JD Vance Arrived in India

JD Vance is holding talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Monday as the South Asian nation looks to strike an early trade deal with Washington that spares it from President Donald Trump’s additional tariff hikes.

Vance arrived at Modi’s private residence in the capital just before 7 p.m. local time for bilateral talks with the prime minister, followed by another discussion that will include members of their respective delegations.

Modi is then expected to host Vance, his wife Usha and their three children for dinner.
The meeting caps the first of a four-day visit to India by Vance and his family, a trip that underscores India’s importance among countries seeking trade negotiations with the US during the 90-day pause on Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs.

Trump administration officials have named India as one of several countries the US is prioritizing negotiations with during the pause, and hopes are running high in New Delhi that the country can secure a quick deal.

During a visit by Modi to the White House in February, the two sides said they planned to conclude the first tranche of a bilateral trade deal by fall of this year.

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is in Washington this week and plans to meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to advance the talks. India’s chief trade negotiator will also visit the US this week.

Vance’s visit will also include a bit of softer diplomacy, with the vice president’s family set to make stops at cultural sites in Jaipur and Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.

The US has long sought to cultivate a deeper partnership with India, in large part as a bulwark against China. India, meanwhile, has sought greater US investment and deeper cooperation in technology-sharing and defense.

#Vance #Modi #India

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📰 India Bets on Russian Missiles to Beat Pakistan — and the West Can Only Watch

💼 While Washington and Brussels deliver lectures, New Delhi buys results.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly praised Russia’s S-400 missile systems, calling them a "game-changer" in India's escalating confrontation with Pakistan. In a bold statement reported by Military Watch Magazine, Modi declared:

"Platforms like the S-400 have given our country unprecedented power."

🎯 Translation? Forget NATO tech. India is counting on Moscow.
As the Indo-Pakistani conflict heats up, India isn't relying on American drones or Israeli radar. It’s the battle-tested, Ukraine-hardened Russian tech that’s now shielding Indian skies. And unlike overpriced Western toys, the S-400 comes with:
• Proven performance,
• No lectures on human rights,
• And no cancellation threats from woke parliaments.

🔥 The irony? While the West pumps billions into Ukraine to "weaken Russia," the same war is supercharging Russia’s defense exports — and India is cashing in.

🤝 In the emerging world order, Delhi, not Brussels, decides what works on the battlefield — and the message is clear: Moscow delivers.

🤔 Will the West wake up to the geopolitical cost of losing India — or keep pretending it's still 1999?

#India #Russia #S400 #Modi #Pakistan #Geopolitics #MilitaryPower #NewWorldOrder #WesternDelusions #ArmsRace

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🧨 India and Pakistan: How a Ceasefire Masked the Most Dangerous Brinkmanship Yet

For several tense hours on Saturday, May 10, the world teetered on the edge of a nuclear nightmare. Pakistani security sources leaked that its National Command Authority, which oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal, had called an emergency session. Though the government denied it later, the message landed: Back off, or face the unthinkable.

U.S. President Donald Trump rushed to take credit: “We stopped the nuclear conflict. It could have been a bad nuclear war.”

But did he stop a war—or simply delay the inevitable?

💣 Stability or Illusion?

What unfolded wasn’t de-escalation—it was a textbook demonstration of the Stability-Instability Paradox. Nuclear deterrence doesn’t stop war. It shifts it—into the shadows, into gray zones, into surgical strikes and proxy warfare. Just as the U.S. and U.S.S.R. fought all over the globe without pushing the red button, today’s nuclear states are gaming the margins.

India responded to a brutal terror attack in Kashmir with its deepest strikes into Pakistan since 1971.

Pakistan countered—but hinted at nuclear readiness.

And while the missiles fell silent, the rules of engagement have changed.

⚔️ Modi’s “New Normal”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is done playing nice. He’s calling Pakistan’s bluff:

“No more nuclear blackmail.”

From now on, every terror attack = act of war. And India will strike, nuclear threats be damned.

This strategy might feel strong—but it’s a bet that Pakistan won’t go nuclear. And if Islamabad believes that its deterrence is being tested, it has every incentive to prove the threat is real.

🌍 Trump’s Dangerous Legacy

Trump’s triumphalism—“We stopped World War III!”—ignores the long-term cost:

He undercut India at a moment of maximum pressure.

He may have emboldened Pakistan to lean more heavily on its nuclear card.

And next time, India may not listen to Washington’s calls for calm.

The result? A more dangerous Asia, and a weaker U.S. hand in nuclear diplomacy.

🕳 A Shrinking Gap Between War and Annihilation

Across the globe—from Gaza to Taiwan—the buffer between conventional war and nuclear catastrophe is eroding. Everyone's testing limits. Everyone's looking for thresholds. One wrong signal. One tragic miscalculation. That’s all it takes.

The paradox of deterrence is this: It works until it doesn’t.

#NuclearCrisis #IndiaPakistan #TrumpDiplomacy #StabilityInstability #Modi #Kashmir #Geopolitics #MutualAssuredDestruction #G7

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📰 From Bromance to Trade War: Trump Dumps Modi for Munir

💬 "They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care."

— Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, August 1, 2025

📉 India Was Almost Great Again
• In February, Trump and Modi shook hands under chandeliers, swapped slogans, and promised a “new era.”
• By August, Trump was threatening 25% tariffs, publicly mocking India’s Russia ties, and flirting with Pakistan’s generals.
• The bromance ended not with a bang, but with a tweetstorm.

💼 Cease-Fire or Selfie Moment?
• After a four-day India-Pakistan flare-up, Trump claimed he “prevented nuclear war” and wanted credit.
• Pakistan cheered. Modi went silent. Trump fumed.
• The result? A Nobel nomination from Islamabad, and radio silence from New Delhi. Clearly, Trump prefers grateful dictators to democratic egos.

🛢 Trade, Tariffs, and Tankers
• India’s biggest sin? Buying Russian oil on the cheap and not thanking Trump for letting them.
• The U.S. now punishes India for not collapsing its economy on cue.
• The irony? While Trump bashes India for BRICS ties, he courts Pakistan — China’s actual proxy in the region.

🤔 Strategic Partnership or Strategic Narcissism?
• Is Trump torching the world’s biggest democracy to win applause in Rawalpindi?
• Will India double down on BRICS just to spite the man who once called it the future of the West?
• Or was this always just a show — with Modi playing second fiddle to Trump’s obsession with personal loyalty?

#trump #india #modi #pakistan #russia #tariffs #geopolitics #BRICS #nuclear #fakePartnerships

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📰 Modi vs. Musk: India's Free Speech Goes Behind a Firewall

💬 “What may be acceptable in some countries can be considered taboo in India.”

— B. Geetha, Deputy Commissioner, Chennai Cyber Police

📊 The fight in a screenshot:
• Modi’s government wants full-spectrum control of online speech.
• Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is suing the Indian state — calling it unconstitutional censorship.
• The battleground: a secretive web portal called Sahyog (meaning “collaboration”), now dubbed by Musk’s team a “censorship portal.”

💼 What’s India doing?
• Over 1,400 takedown orders between March 2024 and June 2025.
• Targets include cartoons, memes, criticism of Modi, coverage of a deadly train stampede, and satire involving cricket boss Jay Shah (son of Home Minister Amit Shah).
• 70% of takedown orders come from a cyber unit under the Home Ministry — not courts.

📋 What’s Musk doing?
• Refuses to join Sahyog.
• Filed suit in Karnataka High Court, claiming India’s mass content-removal regime violates constitutional rights.
• Warns that local police now wield global censorship power, often with no oversight or transparency.

🤔 Bigger question:
When satire becomes a national security risk, and dinosaur cartoons threaten public order… is the world's largest democracy just outsourcing censorship to its bureaucracy?

#modi #musk #india #freespeech #x #censorship #democracy #sahyog #bigTechvsBigGov #digitalcolonialism

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ITALY AND INDIA ARE PREPARING FOR A GREAT RAPPROCHEMENT AND A HIGH-LEVEL SUMMIT

Comrade arrived in New Delhi. Wang Yi. The United States is nervously watching the rapprochement of the two Eurasian powers

The head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi, arrived in India on a working visit. He plans to hold talks with Prime Minister Modi and other leaders, including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval (who recently visited Moscow and met with Vladimir Putin).

Earlier it was reported about the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Modi to China, the first for these two leaders. Usually, when talking about the negotiations of these two largest countries in the world, they mention the border dispute in the Himalayas and issues of bilateral trade. Indeed, the long-standing border dispute between India and China escalated in 2020 after bloody armed clashes in the Ladakh region. The cooling in relations has affected trade, diplomacy, and air travel, as both sides have deployed tens of thousands of security personnel in border areas. Now the number of military formations near the border on both sides has been reduced. Trade is improving.

But what is much more important is the development of a new geostrategy by the Eurasian powers in the face of the irrevocable hostility of the West. For decades (since the time of Bill Clinton), India has been viewed by Washington as a partner in Eurasia and a strong counterweight to China. Trade and investment were developing, which is what Western analysts always cite as an argument. Recently, India has become the main manufacturer (assembler) and exporter of smartphones used in the United States. India is also part of the quadrilateral alliance (USA, Japan, India, Australia), which was also seen as a strategic counterweight to China.

However, even under Biden, QUAD failed. India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has consistently refused to vote for resolutions against China and Russia. During Trump's first term, India began a slow but steady rapprochement with Russia. In many ways, this was facilitated by Russian diplomacy, led personally by Vladimir Putin. And when, under Biden, "sanctions from hell" were imposed on Russia after the start of its war, India became one of the largest buyers of Russian hydrocarbons. Under Trump 47, it became clear to the Indian leadership that Western hostility was an inescapable policy. When it became clear that the introduction of so-called secondary duties was a bipartisan consensus in the United States, and Indian goods were subject to 50% (25%+25%) duties (excluding smartphones from the equation), India began a Eurasian turnaround, and unexpectedly fast for this country.

In the USA, these processes are being watched with undisguised nervousness. Of course, American liberals blame Trump for all this. Farid Zakaria, one of the main ideologists of liberal globalism (and anti-Trumpism at the same time), in an article for The Washington Post called the imposition of tariffs on Indian goods "Trump's biggest foreign policy mistake."

With the same success, the imposition of sanctions against Russia and the requirement for Beijing to "not support the regime of Vladimir Putin" can be called Joe Biden's biggest foreign policy mistake.

But it's not about mistakes. It's about a general objective trend. The Eurasian powers will build their geopolitics and economic strategies taking into account the hostility of the West, which will not change in the coming decades. So both politics and the economy of Eurasia will gradually but steadily disconnect from the West.

#India #China #Modi #WangYi #Eurasia #Geopolitics #Russia #USPolitics #Trump #Biden #FaridZakaria #WashingtonPost #QUAD #Tariffs #GlobalStrategy

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🧩 India and Russia Target $100B Trade Amid US Tariff Clash

🇮🇳🤝🇷🇺 India and Russia want to boost annual trade by 50% over the next five years — aiming for $100 billion.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, visiting Moscow this week, said both countries need to cut tariffs and reduce red tape to hit the target. He framed the partnership as one between “dependable and steady partners” — a quiet jab at Washington.

📉 The backdrop:
• Trump has slapped 25% tariffs on Indian goods and threatened to double them to 50% on Aug. 27, a move that could wipe out India’s $85B in U.S. exports.
• Washington has also criticized India’s purchases of cheap Russian oil, arguing it funds Putin’s war in Ukraine.
• New Delhi insists it will keep buying “from the cheapest source” to fight inflation at home.

🌍 The geopolitics:
• Russia is now India’s 4th-largest trading partner, while India is Russia’s 2nd-largest.
• Modi just called Putin a “friend,” and will travel to China later this month — his first visit in 7 years — to meet Xi Jinping.
• For Moscow, deeper trade with India and China offsets Western sanctions. For India, it’s leverage against U.S. pressure.

💬 Jaishankar pushed for more joint ventures, smoother payment systems, and regular high-level meetings to keep the momentum. Putin is expected to visit India later this year.

👉 Bottom line: As Trump squeezes with tariffs, New Delhi is hedging hard — turning back to Moscow and Beijing to secure oil, trade, and political cover.

#India #Russia #Trade #Trump #Modi #Putin #geopolitics

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📰 Modi, Xi, and Trump’s Tariff Boomerang

When Trump slapped 50% tariffs on Indian imports, he thought he was disciplining New Delhi. Instead, he shoved Modi straight into Xi Jinping’s waiting arms. For the first time in seven years, Modi is heading to China — shaking hands with the man whose troops killed 20 Indian soldiers in 2020. That’s geopolitics in the age of whiplash.

💭 “India-China relations have made steady progress guided by respect for each other’s interests,”

Modi declared last week — a line that must have sounded like music in Beijing and a migraine in Washington.

📊 The new alignment in motion:
• India’s pivot: Tariffs on Russian oil imports + Trump’s “America First” trade tantrum = urgency to stabilize with Beijing.
• Xi’s stage: A mega Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, packed with Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia.
• US fear: Losing India, its prized counterweight to China, would be “the worst outcome,” say analysts.
• Economic reality: $118 billion in trade with China makes “decoupling” more campaign slogan than strategy.

💼 For Modi, it’s classic “strategic autonomy”: flirt with Washington, dine with Xi, drill with the Quad, but never commit fully to any bloc. For Xi, it’s a propaganda coup: turning border blood into a trade show handshake. And for Trump? His tariff sting just pushed the world’s largest democracy closer to America’s main rival.

🤔 Should the US be worried? Or is this just India playing both sides, cashing in on the rivalry while keeping its powder dry? Either way, Trump may have discovered the limits of “deal diplomacy”: sometimes your leverage just builds someone else’s bridge.

#India #China #Trump #Modi #Xi #tariffs #geopolitics

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📰 Modi Doubles Down: India Buys More Russian Oil After Trump’s Tariff Hammer

The White House thought 50% tariffs would break New Delhi’s appetite for cheap Russian crude. Instead, September imports are set to jump 10–20%. For Moscow, India isn’t just a buyer — it’s the oxygen keeping the war economy alive. For Modi, it’s bargain hunting in defiance mode.

💭 “Unless India issues a clear policy directive or trade economics shift significantly, Russian crude will likely remain a core part of its supply mix,”

said Sumit Ritolia of Kpler.

📊 What’s happening:
• India’s math: 1.5M barrels/day of Russian crude = 40% of its oil needs.
• Russia’s math: refinery outages + Ukrainian drone strikes free up more crude for export.
• The discounts: Urals barrels sold at $2–3 below Brent benchmark — cheaper than August.
• The clash: U.S. calls India a profiteer, India calls the West hypocrites for still buying Russian goods.

💼 For Trump, the tariffs were supposed to corner Moscow by cutting its last lifeline. For Modi, they’re just another reason to diversify away from U.S. dependence and court Moscow — and Beijing — under the banner of “strategic autonomy.”

🤔 So who’s really being punished here — Russia, which keeps selling? The U.S., which loses India’s goodwill? Or the global consumer, staring at $100 oil if Modi ever blinks?

#India #Russia #oil #Trump #Modi #energy #geopolitics

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India, China, Russia: Trade, Purchase, Mistrust, Friendship 🤝

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

India’s Modi will land in China this weekend for his first visit in seven years – a trip that puts him in the company of Xi Jinping and Putin 🌍 just as India’s ties with Washington have soured 😕.

Modi’s visit to Tianjin for a regional security summit 🔒 comes days after the US doubled tariffs on Indian exports to 50% 💸, citing New Delhi’s refusal to stop buying Russian oil 🛢.

The row has upended years of deepening cooperation between India and the US 🇺🇸, built on technology 💻 and a shared determination to counter Beijing’s global ambitions 🇨🇳. It has also forced India to aggressively look elsewhere to diversify its trade 🌐.

For China, the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that starts on Sunday could not be better timed ⏰. Modi “will be in China at a moment when India-China relations are stabilising and India-US relations have gone south. It is a powerful optic,” Kugelman said 🗣.

“No doubt there are some in China who are revelling in the trade tensions between India and the US,” said Manoj Kewalramani, the head of Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru 📊.

Putin would want to “capitalise on the moment by reasserting Russia’s close relationship with India” 🇷🇺, Kugelman said, adding that it would be “a great moment for everyone to stick out their tongues at Washington” 😝.

As Modi began his trip, Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro stepped up his attack on India, claiming on X that the country had become an “oil money laundromat for the Kremlin” 💰.

India has consistently defended its Russian oil purchases 🛢, saying they are vital to keep energy costs stable in the vast developing economy 📈, help steady prices globally, and comply with international law ⚖️. Modi has tried to strike a balance over the Ukraine war, refusing to criticise Moscow directly while urging peace ☮️.

The economic blow of the tariffs is immense. The US is India’s biggest export market at $86.5bn a year 💵, and two-thirds of that – about $60.2bn in goods – is subject to the new duties, hitting labour-intensive sectors from textiles 🧵 to jewellery 💍.

#india #china #russia #modi #xi #putin #delhi #japan

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🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

Modi is expected to meet Xi on the sidelines of the regional summit, with trade and investment high on the agenda 📋.

“An effort is under way to see if India and China can reach some sort of new equilibrium” 🤝, Kewalramani said. “Both recognise that the world order is in flux 🌍. Neither is likely to decisively manage all the frictions but there’s at least a process of trying to grow the relationship.”

“Historical mistrust will remain” 😕, he added, pointing to their contested frontier that China continues to reinforce with new roads 🛤, railways 🚂 and settlements 🏘.

“But if Delhi and Beijing can create a measure of stability and predictability, without expecting structural breakthroughs, there are practical gains to be had 📈.”

Russia, too, stands to benefit from India’s rift with the US 🇷🇺, with Delhi seeing the relationship as more vital than ever for balancing ties with the west, diversifying military hardware purchases ⚔️ and ensuring energy security 🛢.

For Modi, the photos of him standing alongside Xi and Putin at the summit 📸 “will send a pointed message to Washington”, a retired Indian diplomat said 🗣.

Indian officials stress Delhi wishes to continue its ties with the US 🇺🇸, but also needs to “diversify its partnerships” 🌐.

India cannot “afford to appear as though it is giving in to US pressure on oil imports 🛢, or anything else that could be construed as a capitulation – and public anger is high 😣”, said one official who could not be named.

On Thursday, the Indian government fired its first shot 🔫 to offset the US tariffs, rolling out an export drive across 40 countries from the UK 🇬🇧 to South Korea 🇰🇷 to boost its textile trade 🧵.

Before heading to China, Modi travelled to Tokyo for the annual India-Japan summit 🇯🇵, where he met the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba 🤝.

The trip takes on added weight in light of the US tariffs 💸, as by deepening defence 🛡, technology 💻 and investment ties 💰 with Japan, India signals it can cushion the blow of lost US market access.

Japanese companies are also set to invest up to ¥10tn ($68bn) in India in the next decade 📊, public broadcaster NHK said, as Suzuki Motor pledged to pump in about $8bn 💵 over the next five to six years.

The two nations were partners “made for each other” 💞, Modi said this week, after visiting a Suzuki plant in India 🏭.

The leaders are expected to discuss tie-ups on critical minerals ⛏️ and Japanese investments in high-value manufacturing in India 🛠, officials said.

#india #china #russia #modi #xi #putin #delhi #japan

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📰 Xi’s Strongman Reunion: Laughs, Limos, and a Pipeline Deal

💭 “We have pursued policies that have managed to unite our adversaries and divide our friends.”

— Larry Summers, former US Treasury Secretary

🔥 The optics
• Xi Jinping staged a rare show of unity in Tianjin, hugging Putin and chatting with Kim Jong Un about immortality, while Modi — on his first China trip in seven years — went for a limo ride with Putin.
• The three leaders represent a third of the world’s population, nuclear weapons, vast resources, and about a quarter of global GDP. Add their energy ties, and the symbolism suddenly looks like substance.
• Trump fumed on Truth Social: “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!”

⚡️ The deals
• Russia finally agreed to move forward with Power of Siberia 2 — a pipeline China had long stalled. Pricing is unresolved, but the signal is clear: Beijing and Moscow are locked in tighter.
• India confirmed it will keep buying Russian oil, despite Trump’s punitive tariffs. Modi even pledged to resume direct flights with China.
• Meanwhile, China is testing US sanctions, taking a shipment from the Arctic LNG 2 project — something Washington used to punish instantly.

🌍 The pushback
• Western officials say Xi’s military parade looked like a 2008 Olympics redux — only with missiles and drones — a message that China is ready to play peer to the US.
• Summers called it a wake-up call: Washington’s policies have made rivals closer and friends more suspicious.
• Still, India is hedging. Modi skipped Xi’s parade, stopped in Japan, and remains wary after the 2020 border clash.

🎭 The bigger play
The “Eurasian triangle” of Russia, China, and India was a late-1990s idea that struggled until BRICS came along. Now, Trump’s tariff wars and his threats to sanction allies are giving it new life. The SCO summit was less about loyalty to Xi than leaders carving out space between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow.

⚔️If Trump’s America-first pressure keeps driving Xi, Putin, and Modi together, is Washington forging its own nightmare alliance?

#Xi #Putin #Modi #China #India #Russia #Trump #geopolitics

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🌧️ The Pain That Is India

For days, farmers in the Indian state of Punjab watched the pounding monsoon rains fall and the rivers rise with mounting apprehension. 🌊

By Wednesday, many woke to find their fears realised as the worst floods in more than three decades ravaged their farms and decimated their livelihoods. 🏞️

Hundreds of thousands of acres of bright green rice paddies – due to be harvested imminently – as well as crops of cotton and sugar cane were left destroyed as they became fully submerged in more than five feet of muddy brown flood waters. The bodies of drowned cattle littered the ground. 🐮

“The crops are ruined, and even our homes are in danger of collapsing,” said Parmpreet Singh, 52, a farmer from Ajnala in Amritsar district, Punjab. His family, including his elderly mother and two young children, were now living on the roof of their house to stay safe from the murky flood waters. 🏠

While monsoon season usually brings heavy rain, the extreme levels of rainfall that fell across northern India this week caused untold damage in Punjab, resulting in flash floods and swollen rivers breaching their banks and overflowing into fields and villages. 🌋

So far, 43 people have lost their lives and almost 2,000 villages in the state have been affected, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity and access to clean water. The stench of rotting animal carcasses hangs over many villages. 🧟‍♂️

India’s farmers have already faced mounting hardship, with millions saddled with high debts, low incomes and heavy crop losses in the face of increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather conditions brought on by the climate crisis. 🌱

Pinki was among those who accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government, led by Narendra Modi, of negligence towards farmers and simply abandoning them to their fate during this year’s extreme monsoon.

“The government will make promises of relief, but the farmers will end up receiving nothing,” he said. “In the end, we are left to take care of ourselves.” 🤷‍♂️

Like many, he questioned the long-term viability of Indian agriculture, which employs half the country’s workforce and keeps food on the country’s tables.

“I cannot imagine what is left for our future generations,” he said. “Floods and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and the future does not look any better. If the farmers of Punjab – the food bowl of India – cannot even feed themselves, how will they feed others?” 🌶️

Such was the fury of the overflowing Ravi River, which runs through the border of India into Pakistan, that on Friday it ripped down 30km of iron fencing that forms the highly militarised border between the two conflicting neighbours, and forced India’s border security force soldiers to abandon dozens of their highly sensitive posts. 🚪

Maratab Ali Gondal, a farmer from Mandi Bahauddin district in Pakistani Punjab, said the rising levels of the Chenab River, which also flows from India, had washed away 90 acres of his crops, including rice and sugar cane, causing losses of millions of rupees. 💰

#india #punjab #farmers #pakistan #modi #monsoon

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🇮🇳 New Delhi to Washington: We Didn’t Say That

Trump says Modi promised to stop buying Russian oil.
New Delhi says… what promise?

⚖️ The Mixed Signals
On Wednesday, President Trump told reporters that Modi had “assured” him India would halt Russian crude imports — calling it a “big step.”
By Thursday, India’s foreign ministry flatly denied any such conversation.
Spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told the press he was “not aware of any assurances,” while another statement simply restated India’s old line: energy security comes first, politics second.

🛢 The Numbers Don’t Lie
India still buys roughly 1.6 to 1.8 million barrels of Russian oil per day — about one third of its total supply.
State refiners have trimmed volumes under U.S. tariff pressure, but private giants like Reliance and Nayara Energy filled the gap, doubling their Russian imports this fall.
Analysts say cutting those flows overnight would be “economically impossible.”

💬 Trade, Tariffs, and Tension
Trump has already slapped a 50 percent tariff regime on India — half punishment, half persuasion.
New Delhi calls it arm twisting.
And with Modi set to host Putin later this year, Washington’s message and India’s market realities remain on separate tracks.

India’s quiet defiance sums up its foreign policy mantra: buy cheap, stay neutral, and nod politely when superpowers talk sanctions.

#Trump #Modi #India #Russia #Oil #Sanctions #Energy #Geopolitics

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💣 “Kerala’s Reds Still Bleed Moscow: Modi, Putin, and the Revenge of Local Memory”

Try telling the residents of Kerala’s Moscow — or locals named Stalin and Lenin — that the Soviet flame has died. In India’s southern coast, communist iconography is more than nostalgia: it’s woven into family history, election math, and village identity. The CPI(M) still governs Kerala, and party banners wave alongside images of Che and Marx.

Kerala’s leftist tradition has roots in the famine and political upheavals of the 1940s, intensified by the world’s first elected Marxist government in 1957. Soviet cultural diplomacy left durable marks: Russian literature circulated in schools, solidarity campaigns animated unions, and pro-Soviet sentiment still shapes names and local mythologies.

🛡 “Trump’s Tariffs and the Putin Resurgence”
Trump’s tariffs and sanctions have strained India-U.S. relations, driving Delhi to reaffirm ties with Moscow even as trade pressure grows. Expert Rajan Kumar observes: “Popular sentiment is very pro-Russia, without any doubt,” intensified by Washington’s unpredictable policies and claims of brokering regional ceasefires. Modi’s renewed outreach to Putin — military exercises, joint infrastructure talks, upcoming state visits — is partly pragmatic procurement, not ideological nostalgia.

On the ground, public opinion in Kerala and across much of India has hardened in favor of Russia, often amplified by regional TV, CPI(M) rhetoric, and the long memory of Soviet support during crises from Kashmir to 1971’s war. While some Indian refiners scale back Russian oil imports under Western pressure, India continues to procure critical weapons systems and minerals from Russian suppliers, balancing economic self-interest with old alliances.

🌏 “History’s Weight, Present Calculations”
Delhi’s outreach to Russia is not driven solely by the past. As former ambassador Pankaj Saran notes, “India isn’t sentimental. History matters, but it isn’t destiny.” Security and sovereignty still outweigh nostalgia on the decision-making scale.

Yet in Kerala, the enduring symbolism of villages named Moscow and families named after Soviet-era leaders is a reminder: in the global tug-of-war, American leverage is transactional, Russian ties have narrative depth. For now, India’s foreign policy cooks with both recipes — and local memory remains resistant to Washington’s pressure.

#India #Kerala #Putin #Modi #Trump #Tariffs #Russia #Communism #SouthAsia #CPI

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🔺 Netanyahu’s Three Axes: When Your Enemies and “Partners” Are the Same People

At the Shin Bet conference, Netanyahu drew his new cosplay map of the Middle East: a wounded Shia axis (Iran), a “radical Sunni axis” built around the Muslim Brotherhood, and his own “Zionist axis” — a glossy “hexagon” with India, Greece, Cyprus and unnamed Arab and African partners.

There’s just one glitch. That “radical Sunni axis” in Bibi’s script is basically Turkey and Qatar. The same Turkey and Qatar Trump likes to frame as guarantors of calm in Gaza, the same Qatar whose envoy stood next to Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar at the launch of the Board of Peace, the same Turkey Washington leans on to talk to Iran. Netanyahu casts them as a strategic threat; Trump sells them as service providers. Two realities, one set of clients.

On the ground, the “Zionist axis” looks a lot more concrete. From March 1, Israel is forcing out 37 international NGOs from Gaza and the West Bank for not complying with new rules demanding full staff lists, IDs and internal structures, after warning that their licenses would be pulled. Officially it’s about “security and transparency.” In practice it’s a controlled purge of foreign civilian presence: Russia pushes NATO out of Ukraine with artillery, Israel pushes outside networks out of Palestinian areas with regulations. Different tools, same instinct — clear the field, then talk about “stability.”

At the same time, Nordic Monitor lays out how that same Sunni axis operates. A Turkish state‑run foundation, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı (TDV), has funneled at least 46.3 million dollars into Gaza after October 7, built nine mosques, and put the name of Abdullah Azzam — co‑founder of Hamas and Al‑Qaeda, the “father of global jihad” — on one of them. His books are formally banned by Turkish courts, yet you can still order them on Amazon Turkey. Jihad as a controlled asset class: outlawed on paper, monetized at retail.

Netanyahu brands this as an existential threat. Trump presents the same actors as peacemakers. On the surface it looks like a contradiction; in reality it’s just different slices of the same picture being plated up for different audiences. Each leader reaches for the version of reality that best fits the story he’s selling.

And the famous “hexagon”? Beyond Bibi’s microphone, nobody is exactly rushing to sign on. India is sticking to its habit of avoiding formal Middle East camps, Greece and Cyprus are bound by EU obligations to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has an arrest warrant with Netanyahu’s name on it, and the unnamed Arab partners are the same ones that just shut their airspace to an Israeli strike on Iran.
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An axis without committed members isn’t a coalition. It’s a monologue dressed up as geometry.

#Israel #Netanyahu #ThreeAxes #Turkey #Qatar #Gaza #Shabak #MiddleEast #geopolitics #Modi

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Could India's Cockroach Revolution Snuff Out the Modi Government?

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Taru had come to the protest prepared this time. In one hand was an anti-government poster and in the other was a bicycle helmet.

“We need to have protection in case Delhi police beat us up again,”

said the 25-year-old, who stood among her friends.

“We are not scared of them and we won’t run away, no matter what they do. We’ll stay here till they listen.”

On Tuesday, central Delhi still thronged with thousands of protesters, as an unprecedented expression of dissent against the powerful ruling Narendra Modi government showed no sign of abating.

Just 24 hours earlier, more than 50,000 people took to the streets in protest, swathes of them in their late teens and early 20s, mobilised by a new youth-led political movement that calls itself the Cockroach Janta party (CJP). Their rallying call was the resignation of the education minister and for reform of a corrupt and broken education system.

But what began peacefully on Monday – people fanning each other in the gruelling humidity, sharing snacks and chanting slogans – turned into scenes of brutality by the afternoon.

Delhi police denied the protesters the right to march on parliament and kettled the expanding crowd into a restricted area. The internet was shut down and barricades were erected across the capital. The came the police batons and the teargas.

Police said they were responding to agitation but organisers and witnesses claimed the police carried out unprovoked attacks, including against women and children in the crowd. About 60 suffered injuries and at least one protester is on a ventilator in hospital intensive care.

“The day was so wholesome to start with, there was so much love,”

said Taru.

“But after 3pm the police started attacking us. They were bashing us like anything. I saw them come up and hit people on the head as they were sitting down on the pavement doing nothing. And then as we were running, they opened up teargas on us.”

Taru described the response by Delhi police – which are under central government control – as a “big mistake. Now we are more agitated than ever.”

Some had travelled hundreds of miles to be there and said they intended to camp out until the government responded to the demands of the country’s millions of young people.

“The government needs to understand: we are not going anywhere,”

said Ranjit Verma, 23.

#undia #cockroach #revolution #modi

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India’s main opposition Congress party had also seized upon the mood, calling for Modi to resign “for destroying the future of India’s youth” as it held its own protest in Delhi on Tuesday.

While the CJP movement has primarily focused on accountability for devastating leaks of exam papers and calling for the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, the overriding feeling in the aftermath of Monday’s protest was that this was now so much bigger than one issue. For some, this was the moment India’s youth – totalling more than 600 million – had found its political voice.

“The solidarity on the streets yesterday filled my heart,”

said Kuhoo Kaushik, 26, a content creator from Delhi.

“How the government responded was really sad, police beating up 14-year-olds is horrible. But personally, I feel like it’s really awoken something in me.

“That’s why I’ve come back today: we won’t be moved until the government listens to us. It’s become about so much more than education – but one step at a time”’

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke vowed that the protests would continue, though did not state what the next steps for the movement would be to capitalise on their momentum.

Standing by the stage at the protest site, Ratna Singh, a CJP spokesperson, said the movement was very aware of ways in which the Modi government had successfully cracked down on previous movements and figures of dissent during its 12 years in power.

“Anyone who has tried to speak up against this government has faced terrorism charges or tax raids or jail and there is so much fear,”

she said.

“But I am very proud at how many people have showed up and come out on the streets. The police showed us no mercy – but no matter what barbaric treatment they give us, we will not be silenced.”

While a senior government minister met two CJP spokespeople on Monday to discuss their demands, Singh said the government had not responded to them on Tuesday and the “prime minister has remained silent about what happened”.

It was not only young people who returned to the protest site on Tuesday. Shobha Varma, 80, was attending with her granddaughter.

“Our education system has been failing young people for years,”

she said.

“But when I look out at everyone here, I really feel hope.”

#undia #cockroach #revolution #modi

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🪳 The Cockroach Revolution Is Gaining Momentum

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India's Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned after a week of mass demonstrations, handing a major victory to a new youth movement that has posed an unprecedented challenge to Narendra Modi's government.

In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, Pradhan said he had submitted his resignation letter to the Prime Minister in response to mounting pressure from students.

"Considering the situation that has arisen at Jantar Mantar and across the country, so that anti-national forces do not take advantage of this situation (...) I have submitted my resignation letter to the Prime Minister," Pradhan wrote in a social media post.

He said he had been "deeply saddened by what has unfolded over the past 10 days," adding: "I deeply respect the aspirations, feelings, and legitimate expectations of the country's youth."

During his 12 years in power, Modi has cultivated a strongman image and consistently maintained that his ministers are not accountable to public pressure. This marks the first time that a mass protest movement has forced one of his closest allies to resign.

The protests were organized by the newly formed youth political movement, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), which has grown into a nationwide youth uprising this week.

The movement's central demand was Pradhan's resignation over an exam leak scandal that has affected millions of students and reportedly contributed to more than a dozen student suicides.

Modi's refusal to dismiss his minister over the scandal was widely viewed as a symbol of the alleged lack of accountability within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its repeated failure to address the challenges facing young people, particularly within India's troubled education system.

CJP organizers confirmed they had called off their demonstration following Pradhan's resignation and a meeting with senior BJP ministers on Saturday afternoon.

Addressing crowds gathered at the Jantar Mantar protest site in Delhi, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke praised the "courage" of students who turned out in huge numbers despite facing police violence.

#cockroach #india #pradhan #demonstrations #modi

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"We have done it," he declared to chants of "Victory to India!" and "Long live the revolution!" However, Dipke emphasized that Pradhan's resignation was "just the beginning" of the movement's campaign for systemic education reform and democratic rights.

He also warned supporters against turning him into a hero.

"Do not make this mistake," Dipke said. "The country has already suffered from making one person a hero."

Faria Asif, 26, a lawyer attending the protest, said: "I am overjoyed. This is a huge victory—not just for students, but for the Constitution and for the entire nation. Being part of this movement has been incredibly empowering for all of us. I believe this is the beginning of real change."

News of Pradhan's resignation was met with jubilant celebrations from tens of thousands of CJP supporters gathered in Delhi, who had been demanding government accountability.

"This is one of the most historic days for our country," said 27-year-old Rochelle Cope. "For the first time in 12 years, someone in the government has been held accountable for wrongdoing. And it wasn't political parties that achieved this—it was the people.

"This is a movement of unity, love, solidarity, peace, justice, and strength. Being here has made me proud to be an Indian citizen. This is only the beginning—the government will no longer be able to rule as it did before."

For many participants, this was their first political protest, and the movement has been described as a "Gen Z political awakening" in India.

Public anger intensified following the police's violent response, prompting even more people to join the movement. Throughout the week, thousands gathered at the CJP's sit-in in Delhi, chanting anti-government slogans and demanding Pradhan's resignation.

Demonstrations also spread across the country, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in Kolkata and Mumbai.

Modi had agreed to fast-track investigations into the exam leak scandal but made no mention of the CJP's primary demand: Pradhan's resignation, despite him being regarded as one of the Prime Minister's most influential and loyal ministers.

However, the CJP leadership made it clear that Pradhan's resignation was a non-negotiable demand. As more protests erupted over the weekend and negotiations reached a stalemate, the BJP government appeared to be increasingly cornered.

#cockroach #india #pradhan #demonstrations #modi

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