India’s supreme court has ruled that a Hindu temple can be built on the country’s most hotly contested religious site, ending a legal dispute that has run for decades between Hindus and Muslims.
The restoration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was a key pledge of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government. The ruling, which came just six months after his landslide election win, is another huge victory for India’s prime minister
Continue reading...Supreme court says site where mosque was torn down in 1992 should become Hindu temple
The Indian supreme court has ruled that India’s most hotly contested piece of religious land rightfully belongs to Hindus, and has granted permission for a temple to be built on the site in Ayodhya.
The five supreme court judges based their unanimous and historic judgment on Hindus’ claim that the site is the birthplace of the god Ram.
Continue reading...British Indian Aatish Taseer believes move is intended as a warning to other writers
A British Indian author and journalist has been stripped of his Indian citizenship after he wrote an article criticising the regime of the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Aatish Taseer, who was born in the UK but raised in India and spent a further decade living there from the age of 25, was stripped of his overseas citizenship of India (OCI) status on Thursday.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s announcement of an end to open defecation in India marred by claims of coercion and violence
Narendra Modi is to declare that his flagship sanitation programme has ended open defecation in India, amid accusations that the scheme has sparked violence and abuse.
India’s prime minister will make the announcement on Wednesday at an event in his home state of Gujarat, attended by 20,000 village chiefs and international dignitaries, according to the government.
Continue reading...Narendra Modi defends actions in Kashmir and accuses Pakistan of ‘hatred towards India’
Narendra Modi defended his government’s actions in Kashmir and, in thinly-veiled remarks, accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists during a packed rally in Texas attended by the US president Donald Trump.
Trump sat in the front row as the Indian prime minister told cheering crowds his decision to remove all autonomy from Indian-administered Kashmir would bring progress and better rights for its people.
Continue reading...Imran Khan will use UN address to highlight alleged atrocities carried out by Indian army
Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, is to follow a speech by his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, at the United Nations general assembly by accusing him of being complicit in the torture and mass detention of protesters in India-administered Kashmir.
Khan will use his address in New York next week to highlight alleged atrocities being carried out by the Indian army in the Jammu and Kashmir state since Modi’s government revoked the region’s autonomy by abrogating article 370 of the constitution.
Continue reading...People who cannot prove links to region from before 1971 face being sent to detention camps
Millions of people in north-eastern India could lose their citizenship on Saturday in what could become the biggest exercise in forced statelessness in living memory.
Human rights experts have raised serious concern over the drive against suspected illegal immigrants in the border state of Assam, warning it could create a humanitarian crisis that disproportionately affects Muslims and the region’s poorest communities.
Continue reading...Indian prime minister also spoke of growing up poor and developing a love of nature
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, joined Bear Grylls on the latter’s survival TV programme Man vs Wild to talk about his relationship with nature and growing up in a poor family, all the while crossing a freezing river on a flimsy raft.
In the episode broadcast in India on Monday, the two men were filmed on the riverbank of the country’s Jim Corbett National Park, with deer and a herd of elephants seen in the distance.
Continue reading...Pakistan PM remarks come as tensions rise over India’s removal of special status
The Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, has likened the Indian government to Nazis, warning that global inaction over Kashmir would be the same as appeasing Hitler.
His comments came as authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir reportedly reimposed some curfew rules in parts of the territory, following an easing of restrictions in Srinagar, the region’s main city, that had allowed people to visit shops over the weekend and attend Friday prayers.
Continue reading...India’s Muslim-majority state is cut off from the world with phones and internet blocked
There were signs that travel restrictions in Indian-administered Kashmir had been relaxed on Saturday in the state’s summer capital, Srinagar, where the streets were reportedly busy with people trying to buy food ahead of Eid. Landlines, mobile phones and the internet all remained blocked, however, preventing residents from calling relatives or friends.
Related: Kashmir: India’s ‘draconian’ blackout sets worrying precedent, warns UN
Continue reading...It’s tempting, though illogical, to blame Donald Trump for all the world’s ills. Yet was it America’s self-aggrandising president who triggered last week’s sudden crisis between India and Pakistan over Kashmir? When Trump took office in 2017, his ignorance of international affairs was seen as potentially dangerous. Those fears now look well-founded. Kashmir may provide conclusive, catastrophic proof.
The trouble started on 22 July when Trump hosted Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, in the Oval office. Despite previously accusing Pakistan of supporting terrorism and slashing US aid, Trump was all smiles. Why? Because he needed Khan’s help in cutting a peace deal with the Taliban. Trump yearns to tell America’s voters next year that he ended the 18-year Afghan war and brought the troops home.
Continue reading...US president said during meeting with Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, that India wanted him to mediate
India’s foreign minister has firmly denied Donald Trump’s claim that the US president was invited by the Indian government to mediate in the Kashmir dispute, following a furious response from opposition MPs.
Trump’s remarks, made sitting alongside the Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, on Monday, provoked uproar in the Indian parliament and demands for the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to respond.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as US president blasts India for raising tariffs on American goods
Heads-up: One of Donald Trump’s top advisors has warned that America could press on and raise tariffs on Chinese imports.
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, has said America is insisting on ‘structural changes’ to China’s intellectual property laws, with effective enforcement for any breaches.
“If need be, we may move ahead – we may move ahead on additional tariffs.
We have word from the WH --> Kudlow says there are no preconditions set ahead of any trade talks with China. (per @Reuters, Fox News)
This G20 summit is Theresa May’s last big foreign trip before stepping down as PM.
She’s expected to hold meeting with Australian PM Scott Morrison, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Quite the lineup for Theresa May's one-to-one meetings at this G20 summit in Osaka - Putin, Mohammad bin Salman, Erdogan...And Trump will be here too, of course. So much for that "rules-based global order" she prizes.
Continue reading...India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has claimed a landslide victory in national elections that cements the Hindu nationalist leader as the country’s most formidable politician in decades. The emphatic victory has been greeted with dismay among some members of religious minority groups, who have voiced fears that a returned Bharatiya Janata party government would be further emboldened to prosecute its Hindu nationalist agenda
Continue reading...The hugely popular BJP Hindu nationalist leader brushes aside economic woes to claim another term
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is on track for a historic landslide election victory that would cement the Hindu nationalist leader as the country’s most formidable politician in decades.
Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) had been expected to easily win a majority in coalition with smaller parties, but official results after nearly three hours of counting showed the party ahead in at least 290 seats, enough to claim an outright victory. Its main national opponent, Congress, was leading in just over 50 seats.
Continue reading...Voting has officially ended in country’s marathon six-week ballot
India’s prime minister and his allies are on track to decisively win a second term, according to exit polls released after voting officially ended on Sunday night in the country’s marathon six-week elections.
Sampling by six pollsters showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and its coalition winning between 287 and 336 seats. The final tally each survey predicted varied but were uniformly well above the 272 seats needed to form government in India’s lower house. Two surveys showed the ruling coalition falling short – by between five and 30 seats.
Continue reading...PM admonishes candidates who lauded Mahatma Gandhi killer as a ‘patriot’
Campaigning in the most acrimonious election in recent Indian history has ended with an admonishment by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, of some of his hardline candidates for praising Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin.
A six-week campaign dominated by national security issues and increasingly brazen rhetoric came to a head this week after a candidate for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh state said she believed Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, was “a patriot”. She later apologised. Three other BJP members also weighed in on Gandhi’s murder.
Continue reading...Pawan Kumar had voted for Modi party in confusion over symbols on machine
A man has chopped off his index finger in desperation after voting for the wrong party in India’s general election.
Pawan Kumar became confused by the symbols on the electronic voting machine and voted for Narendra Modi’s party instead of its regional rival in Uttar Pradesh state on Thursday, his brother said.
Continue reading...Six weeks of voting begin with many viewing it as referendum on prime minister
The world’s largest ever election has started in India, with voters in 20 states casting their ballots in the first phase of a marathon six-week poll.
The contest in the vast country of 1.3 billion people is dominated by local issues but also viewed as a referendum on the prime minister, Narendra Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist who rode a wave of popularity five years ago to become the first leader of a majority government in decades.
Continue reading...The world’s biggest democracy will this week begin the 40-day process of choosing a new government in which an eighth of the world’s population will have the vote
Consider what is involved: more than one-eighth of humanity will have the opportunity to vote in April and May. Those voters will speak 22 official languages and thousands of dialects. Tens of millions will never have learned to read. They will vote from the shadow of the Himalayas right down to the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago; in tribal communities without running water or electricity; in Delhi’s genteel southern neighbourhoods and in the teeming slums of Mumbai.
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