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The fourth phase of India's seven-phase elections are underway, with people headed to vote in 96 constituencies across 10 states and union territories. Rising temperatures could affect an already low voter turnout.
In the first election after the state of Jammu & Kashmir lost its semi-autonomous status, voters are expected to express their displeasure over the state of affairs. "What we're telling voters now is that you have to make your voice heard," said former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who has campaigned for restoration of Article 370 which gave Kashmir its special status. The Modi government has maintained that the peace and security situation has improved in the Muslim-majority state. But experts say the move was unpopular. Political analyst and historian Sidiq Wahid told AFP news agency that Kashmiris saw the vote as a "referendum" on Modi's policies. This is an important phase for Modi's BJP as some of its strongholds like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are set to vote. Most polls say the BJP led by Modi is set for victory. Bihar and Maharashtra are crucial states as well, where the BJP rules in coalition with regional parties. Modi spoke at a rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur, thanking constituents for their support. Voters in Bihar's Samastipur city told AP news agency that their main concerns were rising food prices, unemployment and economic development. Asaduddin Owaisi, a politician in the southern city of Hyderabad said Modi's divisive politics could cost him votes. "An individual cannot be bigger than the country. So, Modi is not the country, a country is way bigger than any politician," he said. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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Uttar Pradesh resident Nikhil Yadav, 25, is unimpressed with the talk from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) about the government ushering in speedy economic growth. It has not brought him and his college mates the one thing they desire most – jobs.“ Only two out of around 150 of my batch mates have found employment. Out of that, one has been recruited as an Agni Veer, which means he will be out of a job after four years,” Yadav said, referring to a new government programme to promote nationalism and skill building through a tour of duty in the military. As voting began on Tuesday in the third out of seven phases in India’s ongoing national election, one burning question facing voters is whether the higher economic growth achieved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is translating into better livelihoods for young people. Over 40 per cent of India’s population is under the age of 25. That huge pool of young people should be a competitive advantage for India – the fastest growing major economy in the world – especially when compared to the rapidly ageing populations of many Western countries as well as Asian competitors like China and Japan. But across a number of interviews with residents of Uttar Pradesh – the state that accounts for the most seats in parliament’s lower house – This Week in Asia found that much of the public is worried about a lack of job opportunities and rising prices. While the government has undertaken a number of initiatives to speed up the country’s development – including the building of expressways, the launch of high speed trains and the introduction of fiscal incentives for manufacturing – industries in many outlying areas continue to lag, despite buzz about India becoming the next factory to the world after China. Uttar Pradesh has typically lagged its more prosperous counterparts such as Tamil Nadu in the south and Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west, but residents have seen major infrastructure improvements since the BJP came to power a decade ago, including a network of new highways and a steady electricity supply. Yet many said they still struggle to make ends meet due to a lack of high income job opportunities and higher living costs.
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President Joe Biden has claimed that US allies India and Japan are ‘xenophobic’ countries because they don’t welcome immigrants, and that this is why their economies are struggling. He also accused Russia and China of having the same insular policies.
The 81-year-old president and second-term hopeful was speaking at a campaign fundraising event in Washington on Wednesday, at which he claimed that the US economy is growing thanks to its immigration policy. “One of the reasons why our economy is growing is […] because we welcome immigrants. […] Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,” Biden said, according to a speech transcript published on the White House webpage on Thursday. The White House has since tried to downplay the president’s remarks, saying that Biden meant no offense to either Japan or India. National security adviser John Kirby said the president had been making a wider point on US immigration policy. Wednesday’s remarks by the campaigning president came just three weeks after the White House hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on an official visit. At the time Biden said the two countries had an “unbreakable alliance,” particularly on global security matters. Biden is facing political pressure at home over an influx of migrants along the US border with Mexico. Critics argue that his immigration policies have led to chaos at the southern border, have enabled record flows of illegal migrants, including suspected terrorists, and have caused increased drug trafficking. Business Insider reported last month that the American economy could face stagflation as growth has been much weaker than expected. It revealed that US GDP increased at an annualized rate of only 1.6% in the first quarter of the current year, well behind projections of 2.5%. Japan, India and China have relatively few foreign workers. Russia, however, relies on migrant labor, much of which is sourced from Central Asian countries. India, meanwhile, has experienced steady growth to become the world’s fifth-largest economy last year. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has raised the country’s GDP forecast from 6.7% to 7% for the current fiscal year. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has upgraded its growth estimate for Russia, expecting the country’s GDP to expand by 3.2% this year, up from its January projection of 2.6%. Its latest projections put Russia ahead of a number of major Western economies in terms of growth this year, including the US (2.7%), UK (0.5%), and Germany (0.2%). Japan’s economy saw an overall growth of 1.9% last year. However, in the October to December quarter of last year it contracted 0.4%. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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Many countries in South and Southeast Asia have been experiencing extreme heat for days. 45 degrees were measured in Thailand, Myanmar and India and in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, the perceived temperature also reached that height. The end of the heat wave does not yet appear in sight, which is why schools in the Philippines will remain closed for the next two days. In Thailand, where the heat has already claimed 30 lives this year, authorities are warning of "serious conditions". In the north of the country, a temperature of 45 degrees was measured for the first time in history last week. It is also well above 40 degrees in Cambodia, Myanmar and Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, schools were closed for a number of days due to the heat, but they will reopen tomorrow. The heat is expected to last for a few more days. Cooler temperatures are expected in the region again in the coming month. Fewer Indians go to the polls The heat also appears to have affected the first round of voting in India's national elections, which was held last week. Turnout in the world's largest democracy was remarkably low: 4 percentage points lower compared to the first election phase in 2019. That is almost 8 million people. According to scientists from the international research group World Weather Attribution (WWA), extreme heat waves on the South Asian subcontinent will become thirty times more likely in the future due to climate change. The Dutch may also notice something from the heat wave here, but in their wallets. Due to previous droughts and other weather extremes, part of the rice harvests failed last year in Indonesia, Thailand and India. Because those countries account for a large part of global rice products, prices for rice rose worldwide. There is also the fear that the harvest of various products will be affected by the heat wave, as a result of which the prices of those products will rise in many places in the world
Ten monthly records in a row 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded worldwide and experts say there is a good chance that that record will only stay in the books for one year. Since June last year, every month has been warmer than ever measured, good for ten monthly records in a row. In addition to climate change, the high temperatures are also caused by the weather phenomenon El Niño. This occurs when the surface temperature of the water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator is warmer than average. In the tropics this can lead to extreme weather. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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WhatsApp threatens to exit India4/27/2024 Messaging service WhatsApp, owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, has challenged Indian laws that would compel it to break user encryption in special cases.
Petitioning at the Delhi High Court on Thursday, the company demanded that a local IT law be declared “unconstitutional,” and that there should be no criminal liability for non-compliance. Lawyers representing WhatsApp claimed that the platform would quit India if it were “told to break encryption,” local media reported. The High Court was hearing petitions by WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook (now Meta), which are challenging IT rules enacted in 2021 for social media intermediaries. The law requires the messaging app to trace chats and make provisions to identify the “first originator of information” if ordered to do so by a court or a competent authority. “We will have to keep a complete chain, and we don’t know which messages will be asked to be decrypted,” WhatsApp lawyer Tejas Karia was quoted as saying by India Today. Millions of messages will have to be stored for years to comply with the rule, he added, arguing that the requirements are unique anywhere in the world. The court argued that “privacy rights” are not absolute and that “balance has to be done.” Several pleas challenging the IT law are pending before high courts across India. Information could be sought from the messaging app for offenses related to national security, public order, or those related to rape, sexually explicit material, or child sexual abuse material – each punishable with a jail term of five years, according to Indian media reports. WhatsApp has 535.8 million users in India, the largest number of any country, according to data for 2024 from tracking website Statista. The number is rising at a rate of 16.6% every year. The Economic Times estimated the platform’s revenues in the county at close to $1 billion. “India (is) a country that’s at the forefront... You’re leading the world in terms of how people and businesses have embraced messaging,” Zuckerberg said in a virtual address at Meta’s annual event in Mumbai last year, according to the media outlet. WhatsApp’s legal battle is playing out against the backdrop of harsher laws imposed by New Delhi against AI-generated deepfakes and other social media threats. Earlier this year, India vowed to hold big tech accountable for misleading content on their platforms, warning of potential punishments for any failure to remove such content in a timely manner. Another controversy erupted in February when Google’s new ‘Gemini’ chatbot appeared to link Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with ‘fascism’. New Delhi later issued an advisory requiring “significant” tech firms to obtain government permission before launching new models. The directive, however, was rolled back after criticism from India and abroad. Meanwhile, AI has also been accused of playing an adversarial role in the ongoing Indian general election, with morphed videos of Bollywood film stars circulated on social media to mislead voters. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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