Tag Archives: Narendra Modi

India is a high-risk setting for an epidemic, but the current situation was not inevitable. As more are infected, the pool of susceptible people will shrink, the virus will relent, and the country will rebuild.

Fertile agricultural land together with South Asia's population is the most precious assets that should not be endangered by running after the phantom of ‘progress’.

India’s control over the internet is comparable to some of the world’s most authoritarian countries. While India ranks second in the world in terms of mobile internet subscribers, the country also leads in shutdowns.

India’s relations with its South Asian neighbors are on a free fall at present while their own relations with China are on an upward trajectory. The freefall in India’s relations with its South Asian neighbors has come at a time when ironically prime minister Narendra Modi has been pursuing a ‘neighbors first’ policy in his second term; an irony indeed.

Prime Minister Modi has ensured that India is exposed to the world what it was all along, a Hindu fundamentalist country. In a no holds barred piece The Economist bluntly titled the country "Intolerant India". What Modi fails to realize is that tolerance is important for not only India, but also its considerable power abroad.

Overriding commercial interests prevent powerful Western and even Muslim governments from condemning the aggression that India has committed against Kashmiris. Islamabad can perhaps get a good value for its political and financial capital by helping the affected Kashmiris abroad instead of wasting precious public funds on five-star seminars, argues Imtiaz Gul.

Modi and his hawkish followers did their best to divert the attention of the international community from the Kashmir crisis and isolate Pakistan. But they utterly failed.

Germany went to war against the Soviet Union mainly for “Lebensraum” (living room), territory needed for its national development. Modi is creating Lebensraum in reverse, pushing the minority population mainly Muslims, out to create space for the Hindu population. It will be interesting to see how Hasina Wajid deals with this, after all the deportees will have nowhere to go but Bangladesh.

Press freedom has deteriorated over the past five years in India for a variety of reasons, the most important being the rule of right-wing Hindutva nationalists who try to redefine India and Indians.

Described as "almost fascist in the classical sense", the Hindutva movement adheres to a concept of homogenized majority and cultural hegemony.