Replies to post #340099 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Mr. Outrageous

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right"



https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2015/11/25/cartoons-donald-trump-is-mr-outrageous/

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Hindu Nationalists Are Pushing Magical Remedies for the Coronavirus

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right"

Alex Jones and Trump evangelists would fit right in.

Ayurvedic medicine and other pseudosciences are being pushed by BJP politicians.

By Bhavya Dore | March 9, 2020, 10:01 AM


Shree Maa Anantanand sits behind medicine made from cow urine, which she uses to treat patients suffering kidney ailments and cancer at her hospital in Ahmedabad, India, on Feb. 27, 2010. Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images

MUMBAI—Worried about the coronavirus? Well, just turn to the ever-useful cow. On March 2, Suman Haripriya, an elected member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said .. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/gaumutra-gobar-may-cure-coronavirus-bjp-mla-tells-assam-assembly/articleshow/74444488.cms .. that cow urine and cow dung could be used to combat the outbreak. Chakrapani Maharaj, a Hindu leader, told .. https://theprint.in/health/hindu-mahasabha-plans-gaumutra-party-with-cow-dung-cakes-to-fight-coronavirus-in-india/375026/ .. a news site he would be organizing an event to educate people on the use of cow products to fight the disease.

Those aren’t the only remedies from the Hindu-nationalist toolbox. Baba Ramdev, a popular guru, told a television channel that Ayurvedic remedies could be deployed. And a few days ago Yogi Adityanath, the fire-breathing Hindu-nationalist chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, exhorted .. https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/03/03/prevent-coronavirus-by-overcoming-mental-stress-yogi-adityanath.html .. Indians to practice yoga to overcome stress and stay strong against various diseases, including the coronavirus.

The promotion of nationalist pseudoscience under the BJP has worried .. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01465-3 .. Indian scientists and skeptics for years. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, even some scientists looking to ride the wave have trotted out .. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/hindu-nationalists-claim-ancient-indians-had-airplanes-stem-cell-technology-and .. claims about ancient India having had airplanes and stem-cell research, while there have been fierce fights .. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/indian-doctors-fight-against-quackery/ .. over attempts to license traditional medicine practitioners. The government restructured existing departments to create the Ministry of AYUSH .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_AYUSH .. (the acronym combines several traditional or pseudoscientific schools of medicine), to cover such practices.

Public figures, especially members of the Hindu right, championing folk remedies or upholding ancient wisdom is thus neither new nor surprising. In recent years there have been such gems as: a BJP state chief minister claiming .. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/internet-existed-in-the-days-of-mahabharata-tripura-cm-biplab-deb/articleshow/63803490.cms .. ancient Indians used the Internet, the prime minister himself alluding .. https://www.rediff.com/news/report/modi--reliance-hospital-opening-plastic-surgeon-may-have-fixed-elephants-head-on-ganesha/20141025.htm .. to plastic surgery as the possible reason behind the god Ganesh’s elephant head on a human body, another BJP chief minister asserting .. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/cow-only-animal-that-exhales-oxygen-massaging-it-can-cure-breathing-problems-trivendra-singh-rawat-1573835-2019-07-26 .. that cows exhaled oxygen, and union ministers who have said that both cow urine .. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/health-minister-ashwini-kumar-choubey-cow-urine-used-preparing-medicines-treating-cancer-1596834-2019-09-08 .. and yoga .. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/research-shows-cancer-can-be-cured-by-yoga-shripad-naik/articleshow/51561776.cms?from=mdr .. can be used in treatments for cancer.

Insert: Is it unbelievable that such ideas could be held in 2020? Not any more.

The coronavirus has added fuel to the fire. The Ministry of AYUSH issued .. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1600895 .. a dubious advisory on Jan. 29, shortly after the spread of the virus outside China increased. It was titled “Homoeopathy for Prevention of Corona virus Infections: Unani Medicines useful in symptomatic management of Corona Virus infection” and suggested traditional remedies. A second advisory claimed .. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1600940#.XjFgr6nEzK8.twitter .. the homeopathic medicine “arsenicum album 30” could be used as a preventative prophylactic. Homeopathy is a Western-invented pseudoscience that doles out microscopic doses of treatments, and it has become vastly popular in India. It does not work .. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1800-studies-later-scientists-conclude-homeopathy-doesnt-work-180954534/ .

“Health misinformation has always been an issue, especially since the formation of AYUSH which has been officially spreading misinformation about health,” said Pratik Sinha, the co-founder and editor of Alt News, a fact-checking site, which has run pieces debunking the claims.

So far India has seen 43 confirmed cases of the virus, but no deaths. Given the country’s population density and creaking public health infrastructure, experts fear that the disease could quickly overwhelm health systems if not handled correctly.

And while the virus may be spreading unseen in India, so, more obviously, are a raft of baseless assertions.

-
And while the virus may be spreading unseen in India, so,
more obviously, are a raft of baseless assertions.
-

“It is a big challenge to identify and debunk medical misinformation,” said Nabeela Khan, deputy editor at Health Analytics Asia, a data-driven health news platform. “Even when you debunk it, it hardly reaches people because fake news travels faster … but when influencers and leaders make dubious claims, people tend to fall for it all the more easily…. It is important that politicians say things that are based on some scientific evidence and rationing.”

The government does take the coronavirus issue seriously. This week Modi announced he would skip Holi celebrations—a festival that starts on Monday and usually draws huge crowds for playful events—and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that all international passengers were being screened upon arrival. In Delhi, Rajasthan, and Hyderabad, where infected people are known to have traveled, several others have been quarantined and tested. But as Anant Bhan, a researcher in global health, bioethics, and health policy at Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, pointed out, “What the health ministry is saying and what the Ayush ministry is saying are not necessarily in conjunction.”

The dangers of disinformation and misinformation are obvious: In a developing country with high Internet connectivity and low literacy, bad information could have fatal consequences. “Whether during times of conflict or outbreaks, any irresponsible statement can have very negative implications through fanning fear-mongering and the spread of panic,” said Bhan.

With fake news and general WhatsApp virality both serious problems in India, politicians .. https://scroll.in/article/952731/amit-malviyas-fake-news-fountain-16-pieces-of-misinformation-spread-by-the-bjp-it-cell-chief .. and influencers .. https://www.boomlive.in/paresh-rawal-does-it-again-shares-photoshopped-tweet-of-rahul-gandhi-on-petrol-prices/ .. alike have been guilty of acting irresponsibly.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/09/hindu-nationalists-magical-remedies-coronavirus-bjp-india/

Dr. Jeremy Faust, of Boston's Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sees the Diamond Princess
as a decent test case for evidence as to the mortality rate of COVID-19 ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154282099 .
If the above article it close to factual the mortality rate in India may be another, even if to a lesser extent.

See also:

Three back - India anyone? Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=120994871

Biden campaign announces a public health advisory committee on the Virus
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154288407

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Analysis | What’s behind Trump’s China attacks?

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right"

Stanly Johny
May 04, 2020 18:06 IST
Updated: May 04, 2020 18:16 IST


President Donald Trump. File | Photo Credit: AP

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Mr. Trump has taken tensions between USA and China to new highs by endorsing the unproven lab theory and threatening China with punishments, which could have harsh economic consequences at a time when the global economy is in its deepest downturn in decades

President Donald Trump and his aides have stepped up attacks on China in recent weeks over the COVID-19 outbreak as the U.S. was struggling to contain the spread of the virus and the economic crisis it triggered.

Mr. Trump first called the novel coronavirus a “Chinese virus”, triggering angry responses from Beijing. Last month, he suggested the U.S. seek damages from China over the outbreak .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/us-may-seek-damages-from-china/article31457003.ece .. which began in Wuhan and spread around the world. Mr. Trump has already restricted use of Chinese electrical equipment in the U.S. grid system amid rising tensions. Some officials in the administration are prodding him to block a government pension fund from investing in Chinese companies aimed at upending capital flows into Asian giant, according to a New York Times report.

[ INSERT:Trump Pressures Federal Pension to Halt Planned Chinese Stock Purchases
By Reuters
May 12, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/05/12/business/12reuters-usa-china-investment.html ]

Moreover, Mr. Trump and his officials have linked a virology lab in Wuhan to the virus, an allegation which the U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating.

Tensions between the two countries are not new. Ties between the two were not particularly good since Mr. Trump became President. This time, amid the pandemic crisis, Mr. Trump has taken tensions to new highs by endorsing the unproven lab theory .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/coronavirus-trump-says-evidence-ties-virus-to-wuhan-lab-threatens-new-tariffs-against-beijing/article31477764.ece .. and threatening China with punishments .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/trump-warns-china-of-consequences-if-found-responsible-for-covid-19/article31380413.ece , which could have harsh economic consequences at a time when the global economy is in its deepest downturn in decades. Why is Mr. Trump doing this?

The new rival

Till early this year, the focus of Mr. Trump’s re-election team was the performance of the economy. The economy was growing, unemployment rate was low and the stock markets were rising. Mr. Trump had taken credit for the economic performance. But then the virus hit the U.S. Mr. Trump immediately had two problems in his hands. One, the U.S. is one of the hardest-hit countries by the outbreak. As of Monday, there were over 1.15 million COVID-19 infections in the U.S. and over 67,600 deaths. The Trump administration’s response to the crisis triggered widespread criticism in the U.S. that led to a slide in the President’s approval rating.

Two, the economy tanked amid the virus crisis. About 30 millions Americans have lost their jobs since mid-March. A Congressional Budget Office report forecasts that unemployment rate would average 14% this year — highest since the end of Second World War — and that the U.S. economy would shrink by 12% in the second quarter. In the first quarter, the economy shrank by 4.8%, the first contraction since 2014 and the deepest since the 2008 recession. Mr. Trump has effectively lost the bet on the economy in an election year. Faced with these challenges, he seems to have zeroed in on a new rival to mobilise his support base — China. "We are not happy with China," Mr. Trump told a White House briefing on April 28. "We are not happy with that whole situation because we believe it [the virus outbreak] could have been stopped at the source.”

Run against China

Late last month, right-leaning academic and columnist Walter Russell Mead wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Trump’s best re-election bet was to run against China. “With the economy in shambles and the pandemic ravaging the country, making the election a referendum on China is perhaps Mr. Trump’s only chance to extend his White House tenure past January 2021,” he wrote. China would soon become a political issue in the U.S. with both the Republican Party and President Trump turning Beijing into to an electoral issue.

A 57-page memo sent to campaign committees by the National Republican Senatorial Committee advised Republican candidates to address the pandemic by attacking China. It asked GOP leaders to tie Democrats to Beijing (Democrats are “soft on China”) and “push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading this pandemic”. Following the GOP memo, President Trump said on April 30 in an interview with Reuters that China “will do anything they can to have me lose this race”. He added that Beijing wanted his Democratic opponent Joe Biden to win the November election. The America First Action political committee that backs Mr. Trump has launched advertisements attacking “Beijing Biden”. They portray Mr. Biden as the representative of the establishment elite that is soft on China.

Great power rivalry

China has responded angrily to attacks from Mr. Trump and other top officials. "The H1N1 flu that broke out in the U.S. in 2009 [and] spread to 214 countries and regions, killing nearly 200,000 people; has anyone demanded the U.S. for compensation?" Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang asked last month. “AIDS was first discovered in the U.S. in the 1980s and spread to the world, causing great agony for the world, has anyone held the U.S. accountable?” The official Xinhua news agency released a one-minute-forty-six-second video on April 30 defending China’s handling of the pandemic and accusing the U.S. of ignoring its warnings.

With the election season hotting up in the U.S., the China-bashing in DC is expected to increase, which could further complicate the trade and economic ties between the world’s largest and second largest economies. What we are witnessing now could be a defining phase of the new great power rivalry.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/analysis-whats-behind-trumps-china-attacks/article31502183.ece

*

Analysis: Widening U.S.-China rift fuels Trump’s Modi outreach

Ananth Krishnan
February 25, 2020 21:17 IST
Updated: February 26, 2020 09:30 IST


US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrive for a joint news conference in New Delhi on February 25, 2020. | Photo Credit: Reuters

The new U.S. approach to China is bipartisan and likely here to
stay regardless of the outcome of November’s elections.

A tectonic shift in America’s relations with China .. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-us-strategy-only-meant-to-isolate-china/article30906007.ece .. under Donald Trump’s presidency — one that Indian officials believe is here to stay and will outlast the current U.S. President — is providing a new impetus to defence, security, trade and technological cooperation between New Delhi and Washington in the region.

The U.S.-China trade and technology war .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/us-china-tiptoe-around-holes-in-new-trade-agreement/article30573219.ece .. is the clearest manifestation of the change, and the sense in Delhi is this widening rift is neither a Trump phenomenon nor transient. The new U.S. approach to China is bipartisan and likely here to stay regardless of the outcome of November’s elections. In fact, Trump is being seen as far from the most hawkish voice on China in Washington, given his well-known proclivity for wanting to “cut a deal”.

Shared concerns about China’s rise are not new .. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/quiet-for-now-on-trade-deal-between-us-and-china/article30588863.ece , and have underpinned India’s relations with the United States .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/modi-is-a-tough-negotiator-says-trump/article30902681.ece going back to the 1950s. These concerns provided the backdrop for the landmark nuclear deal finalised during George W. Bush’s 2006 visit, as well as for the joint strategic vision unveiled during Barack Obama’s visit in 2015.

But “the dynamic has now changed in a fundamental way”, said former Indian Ambassador to China Ashok Kantha. In 2005, the U.S. and China were largely cooperative despite differences. Now, the U.S. is clearly looking at China as a strategic “competitor” and “revisionist power”, as a 2017 national security strategy put it.

This offered opportunities and challenges for India, which has carefully expanded ties with America while reluctant to upset China — a neighbour with which it shares an unresolved border. “Calibration becomes tougher as we are under greater pressure from both,” said Mr. Kantha. “My own view is the situation creates openings which we should take advantage of, rather than only think of balance.”

One such opening is the Quad Initiative with the U.S., Australia and Japan, which Mr. Trump said on Tuesday he and Prime Minister Modi were “revitalising” including through expanded cooperation .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/namaste-trump-uspresident-donald-trump-in-india-day-2-live-updates/article30910213.ece .. on maritime security “to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific”.

On Tuesday, both countries inked a $2.6-billion defence deal for 24 MH-60 Seahawk helicopters .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/donald-trump-offers-india-a-range-of-high-end-military-hardware/article30906009.ece , another indicator of growing defence ties, which have seen a logistics exchange agreement .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/three-military-logistics-support-agreements-on-the-anvil/article28734687.ece .. in 2016 to provide mutual access to designated military facilities and a communications compatibility agreement .. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-us-sign-landmark-comcasa-deal/article24881277.ece .. in 2018 to enable greater interoperability and sales of high-end technology.

“It’s no secret that Chinese submarines and warships have begun regular operations in the Indian Ocean over the past decade and this arguably provided some of the impetus behind greater joint efforts on maritime domain awareness, intelligence sharing, and naval exercises including the first-ever tri-service military exercise last December,” said Jeff Smith, South Asia scholar at the Heritage Foundation, stressing that “shared concerns about China are defensive in nature, rather than intended to produce an offensive, containment-style strategy”.

Mr. Kantha said India should do more with the Quad, starting with including Australia in the trilateral naval Exercise Malabar with the U.S. and Japan and working more closely in humanitarian and disaster relief and protecting sealines of communication. “Working on such initiatives does not mean we are looking to contain China and will in no way undermine India’s strategic autonomy,” he said, adding that India had no reason to be overly sensitive to China’s concerns, noting how China considered Indian sensitivities in its ties with Pakistan.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday highlighted regional connectivity and the Blue Dot Network .. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/spotting-an-opportunity-in-changing-fundamentals/article30487623.ece .. pushed by the U.S., Australia and Japan to promote private sector-led, sustainable and ‘trustworthy’ options for infrastructure — a veiled criticism of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Mr. Modi said India agreed with the U.S. on the importance of sustainable and transparent financing in the development of connectivity infrastructure across the world.

Hurdles, however, remain. As a January 28 study by the Centre for New American Security in Washington put it, the U.S. effort in the region remained “inconsistent, uncoordinated and under-resourced”. Convergence may be growing, but walking the talk is still a challenge.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/analysis-widening-us-china-rift-fuels-trumps-modi-outreach/article30915553.ece

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The Pandemic Is the World’s Long Overdue Reality Check

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right
"Indian protesters set fire to train stations over new law opening citizenship to some migrants
"India anyone? Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims?
Hindu nationalism is on the rise in the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population."""

Populists came to power peddling political fantasies—but the coronavirus has broken the fever.

By James Traub | July 1, 2020, 3:49 PM


President Donald Trump and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrive for a bilateral meeting during the G7 summit on Aug. 25, 2019 in Biarritz, France. Pool/Getty Images

Something may have broken—or rather, begun to break—last month when U.S. President Donald Trump held an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma in open defiance of the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic and found, to his shock and outrage, that his own supporters had failed to show up. That something is the politics of alternate reality that he and other illiberal populists have ridden to power in recent years.

It has long been understood that totalitarian leaders sustain themselves through the manipulation of reality; that, after all, is the theme of George Orwell’s 1984 and Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon. Orwell, who understood clearly the power of language to obscure rather than reveal, would hardly have been shocked to see the practice transposed to democracies, but it didn’t fully happen in his day. Perhaps it awaited the shotgun marriage of extreme polarization and social media.

Over the last few years, Trump, Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Narendra Modi in India, and others have carried out an experiment in the mass manufacture of alternative realities in a democratic society. Their success has forced a question: What reality, if any, will prove so terrible that it will expose their game? Americans have experienced a few false starts, including an impeachment trial, that have only proved that much of what transpires in political life does not reach people intimately enough to dispel the shadows. Nothing, however, is more intimate than the prospect of sickness and death.

Three of the four largest democracies run by illiberal populists—the United States, Brazil, and the U.K.—now rank one, two, and three in deaths .. https://covid19.who.int/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw0Mb3BRCaARIsAPSNGpUJTPiE--7P-VDibDLGVGxG5IDEwVrZl8b6Y-JDSL9l9ujsBzqQcPQaAsoNEALw_wcB .. from the coronavirus. (India currently lags behind but is moving up with frightening speed.) That is not a coincidence, for the leaders in each country have tried to minimize the gravity of the disease or—in Bolsonaro’s case .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/13/world/americas/virus-brazil-bolsonaro-chloroquine.html —deny it altogether. Populist leaders deny COVID-19 for the same reasons they deny climate change: first, because acknowledging a force beyond their control might break the spell of omniscience in which they have bound their followers; and second, because deference to science and logic undermines the emotional sources of their appeal. If Anthony Fauci is right, Trump must be wrong.

The overwhelming signs that the world is warming have done nothing to break the hold of the populists, perhaps because few of their followers have experienced climate change as a personal catastrophe. At first, while it chiefly affected a handful of wealthy nations and blue states in the United States, the same was true of the coronavirus. But we have entered a new phase where the disease has become ubiquitous and ill-prepared countries are paying a terrible price. The connection between state failure and death has become too obvious to ignore.

The political consequences of this dawning recognition have become clear in the last few months as populist leaders and parties have suffered a serious erosion of support. The New York Times reported last week that Trump has fallen a staggering 14 points .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/politics/trump-biden-poll-nyt-upshot-siena-college.html .. behind Joe Biden in the presidential contest as voters have spurned his response both to the pandemic and to the killing of George Floyd. Since the spring, Boris Johnson has lost 20 points .. https://www.opinium.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Opinium-Political-Report-4th-June-2020-2.pdf .. both in approval of his response to the coronavirus and in his Conservative Party’s lead over Labour. Bolsonaro’s approval rating has dropped eight points .. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poll-shows-more-brazilians-spurn-bolsonaros-covid-19-response/ar-BB13YTaH .. since the beginning of the year as virtually all Brazilians disagree with his open contempt for social distancing. Even Vladimir Putin, who pioneered the techniques of fabrication that the populists now emulate, has seen his popularity fall to the lowest levels ever .. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/05/06/putins-approval-rating-drops-to-historic-low-poll-a70199 .. as coronavirus cases have surged in Russia.

The major European right-wing parties that have thrived in recent years—first by insisting that the European Union gravely threatened national sovereignty and then by stoking apocalyptic fears over the influx of refugees and immigrants—have similarly fallen back in the wake of the pandemic, especially in countries where citizens have found the government response reassuring. A recent poll showed .. https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/lowest-support-for-germanys-far-right-afd-since-2017-poll-shows .. the Alternative for Germany party enjoying the support of only 9 percent of Germans, its worst result in two and a half years. The far-right Sweden Democrats, tied in polls .. https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/sweden .. with the ruling Social Democrats at the outbreak of the pandemic, have now fallen 11 points behind.

A poll, of course, is only a snapshot in time. Trump could still beat Biden, and Bolsonaro, as Foreign Policy recently observed .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/28/brazil-is-suffering-bolsonaro-isnt/ , still has a vast reservoir of support. The immense charisma of successful populists makes them almost immune to mistakes that would destroy a lesser figure. [They only need to be charismatic to enough voters. They don't need to win the popular vote.] But democratic leaders have, of course, a smaller margin of error than do true autocrats; they depend on good luck to hide their shortcomings. What is now clear, at least in the United States, is that for three years Trump enjoyed a charmed life in which no real crisis challenged his simple-minded answers to complicated problems; now the law of averages has caught up with him.

It is true, of course, that populists on the left can prey on widespread resentments as easily as can those on the right; dangerous leaders from the time of Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat have exploited hatred of the entitled and the rich. The rising intensity of feeling on the left implies that such a world may lie before us; it is not, however, the one we live in. When Bernie Sanders blames corporate greed for the plight of the working class, he is advancing an arguable, if perhaps hyperbolic, proposition; when Trump describes Mexican immigrants as rapists and gangsters, or peaceful protesters as violent radicals, he is inviting his listeners to enter a parallel world. Leaders on the left in the United States do not traffic in hate as do leaders on the right.

It is true as well that we will never lack for politicians prepared to peddle pernicious fictions so long as citizens have powerful motivations to embrace them. People who feel left behind by immense changes in the economy and in social values will continue to grasp for satisfying explanations of their plight; social media will presumably only get better at magnifying grievance and vindicating conspiracy theories. Nations with strong democratic institutions and widely held democratic norms manage to confine this kind of demagoguery to the margins, but those with weak institutions, like Brazil or Poland, or states where norms have lost their cohesive force, like the United States and perhaps the U.K., will continue to be prey to the politics of resentment. If Poland’s liberal secular Civic Platform defeats the ruling Law and Justice party in elections this month, millions of Poles who are neither liberal nor secular will continue to believe that a German-led EU is plotting to destroy Poland’s Catholic values and traditions. If Biden defeats Trump in November, millions of the president’s supporters will continue to regard climate change as a hoax perpetrated by left-wing scientists in league with China.

Nevertheless, leaders shape norms: Trump is a cause as well as a consequence of American derangement. For that reason, one can at least hope that a clear-cut victory for Biden based on the growing recognition that the pandemic cannot be wished away, and that a history of racism cannot be wished away, will start to dispel the noxious pollutants from our mental atmosphere.

Read More
The Coronavirus Is Exposing Populists’ Hollow Politics
As the crisis worsens, even more extreme groups may prosper.
Argument | Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Carisa Nietsche
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-populism-extremism-europe-league-italy/

In Plato’s famous allegory, prisoners chained inside a cave since childhood mistake the flickering shadows they see on the wall before them for the reality of things. When one prisoner finally escapes and brings back the news of the world of tangible things, the prisoners refuse to break their chains for fear of being blinded by the sun—they cannot bear the full light of the real. Plato had a very dim regard for the wisdom of the people and thus for the idea of popular self-government; he assumed that democracy would bring forth the likes of Trump. But democracy has the capacity to cure its own ills, and that is its saving grace.

James Traub is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy, a nonresident fellow at New York University’s Center on
International Cooperation, and author of the book What Was Liberalism? The Past, Present and Promise of A Noble Idea.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/01/trump-boris-johnson-bolsonaro-the-pandemic-is-the-worlds-long-overdue-reality-check/

h/t crossball, he prompted this post with his ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=156744872

See also:

Trump the biggest dumb ass POS out there:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=156752777

[fuagf]

Coronavirus update: India's number of coronavirus cases passes 800,000 after record daily rise

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right"

Posted 14 hours ago, updated 46 minutes ago


India's coronavirus cases have soared in the past nine days.(AP: Rajanish Kakade)

The number of coronavirus cases in India has passed 800,000, with the nation recording 27,114 infection in 24 hours.

Croatia is making wearing face masks obligatory in most closed public spaces from next week as its number of COVID-19 cases rises.

And in neighbouring Bosnia, the pandemic has prompted limited crowds at commemorations of the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide that shocked the world.

This story will be regularly updated throughout Sunday.

Sunday's key moments:

* Bollywood's Amitabh Bachchan hospitalised with coronavirus
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136#bachchan

* Global coronavirus cases pass 12.54 million
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136#Global

* Bosnia marks 25th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre amid pandemic
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136#Bosnia

* Croatia makes face masks compulsory in public indoor spaces
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136#Croatia

* Iran's president calls for ban on weddings, wakes to halt virus spread
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136#Iran

* Wife of Brazil's President daughters, negative for coronavirus
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136#Brazil

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-12/coronavirus-update-covid19-croatia-face-masks/12446136

See also:

Why US schools can't follow the example of Germany and Denmark, in charts


https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=156844603

Meanwhile

[fuagf]

Narendra Modi breaks silence over ethnic violence in Manipur after video of sexual assault on women emerges

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right
"Indian protesters set fire to train stations over new law opening citizenship to some migrants
"India anyone? Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=120994871
Hindu nationalism is on the rise in the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population. """

Related:

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.. in reply .. Far-Right Extremism Is a Global Problem
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Biden Urges Modi Not to Increase India’s Reliance on Russian Oil and Gas
April, 2022 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168520957

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"Trump, Bolsonaro, and Modi, the third major leader to downplay the covid threat.
See - Hindu Nationalists Are Pushing Magical Remedies for the Coronavirus
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Why Muslim-majority countries need secular citizenship and law-making
[...]Democratic politics, in which the people elect leaders and hold them accountable while directly participating in policy-making processes, is crucial to accomplish these conditions. Democratic politics requires two fundamental bases of the political system—citizenship and law-making—to be secular .. https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/sociology/sociology-religion/secularism-and-state-policies-toward-religion-united-states-france-and-turkey?format=PB .
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Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right
February, 2020 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154016147

Posted 3h ago , updated 1h ago


Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke more than two months of his public silence over the deadly ethnic clashes
that have marred the country's remote Manipur state.(AP: Manish Swarup)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the alleged sexual assault of women in Manipur state as "shameful", promising tough action in his first comments on ethnic clashes in the remote north-east that have killed at least 125 people.

Key points:

* Police say they have opened a case of gang rape and arrested a man

* Prime Minister Narendra Modi promises tough action over the incident

* Opposition party leader criticises Mr Modi's silence over the ethnic clashes in Manipur

A video widely shared on social media shows two women paraded naked and assaulted on a street before what townspeople on the videos say was a gang rape.

Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the videos.

Mr Modi, who had not made any public remarks about the trouble in a state ruled by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), spoke a day after the videos surfaced and sparked national outrage.

"My heart is filled with pain, it is filled with anger," Mr Modi said at the end of customary comments he makes before the start of each session of parliament.

"The incident from Manipur that has come to the fore,
it is shameful for any civil society.

"The law will take its strongest steps, with all its might. What happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven."

He urged chief ministers of all states to strengthen law enforcement.


Manipur has been reeling under a spree of killings and arson since early May. (AP: Altaf Qadri)

Deadly ethnic violence has plagued Manipur since early May .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-07/ethnic-clashes-continue-in-indias-manipur/102314078 , after a court ordered the state government to consider extending special economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education enjoyed by the tribal Kuki people to the majority Meitei population as well.

The two female victims were from the Kuki community and the men who assaulted them were part of a Meitei mob, according to the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, a tribal organisation in Manipur.

Manipur is burning. Women are raped, naked, paraded and horrific violence is taking place.

But the Prime Minister has kept quiet for so long.

Today, after so much outrage, he gave a statement outside the Parliament.

We want a detailed discussion on Manipur and PM Modi should… pic.twitter.com/oeuCxG72Az

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) July 20, 2023

The tribal organisation alleged the women had been gang raped after the mob burnt down a village where the incident occurred.

Just as Mr Modi concluded his statement, Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh tweeted that state police had made the first arrest in the case.

"A thorough investigation is currently underway and we will ensure strict action is taken against all the perpetrators, including considering the possibility of capital punishment," said Mr Singh, who has been accused by rights groups and some of his own BJP colleagues of failing to tackle the violence.

Mr Singh later told reporters that two people including the main suspect were arrested by the Manipur police.

Authorities opened a case of gang rape and were interrogating more than three dozen men.

A preliminary probe showed that the assault on the two women took place on May 4, a day after the ethnic clashes started in the state.

However, videos of them being dragged, groped and paraded naked by armed men went viral on Wednesday, police said.

India's main opposition Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge, however, accused the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of "turning democracy and the rule of law into mobocracy".

Mr Kharge said Mr Modi should speak about Manipur in parliament, a demand that has been made by other opposition parties and rights activists.

"India will never forgive your silence," he wrote on Twitter.

India's highest court said it was deeply disturbed by the images and asked the government to inform the court of the steps taken to apprehend the perpetrators and ensure such incidents were not repeated.

"In a constitutional democracy it is unacceptable," said Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud.

ABC/Reuters

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-21/modi-breaks-silence-over-ethnic-violence-in-manipur/102629288

[fuagf]

The country where 30 farmers die each day

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right
"Indian protesters set fire to train stations over new law opening citizenship to some migrants
"India anyone? Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims?
Hindu nationalism is on the rise in the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population."""

Related: B402, Krugman isn't perfect. Free trade is not free. Free trade is not fair. However Krugman does admit when he is wrong. Free trade is freer than trade was before freighters and the internet existed. Free trade is benefits some more than others. Globalization has pulled many from poverty. Very little in our world is perfect. Some individuals come across as seeming to think they themselves are, if not, close to perfect. . Below are some picked out on a "free trade" search wander. In searching for one specific one when it isn't found, still others are good to see again:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171967128

OOi: This post was prompted in watching Jawan: Extended Cut on Netflix. A very powerful
social message. Lead character a modern day Indian Robin Hood. Of course, a terrorist.
https://decider.com/2023/09/05/is-jawan-streaming-amazon-prime-video-netflix/

Opinion by Gunisha Kaur
Published 5:59 AM EDT, Thu March 17, 2022


An Indian farm worker plows a field on the outskirts of Jalandhar, in the state of Punjab, February, 2018.
SHAMMI MEHRA/AFP/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: Gunisha Kaur is a physician and human rights researcher. She is an assistant professor
at Weill Cornell Medicine, director of the Human Rights Impact Lab, and a Stephen M. Kellen
Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

MANY more links

CNN — Gazing across the pristine fields in the district of Sangrur in northern India, there was little indication families here were struggling. A nearby canal brought water to the wheat and rice crops that were the life source of the village’s farmers.

Typical for India, the edges of the canal were littered with empty plastic bags, soda cans, and dark orange pesticide containers that swirled together in a corner where the water met a bridge.

But alongside the discarded trash floated something else: a bloated body. It was the third body that had been sighted that day, locals told us.

I’ve encountered many devastating scenes like this, since I first started visiting farming families across the state of Punjab almost a decade ago. I go as part of a medical exchange program where American physicians learn how biopsychosocial factors – such as government policies, the environment or economics – impact health globally. Our group also partners with the local Baba Nanak Education Society, to gain a grassroots perspective.

In some cases, locals retrieve these bodies and return them to their families. Often, they are not recognizable and left to decompose in the river. By village consensus, the cause of death in this case was suicide. Though I’m not sure the body was ever identified.

Indian farmers forced Modi to back down on new laws. So why aren't they going home?
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/26/india/india-farmers-protest-one-year-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

During these visits, we speak to families affected by the epidemic of farmer suicides. Those left behind – parents, wives and children – share their immense grief in the wake of a death. They describe debt passed from one deceased son to another, resulting in multiple suicides in one family.

The families tell us that children, particularly girls, are pulled out of school because they can no longer afford the cost of education. Young girls show us their carefully guarded treasure of dowry goods, woven with their own hands, to decrease the ultimate financial burden on their families.

The situation for India’s more than 260 million agricultural workers is dire. Nearly 30 people in the farming sector die by suicide daily, according to the most recent figures available, typically due to overwhelming debt .. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210600615300277 . Indeed in 2020, more than 10,000 people in the agricultural sector ended their own lives, according to government data.

India’s economic backbone – its farmers and their families – is in collapse. They face crushing pressures: insurmountable debt, environmental degradation, and extreme rates of cancer linked to exposure to pesticides.

This strain is compounded by climate change and extreme weather – from ground water depletion to water shortages and crop damage due to rising temperatures .. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5565417/ – effects which have been tied to increasing suicides in India.

Farming is a notoriously economically unstable industry globally, but farmers in India find themselves buried under densely layered problems. Many are subsistence farmers who are drowning in the volatility caused by the Green Revolution .. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt .. which began in the 1960s as a way of industrializing the agriculture sector with high yielding seeds, mechanized tools and pesticides.

In some cases, farmers cannot work their land due to illness linked to the revolution’s pesticides and fertilizers. They are dealing with deep-rooted battles .. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-07-10-tm-14043-story.html .. against multinational corporations. And all the while having to take out loans each year to make the agricultural cycle possible.

And then, when farmers are unable to get loans from legitimate banks, illegal moneylenders – or loan sharks – step in, charging exorbitant interest rates and creating an inescapable debt-trap for farmers, in some instances pushing them to suicide.

The state of Punjab where we visit, is known as the breadbasket of India. While it accounts for approximately 3% of India’s arable land, it grows almost 20% of the country’s wheat and 12% of the country’s rice. It is also known as “ground zero .. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/02/971293844/indias-farmer-protests-why-are-they-so-angry ” for India’s Green Revolution. What happens in Punjab is a warning sign for the rest of the country. Over the last five years, suicides in the rural Indian State of Punjab increased by over 12 times.

The world's largest protests you've probably never heard of
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/06/opinions/india-farmer-protests-mandeep-rai-dhillon/index.html

But addressing the epidemic of farmer suicide is not just a distant policy problem. In a country of nearly 1.4 billion, where almost 60% of the population .. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/26/india/india-farmers-protest-one-year-intl-hnk-dst/index.html .. relies on agriculture for its livelihood, effectively reforming India’s agricultural sector is quite literally a matter of life and death.

A first step for India would be to acknowledge and track farmer suicides as the harbinger of trouble. While it’s clear that Indian farmers are facing obstacles that make it nearly impossible to provide for their families, what we don’t know is the magnitude of the problem.

Suicide is illegal in India, with prison time threatened for anyone who attempts or is deemed to have assisted with the act. This policy, a remnant of British colonial rule, makes it exceedingly difficult to collect accurate data.

Experts have noted for years that criminalizing suicide results in severe underreporting of its occurrence across the country. The 2017 Mental Healthcare Act attempted to limit the Indian Penal Code’s applicability and to decriminalize suicide, in the hopes of empowering people to receive mental health treatment. But critics of the law have pointed out .. https://theprint.in/judiciary/is-attempt-to-suicide-punishable-two-laws-have-opposing-views-sc-seeks-govt-response/500905/ .. that these attempts have proven ineffective for two key reasons: Section 309 on suicide remains law, and law enforcement officials continue to enforce it.

Even today, India’s suicide statistics – including official statistics on farmer suicide – are published by the National Crime Records Bureau and are based on police reports and investigations. In a culture where mental health and suicide are highly stigmatized .. https://id.elsevier.com/ACW/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.jbs.elsevierhealth.com%2Faction%2FconsumeSsoCookie%3FredirectUri%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.thelancet.com%252Faction%252FconsumeSharedSessionAction%253FI2KBRCK%253D1%2526JSESSIONID%253DaaajJFRmLXziOhDW1Tg_x%2526MAID%253Ddg1c4YIoIv04De3Ld%25252BbNTA%25253D%25253D%2526SERVER%253DWZ6myaEXBLHNN%25252BUWpfIEYQ%25253D%25253D%2526ORIGIN%253D746876737%2526RD%253DRD%2526exp%253De0wYRCLg1BAW543RoGgMSA%2525253D%2525253D%26code%3Dnull , impoverished families are disincentivized from reporting suicide to authorities because the state fails to provide families the support they need and registers their loved ones as criminals.

Once acknowledged and documented, multiple potential solutions are available. Increasing mental health services can significantly reduce suicide rates, and is another step towards a solution. ?Informal moneylenders and loan sharks must be investigated, their systems dismantled and more viable loan options provided to farmers.

Banning highly hazardous pesticides .. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30493-9/fulltext#seccestitle80 .. in farming is also a cost-effective way to prevent suicide, including across India as a whole. Indeed, India has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, with an estimated 170,000 people taking their lives each year, according to the World Health Organization.

While civil rights activists have been sounding the alarm over farmer suicides for decades, there has largely been deafening silence from the global community.

That was until February 2, 2021, when music icon Rihanna posted a tweet .. https://twitter.com/rihanna/status/1356625889602199552?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet .. heard around the world. She linked to a CNN article about the Indian government’s violent crackdown on the non-violent “farmers’ protests,” and wrote: “Why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest.” Within a day, it was already one of her most popular posts, with nearly 1 million likes. A few hours later, another tweet from climate justice activist Greta Thunberg went viral too.
Supporters of India's opposition Congress party take part in a protest rally against the central government's recent agricultural reforms, in Siliguri on February 6, 2021. (Photo by Diptendu DUTTA / AFP) (Photo by DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP via Getty Images)

Farmers across India have been protesting for months. Here's why

Just like that, the world’s attention focused on the “farmers’ protests” which by that point had already been going on for more than six months and which some had already identified as the largest protest in human history. By early December, more than 250 million people had participated in a nationwide strike, in a show of solidarity.

The protest was in response to farming laws aimed at loosening the rules around the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce that protected farmers from an unfettered free market for decades.

Some saw the legislation as a necessary move that would finally open up India’s faltering economy by giving farmers more autonomy to set their own prices and sell to private corporations directly. Others saw it as a heavy-handed move that would benefit large companies and spell doom for working class farmers.

Protesters against the farm bills flooded the streets of New Delhi, in the midst of a global pandemic and in the face of unrelenting police violence, risking their lives to make their voices heard. Indeed, 700 farmers died while calling for reforms, according to union leaders.

Now, more than a year after they first started protesting, the farmers have won their battle with the government. In late November, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that he would be repealing the farm bills that launched the farmers’ protests.

Many around the world have celebrated this decision, seeing it as grassroots victory over the commercial aspirations of the world’s largest democracy. Some also see it as a source of hope for non-violent, democratic protest in a moment where many are investing in social justice efforts but also losing confidence in them.

While there is much to celebrate, those who know the plight of Indian farmers more intimately understand that India’s decision to repeal the laws is not the end of the struggle – but rather, just the beginning.

India needs far more than agricultural reform. Officials can begin by destigmatizing and decriminalizing suicide, by sincerely committing to collecting accurate data on suicide attempt and mortality, and by devoting resources to support the mental health needs of India’s farmers and their families. Because right now, many Indian farmers are killing themselves to put food on the nation’s tables.

How to get help: AASRA’s Suicide Prevention Helpline Directory provides contact information for crisis centers across India. A worldwide directory of resources and international hotlines is also provided by the International Association for Suicide Prevention. You can also turn to Befrienders Worldwide.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/17/opinions/india-farmer-suicide-agriculture-reform-kaur/index.html

[fuagf]

Delhi chief minister to be held for six days after arrest on corruption charges

"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right
"Indian protesters set fire to train stations over new law opening citizenship to some migrants
"India anyone? Is Modi’s India Safe for Muslims?
Hindu nationalism is on the rise in the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population."""

Judge says Arvind Kejriwal can be held until next Thursday, as his party’s leaders condemn accusations as politically motivated

Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi
Sat 23 Mar 2024 03.54 AEDT
Last modified on Sat 23 Mar 2024 05.23 AEDT


Arvind Kejriwal is the top elected official for the Indian capital. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP

An Indian court has ruled that Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, will be kept in custody for six days after his dramatic arrest on corruption charges .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/21/opposition-leader-arvind-kejriwal-arrested-in-india .

Kejriwal, the top elected official for the Indian capital, was taken in by police on Thursday night as part of an investigation into an alleged scam involving kickbacks for alcohol licensing deals.

It was the first time a sitting chief minister has been arrested. Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi party (AAP) came to power in the city in 2015 on the back of an anti-corruption movement, and had repeatedly come into the crosshairs of the national government, which has increasingly shown itself intolerant of dissent.

Senior AAP leaders condemned the charges against Kejriwal as fabricated and politically motivated, accusing the government of targeting the opposition parties before the national election beginning on 19 April.

Indian opposition claim ‘conspiracy’ as Delhi chief minister arrested
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/21/opposition-leader-arvind-kejriwal-arrested-in-india

The AAP is part of a coalition of 27 parties who have united to fight against the prime minster, Narendra Modi, and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government in the election under the acronym INDIA.

“This is a clear conspiracy to stop Kejriwal from taking part in the upcoming polls,” said the AAP minister Kailash Gahlot.

The agency that detained Kejriwal is under central government control. Government critics say it is one of several agencies that have been weaponised against the BJP’s political opposition.

In the court hearing on Friday, investigators described Kejriwal as the “kingpin” and “key conspirator” in the case known as the Delhi .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/delhi .. liquor scam, and sought to detain him for up to 10 days to determine the money trail. The judge granted them custody until 28 March, when Kejriwal will be brought back before the court.

Party leaders vowed that Kejriwal would remain as chief minister and would continue to govern behind bars. Speaking before his court appearance in Delhi, Kejriwal said: “Whether I stay in jail, or outside, my life will be dedicated to serving the nation.”

Kejriwal’s deputy minister, Manish Sisodia, has already spent a year in prison in the same case. Opposition party leaders have also been interrogated, arrested and jailed over the past year in other cases, including Rahul Gandhi, the former leader of the opposition Congress party, who was jailed in a defamation case.

Kejriwal’s party has announced it would be holding protests in the capital over the next four days against his detention. On Friday, several AAP leaders were picked up and detained by police after demonstrating in the capital.

The arrest of Kejriwal came on the same day that the Congress party, also part of the INDIA coalition, claimed that the BJP had frozen its accounts in a “trumped up” tax case from more than two decades ago, preventing it from being able to campaign.

Around $20m (£16m) belonging to Congress has been frozen by the income tax department, the party said. The Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi, described this as a “systematic effort to cripple the party financially”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/delhi-chief-minister-to-be-held-for-six-days-after-arrest-on-corruption-charges