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Farmers stage a Delhi Chalo march over various demands, at the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu border, near Ambala on Tuesday.
Could farming protests hurt Modi at the polls?
Thousands of farmers are marching toward New Delhi to demand better prices for their crops, but police are trying to keep them out of the capital by barricading access to the city, firing tear gas, and making arrests.
The unrest comes just months before the general election in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is predicted to win a third term.
A repeat of 2021? Amid the deadly surge of COVID-19 in 2020, farmers camped out for over a year, demanding that the government revoke new agricultural laws aimed at modernizing the farming industry. The protests, which gained international attention (and a tweet from Rihanna), ended after the government agreed to repeal them.
But farmers from Haryana and Punjab say the demands — including minimum support prices, doubling income, and loan waivers — have yet to be met two years on. Over 200 participating farmer unions announced a rural strike for Friday, during which no agricultural activities will occur.
High stakes. The Modi administration has faced limited challenges to appease the majority of voters. But the farming bloc (approximately 60% of the population works in agriculture), which contributes 18% to the country’s GDP and to which Modi yielded last time, may command more of his attention.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the Bharat Mandapam to inaugurate the Indian Mobile Congress 2023, in New Delhi, India on Oct. 27, 2023.
Should India roll the dice on AI regulation?
The United Kingdom and Japan recently hosted influential AI summits, spurring global conversations about regulatory solutions. Now, India wants in on the act, and it is set to host a major conference next month aimed at boosting trust in and adoption of artificial intelligence. But as concerns over the safety of AI grow, New Delhi faces a choice between taking a leading role in the growing international consensus on AI regulation and striking out on its own to nurture innovation with light regulatory touches.
India’s government has flip-flopped on the issue. In April, it said it would not regulate AI at all, giving entrepreneurs the leeway they need to build up a world-leading innovation environment. But just two months later, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said India would roll out broad rules after all through the Digital India Act, a major overhaul of decades-old laws governing the tech sector that is still being drafted.
You can see the temptation for India to give the market free reign: AI is expected to add nearly a trillion dollars to India’s GDP by 2035. Its $23 billion market for the semiconductor chips that power AI is expected to nearly quadruple by 2028. The country also has a thriving tech startup culture – 80,000 firms bloomed between 2012 and 2020 – and world-class engineering schools, including the infamously competitive and rigorous Indian Institute of Technology system. Major domestic players like Tata and Reliance have attracted investment and partnerships with NVIDIA, the world’s foremost semiconductor designer, eager to build up new markets to replace Chinese business lost to US export controls.
So why shouldn’t India press its advantage? Well, it’s not as if New Delhi is immune to the disruptions and dangers AI potentially poses. The same concerns about malicious actors using the technology to spread disinformation or conduct cyberattacks apply to India, and being the odd country out when even China is joining efforts to set global rules of the road may not be the best look. We’ll get a better sense of India’s preferred policy direction when they host the annual summit of the OECD’s Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence on Dec. 12-14.An Afghan man works in a poppy field in Nangarhar province in 2016.
Hard Numbers: Afghans' fewer poppies, Trump's lead in key states, Lake Titicaca’s lower water level, New Delhi's smog, Japan's new frigates, Swifties' tents
95: Once the world’s top opium supplier, Afghanistan has slashed its cultivation of opium poppies by a whopping 95%, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The drop follows a Taliban edict banning opium cultivation.
5: Former President Donald Trump is leading in five of six battleground states in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena College. The numbers indicate that Biden is trailing among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The president remains ahead in Wisconsin by the smallest of margins: two percentage points.
29: Over the past seven months, Lake Titicaca’s water level at the Peru-Bolivia border has fallen 29 inches to near-record lows. According to scientists, climate change is exacerbating this year’s El Nino phenomenon, layering heat on top of heat in South America’s largest freshwater lake.
471: In more bad environmental news, primary schools in New Delhi have been closed through Nov. 10 due to high pollution levels. On Sunday, the capital recorded an Air Quality Index reading of 471, a level considered hazardous.
12: The Japanese Ministry of Defense will acquire a total of 12 new Mogami class frigates over the next five years. The vessels will be used to defend the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.
5: Die-hard Taylor Swift fans have been camped out in tents for 5 months for a chance at front-row seats to the singer’s Eras Tour concerts in Buenos Aires on Nov. 9, 10, and 11. Some Bad Blood has been reported between the tent dwellers and locals who say the Swifties should get jobs rather than spend days waiting for their idol – but despite the potentially Delicate situation, fans appear able to Shake it Off.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seen here addressing a G20 Development Ministers’ meeting in June, is set to host the group's summit in New Delhi this weekend.
Weekend at Modi’s
Well, this weekend is the moment Indian PM Narendra Modi has been waiting for, with world leaders set to gather for the G20 Summit in New Delhi.
For Modi, it’s a big chance to show the world that India is a rising and responsible power that can broker solutions to multilateral challenges — climate change, food security, inflation — while advocating, in particular, for the interests of the so-called “Global South” (an imperfect catchall for pretty much anything outside of Europe, the US, and Japan).
Modi’s mission. One of his main goals is to hammer out a plan in which rich countries and multilateral lenders make more capital available to developing countries that need it to finance green energy transitions and cope with the ravages of climate change.
But can he herd these cats? This year’s G20 has been fractious, with disagreements over how to describe the Ukraine war scuttling progress in other areas. So far, not a single G20 meeting has produced a joint communiqué.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's decision to skip the event also looms large. It was seen as a snub to New Delhi amid worsening China-India relations, but Modi will certainly want to show that he can shine for the Global South without sharing the spotlight with Beijing.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden is showing up with his own agenda, looking to convince the Global South that US-led financial institutions are better financial partners for economic development than Beijing. China’s deepening economic woes, and Xi's absence, may help Biden out.
The upshot: Modi in the middle. India's PM will have to work hard to broker consensus at a particularly divisive time. If this weekend’s meeting of leaders fails to issue a joint communiqué, it would be a G20 first — but certainly not one Modi will want to be remembered for.A motorist rides past a hoarding decorated with flowers to welcome G20 foreign ministers in New Delhi, India, March 1, 2023.
What We’re Watching: Tense G-20 talks in India, Finland’s fence-building, China’s economic activity, Chicago’s mayoral runoff
An awkward G-20 summit in Delhi
When G-20 foreign ministers met in New Delhi on Thursday, it was, as expected, an awkward affair. While India, the current G-20 chair, had hoped that the bloc would focus on issues of importance to the Global South, like climate change and the global food crisis, the agenda was disrupted by US-Russia bickering over the war in Ukraine, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called "unprovoked and unjustified war", while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the West for not doing enough to extend a deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports that will soon expire. Of course, focusing on anything else was going to be a tall order when the top diplomats of the US, China, and Russia were all in the same room. (President Biden and Xi Jinping last met at the G-20 summit in Bali in November, though there was no bilateral meeting between the US and Russia.) In a sign of how fractured Washington's relationship remains with these two states, Blinken on Wednesday again urged Beijing not to send lethal weapons to Russia and canned China’s peace plan for Ukraine. As for US-Russia relations … need we say more? India, which has gone to painstaking lengths to maintain its neutral status over the past year, says it thinks the group can get stuff done. But at a meeting last month of G-20 financial heads, the group couldn’t even agree on a joint statement.
Finland builds a border fence against Russia
Rakentaa se aita! That's Finnish for "Build that fence!" — which is what Finland plans to do to protect its borders from Russian draft dodgers. Construction of a 10-foot tall wall, ahem, fence began this week along Finland's 800-mile border with Russia, with the first section expected to be finished by June. The Finns want to stop Russians from entering after fleeing the draft to fight in Ukraine, a number that could rise if Vladimir Putin orders another mobilization in the coming months. Meanwhile, Finland's parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved the government's plan to speed up the process to join NATO — ideally along with Sweden, a fellow Nordic, if Turkey ever backs off. Going back to the fence, parts of it will have all the bells and whistles — night-vision cameras, lights, and loudspeakers — that former US President Donald Trump could only dream of for his partially built "Big, beautiful wall." And like Mexico, you can bet that Russia won't pay for it.
Chinese economic activity rebounds
China's official manufacturing sector purchasing managers’ index — a closely watched indicator of economic activity — reached 52.6% in February, expanding at its fastest monthly pace in over a decade. What's more, home sales rose for the first time in two years amid a persistent property-sector slump. The good: The two figures beat expectations and are a clear sign that the world's second-largest economy is recovering quicker than expected after abruptly ditching zero-COVID. The bad: The starting point was very low, as China's GDP grew last year by only 3%, barely half of what the ruling Communist Party had targeted. The ugly: While this is excellent news for Xi Jinping and a global economy that's eager for both more Chinese demand for stuff and more Chinese capacity to make stuff, economic activity has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. Also, China's economy is still facing strong pressure from the fallout of the US-China rivalry, with American companies feeling increasingly bearish about the future as ties between Beijing and Washington get icier.
Chicago election result portends impending showdown over policing
Voters in Chicago denied Lori Lightfoot, who made history as the city’s first openly gay and Black female mayor, a second term amid concerns over rising crime, which increased by 41% between 2021 and 2022. Lightfoot, who cruised to office in 2019 on an anti-corruption platform, had been widely criticized for the high crime rate in America’s third-largest city. No candidate in the Democratic stronghold clinched over 50% of the vote needed to win outright this week, so the two remaining candidates – both Dems – will go to an April 4th runoff, with the controversial issue of policing underscoring the stark divide between them. On one side is Paul Vallas, who has drawn criticism for past comments and for associating with the Windy City’s controversial police union leader. He promises to add hundreds of officers back to the police force if elected. His challenger, Brian Johnson, favors investment in services like housing, education, and mental health over more policing. Amid rising post-pandemic crime in major US cities, political differences over investment in public safety measures will play an increasingly central role in US mayoral elections. We’ll be watching as Philadelphia and Houston head to the polls later this year.A Rohingya refugee family rests in a temporary shelter after a fire destroyed a Rohingya refugee camp in New Delhi, India.
Hard Numbers: Rohingya unwelcome in Delhi, Thailand’s forgotten battle, Abbas under fire, the few remaining anti-Trump Republicans
17: Explosions rocked 17 locations in southern Thailand on Thursday causing several injuries. Several Muslim-majority provinces along the Thai-Malaysia border have long been hotbeds of violence as insurgency groups fight the Thai government for independence.
50: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has come under fire for saying that Israel committed “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinian people. The comments, made during a press conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, made things very awkward for a notably uncomfortable Scholz, who later condemned the remark.
2: After Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s primary loss in Wyoming this week, only two of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 riot remain in the running ahead of November’s midterm elections. The other eight have either been defeated or chosen not to run again, with several saying that threats from Trump supporters had persuaded them to retire from politics.
Hard Numbers: Colombian violence, Ottawa vs Tehran, New Delhi’s weekend curfew, anti nuclear war consensus
23: At least 23 people have been killed in northern Colombia near the Venezuelan border in recent days amid violent clashes between rival guerrilla groups ELN and FARC rebels, who rejected the 2016 Colombian peace process. Among other things, the ELN and the FARC are vying for control of crucial drug trafficking routes.
5: Five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council — the US, UK, Russia, China, and France — pledged this week to avoid nuclear war, agreeing that it “cannot be won and must never be fought.” Reaching consensus at this time is significant considering ongoing tensions between China and Russia and the Western states.
107 million: A Canadian court has awarded damages of $107 million to six families of victims killed when a Ukrainian airline taking off from Tehran was shot down by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in January 2020. Canada, along with four other countries, has given Tehran until January 5 to engage in negotiations over reparations to victims' families, but so far Tehran won’t come to the party.
37,379: Authorities in some major cities like New York and London say they are done with large-scale lockdowns. But not India’s capital Delhi: after recording 37,379 new COVID cases Tuesday, the highest figure since September, officials have ordered residents to stay home on weekends. Good thing omicron doesn’t spread Monday-Friday.
What We're Watching: Iran plays hard to get, China gets up in India's grid, Dominicans build a wall
Iran rules out nuclear talks… for now: Iran has reportedly rejected an offer to join direct talks with the US and EU over its nuclear program, saying it won't start the conversation until sanctions on Iran's economy are eased. To be clear, this does NOT mean that prospects for reviving the Iran nuclear deal are dead. Europeans and the Biden administration want a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement, and Iran certainly needs the economic boost that would come from a removal of sanctions. But Tehran is going to try to maximize its leverage before any talks begin, especially since this is a sensitive election year in in the country. Iran's leaders are going to play hard to get for a while longer before edging their way back to the bargaining table. Still, it's high stakes diplomacy here between parties that have almost no mutual trust — and one misstep could throw things off track quickly.
Is China inside India's electrical grid? A newly published study from intelligence analytics firm Recorded Future suggests that China may have retaliated against India following border skirmishes in the Himalayas last year by using malware to attack India's power grid, triggering a blackout last October that left 20 million residents of Mumbai in the dark. The study's authors acknowledge that these conclusions are still speculative, but recent comments by Indian officials add to their credibility. The findings are all the more striking because conventional wisdom holds that while governments regularly use cyber-attacks to steal the secrets of other countries, they generally don't tend to sabotage other governments for fear of dangerous retaliation. If there is truth in this story, it's possible that China believes its cyber advantage over India is strong enough to deter retaliation. That's a powerful warning for every government.
Dominican Republic to "build the wall:" Ok, they are calling it a fence, but whatever you call it, recently-elected Dominican president Luis Abinader says that a new 230 mile hi-tech barrier is meant to stop drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and cross-border crime between his country and Haiti. The two countries, which share the Caribbean Island of Hispañola, have long had testy relations, in particular over the presence in the DR of hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants who have fled their own country — the poorest in the Western Hemisphere — in search of opportunity next door. About five percent of the DR's population is of Haitian origin, according to government estimates, and many lack formal papers. At the same time, the porousness of the border has facilitated trafficking of human beings and contraband, according to a US State Department report. The Dominican government has deported Haitians en masse on several occasions over the past several decades, and there is a history of anti-Haitian violence in the country that runs back more than a century. Construction of the new fence is set to begin later this year.