India as a future super power? 🇮🇳
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link from the ar
link from the article
just waiting to hear these people oppose reparations for Black Americans while india demands reparations from Britain.
link from the article
just waiting to hear these people oppose reparations for Black Americans while india demands reparations from Britain.
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India's anti-terror police arrest embassy staff member on charges of spying for Pakistan
Suspect, 28, accused of sharing classified information in exchange for money
www.thenationalnews.com
India's anti-terror police arrest embassy staff member on charges of spying for Pakistan
Suspect, 28, accused of sharing classified information in exchange for money
Taniya Dutta:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/thenational/5SSRWLY5YJDU3A5ABK3XIVWQGA.jpg "Satendra Siwal, who has worked at India's embassy in Moscow since 2021, was arrested in Lucknow. Photo: Uttar Pradesh Police")
Satendra Siwal, who has worked at India's embassy in Moscow since 2021, was arrested in Lucknow. Photo: Uttar Pradesh Police
Counter-terrorism police have arrested an employee of India's diplomatic mission in Moscow in Russia on suspicion of spying for Pakistan.
Satendra Siwal, a staff member at the Indian embassy in Moscow, was arrested in his house in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh by the state's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) on February 2.
Mr Siwal is accused of being involved in anti-Indian activities, including passing on confidential information to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The employee, 28, from Hapur district in Uttar Pradesh, has been working at the Moscow embassy since 2021.
“The UP ATS had received inputs from several confidential sources that the Pakistani spy agency ISI’s handlers had used money to influence some people working at the Foreign Ministry of India to leak top-secret information regarding the Indian Army and its strategies,” an ATS statement said.
The ATS said the accused had been sharing classified information related to the strategic activities of the Defence Ministry, the External Affairs Ministry and the Indian military with a woman in exchange for money.
Mr Siwal had been under surveillance before his arrest, the ATS said.
He was called in for questioning during a visit to his home area. The ATS said he was arrested after confessing to the alleged crimes during interrogation.
The Ministry of External Affairs has yet to release a statement.
India and Pakistan are arch-rivals.
Relations between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours, which have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, are at their lowest since 2019 after New Delhi unilaterally changed the constitutional status of the disputed region of Kashmir.
The two countries were on the brink of another war in February 2019 after India launched air strikes in Pakistan over claims that a militant group backed by Islamabad was behind a suicide bombing that killed 41 Indian paramilitary soldiers in Kashmir.
Updated: February 05, 2024, 6:23 AM
Narendra Modi’s Punjab Problem | NOEMA
Violent Sikh separatism has been nearly nonexistent for decades, but that won’t stop India’s leader from manufacturing a security situation for an electoral boost.
www.noemamag.com
French journalist says India is forcing her to leave
ReutersFebruary 16, 202410:28 AM EST
Updated 15 hours ago
France's President Emmanuel Macron speaks as India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi listens during a meeting at The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, France on July 14, 2023 Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
NEW DELHI, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A French national, who says she has worked as a journalist in India for more than two decades and is married to an Indian man, said on Friday a notice from New Delhi accusing her of writing articles damaging to the state meant she would have to leave.
Vanessa Dougnac said Indian authorities sent her a notice last month saying articles she had written were malicious and asking her to give them reasons why they should not revoke her Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card that allows her to live and work in India.
"Today, I am unable to work and have been unfairly accused of prejudicing the interests of the state. It has become clear that I cannot keep living in India and earning my livelihood," Dougnac said in a statement on Friday.
"The proceedings with respect to my OCI status have shattered me, especially now that I see them as part of a wider effort by the government of India to curb dissent from the OCI community." She did not explain further.
Dougnac said she was fighting the accusations, but could not afford to wait for authorities to make a decision.
India's federal home ministry and the foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Dougnac, who said she came to India 25 years ago and has worked in the country for 23 years as a journalist, has an OCI card through her marriage to an Indian citizen.
The card grants foreign citizens a life-long multiple entry visa.
French officials raised Dougnac's case during French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to India last month.
"They (France) appreciate this understanding that the frame of reference in which we are looking at is the compliance of the rules," India's Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told reporters at a press briefing in January when asked about the case.
The French foreign ministry had no immediate comment on Friday.
Reporting by Krishn Kaushik, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; editing by Barbara Lewis
India’s unprecedented love-in with the Middle East
Amid a war Narendra Modi builds new Gulf ties
India’s unprecedented love-in with the Middle East
Amid a war Narendra Modi builds new Gulf ties
Feb 14th 2024
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan embracing India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi
image: Getty Images
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AS A FLEX of India’s newfound geopolitical muscle, it was hard to top. Visiting the Middle East this week Narendra Modi stopped first in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he signed an investment treaty, headlined a rally of 40,000 Indian expatriates and opened a vast new Hindu temple. Then India’s prime minister headed to nearby Qatar, having just secured the release of eight Indians jailed there for espionage. All the while, a dozen Indian navy ships were in nearby waters, helping to protect global shipping under threat from pirates and Houthi missiles.
The trip, which began on February 13th, thus neatly entwined some of the key strands—business, migration and security—of a historic shift in India’s approach to the Middle East. Mr Modi is now injecting new momentum into arguably his most important diplomatic initiative since taking office a decade ago: downgrading relations with Iran and aligning India with Israel and the Gulf Arab states
The shift could pay huge dividends for all sides, boosting foreign investment to India in particular. It could also help establish India as a competitor to China on infrastructure and technology in the region. And it could add ballast to efforts by America and its Gulf Arab partners to stabilise the Middle East. But there are risks too. And those have intensified in recent months as violence has spread from Gaza into the Red Sea and beyond, threatening India’s investments and expatriates, as well as its ships and cargo.
Mr Modi’s visit was, to some extent, about politics back home. With a general election in India due by May, the rally in Abu Dhabi was part of a global effort to mobilise overseas Indians, a big source of political funding. Opening the temple there will further energise his Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindu-nationalist base, less than a month after he inaugurated one in northern India on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindu extremists in 1992.
The visit also reinforced a campaign message that Mr Modi is bolstering India’s global stature, including in the Islamic world. Indian expatriates say the results are palpable in the UAE, which he has visited seven times since 2015, when he became India’s first prime minister to go there since 1981. “Respect for Indians has really increased,” says Biswajit Ray, a 43-year-old Indian banker at the rally. “We see it in our offices. We feel it walking on the street.”
But electioneering is only a tactical cherry on the strategic cake. Though India’s links to the Middle East date back centuries, its diplomatic influence there waned for decades after independence in 1947, largely because of Arab states’ support for Pakistan. India’s ties to Iran and solidarity with the Palestinians also stymied relations with Israel. Mr Modi now seeks to re-establish India as one of the region’s essential players.
Consider the economic picture first. India’s business links with the region used to be defined by its imports of oil and exports of cheap labour. In the past few years, however, bilateral trade has diversified, with the UAE emerging as India’s second-biggest export market. Last year the two countries signed a free-trade deal aimed at doubling non-oil bilateral trade to $100bn by 2030. Indian commercial and political ties with Iran, by contrast, have dwindled after India stopped importing all Iranian oil in 2019 because of American sanctions.
At the same time, India has lured billions of dollars of investment from Gulf Arab states keen for a stake in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Emirati investment flows into India totalled $9.8bn in the half-decade to 2023, almost triple the figure for the previous five years. The UAE’s largest sovereign-wealth fund has committed itself to investing $75bn in Indian infrastructure. Saudi Arabia’s has pledged $100bn.
Big Indian companies have also won infrastructure contracts in the region as America presses Gulf Arab states to seek alternative partners to China. One of them, Larsen & Toubro, says that some 30% of its $55bn order book stems from the region, mainly Saudi Arabia. And Indian commerce with the UAE is expected to grow faster with the agreements Mr Modi just signed, including the bilateral investment treaty, a deal to link the two countries’ digital-payment systems, and a commitment to advance a plan backed by America and the EU to establish a trade corridor linking India to Europe via the Middle East.
As business ties have grown, so too has the Indian diaspora in the Middle East. There are now some 9m Indian nationals in the Gulf Co-operation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE), up from 7m in 2013. The UAE has about 3.5m, representing 36% of its population.
They are still mostly blue-collar workers. But in recent years many more wealthy and middle-class Indians have been moving to the UAE, especially Dubai. Some migrated because of covid-19, which hit India hard. Many used the UAE’s “golden visas” which since 2019 have granted ten years’ residency to qualified professionals, entrepreneurs and investors.
The influx also reflects the UAE’s efforts to emphasise inclusivity. Hence the new Hindu temple, which Mr Modi proposed in 2015. The UAE’s president, Muhammad bin Zayed, allocated 27 acres of land for it. At the Abu Dhabi rally, Mr Modi hailed Sheikh Muhammad as his “brother” and thanked him for looking after Indian expatriates. “We are partners in each other’s progress,” Mr Modi said, pledging to elevate to new heights a relationship “based on talent, innovation and culture”.
On the security front, the landscape has changed even faster. Israel has become one of India’s top three weapons suppliers in recent years. Along with several Gulf Arab states, it is an important Indian partner on counter-terrorism. And now India is making a notable contribution to maritime security in the region, with its biggest-ever naval deployment there. India’s navy has not joined the American and British force in the Red Sea that has hit Houthi targets in Yemen. It is focusing instead on piracy in the wider area, where it has investigated some 250 vessels, boarding 40. It is co-ordinating closely with America and Britain.
Mr Modi’s pivot has suffered some setbacks. After breaking with Indian precedent by voicing strong support for Israel following last year’s Hamas attacks, his government had to adjust its position a few days later to reaffirm support for a two-state solution. That followed intense criticism of Israel among developing countries, including China, which India sees as its rival for leadership of the “global south”. India may have to recalibrate again if Israel’s actions prompt Gulf Arab states to harden their own positions.
India was also shocked in October when a Qatari court condemned to death eight former Indian naval officers accused of spying for Israel. It is unclear how India secured their release but last week it signed a $78bn deal to extend imports of Qatari liquefied natural gas until 2048. There will no doubt be more challenges ahead. But as India’s Middle Eastern interests expand, so does its appetite for risk. “India is now playing a game in which you’ll get hurt sometimes, you’ll get pushed around or you have to push other people around,” says C. Raja Mohan of the National University of Singapore. “It’s part of joining the big boys’ club.”■
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How Pirates Kick-Started India’s Navy Into Action
The Indian Navy has suddenly become the go-to security provider in the Indian Ocean—with big implications for both the U.S. and China.
foreignpolicy.com
Indian Navy Steps Up to Fight Somali Piracy
Keith JohnsonFebruary 14, 2024, 11:54 AM
Sailors walk on the deck of the INS Imphal (Yard 12706), the third stealth guided missile destroyer of Project 15B, ahead of its commissioning into the Indian Navy, at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai.
Sailors walk on the deck of the INS Imphal (Yard 12706), the third stealth guided missile destroyer of Project 15B, ahead of its commissioning into the Indian Navy, at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai.
Sailors walk on the deck of the INS Imphal (Yard 12706), the third stealth guided missile destroyer of Project 15B, ahead of its commissioning into the Indian Navy, at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai on Dec. 22, 2023. Indranil Mukherjee/AFP via Getty Images
The unexpected and dramatic resurgence of piracy off the east coast of Africa has galvanized the Indian Navy into playing a dominant security role in one of the world’s critical waterways, with its biggest-ever naval deployment to the waters off Somalia in the last couple of months. India’s naval renaissance throws down a marker about its great-power ambitions—and sends a message to Beijing about how it will contest any challenge for dominance in the wider Indian Ocean region.
Pirates affiliated with the al-Shabab terror group in Somalia have suddenly taken again to the high seas after nearly a decade in which ship hijackings were in abeyance. Nearly 20 ships have been attacked, hijacked, boarded, or otherwise harassed in the waters of the Gulf of Aden since late November. Major shipping bodies had removed the area from the piracy high-risk designation just over a year ago.
“The piracy uptick is a puzzle, not just for India but for nations and navies around the world,” said Abhijit Singh, a former naval officer and the current head of the Maritime Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi.
The problem is that Somali pirates aren’t the only security headache in those waters: Since about the same time, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking commercial ships in the constricted waters of the Red Sea, nominally as part of a campaign against Israel, causing widespread disruptions and diversions. Shipping container costs have basically doubled since the start of the dual campaign.
Since U.S. and U.K. naval vessels in the region have been trying to tackle the Houthi threat in the Red Sea, both by shielding transiting commercial ships and striking at Houthi targets on land, a security vacuum emerged in the Gulf of Aden, which the pirates were only too happy to fill—or try to. In response, the Indian Navy massively ramped up its deployment of large surface ships and aircraft to clamp down on pirates and backstop the otherwise busy Americans and British. India has increased its surface deployments from two ships to 12, all focused on that vulnerable stretch of the eastern Indian Ocean.
“If you look at the operational focus of the Western powers, it is much more on the Red Sea. You need naval powers like India to come and do constabulary services, and the kind of effort that India has put in—this is in some sense the largest deployment of the Indian Navy,” said Yogesh Joshi, an Indo-Pacific specialist at the National University of Singapore.
India’s naval flexing underscores how the country, long seen as a junior partner in the evolving security landscape of the Indo-Pacific region, is becoming a crucial component, with implications not just for short-term crises such as the piracy flare-up and protecting the global commons but also for the future balance of power in the Indian Ocean after years of Chinese efforts to leverage greater diplomatic and military presence in the region.
“It’s a combination of three factors: context, capacity, and commitment,” Joshi said. The international context has seldom been as favorable for India as it is now, with countries in the Middle East and the United States increasingly looking to New Delhi for partnerships. India’s capacity, especially its military and naval heft, has grown exponentially in recent decades, he noted. And the political commitment from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has given new impetus to the kind of forward-leaning posture Indian admirals had sought for decades.
“The direction and clarity of purpose coming from the top is driving this extension of India’s security stance all over the Indian Ocean,” he said.
Of course, India is free to focus on the uptick in piracy precisely because it has avoided getting entangled in the problems with the Houthis and the Red Sea—much like how China, which for years has had a small anti-piracy deployment active off Somalia, has refused to play any role in protecting shipping under Houthi attack. India, like China, is leery of alienating any Middle Eastern countries that are big sources of energy. But that still leaves a vital role for New Delhi to play.
“A lot of trade has been hit by these [pirate] attacks,” Singh said. “There is the sense that the U.S. and others are busy with Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea, and so we must pick up the slack here in the Indian Ocean.”
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What’s still not clear is the degree, if any, of coordination between the al-Shabab-sponsored pirates and the Houthi rebels. Most experts see the pirate attacks as simple opportunism with Western navies busy putting out fires elsewhere. The pirates have also attacked a number of Iranian-flagged vessels, which also speaks against a well-coordinated campaign. But it’s not inconceivable, Singh said, given the two groups’ similar tactics and motivations, as well as their shared sympathy for Hamas and its objectives.
“If you just look at the tactics of the pirates and the methods that have been employed by the Houthis, other than the drones and the missiles, basically it’s the same drive, the same motivation, the same chutzpah” to disrupt normal operations off their coasts, he said.
Beyond the fight against modern-day pirates, the real importance of the Indian naval deployment is how it fits into the U.S.-led conception of Indo-Pacific security—and China’s efforts to challenge that.
For years, China has been extending its political, economic, and, to a lesser extent, military influence throughout the Indian Ocean, worrying New Delhi. Beijing has done port deals with Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Cambodia; sent submarines on port visits and to join the piracy fight; established a base in Djibouti and looked wider afield; and ramped up diplomatic engagement with all the island nations in the Indian Ocean, all while it was steadily dispatching surface ships on long-term deployments to the far reaches of India’s backyard. India’s initial maritime response was diplomatic and included a military shift toward the eastern Indian Ocean, with a special focus on the Andaman Islands. Now, though, India’s naval focus has become a lot more all-encompassing, and bigger.
“I think the Chinese are a bit concerned that India, which was earlier active in the eastern Indian Ocean, is now in the west with big numbers—a fivefold increase in capital ships,” Singh said. “From a Chinese lens, it is a bit unusual. The Chinese think we might be using this as a pretext to project, if not power, influence in the region. China, of course, disregards India’s considerable contributions. The [Chinese] Navy remains surprisingly muted in its own response to growing pirate and Houthi attacks.”
But if India’s naval arrival could be cause for alarm in Beijing, it’s good news for Washington. For decades, the United States and India have had an ambivalent relationship, after India moved closer to the Soviet Union during the Cold War and clung to a non-aligned foreign-policy stance. But in recent years, defense cooperation, especially between the two navies, has grown dramatically, with logistics and technology deals and an increasing number of joint exercises. The latest step-up by the Indian Navy is an example of just the kind of burden-sharing that the United States has long urged partner nations in Asia and Europe to adopt.
“The naval component of the U.S.-India military relationship is the most mature, the most developed,” Joshi said. “That feeds directly into American grand strategy for the Indo-Pacific.”
India farmers' protest: X admits to taking down posts and accounts
The micro-blogging site says it did so after receiving orders from the Indian government.
www.bbc.com
India farmers' protest: X admits to taking down posts and accounts
2 hours ago
By Nikhila HenryBBC News, Delhi
Getty Images
Farmers have been protesting since 13 February, demanding floor pricing for their crops
Social media major X (formerly Twitter) has admitted to taking down accounts and posts related to the ongoing farmers' protests in India.
The site has claimed it took down the pages after the Indian government sent them "executive orders".
The orders were "subject to potential penalties, including imprisonment", X said in a statement, adding that it "disagreed with these actions".
X's clarification was shared on their official handle @GlobalAffairs.
Several activists had earlier complained about their posts being removed.
X user and Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair wrote on Monday that "many influential X accounts" of reporters, influencers and prominent farm unionists covering farmers' protest in India were "suspended".
Mandeep Punia, a journalist, told the BBC that his account and that of his news platform - Gaon Savera - have been withheld.
"We are professional journalists covering rural India. We are reporting from the ground and the government doesn't want that. The government is blocking our voice, but equally this also affects our livelihood, our means of earning a living," he said
In its clarification, X said the accounts and posts were being withheld in India alone "in compliance with the orders".
It, however, added that the platform did not agree with the government action and maintained that "freedom of expression should extend to these posts".
The platform also said it had legally challenged the government's "blocking orders", without specifying which court they had petitioned.
India's main opposition Congress party has criticised the government for the clampdown, accusing it of trying to silence dissenting voices in a democratic country. Several X handles too have criticised the government for shutting down critical social media posts.
The government has yet not responded to the X statement or the BBC's request for a response.
Several farm unions in India have been on strike since 13 February seeking floor pricing, which is also called minimum support price, for their crops. The protesters have been attempting to march to India's capital, Delhi, from the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
But the authorities have heavily barricaded the city borders with barbed wire and cement blocks to stop them. Haryana and Uttar Pradesh states, which are ruled by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have deployed a large number of police and paramilitary troops to stop the farmers from reaching Delhi.
Getty Images
Opposition parties in India have lent their support to the farmers' protest
Activists say farmers are a major voting bloc in India and the government does not want a protest spectacle - with farmers on tractors and other vehicles - on Delhi roads, especially with general elections due in the next few months.
In 2020, the farmers had started a similar protest and hunkered down at Delhi's borders for months and the government does not want a repeat of that.
While the government has held several rounds of talks with the unions to quell the protests, no consensus has been reached yet. On Wednesday, a 22-year-old protester died during a reported standoff with Haryana police. Punjab state authorities told the BBC that the cause of death was a " bullet wound to the head".
With additional reporting from Yogita Limaye
Disney, Reliance Said to Sign Binding India Media Merger Pact
Walt Disney Co. and Reliance Industries Ltd. have signed a binding pact to merge their media operations in India, according to people familiar with the matter, as the US entertainment giant recasts its strategy amid intense competition in the world’s most-populous country.
www.bloomberg.com