,” says Charlie Robertson, chief economist of Renaissance Capital, an emerging markets investment bank. “That if there is one company like this, could we find more?

    In China, for instance, investors kept investing in real estate companies after Evergrande but later, several other companies turned out to be problematic too,” he said referring to the giant Chinese real estate firm that nearly buckled under enormous debt in the last couple of years, with the risk spilling over to several other real estate firms.

    While the scale of the conglomerate owned by Adani, whose meteoric rise to being the world’s third-richest person, can be matched by only a few other companies, the episode has left Indian regulators with a lot to answer.

    “This questions the credibility of Indian regulators, just as Wirecard was for German regulators,” says Tim Buckley, director at the Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance, who has tracked the Adani group’s various businesses for many years. Germany’s finance watchdog was heavily criticised for ignoring early warnings about Wirecard, the digital payments firm that was once the darling of the stock markets but blew up in an accounting scandal in 2020.

    Adani’s rise

    The 60-year-old Gautam Adani is known for being personally modest as much as for his dazzling ambition and success. After a short stint as a trader in Mumbai’s diamond market, still in his twenties, he returned to his home state of Gujarat and began dabbling in business.

    In 2002, months after now Prime Minister Narendra Modi became Gujarat’s chief minister, religious riots broke out in the state, with questions arising over Modi’s and the police’s role in the unrest. Soon after, Modi began hosting large global investor conferences, seeking to burnish his state’s image – and his own – with an investor-friendly shine.

    With Adani handling the state’s largest port and several other infrastructure projects, the chief minister became known for getting things done.

    But even as his fortunes rose, Adani had some close personal shaves. He had been staying in Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace hotel when armed men attacked it in 2008. Adani narrowly escaped as the attackers battled the Indian police for days, killing residents and staff before being killed themselves.

    Years earlier, Adani had also briefly been kidnapped for ransom before escaping – events that may have encouraged him to keep a low profile. He recently admitted to spending most evenings at his home in Ahmedabad, playing cards with his wife, a trained dentist who now runs the group’s charitable work.

    Adani is one of seven siblings, several of whom work in the group, as do both his sons Karan and Jeet. Karan is the chief executive of Adani Ports and SEZ and was recently appointed to Maharashtra state’s economic advisory board.

    When Modi became prime minister in 2014, he arrived in New Delhi on Adani’s plane. Since then, Adani has expanded successfully into airports, renewable energy, data centres, defence production and real estate among other sectors. Many of the contracts for such infrastructure projects were won through a competitive bidding process.

    “India does not seem to be interested in developing a range of regional infrastructure players,” says Rohit Chandra, assistant professor of public policy at IIT Delhi. “This quest for national champions comes at the cost of regional contractors growing and climbing the ladder of project complexity.”

    The crisis

    Since 2020, until the Hindenburg report, some Adani group stocks had risen to more than 400 times its per share price. It suggested either that shareholders expected earnings to rise sharply or that the share was trading at a price that was too high. Around then, questions began to swirl about the group’s ownership.

    While the Adani family owned stakes to as high a threshold as regulators permitted, the report showed that offshore funds – including in Mauritius, Cyprus and the UK – seemed to also own substantial shares in the group’s companies. Elara, Vespera, Cresta, New Leaina, LTS , APMS, Albula, Asia Investment Corporation and Opal among other such funds had few, if any, other investments.

    Hindenburg’s analysis showed that much of the funds of these companies were deployed in Adani stocks, suggesting they may be shell companies. The report traced connections between Gautam Adani’s UAE-based brother, Vinod Adani and several of them.

    “When you see such a complex network of offshores companies from a company whose operations are mostly in India, the onus is on the company to say why they exist,” said Climate Energy Finance’s Buckley.

    The Hindenburg report alleged these funds accounted for up to 47 percent of the volume in Adani group stocks on some days and were possibly used to drive up stock prices.

    “Many of the Vinod Adani-associated entities have no obvious signs of operations, including no reported employees, no independent addresses or phone numbers and no meaningful online presence,” the report said. “Despite this, they have collectively moved billions of dollars into Indian Adani publicly listed and private entities, often without required disclosure.”

    In its public statement, the Adani group said Vinod was not a related party since he did not hold any official positions in the group. A group spokesperson did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

    The recent prospectus for Adani Enterprises’s public offering says the country’s stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, had asked the group’s publicly-listed companies for ownership and director details in November 2020, and that the companies had provided these details.

    In parliament too, the government said such an investigation was under way but the findings, if any, have not been made public.

    Fallout for Adani Group

    The stock price of Adani Enterprises fell from 3,442 rupees ($41.5) on January 24, when the Hindenburg report came out, to 1,562 rupees ($18.8) within days before recovering to 1,983 rupees ($23.9) on February 8 as the company tried to soothe investor confidence by prepaying more than $1.1bn in bonds. It also announced that some of its pledged shares had been released.

    The Adani group has faced sustained campaigns by environmental activists against its coal mining projects in India and Australia [File: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images]

    But by then, Credit Suisse, Citigroup and Standard Chartered banks had stopped accepting Adani bonds as collateral and ratings agency S&P had downgraded Adani Ports and Adani Electricity to negative.

    The downgrade came due to “governance risks and funding challenges for the larger Adani group”, the report said. S&P also removed Adani Enterprises from its Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, raising challenges in getting green funding, a key to its planned move from coal to renewable energy.

    The company has faced sustained campaigns by environmental activists against its coal mining projects in India and Australia. They now cite the Hindenburg report to say the related party transactions indicate the walls between its renewable and coal businesses may not be strong enough.

    In 2021, the Adani group shifted ownership of the Bowen Rail Company, the coal haulage component of the Adani Carmichael thermal coal project, from Adani Ports to Adani Enterprises “to fulfil Carbon Neutral Commitments”, said Will Van De Pol, a campaigner for Market Forces, an Australian group that lobbies banks to make green investments.

    “Asset transfers are being used to obscure connections to the company’s coal expansion plans, highlighting the need for investors to steer clear of the entire Adani group.”

    Fallout for regulators

    The Adani crisis and its fallout on regulatory agencies and the government is being debated in the Indian parliament. Opposition parties have called for a parliamentary investigation into the group. Investors, too, say it is needed to restore confidence.

    “We would like to see a credible investigation by Indian authorities. That is the best way to put Indian and international investor concerns to rest,” says Renaissance Capital’s Charlie Robertson.

    So far, the government has not announced new investigations into Adani group stocks and holdings. In a speech in parliament on Wednesday, Modi said that “the 2030s would be India’s decade”, but hardly addressed the Adani stock crash.

    “The regulator has to do its own homework and then take action and not just react based on social media,” said JN Gupta, managing director of Stakeholder Empowerment Services, an adviser on corporate governance.

    An investigation could also bolster the government’s efforts, through its G20 presidency and outside, to attract both foreign direct investment and investment in its markets.

    With China having undergone long COVID lockdowns and a trade war with the United States, India seemed an increasingly attractive destination. A day before the Hindenburg report was released, India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal said Apple was planning to increase its manufacturing in India, aiming to make up to 25 percent of its phones in the nation, up from the current 5 percent.

    But Renaissance Capital’s Robertson says: “Three months ago, there was a lot of investment coming into India and China was looking risky. Today that has changed.”

    In India itself, one likely impact of the report could be the slowing down of the slew of infrastructure projects the Adani group has contracts for.

    “Delaying, discarding, and rebidding projects are part of the infrastructure development process in most developing countries,” says IIT Delhi’s Chandra.  “It is quite likely that the Adani group will consolidate, reprioritise and possibly scale back some of its project ambitions after its losses in the last few weeks.”

    That could be the delaying of the Indian dream itself.

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  • NYU’s ‘Dean of Valuation’ says Adani Group exploited ‘weakest links’ in Indian institutions

    NYU’s ‘Dean of Valuation’ says Adani Group exploited ‘weakest links’ in Indian institutions

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    The Adani Group didn’t play a “con game” but has exploited the “weakest links” in India’s institutions to its advantage, according to NYU’s “Dean of Valuation” Aswath Damodaran.

    The finance professor at the Stern school of business said fundamentals “never come into play” for Indian markets.

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    “Nobody wants to talk fundamentals, nobody wants to be bearish about a company and say that stock looks overpriced. It’s not healthy for a market,” Damodaran, told CNBC’s “Streets Sign Asia” on Thursday.

    “That’s why I said Adani is not about the company … this is about the weakest links in the India story. And from my perspective, this is not a con game. This is just a company that’s played those weaknesses.”

    Damodaran’s remarks are an extension of his recent blog post, where he shared his views on the ongoing Adani affair. 

    Art school teacher Sagar Kambli gives final touches to a painting of Indian businessman Gautam Adani (L) highlighting the ongoing crisis of the Adani group in Mumbai on February 3, 2023.

    Indranil Mukherjee | Afp | Getty Images

    On Jan. 24, U.S. based short-seller firm Hindenburg released a report accusing Indian billionaire Gautam Adani of pulling the “largest con in corporate history,” and alleged the conglomerate has engaged in stock manipulation and fraud.

    The Adani Group firmly denied the accusations, calling it a “calculated attack on India” and its institutions.

    Valuation issues

    Even though the Adani conglomerate spans ports, airports, mining, cement, power companies, Damodaran said he believed the Group’s core business is in infrastructure.

    “What I see is an infrastructure company … if we just value the company as an infrastructure company, then the numbers just don’t make sense from pricing perspective. How does the stock quadruple in market cap over a two or three year period?” he pointed out.

    Even without the Hindenburg report, the professor noted he was “hard pressed” to explain why the company’s share is so overpriced.

    Adani Group Saga: India's market put to the test

    Adani Group’s total gross debt reached 2.2 trillion Indian rupees ($26.8 billion) as of end-March 2022, according to calculations by Refinitiv Eikon.

    “I am willing to believe that Adani Group has played fast and loose with exchange listing rules, that it has used intra-party transactions to make itself look more credit-worthy than it truly is,” Damodaran said in the blog post.

    He added: “Even if it has not manipulated its stock price directly, it has used the surge in its market capitalization to its advantage, especially when raising fresh capital.”

    Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro:

    Damodaran also said the Adani affair provides an opportunity for Indian institutions to learn lessons and try to fix the problems.

    “As for the institutions involved, which include banks, regulatory authorities and [Life Insurance Corporation], I have learned not to attribute to venality or corruption that which can be attributed to inertia and indifference,” the economist said on his blog.

    “A more nuanced version of the Adani story is that the family group has exploited the seams and weakest links in the India story, to its advantage,” he said on the blog, adding that “there are lessons for the nation as a whole, as it looks towards what it hopes will be its decade of growth.”

    Exposure to Indian banks

    The fallout from the Adani scandal has raised concerns about the Group’s exposure to Indian banks.

    State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, told CNBC the loans they have extended to the Adani group are well covered and there should be no immediate risks.

    India's largest lender discusses exposure to Adani

    “The total exposure to this entity was just about 0.88% of the total bank’s loan book,” Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill an interview.  

    “There is no reason for anybody to have any concerns or doubts relating to our inability.”  

    Khara added the Adani Group’s cash flow situation looks pretty stable and SBI hasn’t been approached for more funding by the conglomerate.

    Over the weekend, the Security and Exchange Board of India tried to defend Indian markets, saying the country’s two main indexes – the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India — have demonstrated “ongoing stability” and are “continuing to function in a transparent, fair and efficient manner.”

    — CNBC’s Jihye Lee contributed to this report.

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  • India’s largest lender discusses exposure to Adani

    India’s largest lender discusses exposure to Adani

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    Dinesh Khara of the State Bank of India speaks to CNBC's Tanvir Gill about the Adani crisis and the bank's exposure to the company.

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  • Facebook co-founder Moskovitz funds research into cooling the Earth with sunlight reflection

    Facebook co-founder Moskovitz funds research into cooling the Earth with sunlight reflection

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    This photograph taken on May 11, 2022 shows Shivaram, a villager walking through the cracked bottom of a dried-out pond on a hot summer day at Bandai village in Pali district. – Every day dozens of villagers, mostly women and children, wait with blue plastic jerry cans and metal pots for a special train bringing precious water to people suffering a heatwave in India’s desert state of Rajasthan.

    Prakash Singh | Afp | Getty Images

    Scientists from Africa, Asia and South America are getting a new infusion of $900,000 to study the effects of reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth and mitigate the impacts of global warming. The money comes from Open Philanthropy, a venture funded primarily by billionaire Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and Asana, and his wife, Cari Tuna.

    Sunlight reflection involves releasing aerosols like sulfur dioxide high in the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays back into space, temporarily mitigating global warming. (It’s sometimes called solar radiation modification or solar geoengineering.)

    The idea has been around for decades, but it is being taken more seriously as the effects of climate change become more apparent. While volcanic eruptions have proven that the technique can work, there are significant risks as well, including damage to the ozone layer, acid rain and increased respiratory illness.

    On Tuesday, nonprofit research organization The Degrees Initiative and the United Nation’s World Academy of Sciences announced they are distributing more than $900,000 to scientists across Africa, Asia and South America to study solar radiation modification in a program called “The Degrees Modelling Fund.” The Degrees Initiative has been funded by various donors over the years, but the biggest has been Open Philanthropy and all of the $900,000 disbursement announced Tuesday came from that group, Degrees Initiative co-founder and CEO Andy Parker told CNBC.

    The money will go to 81 scientists in Benin, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand and Uganda working on 15 solar geoengineering modeling projects.

    The lesser of two bad choices, akin to chemotherapy

    Sunlight reflection is getting more attention as scientists have started suggesting that its negative effects may not be as bad as the harm from climate change will be in the future. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is coordinating a five-year research plan into solar geoengineering and in January, the quadrennial U.N.-backed Montreal Protocol assessment report included an entire chapter addressing stratospheric aerosol injection for the first time ever.

    “Like anyone else sensible, when I first heard about the idea of blocking out the sun, I thought it was a terrible idea. As time goes by, the view didn’t really change it. It’s a horrible idea,” Parker told CNBC. “But it may prove to be less horrible than not using it and allowing temperatures to keep rising if we don’t cut our emissions far enough.”

    I liken the decision to chemotherapy. Chemotherapy to treat cancer is also a horrible idea. It’s very dangerous. It’s unpleasant. It’s risky. And no one would ever consider doing it unless they feared the alternative. might be worse. And so it goes for solar geoengineering.

    Andy Parker

    CEO of The Degrees Initiative

    Sunlight reflection is not a solution to climate change or global warming. It is a relatively fast and inexpensive way to temporarily cool the Earth. We know it works: In the 15 months following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the average global temperature was about 1 degree Fahrenheit lower, according to NASA. Releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere from retrofitted planes would essentially mimic the way a volcano releases large quantities of aerosols into the atmosphere.

    “It’s not a pleasant idea. It’s not a fun thing to work on. But it’s potentially important, it could be very, very helpful, it could be disastrous,” Parker told CNBC.

    “I liken the decision to chemotherapy. Chemotherapy to treat cancer is also a horrible idea. It’s very dangerous. It’s unpleasant. It’s risky. And no one would ever consider doing it unless they feared the alternative might be worse. And so it goes for solar geoengineering,” he said.

    Before launching The Degrees Initiative, Parker led the production of a 98-page report on geoengineering for The Royal Society, an independent science academy in the United Kingdom, and has done research at Harvard and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany.

    A giant volcanic mushroom cloud explodes some 20 kilometers high from Mount Pinatubo above almost deserted US Clark Air Base, on June 12, 1991 followed by another more powerful explosion. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991 was the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century.

    Arlan Naeg | Afp | Getty Images

    Ensuring the most at-risk countries have a say

    One of Parker’s goals with the Degrees Initiative is to ensure that scientists from developing countries in the global south will be part of international conversations about sunlight reflection, he told CNBC.

    “If it can work well to reduce the impacts of climate change, then they’ve got the most to gain because they’re on the frontlines of global warming,” he said. “If, on the other hand, it all goes wrong and there are nasty side effects, or perhaps if it’s rejected prematurely, when it could have helped, then developing countries have got the most to lose.”

    But without philanthropic donations, research and decisions about solar geoengineering would be primarily relegated to the parts of the world that can afford it, like North America, the European Union and Japan, Parker said.

    The $900,000 announced Tuesday is the second round of funding of this kind. In 2018, The Degrees Modelling Fund distributed $900,000 to 11 projects in Argentina, Bangladesh, Benin, Indonesia, Iran, the Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Philippines and South Africa.

    The money goes out in grants of up to $75,000, of which $60,000 is for salary and $15,000 is for the tools that a local research team would need, Parker told CNBC. Each scientific team should suggest its own proposal in the application for the grant money, he said. But broadly, the task for each team is to use computer models to predict the weather and their regional impacts — both with and without sunlight reflection.

    “By comparing the two, they can start to generate evidence on what the impact of solar radiation modification might be on things that matter locally,” Parker said.

    Scientists who have had their work funded by The Degrees Modelling Fund at a recent research-planning workshop for old and new teams in Istanbul.

    Photo courtesy The Degrees Initiative

    Researching the water cycles in La Plata Basin

    Ines Camilloni, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, has received two Degrees Initiative grants and is also getting funded by the government of Argentina. With the funding, Camilloni is researching how solar radiation modification would affect the hydroclimate of La Plata Basin, the fifth largest water basin in the world, covering parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, she told CNBC.

    “A large fraction of the economic activities within the basin relies on water availability, including agriculture, river navigability and hydroelectric production, and therefore any variations in the water cycle of the basin could have significant impacts on the economy of each country,” Camilloni told CNBC.

    Prof. Inés Camilloni speaking at the 2022 Paris Peace Forum.

    Photo courtesy The Degrees Initiative

    Camilloni says her research has so far showed that sunlight reflection could be helpful to some parts of the La Plata Basin region, but particularly harmful to others. Large rivers that power hydroelectric dams could see higher flows and increased energy production, balanced by a risk of more flooding.

    In Buenos Aires, awareness of sunlight reflection has grown in the oast couple years, and it spurs strong emotions.

    “The range of feelings that solar radiation modification generates goes from disbelief to fear. Everyone perceives it to be controversial,” Camilloni told CNBC.

    Clear communication is critical, though, because even research proponents do not see it as a climate change silver bullet.

    “This is no one’s Plan A for how you deal with climate risk, and whatever happens, we have to cut our emissions,” Parker told CNBC. “But people are finally starting to seriously address the question: What do we do if we don’t do enough with emissions cuts, if they prove insufficient to avoid very dangerous climate change? What are our options? And that leaves people regretfully, but necessarily, to think about things like solar radiation modification.”

    Correction: Andy Parker is the co-founder and CEO of The Degrees Initiative. An earlier version didn’t attribute some quotes to him.

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  • Mayo Clinic opens patient information office in India

    Mayo Clinic opens patient information office in India

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    Newswise — MUMBAI, India — Mayo Clinic has opened a patient information office in Mumbai to assist patients who wish to make appointments at Mayo Clinic locations worldwide.

    The office staff, fluent in Hindi and English, will help patients, their families and physicians who refer patients to make appointments at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona; Jacksonville, Florida; and Mayo Clinic Healthcare in London.

    “We are pleased to add an office in Mumbai to our patient appointment services,” says Mohamad Bydon, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon and executive medical director of academic affairs and the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa regions. “Mayo Clinic seeks to serve as a resource for patients and health care providers around the world. Our international patient information offices help us provide patients with a seamless experience when seeking care at Mayo Clinic.”

    The Mumbai office staff will assist with travel, lodging, billing and insurance arrangements; provide general orientation to Mayo Clinic; facilitate Mayo review of medical records; and coordinate future appointments. The office does not provide medical attention.

    Learn more at https://www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/international/locations/india-representative.

    Mayo Clinic also has patient information offices in Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

    Mayo Clinic accepts appointment requests directly from patients and patient referrals from physicians. Interpreters are available at no cost to assist with communication between health care providers and patients whose primary language is not English.

    Mayo Clinic is ranked the best hospital in the world by Newsweek and the No. 1 hospital in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report. Mayo Clinic serves roughly 1.4 million people from 139 countries every year.

    About Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.

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  • Indian police arrest over 2,000 men for illegal child marriages

    Indian police arrest over 2,000 men for illegal child marriages

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    Indian police have arrested more than 2,000 men in a crackdown on illegal child marriages involving girls under the age of 18 in a northeastern state, officials said Saturday.

    Those arrested this week included more than 50 Hindu priests and Muslim clerics for allegedly performing marriages for underage girls in Assam, state police chief Gyanendra Pratap Singh said.

    “We have so far arrested 2,169 men based on 4,074 registered police cases involving a total of about 8,000 men,” said Singh.

    India Illegal Girl Marriages
    Sonali Begum, 17, stands inside her home as she cries explaining how her husband Siddique Ali, 23, was picked up by the police, at her rented house in Guwahati, India, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Indian police have arrested more than 2,000 men in a crackdown on illegal child marriages in involving girls under the age of 18 a northeastern state. Begum is seven months pregnant.

    Anupam Nath / AP


    Many cases of child marriage in Assam, a state of 35 million people, go unreported.

    Only 155 cases of child marriages in the state were registered in 2021, and 138 in 2020, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

    In India, the legal marriageable age is 21 for men and 18 for women. Poverty, lack of education, and social norms and practices, particularly in rural areas, are considered reasons for child marriages across the country.

    Television images on Friday showed some young women with infants in their arms, crying and protesting the sudden arrests of their husbands.

    “We were struggling and somehow making ends meet. But we were happy together. Who will provide for our livelihood now that my husband has been arrested?” asked a young woman.

    Singh said child marriages were one reason for the state’s high infant mortality and maternal mortality rates.

    “I have asked the Assam police to act with a spirit of zero tolerance against the unpardonable and heinous crime on women,” Himanta Biswa Sarma, the state’s top elected official, tweeted.

    India’s Parliament is considering legislation to raise the age for marriage for women to 21 from 18, to bring it in line with men and promote gender equality.

    India’s Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani told Parliament on Friday that the move would enable girls to complete their education and achieve economic independence apart from achieving physical and psychological maturity.

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