Hot Modi summer

August 23, 2023

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Modi is on the moon. Modi is getting wined and dined in DC. Modi is hosting the G20 Summit in September. Modi’s economy is booming. Apart from the ethnic violence in Manipur, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on fire this summer, and yesterday his country reached new heights.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully landed on the moon, making it the fourth nation to join the lunar landing club and the very first to make it to the moon’s south pole. The mission’s success furthers Modi’s dreams of making India an irrefutable economic, diplomatic, and technological world power.

But watch out SpaceX – even though Modi met with Elon Musk this summer, India aims to become the global leader in space exploration, and Modi is capitalising on his amicable relationship with Russia, China, and the US to do it. At the BRICS summit, for example, he pitched members on a consortium for space exploration. The idea comes on the heels of Russia’s failed moon landing this week and Modi signing on to the US-led Artemis Accords for space exploration in June, continuing his balancing act between the US and its global adversaries. India is also planning to partner with Japan’s space program.

Modi’s government wants India to harness the private sector’s entrepreneurial energy to put more satellites and investment into space faster. India’s private space industry – which is largely focused on geopolitically important low Earth orbit satellites – is worth $6 billion, a figure that is expected to triple by 2025.

The Indian leader will end his “hot Modi summer” by hosting the G20 summit in New Delhi in September, where he will welcome President Joe Biden and possibly – he’s RSVP’d as a “maybe” – Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A warrant for Putin’s arrest from the International Criminal Court made him skip attending the BRICS summit in person this week, but India is not party to the ICC. Modi is in a singular position to achieve a diplomatic coup by hosting Biden and Putin in their closest proximity since the war started. Putin has not ruled out attending in person, but the notion of him and Biden sharing a space anytime soon feels a bit … pie in the sky.

North Korean troops reportedly face brutal treatment in Russia

Photos published by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Jan 11, 2025 shows two North Korean military personnel captured by Ukraine forces soldiers in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea’s involvement in the war against Ukraine, he said. I am grateful to the soldiers of Tactical Group No. 84 of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as our paratroopers, who captured these two individuals.

(Ukraine Military handout via EYEPRESS) via Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Saturday that his troops had captured two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region and released a video of them describing their experience fighting for Russia.

Politics inflamed amid California wildfires

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 07: A wind-driven fire burns on January 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Santa Ana wind is fueling wildfires in Los Angeles that have destroyed homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

(Photo by Qian Weizhong/VCG ) via Reuters

As California’s most destructive wildfires continue to blaze across Los Angeles County, having killed 16 and displaced more than 166,000 residents, emergency response efforts have become politicized, both at home and abroad.

TikTok ban likely to be upheld

A person holds a placard on the day justices hear oral arguments in a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban on national security grounds, outside the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, U.S., January 10, 2025.

REUTERS/Marko Djurica

On Friday, the Supreme Court appeared poised to uphold the TikTok ban, largely dismissing the app’s argument that it should be able to exist in the US under the First Amendment’s free speech protections and favoring the government's concerns that it poses a national security threat.

The rise of a leaderless world: Why 2025 marks a turning point, with Francis Fukuyama

Listen: On the GZERO World Podcast, we’re taking a look at some of the top geopolitical risks of 2025. This looks to be the year that the G-Zero wins. We’ve been living with this lack of international leadership for nearly a decade now. But in 2025, the problem will get a lot worse. We are heading back to the law of the jungle. A world where the strongest do what they can while the weakest are condemned to suffer what they must. Joining Ian Bremmer to peer into this cloudy crystal ball is renowned Stanford political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

Trump avoids jail in hush money sentencing

President-elect Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing in front of New York State Judge Juan Merchan in his hush money case at New York Criminal Court in New York City, on Jan. 10, 2025.

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/Pool

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced in his New York hush money case on Friday but received no punishment from Judge Juan M. Merchan, who issued an unconditional discharge with no jail time, probation, or fines

Venezuela briefly arrests opposition leader just ahead of Maduro inauguration

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado greets supporters at a protest ahead of the Friday inauguration of President Nicolas Maduro for his third term, in Caracas, Venezuela January 9, 2025.

REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria

Regime forces violently detained Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado as she left a rally in Caracas on Thursday, one day before strongman President Nicolás Maduro was set to begin his third term.

Hot Modi summer

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Diplomats and foreign ministers from 17 Arab and EU states convened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday to discuss the lifting of economic sanctions on Syria, originally imposed during the rule of ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

North Korean troops reportedly face brutal treatment in Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Saturday that his troops had captured two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region and released a video of them describing their experience fighting for Russia.

Politics inflamed amid California wildfires

As California’s most destructive wildfires continue to blaze across Los Angeles County, having killed 16 and displaced more than 166,000 residents, emergency response efforts have become politicized, both at home and abroad.

TikTok ban likely to be upheld

On Friday, the Supreme Court appeared poised to uphold the TikTok ban, largely dismissing the app’s argument that it should be able to exist in the US under the First Amendment’s free speech protections and favoring the government's concerns that it poses a national security threat.

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The rise of a leaderless world: Why 2025 marks a turning point, with Francis Fukuyama

Trump avoids jail in hush money sentencing

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced in his New York hush money case on Friday but received no punishment from Judge Juan M. Merchan, who issued an unconditional discharge with no jail time, probation, or fines

Opinion: Vladimir Putin 25 years later

In a way, Donald Trump’s return means Putin has finally won. Not because of the silly notion that Trump is a “Russian agent” – but because it closes the door finally and fully on the era of post-Cold War triumphalist globalism that Putin encountered when he first came to power.

Venezuela briefly arrests opposition leader just ahead of Maduro inauguration

Regime forces violently detained Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado as she left a rally in Caracas on Thursday, one day before strongman President Nicolás Maduro was set to begin his third term.

Ukraine’s support system splinters

Hot Modi summer

GZEROMEDIA

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More from GZERO Media

Diplomats and foreign ministers from 17 Arab and EU states convened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday to discuss the lifting of economic sanctions on Syria, originally imposed during the rule of ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Saturday that his troops had captured two North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region and released a video of them describing their experience fighting for Russia.

As California’s most destructive wildfires continue to blaze across Los Angeles County, having killed 16 and displaced more than 166,000 residents, emergency response efforts have become politicized, both at home and abroad.

On Friday, the Supreme Court appeared poised to uphold the TikTok ban, largely dismissing the app’s argument that it should be able to exist in the US under the First Amendment’s free speech protections and favoring the government's concerns that it poses a national security threat.

GZEROMEDIA

Subscribe to GZERO Media's newsletter: Signal

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced in his New York hush money case on Friday but received no punishment from Judge Juan M. Merchan, who issued an unconditional discharge with no jail time, probation, or fines

In a way, Donald Trump’s return means Putin has finally won. Not because of the silly notion that Trump is a “Russian agent” – but because it closes the door finally and fully on the era of post-Cold War triumphalist globalism that Putin encountered when he first came to power.

Regime forces violently detained Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado as she left a rally in Caracas on Thursday, one day before strongman President Nicolás Maduro was set to begin his third term.