US authorities have reportedly investigated claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats on the WhatsApp messaging platform, which it owns. The reports follow a lawsuit filed last week, which claimed Meta “can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications”. Meta has denied the allegation, reported by Bloomberg, calling the lawsuit’s claim “categorically false and absurd”. It suggested the claim was a tactic to support the NSO Group, an Israeli firm that develops spyware used against activists and journalists, and which recently lost a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp. Guardian
An ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed a bill to ban social media for children, as the world’s biggest market for Meta and YouTube joins a global debate on the impact of social media on young people’s health and safety. “Not only are our children becoming addicted to social media, but India is also one of the world’s largest producers of data for foreign platforms,” lawmaker L.S.K. Devarayalu told Reuters on Friday. Reuters
At the height of the Cold War, US Air Force officials proposed a terrifying plan to help America demonstrate its superiority over the Soviet Union: detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon. The top secret programme, Project A119, envisaged carrying a hydrogen bomb aboard an intercontinental ballistic missile into space and exploding it on the lunar surface. The detonation was to be visible from Earth and show American muscle after Russia had gained a lead in the space race. Fortunately, the 1958 project was cancelled over fears of nuclear fallout poisoning future astronauts. Yet now, the global space race is on the brink of going nuclear once again. Telegraph
Until recently, Elon Musk claimed that Tesla’s Optimus robot (pictured) was already deployed in the company’s factories and could be ready for sale to private customers by 2027. However, this now appears to be far from the truth. Contrary to earlier statements, not a single Optimus unit is currently performing productive work in Tesla’s plants. Musk himself confirmed during the latest earnings call that the robot remains in development and is currently being trained – “it’s more so that the robot can learn,” as he put it – rather than actually assisting in production. NotebookCheck
We have seen this before. Hijacked Google search resultsto direct users to malicious websites or installs. And now here we go again. This time with an attack that specifically targets millions of Apple users. Make sure you do not fall victim. Per Apple Insider, sponsored Google ads are now “leading users on to faked Apple support pages that try to get the user to use the Terminal and install malware on Macs.” The ads show when users search for “mac cleaner” in Google rather than using a legitimate app store to find a suitable option. Forbes
I have spent the last few months investigating AI music. What has emerged is a picture of a vast attempted fraud, as technologically-equipped criminals use AI tools to try and take billions of pounds away from real-life musicians. The fraud takes place in two stages which sound like something from a science-fiction novel, but are now part of everyday life in the hidden world of the internet economy. First, the fraudsters make huge amounts of AI music. Then, they build bots to stream that music over and over again and thereby make some royalties. Sky News
In October, 2024, after negotiations with the U.S., Modi’s government agreed to break ties with Yadav, who is currently at large and wanted by the F.B.I. India, which has never acknowledged culpability for the killing, has portrayed Yadav as an independent actor, but a source close to Indian intelligence told me that one RAW officer privately characterized these denials as “total bullshit.” Another called the plot “a botched operation.” Court filings for Gupta’s trial indicate U.S. prosecutors will argue that India was directly involved in the attempt to assassinate Pannun, and that he was just one of several targets in a scheme to murder political activists in Canada, California, and New York. These individuals, fearing for their lives in India, had immigrated to North America decades ago and continued advocating for an independent Sikh state.
A few minutes after Nijjar was shot, his son Balraj received a distress call from a family friend and raced to the gurdwara, sprinting through a crowd that had already grown to some two hundred people. “They were pulling at my clothes, my arms, as I ran,” he told me. In the center of the throng, already cordoned off with police tape, was Nijjar’s bloodstained pickup. “The second I saw it, I knew he had passed,” Balraj told me. “His last breath was for Khalistan, regardless of how many thousands of miles he was from home.”
The idea of a Sikh homeland arose nearly a century ago, as colonial Britain lost its grip on its South Asian territories. The region began to split along religious lines, and Sikh leaders, recognizing that their community was much smaller than those of Muslims and Hindus, advocated for their own sovereign state. The idea never came to fruition. In 1947, British India was partitioned into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. As a vast migration flowed from place to place, depraved and indiscriminate faith-based violence ensued, affecting Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike. The province of Punjab, where most of the Sikhs in British India lived, was split in two.
Sikhs currently constitute less than two per cent of India’s population. Since Partition, however, advocacy for an independent state has grown, funded in part by wealthy members of the diaspora and fuelled by a pattern of discrimination by the Indian government. The most striking instance came in 1984, after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards, who were Sikh; the ruling Indian National Congress helped to organize a retaliatory spasm of mob violence that killed thousands of Sikhs. In the aftermath, the state began to disappear members of the community. Such brutality has only encouraged resistance. Although Sikhism is built around tenets of oneness and divine love, a small group of militants have carried out a long campaign of violence. Before September 11, 2001, Sikh separatists held a bleak record for the deadliest act of aviation terrorism in history: in 1985, all three hundred and twenty-nine people on board Air India Flight 182, a passenger flight from Toronto to Delhi, were killed when a bomb in the cargo hold brought the plane down off the coast of Ireland.
The cycle of violence and discrimination has only heightened since Modi came to power, in 2014. As the leader of the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party, he has spearheaded a ruthless Hindu-nationalist campaign that villainizes and assaults religious minorities. For a party that believes Hindus have a preëminent right to rule India, the Sikh separatist cause is a profound affront—especially when the calls for independence are made from Canada and the U.S. According to the source close to Indian intelligence, senior RAW officials hold a “skewed world view” that “everything is a conspiracy, that the West is out to get India,” and this paranoia played a large part in the recent assassination plots.
The Indian government regards Pannun’s law offices as a hotbed of terror, a base from which he directs “Punjab based gangsters and youth” to undermine the “sovereignty, integrity, and security” of India. The offices are situated in a large corporate center, decorated with garish contemporary sculptures and softly flowing water features, in East Elmhurst, Queens. The interior suggests the detritus of a small business in stasis: Post-it notes stuck to walls, piles of paper stacked haphazardly, a mini-fridge filled with forgotten lunches.
On a recent visit, I was led in through a series of back hallways and patted down by two hulking guards. The main entrance stays locked, the lights in the waiting room off. Pannun, who met with me in a small conference room, was dressed soberly. “Since 2023, I’ve only worn black,” he said. “I’m only going to change that once we liberate Punjab.” He grew up in a village outside the city of Amritsar, the home of Sikhism’s holiest site, the Golden Temple. In 1984, Indian military forces invaded the gurdwara to capture Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh militant who was hiding inside. In the raid, known as Operation Blue Star, the army opened fire on Bhindranwale’s followers and civilians alike. Government documents put the death toll at a few hundred individuals, but independent reports suggest the figure exceeds four thousand. (It was this unilateral attack, sanctioned by Gandhi, that led to her assassination.) Pannun was seventeen at the time. “We could see the helicopters bombing, the shooting,” he said. “There was blood everywhere.” Fearing that the slaughter would touch off an insurrection, the government organized a campaign called Operation Woodrose, in which thousands of young Sikhs living in rural areas were detained and interrogated. “They were people I grew up with,” Pannun said. “I haven’t seen them since.” One young man he knew was tortured so viciously that his back was broken.
India’s first urban cable car system began trial runs in October, which is built in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home constituency, Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh. Social media users have shared a clip with a false claim it showed an accident at the system’s debut trip. But the journalist who covered the actual event shown in the video told AFP it was filmed in Dongargarh in central India in April.
“Modi built a four-kilometre (2.4-mile) ropeway in Varanasi at a cost of eight billion rupees ($95 million). The carriage broke and fell down during its debut trip — and interestingly, a BJP leader was also in it,” reads a Hindi-language Facebook post on October 1, 2025, referring to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The 26-second video shows a cable car setting off before cutting to a scene of a crashed gondola and injured passengers.
Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on October 8, 2025, with a red X added by AFP
The clip appeared with similar claims on Instagram and X as trial runs of India’s first urban public transport ropeway began in Varanasi on October 2, the ANI news agency reported (archived link).
Aimed at improving the city’s urban mobility, the 3.8-kilometre (2.36-mile) corridor will use 148 gondolas to transport up to 100,000 passengers a day.
But the video actually shows a cable car accident in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh state.
The post captioned in Hindi reads in part: “Ropeway trolley broke in Dongargarh, BJP leader narrowly escaped, was brought to Rajnandgaon Sanjeevani Hospital.”
Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh is located 660 kilometres (410 miles) from Varanasi.
Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the Instagram video
The caption credits the report to Monaj Dewangan, a reporter with the local news outlet Correct News CG, who told AFP the footage was filmed in Chhattisgarh.
“The ropeway suddenly crashed. The BJP leader, onboard along with other passengers, sustained injuries. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital,” he said on October 8, 2025.
Local media outlets reporting the accident said a gondola carrying devotees to the Bamleshwari temple in Dongargarh detached from the cable and fell to the ground, injuring some BJP leaders among others (archived here, here and here).
ANI published a clip on October 3 on a trial run on the Varanasi cable car system, which shows gondolas bearing a different livery from those seen in the false video (archived link).
Uttar Pradesh police also dismissed the false claim in a post on its X account (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation linked to Modi here.
Kangana Ranaut says THIS about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s style
With her confident stride and breathtaking outfit, Kangana proved why she’s a fashion icon. Watch the video to take a glimpse of her ramp walk.
By: Video Desk | Published: October 5, 2025 11:57 PM IST
Kangana just strutted down the ramp for Raabta by Rahul’s new bridal bling collection called “Saltanat.” She was decked out in this jaw-dropping ivory saree, embroidered to the nines, dripping in emerald and gold. Fans went nuts—some folks even said she looked like a straight-up goddess.
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As tech leaders across Silicon Valley blasted President Donald Trump’s new $100,000 H-1B visa fee as a threat to innovation, Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings broke ranks, calling it “a great solution.”
In an Xpost on Sunday, Hastings said he has worked on H-1B politics for three decades and argued the steep cost would reserve visas for “very high-value jobs,” eliminating the lottery and giving employers more certainty.
Hastings’ support is surprising for a few reasons. For one, as one of the biggest Democratic ‘megadonors‘ who is heavily involved with party politics, he rarely endorses any of Trump’s actions and in fact has said the President “would destroy much of what is great about America.”
Secondly, Hastings’ support cuts against the dominant mood in the tech industry, where most companies are alarmed about higher costs and the chilling effect on talent pipelines. Elon Musk, the on-again, off-again ally of the Trump White House, has fiercely criticized the potential changes to the program.
Many local tech leaders have said that the six-figure fee could deal a serious blow to innovation and competitiveness in Silicon Valley. Venture capitalist Deedy Das, a former H-1B holder and partner at Menlo Ventures, warned that the policy undercuts America’s biggest advantage: Its ability to attract global talent.
“If you stifle even that, it just makes it that much harder to compete on a global level,” he toldCBS News.
Smaller startups, Das added, could see their financial “runway” shortened by months if forced to absorb the new cost, while some founders say they’ll simply stop sponsoring foreign hires altogether.
What the H-1B is—and what it has become
The H-1B program was created in 1990 to allow U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in “specialty occupations” that require highly technical or professional expertise. Theoretically, it’s meant to bring rare talent – think engineers, doctors, computer scientists and specialized researchers. Each year, Congress caps the number of new visas at 85,000, a number far below demand.
In practice, the program has evolved into something messier. Roughly 70% of visas go to Indian nationals, many not head-hunted by Silicon Valley firms but by outsourcing giants like Infosys, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy Services, many of whom work for some part of the IT sector. Those companies contract out employees to U.S. clients, leading critics—including President Donald Trump—to accuse them of undercutting American workers with lower-wage labor.
Defenders argue the U.S. economy desperately needs these skills and that the visa holders often fill jobs that would otherwise go vacant.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and a one-time staunch supporter of Trump, famously had a Christmas-time bout with the MAGA base over his support for H-1B visas.
“There is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America,” Musk posted on X. “If you force the world’s best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE.”
He has said that he, like “many Americans,” is himself here due to the visa.
Confusion, then clarification
Against that backdrop, Trump’s Friday proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment for each new petition sent shockwaves through the tech sector.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick initially said the fee might be annual, fueling panic among employers. By Saturday, the White House clarified: it’s only a one-time payment applied to new petitions in future lotteries, not renewals or re-entries by existing visa holders.
“This is NOT an annual fee,” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote on X.
The clarification calmed some immediate fears, but not the broader unease. Many employers rushed to get their H-1b holders tickets to fly into the U.S. before the fee was enacted. Indian biotech professional Shubra Singh told CNBC that her Saturday dinner in Pittsburgh with H-1B friends was derailed by anxious news alerts that left many rushing to change travel plans.
Economic whiplash in India
The financial reverberations were immediate. Shares of major Indian IT outsourcing firms—including Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, and Tata Consultancy Services—fell between 1.7% and 4.2% on Indian stock exchanges during Monday trading.
Citi Research said in a note that the fee could shave about 100 basis points from margins and cut earnings per share across the IT sector by roughly 6% if companies continue staffing through H-1Bs. Analysts, including JP Morgan’s Toshi Jain, also predict fewer Indian students may choose U.S. universities if the post-graduation visa route now carries a six-figure price tag.
Yet some see opportunity. Accel partner Prashanth Prakash said the disruption could redirect top graduates toward India’s startup ecosystem.
“If Indian talent no longer heads to the U.S., it could be a boon for local entrepreneurship,” he argued.
SquadStack CEO Apurv Agrawal told the Economic Times of India the H-1B fee turmoil is pushing Indian professionals to see India itself—not the U.S.—as the ultimate destination for world-class talent.
“With the kind of AI-first companies and global-scale opportunities being built here today, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to retain and welcome back world-class talent,” Agrawal said.
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Steep U.S. tariffs on a range of Indian products took effect Wednesday, threatening a serious blow to India’s overseas trade in its largest export market.
President Donald Trump had initially announced a 25% tariff on Indian goods. But earlier this month he signed an executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff due to India’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the combined tariffs imposed by the U.S. on its ally to 50%.
The Indian government estimates the tariffs will impact $48.2 billion worth of exports. Officials have warned the new duties could make shipments to the U.S. commercially unviable, triggering job losses and slower economic growth.
India–U.S. trade relations have expanded in recent years but remain vulnerable to disputes over market access and domestic political pressures. India is one of the fastest-growing major global economies and it may face a slowdown as a result.
Estimates by New Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative suggest labor-intensive sectors such as textiles, gems and jewelry, leather goods, food and automobiles will be hit hardest.
“The new tariff regime is a strategic shock that threatens to wipe out India’s long-established presence in the U.S., causing unemployment in export-driven hubs and weakening its role in the industrial value chain,” said Ajay Srivastava, the think tank’s founder and a former Indian trade official.
The U.S. has for now exempted some sectors such as pharmaceuticals and electronic goods from additional tariffs, bringing some relief for India as its exposure in these sectors is significant.
Puran Dawar, a leather footwear exporter in northern India’s Agra city, says the industry would take a substantial hit in the near term unless domestic demand strengthens and other overseas markets buy more Indian goods.
“This is an absolute shock,” said Dawar, whose business with the U.S. has grown in recent years. Dawar’s clients include the major fashion retailer Zara.
Dawar, who is also the regional chairman of the Council for Leather Exports — an export promotion body — said the U.S. should understand that the steep tariffs will hurt its own consumers.
Groups representing exporters warn that new import tariffs could hurt India’s small and medium enterprises that are heavily reliant on the American market.
“It’s a tricky situation. Some product lines will simply become unviable overnight,” said Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations.
The tariffs come as the U.S. administration continues to push for greater access to India’s agriculture and dairy sectors.
India and the U.S. have held five rounds of negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement, but have yet to reach a deal. That’s largely because New Delhi has resisted opening these sectors to cheaper American imports, citing concerns that doing so would endanger the jobs of millions of Indians.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed not to yield to the pressure.
“For me, the interests of farmers, small businesses and dairy are topmost. My government will ensure they aren’t impacted,” Modi said at a rally this week in his home state of Gujarat.
Modi said the world was witnessing a “politics of economic selfishness.”
A U.S. delegation canceled plans to visit New Delhi this week for a sixth round of trade talks.
The Indian government has begun working on reforms to boost local consumption and insulate the economy.
It has moved to change the goods and services tax, or consumption tax, to lower costs for insurance, cars and appliances ahead of the major Hindu festival of Diwali in October.
The government council will meet early next month to decide whether to cut taxes.
The Trade Ministry and Finance Ministry are discussing financial incentives that would include favorable bank loan rates for exporters.
The Trade Ministry is also weighing steps to expand exports to other regions, particularly Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Trade negotiations underway with the European Union could gain renewed urgency as India works to reduce its dependence on the U.S. market.
___
Associated Press video journalist Rishi Lekhi contributed to this report.
Apple CEO Tim Cook poses for a selfie with a woman during the opening of New Delhi’s first Apple retail store at a mall in New Delhi on April 20, 2023. ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images
Apple (AAPL) today (Sept. 9) revealed its latest iPhone 16 lineup, along with the new Apple Watch and AirPods, all available on Sept. 20. This will be the first time Apple manufactures the iPhone Pro models in India, as the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech behemoth continues shifting its supply chain away from China. It also marks a milestone for the Indian government, which aims to establish the South Asian country as a global hub of consumer electronics manufacturing.
Apple first began assembling iPhones in India in 2017, making the iPhone SE and old iPhone models, in an attempt to diversify its supply chain from China. This effort was accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, when a Chinese factory unexpectedly seized production due to lockdown-related protests, causing major delays in iPhone deliveries to customers during the 2022 holiday season. Apple is not the only U.S. tech giant diversifying away from China post-Covid; Microsoft and Amazon have moved some of the Xbox and Fire TV manufacturing from China to India and Vietnam, respectively.
Apple’s iPhone manufacturing in India is ramping up quickly. In its last fiscal year ended in September, Apple doubled its iPhone production in India to $14 billion worth from the previous year, Bloomberg reported in April. Today, 1 in 7 iPhones sold globally are made in India. Apple aims to make a quarter of all iPhones in India in the next four years.
In 2023, Foxconn, Apple’s largest contractor headquartered in Taiwan, announced a $1.5 billion investment in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a $600 million plant in Karnataka, and a $500 million plant in Telangana. These state-of-the-art factories will be set up to assemble iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max models in the country for the first time. Foxconn now produces two-thirds of all the iPhones built in India. Indian conglomerate Tata Group, the first domestic manufacturer of iPhones, has promised to make India’s largest factor for producing Apple products.
Meanwhile, the Indian government is offering generous subsidies to Apple’s manufacturing partners to build plants in the country. These subsidies include a “production-linked incentive” scheme, which gives revenue-based annual payouts to manufacturers like Foxconn for up to five years, which helps soften the massive fixed costs that go into building new plants. The scheme began in 2020 and expects to pay out $20 billion over five years.
Another incentive for Apple to shift manufacturing to India is the rising geopolitical tension between China and India, stemming from a 2020 border dispute. This conflict led India to ban several Chinese-owned companies, including TikTok, from operating in the country. India also imposes high tariffs on Chinese electronics and technology products, including Chinese-manufactured iPhones. The tariffs have posed challenges for Apple to grow market share in India, where its rising middle class is driving demand for Apple’s premium products. In the 12 months ended March, Apple sales in the country grew 33 percent from the year prior.
Apple opened its first retail store in India in 2023. Despite holding only 6 percent of the country’s smartphone market, CEO Tim Cookcalled India a “huge opportunity” in a June 2023 interview with CNBC.
NEW DELHI – India’s bruised and battered opposition was largely written off in the lead-up to the national election as too weak and fragmented to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his powerful Hindu nationalist governing party.
It scored a stunning comeback, slowing the Modi juggernaut and pushing his Bharatiya Janata Party well below the majority mark. It’s unchartered territory for the populist prime minister, who needs the help of his allies to stay in power. That could significantly change his governance style after he enjoyed a commanding majority in Parliament for a decade.
The election results released Wednesday also marked a revival for the main opposition Congress party and its allies, who defied predictions of decline and made deep inroads into governing party strongholds, resetting India’s political landscape. The opposition won a total of 232 seats out of 543, doubling its strength from the last election.
“The opposition has proved to be tremendously resilient and shown courage of conviction. In many ways it has saved India’s democracy and shown Modi that he can be challenged — and even humbled by denting his image of electoral invincibility,” said journalist and political analyst Rasheed Kidwai.
The unwieldy grouping of more than two dozen opposition parties, called INDIA, was formed last year. Beset with ideological differences and personality clashes, what glued them together was a shared perceived threat: what they call Modi’s tightening grip on India’s democratic institutions and Parliament, and his strident Hindu nationalism that has targeted the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims.
The election battle is between “Narendra Modi and INDIA, his ideology and INDIA,” the alliance’s campaign face, Rahul Gandhi, said at an opposition meeting last year.
Gandhi, heir to India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, has long been mocked by Modi, his party and his supporters as a beneficiary of dynastic politics. Gandhi’s father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers.
Under his leadership, the Congress party was reduced to a paltry 52 seats in 2019 when Modi romped to victory in a landslide win. And last year he was expelled from Parliament due to a defamation case after Modi’s party accused him of mocking the prime minister’s surname. (He was later returned to his seat by India’s top court.)
But ahead of the 2024 election, Gandhi went through a transformation — he embarked on two cross-country marches against what he called Modi’s politics of hate, re-energizing his party’s members and rehabilitating his image.
During the election campaign, he, along with other opposition leaders, sought to galvanize voters on issues such as high unemployment, growing inequality and economic and social injustice, while targeting Modi over his polarizing campaign and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
“They certainly gained significant momentum through the course of the campaign, to the point where the opposition agendas became the agenda points of this election,” said Yamini Aiyar, a public policy scholar.
The election results showed his messaging worked with the voters, as his party made substantial gains in BJP-governed states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra by tapping into economic stress. It won 99 seats across India.
“Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a strong national leader and that should worry Modi,” Kidwai said.
The opposition proved even more successful in a Modi party bastion where it flipped the largest number of seats: Uttar Pradesh, which sends the most lawmakers of any state — 80 — to Parliament.
Long considered the biggest prize in Indian elections, the opposition clinched a staggering 44 parliamentary seats in the state, with the regional Samajwadi Party winning a whopping 37, leaving Modi’s party with less than half of the seats. In the 2019 election, the BJP won 62 seats in the state.
The opposition also managed to wrest away BJP’s seat in Ayodhya city, a deeply symbolic loss for Modi’s party after the prime minister opened a controversial grand Hindu temple on the site of a razed mosque there in January. The opening of the temple dedicated to Lord Ram, at which Modi performed rituals, marked the unofficial start of his election campaign, with his party hoping it would resonate with the Hindu majority and bring more voters into its fold.
“The BJP lost because its leadership did not have its ears to the ground. They believed that the issue of the Ram Temple would secure their victory, but they overlooked important issues like jobs and inflation,” said political analyst Amarnath Agarwal.
A strong showing by the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party in Tamil Nadu further boosted the opposition’s numbers, denying Modi the supermajority he hoped for after exhibiting confidence his alliance would take 400 seats.
It also meant that the regional parties, once relegated to the margins after Modi’s dominating wins in 2014 and 2019, will acquire a greater political space in Indian politics.
“It also gives a lot of power back to the states,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “We’ve seen a lot of centralization in the hands of the executive, in the hands of the Prime Minister’s Office specifically.”
The opposition’s surprise gains came against the backdrop of what it calls Modi’s intensified political crackdown against them.
Modi and his government have increasingly wielded strong-arm tactics to subdue political opponents. In the run-up to the election, opposition leaders and parties faced a slew of legal and financial challenges. The chief ministers of two opposition-controlled states were thrown in jail and the bank accounts of the Congress party were temporarily frozen.
Aiyar, the public policy scholar, said the opposition was able to “palpably catch on to signs of discontentment” even as it faced “fairly significant constraints of their own.”
“This was certainly not a level playing field at the start of the election,” she said.
As election results showed the opposition doing better than expected on Tuesday, a beaming Gandhi pulled out a red-jacketed copy of India’s Constitution that he had displayed on the campaign trail and said his alliance’s performance was the “first step in its fight” to save the charter.
“India’s poorest stood up to save the Constitution,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has emerged victorious in India’s 2024 general election, but with a smaller majority compared to 2019. According to post-election analysis by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, CLSA, UBS, Bernstein and Citi, this slimmer mandate may push the government – known for transforming India into a global manufacturing powerhouse and making investments in sectors to reduce the country’s reliance on Western nations – to embrace a more populist stance in its third term, prioritizing the demands of lower-income segments and rural development.
The NDA’s likely victory signals policy continuity for businesses and startups, with ongoing investment in infrastructure, digitization and manufacturing. The narrower margin, however, may prompt a reallocation of resources towards rural and welfare initiatives, potentially impacting some capital expenditure plans, the brokerage firms warned. (About $45 billion in value was wiped from the manufacturing giant Adani Group on Tuesday.)
The assertive stance of the ruling party on digital sovereignty and its recent clashes with Big Tech are also likely to continue. In the last five years, the Narendra Modi government has enforced or proposed many laws – including a push to regulate internet apps, getting streaming services to review content for obscenity, and getting sued by WhatsApp for requiring the Meta app to break encryption – that have spooked large tech companies.
New Delhi has argued that it’s seeking to protect the interest of its citizens through its proposals.
The likely agenda of the next NDA government. Image and projection: Citi
India, an ally of the U.S., is also increasingly attempting to build a tech stack to rival many popular, and usually, American offerings. For example, Rupay is India’s attempt to rival card networks Visa and Mastercard, whereas UPI, an interoperable and real-time payments system built by Indian banks, has already become omnipresent in India, processing more transactions than all card networks combined.
India has also quickly positioned itself as a global manufacturing hub in recent years, attracting companies including Apple, Samsung, and Google with lucrative incentives to shift more of their assembling needs to India. Goldman Sachs and Citi said that it is likely that India will continue to focus on manufacturing, but its fiscal allocation may be lower moving forward than expected.
Shares in Europe and Asia were mostly lower on Tuesday after a report showed that U.S. manufacturing contracted in May.
Oil prices fell more than $1 a barrel and U.S. futures also declined.
India’s Sensex dropped as much as 8% as investors who had bought shares after exit polls showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a third term sold to lock in profits.
By mid-afternoon, the Sensex in Mumbai was down 5.7% at 72,079.05 as the vote count for the country’s six-week-long national election appeared to show a lower than expected seat count for Modi’s party, although his National Democratic Alliance was comfortably leading its closest rival.
In early European trading, Germany’s DAX fell 1.2% to 18,440.00 and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.9%, to 7,929.77. Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 0.5% to 8,224.34.
The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.5%.
The U.S. dollar weakened as doubts about the U.S. economy raised expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut rates this year. The dollar slipped to 154.76 Japanese yen from 156.10 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0868 from $1.0904.
Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index lost 0.2% to 38,837.46 and the Kospi in Seoul gave up 0.8% to 2,662.10.
Chinese shares recouped early losses amid reports that the property market might be stabilizing, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng up 0.2% at 18,444.11. The Shanghai Composite index rose 0.4% to 3,091.20.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3% to 7,737.10. Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.8%.
On Monday, U.S. stocks drifted to a mixed finish.
The S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher and the Dow dropped 0.3%. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.6%.
Treasury yields slid after the report by the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. manufacturing shrank in May for the 18th time in 19 months. High interest rates meant to get high inflation under control have hit manufacturing especially hard, sapping demand for imports from Asia.
Still, analysts questioned the significance of the report, given that the indicator has been declining for most of the past two years.
“So, why such a distinct wave of U.S. pessimism this time? Was it a manufactured excuse to take profits? Or is there a deeper cause for concern beneath the hood?” Tan Jing Yi of Mizuho Bank said in commentary. “We suspect it is a bit of both.”
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.39% from 4.50% late Friday.
This week has several other high-profile economic reports that could send yields on additional sharp swings.
On Tuesday, the U.S. government will show how many job openings employers were advertising at the end of April. And on Friday, it will give the latest monthly update on overall growth for jobs and workers’ wages.
Stocks of companies whose profits are most closely tied to the strength of the economy dropped to the market’s worst losses. That included the oil-and-gas industry, as the price of crude tumbled on worries about weaker demand growth for fuel.
Halliburton dropped 5.3%, and Exxon Mobil fell 2.4%. They sank as the price of a barrel of U.S. oil dropped 3.5%. Brent crude, the international standard, lost a similar amount despite moves over the weekend by Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries meant to prop up its price.
U.S. benchmark crude oil lost $1.53 to $72.69 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange early Tuesday.
Brent crude, the international standard, gave up $1.38 to $76.98 per barrel.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are increasingly wielding strong-arm tactics to subdue political opponents and critics of the ruling Hindu-nationalist party.
A decade into power, and on the cusp of securing five more years, the Modi government is reversing India’s decadeslong commitment to multiparty democracy and secularism.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has brought corruption charges against many officials from its main rival, the Congress Party, but few convictions. Dozens of politicians from other opposition parties are under investigation or in jail. And just last month, Modi’s government froze the Congress party’s bank accounts for what it said was non-payment of taxes.
The Modi administration says the country’s investigating agencies are independent and that its democratic institutions are robust, pointing to high voter turnout in recent elections that have delivered Modi’s party a clear mandate.
Yet civil liberties are under attack. Peaceful protests have been crushed with force. A once free and diverse press is threatened. Violence is on the rise against the Muslim minority. And the country’s judiciary increasingly aligns with the executive branch.
To better understand how Modi is reshaping India and what is at stake in an election that begins April 19 and runs through June 1, the AP spoke with a lawyer, a journalist, and an opposition politician.
Here are their stories:
DEFENDING MODI’S CRITICS
Mihir Desai has fought for the civil liberties and human rights of India’s most disadvantaged communities, such as the poor and Muslims, for nearly four decades.
The 65-year-old lawyer from India’s financial capital Mumbai is now working on one of his – and the country’s – most high-profile cases: defending a dozen political activists, journalists and lawyers jailed in 2018 on accusations of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The accusations, he says, are baseless – just one of the government’s all-too-frequent and audacious efforts to silence critics.
One of the defendants in the case, a Jesuit priest and longtime civil rights activist, died at age 84 after about nine months in custody. The other defendants remain in jail, charged under anti-terror laws that rarely result in convictions.
“First authorities came up with a theory that they planned to kill Modi. Now they are being accused of being terrorist sympathizers,” he said.
The point of it all, Desai believes, is to send a message to any would-be critics.
According to digital forensics experts at U.S.-based Arsenal Consulting, the Indian government hacked into the computers of some of the accused and planted files that were later used as evidence against them.
To Desai, this is proof that the Modi government has “weaponized” the country’s once-independent investigative agencies.
He sees threats to Indian democracy all around him. Last year, the government removed the country’s chief justice as one of three people who appoint commissioners overseeing elections; Modi and the opposition leader in parliament are the others. Now, one of Modi’s cabinet ministers has a vote in the process, giving the ruling party a 2-1 majority.
“It’s a death knell to free and fair elections,” Desai said.
A POLITICIAN’S PLIGHT IN KASHMIR
Waheed-Ur-Rehman Para, 35, was long seen as an ally in the Indian government’s interests in Kashmir. He worked with young people in the majority-Muslim, semi-autonomous region and preached to them about the benefits of embracing India and its democratic institutions – versus seeking independence, or a merger with Pakistan.
Beginning in 2018, though, Para was viewed with suspicion by the Modi government for alleged connections to anti-India separatists. Since then, he has been jailed twice: in 2019 on suspicion that he and other political opponents could stoke unrest; and in 2020 on charges of supporting militant groups — charges he denies.
The accusations stunned Para, whose People’s Democratic Party once ruled Kashmir in an alliance with Modi’s party.
But he believes the motivation was clear: “I was arrested to forcibly endorse the government’s 2019 decision,” he said, referring to a clampdown on the resistance in Kashmir after the elimination of the region’s semi-autonomous status.
Modi’s administration argues the move was necessary to fully integrate the disputed region with India and foster economic development there.
After his 2020 arrest, Para remained in jail for nearly two years, often in solitary confinement, and was subjected to “abusive interrogations,’’ according to U.N. experts.
“My crime was that I wanted the integration of Kashmir, not through the barrel of the gun,” said Para, who is seeking to represent Kashmir’s main city in the upcoming election.
Para sees his own plight within the larger context of the Modi government’s effort to silence perceived opponents, especially those with ties to Muslims, who make up 14% of India’s population.
“It is a huge ethical question … that the largest democracy in the world is not able to assimilate, or offer dignity to, the smallest pocket of its people,” he said.
“It risks the whole idea of this country’s diversity,” he said.
A JOURNALIST FIGHTS CHARGES
In October 2020, independent journalist Sidhique Kappan was arrested while trying to report on a government clampdown in the northern Uttar Pradesh state ruled by Modi’s party.
For days, authorities had been struggling to contain protests and outcry over a gruesome rape case. Those accused of the crime were four upper caste Hindu men, while the victim belonged to the Dalit community, the lowest rung of India’s caste hierarchy.
Kappan, a 44-year-old Muslim, was detained and jailed before he even reached the crime site, accused of intending to incite violence. After two years in jail, his case reached India’s top court in 2022. While he was quickly granted bail, the case against him is ongoing.
Kappan’s case is not unique, and he says it highlights how India is becoming increasingly unsafe for journalists. Under intense pressure from the state, many Indian news organizations have become more pliant and supportive of government policies,
“Those who have tried to be independent have come under relentless attack by the government,” he said.
Foreign journalists are banned from reporting in Kashmir, for example. Same goes for India’s northeast Manipur state, which has been embroiled in ethnic violence for almost a year.
Television news is increasingly dominated by stations touting the government’s Hindu nationalist agenda, such as a new citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants. Independent TV stations have been temporarily shut down, and newspapers that run articles critical of Modi’s agenda find that any advertising from the government – an important source of revenue – quickly dries up.
Last year, the India offices of the BBC were raided on tax irregularities just days after it aired a documentary critical of Modi.
The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranks India 161st on a worldwide list of countries’ press freedoms.
Kappan said he has barely been able to report news since his arrest. The trial keeps him busy, requiring him to travel to a court hundreds of miles away every other week. The time and money required for his trial have made it difficult for him to support his wife and three children, Kappan said.
“It is affecting their education, their mental health,” he said.
___
Associated Press journalists Piyush Nagpal and Subramoney Iyer in Kerala, India, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
NEW DELHI – Hundreds of protesters in India’s capital took to the streets for a second day Saturday, demanding the immediate release of one of the top rivals of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the country gears up for a national election next month.
Arvind Kejriwal, New Delhi’s top elected official and one of the country’s most consequential politicians of the past decade, was arrested by the federal Enforcement Directorate Thursday night. The agency, controlled by Modi’s government, accused his party and ministers of accepting 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago.
His Aam Aadmi Party, or Common People’s Party, denied the accusations and said Friday Kejriwal would remain Delhi’s chief minister as it took the matter to court.
Kejriwal was taken into custody for seven days following a court order on Friday.
Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita, had a message Saturday she said was from her detained husband. Posted on the AAP party X account, the message relayed Kerijwal as saying he wasn’t surprised by the arrest for he has “struggled a lot” and warning against “several forces within and outside India that are weakening the country.”
Chanting: “Kejriwal is Modi’s doom” and “Dictatorship won’t be tolerated,” protesters accused Modi on Saturday of governing the country under a state of emergency — a claim the opposition has long professed — and using federal law enforcement agencies to stifle opposition parties before the election.
Lily Tiga, a protester, told The Associated Press that when “a person who does good, fights for truth, fights for the downtrodden and poor is arrested, it’s not only unfortunate, it is a time to mourn for this country.”
On Friday, hundreds of AAP supporters and some senior party leaders clashed with the police, who whisked a number of them away in buses.
In the lead-up to the general election , starting April 19, India’s opposition parties have accused the government of misusing its power to harass and weaken its political opponents, pointing to a spree of raids, arrests and corruption investigations against key opposition figures. Meanwhile, some probes against erstwhile opposition leaders who later defected to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have been dropped.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, denies targeting the opposition and says law enforcement agencies act independently.
His arrest is another setback for the bloc, and came after the country’s main opposition Congress party accused the government Thursday of freezing its bank accounts in a tax dispute to cripple it. This has led to a rare show of strength by the opposition figures who slammed the move as undemocratic and accused Modi’s party of misusing the agency to undermine them.
In 2023, the agency arrested Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, and AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh as part of the same case. Both remain in jail.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Social media posts by Maldivian officials may cost the country millions in tourism revenue, as calls by Indian travelers to boycott the island nation intensify.
“We are seeing a 40% drop in bookings over the last two days,” Ankit Chaturvedi, vice president and global head of marketing at the India-based travel software company Rategain, said Tuesday.
“Most people book on weekends, and therefore the drop seems more significant because ideally [bookings] should have gone up,” he told CNBC Travel.
Travel bookings to the Maldives tumbled following a diplomatic row that erupted last week after a series of posts appeared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s account.
The posts showed him snorkeling, sitting by the water and meeting people in Lakshadweep, which some viewed as a veiled attempt to siphon visitors away from the island nation.
Some travel agents in India say they are canceling bookings to the Maldives, scrubbing their websites of its photos, and recommending travelers go to the Indian archipelago of Lakshadweep, the Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands or Sri Lanka instead, according to The India Express.
The dispute has thrust a global spotlight on the little-known Lakshadweep, which like the Maldives, is a scenic chain of sandy atolls, coral reefs and crystalline water.
The Maldives, located some 340 miles to the south, is the preferred playground for India, however. In 2023, more than one in 10 arrivals were from India, making it the country’s largest source market, followed by Russia and China, according to Maldives tourism statistics.
But more British travelers — and nearly twice as many Italians — have visited the Maldives in the first week of January, compared to those from India, which fell to fourth place in terms of visitor arrivals.
If calls to #BoycottMaldives continue, millions could be stake.
Exact losses to the Maldives are hard to estimate, said Chaturvedi, but “India drove $380 million worth of tourism last year to Maldives, which is significant.”
Some blamed Modi’s posts for setting off the debacle even though they did not mention the Maldives, which has lost favor in India following the 2023 election of Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu.
Muizzu campaigned on an “India out” policy — in contrast to the Maldivian Democratic Party’s “India First” policy. He also broke with long-standing tradition by choosing China for his first official state visit this week, widely viewed as a snub to India.
India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
However, others say Maldives supporters, bristling at online comparisons to Lakshadweep, kicked off the row by writing negative comments about India’s ability to compete with its resorts and hospitality.
Maldivian Deputy Ministers Malsha Shareef, Mariyam Shiuna and Abdulla Mahzoom Majid lobbed various insults at Modi on X, calling him a “clown,” “terrorist” and “puppet of Israel,” according to Reuters.
Maldives’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Moosa Zameer sought to distance the country from the comments, writing on X that the remarks “are unacceptable and do not reflect the official position of the Government of the #Maldives.”
The three officials were suspended for their social media posts over the weekend, according to the news agency.
But the furor has only intensified since, underscoring the travel industry’s exposure to local geopolitical affairs, as well as the on-going conflict in the Middle East.
As to whether Indian travelers are rescheduling their trips to Lakshadweep, it’s hard to say, said Chaturvedi.
“We cannot track this as there are not enough operations,” he said. According to TripAdvisor, there are just 13 hotels in the archipelago.
Given the mercurial nature of social media outrage, Chaturvedi said he expects the boycott will “pass quickly.”
But a national rallying cry to travel domestically will have much greater staying power, he said. Trending hashtags, like #ExploreIndianIslands, are being pushed online from everyday travelers to Bollywood celebrities, like Akshay Kumar.
Chaturvedi said calls to travel inside India “will last longer — it’s a big agenda of the government.”
An agenda which likely received a bigger push than those behind Modi’s serene photographs by the sea ever imagined.
DUBAI — The war in Gaza crashed into the United Nations climate summit on Friday, as furious sideline diplomacy, blunt censures of violence and an Iranian boycott shoved global warming to the side.
It was a sharp change in tone from the COP28 opening on Thursday, which ended on an upbeat note as countries promised to support climate-stricken communities. The mood darkened the following day as news broke that the week-old truce between Israel and Hamas was collapsing.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog spent much of the morning in meetings telling fellow leaders about “how Hamas blatantly violates the ceasefire agreements,” according to a post on his X account. He ended up skipping a speech he was meant to give during Friday’s parade of world leaders.
There were other conspicuous no-shows. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was absent, despite being listed as an early speaker. And Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, also disappeared from the final speakers’ list after initially being scheduled to talk just a few slots after Herzog.
Then, shortly after leaders posed for a group photo in the Dubai venue on Friday, the Iranian delegation announced it was walking out. The reason, Iran’s energy minister told his country’s official news agency: The “political, biased and irrelevant presence of the fake Zionist regime” — referring to Israel.
By Friday afternoon, the Iranian pavilion had emptied out.
The backroom drama played out even as leader after leader took the stage in the vast Expo City campus to make allotted three-minute statements on their efforts to stop the planet from boiling. The World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that 2023 was almost certain to be the hottest year ever recorded.
U.N. climate talks are often buffeted by outside events. This is the second such meetingheld after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That war provoked some public barbs and backroom discussions at last year’s summit in Egypt, but leaders still maintained their scheduled speaking slots and a veneer of focus on the matter they were supposedly there to discuss.
This year, that veneer cracked.
“There are currently a number of very, very serious crises that are causing great suffering for many people. It was clear that these would also affect the mood at the COP,” a German diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, told POLITICO.
But that can’t distract officials working on climate change, the diplomat added: “It is also clear that no one on our planet, no country on Earth, can escape the destructive effects of the climate crisis.”
Tell-tale signals
There had been early signs that the conflict would spill over into discussions at the climate summit.
Sameh Shoukry, president of the COP27 climate conference and Egyptian minister of foreign affairs, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, president of COP28 | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
At Thursday’s opening ceremony, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry — president of last year’s COP27 summit — asked all delegates to stand for a moment of silence in memory of two climate negotiators who had recently died, “as well as all civilians who have perished during the current conflict in Gaza.”
On Friday, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were among the leaders who used their COP28 speeches to draw attention to the war.
“This year’s COP must recognize even more than ever that we cannot talk about climate change in isolation from the humanitarian tragedies unfolding around us,” Abdullah said. “As we speak, the Palestinian people are facing an immediate threat to their lives and wellbeing.”
Ramaphosa went further: “South Africa is appalled at the cruel tragedy that is underway in Gaza. The war against the innocent people of Palestine is a war crime that must be ended now.
But, he added, “we cannot lose momentum in the fight against climate change.”
Asked for comment, an official from the United Arab Emirates, which is overseeing COP28, said the country had invited all parties to the conference and “are pleased with the exceptionally high level of attendance this year.”
The official added: “Climate change is a global issue and as the host for this significant, momentous conference, the UAE welcomes constructive dialogue and continues to work with all international partners and stakeholders across the board to deliver impactful results for COP28.”
The other summit in Dubai
In the back rooms of the conference venue, leaders were holding urgent talks on the war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddled with Herzog on Thursday, according to a post on Herzog’s X account.
“In addition to participating in the COP, I’ll have an opportunity to meet with Arab partners to discuss the conflict in Gaza,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday while in Brussels for a NATO gathering. He didn’t offer further details.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters Vice President Kamala Harris would also be “having discussions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas” during her trip to Dubai.
On his X account, Herzog said he had met with “dozens” of leaders at the summit. His post featured photographs of Britain’s King Charles III, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, India’s Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He also posted about meetings with Blinken and UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed.
Erdoğan met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at COP28 to discuss the war in Gaza, according to a statement by the Turkish communications directorate that made no mention of climate action.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made no secret of the fact that he intended to use some of his brief visit to Dubai to talk about regional security.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made no secret of the fact that he intended to use some of his brief visit to Dubai to talk about regional security | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“I’ll be speaking to lots of leaders … not just [about] climate change, but also the situation in the Middle East,” he told reporters on his flight outof the U.K. Thursday night.
The reignited Israel-Hamas conflict came to dominate his time at the summit. Meetings with other leaders were arranged with regional tensions in mind — not climate. Sunak met Israel’s Herzog and Jordan’s Abdullah, as well as Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al Sisi and the emir of Qatar.
“Given the events of this morning in Israel and Gaza, the prime minister has spent most of his bilateral meetings discussing that situation,” Sunak’s spokesperson told reporters in Dubai.
The meetings focused on “what more we can do both to support the innocent civilians in Gaza, to de-escalate tensions, to get more hostages out and more aid in,” the spokesperson said.
Even the U.K.’s ostensibly nonpolitical head of state, King Charles III — in Dubai to give an opening address to world leaders — was deployed to aid the diplomatic effort. Buckingham Palace said the king would “have the opportunity to meet regional leaders to support the U.K.’s efforts to promote peace in the region.”
Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron was planning to meet various leaders on the security situation and then fly on for talks in Qatar, according to an Elysée Palace official.
Meanwhile, three of Europe’s leaders who have been the strongest backers of the Palestinians — Irish leader Leo Varadkar, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — held talks on the fringes of COP on Friday morning.
Earlier on Friday, Israel withdrew its ambassador to Spain, blasting what it called Sánchez’s “shameful remarks” on the situation.
Brazil’s Lula, whose country will host a major COP conference in 2025, lamented that just as more joint action is needed to prevent climate catastrophe, war and violence were cleaving the world apart.
“We are facing what may be the greatest challenge that humanity has faced till now,” he said. “Instead of uniting forces, the world is going to wars. It feeds divisions and deepens poverty and inequalities.”
Zia Weise, Suzanne Lynch and Charlie Cooper reported from Dubai. Karl Mathiesen reported from London.
Clea Calcutt contributed reporting from Paris. Nahal Toosi contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — From Western capitals to Muslim states, protest rallies over the Israel-Hamas war have made headlines. But one place known for its vocal pro-Palestinian stance has been conspicuously quiet: Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Indian authorities have barred any solidarity protest in Muslim-majority Kashmir and asked Muslim preachers not to mention the conflict in their sermons, residents and religious leaders told The Associated Press.
The restrictions are part of India’s efforts to curb any form of protest that could turn into demands for ending New Delhi’s rule in the disputed region. They also reflect a shift in India’s foreign policy under populist Prime Minister away from its long-held support for the Palestinians, analysts say.
India has long walked a tightrope between the warring sides, with historically close ties to both. While India strongly condemned the Oct. 7 attack by the militant group Hamas and expressed solidarity with Israel, it urged that international humanitarian law be upheld in Gaza amid rising civilian deaths.
But in Kashmir, being quiet is painful for many.
“From the Muslim perspective, Palestine is very dear to us, and we essentially have to raise our voice against the oppression there. But we are forced to be silent,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key resistance leader and a Muslim cleric. He said he has been put under house arrest each Friday since the start of the war and that Friday prayers have been disallowed at the region’s biggest mosque in Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir.
Kashmiris have long shown strong solidarity with the Palestinians and often staged large anti-Israel protests during previous fighting in Gaza. Those protests often turned into street clashes, with demands for an end of India’s rule and dozens of casualties.
Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist, was one of the first global leaders to swiftly express solidarity with Israel and call the Hamas attack “terrorism.” However, on Oct. 12, India’s foreign ministry issued a statement reiterating New Delhi’s position in support of establishing a “sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine, living within secure and recognized borders, side by side at peace with Israel.”
Two weeks later, India abstained during the United Nations General Assembly vote that called for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, a departure from its usual voting record. New Delhi said the vote did not condemn the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas.
“This is unusual,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute.
India “views Israel’s assault on Gaza as a counterterrorism operation meant to eliminate Hamas and not directly target Palestinian civilians, exactly the way Israel views the conflict,” Kugelman said. He added that from New Delhi’s perspective, “such operations don’t pause for humanitarian truces.”
India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, sought to justify India’s abstention.
“It is not just a government view. If you ask any average Indian, terrorism is an issue which is very close to people’s heart, because very few countries and societies have suffered terrorism as much as we have,” he told a media event in New Delhi on Saturday.
Even though Modi’s government has sent humanitarian assistance for Gaza’s besieged residents, many observers viewed its ideological alignment with Israel as potentially rewarding at a time when the ruling party in New Delhi is preparing for multiple state elections this month and crucial national polls next year.
The government’s shift aligns with widespread support for Israel among India’s Hindu nationalists who form a core vote bank for Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. It also resonates with the coverage by Indian TV channels of the war from Israel. The reportage has been seen as largely in line with commentary used by Hindu nationalists on social media to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment that in the past helped the ascendance of Modi’s party.
Praveen Donthi, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the war could have a domestic impact in India, unlike other global conflicts, due to its large Muslim population. India is home to some 200 million Muslims who make up the predominantly Hindu country’s largest minority group.
“India’s foreign policy and domestic politics come together in this issue,” Donthi said. “New Delhi’s pro-Israel shift gives a new reason to the country’s right-wing ecosystem that routinely targets Muslims.”
India’s foreign policy has historically supported the Palestinian cause.
In 1947, India voted against the United Nations resolution to create the state of Israel. It was the first non-Arab country to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the representative of the Palestinians in the 1970s, and it gave the group full diplomatic status in the 1980s.
After the PLO began a dialogue with Israel, India finally established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992.
Those ties widened into a security relationship after 1999, when India fought a limited war with Pakistan over Kashmir and Israel helped New Delhi with arms and ammunition. The relationship has grown steadily over the years, with Israel becoming India’s second largest arms supplier after Russia.
After Modi won his first term in 2014, he became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel in 2017. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, travelled to New Delhi the following year and called the relationship between New Delhi and Tel Aviv a “marriage made in heaven.”
Weeks after Netanyahu’s visit, Modi visited the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, a first by an Indian prime minister, and held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “India hopes that Palestine soon becomes a sovereign and independent country in a peaceful atmosphere,” Modi said.
Modi’s critics, however, now draw comparisons between his government and Israel’s, saying it has adopted certain measures, like demolishing homes and properties, as a form of “collective punishment” against minority Muslims.
Even beyond Kashmir, Indian authorities have largely stopped protests expressing solidarity with Palestinians since the war began, claiming the need to maintain communal harmony and law and order.
Some people have been briefly detained by police for taking part in pro-Palestinian protests even in states ruled by opposition parties. The only state where massive pro-Palestinian protests have taken place is southern Kerala, which is ruled by a leftist government.
But in Kashmir, enforced silence is seen not only as violating freedom of expression but also as impinging on religious duty.
Aga Syed Mohammad Hadi, a Kashmiri religious leader, was not able to lead the past three Friday prayers because he was under house arrest on those days. He said he had wanted to stage a protest rally against “the naked aggression of Israel.” Authorities did not comment on such house arrests.
“Police initially allowed us to condemn Israel’s atrocities inside the mosques. But last Friday they said even speaking (about Palestinians) inside the mosques is not allowed,” Hadi said. “They said we can only pray for Palestine — that too in Arabic, not in local Kashmiri language.”
New Delhi, India – Israel’s relentless bombing of the besieged Gaza Strip and killing of nearly 6,000 people – a third of them children – in two weeks has outraged people across the world, triggering mass protests and a call for an immediate ceasefire.
However, in India – the first non-Arab country to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but now seen closer to Israel and its biggest benefactor, the United States – some pro-Palestine protesters reported being targeted by the government.
Less than a week after the Gaza assault began, police in Hamirpur district of India’s most populous Uttar Pradesh state were looking for Muslim scholars Atif Chaudhary and Suhail Ansari. Their alleged crime: putting a WhatsApp display photo that said: “I stand with Palestine.”
The two men were charged with promoting enmity between social groups. Ansari is under arrest, while Chaudhary is on the run, according to the police.
Messages written on the hand of a protester near Embassy of Israel in New Delhi [Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]
In the same state, governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), four students of the Aligarh Muslim University were booked by the police after they took out a pro-Palestine march on the campus a day after the Gaza assault began on October 7.
However, when the Hindu far-right group Bajrang Dal took out a pro-Israel march in the same Aligarh city, raising slogans such as “Down with Palestine, Down with Hamas”, no action was taken against them by the authorities.
‘As if I have committed some crime’
In the national capital, New Delhi, there have been several examples of people being detained during rallies organised by student groups, activists and citizens for solidarity with the Palestinians since October 7.
In the western state of Maharashtra, also governed by the BJP in alliance with a regional party, two protesters, Ruchir Lad and Supreeth Ravish, were arrested on October 13 for holding a march against the war on Gaza and charged with unlawful assembly.
Pooja Chinchole, member of the Revolutionary Workers Party of India and one of the organisers of the protest held in state capital Mumbai, told Al Jazeera the police “created many hurdles before us when they got to know that we are organising a pro-Palestine protest”.
“They detained one of the organisers a day before the protest and three organisers on the morning of the protest. When we still gathered to protest, they snatched our microphone, placards, and after a while, started using force on some of us,” she said.
Police detain a women at a protest in support of Palestinians in New Delhi [Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]
The crackdown, however, was not limited to the BJP-ruled states only.
In the southern Karnataka state, governed by the main opposition Congress party, police charged 10 activists with creating a public nuisance after they organised a silent march in support of the Palestinians on October 16 in Bengaluru, the capital of the state.
The Karnataka police also arrested a 58-year-old Muslim man for allegedly posting a video in support of Hamas on WhatsApp. Police also briefly detained Alam Nawaz, a Muslim government employee, for updating his WhatsApp status with a Palestinian flag and “Long Live Palestine” message.
“People started seeing me with suspicion as if I have committed some crime by expressing my solidarity with Palestinian people,” Nawaz, 20, told Al Jazeera.
All this despite the Congress expressing its support for the “rights of the Palestinian people to land, self-government and to live with dignity” as the party called for an immediate ceasefire in a resolution passed by its working committee on October 9.
‘Israel fighting proxy war on behalf of Hindus’
Meanwhile, pro-Israel rallies, organised mainly by Hindu right-wing groups, were seen across India, while many on social media offered their services to the Israeli forces.
On Saturday, dozens of supporters of a retired Indian army soldier travelled 182km (113 miles) to reach the Israeli embassy in New Delhi where they offered to go to Israel to fight against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, one of India’s most influential Hindu nationalists, Yati Narsinghanand, released a video in which he said Hindus and Jews “have the same enemy: Muhammad and his satanic book” as he urged the Israeli government to allow 1,000 Hindus to settle in Israel in order to “take on those Muslims”.
Israel’s ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, on October 8 said he had received several requests from Indians wanting to voluntarily fight for Israel.
Apoorvanand, professor of Hindi language at Delhi University, told Al Jazeera he was not surprised that the Hindu far right, which openly admires Adolf Hitler for his action against the Jews, is now supporting the Zionists in Israel.
“Hindu far-right organisations in India have always supported those who dominate by violence. Hitler did once, so they supported him. Now Israel is doing this, so they are supporting it,” he said.
People hold placards in solidarity with Israel in Ahmedabad, Gujarat [File: Ajit Solanki/AP Photo]
Apoorvanand said the Hindu right in India thinks there are ideological linkages between them and the Zionists in Israel.
“It looks like Israel is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the Hindu far right. They think Israel is fighting and decimating Muslims on their behalf. The way they want to establish Akhand Bharat [Unified India] by joining Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal together with India, they think Israel is following the same expansionist ideology,” he said.
This was not always the case.
India-Israel ties and Palestine struggle
India’s foreign policy has historically supported the Palestinian cause, which began with India voting against the United Nations resolution to create the state of Israel in 1947 and then recognising the PLO as a representative of the Palestinian people in 1974.
India’s pro-Palestine stand was guided by the shared history of colonisation by the British, Zikrur Rahman, former Indian ambassador to Palestine, told Al Jazeera.
“In the postcolonial era, we identified that this is a colonial attempt to divide the country and to create another country. We were not in favour of the creation of a country on the basis of religion,” he said.
Rahman, however, added that while India’s position on Palestine has not changed, it is not as strong as it used to be.
India recognised the creation of Israel in 1950, but did not establish diplomatic relations until 1992, when the details of the first Oslo Accord were being finalised. Since then, India has tried to strike a balance between its strategic relations with Israel and sympathising with the Palestinian struggle.
Today, India is the largest buyer of Israeli-made weapons, while strategic and security cooperation between them has grown manifold. Comparisons have also been made between Israel demolishing homes of Palestinians in the occupied territories and a similar policy adopted by some BJP state governments mainly against Muslims as forms of “collective punishment” of the community.
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, he has made public statements, calling his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu a “good friend” on several occasions.
Modi was one of the first global leaders to post his solidarity with Israel after Hamas’s unprecedented incursion on October 7. “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel,” said his post on X, which came four hours before US President Joe Biden reacted to the event.
Modi also condemned the Israeli attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 18, in which nearly 500 Palestinians were killed, though his message on X appeared nearly eight hours after Biden’s post.
Meanwhile, India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement on October 12, reiterating New Delhi’s position of establishing a “sovereign, independent, and viable state of Palestine, living within secure and recognised borders, side by side at peace with Israel”.
Last week, Modi posted on X about his phone call with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in which he repeated India’s “longstanding principled position on the Israel-Palestine issue”. He said his government is sending humanitarian assistance for the besieged residents of Gaza.
Journalist Anand K Sahay, however, thinks India’s response to the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza has not been adequate.
“What India didn’t say is important. India didn’t demand a ceasefire. Historically, India has always demanded a ceasefire in case of a [foreign] war. In this case also we should have strongly said: stop the war,” he told Al Jazeera.
Sahay said Modi’s flaunting of closeness with Israel is also aimed at appeasing his core vote bank: the Hindus.
“Suppose there was another religion in majority in Palestine. Then our stand may have been different. During the Russia-Ukraine war, we said ‘this is not an age of war’. Why couldn’t we say this in case of Israel-Palestine war?” asked Sahay.
“By not asking for a ceasefire, India was also indirectly signalling the US that the Indian position was very close to the US line.”
Tensions spike after Trudeau announces ‘credible allegations’ that Indian agents were involved in Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder.
India has asked Canada to reduce its diplomatic staff in the country by more than half as ties fray after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly aired suspicions that Indian agents were involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside a Sikh gurdwara on June 18 in a Vancouver suburb. India had designated him as a “terrorist” three years earlier.
Here’s a timeline of more than a month of diplomatic and trade actions taken by the two nations so far:
September 1
Canada pauses talks on a proposed trade treaty with India, an unexpected move that came about three months after both countries said they planned to seal an initial agreement this year.
September 10
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveys strong concerns about Sikh separatist protests in Canada to Trudeau on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in New Delhi.
September 15
Canada postpones a trade mission to India planned for October, a spokesperson for Trade Minister Mary Ng says. Canada’s decision to halt trade treaty talks and postpone the mission was due to concerns surrounding Nijjar’s killing, a Canadian source told the Reuters news agency.
September 18
Trudeau tells the Canadian Parliament that Canada is “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the killing of Nijjar, a Canadian citizen campaigning for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland carved out of India.
September 19
India dismisses Trudeau’s assertion as “absurd”. The two countries expel diplomats in tit-for-tat moves with Canada throwing out India’s top intelligence officer in the country while India expels his Canadian counterpart.
September 20
India urges its citizens in Canada to exercise caution as the United States, Australia and Britain express concerns over Nijjar’s killing.
September 21
India’s JSW Steel Ltd begins to slow down a process to buy a stake in the coal unit of Canada’s Teck Resources, Reuters reports, citing a source close to the discussions.
September 22
India suspends issuing new visas for Canadian nationals and asks Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence in India.
Also, fertiliser importer Indian Potash says it does not expect supplies of Canadian potash to be affected by the diplomatic row and it hopes to extend a contract with Canadian supplier Canpotex beyond the end of September. Canada is one of the key suppliers of potash to India.
Meanwhile, Canadian lentil sales to India slow due to the tensions, industry sources in both countries tell Reuters. Canada is India’s main import source of lentils, a protein-rich staple.
September 28
India’s steel secretary tells reporters that Indian exports to Canada are marginal and have not been affected by the diplomatic row.
October 3
India tells Canada it must repatriate 41 diplomats by October 10, according to The Financial Times newspaper.
Also, Trudeau says Canada is not looking to “escalate the situation” with India. He says Ottawa will continue to engage responsibly and constructively with New Delhi.
Allegations India linked to Canadian Sikh leader’s killing ‘not consistent’ with New Delhi’s policy, top diplomat says.
India’s foreign minister has confirmed that he discussed his country’s row with Canada over the killing of a Canadian Sikh leader with top United States government officials during a visit to Washington, DC, this week.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Friday that he laid out India’s concerns about Sikh separatist movement supporters in Canada during talks a day earlier with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on September 18 that his government was investigating “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in western Canada.
“They [Blinken and Sullivan] obviously shared US views and assessments on this whole situation and I explained to them … the concerns which I had,” Jaishankar said during an event on Friday morning at the Hudson Institute, a conservative US think tank.
“Hopefully we both came out of those meetings better informed.”
New Delhi has consistently rejected Ottawa’s allegations of involvement in Nijjar’s killing, calling them “absurd” and politically motivated.
That denial was echoed by Jaishankar on Friday, who said the official Indian government response to Trudeau, “both in private and public”, has been “that what he was alleging was not consistent with our policy”.
Jaishankar also said the US and India viewed Canada differently, accusing Ottawa of harbouring what he called “terrorists” and organised crime, referring to Sikh separatists whom New Delhi views as a security threat.
“It’s a very toxic combination of issues and people who have found operating space there,” he said.
The Canada-India dispute escalated further last week as the two nations expelled diplomats from each other’s respective countries, and New Delhi suspended visa services in Canada due to purported threats against its consular staff.
Jaishankar said on Friday that Indian diplomats in Canada “are unsafe going to the embassy or to the consulates”.
Canada also has reported threats on social media against its diplomats in India.
Trudeau said last week that his country would defend its citizens and the “rules-based system” and called on India to cooperate with the Canadian investigation into the killing.
But Ottawa has not released specific evidence to back up its accusations of India’s involvement in the killing of Nijjar.
Jaishankar reiterated on Friday that India is open to looking into “anything relevant and specific” that Canada may put forward.
For its part, Washington previously voiced support for the Canadian probe, with Sullivan saying that the feud with India has not caused friction between the US and Canada.
“I firmly reject the idea that there is a wedge between the US and Canada,” Sullivan said last week. “We have deep concerns about the allegations, and we would like to see this investigation carried forward and the perpetrators are held to account.”
The US, arguably Canada’s closest ally, has been deepening ties with India – which it sees as a counterweight to China in the Asia-Pacific region – amid Washington’s growing competition with Beijing.
A US Department of State readout describing the meeting between Jaishankar and Blinken on Thursday did not mention Canada or the killing of Nijjar.
Instead, the State Department hailed a US-brokered project to create a trade corridor from India to Europe, including via rail through Saudi Arabia and Israel, which President Joe Biden has viewed as a major achievement.
But India has faced criticism from progressives in the US Congress for its human rights record under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I’m deeply concerned over allegations that Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered by the Indian government, especially in light of rising threats to the Sikh community,” Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee said in a social media post on Thursday.
“I support a full investigation to hold the perpetrators accountable & bring justice to his family.”
LONDON — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s trade deal with India will not include legally enforceable commitments on labor rights or environmental standards, five people briefed on the text have told POLITICO.
British businesses and unions now fear the deal’s already-finalized labor and environment chapters will undercut U.K. workers’ rights and efforts to combat climate change.
Sunak’s government is racing to score a win with the booming South Asian economy ahead of the 2024 election. His plans for a return trip to India in October with the aim of sealing the pact are still on track.
Sunak and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi added impetus to negotiations when they met on the sidelines of the G20 in New Delhi early this month. The 13th round of talks continues in London this week.
Just days after Sunak’s meeting with Modi, Badenoch’s team shared the deal’s labor and environment chapters with businesses, unions and trade experts on a September 13 briefing call.
Key enforceable dispute resolution powers which the U.K. set out to negotiate are missing from those chapters, said the five people briefed on the text. It means neither London nor New Delhi can hold the other to their climate, environmental and workers’ rights commitments.
Businesses, unions and NGOs now fear the deal could undercut British firms because Indian firms operate to less stringent and expensive environmental and labor standards. Firms and unions say their access to the negotiations was curtailed earlier this year as talks progressed.
“Industry also wants binding commitments — partly for greater certainty, partly because businesses are made up of people who themselves want to be properly treated and to avoid climate catastrophe,” said a senior British businessperson from the services sector briefed on the chapters. They were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the negotiations.
“Suppression of trade unions, child labor and forced labor are all widespread in India,” said Rosa Crawford, trade lead at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) — the largest coalition of unions in Britain. “But the labor chapter that the U.K. government has negotiated cannot be used to clamp down on these abuses and could lead to more good jobs being offshored to exploitative jobs in India.”
The Department for Business and Trade said it does not comment on live negotiations and that it will only sign a deal that benefits the U.K. and its economy.
‘Everyone was deeply unhappy’
At the outset of the talks, the British government committed to negotiating enforceable labor and environment chapters as it laid out its strategic approach. “We remain committed to upholding our high environmental, labour, food safety and animal welfare standards in our trade agreement with India,” the government said in January 2022.
Indian and British officials say the labor and environment chapters are now closed and are not up for discussion. The U.K.’s first post-Brexit trade pacts with Australia and New Zealand have dispute settlement mechanisms in both these chapters. Three people POLITICO spoke to for this piece said it was an achievement in itself that Britain was able to get such chapters in a deal with India.
Businesses, unions and NGOs have all been concerned after Kemi Badenoch closed the key forums in February to carry out a required review of their activities | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
But, as the U.K.-India deal stands, if either country were to weaken its environmental standards or workers’ rights “the other party would not have recourse to initiate consultations on changes in laws,” said a person familiar with the content of the chapters. “There is no dispute settlement in the environment and labor chapters.”
British firms and unions are also concerned that the pact the EU is negotiating with India has enforceable chapters “bound by sanctions in case the parties don’t comply,” the same person said. Those EU-India chapters are not yet finalized.
British stakeholders “are totally up in arms,” said a former trade department official familiar with the briefing. “Everyone was deeply unhappy.”
Adding enforceable chapters would only slow down negotiations, said an Indian government official. “If you put in too much of these things into a trade deal, then it delays the process.” The U.K. and India are already “bound by” their international commitments on labor and climate, they added.
The deal “is dire for working people because trade unions were excluded from the trade talks,” said the TUC’s Crawford. Nearly three years ago, ministers pitched the idea of involving unions in 11 influential Trade Advisory Groups (TAGs) that gave input on ongoing trade negotiations.
Businesses, unions and NGOs have all been concerned after Britain’s trade chief Kemi Badenoch closed the key forums in February to carry out a required review of their activities. International Trade Minister Nigel Huddleston received officials’ recommendations to restructure the groups in mid-August. A final decision is expected before the end of the year.
With 40-50 people on the U.K. government’s current briefing calls about the India trade deal there’s little businesses or unions can do to feed into negotiations. Officials can “only really be in transmit mode,” said a business representative familiar with the briefings.
“What this means in real terms is that decisions are being made about the future of people’s livelihoods, people’s health, and the environment we all depend on without any input from those who will be impacted,” said Hannah Conway, trade and agriculture policy advisor at the NGO Transform Trade.
“It’s crucial,” she said, “that the government addresses its democratic deficit on trade policy by undertaking meaningful consultation with civil society and businesses.”
“It’s high time the government rethinks its approach,” said the TUC’s Crawford, “and includes unions in trade talks — that’s how you get trade deals that work for working people.”
