"Upstart party leads vote in India" by Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press February 08, 2015
NEW DELHI — A slew of exit polls Saturday predicted an outright victory for an upstart anticorruption party in elections to install a state government in India’s capital, a potentially huge blow for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was set to come in second place behind the Aam Aadmi Party, the polls suggested.
Final results are expected Tuesday, and if the four exit polls are accurate, it would be a major disappointment for Modi and his party, who have been on a winning streak since sweeping national elections in May. In the past, some exit polls have proved to be unreliable in India.
Pffft!
The fix is in.
The BJP fielded Kiran Bedi, India’s first high-ranking female police officer, as its candidate for New Delhi’s top post. She faced Arvind Kejriwal, a former income tax official turned popular anticorruption activist.
Bedi was once a key Kejriwal ally and at the forefront of his anticorruption movement. She later left and joined the BJP in January.
Saturday’s election was viewed as the first tough political battle that Modi and the BJP have faced since coming to power.
The party’s success is largely attributed to Modi’s personal charisma and popularity and his key election promise to lift Asia’s third-largest economy from its slump.
India is in a slump?
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Kejriwal’s Common Man’s Party was formed on the back of hugely popular street protests that galvanized India’s middle class against the culture of corruption that is endemic in this nation of 1.2 billion.
Related: Corruption is Good
Their detractors said Kejriwal and his party quit because they were eager to parlay their initial success into nationwide prominence.
The party won only four seats in India’s 543-member lower house of Parliament, and Kejriwal himself ran against Modi and lost badly.
But the party appears to have regained lost ground in the capital.
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"India’s Aam Aadmi Party sweeps elections in Delhi" New York Times February 11, 2015
NEW DELHI — Less than a year after Narendra Modi won a historic victory to become India’s prime minister, his governing party lost badly in local elections to a young political organization led by an anticorruption crusader.
The Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man Party, won 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly, far more than surveys or even the most enthusiastic of the party’s supporters had predicted.
The vote must have been unanimous!
Aam Aadmi is led by Arvind Kejriwal, a former tax examiner who rose to fame as a campaigner against graft and refashioned himself into a defender of this city’s lowest social strata.
Kejriwal briefly served as Delhi’s chief minister a year ago, but he resigned after just 49 days.
His 70-point manifesto promising to improve the lives of Delhi’s vast underclass — through a crackdown on corruption, as well as by providing cheaper electricity, free water, and more accessible schools — resonated strongly across the sprawling capital region in the voting held Saturday.
It always does anywhere.
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And what do governing elites do with unwanted movements and protests?
"Christian protesters detained in India" Associated Press February 06, 2015
NEW DELHI — Police in India’s capital detained hundreds of Christian protesters Thursday as they prepared to march to the home minister’s residence to demand that the government investigate recent attacks against churches.
The protest came after a fire of undetermined origin gutted a church in New Delhi and the vandalization of several other churches over the past two months. The protesters blame the attacks on Hindu hard-liners.
Carrying placards that read ‘‘Enough is enough, what are police doing?’’ the protesters assembled outside the city’s main Sacred Heart Cathedral, where they were dragged into buses and taken to a police station. Several priests and nuns were among those detained.
They were expected to be released soon.
Police said the protesters were detained because demonstrations were banned in the neighborhood where Home Minister Rajnath Singh lives.
‘‘The protesters have no permission to protest on the road. They can’t just march to the home minister’s residence. We have to protect the homes of VIPs,’’ senior police officer Mukesh Kumar Meena told New Delhi Television network.
Church leaders have expressed disappointment that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not spoken out against the attacks.
Christians make up about 2.3 percent of India’s population of 1.26 billion. They say attacks on churches have increased since Modi’s Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party won national elections in May.
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Related: Police rescue hundreds of child workers in southern India
The printed Globe gave me the photograph.
UPDATE: Building collapse in India kills 13
That did not make my print today.
NDU:
"India’s Modi talking with newly elected Sri Lankan president" by Nirmala George, Associated Press February 17, 2015
NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena, held wide-ranging talks Monday and the South Asian neighbors signed an agreement under which the countries will share information and Sri Lanka will receive training for its civilian nuclear program.
Iran has to be looking at that and saying....
Modi and Sirisena are seeking to strengthen strategic ties, increase trade, and resolve longstanding issues between their nations.
This was Sirisena’s first foreign visit as president, and Indian officials said it indicated the easing of tensions that had crept into the relationship as China made forays into what New Delhi considers its strategic backyard.
Modi said the security and prosperity of the two countries was indivisible and they were committed to unlock the potential of their economic cooperation, citing a nuclear agreement that was signed.
‘‘The bilateral agreement on civil nuclear cooperation is yet another demonstration of our mutual trust,’’ Modi told journalists soon after his talks with the Sri Lankan leader.
Indian Ocean shipping routes secured.
The nuclear agreement would allow India and Sri Lanka to share expertise on the management of radioactive waste, nuclear disaster mitigation, and environmental protection, officials said. It would also allow the training of Sri Lankans in the use of radioisotopes, nuclear and radiation safety, and nuclear security.
Sri Lankan lawmakers have raised concerns about the safety of India’s Russian-built nuclear power plants in Tamil Nadu state, near Sri Lanka.
The talks between Modi and Sirisena appeared to have put relations between the neighbors back on track, with both leaders agreeing to resolve many of their concerns.
Over the past decade, India has watched with worry as China pumped billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka. Last year, President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to visit Sri Lanka in 28 years as he courted Colombo’s support for a maritime trade route. Sri Lanka also irked New Delhi by allowing two Chinese submarines to dock along its coastline.
See what I'm saying with my commentaries? It's always about the agenda, always pushing war, in my altrui$tic ba$tion of corporate liberali$m called a morning paper.
After the stunning defeat of his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksha in general elections last month, Sirisena has tried to restore a balance between the two Asian giants. He plans a visit to China soon.
I'm not going to preach to you, but it looks like the new Sri Lankan guy is covering all bases.
At the talks, Modi and Sirisena decided on a ‘‘constructive and humanitarian’’ approach to the problems faced by fishermen from both nations, who are often arrested for straying into the other nation’s waters.
New Delhi has been pressing Colombo to speed up reconciliation efforts in Sri Lanka since the end of a civil war in the island nation in 2009.
More than 100,000 Sri Lankans fled to India during the worst of the fighting and many of the refugees are living in camps in Tamil Nadu state. Their return would depend on Sri Lankan efforts at restoration of trust between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority and its Tamil minority.
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