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  • Pakistan, India exchange lists of nuclear assets, inmates

    Pakistan, India exchange lists of nuclear assets, inmates

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    ISLAMABAD — Pakistan and neighboring India exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities on Sunday as part of a 1988 pact that bars them from attacking each other’s nuclear installations, according to official statements from both sides.

    Pakistan and India have had strained relations since their independence from colonial British rule in 1947 over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

    They have fought three wars, built up their armies and developed nuclear weapons. India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, with Pakistan carrying out its first test in 1988.

    The lists were simultaneously handed over through their respective diplomats in Islamabad and New Delhi.

    India and Pakistan also exchanged lists of prisoners in each other’s custody as part of an agreement dating back to 2008.

    Pakistan shared a list of 705 detained Indians, 51 civilians and 654 fishermen. India shared a list of 434 Pakistanis in its custody, 339 civilians and 95 fishermen.

    India and Pakistan arrest each other’s fishermen for crossing the unmarked sea frontier between them. Their maritime security agencies seize the boats and jail the fishermen, who are usually only released after the two countries hold negotiations. Normally they spend years behind bars with no formal trial.

    The 2008 agreement gives each side consular access to prisoners and requires them to exchange lists of prisoners in each other’s custody each January and July.

    Pakistan separately also sought consular access to its missing defense personnel from wars in 1965 and 1971 and special consular access to another 56 civilian prisoners.

    ——-

    Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma contributed from New Delhi.

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  • Why do the rich get richer — even during global crises?

    Why do the rich get richer — even during global crises?

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    Death and devastation are not the only calling cards COVID-19 will be remembered by. The pandemic has also drastically widened inequalities across the globe over the past three years.

    According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 131 billionaires more than doubled their net worth during the pandemic. The world’s richest person, Louis Vuitton chief Bernard Arnault, was worth $159bn on December 27, 2022, up by around $60bn compared with early 2020. Elon Musk, the planet’s second-wealthiest man, boasted a $139bn fortune — it was less than $50bn before the pandemic. And India’s Gautam Adani, third on the index, has seen his wealth increase more than tenfold in this period, from approximately $10bn at the start of 2020 to $110bn at the end of 2022.

    At the same time, close to 97 million people — more than the population of any European nation — were pushed into extreme poverty in just 2020, earning less than $1.90 a day (the World Bank-defined poverty line). The global poverty rate is estimated to have gone up from 7.8 percent to 9.1 percent by late 2021. Now, skyrocketing inflation is affecting real wage growth, eating into the disposable incomes of people around the world.

    To curb rising prices, central banks are reducing the flow of money into the economy by increasing interest rates and withdrawing excess liquidity. But that has again boomeranged on workers, with companies — from tech firms like Amazon, Twitter and Meta to banks like Goldman Sachs — announcing layoffs at the end of an already tumultuous 2022.

    Al Jazeera spoke to economists to understand why the rich keep getting richer even amid crises and whether that is inevitable each time there is an economic slowdown.

    The short answer: Many countries adopt policies such as tax breaks and financial incentives for businesses to boost economies amid crises like the pandemic. Central banks flood the economy with money to make it easier to lend and spend. This helps the wealthy grow their money through financial market investments. But widening inequality is not unavoidable.

    During economic crises, governments take measures to boost financial markets, like the New York Stock Exchange seen here, in turn helping the wealthy with major investments multiply their fortunes [Richard Drew/AP Photo]

    Stock market boom

    When the pandemic began, central banks across the world swung into action to protect financial markets that took a severe beating as governments started imposing lockdown restrictions.

    To save the economy from collapsing, central banks slashed interest rates, thereby lowering borrowing costs and increasing the supply of money. They also pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets with the aim of encouraging companies to invest in the economy. Major central banks have infused more than $11 trillion into the global economy since 2020.

    These interventions triggered a boom in the value of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments — but the rise in asset prices wasn’t accompanied by an increase in economic production.

    “Instead of leading to more economic output, a bulk of the sudden infusion of money into the financial system led to a dramatic rise in asset prices, including stocks, which benefitted the rich,” Francisco Ferreira, director of the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE), told Al Jazeera.

    A year into the pandemic, capital markets had risen $14 trillion, with 25 companies — mostly in the technology, electric vehicles and semiconductors segment — accounting for 40 percent of the total gains, according to an analysis of stock performance of 5,000 companies by consulting firm McKinsey.

    “The result is that this pandemic period has seen the biggest surge in billionaire wealth since the records began,” Oxfam America’s Director of Economic Justice Nabil Ahmed told Al Jazeera. “And we are still coming to terms about how extraordinary that rise has been.”

    Billionaires saw their fortunes increase as much in 24 months as they did in 23 years, according to Oxfam’s “Profiting from Pain” report released in May this year. Every 30 hours, while COVID-19 and rising food prices are pushing nearly one million more people into extreme poverty, the global economy is also spawning a new billionaire.

    Industrialist Gautam Adani, center, sits for a group photograph during the Ground Breaking Ceremony @3.0 of the UP Investors Summit Lucknow in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, India, Friday, June 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
    India’s Gautam Adani, centre, is today the world’s third-richest man, and his wealth has multiplied more than tenfold since the start of the pandemic [Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo]

    Pre-pandemic factors

    To be sure, both income and wealth inequalities have been on the rise since the 1980s when governments across the world began deregulating and liberalising the economy to allow more private sector participation. Income inequality refers to the gulf in the disposable income of the rich and the poor whereas wealth inequality deals with the distribution of financial and real assets, such as stocks or housing, between the two groups.

    Among other things, the post-liberalisation period also resulted in declining bargaining power of workers. At the same time, companies increasingly started turning to financial markets to borrow money for their investments, Yannis Dafermos, a senior lecturer in economics at SOAS University of London, told Al Jazeera.

    “It is the financialisation of the economy in particular that generated a lot of income for the rich, who invest in financial assets,” Dafermos said. “And whenever an economic crisis strikes, the central banks’ response is to save the financial market from collapsing because it is so much interlinked with the real economy. This helps stock and bond markets to thrive creating more wealth and inequality.”

    This is what major central banks did during the global financial crisis in 2008-09 — injecting liquidity into the market through various tools and lowering interest rates to encourage companies to borrow and invest.

    “The easy money policy that began after the global financial crisis led to really low to negative interest rates and big liquidity in the financial system,” Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Al Jazeera. “So, in the past 15 years, corporations chose to reinvest the money into buying more financial assets chasing high returns, rather than increasing their production.”

    The pandemic accelerated those structures of inequality – be it liberalisation of the labour market, surge in monopoly power or erosion of public taxation – Oxfam’s Ahmed said. One example is that 143 of 161 countries analysed by Oxfam froze tax rates for the rich during the pandemic, and 11 countries reduced them.

    Meta's logo can be seen on a sign at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. Meta, which is Facebook's parent company, is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
    Tech giant Meta announced in November that it would lay off 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of its workforce. It’s one of many major companies to cut jobs in recent weeks. [Godofredo A Vásquez/AP Photo]

    Inflation hits lower-income nations worst

    As countries started easing COVID-19 restrictions, a sharp rise in consumer demand coupled with supply shocks contributed to global inflation touching record levels.

    That has forced central banks to wind up their policies of allowing access to easy money. They have also announced sharp interest rate rises. Their aim now is to reduce demand so that prices soften and, in advanced economies like the United States, to also cool down the jobs market.

    To preserve their earnings in the wake of this policy shift, major companies have now started announcing job cuts, even as inflation bites the poor with low savings.

    “Even when inflation has increased, the profit margins of firms have not declined,” Dafermos said. Large companies are retaining profits to give dividends to their shareholders rather than increasing wage incomes, even as smaller companies suffer due to a lack of investments by bigger firms, he said.

    Interest rate increases have increased borrowing costs, also affecting the ability of low-income and developing countries to spend more on welfare schemes as they have high levels of public and private debt.

    “Because of the way the global financial system works, there will be a lot of pressure on developing countries to implement austerity measures,” Dafermos said. “That can create more inequalities and for me, this is perhaps more significant because it limits their capacity to provide social protection to the poor.”

    According to Oxfam, lower-income countries spent approximately 27 percent of their budgets in repaying their debts – twice the money spent on education and four times that on health.

    Former United States President Ronald Reagan hugs former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev after the two toured the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, May 14, 1992. Gorbachev is in the United States on a two-week goodwill visit. (AP Photo/Pool/Richard Drew)
    Former US President Ronald Reagan, seen here hugging former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at the New York Stock Exchange on May 14, 1992, was among a series of leaders who deregulated economies in the 1980s [File: Richard Drew/AP Photo/Pool]

    Inequality is a political choice

    After World War II, countries started following progressive taxation policies and took steps to address monopoly power, Ahmed said. And while many nations reversed that approach during the pandemic, a few bucked the trend. Costa Rica increased its highest tax rate by 10 percent and New Zealand by 6 percent in order to redistribute wealth.

    “There are examples of countries doing the right thing. And it reminds us that inequality is not inevitable. It’s a policy and a political choice,” Ahmed said.

    If left unaddressed, on the other hand, wealth inequality gives power to the rich to influence policies in their favour, which can further deepen the income divide, independent of the boom-and-bust nature of economic cycles. “Higher wealth tends to be associated with capture of government and state institutions by the elite,” Ferreira at the London School of Economics said.

    This, he said, can take different forms in different democratic contexts. But the result is the same. “The bargaining power of the rich increases due to various tools they use such as lobbying,” he said. “Policies end up benefitting the wealthy and that again creates a cycle. But, this time, it’s a political cycle.”

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  • India on alert for new variants as Covid wave sweeps China | CNN

    India on alert for new variants as Covid wave sweeps China | CNN

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    India’s health minister has advised the public to take precautions against Covid-19, including getting vaccinated and wearing masks, as the country remains on alert for potential new variants that could emerge from the wave of infections sweeping neighboring China.

    Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday told Parliament that India would begin randomly testing 2% of international travelers arriving at the country’s airports, after he asked regional authorities to send positive samples to laboratories monitoring for new Covid strains.

    “States have been told to make people aware of (the need to) wear masks, use hand sanitizers, maintain respiratory hygiene and social distancing,” Mandaviya said, as he encouraged Indians to receive vaccines or booster shots.

    Speaking Wednesday at a meeting to review the Covid situation in the country amid rising cases in several Asian nations, Mandaviya said: “Covid is not over yet. I have directed all concerned to be on the alert, and strengthen surveillance.”

    India, a country of 1.3 billion, relaxed its Covid restrictions earlier this year after a drop in infections, and people have mostly stopped wearing masks outside.

    The warnings from the Indian minister come as China braces for infections to spread from its biggest cities to its vast rural areas following its hurried and under-prepared exit from the zero-Covid strategy earlier this month.

    On Wednesday, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern over rising cases in China, emphasizing he was worried about “increasing reports of severe disease.”

    “In order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground, WHO needs more detailed information on disease severity, hospital admissions and requirements for ICU support,” Tedros told a news conference.

    The surge could lead to nearly 1 million deaths in China, according to a study released last week, which added it was also likely to overload many local health systems in the country.

    Meanwhile, Chinese experts have warned that the worst may be yet to come. Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said last week that China is being hit by the first of three expected waves of infections this winter.

    Last year, India was devastated by a second wave of Covid-19, which killed tens of thousands and overwhelmed the country’s health system.

    Since then, India has administered more than 2 billion Covid vaccines and nearly 75% of its population has received at least one dose, according to data from Johns’ Hopkins University.

    According to the Health Ministry, India had seen a “steady decline” in cases, with an average of about 150 infections a day nationwide as of December 19.

    “We are prepared to manage any situation,” Health Minister Mandaviya said in a Twitter post Wednesday.

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  • Nuclear fusion: The one relationship Russia and the West just can’t break

    Nuclear fusion: The one relationship Russia and the West just can’t break

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    SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France — Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has ripped apart Moscow’s ties with the EU and the U.S. on everything from energy to trade to travel — but there’s one partnership they can’t escape.

    Tucked away in a quiet sun-soaked corner of southern France, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) — an effort to harness the power of nuclear fusion to unleash vast amounts of clean energy — continues to purr along with the participation of Russian scientists and Russian technology.

    Earlier this month, scientists at ITER hailed a major breakthrough announced by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which said it had overcome a major barrier — producing more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in.

    The 35-nation ITER — born out of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985 meeting after decades of Cold War tensions — has no way of removing a member gone rogue; there’s no path to kicking Russia out of the experiment without torpedoing the entire scheme.

    The €44 billion project aims to test nuclear fusion — a process occurring in the center of stars — as a viable source of carbon-free energy that’s minimally radioactive. By injecting hot plasma that reaches 150 million degrees Celsius into a device and confining it with magnetic fields, hydrogen nuclei fuse into a helium nucleus and additional neutrons, releasing huge amounts of energy.

    The EU shoulders around half of ITER’s costs and manages its participation through the bloc’s Barcelona-based Fusion 4 Europe (F4E) agency; India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. each have a roughly 9 percent share.

    As an active participant in ITER, Russia still has around 50 staff, including engineers, working onsite.

    Flags of participant nations fly outside the ITER complex | Photo by Victor Jack/POLITICO

    Immediately after Moscow launched its full-scale assault on Ukraine in February, the project was left in a tight spot, especially as Russian government representatives form part of the high-level decision-making board, the ITER Council, alongside their European and American counterparts.

    “It’s a difficult balance between condemning a member and facing the consequences for the project,” said ITER Communication Officer Sabina Griffith, who adds that there were initially intensive discussions about how to respond. Staff even briefly discussed putting a banner on the project’s website condemning the war, before scrapping the idea.

    Even if “the organization itself is apolitical … many people were questioning” what to do after the invasion began, according to ITER’s chief engineer Alain Bécoulet, who added that there was “a lot of sadness” among the staff.

    “The political situation so far is stable, [with] all members … declaring that they want to continue to work together,” he said, adding that the first ITER Council meeting after the invasion in June was “very constructive.”

    ITER Council members again “reaffirmed their strong belief in the value of the ITER mission” when they met at the site for their latest gathering in October.

    The experiment — over budget and over deadline — has already had its fair share of controversies. France’s nuclear safety authority in January suspended the assembly of the fusion reactor over safety concerns. F4E has been plagued by accusations of a high-pressure and overwork culture that critics have linked to at least one suicide.

    Vladimir Tronza | Photo by Victor Jack/POLITICO

    Unlike Geneva-based particle physics laboratory CERN — a collaborative research center that suspended its ties with Russia after the war began — ITER is an international agreement like the U.N., making it hard to suspend Moscow, said Bécoulet.

    That’s because up to 90 percent of the funding comes not in the form of cash but “in-kind” contributions of equipment, with participant countries each manufacturing a one-of-a-kind bespoke piece of the overall reactor that is then put together like a giant puzzle.

    While the set-up was designed to create specialized fusion expertise across the world and stimulate domestic manufacturing, it now means that if one member doesn’t deliver a part, the entire project could collapse, wasting billions.

    Even if they wanted to, countries couldn’t formally kick Russia out of the project, as there’s no clause in ITER’s constitution that would allow them to do so — instead, every other country would have to pull out.

    Going nuclear

    But that doesn’t mean the project hasn’t been impacted by Russia’s war.

    For one, Western sanctions and Moscow’s counter-sanctions have made it a minefield to procure Russian-made parts, according to Bécoulet.

    “It turns out 2022 is one very important year in terms of Russian deliveries” for the project, he said, with Moscow producing crucial parts including busbars — aluminum bars feeding the reactor with a huge electric current — and a 200-ton ring-shaped magnet that shapes the plasma and keeps it suspended in the reactor, called a poloidal field coil.

    Transporting the busbars by truck and the field coil — which is on its way from St. Petersburg to Marseille — by ship required “more paperwork, more justification to explain to the various European countries that no, we are not subject to sanctions — we have derogations,” he said. The “painful” process delayed deliveries by up to two months, he added.

    It also left Russian staff in the lurch, including Moscow-born assembly engineer Vladimir Tronza, who’s worked onsite since 2016.

    “In the beginning, everyone was like, ‘What’s going to happen? Should we look for another job? Should we pack and go back?’” he said, adding that Russian staff members were initially concerned that Moscow would exit the project.

    But Tronza said he hasn’t heard of Russian staff going home, with the “majority not interested to go back” given many have settled in southeastern France.

    “Collaboration is important — it’s important to keep the ties and … talk,” he said, adding that the project is “a global good.”

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  • India’s visa temples attract devotees aspiring to go abroad

    India’s visa temples attract devotees aspiring to go abroad

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    CHENNAI, India (AP) — Arjun Viswanathan stood on the street, his hands folded, eyes fixed on the idol of the Hindu deity Ganesh.

    On a humid morning, the information technology professional was waiting outside the temple, the size of a small closet – barely enough room for the lone priest to stand and perform puja or rituals for the beloved elephant-headed deity, believed to be the remover of obstacles.

    Viswanathan was among about a dozen visitors, most of them there for the same purpose: To offer prayers so their U.S. visa interviews would go smoothly and successfully. Viswanathan came the day before his interview for an employment visa.

    “I came here to pray for my brother’s U.K. visa 10 years ago and for my wife’s U.S. visa two years ago,” he said. “They were both successful. So I have faith.”

    The Sri Lakshmi Visa Ganapathy Temple is a few miles north of the airport in Chennai (formerly Madras), a bustling metropolis on the Coromandel Coast in southeast India — known for its iconic cuisine, ancient temples and churches, silk saris, classical music, dance and sculptures.

    This “visa temple” has surged in popularity among U.S. visa seekers over the past decade; they can be found in almost any Indian city with a U.S. consulate. They typically gain a following through word of mouth or social media.

    A mile away from the Ganesh temple is the Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Navaneetha Krishnan Temple, where an idol of Hanuman – a deity who has a human body and the face of a monkey — is believed to possess the power to secure visas. Also known as “Anjaneya,” this god stands for strength, wisdom and devotion. In this temple, he has earned the monikers “America Anjaneya” and “Visa Anjaneya.”

    The temple’s longtime secretary, G.C. Srinivasan, said it wasn’t until 2016 that this temple became a “visa temple.”

    “It was around that time that a few people who prayed for a visa spread the word around that they were successful, and it’s continued,” he said.

    A month ago, Srinivasan said he met someone who got news of his visa approval even as as he was circumambulating the Anjaneya idol — a common Hindu practice of walking around a sacred object or site.

    On a recent Saturday night, devotees decorated the idol with garlands made of betel leaves. S. Pradeep, who placed a garland on the deity, said he was not there to pray for a visa, but believes in the god’s unique power.

    “He is my favorite god,” he said. “If you genuinely pray – not just for visa – it will come true.”

    At the Ganesh temple, some devotees had success stories to share. Jyothi Bontha said her visa interview at the U.S. Consulate in Chennai went without a hitch, and that she had returned to offer thanks.

    “They barely asked me a couple of questions,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

    Bontha’s friend, Phani Veeranki, stood nearby, nervously clutching an envelope containing her visa application and supporting documents. Bontha and Veeranki, both computer science students from the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh and childhood friends, are headed to Ohio.

    Both learned about the visa temple on the social media platform Telegram.

    Veeranki said she was anxious because she had a lot riding on her upcoming visa interview.

    “I’m the first person in my family to go the United States,” she said. “My mother is afraid to send me. But I’m excited for the opportunities I’ll have in America.”

    Veeranki then handed over the envelope to the temple’s priest for him to place at the foot of the idol for a blessing.

    “We’ve been hearing about applications being rejected,” she said, her hands still folded in prayer. “I’m really hoping mine gets approved.”

    If she and Bontha make it to Ohio, they want to take a trip to Niagara Falls.

    “I’ve always wanted to see it,” Bontha said.

    Mohanbabu Jagannathan and his wife, Sangeetha, run the temple, which Jagannathan’s grandfather built in 1987. Their house is on a cul-de-sac, which is considered bad luck in several Asian cultures. In Chennai, it is common to find a Ganesh temple outside cul-de-sac homes due to the belief that the deity has the power to ward off evil. At first, only neighbors came to the temple, Jagannathan said.

    “But over the years it started earning a quirky reputation,” he said. “A lot of visa applicants who came to the temple spread the word that they found success after praying here.”

    In 2009, his father, Jagannathan Radhakrishnan, reconstructed the temple and added the word “visa” to the temple’s name. Jagannathan said the success stories are heartwarming; visitors sometimes stop by his home to thank his family for keeping the temple open.

    “I’ve never been bothered by it,” Jagannathan said. “We offer this as a service to the public. It’s a joy to see how happy people are when they come back and tell us they got their visa.”

    His wife said she was touched by the story of a man who came all the way from New Delhi to pray for a visa to see his grandchild after eight years apart. She remembers another time when a woman called her in tears, saying her visa application was rejected.

    “Sure, some don’t get it,” she said. “God only knows why.”

    Padma Kannan brought her daughter, Monisha, who is preparing to pursue a master’s degree in marketing analytics in Clark University. Kannan believes her daughter got her visa because of this powerful deity.

    “I found this temple on Google,” she said. “I was so nervous for her, and so I prayed here.”

    Monisha Kannan said she is not so sure she got her visa because of this temple, but she said she came to support her mom.

    “I’m skeptical,” she said. “I’m just someone who goes with the flow.”

    Her mother takes a more philosophical stance.

    “We pray for our children and things happen easily for them,” she said. “I think when they go through the rigors of life themselves, they will start believing in the power of prayer.”

    Viswanathan said he is not someone “who usually believes in such things.” When his brother got his British visa a decade ago after offering prayers here, Viswanathan chalked it up to coincidence. He became a believer when his wife got her U.S. visa two years ago, he said.

    The day after he visited the temple this time, Viswanathan’s employment visa was approved. He’ll head to New Hampshire in a few months.

    “It’s all about faith,” he said. “If you believe it will happen, it will happen.”

    ___

    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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  • In Dallas suburbs, Friday Night Lights make way for cricket

    In Dallas suburbs, Friday Night Lights make way for cricket

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    FRISCO, Texas (AP) — With the ornate spires of the Karya Siddhi Hanuman Temple anchoring the skyline behind them, a cricket batsman and bowler eyed each other across a brown grass field. Amid gusty winds, players waiting to bat watched intently from nearby bleachers.

    No, this is not a scene in India, where cricket became a national obsession after arriving on the wings of British colonialism. Try North Texas, where Friday Night Lights have made way for weekend afternoons on the pitch.

    Welcome to the new Lone Star State, where cricket matches, a Hindu temple and Indian grocery stores co-exist with Christian churches, cattle ranches and Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys empire. More than a decade of expansion has given the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex the largest Asian growth rate of any major U.S. metro area, in the nation’s fastest growing state. According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, Indians account for more than half the region’s Asian population boom, with the Dallas suburb of Frisco alone experiencing growth to rival Seattle and Chicago.

    While some Texans still bleed football, these days a growing number bleed cricket.

    “In ’98, I came to the U.S. Then I stopped playing cricket because I didn’t have any availability here. Down the road four or five years later, I saw somebody playing cricket in Plano,” said Kalyan “K.J.” Jarajapu, a temple volunteer watching the Frisco-sponsored cricket league match. “I never imagined that there would be cricket for sure or there would be a cricket world like I saw back home in India here in (metro) Dallas.”

    The share of Asians among the foreign-born in the U.S. has risen recently, from 30.1% during the 2012-to-2016 period to 31.2% in the 2017-to-2021 period, as the share of immigrants from Latin America and Europe has fallen, according to the American Community Survey.

    Immigrants from South Asia believe they’ve found the best of East meets West in Frisco and other Dallas suburbs. They’re living a new and improved American dream, with access to their preferred houses of worship, authentic food and a community radio station. But the dream also comes with painful realities about racism, pressure to balance two cultures and the mental health challenges of finding your way in an unfamiliar world.

    Named in 1904 after the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, Frisco, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, started as a train stop and an agricultural hub. Today, it’s a global technology force. Companies including Toyota, FedEx and Goldman Sachs have drawn job seekers from afar, including a pipeline of IT workers from the tech hub of Hyderabad, India.

    Combine good jobs with reputable schools, affordable housing and warm weather, and the formula for growth is set.

    Texas-based disciples of Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji came together in 2008 to purchase a 10-acre (4-hectare) plot in Frisco and build a modest Hindu temple. Within three years, it was hosting hundreds of worshippers.

    Jayesh Thakker, a temple trustee and joint treasurer for the India Association of North Texas, said they raised enough money to build a 33,000-square-foot (3,065-square-meter) temple in 2015. Nearly 30 artisan workers came on special visas to ensure every detail honored Indian Hindu architecture.

    “They built it first as an American structure and then they ‘Indianized’ it,” Thakker said.

    New housing and schools soon followed. Laxmi Tummala, trustee and temple secretary, is also a realtor. Many of her clients settle for less just to live nearby.

    ″‘All that other stuff I wanted, it doesn’t matter if it’s going to put me 25 minutes or 30 minutes away. I want my kids to have this exposure,’” Tummala said.

    Immigrants aren’t the only newcomers. Between 2015 and 2019, more than 17,000 people flocked to Frisco and surrounding Collin County from Dallas County and more than 8,000 from nearby Denton County, according to the Census Bureau.

    Outside Texas, the biggest sources of new Collin County residents were Los Angeles and Orange counties in California, with 1,600 residents and 1,000 residents respectively.

    But almost 6,000 new residents in the area came from Asia.

    The Islamic Center of Frisco has benefited, too. Its board is planning to more than double the size of the 18,000-square-foot (1,672-square-meter) mosque by 2024. With more than 3,500 people attending prayers and 460 children attending Sunday School, the board moved to acquire more space in 2019.

    Azfar Saeed, the center’s president, remembers that nearly two decades ago only 15 people came to pray in a 400-square-foot (37-square-meter) shopping center suite on any given day.

    “At that time, nobody knew Frisco. People were like, ‘Where are you going?’” said Saeed, who was born in Pakistan. By 2010, “people just started moving right and left here.”

    The pandemic brought another shift. Suddenly, people from California or Chicago were able to work remotely but live elsewhere. Houston saw a tremendous influx of Asians in the last decade, with the second-highest growth rate after Dallas among major U.S. metros.

    “The moment people went remote it felt like people were like, ’OK, I have a tiny house in California for $800,000 and I can buy a mansion here in Texas. Let’s go,’” Saeed said, chuckling.

    Where there is a large Asian population in the U.S., anti-Asian hate seems inevitable. In August, a woman’s racist rant against four Indian American women in Plano was caught on video. The unprovoked attack escalated as she hit and threatened to shoot them. She was later arrested.

    The incident caught the attention of people in India thanks to social media. South Asian groups here attended meetings with local law enforcement.

    “It was very sad and it was surprising,” said Tummala, the temple’s secretary. “But we definitely don’t take that and say ‘OK, everybody in Texas is like that.’”

    Some have found outlets for talking about their struggles, including on the region’s only South Asian radio station.

    The app-based Radio Azad, in Irving, was started by Azad Khan in 2011, five years after he immigrated from Pakistan. The station broadcasts music and current affairs. Multiple languages are represented, including Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi and Telugu.

    As the area population has grown, so has Radio Azad’s listenership, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands.

    The anonymity of call-in radio shows on Azad — which means freedom in Hindi and Urdu — has allowed for difficult questions. Nearly three years ago, CEO Ayesha Shafi started monthly mental health segments, and listeners embraced them. They’ve tackled assimilation, bipolar disorder and domestic abuse.

    “You can talk about issues that you’re facing and actually hear somebody who’s like you, who understands where you’re coming from and will actually listen,” Shafi said.

    Depression rose to the forefront after the murder-suicide of a Bangladeshi family in April 2021 in Allen, roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of Frisco. Two adult brothers fatally shot their parents, sister and grandmother before taking their own lives. One brother had written on Instagram of dealing with depression since 2016.

    “As parents, we find that anxiety has become so common and it’s not happening to just anybody’s kids,” Shafi said. “As we created awareness, as we shared our shows … they would realize, ‘Omigod, this is happening to our kids.’”

    Reena Yalamanchili dealt with the feeling of not belonging as a child, despite being born in the U.S. The 17-year-old, whose family lives in nearby Coppell and attends the Frisco temple, remembers kids making fun of the lunch her mother made.

    “It kind of made me feel embarrassed about my mom’s cooking, or like Indian food or my culture in general,” Yalamanchili said. “Obviously, I don’t feel like that anymore.”

    She thinks most children grow out of those attitudes, and there is strength in numbers.

    “There’s a lot of people in the same boat as me,” she said. “There’s a lot of shared traditions.”

    Everywhere you look, South Asian cultures are merging into the Texas zeitgeist. The movie theater in Frisco shows films in Telegu, Tamil and Hindi, while at Tikka Taco in Irving, diners can get tacos stuffed with tandoori chicken, lamb or paneer tikka.

    Sometimes Indian politics spill into the Dallas suburbs. Scores of people joined protests this week outside Frisco’s City Hall on behalf of Christians in India who claim a Frisco-based group supports Hindu nationalists threatening their churches.

    On a more festive front, Hanuman Temple now collaborates with the City of Frisco for Holi, an annual Hindu festival also known as the Festival of Colors. Celebrants daub each other with vividly colored powders. The temple also organizes food donations, health fairs and other community services.

    “We don’t want to just be here and be isolated,” Tummala said.

    You can find a Diwali celebration in several Dallas suburbs around October or November. The biggest holiday of the year in India, the commemoration of light over darkness was celebrated by more than 15,000 people in Southlake’s town square. Police even wrote a script for officers doing security to explain its significance if anyone asked.

    “Five years ago, they wouldn’t have known what it was at all,” Shafi said.

    Southlake Mayor John Huffman, who spoke at the event dressed in traditional Indian clothing, believes close to a fifth of the crowd were non-Asians. He credits its success to the Southlake Foundation, a nonprofit started in 2019 by Kush Rao, who immigrated from India. The organization oversees cultural events and community service activities such as trash clean-up and free lunches for city staff.

    “I feel like they’re setting the bar in a lot of ways and saying, ‘We’re going to give back to the Public Works Department not because we’re getting anything in return but because we appreciate what they do for the city,’” Huffman said. “They have been very intentional about telling their fellow South Asians to get out and engage in the community.”

    Back in Frisco during Diwali, blocks of homes near Hanuman Temple twinkled with lights through the pouring rain. Hanuman Temple’s majestic pyramidal gateway glowed red. And dozens of families didn’t let the wet weather stop them from worshipping and chanting mantras to deities.

    Cricket fan Jarajapu, directing cars in the water-logged parking lot, wasn’t surprised so many came.

    “I have seen the transformation of Frisco city,” Jarajapu said. “It has become very vibrant with diversity, culture and especially a lot of Asians. I’m very proud to be living in Frisco.”

    ___

    Associated Press video journalist Noreen Nasir contributed to this story.

    ___

    Terry Tang is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter: @ttangAP

    ___

    Schneider reported from Orlando, Florida. Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter: @ MikeSchneiderAP

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  • UN warns terrorist threat has increased and is more diffuse

    UN warns terrorist threat has increased and is more diffuse

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    UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council warned Thursday that the threat of terrorism has increased and become more diffuse in various regions of the world aided by new technologies.

    It strongly condemned the flow of weapons, military equipment, drones and explosive devices to Islamic State and al-Qaida extremists and their affiliates.

    The presidential statement, approved by all 15 council members, was adopted at the end of an open meeting on counterterrorism chaired by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India, who called terrorism “an existential threat to international peace and security.”

    In the presidential statement, which is a step below a resolution, the Security Council expressed grave concern that terrorists are raising and transferring funds in a variety of ways, including abusing legitimate businesses and non-profit groups, kidnapping for ransom and trafficking in people, cultural items, drugs and weapons.

    The council urged the 193 U.N. member states to prioritize countering terrorist financing.

    It also esaid terrorist groups “craft distorted narratives that are based on the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of religion to justify violence” and use names, religion, or religious symbols for propaganda, recruitment and manipulation of followers. To tackle this, the council called for counter-narratives “promoting tolerance and coexistence.”

    The statement said combatting terrorism requires governments and the “whole of society” to cooperate in increasing awareness about the threats of terrorism and violent extremism and “effectively tackling them.”

    It said “strengthening cooperation in countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes” is needed, pointing to the increased use of the internet, social media, virtual assets, new financial instruments and the increasing global misuse of drones for terrorist attacks.

    U.N. counterterrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov told the council in a virtual briefing that despite continuing leadership losses by al-Qaida and the Islamic State extremist group, “terrorism in general has become more prevalent and more geographically widespread, affecting the lives of millions worldwide.”

    In recent years, he said, Islamic State, al-Qaida and their affiliates have exploited instability, fragility and conflict to pursue their agendas “particularly in West Africa and the Sahel, where the situation remains urgent as terrorist groups strive to expand their area of operations.” These groups have also contributed to deteriorating security in central and southern Africa, he said.

    In Afghanistan, Voronkov said, “the sustained presence of terrorist groups continues to pose serious threats to the region and beyond.” He expressed concern that the country’s Taliban rulers “have failed to sever longstanding ties with terrorist groups sheltering in the country despite this council’s demands that they do so,” an apparent reference to al-Qaida-Taliban links.

    He expressed concern at the rise in terrorist attacks “based on xenophobia, racism and other forms of intolerance or in the name of religion or belief.”

    Voronkov, who heads the U.N. Office of Counterterrorism, also warned that terrorist groups use “online videogames and adjacent platforms to groom and recruit members, propagandize, communicate, and even train for terrorist acts.”

    U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told the council that “last year, the world faced more than 8,000 terrorist incidents, across 65 countries, killing more than 23,000 people.” She said the U.N. estimates that racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism has increased over 320% in recent years.

    “Other recent attacks around the world — the bombing of a police station in Indonesia, the coup attempt in Germany, and hateful incidents here in our country — remind us that no country is safe from this threat, and it cannot be defeated by any of us alone or by any regional bloc,” she said. “We must all work together.”

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  • How can primary health care help to close the epilepsy treatment gap? A journey through Andhra Pradesh, India

    How can primary health care help to close the epilepsy treatment gap? A journey through Andhra Pradesh, India

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    Newswise — The role of primary health care in identifying, diagnosing, and treating people with epilepsy is increasingly important, particularly in view of the recent adoption of the Intersectoral Global Action Plan (IGAP) for Epilepsy and Neurological Disorders by the World Health Assembly.

    However, societal attitudes and stigma around epilepsy can be major barriers to improving care. Without at least a rough idea of how many people require diagnosis and treatment in a given area, it’s difficult to establish needs and gaps. In India, where many people keep epilepsy hidden even from care providers, mapping the current state of epilepsy care in a rural area of Andhra Pradesh was nearly an exercise in futility.

    A team of researchers visited two primary health care centers in Bhimaravam to assess care provided to people with epilepsy through the primary health care system. The visits were part of a coordinated clinical and research initiative called STOP-Epilepsy, which aims to improve epilepsy care in three districts in India:

    • Gauriganj in Uttar Pradesh
    • Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh
    • Nawanshahr in Punjab

    Bhimaravam, in coastal South India, has a population of about 225,000. Most people work in rice paddy cultivation or fish farming. The two health care centers—in Turputallu and Gollavanitippa—each provide service to approximately 50,000 people.

    “Reaching the centers took us a few hours,” said Gagandeep Singh, an epilepsy researcher from India. “This was largely because navigating the pot-holed road was quite a challenge.”

    Invisible epilepsy

    At each center, the team interacted with medical officers, pharmacists, nurse midwives and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers.

    “We asked the medical officers how commonly they saw people with epilepsy during clinics,” said Singh. “At Turputallu, the doctor replied, ‘Not too many. I would see about 60 to 70 outpatients on any day and might see 1 or 2 people with epilepsy in a week.’”

    At Gollavanitippa, the pharmacist told the group that the pharmacy had 100 mg phenytoin tablets and injectable diazepam as anti-seizure medications.

    “When we asked about other epilepsy medicines, he replied, ‘Other epilepsy medicines are never prescribed, and so we never requisition them,’” said Singh. The small numbers of people with epilepsy in the clinics was the main reason cited for the limited availability of anti-seizure medications.

    ASHA workers in India: Community health at the village level

    Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers are female community members, usually between the ages of 25 and 40, who work mostly on a voluntary basis, though they do receive some financial compensation. They are trained by the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as part of the country’s National Health Mission, which aimed to establish one ASHA worker for every 1,000 residents

    ASHA workers must primarily be residents of the village or area they serve, and plan to remain living there for the foreseeable future. They promote healthy behaviors through education and prevention, assisting in health care access in villages and marginalized areas in Indian cities. They are a key factor in communication, awareness, and access to care in these areas.

    ASHA is not only an acronym; it means “hope” in Hindi.

    There are close to 1 million ASHA workers in India. In May 2022, ASHAs were one of six recipients of the World Health Organization’s Global Health Leaders Award.

     

    At Turputallu, the researchers asked ASHA workers how many people with epilepsy lived in the communities they served.

    “There was a long silence,” said Singh, “after which one of the ASHA workers said she was aware of one such case in her village.”

    When asked about problems that people with epilepsy could face, Singh mentioned that one worker believed people with epilepsy are usually fine but can have problems during “no-moon days.”

    The idea that seizures are somehow affected by the moon’s phases has been around for thousands of years. Romans referred to people with epilepsy as “lunaticus” (moonstruck) and believed the gods intervened during certain phases. Limited research suggests a possible negative association between seizure frequency and the fraction of the moon illuminated at night; however, other research suggests an opposite trend.

    At Gollavanitippa, ASHA workers at first said they knew of no one with epilepsy in their communities.

    “As the interpreter persisted, one said that she knew of a family in her village in which both brother and sister both had epilepsy,” said Singh. “The sister died prematurely, and the brother is seeking treatment for epilepsy from a private facility.  She also mentioned one woman who was on treatment and married off some time ago. But it seems that that the epilepsy was not declared during the marital negotiations, and there has been considerable discord between the natal and conjugal family on this account.”

    Marriage-related stigma

    Arranged marriages account for nearly 80% of all marriages in India and much of South Asia. Parents or elders in the family negotiate arranged marriages; potential marriage partners have little to no opportunity to meet or discuss issues.

    In India, epilepsy was legitimate grounds for divorce until 1999, when the Hindu Marriage Act was amended to remove it, largely due to the efforts of neurologists. Despite the legal gains, societal beliefs about epilepsy remain negative.

    “All ASHAs agreed that hiding epilepsy was fairly common among both genders, and this was done primarily by families to avoid ruining marital prospects,” Singh said. “Using indigenous medications or witchcraft was not common, however. People would like to visit a specialist, funds permitting.”

    Singh said another ASHA worker recalled a man who had epilepsy. She thought he might be visiting a private practitioner but was taking his medication irregularly because he could not afford a consistent supply.

    In regions of the world with few epilepsy specialists, the World Health Organization (WHO) encourages engagement of primary health care physicians and other health care providers in epilepsy care. However, said Singh, this visit suggested that at least in this Indian district, very few people with epilepsy visit primary health care centers. Even community health workers are aware of only a few people with epilepsy in the communities they serve.

    “Where then do people with epilepsy seek care?” asked Singh. “There could be alternative pathways of care, but in the case of Bhimaravam, there is no use of alternative medicines or traditional healers. Do they merely remain behind shadows?”

    Medication issues

    Despite the number of anti-seizure medications on the WHO and Indian lists of essential medicines, primary health care dispensaries have few of these medications available. And primary care providers in Bhimaravam appear to see few people with epilepsy.

    “Even if more people arrived at primary care centers for diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, would care providers be able to manage their epilepsy effectively?” asked Singh.

    The trip to Bhimavaram emphasizes that there are multiple barriers to obtaining effective care, he said.

    “Cultural prejudices about epilepsy result in patients and families being unwilling to seek help for the condition or to tell health workers about the symptoms. Many community health workers don’t have the training to recognize seizures, to educate the community about epilepsy, or to recommend appropriate treatment in most cases,” he said.

    “Finally, the availability of medicines at the community level is limited. Many of the standard epilepsy medicines are either not available at all or the availability is inconsistent. Reducing the treatment gap will require addressing all of these issues.”

    Stigma as a barrier to research: Life experiences of women with epilepsy in India

    In 2014, Jane von Gaudecker conducted an intensive study of six women in Kerala, India, highlighting the issues they face surrounding marriage, as well as other psychosocial and medical issues.

    Von Gaudecker, currently assistant professor at Indiana University School of Nursing, dressed traditionally while conducting the study and spoke the local language fluently. However, she still came to be known as the “epilepsy lady,” which was a major barrier to interviewing women. Of the 21 potential participants, 8 of them would not speak with her, in spite of assured confidentiality, for fear that the community would associate them with epilepsy. They were afraid of the effects on their daily lives, as well as marriage prospects.

    Six women did agree to extensive interviews; the findings are detailed in a publication, as well as an Epigraph article.

    ##

    ILAE is a global organization of health care professionals and scientists working toward a world where no person’s life is limited by epilepsy.

    Website | Facebook | Instagram

    Twitter feeds: English | French | Japanese | Portuguese | Spanish | ILAE-Young Epilepsy Section

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    International League Against Epilepsy

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  • Why does India still use and trade asbestos?

    Why does India still use and trade asbestos?

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    Asbestos – a cheap, heat-resistant mineral – was once used widely in building materials all around the world. Today, it is banned in 70 countries which have deemed that this construction material is a “silent killer” since its fibres are carcinogenic.

    While there are six types of asbestos, chrysotile – white asbestos – is the most common form, used especially in roofing houses.

    According to the World Health Organization, all types of asbestos cause “lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis [fibrosis of the lungs]”.

    Exposure to the fibres and handling or inhaling them could also result in death.

    Yet some countries like India continue trading it.

    In 2011, India banned asbestos mining and asbestos waste used in ships. But it continues to trade in raw asbestos and asbestos-based products, commonly found in the roofs of houses, especially in poorer regions of the country.

    According to a November 2021 report by the Indian government, between 2019 and 2020, India imported 361,164 tonnes of asbestos, a 1 percent decrease compared with 364,105 tonnes in the previous year.

    The report noted that almost the entire import was chrysotile asbestos, with 85 percent of these fibres coming from Russia. About 3 percent also came from Brazil, Kazakhstan and Hungary each, and 2 percent came from Poland and South Africa respectively.

    Aaron Cosbey, a development economist and head of Small World Sustainability, a consultancy, told Al Jazeera that trade goes on because commercial interests have been prioritised over human welfare.

    “India’s biggest source of chrysotile asbestos – Russia – has not banned it nationally. So there is no hypocrisy; it is just bad policy, given that the WHO and 70 states worldwide have agreed that there are no safe uses for the substance,” he said.

    India also exports asbestos, but its sales have decreased substantially to 1,001 tonnes between 2019 and 2020, compared with 1,112 tonnes in the previous year.

    The Indian government’s November 2021 report noted that most of the exports went to Bangladesh, and 7 percent to Sri Lanka.

    Gopal Krishna, an environmental lawyer and co-founder of the Ban Asbestos Network of India, said despite countries like Brazil ruling that asbestos use was unconstitutional – and Hungary, Poland and South Africa banning asbestos – India continues with its import and export.

    “The trade continues because nobody in India has time to deal with health complaints when money is involved and there is a lewd relationship between the Indian government and the asbestos manufacturers in the country,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “A 2012 study (PDF) was conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Health in Ahmedabad, India, surveying 1,248 workers exposed to the substance. Noting that the fibres affected only three workers, the study concluded that asbestos and its derivatives are not harmful to human health. But this study by a government body was co-sponsored by the Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers’ Association, which lobbies for the industry, making it a conflict of interest,” he added.

    Krishna said the study contradicts the UN Rotterdam Convention, which was adopted in 2004 and reviews the harmful effects of a wide range of chemicals and pesticides.

    The convention has listed white chrysotile asbestos mineral fibres as a part of its list of substances which have been banned or restricted because of their health or environmental impact.

    “The Indian government is aware of the harmful impacts of asbestos, but is heavily influenced by the profit-inducing capacity of the industry. Currently, Mansukh Mandaviya, the minister responsible for chemicals and fertilisers, is also the country’s health and family welfare minister.

    “So he is a promoter of trading asbestos and also the guardian of public health in the country, magnifying that incestuous relationship between the asbestos industry and politics in India,” Krishna said.

    At the time of publishing, Mandaviya had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for a response.

    Asbestos trade lobbies

    On the global stage, the landmark ruling in favour of banning the trade of asbestos came in 2001, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) supported a move by France to ban the substance.

    The WTO had been called on by Canada to look into whether France’s ban, which was announced in 1997, was legitimate.

    The WTO’s Appellate body – a seven-person committee that hears appeals – gave its verdict, saying that “dangerous substances cannot be judged to be similar to safer substances”.

    “This ruling was heavily protested by asbestos trade lobbies in India who said that a trade organisation should not get involved in health matters. Their position on the matter is still the same with them also claiming that health and environmental concerns about asbestos, raised by health and environment safety bodies, are distorted,” Krishna told Al Jazeera.

    “These business enterprises don’t operate on logic. They operate on profit,” he added.

    The Indian asbestos lobby, which seeks to promote the use of mainly chrysotile cement products in the country, has claimed that India is plagued by a chrysotile fibre phobia.

    In a 2019 article purporting to bust myths, the lobby said this was due to a lack of awareness in society about the difference between amphibole asbestos and serpentine chrysotile.

    The lobby cited WHO guidance that the controlled use of chrysotile asbestos would not cause any health hazards.

    But a 2014 WHO report stated that “the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop using all types of asbestos”.

    The International Chrysotile Association (ICA) has also defended the asbestos industry’s business interests.

    A month before the 10th Conference of the UN Rotterdam Convention took place in Geneva in June this year, the association said in a statement: “The relentless battle against chrysotile over the course of numerous conferences of the parties since the Convention was established has turned the Rotterdam Conference into an anti-asbestos conference.”

    The use of chrysotile fibres is in line with the WHO and International Labour Organization’s (ILO) policy, the statement added.

    More public awareness?

    Krishna said the usage and trading of asbestos began when Britain ruled India.

    “India is a victim of the British legacy under which many of these companies were set up in the first place, even when the British knew its harmful effects,” he said.

    The British Medical Journal has been reporting on asbestos since 1924, he added, “so since then, the subcontinent has not been free of asbestos, especially in building materials”.

    The United Kingdom fully banned asbestos in 1999.

    So far, the Indian government has phased out the use of asbestos in the railway sector by making more than 7,000 railway stations asbestos-free. New Delhi has also issued a working conditions code for companies involved in handling the substance.

    But the government’s November 2021 trade report noted that trade will continue.

    Krishna, intent on his mission, says campaigning will be key in pushing demand down.

    “People need to be educated about it in schools, so that they understand how the industry works and what the health hazards are,” he said. “Only then will they be able to make a decision about the substance, which could indirectly influence the demand and supply of asbestos.”

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  • A trash heap 62 meters high shows the scale of India’s climate challenge | CNN

    A trash heap 62 meters high shows the scale of India’s climate challenge | CNN

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    At the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi, a steady flow of jeeps zigzag up the trash heap to dump more garbage on a pile now over 62 meters (203 feet) high.

    Fires caused by heat and methane gas sporadically break out – the Delhi Fire Service Department has responded to 14 fires so far this year – and some deep beneath the pile can smolder for weeks or months, while men, women and children work nearby, sifting through the rubbish to find items to sell.

    Some of the 200,000 residents who live in Bhalswa say the area is uninhabitable, but they can’t afford to move and have no choice but to breathe the toxic air and bathe in its contaminated water.

    Bhalswa is not Delhi’s largest landfill. It’s about three meters lower than the biggest, Ghazipur, and both contribute to the country’s total output of methane gas.

    Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, but a more potent contributor to the climate crisis because methane traps more heat. India creates more methane from landfill sites than any other country, according to GHGSat, which monitors methane via satellites.

    And India comes second only to China for total methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Methane Tracker.

    As part of his “Clean India” initiative, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said efforts are being made to remove these mountains of garbage and convert them into green zones. That goal, if achieved, could relieve some of the suffering of those residents living in the shadows of these dump sites – and help the world lower its greenhouse gas emissions.

    India wants to lower its methane output, but it hasn’t joined the 130 countries who have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, a pact to collectively cut global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Scientists estimate the reduction could cut global temperature rise by 0.2% – and help the world reach its target of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

    India says it won’t join because most of its methane emissions come from farming – some 74% from farm animals and paddy fields versus less than 15% from landfill.

    In a statement last year, Minister of State for Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change Ashwini Choubey said pledging to reduce India’s total methane output could threaten the livelihood of farmers and affect India’s trade and economic prospects.

    But it’s also facing challenges in reducing methane from its steaming mounds of trash.

    A young boy in the narrow lanes of slums in Bhalswa Dairy Village.

    When Narayan Choudhary, 72, moved to Bhalswa in 1982, he said it was a “beautiful place,” but that all changed 12 years later when the first rubbish began arriving at the local landfill.

    In the years since, the Bhalswa dump has grown nearly as tall as the historic Taj Mahal, becoming a landmark in its own right and an eyesore that towers over surrounding homes, affecting the health of people who live there.

    Choudhary suffers from chronic asthma. He said he nearly died when a large fire broke out at Bhalswa in April that burned for days. “I was in terrible shape. My face and nose were swollen. I was on my death bed,” he said.

    “Two years ago we protested … a lot of residents from this area protested (to get rid of the waste),” Choudhary said. “But the municipality didn’t cooperate with us. They assured us that things will get better in two years but here we are, with no relief.”

    The dump site exhausted its capacity in 2002, according to a 2020 report on India’s landfills from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit research agency in New Delhi, but without government standardization in recycling systems and greater industry efforts to reduce plastic consumption and production, tonnes of garbage continue to arrive at the site daily.

    Narrow lanes of the slum in Bhalswa Dairy Village.

    Bhalswa isn’t the only dump causing distress to residents nearby – it is one of three landfills in Delhi, overflowing with decaying waste and emitting toxic gases into the air.

    Across the country, there are more than 3,100 landfills. Ghazipur is the biggest in Delhi, standing at 65 meters (213 feet), and like Bhalswa, it surpassed its waste capacity in 2002 and currently produces huge amounts of methane.

    According to GHGSat, on a single day in March, more than two metric tons of methane gas leaked from the site every hour.

    “If sustained for a year, the methane leak from this landfill would have the same climate impact as annual emissions from 350,000 US cars,” said GHGSat CEO Stephane Germain.

    Methane emissions aren’t the only hazard that stem from landfills like Bhalswa and Ghazipur. Over decades, dangerous toxins have seeped into the ground, polluting the water supply for thousands of residents living nearby.

    In May, CNN commissioned two accredited labs to test the ground water around the Bhalswa landfill. And according to the results, ground water within at least a 500-meter (1,600-foot) radius around the waste site is contaminated.

    A ground water sample from the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi.

    In the first lab report, levels of ammonia and sulphate were significantly higher than acceptable limits mandated by the Indian government.

    Results from the second lab report showed levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) – the amount of inorganic salts and organic matter dissolved in the water – detected in one of the samples was almost 19 times the acceptable limit, making it unsafe for human drinking.

    The Bureau of Indian Standards sets the acceptable limit of TDS at 500 milligrams/liter, a figure roughly seen as “good” by the World Health Organization (WHO). Anything over 900 mg/l is considered “poor” by the WHO, and over 1,200 mg/l is “unacceptable.”

    According to Richa Singh from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), the TDS of water taken near the Bhalswa site was between 3,000 and 4,000 mg/l. “This water is not only unfit for drinking but also unfit for skin contact,” she said. “So it can’t be used for purposes like bathing or cleaning of the utensils or cleaning of the clothes.”

    Dr. Nitesh Rohatgi, the senior director of medical oncology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, urged the government to study the health of the local population and compare it to other areas of the city, “so that in 15 to 20 years’ time, we are not looking back and regretting that we had a higher cancer incidence, higher health hazards, higher health issues and we didn’t look back and correct them in time.”

    Most people in Bhalswa rely on bottled water for drinking, but they use local water for other purposes – many say they have no choice.

    “The water we get is contaminated, but we have to helplessly store it and use it for washing utensils, bathing and at times drinking too,” said resident Sonia Bibi, whose legs are covered in a thick, red rash.

    Jwala Prashad, 87, who lives in a small hut in an alleyway near the landfill, said the pile of putrid trash had made his life “a living hell.”

    “The water we use is pale red in color. My skin burns after bathing,” he said, as he tried to soothe red gashes on his face and neck.

    “But I can’t afford to ever leave this place,” he added.

    Jwala Prashad, 87, at the handpump in front of his house in Bhalswa Dairy Village.

    More than 2,300 tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste arrive at Delhi’s largest dump in Ghazipur every day, according to a report released in July by a joint committee formed to find a way to reduce the number of fires at the site.

    That’s the bulk of the waste from the surrounding area – only 300 tonnes is processed and disposed of by other means, the report said. And less than 7% of legacy waste had been bio-mined, which involves excavating, treating and potentially reusing old rubbish.

    The Municipal Corporation of Delhi deploys drones every three months to monitor the size of the trash heap and is experimenting with ways to extract methane from the trash mountain, the report said.

    But too much rubbish is arriving every day to keep up. The committee said bio-mining had been “slow and tardy” and it was “highly unlikely” the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (which has now merged with North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations) would achieve its target of “flattening the garbage mountain” by 2024.

    “No effective plans to reduce the height of the garbage mountain have been made,” the report said. Furthermore, “it should have proposed a long time ago that future dumping of garbage in them would pollute the groundwater systems,” the report added.

    CNN sent a series of questions along with the data from the water testing questionnaire to India’s Environment and Health Ministries. There has been no response from the ministries.

    In a 2019 report, the Indian government recommended ways to improve the country’s solid waste management, including formalizing the recycling sector and installing more compost plants in the country.

    While some improvements have been made, such as better door-to-door garbage collection and processing of waste, Delhi’s landfills continue to accumulate waste.

    In October, the National Green Tribunal fined the state government more than $100 million for failing to dispose of more than 30 million metric tonnes of waste across its three landfill sites.

    “The problem is Delhi doesn’t have a concrete solid waste action plan in place,” said Singh from the CSE. “So we are talking here about dump site remediation and the treatment of legacy waste, but imagine the fresh waste which is generated on a regular basis. All of that is getting dumped everyday into these landfills.”

    “(So) let’s say you are treating 1,000 tons of legacy (waste) and then you are dumping 2,000 tons of fresh waste every day it will become a vicious cycle. It will be a never ending process,” Singh said.

    “Management of legacy waste, of course, is mandated by the government and is very, very important. But you just can’t start the process without having an alternative facility of fresh waste. So that’s the biggest challenge.”

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  • SpaceX gives rival’s internet satellites ride to orbit

    SpaceX gives rival’s internet satellites ride to orbit

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched internet satellites for a competitor Thursday, stepping in to help after the London-based OneWeb company halted its flights with Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

    The Falcon rocket blasted off at sunset with 40 mini satellites bound for polar orbit. They will expand OneWeb’s constellation to just over 500, nearly 80% of the planned total of about 630 satellites.

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX has more than 3,200 Starlink satellites in orbit, providing high-speed, broadband internet to remote corners of the world. Amazon plans to launch the first of its internet satellites early next year from Cape Canaveral.

    With the market for global internet service “growing exponentially,” there’s room for everyone, said Massimiliano Ladovaz, OneWeb’s chief technology officer.

    SpaceX agreed to launch satellites for OneWeb after the British company broke ties with Russia in March. Russian Soyuz rockets already had launched 13 batches of OneWeb satellites, beginning in 2019.

    India picked up the slack in October, sending up a batch of OneWeb satellites.

    Although there were other launch options, SpaceX and India offered the fastest and best combination, Ladovaz said shortly before liftoff.

    Two more SpaceX launches and one more by India are planned for OneWeb in the next several months to complete the company’s orbiting constellation by spring. OneWeb already is providing internet service in Alaska, Canada and northern Europe; the newest satellites will increase the range to the entire U.S. and Europe, as well as large parts of Africa and South America, and elsewhere, according to Ladovaz.

    OneWeb satellites — each about the size of a washing machine and weighing 330 pounds (150 kilograms) — are built at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center through a joint venture with France’s Airbus.

    Thursday’s launch occurred just several miles away from the same pad where Apollo astronauts blasted off for the moon, the last time on Dec. 7, 1972.

    ——

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Murderous 1600s pirate hid out in US colonies with impunity

    Murderous 1600s pirate hid out in US colonies with impunity

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    WARWICK, R.I. — One tarnished silver coin at a time, the ground is yielding new evidence that in the late 1600s, one of the world’s most ruthless pirates wandered the American colonies with impunity.

    Newly surfaced documents also strengthen the case that English buccaneer Henry Every — the target of the first worldwide manhunt — hid out in New England before sailing for Ireland and vanishing into the wind.

    “At this point, the amount of evidence is overwhelming and indisputable,” historian and metal detectorist Jim Bailey, who’s devoted years to solving the mystery, told The Associated Press. “Every was undoubtedly on the run in the colonies.”

    In 2014, after unearthing an unusual coin engraved with an Arabic inscription at a pick-your-own-fruit orchard in Middletown, Rhode Island, Bailey began retracing Every’s steps.

    Research confirmed that the exotic coin was minted in 1693 in Yemen. Bailey then discovered that it was consistent with millions of dollars’ worth of coins and other valuables seized by Every and his men in their brazen Sept. 7, 1695, sacking of the Ganj-i-Sawai, an armed royal vessel owned by Indian emperor Aurangzeb.

    Historical accounts say Every’s band tortured and killed passengers aboard the Indian ship and raped many of the women before escaping to the Bahamas, a haven for pirates. But word quickly spread of their crimes, and English King William III — under enormous pressure from a scandalized India and the influential East India Company trading giant — put a large bounty on their heads.

    Detectorists and archaeologists have since located 26 similar coins stretching from Maine to the Carolinas. All but three coins turned up in New England, and none can be dated later than when the Indian ship was captured.

    “When I first heard about it, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this can’t be true,’” said Steve Album, a rare coin specialist based in Santa Rosa, California, who helped identify all of the silver Arabic coins found in New England.

    “But these coins have been found legitimately and in a few instances archaeologically, and every single one predates the sacking of the ship,” said Album, who has lived in Iran and has traveled widely in the Middle East.

    Detectorists have also unearthed a gold nugget weighing 3 grams (a tenth of an ounce) — slightly heavier than a U.S. penny — from a potato field perched on a hilltop in seaside Little Compton, Rhode Island.

    There’s no documented evidence that naturally occurring gold has ever been found in the state. Bailey and other experts believe that the nugget likely originated somewhere along Africa’s Gold Coast, a center for the slave trade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Adding to the intrigue, two silver Arabic coins were recovered not far from the nugget, and Every is known to have seized a considerable amount of gold while sailing off the coast of West Africa.

    The latest evidence putting Every on American soil isn’t just metallic — it includes paper and pixels.

    Bailey had already found records showing that the Sea Flower, a ship used by Every and his men after they ditched the vessel they’d used in their murderous raid, arrived in 1696 in Newport, Rhode Island. He’s since surfaced documents that show that the pirate captain was accompanied by three Rhode Islanders he took aboard from another pirate vessel when he fled India. All three came ashore with Every in the Bahamas on March 30, 1696, and Bailey said that they essentially served as getaway drivers in exchange for plunder.

    Captured pirates William Phillips and Edward Savill testified on Aug. 27, 1696, that one of two ships that left the Bahamas went to Virginia and New England before reaching Ireland. Critically, Bailey said, the records clarify a muddy timeline that long has been misinterpreted by historians to suggest Every lingered two months on the Caribbean island — something he’d never have done as a fugitive.

    “There’s no way he stayed in the Bahamas to sit on the beach and work on his tan while waiting to be captured,” Bailey said. “Indeed, Every was in New England for over a month weighing his options for starting his life anew in the colonies or going back home to England.”

    Every’s exploits have inspired Steven Johnson’s book “Enemy of All Mankind,” and the final installment of PlayStation’s popular “Uncharted” video game franchise. Earlier this year, Sony Pictures released a movie adaptation starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas.

    Bailey’s next challenge: figuring out what happened to Every after the trail ran cold following his arrival in Ireland on June 20, 1696. It’s the mystery’s elusive final chapter — one he hopes to detail in a forthcoming book about the cold case.

    “We’re chasing down the lost history behind one of the greatest crimes of the 17th century,” he said.

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  • Dominique Lapierre, French author and journalist, dies at 91

    Dominique Lapierre, French author and journalist, dies at 91

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    NICE, France (AP) — French writer Dominique Lapierre, who was celebrated for his historical work on the World War II struggle to liberate Paris and a novel depicting a life of hardship in a Kolkata slum in India, has died. He was 91.

    Lapierre died Friday, a local newspaper in southern France reported Monday, citing an interview with the author’s wife, Dominique Conchon-Lapierre.

    She told the Var Matin newspaper that Lapierre died “of old age” and that she was “at peace because (her husband) is no longer suffering.”

    French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak praised Lapierre as an author and journalist whose travels around the world – from Mexico to India, New York City to Jerusalem – made him an “eyewitness of the 20th century” and enriched his novels with facts.

    “We have lost a great writer, who was generous in his texts and was generous in his life,” Abdul Malak said in a statement.

    In 1964, Lapierre drew on archived material to co-author with American writer Larry Collins a recounting of the liberation of the French capital in August 1944. The book — “Is Paris Burning?” — was made into a movie by French filmmaker Rene Clement. Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola were listed among a group of screenplay writers.

    Lapierre was born in 1931 in the western French city of Chatelaillon to a diplomat father and a mother who had worked as a journalist. In the 1950s, Lapierre worked as a journalist and a foreign correspondent for Paris-Match. He lived most of his life in the French Riviera town of Ramatuelle with Conchon-Lapierre, his wife of 56 years.

    Lapierre had a special bond with India and spent a lot of time in Kolkata, a city that was nicknamed “The City of Joy” after his 1985 novel with that title. The book, which chronicled the life of a rickshaw puller in a Kolkata slum, was adapted by Roland Joffé into a 1992 film.

    He also donated generously to several charities engaged in humanitarian work in Kolkata.

    Two of his other books —“Freedom at Midnight” and “Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster” — were histories of events in India. Lapierre was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award, in 2008.

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  • AP PHOTOS: Pageant celebrates transgender life in India

    AP PHOTOS: Pageant celebrates transgender life in India

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    GUWAHATI, India — Anilya Boro may not have won the crown at India’s Miss Trans NE pageant this year, but having her parents there in support was a validation in its own right.

    “I must prove to my parents that I can do something as a girl,” said the 22-year-old. “I didn’t win a title, but I am very happy that my parents were at the show to support me. Now they have accepted my decision to live as a girl and undergo surgery, but they don’t want me to rush through.”

    Twenty transgender women sashayed on a stage dressed as ethnic and tribal characters in the beauty pageant, drawing rounds of applause from the audience. The contestants came from India’s remote eight northeastern states, some of them nestled in the Himalayas in a relatively undeveloped region known for its stunning natural vistas.

    The event on Wednesday promoted the beauty and uniqueness of the northeastern region and community pride to uplift the transgender community, said Ajan Akash Barauah, the organizer.

    It wasn’t easy to hold the show with no corporate funding. Ajan turned to friends and organizations supporting the transgender cause to finance the pageant.

    Sexual minorities across India have gained a degree of acceptance, especially in big cities, and transgender people were guaranteed equal rights as a third gender in 2014. But prejudice persists and the community continues to face discrimination and rejection by their families. They’re often denied jobs, education and health care.

    Ajan lived in the Indian capital for 13 years as a fashion designer and moved to her hometown of Guwahati in northeastern Assam state after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country.

    She had won the title of Trans Queen in 2014, in a pageant held in the southern city of Vishakhapatnam, and later decided to help the community in the northeastern region.

    “The Miss Trans NE pageant on Nov. 30 was only for men who identified themselves as women. Next year, it will include transgender men as well,’’ Ajan said.

    Anilya is keeping her sights high, dreaming of one day winning the Miss Universe title. Her mother, Aikon Boro, said Anilya wore only girl’s clothes since she was 6 or 7, feeling the most comfortable in them.

    “Everybody in the family tried to change her habits and behavior but she didn’t listen. Now the family members have accepted her as a transgender person,’’ she said.

    The top prize at Miss Trans NE went to Lucey Ham from Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh state which borders on China, while Aria Deka and Rishidhya Sangkarishan, both from Assam in the far northeast, were runners-up.

    “I am overwhelmed with joy. I have nothing to say. I will never forget the biggest moment of my life,” Ham said after she was crowned the winner.

    Creating awareness about transgender people and educating them about their rights was what got Ajan involved with the event.

    “They should know about gender equality everywhere. Even when you go to the office or a hotel or a public toilet you have the right to ask for proper facilities,” Ajan said.

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  • What to expect as India assumes G20 presidency for 2023

    What to expect as India assumes G20 presidency for 2023

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    EXPLAINER

    The world must cooperate to tackle climate change, terrorism, and pandemics, Narendra Modi said as India began its yearlong presidency.

    India has begun its yearlong presidency of the Group of 20 (G20), taking over from Indonesia at a time of geopolitical tumult and uncertainty over post-pandemic economic recovery.

    “Today, we do not need to fight for our survival – our era need not be one of war. Indeed, it must not be one,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a declaration published in Indian newspapers to mark the start of the G20 presidency on Thursday.

    What is the G20?

    Formed in the wake of the financial crisis that swept through Southeast Asian economies in the late 1990s as a forum for finance ministers and central bank governors, the G20 was upgraded in 2007 to include heads of state and governments.

    During and after the 2008 global financial crisis, the G20’s coordinated efforts helped tamp down panic and restore economic growth.

    The grouping comprises 19 countries cutting across continents and the European Union, representing about 85 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

    The G20 also invites non-member countries, including Bangladesh, Singapore, Spain and Nigeria, besides international organisations such as the United Nations, World Health Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    What does the G20 presidency entail?

    The G20 does not have a permanent secretariat, and one member takes over the presidency each year to steer the grouping’s agenda which is split into two tracks – one led by finance ministers and another by emissaries of leaders of member countries.

    After India, Brazil will take over the presidency of the G20, followed by South Africa in 2025.

    During its term, India will hold more than 200 meetings across some 50 cities involving ministers, officials and civil society, leading up to a marquee summit in the capital, New Delhi, in September 2023.

    The summit will be attended by about 30 heads of state and government, from G20 members and invited countries.

    What is G20’s upcoming agenda?

    Modi has called for international cooperation to deal with global issues, outlining the country’s approach to the G20.

    He said in a statement the challenges of “climate change, terrorism, and pandemics can be solved not by fighting each other, but only by acting together”.

    Modi also underlined a need to “depoliticise the global supply of food, fertilisers and medical products, so that geo-political tensions do not lead to humanitarian crises”.

    His statement reflects New Delhi’s stance that the conflict in Ukraine, triggered by a Russian invasion in February, must be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy.

    Asked about Russia’s involvement in G20 during India’s presidency, a spokesperson for the Indian foreign ministry said as Russia was a G20 member, “we would expect them to be participating in this process … the grouping needs to speak with one voice, particularly on important issues that are affecting the world”.

    What does G20 mean for India?

    The timing of the summit, ahead of India’s general elections due in 2024, could help Modi in further build his reputation as a leader of international stature.

    However, the current complex geopolitical and economic situation will make it a challenge for India and Modi to shape the international response to multiple crises.

    This is a moment for India to transition from being a “rule-taker to being a rule-maker”, said Rajiv Bhatia and Manjeet Kripalani of Indian think-tank Gateway House.

    “The country has not invested much in multilateral rule-making institutions like the G20, but it is never too late to start.”

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  • India may become the third largest economy by 2030, overtaking Japan and Germany

    India may become the third largest economy by 2030, overtaking Japan and Germany

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    Beautiful and colorful aerial view of Mumbai skyline during twilight seen from Currey Road, on February 16, 2022 in Mumbai, India.

    Pratik Chorge | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

    India is set to overtake Japan and Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy, according to S&P Global and Morgan Stanley.

    S&P’s forecast is based on the projection that India’s annual nominal gross domestic product growth will average 6.3% through 2030. Similarly, Morgan Stanley estimates that India’s GDP is likely to more than double from current levels by 2031.

    “India has the conditions in place for an economic boom fueled by offshoring, investment in manufacturing, the energy transition, and the country’s advanced digital infrastructure,” Morgan Stanley analysts led by Ridham Desai and Girish Acchipalia wrote in the report.

    “These drivers will make [India] the world’s third-largest economy and stock market before the end of the decade.”

    India posted a year-on-year growth of 6.3% for the July to September quarter, fractionally higher than a Reuters poll forecast of 6.2%. Prior to this, India recorded an expansion of 13.5% for the April to June compared to a year ago, buoyed by robust domestic demand in the country’s service sector.

    The country posted a record 20.1% year-on-year growth in the three months to June 2021, according to Refinitiv data.

    “These drivers will make [India] the world’s third-largest economy and stock market before the end of the decade.”

    S&P’s projection hinges on the continuation of India’s trade and financial liberalization, labor market reform, as well as investment in India’s infrastructure and human capital.

    “This is a reasonable expectation from India, which has a lot to ‘catch up’ in terms of economic growth and per capita income,” Dhiraj Nim, an economist from Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Research, told CNBC.

    Some of the reforms cited have already been set in motion, said Nim, highlighting the government’s commitment to set aside more capital expenditure in the country’s annual expenditure books. 

    Becoming a more export-driven hub

    There’s a clear focus by India’s government to become a hub for foreign investors as well as a manufacturing powerhouse, and their main vehicle for doing so is through the Production Linked Incentive Scheme to boost manufacturing and exports, according to S&P analysts.

    The so-called PLIS, which was introduced in 2020, offers incentives to both domestic and foreign investors in the form of tax rebates and license clearances, among other stimulus.

    “It is very likely that the government is banking on PLIS as a tool to make the Indian economy more export-driven and more inter-linked in global supply chains,” S&P analysts wrote.

    Workers processing metal parts at a cookstove manufacturing plant of GHG Reduction Technologies Pvt in Nashik, Maharashtra, India, on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022.

    Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    By the same token, Morgan Stanley estimates that Indian manufacturing’s share of GDP will “rise from 15.6% of GDP currently to 21% by 2031” — which implies that manufacturing revenue could increase three times from the current $447 billion to around $1,490 billion, according to the bank.

    “Multinationals are more optimistic than ever about investing in India … and the government is encouraging investment by both building infrastructure and supplying land for factories,” Morgan Stanley said.

    “India’s advantages [include] abundant low-cost labor, the low cost of manufacturing, openness to investment, business-friendly policies and a young demographic with a strong penchant for consumption,” said Sumedha Dasgupta, a senior analyst from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

    These factors make make India an attractive choice for setting up manufacturing hubs until the end of the decade, she said.

    Risk factors

    Salient sticking points that could challenge Morgan Stanley’s forecast include a prolonged global recession, since India is a highly trade-dependent economy with nearly 20% of its output exported.

    Other risk factors cited by the U.S. investment bank include supply of skilled labor, adverse geopolitical events and policy errors which may arise from voting in a “weaker government.”

    A global slowdown may dampen India’s export businesses outlook, India’s finance ministry said last Thursday.

    Even though India’s GDP on aggregate is already above pre-Covid levels, forward looking growth is going to be “much weaker” compared to previous quarters, said Sonal Varma, chief economist at Nomura.

    “Real GDP is now 8% above pre-Covid levels in growth rate terms … but in terms of the forward looking view, there are headwinds from the global side financial conditions,” Varma told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday, warning that there will be a cyclical slowdown ahead.

    Similarly, Nim also said that more priority could be given to human capital investment via education and health.

    “This is especially important for a post-pandemic economy where greater disruptions to the informal sector have meant widened economic and wealth inequalities,” he said, adding that falling labor force participation rate, especially among women, was concerning.

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  • India on track for record $100 billion in remittances, says World Bank | CNN Business

    India on track for record $100 billion in remittances, says World Bank | CNN Business

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    New Delhi
    CNN Business
     — 

    The extensive Indian diaspora will help the South Asian country reach a special milestone this year.

    Asia’s third largest economy is on track to receive more than $100 billion in yearly remittances in 2022, according to a World Bank report published Wednesday. This will be the first time a country will reach that milestone figure, it said.

    Remittances, or money transfers from migrant workers to families back home, are an important source of income for households in poorer countries. They not only reduce poverty in developing nations but have also been associated with higher school enrollment rates for children in disadvantaged households.

    Over the last few years, the World Bank report said, Indians have moved to high-skilled jobs in high-income countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Singapore — from low-skilled employment in Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar — and sending more money back home as a result.

    India had received $89.4 billion in remittances in 2021, according to the World Bank, making it the top recipient globally last year.

    “Remittance flows to India were enhanced by the wage hikes and a strong labor market in the United States,” and other rich countries, the bank said.

    Despite being poised to reach the record figure, India’s remittance flows are expected to account for only 3% of its GDP in 2022, it said.

    Apart from India, the other top recipient countries for remittances in 2022 are expected to be Mexico, China, and the Philippines. The next year may be more challenging for Indian diaspora, however.

    2023 will “stand as a test for the resilience of remittances from white-collar South Asian migrants in high-income countries,” because of rising inflation in the United States and slowing global growth, according to the report.

    Globally, remittances to low and middle income nations are expected to grow an estimated 5% to $626 billion this year, it added.

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  • Apple has a huge problem with its supplier’s iPhone factory in China | CNN Business

    Apple has a huge problem with its supplier’s iPhone factory in China | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    A violent workers’ revolt at the world’s largest iPhone factory this week in central China is further scrambling Apple’s strained supply and highlighting how the country’s stringent zero-Covid policy is hurting global technology firms.

    The troubles started last month when workers left the factory campus in Zhengzhou, the capital of the central province of Henan, due to Covid fears. Short on staff, bonuses were offered to workers to return.

    But protests broke out this week when the newly hired staff said management had reneged on their promises. The workers, who clashed with security officers wearing hazmat suits, were eventually offered cash to quit and leave.

    Analysts said the woes facing Taiwan contract manufacturing firm Foxconn, a top Apple supplier which owns the facility, will also speed up the pace of diversification away from China to countries like India.

    Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told CNN Business that the ongoing production shutdown in Foxconn’s sprawling campus in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou was an “albatross” for Apple.

    “Every week of this shutdown and unrest we estimate is costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales. Now roughly 5% of iPhone 14 sales are likely off the table due to these brutal shutdowns in China,” he said.

    Demand for iPhone 14 units during the Black Friday holiday weekend was much higher than supply and could cause major shortages leading into Christmas, Ives said, adding that the disruptions at Foxconn, which started in October, have been a major “gut punch” to Apple this quarter.

    In a note Friday, Ives said Black Friday store checks show major iPhone shortages across the board.

    “Based on our analysis, we believe iPhone 14 Pro shortages have gotten much worse over the last week with very low inventories,” he wrote. “We believe many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages … of up to 25%-30% below normal heading into a typical December.”

    Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, wrote on Twitter that more than 10% of global iPhone production capacity was affected by the situation at the Zhengzhou campus.

    Earlier this month, Apple said shipments of its latest lineup of iPhones would be “temporarily impacted” by Covid restrictions in China. It said its assembly facility in Zhengzhou, which normally houses some 200,000 workers, was “currently operating at significantly reduced capacity,” due to Covid curbs.

    The Zhengzhou campus has been grappling with a Covid outbreak since mid-October that caused panic among its workers. Videos of people leaving Zhengzhou on foot went viral on Chinese social media in early November, forcing Foxconn to step up measures to get its staff back.

    To entice workers, the company said it had quadrupled daily bonuses for workers at the plant this month. A week ago, state media reported that 100,000 people had been successfully recruited to fill the vacant positions.

    But on Tuesday night, hundreds of workers, mostly new hires, began to protest against the terms of the payment packages offered to them and also about their living conditions. Scenes turned increasingly violent into the next day as workers clashed with a large number of security forces.

    By Wednesday evening, the crowds had quieted, with protesters returning to their dormitories on the Foxconn campus after the company offered to pay the newly recruited workers 10,000 yuan ($1,400), or roughly two months of wages, to quit and leave the site altogether.

    In a statement sent to CNN Business on Thursday after the protests had wound down, Apple said it had a team on the ground at the Zhengzhou facility working closely with Foxconn to ensure employees’ concerns were addressed.

    Even before this week’s demonstrations, Apple had started making the iPhone 14 in India, as it sought to diversify its supply chain away from China.

    The announcement in late September marked a major change in its strategy and came at a time when US tech companies were looking for alternatives to China, the world’s factory for decades.

    The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that the company was looking to boost production in countries such as Vietnam and India, citing China’s strict Covid policy as one of the reasons.

    Kuo said on Twitter that he believed Foxconn would speed up the expansion of iPhone production capacity in India as a result of Zhengzhou lockdowns and resulting protests.

    The production of iPhones by Foxconn in India will grow by at least 150% in 2023 compared to 2022, he predicted, and the longer term goal would be to ship between 40% and 45% of such phones from India, compared to less than 4% now.

    — Chris Isidore contributed to this report.

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  • Today in History: November 26, the NHL is founded

    Today in History: November 26, the NHL is founded

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    Today in History

    Today is Saturday, Nov. 26, the 330th day of 2022. There are 35 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Nov. 26, 1950, China entered the Korean War, launching a counteroffensive against soldiers from the United Nations, the U.S. and South Korea.

    On this date:

    In 1825, the first college social fraternity, the Kappa Alpha Society, was formed at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

    In 1864, English mathematician and writer Charles Dodgson presented a handwritten and illustrated manuscript, “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground,” to his 12-year-old friend Alice Pleasance Liddell; the book was later turned into “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” published under Dodgson’s pen name, Lewis Carroll.

    In 1883, former slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan.

    In 1917, the National Hockey League was founded in Montreal, succeeding the National Hockey Association.

    In 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull delivered a note to Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburo Nomura (kee-chee-sah-boor-oh noh-moo-rah), setting forth U.S. demands for “lasting and extensive peace throughout the Pacific area.” The same day, a Japanese naval task force consisting of six aircraft carriers left the Kuril Islands, headed toward Hawaii.

    In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning Dec. 1.

    In 1943, during World War II, the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed.

    In 1973, President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18-1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

    In 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Sen. John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

    In 2000, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore in the state’s presidential balloting by a 537-vote margin.

    In 2008, teams of heavily armed Pakistani gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station in Mumbai, India, leaving at least 166 people dead in a rampage lasting some 60 hours.

    In 2020, Americans marked the Thanksgiving holiday amid the coronavirus pandemic, with many celebrations canceled or reduced; Zoom and FaceTime calls connected some families with those who didn’t want to travel.

    Ten years ago: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak abruptly quit politics, saying in a surprise announcement, “I feel I have exhausted my political activity, which had never been a special object of desire for me.” New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie announced that he would be seeking re-election, so he could continue to guide the state through a recovery from Superstorm Sandy.

    Five years ago: Congressman John Conyers of Michigan gave up his leadership position as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, while denying allegations that he had sexually harassed female staff members. Amid allegations that he had groped women in the past, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken said he felt “embarrassed and ashamed,” but that he looked forward to gradually regaining the trust of voters. (Franken announced less than two weeks later that he was resigning from Congress.)

    One year ago: A World Health Organization panel classified a new COVID-19 variant as a highly transmissible virus of concern, and named it “omicron” under its Greek-letter system. The United States, Canada, Russia and a host of other countries joined the European Union in restricting travel for visitors from southern Africa. Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century, died at his Connecticut home at the age of 91.

    Today’s Birthdays: Impressionist Rich Little is 84. Singer Tina Turner is 83. Singer Jean Terrell is 78. Pop musician John McVie is 77. Actor Marianne Muellerleile is 74. Actor Scott Jacoby is 66. Actor Jamie Rose is 63. Country singer Linda Davis is 60. Actor Scott Adsit is 57. Blues singer-musician Bernard Allison is 57. Country singer-musician Steve Grisaffe is 57. Actor Kristin Bauer is 56. Actor Peter Facinelli is 49. Actor Tammy Lynn Michaels Etheridge is 48. DJ/record label executive DJ Khaled (KAL’-ehd) is 47. Actor Maia (MY’-ah) Campbell is 46. Country singer Joe Nichols is 46. Contemporary Christian musicians Anthony and Randy Armstrong (Red) are 44. Actor Jessica Bowman is 42. Pop singer Natasha Bedingfield is 41. Actor Jessica Camacho is 40. Rock musician Ben Wysocki (The Fray) is 38. Singer Lil Fizz is 37. MLB All-Star Matt Carpenter is 37. Actor-singer-TV personality Rita Ora is 32. Actor/singer Aubrey Peeples is 29.

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  • Dubai airport chief says passengers top pre-pandemic level

    Dubai airport chief says passengers top pre-pandemic level

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai International Airport passenger numbers surpassed pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels in the third quarter of 2022, the airport’s chief executive said, causing the airport to revise its annual forecast by another 1 million passengers.

    Paul Griffiths, who oversees the world’s busiest airport, told The Associated Press the annual forecast at Dubai International, or DXB, is more than 64 million. The airport saw 18.5 million passengers in the third quarter of this year, up from 17.8 million during the first quarter of 2020 — prior to and at the dawn of the pandemic.

    Most of the growth, Griffith said, comes from the traditional markets of India, the U.K., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He added that the end of COVID-19 testing requirements and people’s eagerness to travel have contributed to the increase.

    “Recovery is very much on the agenda and has been a phenomenon here ever since the end of the pandemic,” Griffiths said.

    The new numbers are welcome news for the tourism-driven economy of Dubai, which accounts for about 12% of the tiny nation’s GDP. A year ago in the third quarter, 6.7 million came through the airport.

    Still the figure is nowhere near the pre-pandemic milestone of 86.4 million in annual traffic logged by the airport in 2019.

    The 46 million passengers who traveled through DXB in the first nine months of this year represent 72% of the airport’s pre-pandemic levels. Griffiths says they expect to reach pre-pandemic levels annually by 2023.

    The largest share of traffic to Dubai came from India, with 6.8 million travelers, followed by Saudi Arabia, with 3.4 million travelers this year. A key growth market for travel to and from Dubai is Pakistan and the United States.

    The United Arab Emirates is home to more than 100,000 British citizens. Dubai’s main airport logged 3.2 million passengers from the U.K. up to September this year, making it the third largest share of traffic numbers.

    Around 60% of Dubai’s airport traveler figures this year represent arrivals, with the rest transiting through.

    The first World Cup in the Middle East, currently taking place in Qatar, says Griffiths, is expected to add 494,000 passengers to Al Maktoum International Airport, or DWC, during the fourth quarter of the year. Currently, 120 daily flights are operational from DWC for FIFA fans to shuttle between matches in Doha and Dubai.

    Qatar Airways has 60 daily flights to shuttle soccer fans to the tournament, while the other 60 are operated by low-cost carrier FlyDubai, he said.

    Ambitious plans to turn the airfield in Dubai’s southern desert into a mega-aviation hub, first unveiled by Dubai before the 2008 global financial crisis, have sputtered in recent years. Long-haul carrier Emirates, based in Dubai, parked many of its double-decker Airbus A380s there during the pandemic as commercial flights halted.

    Now, Griffiths says the air travel market continues to rebound around the world, with more people traveling as mobility returns to the world.

    This year, 275,000 flights went through DXB, up 159% from 2021.

    The widespread lifting of pandemic restrictions in Dubai triggered a rapid increase in air travel demand, filling Dubai’s hub. Griffiths says that has also contributed positively to the city’s economy.

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