India starts voting in the world’s largest election as Modi seeks third term as PM

India starts voting in the world’s largest election as Modi seeks third term as PM
People arrive to cast their votes at a polling station during the first phase of general election, in Alipurduar district in the eastern state of West Bengal, India on April 19, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 19 April 2024
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India starts voting in the world’s largest election as Modi seeks third term as PM

India starts voting in the world’s largest election as Modi seeks third term as PM
  • Nearly 970 million voters will elect 543 members to lower house of Parliament 
  • The staggered elections will run until June 1, votes will be counted on June 4

NEW DELHI: Millions of Indians began voting Friday in a six-week election that’s a referendum on Narendra Modi, the populist prime minister who has championed an assertive brand of Hindu nationalist politics and is seeking a rare third term as the country’s leader.
The voters began queuing up at polling stations hours before they were allowed in at 7 a.m. in the first 21 states to hold votes, from the Himalayan mountains to the tropical Andaman Islands. Nearly 970 million voters — more than 10 percent of the world’s population — will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament for five years during the staggered elections that run until June 1. The votes will be counted on June 4.
One voter said she came early to avoid the summer heat later in the day.
Prime Minister Modi urged people to vote in record numbers. “I particularly call upon the young and first-time voters to vote in large numbers. After all, every vote counts and every voice matters!” he said in a message on the social media platform X.
This election is seen as one of the most consequential in India’s history and will test the limits of Modi’s political dominance.
If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term, after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.
Most polls predict a win for Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who are up against a broad opposition alliance led by the Indian National Congress and powerful regional parties.
It’s not clear who will lead India if the opposition alliance, called INDIA, wins the election. Its more than 20 parties have not put forward a candidate, saying they will choose one after the results are known.
The BJP is facing the toughest challenge in southern Tamil Nadu state with 39 seats where the voting is being held on Friday. The BJP drew a blank in 2019 and won one seat in the 2014 elections with the region dominated by two powerful regional groups, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Modi focussed on the state this time and visited it more than a dozen times, holding several rallies and roadshows.
P. Chidambaram, an opposition Congress party leader and the country’s former finance minister, said after voting in Tamil Nadu state that people would not vote for the BJP in the state as “It is imposing one language, one culture, one system and one kind of food.”
The voting also is taking place in the northeastern state of Manipur that was ravaged by a near-civil war for a year caused by fighting between the majority Meitei and tribal Kuki-Zo people. Mobs have rampaged through villages and torched houses.
The election authority has set up voting stations for nearly 320 relief camps where more than 59,000 men, women and children are living. The state stands divided between a valley controlled by the Meiteis and the Kuki-dominated hills.
More than 150 people were killed and over 60,000 displaced. The voting for two seats will be completed on April 26.
In the 2019 elections, the BJP and its allies had won 39 of 102 seats where the voting is taking place on Friday. These include Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and West Bengal states.
The election comes after a decade of Modi’s leadership, during which the BJP has consolidated power through a combination of Hindu-first politics and economic development.
Modi has ratcheted up Hindu nationalist rhetoric on the campaign trail, and has sought to present himself as a global leader. His ministers tout him as the steward of a surging India, while his supporters celebrate his campaign promise to make India a developed nation by 2047, when it marks 100 years of independence.
But while India’s economy is among the world’s fastest-growing, many of its people face growing economic distress. The opposition alliance is hoping to tap into this, seeking to galvanize voters on issues like high unemployment, inflation, corruption and low agricultural prices that have driven two years of farmers’ protests.
Critics warn that Modi has turned increasingly illiberal and that he could use a third term to undermine India’s democracy. His Hindu nationalist politics, they argue, has bred intolerance and threatens the country’s secular roots.
The alliance has promised to arrest the democratic slide it says India has witnessed under Modi’s rule. They accuse Modi of sidelining elected ministers in favor of trusted bureaucrats and using tax authorities and the police to harass critics and opposition parties.
“Modi has a very authoritarian mindset. He doesn’t believe in democracy. He doesn’t believe in Parliamentarianism,” said Christophe Jaffrelot, who has written about Modi and the Hindu right.
Modi insists that India’s commitment to democracy is unchanged. He told a Summit for Democracy meeting in New Delhi in March that ‘“India is not only fulfilling the aspirations of its 1.4 billion people, but is also providing hope to the world that democracy delivers and empowers.’’
The Indian leader enjoys vast popularity among India’s 1.4 billion people. His BJP dominates in Hindi-speaking northern and central parts of India, and is now trying to gain a foothold in the east and south to capture a two-thirds majority. Modi and other BJP candidates have repeatedly vowed to take at least 400 seats.
The party hopes for a landslide win powered by its popular welfare programs, which it says have improved access to clean toilets, health care and cooking gas, as well as providing free grain to the poor. Moves like the construction of a controversial temple to Ram on the site of a demolished mosque, and the scrapping of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir’s former autonomy, may resonate with supporters who hail him as the champion of the Hindu majority.
“Any party that comes back for a third term, and with a brute majority, is a scary prospect for democracy,” said Arati Jerath, a political commentator.
Modi’s two terms have seen civil liberties in India come under attack and it implementing what critics say are discriminatory policies. Peaceful protests have been crushed with force. A once free and diverse press is threatened, violence is on the rise against the Muslim minority, and government agencies have arrested opposition politicians in alleged corruption cases.
The BJP has denied its policies are discriminatory and says its work benefits all Indians.


Pentagon says will cut civilian workforce by at least 5 percent

Pentagon says will cut civilian workforce by at least 5 percent
Updated 15 sec ago
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Pentagon says will cut civilian workforce by at least 5 percent

Pentagon says will cut civilian workforce by at least 5 percent

WASHINGTON: The Defense Department said Friday that it’s cutting 5,400 probationary workers starting next week and will put a hiring freeze in place.
It comes after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, were at the Pentagon earlier in the week and received lists of such employees, US officials said. They said those lists did not include uniformed military personnel, who are exempt. Probationary employees are generally those on the job for less than a year and who have yet to gain civil service protection.
“We anticipate reducing the Department’s civilian workforce by 5-8 percent to produce efficiencies and refocus the Department on the President’s priorities and restoring readiness in the force,” Darin Selnick, who is acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a statement.
Probationary employees are generally those on the job for less than a year and who have yet to gain civil service protection.
President Donald Trump’s administration is firing thousands of federal workers who have fewer civil service protections. For example, roughly 2,000 employees were cut from the US Forest Service, and an 7,000 people are expected to be let go at the Internal Revenue Service.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has supported cuts, posting on X last week that the Pentagon needs “to cut the fat (HQ) and grow the muscle (warfighters.)”
The Defense Department is the largest government agency, with the Government Accountability Office finding in 2023 that it had more than 700,000 full-time civilian workers.
Hegseth also has directed the military services to identify $50 billion in programs that could be cut next year to redirect those savings to fund Trump’s priorities. It represents about 8 percent of the military’s budget.


Zelensky: Ukraine, US working on economic deal to ensure it works

Zelensky: Ukraine, US working on economic deal to ensure it works
Updated 13 min 7 sec ago
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Zelensky: Ukraine, US working on economic deal to ensure it works

Zelensky: Ukraine, US working on economic deal to ensure it works
  • Zelensky became involved in barbed exchanges with Trump this week over approaches to a peace settlement

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that officials from his country and the US were working on concluding an economic deal to ensure that the accord worked and was fair to Kyiv.
In Washington, US President Donald Trump said negotiators were close to clinching an accord.
Zelensky rejected an initial proposal focusing on cooperation around metals, saying it was “not a serious conversation” and not in Ukraine’s interests.
“Today, the teams of Ukraine and the United States are working on a draft agreement between our governments,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
“This agreement has the potential to strengthen our relations and, most importantly, the details must be arranged in such a way that ensures it works. I am hoping for a result, a fair result.”
Zelensky’s comments followed a conversation between his chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, and US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. The Ukrainian president’s office said the two men discussed “aligning positions” in bilateral relations.
Yermak “stressed the importance of maintaining bilateral cooperation and a high level of relations between Ukraine and the United States,” according to the president’s office.
Waltz said on Friday he expected Zelensky to sign the minerals agreement with the US as part of efforts to end the Ukraine war.
“Here’s the bottom line, President Zelensky is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term,” Waltz told the Conservative Political Action Conference on the outskirts of Washington.
Zelensky rejected US demands for $500 billion in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the US had supplied nowhere near that sum.
He also said the proposed deal offered none of the security guarantees that Ukraine is seeking as part of a peace settlement.
Zelensky became involved in barbed exchanges with Trump this week over approaches to a peace settlement and the opening of US-Russian talks to which Ukraine was not invited.
Trump branded the Ukrainian leader “a dictator without elections,” a reference to Zelensky remaining in office beyond his mandate without calling a wartime election.
In his address, Zelensky provided details of telephone calls he made to European and African leaders — including Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovenia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden.
“The main conclusion is that Europe must and can do considerably more so that peace can realistically be achieved,” he said.


Trump says he will impose retaliatory tariffs for digital taxes, may come Friday

Trump says he will impose retaliatory tariffs for digital taxes, may come Friday
Updated 17 min 9 sec ago
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Trump says he will impose retaliatory tariffs for digital taxes, may come Friday

Trump says he will impose retaliatory tariffs for digital taxes, may come Friday
  • Digital service taxes a longstanding trade irritant for US
  • Countries including France, Canada, UK have DSTs

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would sign a memorandum to impose tariffs on countries that levy digital service taxes on US technology companies.
A White House official, providing details of the order, said Trump was directing his administration to consider responsive actions like tariffs “to combat the digital service taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies.”
“President Trump will not allow foreign governments to appropriate America’s tax base for their own benefit,” the official said.
The memo directs the US Trade Representative’s office to renew digital service taxes investigations that were initiated during Trump’s first term, and investigate any additional countries that use a digital tax “to discriminate against US companies,” the official said.
Trump, asked at the White House if he would sign a tariff order on digital taxes, told reporters: “We are going to be doing that, digital. What they’re doing to us in other countries is terrible with digital, so we’re going to be announcing that, maybe today.”
Trump said last week that he would impose tariffs on Canada and France over their digital services taxes, and a White House fact sheet released at the time said that “only America should be allowed to tax American firms.”
It complained that Canada and France used the taxes to each collect over $500 million per year from US companies.
“Overall, these non-reciprocal taxes cost America’s firms over $2 billion per year. Reciprocal tariffs will bring back fairness and prosperity to the distorted international trade system and stop Americans from being taken advantage of,” said the fact sheet. It gave no further details.
The digital service taxes aimed at US tech giants including Alphabet’s Google, Meta’s Facebook, Apple and Amazon have been a source of trade disputes for years.
Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Turkiye, India, Austria and Canada have imposed the taxes, levied on revenues earned from digital services sold within their borders.
The US Trade Representative’s office during Trump’s first term found them to discriminate against US companies in its investigations and readied retaliatory tariffs.
President Joe Biden’s trade chief, Katherine Tai, in 2021 followed up on these probes and announced 25 percent tariffs on over $2 billion worth of imports from six countries, but immediately suspended them to allow negotiations on a global tax deal to continue.
Those negotiations led to a 15 percent global corporate minimum tax that the US Congress never ratified. Talks on a second component, meant to create an alternative to the digital taxes, have largely ground to a halt with no agreement.
Trump on his first day in office effectively pulled the US out of the global tax arrangement with nearly 140 countries, declaring that the 15 percent global minimum tax has “no force or effect in the United States” and ordering the US Treasury to prepare options for “protective measures.”
A new Trump order could allow USTR’S retaliatory duties to be reactivated. They were designed to offset the amount of digital service taxes collected.
In 2021 USTR said it would impose 25 percent tariffs on about $887 million worth of goods from Britain, including clothing, footwear and cosmetics, and on about $386 million worth of goods from Italy, including clothing, handbags and optical lenses.
USTR said at the time it would impose tariffs on goods worth $323 million from Spain, $310 million from Turkiye, $118 million from India and $65 million from Austria. USTR separately suspended tariffs on $1.3 billion worth of French cosmetics, handbags and other goods.


Trump administration reverses its previous decision and reinstates legal aid for migrant children

Trump administration reverses its previous decision and reinstates legal aid for migrant children
Updated 27 min 7 sec ago
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Trump administration reverses its previous decision and reinstates legal aid for migrant children

Trump administration reverses its previous decision and reinstates legal aid for migrant children
  • The Acacia Center for Justice said that they received notice from the government of the reversal

MIAMI: Days after telling legal groups who help migrant children who arrive in America alone — some so young they are in diapers or their feet dangle from their chairs in court — that they must stop their work, the federal government Friday reversed itself.
The Trump administration told the groups that they can resume providing legal services to tens of thousands of unaccompanied children. The Acacia Center for Justice said that they received notice from the government of the reversal.
The notice came after the government on Tuesday suspended the program that provides legal representation to children who have arrived in the United States across the border with Mexico without parents or legal guardians. Several organizations that offer assistance to migrant children had criticized the measure and said at the time that the minors were at risk.
The $200 million contract allows Acacia and its subcontractors to provide legal representation to about 26,000 children and legal education to another 100,000 more.
The Friday notice from the United States Department of Interior obtained by The Associated Press does not explain the Trump administration decision to reinstate the program. I states that it “cancels” the order to halt legal services to migrant children.
“Acacia Center for Justice may resume all activities,” the short notice says.
Shaina Aber, executive director of Acacia said that they will continue to work with the government “to ensure that these critical services upholding the basic due process rights of vulnerable children are fully restored” and their partners can resume their work.
She warned, however, that this is a “critical moment to ensure that no child is forced to navigate” the immigration system alone.
Acacia said that in less than 48 hours, members of the public sent more than 15,000 letters to the Congress demanding the resumption of the program.
The program is funded by a five-year contract, but the government can decide at the end of each year if it renews it or not. The deadline for this year’s decision is in March.
Michael Lukens, the executive director of Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, one of the subcontractors, said that despite the reversal he is still concerned.
“I’m very concerned because the attack on children is unprecedented and to even begin that is troubling,” Lukens said. He said if the stop-work order had remained in place, it would have left kids across the country without due process or protection.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008 created special protections for children who arrive alone in the US The law said the government should facilitate legal representation for the children put into deportation proceedings, though it did not mandate every child have a lawyer.
Unaccompanied children under the age of 18 can request asylum, juvenile immigration status, or visas for victims of sexual exploitation.
Some of the organizations that provide legal representation said the decision to restore funds ensures the continuation of vital protections for vulnerable children.
“We urge the administration to stay this course by exercising the remaining year services under this existing contract,” said Wendy Young, president of the Kids in Need of Defense, one of the organizations that assists migrant children.


FBI to transfer 1,500 staffers out of Washington headquarters, two sources say

FBI to transfer 1,500 staffers out of Washington headquarters, two sources say
Updated 32 min 16 sec ago
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FBI to transfer 1,500 staffers out of Washington headquarters, two sources say

FBI to transfer 1,500 staffers out of Washington headquarters, two sources say
  • FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn into his new role on Friday

WASHINGTON: The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday ordered the transfer of 1,500 staffers out of its Washington headquarters, two sources familiar with the orders told Reuters.
Some 1,000 of the staffers would be dispersed to field offices around the country, with another 500 ordered to transfer to Huntsville, Alabama, the sources said, adding that the news was conveyed to employees at a Friday meeting.
An FBI spokesperson did not have immediate comment.
The bureau had 9,414 employees in Washington as of June 2024, with 37,478 nationwide, according to figures kept by the federal government. FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn into his new role on Friday, the day after the Senate confirmed him as US President Donald Trump’s choice in a 51-49 vote with two Republicans voting no, expressing concern about Patel’s past political advocacy and its potential effect on the FBI’s law enforcement mission.
“I promise you the following: there will be accountability within the FBI and outside of the FBI, and we will do it through rigorous constitutional oversight starting this weekend,” Patel said after being sworn in. Patel takes charge as the Trump administration seeks to put their stamp on the FBI and its parent agency, the Justice Department, challenging decades-old traditions of independence and reorienting its mission toward Trump’s core priorities.
At least 75 career Justice Department lawyers and FBI officials, who normally keep their roles from administration to administration, have either resigned, been fired or stripped of their posts in the first month of the Trump administration.
Patel telegraphed his plans for the shakeup in his book “Government Gangsters,” where he proposed moving the FBI’s headquarters out of Washington D.C. to prevent “institutional capture and curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship.”
Patel has said he will increase the FBI’s role in countering illegal immigration and violent crime, top Trump priorities, by “letting good cops be cops.” He has said he will scale back investigative work at the FBI’s Washington headquarters where many counterintelligence, national security and public corruption probes are housed.
The FBI has an office in Huntsville, Alabama at Redstone Arsenal, a US Army post that also houses Department of Defense and NASA offices.
Patel has been among the biggest boosters of claims that a “deep state” within the government has pursued Trump in an attempt to sink his political prospects.